Does anyone remember the book "Mathematics can be fun" maybe published some 40 years ago which made learning mathematics as a kid absolutely wonderful ? Wonder if Grigori Perelman is of any relation to the author of that book Yu Perelman ?
Mac OS X became what it is, Awesome, (Yes I am one of the die hard Linux fans converted by my new powerbook) only after it assimilated umpteen amount of free software. Infact the Mac OS X is bundled with more than 50% open source code. Even the intuitive GUI that Guber raves so much about is OpenStep clone.
Its not whether its open source or closed source that makes a good software. I know die-hard windows fans who cannot find the right shortcut to do what they want to do many times. Its the attitude of the developers.
But Mac OS X seems to have th right mix of super powerful beast inside but super intuitive GUI outside and this happened with the right blend of engineers, UI designers and their attitudes.
Crossover office was one of the best product that I payed for even thought I did manage to setup wine without it, but it was soooo much easier with crossover !
Why is it okay to have years and years of "free trade" where every country is coaxed, forced, badgered, bombed into succumbing an still when the same free trade by the virtue of its definition turns around in one particular instance there is so much insecurity, so much fear and so much FUD ?
Is it okay to export almost everything you can think of from genetic seeds to WMDs to third world under tremondous pressure but when they can do a small job better than you guys you start screaming bloody murder?
Have you all ever stopped and considered why there is so much terrorism in middle east but why India has grown relatively peaceful (inspite of america's staunch support to the biggest terrorist neighbour of India that it conviniently turns a blind eye to while children are taught to hate america in their early days at holy-schools)?
have you wondered that if you stop looking at the world like the British did, a place to plunder, loot and exploit maybe, just maybe, the terrorism would stop since people will have decent meals to eat and your own kids dont have to get blown into pieces in Iraq so Bush can bask in glory, while he re-defines marriage so he can deny basic rights to half the people ?
Day: The day after the drone helicopter was stolen Location: Drone helicopter project boss' office
Boss: What do you mean the Helicopter is there? Dont you remember where you left it last ? Engineer 1: Err... yes.. I mean, we left it in the pad... you know.. after the joy ride for.... err
your kids yester... Boss: Shut up. So it is not there now ? Engineer 2: Sorry sir, but we checked everywhere, its just not there. Boss: What, you are saying it just flew away on its own ?
I am not sure what this thing was, but its the biggest spyware I have seen. It came installed on my laptop, and even after I installed Linux, it continued to exists. Everytime I forget to press arrow key while bootup, it would boot into this spyware. Once I am there, I am given a illusion that this thing looks very similiar to my Linux system, but everything was slow. There was an ambulance (I think thats what they use for hijacking my laptop) which would keep yelling "Click here to update".
Then it did have something that looked like konqueror and it did show some internet sites. But I couldnt open more than one tabs in it. Also, every 2.5 seconds it used to open up a colourful window offering me stuff I did not want.
Then I got a message saying Cindy wants to talk to me. I didnt want to talk to Cindy, but it kept yelling at me for not saying Hi to Cindy. Cindy was barely wearing any clothes (shudders)
I finally managed to get rid of this spyware, and everytime I think about it I shudder.
Like many websites (including the whois query page at netsol) have the image based passwords. Basically, they are images with some text with a lot of wavy lines and the assumption is that it is hard for programs to do an OCR on them, but easy for humans to read and understand the text.
Just make the bloggers read and re-enter the text in the slightly-obfuscated images before they can enter their comments. If they spent atleast a few minutes composing their article it should not be to hard to type in a few more letters to be allowed to post.
I remember how sharp I was when I was a kid. I know how hard it is to tell kids *anything* because they always come up with the question that puts you in a fix.
Good luck MPAA/RIAA... You are paying to get your ass-kicked by little mites:)
Actually this study doesnt say anything about Gator collecting information other than the websites surfed. The study was motivated by companies wanting to know what ads are pushed when Gator users surfs their website.
What I want is a detailed information of other ways in which Gator is a spyware. For eaxmple this site talks about how Gator blocks the ads on the pages that the user is visiting with their competitors ads, and also how it is bundled with other inncouous software like password helpers etc.
