All posts by Like Tangents In The Rain

In the News

Certificate Authorities and DCinema

Leave a comment

Another has been found to have introduced a man-in-the-middle attack vector, meaning that once a legitimate user opened the door by giving the correct credentials, someone slipped in and assumes the identity of that user with all their rights (usually kicking them off the system – something that should arouse suspicion but which happens so often, seems normal.

Last week the Big Kahuna of CAs, Verisign, had to admit that they also were hacked into and that data was stolen from their systems. Coming so long after the break-in and after people got used to the news that smaller sites were hacked (relatively smaller sites…still significant to the system though), this isn’t getting a lot of play. When Belgian CA GlobalSign was broken into the hue and cry approached ChickenLittle-ish. This week I see articles on Verisign that don’t get any clicks.

Is it that all the tech geniuses at all the dcinema installers and installation and distribution sites double-triple checked their firewalls and decided they were nuke free and nuke-proof? Or perhaps we are complacent, feeling that the industry is not like the bank industry, with no immediate link to buckets of spendable cash, and no one really focusing the industry. Or, perhaps more logically, the dcinema industry is just hoping that the entire unbuilt fortress of SMPTE compliance will get together before the jewels that the studios need to protect get too exposed, because – “Hey, we’re pedaling as fast as we can, and see, you wanted all these updates put into legacy equipment with constant patching to the legacy InterOp format…”

For bettor or worse, there is no universal trusted device list in the industry, most likely due to potential liability issues. This has led to every company and their brother having a separate list – though there is enough interplay that these are presumed to have enough intercourse that if one list is polluted with a rogue ‘signed’ utensil, it would be disseminated throughout the lists. So, the best and the worse of all possible worlds.

Into this is a RFI from a company (last week) suggesting that they can build a system…

This article is a work in progress. Here are some of the industry articles that provoked the issue:

Who to trust after the VeriSign hack? | IT PRO

VeriSign admits 2010 hack | IT PRO

Trustwave issued a man-in-the-middle certificate – The H Security: News and Features

Break-ins at domain registrar VeriSign in 2010 – The H Security: News and Features

Backdoor in TRENDnet IP cameras – The H Security: News and Features

Certificate fraud: Protection against future “DigiNotars” – The H Security: News and Features

OpenPGP in browsers – The H Security: News and Features

Google researchers propose way out of the SSL dilemma – The H Security: News and Features

Google wants to do away with online certificate checks – The H Security: News and Features

Is the end nigh for Certificate Authorities? | IT PRO

Certificate issuing stopped at KPN after server break-in discovered – The H Security: News and Features

In the News

Certificate Authorities and DCinema

Leave a comment

Another has been found to have introduced a man-in-the-middle attack vector, meaning that once a legitimate user opened the door by giving the correct credentials, someone slipped in and assumes the identity of that user with all their rights (usually kicking them off the system – something that should arouse suspicion but which happens so often, seems normal.

Last week the Big Kahuna of CAs, Verisign, had to admit that they also were hacked into and that data was stolen from their systems. Coming so long after the break-in and after people got used to the news that smaller sites were hacked (relatively smaller sites…still significant to the system though), this isn’t getting a lot of play. When Belgian CA GlobalSign was broken into the hue and cry approached ChickenLittle-ish. This week I see articles on Verisign that don’t get any clicks.

Is it that all the tech geniuses at all the dcinema installers and installation and distribution sites double-triple checked their firewalls and decided they were nuke free and nuke-proof? Or perhaps we are complacent, feeling that the industry is not like the bank industry, with no immediate link to buckets of spendable cash, and no one really focusing the industry. Or, perhaps more logically, the dcinema industry is just hoping that the entire unbuilt fortress of SMPTE compliance will get together before the jewels that the studios need to protect get too exposed, because – “Hey, we’re pedaling as fast as we can, and see, you wanted all these updates put into legacy equipment with constant patching to the legacy InterOp format…”

For bettor or worse, there is no universal trusted device list in the industry, most likely due to potential liability issues. This has led to every company and their brother having a separate list – though there is enough interplay that these are presumed to have enough intercourse that if one list is polluted with a rogue ‘signed’ utensil, it would be disseminated throughout the lists. So, the best and the worse of all possible worlds.

