Geek Squad MRI

Does anyone know what the program is and what it does? This is the Best Buy geek squad repair disc - Code Name MRI - for internal use only, confidential, and a trade secret. The disc has tools to help fix computers.

1. Geek Squad Mri 5.10.3

VulnTrack 1.1 by Ogma Released

VulnTrack provides monitoring and alerting of security vulnerabilities and exploits based on a provided rule set. In version 1.1 VulnTrack-gtk has been replaced with vulntrack-cli, which is works on both Windows and Linux. Includes new features such as Acknowledge, Remove, and showing vulnerabilities with known exploits available. The database comes pre populated with all exploits from 2017 to 4/24/19. As always, any feedback or feature requests are greatly appreciated.

SX Corrects Climate Change by Hacking Weather Dominator

We're proud to announce that after years of research, we've finally utilized our backdoor into Cobra's network to hack the SCADA system that controls their weather dominator. As such, we've decided to use this hack to correct climate change - effective immediately. You're welcome.

Note: Cobra Commander could not be reached for comment.

Call For Testing: Cross-DSO CFI in HardenedBSD

Over the past year, HardenedBSD has been hard at work in integrating the Cross-DSO CFI implementation in llvm. We have reached a point where we can release an early (pre-alpha) public Call For Testing (CFT) of this work.

For reasons which will be described below, we recommend this CFT be used by those using root-on-ZFS with boot environments. We recommend testing in a dedicated boot environment.

This initial round of testing is best suited for development server installations. Production servers and desktops/laptops are not advised for testing at this time. We're looking for feedback on what works and doesn't work.

Introduction

Control Flow Integrity, or CFI, is an exploit mitigation that aims to make it harder for an attacker to hijack the control flow of an executable image. llvm's CFI implementation provides forward-edge protection, meaning it protects call sites and non-return code branches. llvm includes basic and incomplete backward-edge protection via SafeStack.

CFI in llvm consists of two flavors:

1. Non-Cross-DSO CFI
2. Cross-DSO CFI

For over a year now, HardenedBSD has adopted non-Cross-DSO CFI in 12-CURRENT/amd64. Support for non-Cross-DSO CFI was added for 12-CURRENT/arm64 on 01 July 2018. Non-Cross-DSO CFI applies CFI to the applications themselves, but not on the shared objects they depend on. Cross-DSO CFI applies CFI to both applications and shared objects, enforcing CFI across shared object boundaries.

When an application or shared object is compiled, its source files typically get compiled first to intermediate object files. Enabling Cross-DSO CFI requires compiling and linking both static and shared libraries with Link Time Optimization (LTO). When LTO is enabled, these object files are no longer ELF object files, but rather LLVM IR bitcode object files.

SX at Defcon 26 and Mojave Phone Booth

As usual, many of the crew members of soldierx.com will be at Defcon 26. Blake has also informed me that the chat software (for anonymous conversations) that is heavily used by folks at Defcon is feature complete. There's more information about this at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_phone_booth. I would like to point out that the Mojave Phone Booth is in no way ran by soldierx.com despite some of the rumors online. The only relationship is that one of our crew members, Blake, wrote the software that powers the SMS and Signal portions of it. If you want to join it, please send SUBSCRIBE <ALIAS> to 760-733-9969 via SMS or Signal. <ALIAS> should be replaced with your desired alias.

If you're going to Defcon 26 and you'd like to meet up with members of soldierx.com, please follow this. You can also track us down in IRC and get more information that way. We look forward to seeing new and old faces in the desert this year.

Durandal Spotted Trying to Pick Up Kids Dressed as Pickle Surprise

Yesterday afternoon, children at a mall in Ohio where shocked to find that instead of the Easter Bunny - they found a man dressed as the pickle from the now infamous Pickle Surprise video (directed by Tom Rubnitz) was waiting for them. For a ten minute period, the individual, who has since been identified as Durandal, did nothing but yell 'Pickle Surprise' and 'HAI2U' at the children. He was also offering 'free candy' before he fled the facility once mall security arrived. When asked about the incident, mall-goer Chad Newsom stated that, 'I had no clue what was going on and thought it had something to do with Adult Swim.' Currently, no charges are planned on being filed as despite the disturbing event that took place, no children were abducted thanks to mall security. A photo was captured of Durandal in his getup, which can be seen below:
If you happen to see him in your area, please contact the local authorities.

lattera to speak at Thotcon 0x9

My Thotcon presentation has been accepted! Below is the presentation abstract:

Without exploit mitigations and with an insecure-by-default design, writing malware for FreeBSD is a fun task, taking us back to 1999-era Linux exploit authorship.

