I really don’t like Cleveland. I have been there a few times on business travel and it always turns into a nightmare. Once I had to walk 10 miles across Cleveland to the airport because the taxi company would not dispatch a taxi.
Every locality has its own odd commercials. In the DC area we have Eastern Automotive which features Redskins Players being thug-like spokesmen for the auto dealership. But those commercials are not as weird as the crazy Cleveland Norton Furniture warehouse guy. And as if living in Cleveland weren’t bad enough, you have to look at this idiot when you watch TV.
Click on the photo above to see Something Awful’s take on this commercial series.
And speaking of dumb commercials, I remember when cable TV had just arrived in Hampton Roads and one of the channels was DC’s channel 20, which featured a dork called “Captain 20″ that would show cartoons in the afternoon. One of the commercials that would air was the “Nobody Bothers Me” commerical for a DC Karate Shop. Enjoy the kooky commercial by clicking the photo below.
I was beginning to get worried. Many bands that win best new artist end up in absolute obscurity or generate really bad follow-up albums. And after “Songs About Jane,” there was nothing new from Maroon 5.
Their new album, “It Won’t Be Soon Before Long” is due out May 22nd. They describe it as “sexier and stronger,” gaining inspiration from 80s icons such as Prince, Michael Jackson and Talking Heads.”
They just released their new video for their single, ”Make me Wonder.” It sounds really catchy, and you can see the video by clicking the photo above. I’ll probably buy the album. I wore out the last album, plus my burned backup copy.
Criminals are generally pretty stupid, but this one sounds like he would have gotten away with it- if it werent for the clues he left in his google search history.
From the AP here:
A bank robbery suspect was arrested after leaving a trail of cyberclues, including an online search for “how not to rob a bank,” police said.
Kevin Fitzpatrick, 32, was arraigned Thursday on charges of robbery and larceny for a Sept. 28, 2005, robbery. He was held on unrelated charges in New York at the time of his arrest.
Police said Fitzpatrick was staying with a woman at the time of the Norwich robbery and spent a great deal of time on her computer. They had met on the Internet and had never met in person when he asked to stay for several days, borrowing her car the day of the robbery and returning with a lot of cash, claiming he won it at the Mohegan Sun casino, police said.
Police say Fitzpatrick walked into a Liberty Bank branch and handed a teller a note demanding money. A week later, a tip led police to the friend, who said she recognized Fitzpatrick from a surveillance photo posted on a newspaper Web site.
Police said when the friend checked the log of her computer, she noticed a search had been conducted for “Norwich bank robbery.” A police search of the computer revealed numerous searches concerning bank robberies.
His Google search for “How not to rob a bank” reveals this humorous list of common mistakes made in bank robberies. Also, the FBI describes bank robbers as:
“most modern-day bank robberies are “unsophisticated and unprofessional crimes,” committed by young male repeat offenders who apparently don’t know the first thing about their business.”
There goes my plans to have porn-based belching.
Lots of organizations are lashing out at ICANN, the group that manages the domains for the internet, for denying a top level domain of XXX for porn sites and smut peddlers. Governments and parent groups said that it would be easier to block these domains for kids. Kids complained that it would be too easy to block access to their porn.
From CNET here:
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has rejected a controversial proposal to create a new .xxx domain suffix for adult Web sites.
ICANN on Friday voted 9-5 to deny an application from ICM Registry, which for the past several years has sought to be the registry for adult content Web sites.
ICANN, which oversees domain names and Internet addresses, decided that ICM’s proposal raised too many public policy concerns and ultimately could change the role of the nonprofit organization.
The meeting minutes and an explanation of the denial is here. If I read it correctly, the reasons are that there was not enough participation and crucial questions about governance, law and other issues went unanswered.
The idea always seemed kinda stupid to me. Somehow the Internet Gods are supposed to corral all of the porn kings into a single black holed domain? Riiiight. As soon as we do that, we will make all the spammers send their email from the domain of .spm so we can filter them too.
If you want to participate in American Justice, you gotta play by American rules, baby. That includes removing your veil if you testify in court. The constitution demands that the accused be allowed to face their accuser in court. This means no masks. No Furry costumes. You can’t wear a paper bag over your head. And you can’t wear a veil.
From the DetroitNews here with a thanks to LGF:
A Muslim woman who was told she had to remove her veil if she wanted to testify in 31st District Court in Hamtrack filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the judge who made the ruling.
Ginnah Muhammad filed the complaint against Judge Paul Paruk, alleging he violated her religious rights and denied her equal access to the courts.
Muhammad had gone to small claims court last October in a dispute with a car rental company when Paruk said she could not testify unless she removed her veil.
“If in fact, you do not wish to do it, then I cannot go forward with your case and I have to dismiss your case,” Paruk told the woman, according to a transcript attached to the complaint. Muhammad refused and Paruk dismissed the case.
