got root?

transitions

2007-01-30T14:39:00.000-08:00

So hackd! has moved to its own home over at http://hackd.net
That website is still in 'beta' I guess but there shouldn't be any more updates here. Update your bookmarks/rss feeds/blacklist accordingly please :)

texan argumentation formula

2007-01-14T23:42:00.000-08:00

sneakysid: Da, americanii sunt o natie de cretini

At the end of the referenced video [from sneakysid's post] we see a new method for convincing one's peers of the superiority of one's own argument: it has been dubbed the "texan boy argument" by a friend of mine and refined to be the basis of the "texan argumentation formula" which is something like this:

find a controversial topic, such as war, religion or operating systems

choose a side, generally that which is more likely to be the winner

when defending or promoting your choice rely exclusively on phrases such as "it is obvious i'm right", "only a moron could think the opposite", "i support X because i believe in god" etc

when confronted and asked to expand on said argument reply with a variation of "are you stupid? it's obvious!" or maybe "i can't explain this to morons"

bask in the superiority of your debate techniques and the inherent glory which they will undoubtedly bring

If you doubt the effectiveness of this formula, remember that 80 million people were, at some point, convinced in a similar fashion.

iPhone

2006-12-07T21:52:00.000-08:00

Up in the November 30th edition of DiggNation Kevin decided to let out a few iPhone rumours.

very small form factor - obviously

two batteries, one for the mp3 playback side and one for the phone - excellent for people like me that listen to music a lot

a lot of touch-screen - can we get a mock-up rotary wheel out of an iPod-style scroll-wheel?

4 or 8 gig offerings, US$249 and US$449 estimated - for an Apple smart-phone? sign me up!

slide-out keyboard - keep in tune with the form factor, I'm sure

Of course this is all rumours. It's supposed to come out in January - which is both good and bad for me since I won't be able to get it until sometime in May most likely, but by then hopefully all bugs will be ironed out. Or, who knows, a lovely little birthday present for me :)

Other rumours deal with the OS, which is supposed to be a trimmed-out version of OS X. I think this is a bit far-fetched - although the UI elements should be there for Mac users to feel comfortable and homey and non-Mac ones to fall in love with, whether the technology will actually take from Leopard in terms of kernel and other subsystems...

I hope for cross-over headphones. That is, ones that will let me switch between phone and mp3 player seamlessly when I get a call. They should also be wireless because we want cool :)

Either way, can't wait. Call me a fanboy.

Ruby on Rails

2006-12-07T21:51:00.000-08:00

I am not a web developer. Considering how much time we all spend online I believe that web design is an important part of techlife, however I still think application and (especially) systems development are the 'real' programming venues. I am, however, a heavyweight surfer so I do come along quite a few interesting websites that involve some pretty impressive technologies and design ideas. I love the fact that these things are now easier to get going for anyone that has at least a little bit of a technically-inclined mind.

Enter Ruby on Rails. I know, I know, old technology already. Regardless, I got into it a bit over the last few days and I must say, it makes for some pretty kick-ass, easy implementations. Once you learn the pluralization rules - seeing how RoR heavily relies on this - rolling out a simple application is a walk in the park. The LoC count is always very low, a lot of the tasks are automated through scripts - even creating database tables - and the most work that you have to do is in the views, which are generally rhtml files.

To this we add some kick-ass AJAX stuff and CSS layouts and we have a pretty interesting application ready to roll out. I have a few non-revolutionary ideas of my own (blog or forum suite) to help me further practice all this technology. Why do I want to do that if I think applications are the way to go? All of these are interfaces to databases. I believe having multiple ways of consistently accessing the same information is advantageous to all parties involved, usability-wise. It is also a way to encourage data structure standards, i.e. having ways in which all forums could be aggregated into one application (this is an echo of the HiJack idea passed around during MyDreamApp.com) by means of a standard fashion in which data is organized.

Cultures

2006-12-07T21:49:00.000-08:00

Three very different cultures? More or less. The light that Apple's Get A Mac campaign sheds regarding Macintosh users is one of a snarky, slightly snobbish individual, always ready to throw a 'holier-than-thou' remark to a PC user. This is partly why so many root for viruses and large-scale spyware to come to Mac OS X so that one of the 'biggest' arguments pro-Mac gets shot to dirt. It is immature to believe any current OS is completely protected from malware but that's not my topic for now.

I am a `n*x-spawn user. This includes Linux, UNIX, Solaris, BSDs, Mac OS X. More importantly, I am quite aware of the 'culture of the geek' for any of these platforms and how it plays out between long-standing arch-enemies. Linux vs Windows, Mac vs PC. To be honest, they're all the same. It is natural to defend the technology you've chosen because, heck, you're doing it and you must be right. After all, you are a geek and you know your shit. It is far too easy to find bad (technical) things about a different platform - this only shows that all are flawed.

Now, activism is not bad. Pushing forward the benefits of a certain platform to gain users is normal and quite admirable - as long as those arguments are neither misrepresentations nor solely riding on the competition. Why? Saying you have something that's just better than a rival's offering means you're not trying to be the best you can be. It's like auctioning for a Lamborghini by just increasing the previous offer by $1.

Apple does knock Microsoft in its ads. Microsoft launched the Zune to be an iPod killer. Linux vendors say their OS is more secure than Windows. It all goes around.

Democracy Player

2006-12-05T18:19:00.000-08:00

New thing to test out, Democracy Player is great for vidcasts and other media in video. It comes with a large number of feeds built-in and it's easy to add your own. Built-in player and bittorrent client. I'm pretty much switching to it for all video things.

Name is kind of unfortunate, though.

cellphone jamming

2006-12-05T14:48:00.000-08:00

"Let's make cellphone jamming products more available for law-enforcement." So that local police can stop terrorists intent on detonating charges by means of a cellphone. I know that having these things is probably a good idea, but here's a twist: what if interrupting the cellphone signal will cause it to detonate? Or blocking cell pings that keep it from blowing up?

I know, nothing special. I'm tired of the same bullshit being thrown around for personal gain.

sudo

2006-11-29T12:14:00.000-08:00

I got a hold of this through Stew. Cracks me up immensely. From http://xkcd.com/c149.html

security by having large balls?

2006-11-14T19:12:00.000-08:00

So I was listening to SecurityNow and I must say I was quite surprised to hear how both Leo and Gibson were taking some pride in not running any advanced security applications on their machines. I know they're not the only ones, but I do have a general message to those people that think there's nothing that could touch them because they've configured their systems to some level of apparent security:

I can't wait for the day you get owned massively and you lose all your data, maybe get subjected to some identity theft etc. "Because we know what we're doing" is not sufficient.

Enjoy a slow, painful humiliation.

Caveat: I do not consider XP SP2 firewalling to be nearly enough for somebody that's as security conscious as Gibson comes off. Or anyone else for that matter.

security

podcast

macheist

2006-11-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

Mad props for the MacHeist challenge, it's fun thus far - I've just collected my first loot yesterday and it looks pretty good - and I hope it will continue to be diverse throughout... cause frankly, I'm not in it just for the prizes :)

Mac

'g33k mafia' part deux

2006-11-03T00:04:00.000-08:00

Last post I was recommending RIck Dakan's G33k Mafia as what might have been an interesting book for people fascinated about techie-related fiction. I was wrong on a few points that I'd like t rectify.

I read the book today. That should speak to some length regarding my enjoyment of it I suppose. So I am no longer recommending the book. I am telling you to fucking read it. I mean, it's free, right? There's little in the way of time what you might have to lose, possibly some time if you don't end up enjoying the novel.

First off, this book will not answer any philosophic, romantic or otherwise 'deep' questions you might have; for that, look into the properties of the number 42. The novel is, however, abound with social engineering, gadgetry and strung together by a verisimilar plot and a fair load of humour. It is not solely addressed to geeks in any manner and it stays clear of deep technical content - although it could have easily included such content in a manner akin to Neal Stephenson's 'Cryptonomicon'.

I do not want to give much away in terms of plot but it is not quite as predictable as I imagined at a certain point. It will make you try and guess its ending numerous times and that will still not spoil your fun; more than anything, it is an indication that you are trying to get in the characters' mindset. Dakan immerses the reader with such exquisite mastery that it is hard to believe this is his first novel [some details regarding his past work can be found on his website.] 'G33k Mafia' will go on the shelf besides 'Cryptonomicon' and I foresee purchases with logo-ized items to follow soon [because, yes, it is a kick-ass logo =) .]