Several members of FreeBSD's development team have claimed that Capsicum, a capabilities/sandboxing framework, prevents exploitation of applications. Our in-depth analysis of the topics below will show that in order to be effective, applying Capsicum to existing complex codebases lends itself to wrapper-style sandboxing. Wrapper-style sandbox is a technique whereby privileged operations get wrapped and passed to a segregated process, which performs the operation on behalf of the capsicumized process. With a new libhijack payload, we will demonstrate that wrapper-style sandboxing requires ASLR and CFI for effectiveness. FreeBSD supports neither ASLR nor CFI.

Tying into the wrapper-style Capsicum defeat, we'll talk about advances being made with libhijack, a tool announced at Thotcon 0x4. The payload developed in the Capsicum discussion will be used with libhijack, thus making it easy to extend.

We will also learn the Mandatory Access Control (MAC) framework in FreeBSD. The MAC framework places hooks into several key places in the kernel. We'll learn how to abuse the MAC framework for writing efficient rootkits.

Attendees of this presentation should walk away with the knowledge to skillfully and artfully write offensive code targeting both the FreeBSD userland and the kernel.

This presentation dives in depth regarding:
1) defeating wrapper-style Capsicum sandboxing with ret2sandbox_open (re-usable template exploit provided)
2) easy runtime process infection on amd64 and arm64
3) abusing the MAC framework to write rootkits (rootkit code will be released)

Geek Squad Inc. is a subsidiary of American multinationalconsumer electronics corporation Best Buy, headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. The subsidiary was originally an independent company founded by 'Chief Inspector' Robert Stephens on June 16, 1994, and offers various computer-related services and accessories for residential and commercial clients. In 2002, they merged with Best Buy,^[1] retaining Stephens as the primary corporate leadership for the subsidiary. The Geek Squad provides services in-store, on-site, and over the Internet via remote access, and also provides 24-hour telephone and emergency on-site support. Geek Squad no longer works solely on computer-related devices. It now diagnoses issues in and repairs all consumer electronics, as well as appliances, continually expanding its services to keep pace with ever-changing technology.^[2]

• 1Locations and partnerships
• 2Staff

Locations and partnerships[edit]

Geek Squad precincts exist in most Best Buy stores in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada and the Netherlands. They offer in-store, in-home, online, and remote/over the phone services.^[3][4]

Best Buy terminated its partnership with Office Depot in Orlando, Florida, where Geek Squad precincts were located in 10 Office Depot locations.^[5] The brand is also located in select FedEx Office locations. In October 2006, it was reported that Geek Squad would be launching in the United Kingdom in a joint 50-50 venture with Carphone Warehouse, where today it exists as both an onsite service and a remote repair service. It is now fully operational with onsite services in Greater London, the Home Counties, the South Coast and North West areas of England, with phone and remote support undertaken from Tulketh Mill in Preston (Lancashire) and repairs completed at a site in Wednesbury (West Midlands). From November 2015 repairs will be completed at a Dixons Carphone repair center based in Newark (East Midlands)^[6]

In 2008 Best Buy partnered with online tech support provider SupportSpace to offer remote Virtual Agent services to its clients. SupportSpace was founded in 2006 and provided immediate online tech support services.^[7] On July 15, 2013, all Geek Squad business was transferred away from SupportSpace and moved in house to Geek Squad agents.

A 2013 agreement with Atomic Learning, Inc. provides all Geek Squad tech subscribers with access to over 60,000 on-demand tutorial training videos.^[8]

Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy's collaboration company, Best Buy Europe, that also own Phone House, has since also begun launching Geek Squad in Phone House stores. France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and Portugal all have Agents now. It's still in a startup phase in most of the countries.

Total Services[edit]

In 2007, Geek Squad officially added Magnolia Home Theater installation teams as well as Best Buy Mobile Installers to the Geek Squad brand. The change was titled, 'Total Services' and was aimed towards the combination of major Best Buy services into one cohesive unit. Best Buy mobile installers and Magnolia Home Theater installers have now switched from their previous grey and blue uniforms to grey and orange shirts with grey cargo pants. This change removed all 'Magnolia Home Theater Installation' branding and was replaced by 'Geek Squad Installation Units' instead. This has now allowed Geek Squad to incorporate home theater installation as one of the in home services offered via telephone.

