I can't believe that came from your mouth!
Cyber
All-things related to Cyber Security
6.66 Million Hits for the Digital Nativity
Dec 25th
Almost 7 Million people have already seen this awesome modern version of the birth of Christ. It is fantastic and sums up so much of what I do every day on the Internet too. Well, except for the farmville stuff.
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Loading ...Tron Preproduction Shot
Dec 24th
My father-in-law gave me a copy of Disney’s NewsReel- an internal employees newsletter and it featured the new Tron movie. What I found to be the best part was this single page talking about Bruce Boxleitner’s preproduction shot- and how the original Tron costume was hanging on a rack in the wardrobe department on the Studio Lot for more than 20 years before someone recognized it.
And the data disk? Just a Wham-O Frisbee.
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How Vista Sees the World
Dec 22nd
I have a list of User-Agent strings I’m reviewing that I collected at a client site. I’m trying to normalize and classify each of them for a project at work, and I ran across this one- User-Agent: microsoft ncsi
It was the 65th most popular user agent string generated in a large enterprise environment where a web browser or Operating System wasn’t identified. We are still talking about a thousand or so hits on this particular string. I’d never really heard of it and began to do some research.
That little globe icon that shows up whenever you have an Internet connection in Vista or Windows Server 2008? That is what happens when the NCSI, or Network Connectivity Status Indicator service on these operating systems work. Simply put, your host, upon sensing network connectivity will attempt to resolve DNS to “msftncsi.com” and then do a get request with the user-agent string above to a popular text file on that site. You can browse to it yourself by clicking http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt
If Vista can see that text file, it posts the little globe over your network status icon. So.. is that cool or gay? I’m thinking gay.
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FourSquare Fail Girl’s Name
Dec 22nd
When Foursquare goes offline or is overburdened, they post an apologetic page saying they are having troubles. Similar to Twitter’s Fail Whale is this dour looking detrhroned mayor. But what is her name?
I’ve seen a couple of good ones to call her-
- The Grr Girl
- The Pouty Princess
- Failsquare Fran
- The Mopey Mayor
- Mayor of Failville
- Mayor of Misery
- Mayor of DateRape
- Princess Diana
For you Foursquare Fans, what would you call her?
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Why You Are Always in the Slow Line
Dec 22nd
Christmas shopping can be tough- elbowing your way past clusters of women scrambling to get the latest hot toy or an item on sale. But the final indignation is trying to check out- and picking what you think to be the fastest line. You check the items people are purchasing preferring to get behind an emptier shopping basket than a full one, and if they have a credit card rather than a checkbook in hand, you probably think you might be able to identify the fast line. But is it really? And what do telephones have to do with long lines at the cashiers? Science can help!
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Help Desk Motivation
Dec 13th
Just what every IT supervisor needs:
Thanks to [GAS]
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...NASA Throws Away Hard Drives
Dec 8th
So NASA got into some trouble over data leakage. Turns out they just throw away their old hard drives rather than degaussing them. Not a smart move. This photo is from the OIG report on the incident.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Dallas News Finally Gets With the Social Media Craze
Dec 5th
With newspapers getting pushed out of business by the Internet, local TV affiliates are jumping on the social media bandwagon. Check out a sample newscast from Dallas Texas affiliate KDFW3:
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Pirate Bay Admins Lose Appeal, Now to Owe Higher Fines
Nov 27th
Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundstrom of the Pirate Bay Torrent Tracker site will now have to each pay the RIAA and MPAA about 6.5 million dollars. They lost their appeal in Swedish court and the judge stuck them with a higher fine in exchange for less jail time. They will still face about four to ten months in prison. They should be thankful they don’t still hang pirates.
From Wired here:
Three of the admins behind The Pirate Bay are all still guilty, a Swedish appeals court decided on Friday, but their jail time has been reduced. Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundstrom’s prison sentences have all been reduced from the original one year to between 4 and 10 months each, though the trade-off is an increase in damages that they must pay to the music and movie industries.