Unless my memory deceives me the movie rights have already been sold and I couldn't wait sooner to see how that pans out; needless to say I would love to see that - despite, naturally, the risks involved in terms of bastardizing the content and whatever other expectations I might make up in the interim.

I had a lot of fun with this novel. I hope it works out well for Dakan and, who knows, maybe there will be a sequel [risks there too.]

books
geeks
social engineering

geek mafia

2006-10-12T16:12:00.000-07:00

Scoop over to Rick Dakan's website and look at G33K MAFIA which sounds like an interesting novel for the tech inclined out there. There's a free download for it under a non-commercial CC license.

books

iSight Review

2006-10-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

I was browsing today through reviews and this was simply too 'shocking' to pass up:

OMFG!

humour

crankiness

2006-10-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

John C. Dvorak doesn't know what the heck he's talking about. Like the last TwiT and his assertions regarding the possibility of a YouTube buy-out by Google [which has happened] but he's the only one on the show to be so certain about what he thinks. I admit I enjoy listening to TwiT but Dvorak is hard to swallow sometimes, being so sure he's right in an industry where things change overnight and companies buy or sell depending on what they are offered. For someone that's been in the 'industry' for so long, mister Dvorak should have long learned how these things work.

No wonder he gets dissed as much as he does on Slashdot. It is still entertaining to listen to him though.

technology
podcasting

Until we cross the bridge

2006-10-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

In a breach of privacy, the Republican National Committee erroneously
e-mailed a list that contained the names, races, and Social Security
numbers of dozens of top Republican donors and that identified two
of the contributors as Muslim to this reporter.

[...]

http://www.nysun.com/article/41341 received from Attrition's Dataloss mailing list.

Does this mean Muslims are not as evil after all? Isn't that, like, shocking? Aren't the Jews, like, mad?

Of course, please show due paranoia when taking this in as it might be disinformation. Not the article as much as the names inserted in the list. And what the hell is up with racial/ethnical profiling on campaign donors? Will they refuse a few hundred thou from someone just because he's a Rromas, for example? It is also quite amusing to see how 'Muslim' was listed as a race.

politics
dataloss
disinformation

mac os x + torrents

2006-09-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

While there are quite a few choices in terms of torrent applications for Linux and Windows the same was not - until recently - true for Mac OS X. Sure, there was Azureus [since it's written in Java] and the official bittorrent client, but personally I wanted something a bit more that still manages to have a small overall system footprint. So I went to see what's out there. VersionTracker gave me two choices, Google two more and after briefly using all of them I have a few thoughts.

BitRocket

Xtorrent

Transmission

Tomato Torrent

BitRocket is the best one. Despite being at version 0.1 the program is pretty usable [it is actually the one I settled on], I have not had it crash or freeze yet. There are definitely quite a few issues out there, nothing to massively impair use but my impression is that by version 1.0 this thing will be rock[et]ing. It seems to have quite the appropriate level of detail and configuration options that do not require a degree to understand [not that Azureus is that hard, but I am estimating this in terms of general usability.] Low footprint and great response time which is something that Azureus lacks - and which is, in the end, what prompted my looking for something new. It can look at RSS feeds and search TorrentSpy, Pirate Bay and a few other networks.

Xtorrent comes from the creator of Acquisition, which is an interface to P2P networks. I have read some negative reviews regarding this developer - especially answering to e-mails from customers - but since I did not interact at all with him I cannot pass judgement beyond that. Xtorrent is in public beta for now but it will be shareware. It is simple and minimal but I wish it offered a bit more control over what you do with it.

Both Transmission and Tomato Torrent are small and light but, again, too small for my needs. They have basic controls and little information regarding what you are downloading, setting preferences etc.

I will probably begin to be more actively involved in BitRocket in any way I can, because I truly believe this is going the be for Mac OS X what µtorrent is for the Windows environment.

bittorrent
technology
applications

itunes 7.0

2006-09-12T22:48:00.000-07:00

So the new iTunes is out. It has some minor visual changes which do look good and additional sections for the Library that make sense, such as Movies and TV Shows - since Apple is now providing [most of] those through IMS.

Upon re-scanning my collection it is now [still] performing a 'Gapless Reduction' thing, I assume to calculate silence at beginning/end of tracks for cross-fades etc. The IMS now also contains album artwork - I am uncertain whether only for music bought on there or generally, but since I don't have an account set-up I will refrain from testing this right away. Certainly someone will do it soon enough.

In terms of new video content, the update to QuickTime 7.1.3 must be applied as well but that requires a reboot and I don't want to waste my precious uptime on that :)

Anyway, I'm sure there's more features to discover and enjoy. Oh, is it only me or CD Text support is new as well? Cheers!

Apple
iTunes

supporting Vista

2006-08-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

Considering that MS has already started releasing patches for an OS they have not officially shipped, I think we can all safely assume this means MS will never actually release Vista; instead, they will allow people to buy extensions to the Beta license and make Windows a rent-based OS. They will thwart complaints regarding security as a "this is Beta" thing but, despite GMail's on-going test phase, Vista will never get better.

Microsoft
Windows
Vista

off the...

2006-08-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

Despite the occasionally overboard ranting that goes on as Goldstein gets fired up on various issues, I think that Off the Wall and Off the Hook are two shows worthwhile listening. The former deals with general issues regarding all the bad things that are going on right now in the world; the latter is more technically-oriented.

politics
hacktivism

synergy

2006-08-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

So today's little fun item is synergy. This nice little app lets you use on keyboard and one mouse across computers in a LAN. The clipboard is transferable as well, you can - though I haven't yet tried it out - set up a single login for all computers, the screen savers synchronize.

This works over a LAN and there are no high-level security measures to avoid packet sniffing and the likes but ssh forwarding can be set-up. I haven't bothered much because I'm using this at work between an iMac and a wretched wintel machine. Works great, albeit it takes a while to remember the keyboard mappings for ctrl, alt and meta are slightly off.

Set-up is incredibly quick if you give the documentation a quick read. I've managed to get it running in about 10 minutes this morning and so far I'm loving it.

Credit where it's due, I first got wind of this through Hak.5. Great show!

geek
util

styling continued

2006-08-07T16:45:00.000-07:00

You probably noticed the new 'previously...' and 'archive' buttons on the right-side of the blog. A 'blogroll' entry should also show up soon but, unfortunately, it seems that the menu is not expanding properly on various browsers.

I will try to mess around with the scripting but it is quite involved [no, I didn't write the entire thing, I just hacked around the CSS part.] so it could possibly get dropped in favour of something more compatible. Too bad...

Seems that only Opera and OmniWeb display it properly, although Opera does take the entire right side to the bottom. Firefox and Safari seem to automatically collapse the menu once it would finish loading, whereas MSIE is just completely fucked up in more than one ways and seems to be too FUBAR-ed to be worth bothering with.

style

2006-08-06T19:56:00.000-07:00

I had some free time so what better way to spend it but trying to polish up the style of this blog? Whether I have succeeded in making something both visually and, more importantly, functionally pleasing is up to the readers to decide.

Please do let me know if you find anything out of place. I might have overlooked something. A blog-roll will come shortly, I hope.

Cheers!

code
design

seattle

2006-08-01T09:27:00.000-07:00

I went down to Seattle over the weekend. I have been to the States on a number of occasions and I more or less know what to expect, but Seattle doesn't seem as 'bad' as L.A. [my other common destination.]

On the bus ride home one of the days we [I was with the Father] got into a conversation with a guy about... things. We've gone through numerous aspects of society, politics and the U.S. in general. They guys knew a lot of things. Sure, I knew most of that stuff too, but I am student and I navigate in circles where such information is discussed at length. Not to say that maybe he wasn't navigating similar circles or collecting information from other sources.

But you have to be careful. Before the 1989 Revolution, the Securitate [Rom. Security] used knowledgeable people to gain trust and retrieve information from others. THeir youngest recruits were 12 and they would report parents and friends of parents etc. This group would deter the formation of any kind of mobs, considering that any one of the members could be a covert agent. So, why wouldn't the NSA/SS do the same? I have no idea how the marks would be made, recognized on the street etc. Yet we are talking about the largest-funded organization of this kind in the world; they probably have their ways.