What do we do when someone tries to grab the freedom of speech from us? Everyone who has a website will put up exactly the thing that they dont want us putting out.
It will be even better if we gathered a lot of information after installing gator on a junk PC and backup the logic as to why it is spyware, point by point. Run a TCP sniffer and see what kind of data it collects. Then make a template webpage that everyone can put on their website as a protest.
When hundreds of thousands of these pages pop up all over internet, Gator might come to understand that it is very hard to shut the mouths of citizens of this country, and they just have to let people say what they want.
I will volunteer to do the "review" of Gator, the next time I get a chance to boot into windows. Anyone else game ?
BTW: I am wondering what trouble slashdot will get into because of all the posts saying "Gator is Spyware: YES YES YES" !!!
Its sad that novell dumped their Unix division just when I joined them, and then they are embracing Linux few years after I dumped them:)
That apart, I think if Novell is really serious about Linux and Linux specialists, please do not follow RHCE or any other certification. You should identify what aspects of linux concerns you most. Then identify the contributions made by the concerned parties to this field. Also, IMHO, it is much more sensible to identify specialists with their contributions to the open source community. Redhat certification is very commercialised, and is for people entering Linux to prove their worth to the world. What you are looking at is to identify real specialists, many of who may not even bother to prove themselves to anybody, and their works speak for them.
Identify broad areas such as: Linux Kernel (Accomplished in kernel development) Linux Device (Someone who is a wizard in getting any device working on Linux) Linux Installation (Someone who can troubleshoot all kinds of installation problems,
who knows, redhat, debian, gentoo and what not on the back of their palm) Linux Application (Someone who specialises in applications, KDE/Gnome, etc.) Linux Ultimate (Accomplished in all the areas)
Now come up with different titles such as Specialist, Master, Guru etc. These titles identify the extent of their skills. A Linux Kernel Guru might indicate kernel developer whereas Linux Kernel Specialist might refer to someone who is good at managing patches, troubleshooting the kernel, installing modules etc.
Of course, people who have not contributed to open source should be able to prove themself by either working with Novell on some projects, or by taking some certification exams. I think it is necessary to differentiate the two categories.
Infact if Novell starts a centralised Linux forum to attract newbies and experts to discuss (like linuxquestions.org) it will be easy to identify the gurus by their contributions and newbie testimonials.
Traceroute and Ping work on IP addresses. The DNS lookup happens before the traceroute
or ping packets are initiated. Can you check if you consistently get different result for traceroute
and for ping?
Well here is a start: Whois query for bestportal.biz provides some real information ! (hope its real since its the billing address) Billing Contact ID: 683F97442BA1D1E5 Billing Contact Name: Kura Dwa Billing Contact Organization: - Billing Contact Address1: 258 Madison Ave Billing Contact City: New York Billing Contact Postal Code: 10016 Billing Contact Country: United States Billing Contact Country Code: US Billing Contact Email: bulk@wp.pl
As for pinging the www.removeform.com, looks like I always consistently get 1.1.1.1 both from my linux m/c and a windows pc.
When exactly did you try ? I get the same result for pings, for accesses by a browser and what not. Maybe the DNS does something based in source IP ?
Forgot to put plain text. However I cannot repost the same in plain text since slashdot has some kind of semi-intelligent filter:(
Anyway, my previous post contained the Whois query for bestportal.biz and DNS query for the same domain as of today. But I think DNS query from my linux box consistently gives me 1.1.1.1 whereas the other poster got a valid IP address when they tried accessing www.removeform.com
Rereading the articles it seems so. Well... I am eager to see a few of these domains. I think between the ISP, the domain name registration and DNS provider there is always a way to trace it back to some service provider. Well, this is an interesting problem.
However the other thing I am more interested is that, it looks like the number of home winpcs that are "hijacked" is pretty high. I just heard that my friend who is also a techie who has a windows PC at home found a lot of unidentifiable programs installed. They all seemed to be ad related. It will be nice if someone with a windows PC, lets their system get affected, and trace all the packets coming in, to hack the command format. The we can write a small program to scan home PCs for signatures of being hijacked, and probably re-hijack them, to turn them against their masters !!