Staff[edit]

Mark Atlan is featured on the mobile application and the current spokesperson for Geek Squad. Geek Squad employees are known as Agents and are assigned titles similar to those used by intelligence agencies – Counter Intelligence Agent (CIA), Deputy of Counter Intelligence (DCI), Double Agent-Covert (DAC), Covert Agent (CA), Special Agent (SA), Deputy Covert Operations (DCO) and Deputy Field Marshal (DFM), to name a few. Unlike most computer repair facilities, Best Buy US does not require any industry certifications for its in-store technicians. However, Best Buy Canada requires at least A+ Certification to work as a CIA.^[9] They also require MECP certification for all technical mobile electronics installers.^[10]

Uniforms and vehicles[edit]

In-store PC agents, and in-home PC field agents, wear a white, short-sleeved, pocketless dress shirt. Agents are required to wear a black clip-on tie with the Geek Squad logo pin. Male agents wear black trousers, white socks and black lace-up shoes that used to have the Geek Squad logo on the sole. Female agents may wear either black trousers, white socks, and black shoes; or, a black skirt with hose and black shoes. White and black are the only colors allowed in Geek Squad uniforms. Agents who have served in an eligible capacity within any branch of Geek Squad for eighteen months, or who have held certain positions prior to 2014 including on-site Double Agents, Special Agents, and Deputies of Counter Intelligence carry a metal police-style badge with their Agent Number engraved on it.^[11]

The Minnesota Historical Society added the official uniform to its permanent collection in 2000.^[12]

Geek Squad Mri 5.10.3

Geek Squad Autotechs and GSIs (Home Theater Installers) wear a grey button-up work shirt or black short sleeved and collared dress shirt with the Geek Squad logo on the front and optional certification patches on the arms. Matching pants or shorts are worn as well as a bright orange undershirt. These agents also have the option of wearing a grey Geek Squad hat and/or black Geeks Squad nylon jacket.

Prior to 2016, Double Agents & Special Agents drove black-and-white Volkswagen New Beetles (dubbed 'Geekmobiles') with an orange-and-black company logo on the door. Geekmobiles in California are all-black with white roof and running boards due to a request by the California Highway Patrol that the vehicles no longer resemble the paint scheme of their police vehicles (a violation of California law).^[13] In 2016, Geek Squad began phasing out the New Beetles and replacing them with Toyota Prius Cs.^[14]

Due to a number of financial issues, including a large number of parking tickets and thousands of dollars lost for parking garage fees the Geekmobile program was ended in Manhattan New York City Geek Squad Precincts.

In the UK, Double Agents used Smart cars initially, but due to the congestion charge, agents operating in the centre of London later relied on the London Underground system.

The Double Agent program in the UK ceased in late 2012. All technical support services continued in store or via Mission Control, Tulketh Mill. From here, the Covert or Covert Operations Agent title was established, Agents from Covert Operations are responsible for the technical support of desktop or laptop devices. They provide support for narrow range of approved issues verbally over the phone, or Agents will connect to clients devices remotely and fix any issues if the computer is able to connect to the internet.

Geek Squad City[edit]

Located in Brooks, Kentucky,^[15][16] Geek Squad City is the largest Geek Squad computer repair site at 240,000 square feet.^[17]

Controversy[edit]

Geek Squad technicians have been caught on numerous occasions searching and copying pornographic content stored on their clients' computers without permission. When asked about the incident, Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens refused to discuss the topic and focused on whether bloggers should be considered true journalists.^[18]

At least one former Geek Squad employee had come forward with allegations that the practice of surreptitiously searching for pornography on their clients' computers is not restricted to isolated employees, but is often shared with management.^[18]

Geek Squad employees have allegedly engaged in peeping tom activities on female customers during in-house service visits. A 2007 case alleges that a Geek Squad employee used his cell phone to record a 22-year-old female customer while she showered without her knowledge or permission. The employee was arrested and Best Buy was sued over the incident.^[19] In another case, a Geek Squad employee allegedly stole nude photographs of a 27-year-old female customer from her computer while it was being serviced. The employee then allegedly shared the photos on the internet.^[20]

In 2002, during a spate of legal threats and challenges to competitors with 'geek' in their names, Geek Squad attempted to block the trademark registration of New England area competitor Geek Housecalls claiming that it violated their trademarks. When Geek Housecalls refused to budge, Geek Squad filed civil suit. After two years of wrangling, Geek Squad and Geek Housecalls arrived at an out-of-court settlement, the details of which cannot be disclosed according to the terms of the settlement except to state that Geek Housecalls retained its name.^[21]

In 2006, Geek Squad was sued for allegedly using unauthorized copies of Winternals' Emergency Repair Disk Commander. The lawsuit filed by Austin-based Winternals claims that employees of Geek Squad have continued using the unlicensed versions of the software after the commercial licensing agreement broke off. Best Buy and Geek Squad were accused of copyright infringement, circumvention of copyright infringement systems, and misappropriation of trade secrets.^[22] A settlement was eventually reached, and Winternals created a three-year agreement in place with Best Buy, allowing Geek Squad employees to lawfully use their licensed programs, including the ERD Commander.^[23]

In 2010, Best Buy issued a trademark infringementcease and desist letter against a priest in Wisconsin for painting 'God Squad' on his car.^[24]