Her litigation with Enterprise Rent-A-Car continues, because the car rental company later brought a complaint against Muhammad for alleged damage to a car she rented.
If she wanted to keep the veil on because she’s ugly, then I would understand. Also, what is a Muslim woman doing driving a car? If she wants to pull the Muslim card in court, then she should practice strict islamism everywhere and stay out from behind the steering wheel of a car. No wonder she wrecked it. Can you even see to drive in those things?
You know, I once received a cease and desist letter from the Henson Company because I took Ken Starr’s report and replaced key players in the report with Muppets. They wrongfully claimed that I was infringing on their copyright, but parody of famous people and characters, icons, and ideas are not copyright infringement. Henson died before he could fire those lawyers, I suppose. They quit nagging me about it and I never took the article down.
And maybe its the pain of Jim’s passing that drove Kermit to pick up his guitar on his lily pad and cover Trent Reznor’s Hurt. Sing it Kermit. You are right, its just not the same without Jim. But Dayam Kermit, get some therapy for this awful behavior.
This vids going viral. Click the picture above to see it.
It sucks to be deployed and away from your loved ones. But the new technology is helping to make it just a little easier.
From the AP here:
When it came time for a Minnesota National Guardsman to kiss the bride, she was about 6,000 miles away. But that didn’t matter Wednesday, as Spc. Abraham Rhode and Amanda Hart used video teleconferencing to be joined as husband and wife.
Nationwide, video teleconferencing has been used to virtually bring soldiers home, even if just for a moment, to experience life-changing events such as a child’s graduation, a birth, or a memorial service. Rhode and Hart are among a handful of couples who have opted for long-distance nuptials as the war continues to keep them physically separated.
On her wedding day, Hart wore a knee-length white skirt, a white blazer and strappy white shoes. The 21-year-old carried a mixed bouquet and clutched her father’s arm as she walked into a room at the National Guard armory in Inver Grove Heights. She continued to hold his arm during the ceremony, as her witness stood to her left, and about a dozen family members and friends sat and watched.
She watched Rhode’s image on the video screen. He stood in his combat uniform, with his best man at his side and his hands clasped in front of him. Every now and then he broke into a huge grin.
After Rhode and Hart said their vows, the chaplain said: “You may now blow yourselves a long-distance kiss.”
Here’s to hoping that Abe and Mandi can be reunited soon. You can wish them luck on their wedding page here.
Matt and Trey produced a hilarious South Park last night that lampooned so many things it was hard to keep up. What was mostly a South Park version of the TV show 24 lashed out at muslims, homeland security, internet sleuthing, the British Navy, the Queen of England, and best of all, Hillary.
Hillary was quite prominent in the show, and after five minutes of a normal voice, Hillary sported a twangy fake southern accent for the rest of the show, much like the fake accent she put on recently when she went to a black church in Selma Alabama.
And thanks to the brilliant Internet Sleuthing by Kyle and Cartman, it was discovered that the Russians had, at the behest of the British, placed a nuclear device deep inside the icy depths of Hillary’s snatch. A nuke in the snatch is called a “snuke.” And when one brave secret service agent tried to disarm the device, there was complete carnage.
One of the best episodes- Evah. And I will henceforth refer to Hillary as “The Snuke.”
Hackers who trade credit card and stolen identities online are now communicating with each other over an encrypted chat program called Carder IM.
From Infoworld here:
Hackers have built their own encrypted IM program to shield themselves from law enforcement trying to spy on their communication channels.
The application, called CarderIM, is a sophisticated tool hackers are using to sell information such as credit-card numbers or e-mail addresses, part of an underground economy dealing in financial data, said Andrew Moloney, business director for financial services for RSA, part of EMC Corp., during a presentation at the International e-crime Congress in London on Wednesday.
CarderIM’s logo is humorous: two overlapping half suns in the same red-and-yellow tones as MasterCard International Inc.’s logo. The name, CarderIM, is a reference to the practice of “carding,” or converting stolen credit-card details into cash or goods.
Often, the hackers who obtain credit-card numbers aren’t interested in trying to convert the data into cash. But other people are. On the Internet, the two can meet. But the data buyers and sellers are constantly on the lookout for the “rippers” — security experts or police who are gathering data on them, Moloney said.
“To get ahold of it [CarderIM] you need to be part of one of the trusted groups, which we have agents within,” Moloney said.
Hackers may have needed a more secure IM application, since most of the free ones, such as ICQ, transmit messages in clear text, which can be intercepted, Moloney said.
I’m not familiar with CarderIM, but I suspect that it is an IRC channel that is encrypted, or it is a thin client applet that connects to a remote server using strong authentication. For those that are not criminals and want to use encrypted chat, Skype is available.