I probably have nothing interesting enough about myself to become a mark. My dad even less. The idea is, though, that if these 'fingermen' do exist, you have to be careful to whom you disclose what.

And so, paranoia ensues...

politics
society

gentlemen

2006-07-28T09:16:00.001-07:00

While I was riding the skytrain to work today, a pregnant lady got on at one of the stations. Now, the train was far from crowded yet there were no empty seats [I myself was standing up.] So I look around... the closest seats to the door... 5 men and one woman sitting down. Train starts and I keep looking around to see one of the 'gentlemen' stand up and let her sit - the thought of giving a speech did cross my mind repeatedly during this interval. Lo and behold, nothing happens. We have 5 young, healthy, middle-class men sitting down while a pretty, young, healthy, pregnant middle-class woman is holding on for her life - admittedly, skytrain rides are occasionally bumpy.

The one lady that I mentioned was the one that finally stood up to offer her seat. She was the oldest of the 'group' [as in, over 35 or so] and the only one with a clue as to what's polite. I turned to her to make a remark about how one would expect a gentleman to make that gesture and how none were, apparently, in sight. This would have led to some distinctly painful damages to my body, but that's not why I refrained from comments, she just moved further up the aisle.

I know these things probably happen everyday. And you think "blah, nothing special, what's this guy's deal?" Well, my deal is that it has become something commonplace. We're desensitized, caught in our mindsets and life's something we live on pain-killers, anti-depressants and recreational drugs. I do not think those men were ill-intended. I think they were either unmannered or simply blocking life from their minds [because, yeah, it's fucking hard to deal with life sometimes.] More and more we all go this path, start leaving our children to their own devices, DVD players and video games in Mom' SUV, allowance and rides from Dad. The downfall of the technological age is that everyone has access to technology when some should not be entitled. It is, for many, a drug. It forms addictions that are not physically harmful [in general] and as such tolerated by our gym-going society. The flip-sode is that women are mistreated, not made to feel special and not given the proper attention they deserve.

The list could go on...

society

mailvault episode 2: return of the delayed e-mails

2006-07-28T09:16:00.000-07:00

Well the title says it all, all my test messages sent to the MailVault account came back. I did receive the usual 'delay' message initially and eventually the 'failed delivery' ones. Unfortunately I do not think I will recommend MailVault to anyone - I've discussed the risks of hosting your keyring on someone else's servers - just yet because it is not an e-mailing service just yet. More like sending postcards with no return address.

Unfortunately it is near-impossible to offer encrypted webmail without trying to use this method of hosting the keys. Webmail should be completely mobile and accessible to people with no strings attached; tying them to having to bring their key with them definitely sucks and would not actually make the service remarkable through their encryption schemes. Even storing your private key on a USB stick and bringing that with you is not a solution because, well, once it gets uploaded and used, who's to say how long the server 'cached' copy will stay there?

You need secure, tested and tried applications to use on the local machine. Nothing else is really worth your time. There are quite a few solutions that you can carry around on a decently-sized USB stick in order to not be tied to a particular computer.

cryptography
security

KDM hospitalized

2006-07-26T16:28:00.000-07:00

It was reported on www.TWiT.tv #63 that KDM a.k.a. Kevin David Mitnick a.k.a. The Condor is in a hospital in Columbia. Wether this is in the US or in South America... not known at this point.

Good luck!

hacking

mailvault

2006-07-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

I found out of - and begun testing on - a web-based e-mail service dubbed MailVault. While there are countless mail services out there with various but plenty of features for each, why is this a contender?

MailVault allows you to use OpenPGP encryption straight out of your mailbox, without the need to copy/paste content or to use additional applications. You use a passphrase to create a key pair that you can use to sign or decrypt your e-mail [obviously you need someone else's public key to encrypt mail going to them.] All in all, it sounds like a sweet service, short of a few less-than-minor issues:

Yesterday as I was trying this, incoming mail did not reach my Inbox. I tried again today with both encrypted and unencrypted mail but to no avail. I guess you cannot really use this service right now, I will check back to see whether the messages were delayed or not.

Your private key is stored on some server, somewhere. Where cypherpunks worry about keys being stored in the VRAM of the computer during encryption, these guys store keys and make an attempt to advertise their service as super-safe. Which is not and will never be. Sure, it makes sense to use the service for minimal tasks, but then again why bother? It is no safer, in the fight against Big Bro, than plaintext. Since both keys are stored on the server there is little in the way of either impersonating or opening your messages.

False sense of security is much, much worse than paranoia.

cryptography
cypherpunk

expansions

2006-07-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

So I have decided to branch out and include more than just - scantily, as they have been - tech news and information. This will become more of a 'life of a geek' blog rather than purely a cypherpunkish, hacktivist endeavour. Now, most information will have some sort of technical side to it, either from a 'political' perspective or otherwise.

Onwards for the bulk of this post, a few issues to concern myself with;

Blogging about blogging and guerilla journalism.

Mac mods.

CPU architectures.

Blogging about blogging
This would go in a 'bashlist' entry because, really, how much can you entertain this subject? Sure, artists talk about art, webmasters about webdesign etc. However I have come across numerous blogs with countless entries regarding this topic. Note: You cannot blog about blogging if you do not blog about anything else. I mean, you barely know anything about that in the first place, so let it be. And yes, I do realize how ironic this section is because I am doing that very thing I am condemning, I suppose. But this is what happens when new things go pop, unavoidably.

Are bloggers journalists? Undoubtedly, some are. I am talking about those guys with first-hand knowledge of particular products/technologies/etc that are braking news in their posts. But journalism is also about analyzing facts and discussing them from a certain perspective; in that sense I am using the term of 'guerilla journalism'. Short, concise entries regarding pressing issues and offering a focused analysis. Certainly they are often controversial or unpleasant but this is what makes them that much more important. That is also why I feel 'guerilla' fits. It feels great being part of a revolution that has to take place - in this day and age - across all forts of media available.

Mac mods
I have made a few cosmetic modifications to my interface, basically just a theme and an icon set. Pretty, is it not? :) Certainly, a list of my favourite applications is in the works. Works well especially for new converts [of which I am one, of course] such as Znuff. Well, it is his boss' laptop but maybe soon enough he will get one of his own. One can only hope :)

CPU architectures
A discussion ensued today - on some IRC channel I am a regular of - regarding different CPU architectures. My idea is that we have no conclusive way of properly comparing the existing technologies. We revolved around AMD, Intel and IBM chips and from a consumer perspective I think that the last one is not even relevant anymore [with Apple phasing out their PowerPC line.]

MIPS are irrelevant since they vary greatly across platforms. Clock frequency is inadequate because equal-speed CPUs of RISC and CISC design will be obviously very different.

This just comes as a wake-up call to those people measuring their e-penis in terms of pure speed ratings. My G4 will destroy your comparable [but puny] AMD or Intel running at the same 1.33 GHz speed any day of the week. =)

Well, this should conclude today's episode. Check back, check often, check the RSS. Cheers!

Apple
blog
CPU
personal

smarts

2006-07-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

Did I mention how much I love 'smart' playlists on my iPod? They let you do all kinds of nifty things and they still do live updating if such selected.

Apple
iPod

Being your own enemy

2006-06-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

I became aware of the fact that Dell likes to insert keyloggers in their laptops. I know this isn't news, I read a bunch of such theories a while back and, while they all abound of a rather un-needed conspiracy theory air to them, they do raise certain interesting points [Note: I am not confirming or refuting the claims made in the linked article.]

We are slowly becoming our very own worst enemy. The lack of understanding of technology, the things we allow our governments to do in the name of safety and security are all amplifying the idea that we are becoming prisoners of our ignorance.

I will stick to technology. Is there a need for the government to monitor citizens' activities? Is there a logical reason to assume that subversive - or 'terrorist' - factions will use standard means of communications to pass along tactics, orders etc? Even if they did, the slightest possibility that these communications are intercepted would be a deterring factor. In the USA especially, considering all the agencies that deal with security and admitting to the fact that the NSA might have ways of deciphering encryption that is otherwise considered safe, what are the chances that some group or another will start e-mailing its members about the latest developments in biochemical sciences or explosives?