Into this is a RFI from a company (last week) suggesting that they can build a system…

This article is a work in progress. Here are some of the industry articles that provoked the issue:

Who to trust after the VeriSign hack? | IT PRO

VeriSign admits 2010 hack | IT PRO

Trustwave issued a man-in-the-middle certificate – The H Security: News and Features

Break-ins at domain registrar VeriSign in 2010 – The H Security: News and Features

Backdoor in TRENDnet IP cameras – The H Security: News and Features

Certificate fraud: Protection against future “DigiNotars” – The H Security: News and Features

OpenPGP in browsers – The H Security: News and Features

Google researchers propose way out of the SSL dilemma – The H Security: News and Features

Google wants to do away with online certificate checks – The H Security: News and Features

Is the end nigh for Certificate Authorities? | IT PRO

Certificate issuing stopped at KPN after server break-in discovered – The H Security: News and Features

Societies

3D@Home Content Creation Pushing Quality

Leave a comment

Message from Steering Team 1 Chair, Jon Shapiro

Dr. Jim Cameron’s 10 Rules for Good Stereo

Rob Engle’s Top Recommendations for Creating Quality 3D

Ray Hannisian, Head Stereographer, 3ality Digital

Bernard Mendiburu’s Ten Rules for Quality 3D

See also: Mendiburu’s Introduction to 3D Cinematography

Ray Zone’s 10 Tips

3D@Home’s white paper page includes such topics as MPEG’s 3DTV standards and a paper on 3D Subjective Testing.

 

All this is fine for TV, but it is also important for getting 3D to the big screen, if only for film festivals and alternative content.

Societies

3D@Home Content Creation Pushing Quality

Leave a comment

Message from Steering Team 1 Chair, Jon Shapiro

Dr. Jim Cameron’s 10 Rules for Good Stereo

Rob Engle’s Top Recommendations for Creating Quality 3D

Ray Hannisian, Head Stereographer, 3ality Digital

Bernard Mendiburu’s Ten Rules for Quality 3D

See also: Mendiburu’s Introduction to 3D Cinematography

Ray Zone’s 10 Tips

3D@Home’s white paper page includes such topics as MPEG’s 3DTV standards and a paper on 3D Subjective Testing.

 

All this is fine for TV, but it is also important for getting 3D to the big screen, if only for film festivals and alternative content.

In the News

Half of Fortune 500s, US Govt. Still Infected with DNSChanger Trojan

Leave a comment

More than two months after authorities shut down a massive Internet traffic hijacking scheme, the malicious software that powered the  criminal network is still running on computers at half of the Fortune 500 companies, and on PCs at nearly 50 percent of all federal government agencies, new research shows.

Source: FBI

The malware, known as the “DNSChanger Trojan,” quietly alters the host computer’s Internet settings to hijack search results and to block victims from visiting security sites that might help scrub the infections. DNSChanger frequently was bundled with other types of malware, meaning that systems infected with the Trojan often also host other, more nefarious digital parasites.

See the full article at:

In the News

Half of Fortune 500s, US Govt. Still Infected with DNSChanger Trojan

Leave a comment

More than two months after authorities shut down a massive Internet traffic hijacking scheme, the malicious software that powered the  criminal network is still running on computers at half of the Fortune 500 companies, and on PCs at nearly 50 percent of all federal government agencies, new research shows.

Source: FBI

The malware, known as the “DNSChanger Trojan,” quietly alters the host computer’s Internet settings to hijack search results and to block victims from visiting security sites that might help scrub the infections. DNSChanger frequently was bundled with other types of malware, meaning that systems infected with the Trojan often also host other, more nefarious digital parasites.

See the full article at:

Workflow

Must Read Hugo/Legato/Creative Cow

Leave a comment

“He was also the first multi-talented auteur who wrote the movie, painted the sets, acted, and was his own editor and VFX supervisor. He did everything. When you study the work, you see what a genius and forward thinker he was, all the way back to his first films in 1896. There was no such thing as movie trickery before him.

“The first meeting I had with with Hugo Director Martin Scorsese, we talked about the scene where Hugo fixes a mechanical toy mouse that he presents to Méliès, having made it work better than originally designed. Marty said, “What if we did this stop motion?” My response was, “Well, it’ll look like stop motion. We don’t need to do it that way unless you want it to specifically look that way.” Then he said, “That’s exactly what I want it to look like.”

And on it goes, describing 3D dailies, getting the gravity of flying coal cars right and how they handled color timing long distance.

Hugo and The Joy of Filmmaking – Creative COW

Workflow

Must Read Hugo/Legato/Creative Cow

Leave a comment

“He was also the first multi-talented auteur who wrote the movie, painted the sets, acted, and was his own editor and VFX supervisor. He did everything. When you study the work, you see what a genius and forward thinker he was, all the way back to his first films in 1896. There was no such thing as movie trickery before him.

“The first meeting I had with with Hugo Director Martin Scorsese, we talked about the scene where Hugo fixes a mechanical toy mouse that he presents to Méliès, having made it work better than originally designed. Marty said, “What if we did this stop motion?” My response was, “Well, it’ll look like stop motion. We don’t need to do it that way unless you want it to specifically look that way.” Then he said, “That’s exactly what I want it to look like.”

And on it goes, describing 3D dailies, getting the gravity of flying coal cars right and how they handled color timing long distance.