As an internet security analyst, one of the tough jobs is determining the intent of an attacking IP address. The intent can often make the difference in the response you wish to apply to prevent damage from an attack. For instance, if the attacking IP is just part of a larger botnet, then it is probably standard reconnaissance of a network, and an active filter probably does not have to be applied to lock out the host. However, if the host keeps coming back and trying newer and more aggressive attacks, you have to lock him out.
There are very few public databases that will provide information on what a specific IP address is doing on the internet. Sans.org has one. But the best by far is the database hosted by MyNetwatchman.com.
MyNetwatchman was invented by Lawrence Baldwin as a simplification tool to a very annoying problem for ISP operators. You see, people who care about attacking IP’s will often send an email to the abuse department. But when a host is infected with a worm or a botnet, that ISP may get dozens of emails about the same problem. The extra emails don’t help- in fact, such a deluge of mail might just get them ignored.
So Baldwin takes correlated attack data from all of his participating members and sends just a single alert to the abuse department. And that data is accurate and is often acted on very quickly. And the responses by the ISP’s to the attacks are published for everyone to see.
The side benefit is that Baldwin also keeps an historical and searchable database that will show if a particular attacking IP has also attacked other people as well. If it has, chances are that the host is a botnet zombie or infected with a worm. And if it does not show up in the history, chances are that the attack is targeted and you should block the offending IP.
So if you are running a personal firewall and want to help put a stop to internet scanning, sign up to be a participant. You just have to be running a compatible firewall.
They released the cover art for the new Harry Potter book, Deathly Hallows. HP still looks like he’s about 12. And he is apparantly in some sort of arena too.
If you havent ordered it yet, click on the picture below. Amazon will guarantee delivery to your mailbox on the date of release.
Below is the whole jacket cover. It looks like Harry and Voldermort are installing window treatments? It matters not. I will still give Rowling my money to read about this last adventure.
My wife and I stayed up late last night and HBO aired a documentary, Montana Meth, which showed the devastating effects of meth use on the young citizens of Montana. It was horrifying. They repeated one statistic that 85% of Montana court cases either deal directly or peripherally with meth use or crimes related to meth.
I’m a bit lucky in that I live in a region of the US where meth doesn’t seem to be a factor. But this drug is wiping out towns of young people. And Native American tribes are particularly worried that this drug may end their ancestral lines.
How bad is it? Bad enough that Montanameth.Org has a series of frightening and realistic television commercials aimed at keeping people from using meth. Their motto is “meth- not even once.” Click on over there and check them all out. Those commercials scared me- and I hope they scare their intended audience too. It makes meth addicts look like zombies! Seriously, the most frightening anti-drug ads ever.
I was the sanitation engineer for the Palestinian Authority. I don’t know what they are complaining about. Looks like an improvement to me. I will blame it on the Jews.
Story from the AP here.
An earth embankment around a sewage reservoir collapsed Tuesday, spewing a river of waste and mud that killed five people and forced residents to flee from a village in the northern Gaza Strip, officials said.
A local Palestinian official blamed the disaster in Umm Naser on shoddy infrastructure, and U.N. officials said they had been warning of a catastrophe for more than two years. The stench of sewage mixed with mud and dead animals filled the air, causing people to cover their mouths.
A 2004 U.N. report warned that the sewage facility was at maximum capacity and flooding was inevitable unless a new waste treatment plant was constructed. It said the effluent lake was a breeding ground for mosquitoes and waterborne diseases, posing a serious health hazard.
To send them to Iraq. I always knew the South was going to rise again, and this time, we are going to kick some Al-Anbar ass! Are we really scraping the bottom of the barrel now that recruitment is at an all time low? And the question remains, however- Are they the best people to send?
This question is answered in the video below from the ONN. Click the picture to play.
And no one is going to take my bag of holding!
Sheesh. It seems that the baby Angelina adopted was in the orphanage because the mom couldn’t afford the 40 dollar hospital bill. And the real mom never signed the adoption papers- only the grandparents did.
From the New Zealand Herald here:
Drug addict mother of Angelina Jolie’s son may want child back
Angelina Jolie’s new adopted child Pax Thien Jolie was the son of a drug addict who may demand he returns to Vietnam, it has been reported.
Heroin-addict Pham Thu Dung reportedly abandoned her son when he was just two days old, and fears are growing she may demand he return to Vietnam.
Angelina, who adopted Pax last week – is said to be worried Dung, 29, could hound her for money or threaten to contest the adoption because the adoption papers were only signed by the tot’s grandparents.
Dung became pregnant following an affair with a married man and gave birth to a dangerously underweight son. Doctors even feared the baby would be born a heroin addict. Dung abandoned Pax as he lay critically ill in hospital because she couldn’t afford the $40 medical bill.