There are voices considering that the entirety of government influence on ISPs is, in part, a result of RIAA's and MPAA's campaigns to deter file-sharing. Sounds surreal? More and more people voice their concerns regarding actions on the Pirate Bay as being a result of foreign pressure. So we have our privacy trampled upon because of greed?

Well, I doubt it. Certainly this is a bonus but it would be foolish to simplify the issue to that point. When you can deploy such a large tool capable of even the most ambitious, mass psy-ops, there must be other plans, other interests at stake. World domination is the much played-on theme and could very well be it. After all, so many events in history teach us that Man wants to rule over men. Forget technological advance, space colonization and the Philosopher's Stone; this planet is here and it somehow became up for grabs.

As for the punch-line. People need to be aware of their surroundings. They need to reflect and evaluate whether what their governments demand from them are truly acceptable give-aways for their perceived security - and, especially, if this security is something that they truly lack. Staying clear of Nazi comparisons, it can be argued that the difficulty of ruling over a nation is directly proportional to their fear.

hacktivism
politics
terror

just a link

2006-06-06T09:43:00.000-07:00

oh my fucking god!: "un film de la razvan"

(Via Elucubraţii - zoso's blog.)

politics

The Hacktivist Movement

2006-06-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

With the ever-increasing number of outlets for information marketing, the Internet has, unfortunately, also established itself as a proper ground for the distribution of disinformation and propaganda. With the average netizen's lack of proper "information dissemination" skills, most people will believe whatever comes their way.

Enter the hacktivist groups. The first net guerillas formed in Germany but, due to the hive nature of the Internet, soon spread all over the Globe. Regardless, this entry is not aimed at providing the reader with either history or a social overview of what hacktivist groups represent. There is a slightly more practical goal to this.

As a 'combatant' on HackThisSIte! I was introduced to probably a few of the issues that some hacktivist groups deal with. More than one of their challenges were focused around a make-believe Neo-Nazi party [although in the real world this would probably be the American Nazi Party - ANP] This, to me raised the issue: who - if any - are the forums that have the authority to evaluate what constitutes propaganda and what constitutes disinformation - as opposed to what is simply a manifestation of free speech. After all, it is exactly free speech that hacktivist groups should aim to enforce.

It is my strong belief that hacktivist groups should focus on pushing forward free speech and lack of censorship. They should attempt to hit those institutions that try to restrict these principles and slowly render [said institutions] incapable of any actions. They should have members of sister-groups that should methodically refute propaganda based on information that can be verified. They should also minimize the effect that the psy-ops of any government have.

I am aware that it is far easier to set goals than to see them through. I know that the forces against which I am arguing here are large, well-funded and employ some pretty darn good security. I also urge any readers to not forget that no revolution in the histories of the peoples of planet Earth was waged from a position of advantage. Change does require certain risks, but these risks become greater as we allow more time to pass without acting. In the words of Maxi Jazz, "Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction." And before you ask, yes, this is trying to encourage action. Non-violent as it may be, because the battlefields look different nowadays.

revolution
hacktivism
politics

culinar.ro

2006-05-29T14:50:00.000-07:00

Well, let me be the first to say that culinar.ro is down again. After an on-going saga the site hit bottom again, and I might as well be blamed for it for posting it on this blog.

Whatever. I will have a larger comment on this latter on, possibly not from work =)

Yahoo! Mail Beta

2006-05-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

It's not like me to post news taken from Slashdot or Digg [which is why I have relatively small traffic as opposed to many other bloggers I guess] but this is too good to pass up. These are the steps needed to enable Yahoo! mail beta as reproduced by me after listening to one of the Diggnation podcasts [where it was mentioned]

1. Log into your Yahoo mail account.
2. Go to Settings > Account Settings [on the left side frame]
NOTE: You can also get here by clicking "My Account" on the top of the page where it says "Welcome, "
3. Edit Member Info [first Edit button on the page] in the next page and select English - United Kingdom for your Content.
4. Click Finish [top right]
5. A new AUP shows up, click Agree
6. The "Try Beta" should appear, agree to start it.

If you get a "Browse not supported" page next, just use a supported browser and you'll be in. I have reports of IE sometimes crashing but I can't try it out myself so your milage may vary. Apparently you might be delayed, I got in right away but some people had to try out a few minutes later.

Don't know how long this will be available so get yours quickly. You're free to switch back to whichever Content you had before after you enable Beta, it will still be there.

Enjoy and trackback :)

yahoo
email
beta
web 2.0

and the problem lies with...

2006-04-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

Apple, Mac, or Microsoft's hegemony over the gaming Universe?

While I tend to believe game developers that do decide to create cross-platform games try to get the best out of every system, more often than not we've been disappointed by the quality of some of the other games we get.

Now, I have never been crazy about eye-candy, and frankly, I barely even play computer games anymore. Gameplay makes a game good or bad in my books, so I go back and play some of the classics when I feel like it. But if you can have, why not have it, sure. So is Blizzard at any fault for the poorer performance of WoW on Mac OS X than on Windows? The question lingers...

The link http://www.penny-arcade.com/2006/04/19

apple
microsoft

shares and illegalities

2006-03-24T01:26:00.000-08:00

How irresponsible - or plain stupid - needs a person be to put pictures of themselves and other friends indulging in large amounts of yayo? It isn't even snooping - seeing how I started iPhoto and the thing was mounted to my Library - so they can't even blame it on me. Heh, college life at its best. I simply think it's a bit risky to do that.

To each their own I suppose. I am going to begin more cluster failover testing and session replication issues. Things to do with how activities are being handled when nodes in clusters go under. Pretty interesting stuff and I can't wait for it. I think I'm generally slightly over-enthusiastic about aspects of work. Not that I find any reason not to be, really. :)

Be cool, stay in school! [or at least around it cause they have plenty of WiFiAPs usually :P

personal

dataloss

2006-03-23T00:12:00.000-08:00

I have recently subscribed to attrition's dataloss list. So everyday I receive a few e-mails concerning recent thefts of large blocks of readily-identifiable customer data, which makes both ID theft and CC fraud a walk in the park for most people.

Only, a [too] large number of these data losses are not thefts per se. See, when someone leaves backup tapes at the door of some warehouse or a laptop on a table while they get a quick drink, the thief has little to do in the way of stealing. Heck, if I were walking down some street and I saw a bag of tapes or CDs or something, I'd pick'em up for fun, out of curiosity or something along those lines.

Now on the issue of liability, many of these companies do not even disclose breach information, let alone do serious damage control. In this part of the world, once your SIN has been compromised... well, you don't get another. It's as simple as that. So if some dumb assistant rushes to the pub and leaves backup tapes outside the off-site warehouse, well, he should be getting his ass kicked. After all he has failed to properly do his job and as such he should suffer whatever consequences, in excess of just losing his job.

Being stupid is no excuse. Keep hacking!

technology
hack

hackd got Mac'd

2006-03-21T12:58:00.000-08:00

Well, well, well... Given the demise of my previous laptop I had to look for something new to fuel my mobile needs [and otherwise.] After many, many hours of deep thought and consideration I have decided to purchase myself an iBook G4 in the 12" variety [given that I was looking for a 12" laptop to begin with.] The new machine has been dubbed inferno as was its predecessor.

I am very impressed with it =) Not only integration across applications works flawlessly [something that Windows still does not do - and proof to that is my work computer.] but just how sleek and sexy it is. Yes, I said my laptop is sexy :) What can you do?

I got darwinports and gcc right away, also XCode 2 and some video codecs. Oh, and MacGPG plus a plugin for Mail that lets me encrypt on-the-fly.
It even knows what colour my iPod is :) I guess it's pretty obvious why people love them so much. Plus, it's a BSD-based OS, which means I'm still like home using it.

