IMAGINiT Building Solutions Blog

IMAGINiT Problem Solved - FREE Virtual Event

IMAGINiT Virtual Free Event: Your Problem. Solved. - April 24th

Come join us for our next virtual event and learn about the technologies that are important to you and your company as well as emerging trends in collaboration.  We have 5 building design, construction, and management sessions led by some of the best and brightest here at IMAGINiT.  Oh and its FREE!

Building Sessions and FREE Registration

Poor communication and lack of collaboration on design projects are common problems for companies in the architectural, civil and manufacturing space.

Attend IMAGINiT's Problem Solved online conference and hear from experts as they dive deeper into the issues that typically arise when working with internal and external teams, and offer up ideas on how to solve or prevent these challenges.

With separate tracks for Manufacturing, Building and Civil professionals, you will get tips, ideas and best practices for creating an environment that allows your team to effectively work together.

This event is a must for everyone! From designers and engineers, to operations and executive management. Sign up today and learn how you can work more efficiently and make the most of your design technology

Every Which Way: Combining Components in Revit

By Heather Alley

Over time Revit has introduced 3 different ways to combine Revit components together: Grouping, Selection Filters & Assemblies. In this white paper, I attempt to explain the differences between Grouping, Selection Filters, & Assemblies. While all of these tools allow us to ‘combine’ Revit components together, what are each command’s functions and limitations?

I was inspired to write this paper while doing training for a very experienced Revit client. While this company had been using Revit for 10 years, they were not clear on the differences between the tools, and what the capabilities of each was. After explaining the differences, they realized potential for each command immediately. I hope you all have the same experience!

Clarity, Security, and SSL

There is a new security vulnerability affecting VPN users called “Heartbleed” making its way across the internet, which has to do with the handling of OpenSSL (more specific information is below). The purpose of this blog post is to share information about the vulnerability and to address any concerns that might exist with IMAGINiT's Clarity Connect software and the VPN tunnel that it uses to connect multiple firms, enabling better live Revit project collaboration.

While Clarity Connect's VPN utilizes OpenSSL, Clarity Connect (and its users) are not affected by the Heartbleed vulnerability. If you are using Clarity Connect and the Clarity Connect VPN, there is nothing you need to do. However, if you are using an alternate VPN solution, please be sure your VPN solution is patched to address this security bug.

IMAGINiT Clarity Connect is not affected by the Heartbleed vulnerability becuse it uses an older version of the OpenVPN application/OpenSSL library that does not have this vulnerability. You can find more information here:

https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/heartbleed

(IMAGINiT Clarity Connect bundles OpenVPN 2.2.1, which includes OpenSSL 1.0.0d).

You can read more about the Heartbleed OpenSSL Bug here:

http://www.zdnet.com/what-programs-are-critical-infrastructure-7000028241/?s_cid=e539&ttag=e539&ftag=TRE17cfd61

OpenSSL Bug reported:
https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv_20140407.txt

Heartbleed bug

On April 7, 2014, it was announced that all versions of OpenSSL in the 1.0.1 series up to and including 1.0.1f had a severe memory handling bug in their implementation of the TLS Heartbeat Extension. This defect could be used to reveal up to 64 kilobytes of the application's memory with every heartbeat.
The vulnerability has existed since December 31, 2011, and the vulnerable code has been adopted to widespread use with the release of OpenSSL version 1.0.1 on March 14, 2012. By reading the memory of the web server, attackers could access sensitive data, compromising the security of the server and its users. Potentially vulnerable secure data include the server's private master key, which enables attackers to break the encryption of the server's earlier eavesdropped communications and thereby implement a man-in-the-middle attack.

The vulnerability might also reveal unencrypted parts of other users' sensitive requests and responses, including session cookies and passwords, which might allow attackers to hijack the identity of another user of the service. At its disclosure, some 17% or half a million of the Internet's secure web servers certified by trusted authorities were believed to have been vulnerable to the attack.

If you made it this far, thanks for taking the time to review the information provided here and rest assured that Clarity remains secure!

Be safe out there.

Joe