The Swedish district court found four of the Pirate Bay members guilty of assisting copyright infringement in April of 2009, despite the fact that the site never hosted any of the files being shared. The four were sentenced to a year in prison each plus a shared 30 million kronor fine ($4.26 million at today’s conversion rates).
Now, three of the four will be able to get out of jail early—but their shared fine has been bumped up to 46 million kroner (just over $6.5 million). That’s still lower than the 117 million kronor fine initially sought by content owners, but definitely nothing to sneeze at.
And Sunde is still being defiant, planning to appeal to the Supreme court. Do you think they will be able to ask torrent users to help them pay their fine? That would be like they had bought the music after all, but I somehow don’t think anyone will donate money to help them out.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...The Angry Birds Peace Treaty
Nov 22nd
I am a huge Angry Birds fan. I have burned up hours of play time in airports and spare time getting my three stars on all levels and unlocking the hidden eggs. At long last, however, the pigs and the birds have set down at the table to end their mutual hostilities.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Hilarious Google Reviews of Area 51
Nov 22nd
Thinking of hiding out in the desert to look for Aliens? Not too sure what to expect in terms of staffing and accomodations? Will you get breakfast? Google’s Reviews can help!
From GoogleMaps here:
Nov 21, 2010 FANTASTIC. THE BEST VACATION SPOT FOR ANY UNDOCUMENTED NON-HUMAN. STAFF IS KIND AND WILL NOT DISSECT YOU. IN FACT, THE COMPLEX IS SO SAFE THAT YOU’RE BETTER OFF LEAVING ALL DEFENSIVE EQUIPMENT AT HOME–OR DEACTIVATED IN YOUR UNLOCKED VEHICLE, WITH THE OPERATING MANUAL NEARBY. AREA IS SO SAFE THAT YOU COULD LEAVE YOUR UNLOCKED VEHICLE UNCLOAKED AND EASILY ACCESSIBLE TO TWO METER TALL LIFE FORMS IN PROTECTIVE GEAR. IT IS REALLY SO SAFE THAT I RECOMMEND LEAVING YOUR LAUNCH KEY OR IGNITION MODULE IN THE NAV CONSOLE. JUST LEAVE THE ENGINE RUNNING WHILE YOU’RE AT IT. I ALSO HEARD THERE IS A DISCOUNT IF YOU BRING ANY OFFSPRING OR COMPANIONS WHO EXHIBIT DIFFERENT PHENOTYPE TRAITS THAN YOURSELF. THEY WILL NOT BE DISSECTED TO COMPARE GENETIC DIVERSITY IN YOUR SPECIES. I CANNOT WAIT TO VISIT AGAIN. THIS IS POSSIBLE BECAUSE I AM ALIVE AND NOT DISSECTED WITH MY ORGANS ON DISPLAY IN A RESEARCH COMPOUND.
Nov 21, 2010 Whatever you do, do not write a negative review of this place while staying there. Turns out, they totally know what Hotels.com is, and they will not hesitate to impregnate you with a predalien.
Nov 21, 2010 I came here as a recommendation from techcorner dot com. They recommended it because the people were friendly. Only problem was that they did not let me leave. 6 out of 16 people found this review helpful.
Nov 21, 2010 I would give a good rating but I don’t remember my visit. 37 out of 41 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful?
Nov 21, 2010 Great hotel, great resort. Best holidays with ET ever 1 out of 13 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful?
Nov 20, 2010 I came here in response to an intergalactic ad promising a “Mork and Mindy” lifestyle. The ad is total BS. The summers are unbearable, the welcome committee favors anal probing, and I still can’t find Kevin OR my spaceship. Worst trip evar.
Nov 14, 2010 Poor customer service. I came here for a summer holiday with the kids, planning to tour the area, along with a few weeks in las vegas; but upon arrival to the area we were “Greeted” by about 20 armed men and a strange lump that appeared to be Hillary Clinton. They were NOT very polite and threatened to kill us! We demanded that we be shown to our room but were disgusted to find that it had already been taken… This ruined our holiday, and I am confident to say that I’m never returning here again… Strongly NOT RECCOMENDED.