For those that consider I have sold out and moved out of the Linux sphere, they are gravely mistaken :) My 'server' box continues to run Gentoo at blazing speeds, and that's the box I use for everything from ripping movies to downloading torrents and hacking your box :P

Anyway so far for now... I'm also experimenting with technorati tags from now on, so we'll see how that goes. Although, in all honesty, I'm considering buying hosting and moving to wordpress soon enough. Not that blogger isn't cool and whatnot, but I need more :)

Cheers!

apple
technology

2006-03-03T01:19:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's Develop Mental Tour 2006

So this is what I did tonight. Pretty good event I would say, of course far too short to cover in detail aspects of game programming. But a decent enough overview to peak my curiosity... yes, even mine, the Linux fiend. Plus I got a nifty book to get me started on C# [although I am currently getting into Perl]

In other news Shaw/Rogers, whom most Canadians recognize as one of the leading ISPs here, is starting to filter and throttle BitTorrent traffic on their network. Now, I never got any decent speed on b.t. before this was public on Shaw, at least on Telus it is constant and decent. But this is another proof of what RIAA/MPAA crusaders should be castrated, beaten with wet fish and shot with salt pellets for. I find it extremely hard to believe that the issue for this is trying to uphold users' traffic quotas. Should this come as a surprise for anyone? Far from. Expect this behaviour to pop-up around the world more and more.

Anybody willing to start up something like MindVox for the modern age? A high-speed, highly-anonymous ISP offerring. I guess at that point you run the risk of 3rd Tier providers denying your connections altogether.

I'm ranting :)

Trust your techno-lust!

2006-02-23T16:01:00.000-08:00

Solaris Enterprise System gone FREE

http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/get.jsp

... and there's a link there on how to get S.E.S. for yourself. Only pay S&H and the actual media [10 DVD option, here I come] and get it. They also advertise that it will become open sourced soon - which is unbelievably good news. And that still means I want to work for them, heck, more than ever maybe :) Another victory for F.O.S.S. !

As Solaris' support for x86 is increasing I wonder how the competition is feeling. There are 4 systems out there, out of which 3 have enough applications for the desktop and I am sure Solaris will have more and more people porting software to it. A look out at SourceForge.org should reveal interesting projects that could be ported.

Unfortunately, rki of RootContest and HackThisSite! fame has decided to stop activity on RC for now. The site is still up until the end of the week and depending on discussions there might be a new lead stepping up soon enough. There seems to be a strong support to keep the site running in one form or another and as such there might be no downtime at all. Either way, if you want a "rush run" this is your chance, while boxes are still online. Nothing is known on the fate of the site and the domain come March 1st - the date rki announced he is shutting down. As a staff member I cannot but regret this fact. I am looking forward to some communication with the rest of the staff to see whether we can still go on. rki said he is going to support and help out as much as possible. I understand, I guess, time issues that we all have are a factor in this.

Until next time... hack the planet!

2006-02-09T00:47:00.000-08:00

News Updates?

Well not much really. I need a few hours to spare soon so that I might possibly get status updates from people on http://www.rootcontest.org and their boxes. It is a shame that the site is kind of... on a decline. I know there is already rootthisbox.org and they do well what they do. We are not competing. Basically, there are an infinite amount of set-ups that could be done. We - and rtb - are nowhere near that yet :) These are just training grounds.

I whipped together a simple script to act as a cron job and fetch torrents for me [on a different box.] Simple idea, really, but possibly I will post it/link it when I get a chance. That is just so that there is no need to keep a ssh term open... just drop a torrent and when the hour hits it will start downloading.

A quick rant on the issue of the Danish cartoons and the retaliatory defacements. Well, actually on the defacements only and what I think is wrong with them.

I was, once before, confronted with the idea of 'taking down' a neo-nazi website. That, however, would be denying someone their free speech rights. Many people would mistakenly consider that hate speech should not be protected in any shape or form. If we begin censoring hate speech it will be only a step until they consider government criticisms as a negative influence too. Not long after that more and more countries are faced with China's problems. Where hate speech is troubling to many, the counter should be a way to inform people on the truth about the issue. Not shut down or deny access to these sites [I'm taking the Internet as an example because this is where we function at this level.]

Website defacements are used as a tool of 'advertisment' if you will. It is a cyber-guerilla form of political militantism and very effective at that. So why do I think these particular defacements are/were not a good idea? Most of them did not try to 'clear the story' but continued what could be considered a 'flame war' [in 'Net terms.] This only amplifies hate directed towards Islam [at this point] because the Western World still fails to understand the subtleties of the Eastern cultures. I guess, in a way, both sides are guilty of this ignorant behaviour.

Cheers!

PASBC security issue

2006-01-16T22:35:00.000-08:00

Basically this is my entire conversation with the folks that maintain PASBC, an online system for posting your grades to a number of local post-secondary institutions here in BC. I came across a vulnerability in their system a few days ago while I was helping my Significant Other with something. Bottom line is that I got in her application and that's something that should not happen, right? :)

They patched something for now, they claim they will implement my suggestions in the next design of the site. They did not mention anything regarding these communications so I am posting everything here [e-mail addresses and other signature information removed for privacy reasons]

I do feel that they did as much as possible so far. If this was e-mail probably nobody would have bothered, seeing as there are some pretty sensitive fields in these applications I believe the concern is genuine.

Oh yes, another thing is, if you are logged in and have someone else use your URL at the same time, they can see what you entered thus far. ID theft is the issue, here... E-mails attached below, enjoy!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Graeme McNeil

Hello again Alex,

Please see below for responses to your concerns from the technical lead of PASBC. As you will see, he understands the concern but there does not seem to be much more we can do within our current framework. We will be redeveloping PASBC following the current peak application period and please be assured that we will take your security concerns into account when we redesign the system.

Thanks,

Graeme

Graeme McNeil, PMP
Project Manager, BCcampus

----- Forwarded by Graeme McNeil/emp/bccampus/CA on 01/16/2006 08:10 PM -----

Mark Ardiel/emp/bccampus/CA

01/13/2006 10:11 AM

See comments to his email inline below.

I understand his concern, but I do not think we can do too much more without changing the entire architecture that we have the system built on. Right now, the only real threat I see is if someone is sniffing your requests, and can pull out the URL. They then are able to get into your session while you have it active by using the URL. Once you logout, or your session times-out (30 minutes of inactivity) they cannot get into your session any longer. However, I believe that if someone can be sniffing your requests on your machine, then you have a much more serious problem.

From: inaequitas
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 12:12 AM
To: Graeme McNeil
Cc: Greg Link; Lauri Aesoph; Mark Ardiel
Subject: Re: PASBC security issue

Hello sir!

First of all allow me to congratulate you on how expeditious you were
in tackling this issue. Unfortunately my quick 'analysis' was not
indicative of a safer environment at the moment.

I have generated another 'guest' session and proceeded to fill in some
fields. I then passed the link to my friend and she was able to access
all of that information without any issues.
As long as you have not logged out of your session, then yes, this session can be accessed by passing the URL to another machine. There is currently no mechanism in the framework that we use to have the session created as a URL along with a matching cookie, it is purely in the URL.

When I logged out from my
machine I was not able to view the session, that is true; however my
friend was still free to access it.
This should not be the case. As soon as you log out, the session on the server is destroyed. Since you are both using the same session on the server, it will not longer work on either machine. I have tried this, and this is what I see happening from my tests.

This was done from separate
computers on entirely different network blocks.

I am not privy to the details of your implementation so I am not sure
what is designed in the system. But if, for example, I pass my friend
a link from Yahoo! mail she is not able to view anything. A simple
log-in cookie could do the trick in securing the session and as long
as it does not store any personal information it should not provide an
additional risk in terms of privacy. Nobody should be able to view the
details of a session with only that session's generated URL.
This is not something that we can change with our current framework. Right now the session IDs are just the URL.

The reason why I even brought this to your attention is that very
important information can be extracted from these applications. I did
not have the proper set-up to test whether a network traffic analyser
[sniffer, e.g. Ethereal] would capture any part of this communication
in plain text; but if it can retrieve as much as the HTTP request then
a snooper can obtain SIN and a good other deal of personal
information.
The actual information being sent over the request will be encrypted by TLS/SSL. However, I do believe that the request URL may be in plain text.

The abundance of ID theft nowadays is not something to
take lightly especially as SIN numbers are unique and irreplaceable.

If you feel, however, that you do not need to consider these issues
please let me know and if requested I will maintain a certain level of
secrecy regarding the issue. I do, however, sincerely hope that you
will be able to implement this sometime soon.

Again, thank you for your interest!