Hugo and The Joy of Filmmaking – Creative COW

Video Processing

Final Cut Pro X Gets Multi-Camera and Monitor

Leave a comment

This morning Apple announced Final Cut Pro X v10.0.3, an update that should close the gap on key features previously found in FCP7 but still missing in FCPX, notably multicam editing and video out support for broadcast video monitoring, both promised last September. The update went live in the Mac App Store this morning at 8:30 am ET/5:30 am PT. It is free to existing users and remains a $299.99 download for new users.

Apple’s reimagining of multicam features automatic sync and can handle up to 64 different camera angles of varying formats, resolutions and frame rates at once. Other new features in 10.0.3, which follows a small bug fix last November, include a chroma keyer with advanced controls, the ability to manually relink projects and events to new media, and support for layered Photoshop files. Apple has also improved the functionality in FCPX’s new version of XML, paving the way for several simultaneous third-party device, App and plug-in releases that take advantage of the NLE’s new architecture.

…

For pictures and arrows and slings of outrageous fortune, and the reason for happy days for AJA and Blackmagic and Matrox:

 

Apple – Final Cut Pro X – A revolution in creative editing.

Apple – Final Cut Pro X – Trial

Video Processing

Final Cut Pro X Gets Multi-Camera and Monitor

Leave a comment

This morning Apple announced Final Cut Pro X v10.0.3, an update that should close the gap on key features previously found in FCP7 but still missing in FCPX, notably multicam editing and video out support for broadcast video monitoring, both promised last September. The update went live in the Mac App Store this morning at 8:30 am ET/5:30 am PT. It is free to existing users and remains a $299.99 download for new users.

Apple’s reimagining of multicam features automatic sync and can handle up to 64 different camera angles of varying formats, resolutions and frame rates at once. Other new features in 10.0.3, which follows a small bug fix last November, include a chroma keyer with advanced controls, the ability to manually relink projects and events to new media, and support for layered Photoshop files. Apple has also improved the functionality in FCPX’s new version of XML, paving the way for several simultaneous third-party device, App and plug-in releases that take advantage of the NLE’s new architecture.

…

For pictures and arrows and slings of outrageous fortune, and the reason for happy days for AJA and Blackmagic and Matrox:

 

Apple – Final Cut Pro X – A revolution in creative editing.

Apple – Final Cut Pro X – Trial

Exhibitor News

Showbiz Podcast

Leave a comment

Showbiz Sandbox LogoThere are many who know more about movie equipment than they do about all the fluff and glamor which pays for it all. Showbiz Sandbox is the kind of podcast that a technical insider needs to hear just to get a little balance.

Subscribe in iTunes – Highly Recommended~!

Many will already know Sperling Reich from the ISDCF, Celluloid Junkie and DTS. He and New York associate Michael Giltz give intelligent statistics and observations that fill an interesting hour each week.

Exhibitor News

Showbiz Podcast

Leave a comment

Showbiz Sandbox LogoThere are many who know more about movie equipment than they do about all the fluff and glamor which pays for it all. Showbiz Sandbox is the kind of podcast that a technical insider needs to hear just to get a little balance.

Subscribe in iTunes – Highly Recommended~!

Many will already know Sperling Reich from the ISDCF, Celluloid Junkie and DTS. He and New York associate Michael Giltz give intelligent statistics and observations that fill an interesting hour each week.

Basic Lessons

Lesson One: Who’s on the Network

Leave a comment

{youtube}95om-Mr3Af0{/youtube}

The beauty of this tool is that it is free. Here is what they say the highlights are:

PRODUCT USAGE:

  • IP Address Tracker Highlights:
  • Track an unlimited number of IP addresses for a unified, at-a-glance view of your entire IP address space
  • See which IP addresses are in use – and which are not
  • Eliminate manual errors while ensuring that IP addresses are listed in the right place
  • Determine the last time an IP address was used
  • Pre-populate key statistics like DNS and response time

The Solar Winds IP Address Tracker can be downloaded from the Solar Winds site at: SolarWinds-IPAddressTracker-v1.zip For pro or beginner, it is a good first tool to use as the week turns to next week and the administration of your system hasn’t been done.

It is simple enough to use straight after download, but you will find an email in your inbox that will give you links to several courses of materials. Except for those who make IP their daily business, we’d recommend them all.

As you would expect, since everything in digital cinema seems to change every year, IP is going to change this year. Early in June the first official day of IPv6 will come and go. Nothing will change since so much of our equipment has been developed for this day to come and go. But it would be a good thing to have a handle on the situation well in advance. Who knows what switch or router is so old and the firmware so grey that it might freak on the new larger numbers.

On the more practical level, new projectors are going to have IMBs as well as SMS units. One more set of IP addresses to track. Why not train a few people on this in your organization?