The kid is better off now than before, and there is no question that Angelina Jolie leads celebrities with her generous donations to children’s centers around the world. But didn’t something similar just happen with Madonna? Anyone else sick of seeing spoiled celebrities capturing children as if they were accessories for the latest fashion?
Rapper Snoop Dogg was given the finger when he asked for a visa to play a concert tour in Britain. Millions of British chavs are undoubtedly disappointed.
From the AP here:
Snoop Dogg and Sean “Diddy” Combs were forced to scrap a tour of Britain after authorities denied Dogg a visa, according to a statement Tuesday.
The duo, currently on a European tour, had been expected to play five dates in Britain.
British Home Office rules state that foreign citizens can be barred from entering the country if there were concerns about their presence.
In April 2006, Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, and five other men were arrested on charges of violent disorder and starting a brawl, and spent the night in jail after trouble flared when some in the rapper’s party were denied entry to British Airways’ first-class lounge at Heathrow Airport.
Seven officers received minor injuries — mainly cuts and bruises — and one suffered a fracture to the hand.
Besides, Snoop steals all of the silverware at all of the restaurants he eats at.
Those whacky muslims and their silly beliefs! Not wanting to take any chances with his wife out shopping, one muslim man resorted to a unique way to protect his wife’s honor. He tied crocodiles to her.
From the AP here:
A woman with three crocodiles strapped to her waist was stopped at the Gaza-Egypt border crossing after guards noticed that she looked “strangely fat,” officials said Monday.
The woman’s shape raised suspicions at the Rafah terminal in southern Gaza, and a body search by a female border guard turned up the animals, each about 20 inches long, concealed underneath her loose robe, according to Maria Telleria, spokeswoman for the European observers who run the crossing.
“The woman looked strangely fat. Even though she was veiled and covered, even with so many clothes on there was something strange,” Telleria said.
Or maybe the woman was a virgin and was just taking precautions in case she died. To see what I mean, click on the picture below to see the video.
If phishing is using email bait to lure the unwary into identity theft, then hijacking the web traffic on a domain would be the equivalent of using dynamite in a lake to cause all of the phish to phloat to the top.
Microsoft warned today that their WINS and DNS servers could be used by an attacker to implant a malicious Web Proxy Automatic Discovery file that would cause domains configured to auto-detect proxy settings to shunt all of their traffic through a malicious web proxy.
From Infoworld here:
Microsoft Corp. is warning of an attack that could be used to divert someone’s Web traffic through a malicious proxy server.
Applications such as Internet Explorer use the Web Proxy Automatic Discovery (WPAD) protocol to find a file that enables a browser to configure its proxy settings. However, it’s possible to plant a configuration file that would route traffic through a malicious proxy, the company said.
A malicious WPAD.dat file could be placed in the Domain Name System (DNS) or the Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS), Microsoft said. The client application looks in DNS or WINS to resolve the name of the hosting that has the proxy configuration file.
Once the bad file is there, WPAD clients “may be able to route their Internet traffic through a malicious proxy server,” Microsoft said.
Microsoft details on its support site how administrators can configure DNS and WINS on their servers to help prevent what it calls “malicious registrations” of WPAD files. The fix is for Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Service Pack 4.
One of the goals of most phishing attacks is to record usernames and passwords to online financial sites. Most trojans and botnet zombies already do this. But if an attacker had access to a proxy on a network, he could easily intercept and record the financial credentials of not just a single host, but the whole network. You might see the next generation of botnets employ this new proxy hijacking technique.
I had the pleasure of visiting Fox Meadow Winery on Saturday. The weather was mostly cloudy, but as we climbed in elevation up Freezeland Road, we encountered a dense fog that did not lift for the remainder of the afternoon.
The Syrah was as good as ever and I brought home yet another bottle of this great red wine, but I also got to try to newest red wine, the Freezeland Red. This wine is a semi-sweet red blend that goes well with dry cheeses and fruit.
If you are out on the Blue Ridge Wine Way, you must make this winery a necessary stop.
You have to be really drunk, really stupid, and really bad at thievery to let an owl kill you during a heist.
From Shortnews here:
Workers at the Moscow Zoo made a bizarre and tragic discovery when they found the body of a man wearing only boxer shorts in the owl cage.
The deceased, Alexander Luparev, apparently at some point in the night snuck into the cage of a Siberian long-tailed tawny owl. His clothes were scattered around the cage, and a half-empty litre bottle of vodka was also found.
“The owl is still in a state of shock,” zoo spokeswoman Natalya Istratova said Wednesday. She added that the owl was not eating or drinking and that she feared for its life.
This story mentions that he was a thief. I dunno about the rest of you, but I’m certain I could pummel an owl.