On 1/12/06, Graeme McNeil wrote:
>
> Hello again inaequitas
>
> Our technical guys here have implemented fix on PASBC which closes down the specific instance of the Common Form when a user logs out which should resolve the issue you brought up. We have tested it here but if you wish to have a look and check I'd be happy to hear your results.
>
> If a user closes their browser without logging out the session will persist for 30 minutes at which point the user will be timed out, much as they would in other signed in environments.
>
> Thanks again for bringing this to our attention.
>
> Best regards
>
> Graeme McNeil
>
> Graeme McNeil, PMP
> Project Manager, BCcampus

--
inaequitas

Undergraduate Student
Computer Science
University of British Columbia

======================
Please avoid sending Word or PowerPoint attachments.
PDF makes for a good alternative. Please see
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
P.S.: http://tinyurl.com/8jvcq

2006-01-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

Right to Create: Patent Reform via Open Source

Wow, this goes in the "I'm getting a hard-on thinking about it" category! So IBM is pushing the envelope forward on Open Source, after donating 500 patents and supporting Linux, now this. I feel like river-dancing :D

In all seriousness though, this comes as a big hit to many corporations I'm sure. I can't wait to see the backfire to such news since it will naturally create an outcry from those players that make more money on patenting things they ponder about in the shitter and less money from selling them in good, useful products. Let's see, they'll probably say something having to do with not stimulating innovation, causing a flood of bad products and an overall impact on economy as a result of the big dogs abandoning certain areas of technology [I'm focusing here because this is where the big battles are given nowadays].

Innovation means new things; if prior art can be shown, then what you're trying to do is steal somebody else's idea. Shame to you!

Bad products do not survive in this [becoming] technotopia. There is no point people will use crappy things. In fact, they will rather pay some small price for quality when they're not forced to. So Research in Motion can go about their good business while NTP gets covered in their own slime after being publicly shunned for their lame-ass attempt to reap money without any merit whatsoever.

The economy won't dive overnight, and we will adapt to the new playing field just as we've managed to do it time and time again over the course of at least a few millennia.

This is part of our revolution!

2006-01-05T23:04:00.000-08:00

So I've started my work at WebCT and so far I must say I love it =) Testing is a fun job because especially in the beginning there are no precise guidelines to follow, it's basically your imagination at work to crack the machine. As I was telling a friend, I'm a 'hacker with a license to hack', in a James Bond-ian way of thinking about it. But it's not all that glamorous.

I can't give more details about my work due to certain NDAs that I had to sign. I can say that the WebCT software has some pretty wicked functionality and I wish my Uni upgraded to a newer version. I mean what I'm working with is actually 'pretty' as well =)

In other news I was having dinner tonight and realised that the cafeteria is the great social divide for teenagers. This is where it all starts, in the highschools of the world [that have one]. I suppose Klebold and Harris had a point starting in their cafeteria and not someplace else, maybe they weren't immediately aware of it but something in their subcounscious 'told' them to start there. Well, it depends if you let yourself influenced by the masses, if you think they are better than you. A weaker person will always find a way to latch onto what he or she perceives as a stronger person.

Keep hustlin' =)

2005-12-16T17:25:00.000-08:00

Minorities

I was almost politely declined a purchase today from Lougheed Mall London Drugs for a webcam because I was going to attempt using it on Linux.

Of course, I could have said I'll then buy it for my Windows computer [which I don't have since a stage 1 Gentoo installation is going on right now on what was my former WXP machine] if I really wanted to; no matter. I am surprised though that an Assistant Manager no less would not want to sell something to a customer. Their risk - of having an open unit - is bullshit considering that it was an easy to repack model anyway. What probably bothered me the most was that he actually said "I'd be inclined not to sell you this because it will most likely not work and then you'll bring it back" before he mentioned that I should research the matter [which is more or less relevant since I could make it work even if nobody else has a working one of the same model].

I just gave him a disgusted smile and left the camera on the counter for him. In any effect I will not purchase a webcam from LD even if I do decide to use one... what I will do, possibly, is go and get one just for the evilness of it and then return it in the worst possible package condition [albeit all else will be intact, of course].

In other news, one more exam down the way and then freedom... to some extent, that is, with work coming up soon after.

Projects? Not gonna mention anything, it seems that way I 'boast' about never gets done and in order to preserve some credibility [ =) ] I will keep to myself all my intentions and just surprise people with things.

Cheers!

2005-12-13T12:52:00.000-08:00

musicunited.org

Yes indeed, it is much easier to simply 'take it off' rather than instruct people on how to sanitize their shares. So that, in the case that copyrighted material exists, it is not shared on the P2P networks.

Of course I suppose most people that use illegal content on P2P are fully aware of it, so there's no point to all of this. The page strikes me as being just a legal cover for the RIAA in case someone decides to say that "hey, I wanted to take this off my computer but I didn't know how". Yeah, right!

Well, I found about this website from zug's riaa prank so give that a read too if you've got time =)

2005-11-23T08:30:00.000-08:00

Microsoft - Where do you want to go today? | Computer Science Students' Society

I want to go snowboarding, to all points and purposes. But I will be there and see what 'trick' questions I can attack the MS representatives today. I do have a fair question about the state of Singularity, some concerns about the recent MS study discussing how Linux is worse than Windows [yeah, right =)] and something to do with the XBox360 that keeps crashing... day of the release too [I won't even scratch the surface on the idiocy of purposely under-supplying stores with these game units]

I'll let everyone know how this went and if I had a chance to get some clarifications regarding these issues. No, I'm not looking to get hired by them just yet and I don't think I have any reason to suck up to MS people to get a job there... I'll go work for Steve Jobs otherwise ;)

This reminds me there's some baffled employees at a local Future Shop that probably wonder why their sexy display iMac works erratically... something to do with `chmod -R 0000 ~` =) I'm the Bastard Linux Guerilla Warrior... guy.

Cheers all!

2005-11-17T09:58:00.000-08:00

Elliott Back » Too Cool For Firefox

You gotta be sh*tting me!

OK, OS wars, distro wars, browser wars... I know each and every one of us thinks "I am the coolest" and the brands we acquire, the ideologies we subscribe to, we hold them in high regard and treasure them plenty.

But, DUDE! MSIE? You need to change crack dealers buddy, cause it's melting your brain. I'll say here what I said there too, the problem with MSIE users is that they make all-too-easy the propagation of malware on the 'Net, and the browser is the starting point in most of these cases. Sure, flaws were found in FF too. How long till they were fixed?

Microsoft has [unfortunately] some of the world's best coders in their ranks. They could make great software if they weren't this greedy.

But it's fine... there's a few MS coders that donate to the FSF... so it's not all lost yet ;)

2005-11-14T10:49:00.000-08:00

There was a discussion on slashdot regarding open source software on Windows and why it is looked down upon by members of the Linux/BSD OSS communities. Here is my post and... let me know if you decide to comment to that on slashdot so that I might follow-up. Otherwise, rant here if you will :)

In other news I apparently got owned here? Two rather obnoxious posts made their way into my blog, selling cheap software... I think there's need to change some settings =)

2005-11-12T02:39:00.000-08:00

No, despite what might have crossed people's minds, I did not get arrested or otherwise angered some hacker somewhere that took me out... or whatever theory you might have :)

There's been plenty of technological news but nothing really that would require special attention here, most of it gets up on digg anyway. So echoing out all of that here is rather pointless :)

Until further things... I'll leave you with a classic:

Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager
Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"...
Damn kids. They're all alike.

But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain,
ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what
made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?
I am a hacker, enter my world...
Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of
the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me...
Damn underachiever. They're all alike.

I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain
for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms.
Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..."
Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike.

I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is
cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I
screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me...
Or feels threatened by me...
Or thinks I'm a smart ass...
Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...
Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike.

And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through
the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is
sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is
found.
"This is it... this is where I belong..."
I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to
them, may never hear from them again... I know you all...
Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike...

You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at
school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip
through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or
ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us will-
ing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.

This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the
beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying
for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and
you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek
after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color,
without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals.
You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us
and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is
that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like.
My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me
for.

I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual,
but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike.

+++The Mentor+++

2005-07-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

2 for 2, I might make this a part-time job... anyway who thought it productive to read junk mail? :) this second case was LaSalle and a site in Korea... an ex-site in Korea.

cheers!