Nov 14, 2010 Spaceship TOWED Never park your spaceship nearby. I had a permit (and was legally parked), and they still towed! Not only that, but they refused to return it to me. Now I have no way to get back to my native planet Xenu. Not only that, but now I have to use my remote plasma impulse communicator to tell my friend Nom-Nark, and minutes are VERY expensive in this quadrant. Absolutely ridiculous.
Crossing this destination off my vacation list.
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Cyber Lefty Jailed for Bill O’Reilly DDoS Attack
Nov 9th
An idiot hacker wannabe acquired access to a botnet to shutdown Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter and Rudy Giuliani’s websites back in 2007. He also shutdown his own school in a clumsy attack that ultimately led to his arrest. Why was he so stupid? Smoking Dope methinks.
From NetworkWorld here:
Mitchell Frost, a 23-year-old Bellevue, Ohio, man has been sentenced to 30 months in prison following a 2007 online crime spree in which he used a network of hacked computers to attack and knock offline websites belonging to conservative pundits Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter.
Mitchell Frost must also pay US$40,000 in restitution to O’Reilly and $10,000 to the University of Akron, where he was enrolled at the time of the hacking.
He used the school’s computer network to control a botnet he’d built up between August 2006 and March 2007, and launched denial of service (DOS) attacks against Rudy Giuliani’s Joinrudy2008.com website, Billoreilly.com and Anncoulter.com.
The University of Akron was disrupted too, when Frost knocked its network offline for eight-and-a-half hours while trying to DOS-attack a gaming server hosted by the university. That happened on March 14, 2007. Frost’s dorm room was raided two weeks later.
Frost set up the Discountjwh.com website earlier this year after quitting his job as a Stanley Steemer carpet cleaning technician. JWH is a form of synthetic cannabis that is legal for sale in some U.S. states, including Ohio.
Stupid lefty. Put down the bong and realize that people have free speech in this country. You can’t even get a job with Stanley Steemer these days with a college credit in Ohio. LOL
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Symantec to Break Up After Gobbling Acquisitions?
Nov 8th
After Symantec blew 10 Billion dollars plus a Billion in back taxes on bloatware Veritas, their stock has been on the floor. Despite numerous subsequent acquisitions, Symantec hasn’t been able to move their stock. Now a block of “activist” shareholders is trying to get the company to eject Veritas in the hopes that their stocks will come back up.
From the NYPost here:
Computer-security software firm Symantec may have to field calls for a breakup of the company. According to one source, activist shareholders have been scooping up shares of Symantec — the maker of Norton antivirus software — and may pressure the company to split up.
Symantec may spin off units because the outright sale of a division would result in a big tax hit, adding that the expectation would be that suitors would buy these divisions within a year of being spun out.
Symantec is seen as vulnerable after it struggled with the integration of storage maker Veritas Software, which it acquired for $10.5 billion in 2005.
Spin off Veritas and stick its buyer with the taxes. Symantec has certainly struggled after the acquisition of Veritas which may be one of the biggest business blunders. At least they weren’t as bad as Time Warner buying AOL.
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How the Web Browser Works
Nov 8th
A geeky cartoon here shows how a web browsers work.
Thanks to FMLFTW for the graphic.
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People Dump Their Girlfriends 2 Weeks Before Xmas
Nov 3rd
Someone mined the Facebook for breakups and put this chart together. As it turns out, two weeks before Christmas and Spring Break is the time when most relationships get daggered.
I think it would have been better if they had split it among the sexes. More details on the background of this graph is here at Mashable.
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Awesome SteamPunk Cyborg Ribcage Tattoo
Nov 1st
Not a huge fan of ink on women. But THIS. Hubba. Hubba. WOW.