In 2013, Geek Squad was sued for invasion of privacy and several other civil infractions for allegedly releasing nude images found on a customer's computer.^[25] The suit is ongoing. In June 2015, the court denied Best Buy's motions for summary judgment on all claims except the claim for 'negligence/wantonness.'^[26]

On March 7, 2018, NPR reported that 'FBI Used Paid Informants On Best Buy's Geek Squad To Flag Child Pornography' according to a document that was released by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ^[27]

In popular culture[edit]

• In the TV series Chuck, the main character works as a member of the Nerd Herd at a Buy More and drives in a Nerd-Herd-branded car, respectively alluding to Geek Squad, Best Buy, and its GeekMobile.^[28]
• In the US version of TV series The Office, the tech help-desk Geek Squad's logo has appeared (logo on the wall of Toby's cubicle and a toy of the Geek Squad Volkswagen car atop a filing cabinet, in 'Michael's Birthday' and 'Drug Testing', respectively).
• In the Season 9 episode of American Dad! entitled 'Kung Pao Turkey', Roger comes to the Smith home as a repairman named Trevor that works for a in-home tech support company called the 'Nerd Squad' to fix Stan's TV after his father in-law breaks it.
• In D3: The Mighty Ducks, Charlie Conway has a Geek Squad sticker on the front of his helmet.
• In the pilot episode of Drop Dead Diva, a Geek Squad sign can be seen on a building out of the window.
• In Silicon Valley, the 5th episode of season 3, a Geek Squad agent arrives at a home in a van.

References[edit]

1. ^Innosight, Clayton Christensen and (2007-10-26). 'Mega-Merger Fever'. Forbes. Retrieved 2017-08-23.
2. ^'Best Buy's Geek Squad Rolls Out New Geekmobile, Updated Logo'. Retrieved 11 April 2016.
3. ^'Best Buy Press Release'. Archived from the original on 17 June 2007. Retrieved 2 June 2007.
4. ^Nanjil, Natasha. 'GEEK SQUAD (BEST BUY) CANADA ACQUIRES PC LIFEBOAT IN AN EFFORT TO EXPAND SERVICE OFFERING TO QUEBEC'(PDF). Retrieved 5 June 2012.
5. ^Tomassi, K. 'Best Buy Drives Geek Squad Via Office Depot', Forbes online. Retrieved on December 1, 2006.
6. ^Durman, P. 'Geek Squad Comes to Britain'. The Times of London. Retrieved 4 April 2007.
7. ^'Online Remote Support'. Geek Squad. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
8. ^http://blogs.atomiclearning.com/atomic-learning-teams-geek-squad-learning-tools-tech-support-program-members
9. ^'GEEKSQUAD'. Best Buy. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
10. ^'MECP Advanced Certified'. Retrieved 10 December 2014.
11. ^'Geek Squad Agents'. Geek Squad. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
12. ^'Geek Squad History'. Geek Squad.
13. ^'V C Section 27605 Vehicle Resembling Law Enforcement Vehicle'. California Department of Motor Vehicles. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
14. ^'GEEK SQUAD TRADES IN VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE FOR TOYOTA PRIUS'. John Irwin. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
15. ^'Geek Squad City'. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
16. ^Terdiman, Daniel (19 June 2008). 'Computer sprawl at Geek Squad City'. CNET. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
17. ^'Geek Squad City'. Geek Squad. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
18. ^ ^abBlue, Violet (21 February 2008). 'The Geek Squad's Ongoing Porn Problem'. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
19. ^Surdin, Ashley. 'Best Buy, 'Geek Squad' sued over videotaping'.
20. ^Popkin, Ben. 'Customer sues Best Buy, alleges Geek Squad worker stole, published nude pics'.
21. ^Gavin, Robert. 'That Geek Mystique'. The Boston Globe. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
22. ^'Best Buy's 'Geek Squad' Accused of Pirating Software'. Associated Press. 13 April 2006. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
23. ^Utter, David. 'Winternals, Best Buy Settle Over Geek Squad'. SecurityProNews. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
24. ^Sauer, Abe. 'Best Buy Geeks Out Over God Squad'. Brand Channel. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
25. ^'Geek Squad Accused of Stealing Naked Pics'. Retrieved 29 June 2015.
26. ^''Outrage,' Privacy and the Geek Squad'. Retrieved 29 June 2015.
27. ^https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/07/591698708/fbi-used-paid-informants-on-best-buys-geek-squad-to-flag-child-pornography
28. ^Tevlin, Jon (27 November 2007). 'Dates Aside, TV's Nerd Herd Rings True to Geeks'. Star Tribune. Archived from the original on 8 October 2012. Retrieved 5 June 2012.

External links[edit]