Fwd: Account investigation warning [Sat, 16 Jul 2005 17:44:24 -0300]

2005-07-18T01:45:00.000-07:00

--- hypronix <hypronix@yahoo.com> wrote:

> From hypronix Mon Jul 18 01:42:50 2005
> Received: from [inferno] by web40702.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon,
> 18 Jul 2005 01:42:50 PDT
> Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 01:42:50 -0700 (PDT)
> From: hypronix <>
> Subject: Fwd: Account investigation warning [Sat, 16 Jul 2005 17:44:24
> -0300]
> To: abuse@thrunet.com
> CC: Report@doshelp.com, emailhoax@abnamro.com
> Bcc: this.blog
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="0-1059165754-1121676170=:3036"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> Content-Length: 11679
>
> Please consider the following site as it is phishing information from
> customers of LaSalle Bank:
>
> http://211.59.14.67:680/rock/la
>
> The IP was traced in the range owned by Thrunet.com so I feel it is your
> company's responsibility to remove this website.
>
> [code]
>
> root@inferno root # whois 211.59.14.67
> query: 211.59.14.67
>
> # ENGLISH
>
> KRNIC is not a ISP but a National Internet Registry similar to APNIC.
> The followings are information of the organization that is using the
> IPv4
> address.
>
> IPv4 Address : 211.59.14.0-211.59.14.255
> Network Name : THRUNET-INFRA
> Connect ISP Name : THRUNET
> Connect Date : 20031218
> Registration Date : 20040922
>
> [ Organization Information ]
> Organization ID : ORG35266
> Org Name : Thrunet Co., Ltd.
> State : SEOUL
> Address : Thrunet IDC B/D, 1338-5, Seocho-2dong, Seocho-ku
> Zip Code : 137-072
>
> {rest of `whois` query response removed}
>
> root@inferno root # traceroute 211.59.14.67
> traceroute to 211.59.14.67 (211.59.14.67), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
> 1 gw.freeshell.org (192.94.73.62) 0.561 ms 0.456 ms 0.434 ms
> 2 sl-gw28-fw-6-1-0-TS12.sprintlink.net (160.81.88.133) 7.793 ms
> 4.217
> ms sl-gw28-fw-6-1-0-TS22.sprintlink.net (160.81.88.169) 4.172 ms
> 3 sl-bb20-fw-2-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.12.161) 4.765 ms 11.605 ms
> 4.328 ms
> 4 sl-st21-dal-13-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.20.81) 13.704 ms 20.444
> ms
> 5.519 ms
> 5 so1-1-0-2488M.ar1.DAL2.gblx.net (208.51.134.33) 8.669 ms 22.219 ms
>
> 5.216 ms
> 6 so3-0-0-2488M.ar3.PAO2.gblx.net (67.17.94.97) 63.463 ms 48.682 ms
> 61.869 ms
> 7 ANC-Korea-Thrunet-Co-MOVE.ge-6-0-0.ar3.PAO2.gblx.net (67.17.163.22)
> 47.251 ms 48.811 ms 46.915 ms
> 8 211.110.7.101 (211.110.7.101) 200.778 ms 182.630 ms 184.053 ms
> 9 210.117.126.25 (210.117.126.25) 209.756 ms 201.706 ms 194.725 ms
> 10 210.117.121.130 (210.117.121.130) 184.155 ms 195.527 ms 221.298
> ms
> 11 210.117.121.169 (210.117.121.169) 225.086 ms 228.391 ms 195.173
> ms
> 12 dom1-incheon1.thrunet.com (210.117.127.162) 202.972 ms 197.256 ms
> 196.719 ms
> 13 210.221.6.54 (210.221.6.54) 196.707 ms 196.231 ms 206.281 ms
> 14 211.59.14.67 (211.59.14.67) 205.825 ms 192.363 ms 215.165 ms
>
> {traceroute information obtained through a remote shell}
>
> [/code]
>
> I thank you in advance for the steps taken in removing this thread from
> the Internet. This e-mail has also been CC-ed to ABNA MRO to allow them
> to
> take necessary steps as they see fit.
>
>
> Note: forwarded message attached.
>

BLOGGER NOTE: I had to re-fwd the e-mail because I keep forgetting that
Blogger doesn't accept attachments of sorts... sorry for the formatting
mishaps and whatnot.

____________________________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

2005-07-08T04:38:00.000-07:00

So it's really hard to decide what to tell to a person when they let you know they are spammers and carders, and happy to be into it. I met such a person on chat tonight and I was unable to explain to her why I think spamming is such a disgusting practice. Far from me, now, a possible epiphany regarding the fact that maybe I do not mind spam as much as I think I do and so on, so forth... no, nothing of the sort.

But I was merely curious how does one begin to explain to a practicioner of spamming that what they do is inherently wrong? I mean, in an intelligent, equal-footing conversation, if the climate permits, how do the two sides advertise their point of view?

It is very late and I am unable to further any possible train of thought... I leave it to the random reader to throw a comment or two.

2005-07-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

I so didn't need this...

but of course it happened. Filesystem inconsistencies on /home/ which is my reiserfs v3.6 partition... I had issues once before, but the badblock list was short... now, more stuff showed up. Anyway after 2 days and a whole bunch of `badblocks -o reiserdebug.log -v /dev/hda` and reiserfsck-ing I have it all back together... still... I believe a new hardrive might be required for my laptop and we all know what prices those things have. Adam can buy a whole computer with $300 and I have to pay close to that for a hardrive... it's not fair.

But yes, one of my other computers, purgatorio, is an AMD Athlon @ 1 GHz with 512 RAM and a 64MB ATI Radeon 7000... one could probably get even more back for the buck, but the machine has no problem running either *n`x-es or Windows stuff.

2005-07-01T19:22:00.000-07:00

okay so taking that site down was quick, as less than 24 hours after the post the URL was unreachable... I also received a generic e-mail reply from spoof@ebay.com teaching me how to avoid getting duped by spoof e-mails... hello! what did i just do? :)

well in all fairness I think AoL conducted themselves well since it took them this short to attend to the matter... of course this isn't the first or last phishing scam out there but... the fewer the better. I'm still very curious whether the WHOIS information - particularly the part pertaining to the name and personal details of the person to register ebaymain.com - is true... something tells me it probably isn't but... who knows? it'd be hard to take appropriate legal action about this, anyhow...

[ the political part of this rant has been left out due to temporal reasons =) ]

Fwd: Phishing website in AoL IP range

2005-06-28T22:11:00.000-07:00

--- hypronix <hypronix@yahoo.com> wrote:

