Our Drones

We have a special room for them ...

Ah! J'understand!

Two cartoons :-

This explains debugging code which has been written with anti-debugging techniques:

http://hackerschool.org/DefconCTF/17/B300.html


This explains how to find a keygen (written in bizarre franglais)

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/l0uk0um/site/dora/fichiers/tutorial.html

Creating mixed-mode Exchange/IMAP users

We have a few managers here whose mail needs are a little complicated. They're available to the whole company via Outlook and Exchange for meeting scheduling, but they prefer to use Thunderbirdand IMAP for managing their mail.

(Of course, one can connect to Exchange via IMAP, but we haven't implemented this, purely for reasons of time resources. Back in the day, we started out with courier IMAP, and brought in Exchange a lot later. Smoothly migrating people to the Exchange server would require a lot of individual support hours, and given that the system is fine at the moment, the bang/buck ratio doesn't pan out.)

Here's how to set up a mixed-mode IMAP/Exchange mail user from complete scratch:

1. Mail Transport Agent - on your external IMAP mail server, create an IMAP box for john.doe@myorg.com
   
2. Mail Transport Agent - create an alias for the user, something like jdo -> john.doe@myorg.com
3. Exchange Server - in the EMC, create a new Mailbox under \Recipient Configuration\Mailbox for John Doe. This creates an AD object for John Doe, with Exchange Mailbox properties.
4. Still on Exchange, right-click \Recipient Configuration\Mail Contact, and choose "New Mail Contact", and radio on "New Contact".
5. Choose the correct Organisational Unit (if you forget this step, don't worry - you can move the Mail User in ADUC later).
6. In the "First Name" field, use the IMAP alias (in this example, "jdo").
7. In the "External e-mail address" field, use the IMAP alias email address (in this example, jdo@myorg.com).
8. Finish creating the contact.

Now we have two separate elements - the Mailbox associated with AD user John Doe, and the Mail Contact jdo.
The existence of the mailbox will allow the user to manage scheduling with Outlook, and to view Public Folders.
However the email must be redirected to the IMAP account. Here's how:

1. Using the EMC, \Recipient Configuration\Mailbox, open the properties sheet of the Mailbox.
2. Choose the Mail Flow Settings tab, and open the Properties of Delivery Options.
3. Tick the box "Forward To ...", then click on "Browse".
4. Tip! Sort by "Recipient Type" to see the Mail Contacts, and choose your newly-created contact from there.
5. Choose Ok, then Ok again to leave the Properties sheet.

Now you have a user who can be scheduled via Outlook, but who can use their preferred IMAP client to manage their email.

Administering someone else's Out Of Office reply

Finally, I have the answer to something that's bugged me for a very long time - how to adjust a user's Exchange-based out of office reply.

Normally, the only way to do this is to log in as the user either to their Outlook, or to OWA, then adjust their OOF settings via Tools, Out of Office Assistant. Since this requires that you know the user's password, it is not always a convenient method.

I thought that there might be some way to change things via the server, perhaps via PFDAVAdmin. None that I could find, sadly, existed.

So here's a kludge that gets you the result you want:

1. In ESM, use the Manage Full Permissions option on the user's Mailbox to give yourself full permissions on the user's account.
2. On your Windows machine, go to Control Panel, Mail, Profiles.
3. Add the user's name - when you fill in the New Account form, leave the password section blank and click Next. Because you have full permissions, you don't need a password.
4. Radio on "Ask for Profile"
   
5. Open Outlook, and choose the user's profile.
6. Fill out their OOF.
7. Quit Outlook, remove their profile from the Mail Control Panel applet.
8. On the server, remove your full permissions from their account.

A kludge because it's too easy to forget the very final step, leaving a security hole.

But it works!