You can see more here at Buzzfeed.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Farmville Makes Woman Kill Her Baby
Oct 28th
Alexandra Tobias was so hooked on the gayest online game ever, Farmville, that she throttled her infant child to death because her crying was interrupting the incredible action of this farming game.
From Jacksonville here:
A Jacksonville mother charged with shaking her baby to death has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
Alexandra V. Tobias, 22, was arrested after the January death of 3-month-old Dylan Lee Edmondson. She told investigators she became angry because the baby was crying while she was playing a computer game called FarmVille on the Facebook social-networking website.
Do they have Farmville in jail? I know that a bunch of giant lesbians will be trying to pick this little girl’s tomatoes ifyaknowwhutImean.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...LimeWire Shuttered by the Feds
Oct 27th
You can’t provide a service to anonymous users with the intention that it should be used to steal copyrighted data. You just can’t because number one, its wrong and B), the copyright holders eventually win and this happens:
From the WSJ here:
Popular file-sharing website LimeWire has been ordered to permanently shut down six months after a federal judge found it liable for copyright infringement on a “massive scale.”
In an order Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood in Manhattan entered a permanent injunction, ordering the service to disable the searching, downloading, uploading or file trading of its software and to block the sharing of unauthorized music files.
In May, the judge found that LimeWire had violated copyright laws and induced users to infringe on copyrights. She also found Mark Gorton, LimeWire’s founder, personally liable.
The RIAA said the court will conduct a trial in January to determine damages.
On its website, LimeWire posted a notice that said it was under court order to stop distributing and supporting its software. “Downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorization is illegal,” the notice said.
After what happened to Napster back in the early 00′s I can’t imagine why anyone would remain in the P2P filesharing software business. The legal liabilities were clear, yet Mark Gorton took that gamble. It will bankrupt him now. And yet if he had focused instead on working with recording companies to price music competitively he could have become immensely wealthy. Look at Napster now and more obvious, iTunes. Music is obviously widely available and people are more than willing to pay for it if its good. Had Limewire become a legitimate music purchasing service instead of a free-for-all where people traded viruses, porn, copyrighted programs and music, Gorton could have been an industry giant.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Firesheep Will Force Secure Credentials
Oct 26th
Firesheep is a Firefox browser plugin that allows users to sniff the browser cookies of other users on a wireless network. Then at the click of a button you can log yourself in to those users’ accounts as them.
From Codebutter here:
Websites have a responsibility to protect the people who depend on their services. They’ve been ignoring this responsibility for too long, and it’s time for everyone to demand a more secure web. My hope is that Firesheep will help the users win.
This is a gamechanger. Now that common web applications like google and facebook are so open to hijacking, web developers will be forced to secure credentials and user settings. Firesheep will accomplish it’s task: propelling the next step of Internet security. There have been hundreds of thousands of downloads of Firesheep already. I would avoid using wireless hotspots to check facebook, google, or twitter if you aren’t certain about that network’s level of security.
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Anonymous Versus the Kiss Army
Oct 19th
Gene Simmons seems to have invited the wrath of Anonymous after saying that musicians should be extra litigious, suing the pants off of every kid who downloads the music illegally.
From Tom’sGuide here:
KISS front man Gene Simmons made headlines recently when he said the music industry fell asleep at the wheel when it came to P2P networks and the advent of file sharing. Speaking at MIPCOM, Simmons said the right way to deal with filesharing would have been to sue the pants off of every “fresh-faced, freckle-faced college kid who downloaded material.” Simmons also said that, in order to save their brands, people needed to be ruthless and stop at nothing to make sure their content is protected.
“Make sure your brand is protected,” he said. “Make sure there are no incursions. Be litigious. Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars. Don’t let anybody cross that line.”
Anonymous added Gene Simmons to the list of victims of Operation Payback, the DDoS attacks carried out by skiddies and music pirates against those who try to enforce their property rights. Gene said that he is in touch with the FBI and is working to get the cyber attackers jailed, which only makes Anonymous giggle.
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