> From hypronix Tue Jun 28 22:08:14 2005
> Received: from [70.71.13.135] by web40728.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Tue,
> 28 Jun 2005 22:08:14 PDT
> Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 22:08:14 -0700 (PDT)
> From: hypronix <>
> Subject: Phishing website in AoL IP range
> To: abuse@aol.net
> CC: spoof@ebay.com
> Bcc: this.blog
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="0-642443547-1120021694=:317"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> Content-Length: 5279
>
> Hello!
>
> I would like to bring to your attention a possible phishing scam that is
> hosted on an IP withing the AoL Network.
>
> The attached message is pointing to http:\\ebaymain.com
>
> Relevant information:
> [code]
>
> $ traceroute ebaymain.com
> traceroute to ebaymain.com (172.203.43.102), 64 hops max, 52 byte
> packets
> 1 gw.freeshell.org (192.94.73.62) 0.663 ms 0.405 ms 0.393 ms
> 2 sl-gw28-fw-6-1-0-TS12.sprintlink.net (160.81.88.133) 5.043 ms
> sl-gw28-fw-6-1-0-TS22.sprintlink.net (160.81.88.169) 4.322 ms
> sl-gw28-fw-6-1-0-TS12.sprintlink.net (160.81.88.133) 4.315 ms
> 3 sl-bb22-fw-2-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.12.162) 4.869 ms 4.133 ms
> 4.001 ms
> 4 sl-bb25-atl-6-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.8.20) 20.910 ms 20.961 ms
> 20.972 ms
> 5 sl-bb23-atl-14-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.12.1) 30.688 ms 20.920 ms
>
> 20.865 ms
> 6 144.232.8.210 (144.232.8.210) 21.501 ms 31.014 ms 21.179 ms
> 7 bb1-atm-P4-0.atdn.net (66.185.150.0) 21.971 ms 21.480 ms 22.616
> ms
> 8 bb1-cha-P6-0.atdn.net (66.185.152.183) 26.556 ms 26.275 ms 29.865
> ms
> 9 bb1-vie-P12-0.atdn.net (66.185.152.29) 46.841 ms 37.408 ms 37.245
> ms
> 10 bb2-vie-P3-0.atdn.net (66.185.152.207) 37.543 ms 37.149 ms 37.066
> ms
> 11 bb2-nye-P4-0.atdn.net (66.185.152.200) 45.435 ms 43.024 ms 42.894
> ms
> 12 bb2-loh-S1-2-0.atdn.net (66.185.152.140) 110.725 ms 110.535 ms
> 110.456 ms
> 13 pop1-loh-S0-1-0.atdn.net (66.185.136.227) 110.318 ms 113.236 ms
> pop1-loh-S1-1-0.atdn.net (66.185.136.239) 110.895 ms
> 14 accessl1-loh-S0-2-0.atdn.net (66.185.143.198) 111.243 ms 113.222
> ms
> 110.646 ms
> 15 * * *
> 16 rt-lostd06.proxy.aol.com (195.93.17.102) 110.280 ms 139.351 ms
> 131.437 ms
> 17 ACCB2B66.ipt.aol.com (172.203.43.102) 138.179 ms 138.427 ms
> 139.934
> ms
> $ whois ebaymain.com
>
> Whois Server Version 1.3
>
> Domain Name: EBAYMAIN.COM
> Registrar: YESNIC CO. LTD.
> Whois Server: whois.yesnic.com
> Referral URL: http://www.yesnic.com
> Name Server: NS8969.EBAYMAIN.COM
> Name Server: NS1608.EBAYMAIN.COM
> Status: ACTIVE
> Updated Date: 28-jun-2005
> Creation Date: 23-jun-2005
> Expiration Date: 23-jun-2006
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> Queried Domain Information as follows
> -----------------------------------------------
>
> Domain Name : ebaymain.com
>
> ::Registrant::
> Name : Brian J Findlay
> Email : e3baymain@mail.com
> Address : 45B Lazulite Dr.
> Zipcode : Y1A 6A5
> Nation : CA
> Tel : 58621963281
> Fax :
>
> ::Administrative Contact::
> Name : Brian J Findlay
> Email : e3baymain@mail.com
> Address : 45B Lazulite Dr.
> Zipcode : Y1A 6A5
> Nation : CA
> Tel : 58621963281
> Fax :
>
> ::Technical Contact::
> Name : Brian J Findlay
> Email : e3baymain@mail.com
> Address : 45B Lazulite Dr.
> Zipcode : Y1A 6A5
> Nation : CA
> Tel : 58621963281
> Fax :
>
> ::Name Servers::
> ns5994.ebaymain.com
> ns6582.ebaymain.com
>
> ::Dates & Status::
> Created Date 2005-06-23 06:31:22 EDT
> Updated Date 2005-06-23 06:31:22 EDT
> Valid Date 2006-06-23 06:31:22 EDT
> Status ACTIVE
> $ host ebaymain.com
> ebaymain.com has address 172.203.43.102
> $ host 172.203.43.102
> 102.43.203.172.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer ACCB2B66.ipt.aol.com.
>
> [/code]
>
> I am looking forward to seeing this site taken off and hopefully legal
> action pursued against the person that has registered the domain [if he
> is, indeed, the owner of this domain and not the victim of a hack]. eBay
> is also notified of this [this e-mail sent through CC].
>
> Thank you for your time!
>
> Note: original message attached in HTML and plaintext [including
> headers]
> formats [Fwd: Important information for eBay users conformation code
> ¹1568-UQSQLW]
>
>
> --- hypronix <hypronix@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > From hypronix Tue Jun 28 21:43:10 2005
> > X-Apparently-To: hypronix@yahoo.com via 66.218.92.59; Tue, 28 Jun 2005
> > 21:43:10 -0700
> > X-Originating-IP: [66.218.78.164]
> > Return-Path: <hypronix@yahoo.com>
> > Authentication-Results: mta314.mail.scd.yahoo.com
> > from=yahoo.com; domainkeys=pass (ok)
> > Received: from 66.218.78.164 (HELO web40707.mail.yahoo.com)
> > (66.218.78.164)
> > by mta314.mail.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; Tue, 28 Jun 2005 21:43:10
> > -0700
> > Received: (qmail 58238 invoked by uid 60001); 29 Jun 2005 04:43:10
> -0000
> > DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws;
> > s=s1024; d=yahoo.com;
> >
> >
>
h=Message-ID:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding;
> >
> >
>
> > ;
> > Message-ID: <20050629044310.58236.qmail@web40707.mail.yahoo.com>
> > Received: from [70.71.13.135] by web40707.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP;
> Tue,
> > 28 Jun 2005 21:43:10 PDT
> > Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 21:43:10 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: hypronix <hypronix@yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Fwd: Important information for eBay users conformation code
> > ¹1568-UQSQLW
> > To: hypronix <hypronix@yahoo.com>
> > MIME-Version: 1.0
> > Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
> boundary="0-738050629-1120020190=:57405"
> > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> > Content-Length: 2824
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
> > http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail> X-Apparently-To:
> hypronix@yahoo.com via 66.218.92.63; Tue, 28 Jun 2005
> > 19:45:20 -0700
> > X-YahooFilteredBulk: 24.126.238.65
> > X-Originating-IP: [24.126.238.65]
> > Return-Path: <online-team@ebay.com>
> > Authentication-Results: mta196.mail.re2.yahoo.com
> > from=ebay.com; domainkeys=neutral (no sig)
> > Received: from 24.126.238.65 (HELO
> c-24-126-238-65.hsd1.ca.comcast.net)
> > (24.126.238.65)
> > by mta196.mail.re2.yahoo.com with SMTP; Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:45:19
> > -0700
> > Received: from 147.142.106.128 (unknown [23.28.204.176])
> > by paypal.com (Postfix) with SMTP id oXsNhHfmwo
> > for <hypnos3005@yahoo.com>; Tue, 28 Jun 2005 22:40:44 -0500 (EDT)
> > From: onlineteam@ebay.com
> > To: hypnos3005@yahoo.com
> > Subject: Important information for eBay users conformation code
> > ¹1568-UQSQLW
> > MIME-Version: 1.0
> > Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
> > boundary="--797945826003316371"
> > Content-Length: 2179
> >
>
> ---------------------------------
> Dear valued customerNeed Help?
>
> We regret to inform you that your eBay account could be suspended if
> you
> don't re-update your account information. To resolve this problems
> please
> click here and re-enter your account information. If your problems could
> not be resolved your account will be suspended for a period of 3-4 days,
> after this period your account will be terminated.
>
> For the User Agreement, Section 9, we may immediately issue a warning,
> temporarily suspend, indefinitely suspend or terminate your membership
> and
> refuse to provide our services to you if we believe that your actions
> may
> cause financial loss or legal liability for you, our users or us. We may
> also take these actions if we are unable to verify or authenticate any
> information you provide to us.
>
> Due to the suspension of this account, please be advised you are
> prohibited from using eBay in any way. This includes the registering of
> a
> new account. Please note that this suspension does not relieve you of
> your
> agreed-upon obligation to pay any fees you may owe to eBay.
>
> Regards,Safeharbor Department eBay, Inc
> The eBay team.
>
> This is an automatic message. Please do not reply.
> ---------------------------------
>
> Announcements | Register | Safe Trading Tips | Policies |
>
> Feedback Forum | About eBay
>
> Copyright © 1995-2004 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective
> owners.
> Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of the eBay User Agreement
> and
> Privacy Policy.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250

2005-06-23T17:23:00.000-07:00

'NOT ANOTHER ONE! a BLOG! the tragedy, the bandwidth wastage'
'and this thinks he's 1337 or something too... hackd... what the heck is that?'

get over it. no, i'm not the .mil cracker type. no, i'm not the AoL-mounted DDoS attacker type either... hackd is the place where information gets swapped. why 'hackd'? look here and here to see why. break down some of your stereotypes, too. rejoyce!

this thing's editing feature is mildly annoying... Ctrl + [ArrowKey] should not take me to the next or previous song in amaroK... it should jump from word to word :S [look, i've done it again]. at least it's better than trying to delete full words with Ctrl + W in Gaim... you know...

go visit http://rootcontest.smdc-network.org when you have a chance... i'm hypronix... and my box is presently offline... but you can have fun anyway.

cheers!