Infact tracing the packets controlling these hijacked machines might give a clue about the "real" computers being used for spamming purposes. I am almost wondering if I should buy an old windows PC just for this. But, having a windows m/c in my home? Yuckkkk!
Did anyone here try the sites mentioned in the article: rackshack.net seems to be a static address hosted at ev1.net removeform.com does not even work, since it seems to always point to bestportal.biz which has an IP address of 1.1.1.1 which is not even valid.
HuH? What are they talking about?
Even if they did somehow create cloaked IP address, you can still go after the domain name. The article does not seem to make a lot of sense to me. Some one explain if they found anything real.
Does anyone use the good old 'talk' program anymore? I know it was around for a long long time.
Definitely before 1990. It used to give real-time indication of the other person typing, heck it used
to show what the other person was typing, which most IMs couldnt for years (sigh)
Slashdot Mirror
Does anyone remember the book "Mathematics can be fun" maybe published some 40 years ago
which made learning mathematics as a kid absolutely wonderful ? Wonder if Grigori Perelman
is of any relation to the author of that book Yu Perelman ?
Mac OS X became what it is, Awesome, (Yes I am one of the die hard
Linux fans converted by my new powerbook) only after it assimilated
umpteen amount of free software. Infact the Mac OS X is bundled with more than
50% open source code. Even the intuitive GUI that Guber raves so much about
is OpenStep clone.
Its not whether its open source or closed source that makes a good software. I know
die-hard windows fans who cannot find the right shortcut to do what they want to do
many times. Its the attitude of the developers.
But Mac OS X seems to have th right mix of super powerful beast inside
but super intuitive GUI outside and this happened with the right blend of engineers,
UI designers and their attitudes.
Crossover office was one of the best product that I payed for
even thought I did manage to setup wine without it, but it was
soooo much easier with crossover !
Yeah, you will get back your 0.00 dollars whenever you want,
and you dont even have to uninstall Linux!
Dude, one of these days she is going to figure out that its the exact same noise every day! :)
Did you know that the west learnt that it is best to bathe everyday from Indians and Japanese ?
Why is it okay to have years and years of "free trade" where every country is
coaxed, forced, badgered, bombed into succumbing an still when the same
free trade by the virtue of its definition turns around in one particular instance
there is so much insecurity, so much fear and so much FUD ?
Is it okay to export almost everything you can think of from genetic seeds to WMDs
to third world under tremondous pressure but when they can do a small job
better than you guys you start screaming bloody murder?
Have you all ever stopped and considered why there is so much terrorism in
middle east but why India has grown relatively peaceful (inspite of america's
staunch support to the biggest terrorist neighbour of India that it conviniently
turns a blind eye to while children are taught to hate america in their early
days at holy-schools)?
have you wondered that if you stop looking at the world like the British did,
a place to plunder, loot and exploit maybe, just maybe, the terrorism would
stop since people will have decent meals to eat and your own kids dont
have to get blown into pieces in Iraq so Bush can bask in glory, while
he re-defines marriage so he can deny basic rights to half the people ?
Wake up folks.
After the great predictions of the past (16K memory for all and market for 2 computers)
this is yet another prediction for the future.
Any prediction which is as accurate as 235,396 should be pure baloney!
Probability of finding saddam was inversely proportional to the
time left until the next election.
So this was not a very unexpected outcome!!
Day: The day after the drone helicopter was stolen
.. I mean, we left it in the pad ... you know .. after the joy ride for .... err ...
Location: Drone helicopter project boss' office
Boss: What do you mean the Helicopter is there? Dont you remember where you left it last ?
Engineer 1: Err... yes
your kids yester
Boss: Shut up. So it is not there now ?
Engineer 2: Sorry sir, but we checked everywhere, its just not there.
Boss: What, you are saying it just flew away on its own ?
All: Oh My God !!
> Weatherbug - SLows the computer down and is difficult to install. :)
Isnt that a feature then ??
I am not sure what this thing was, but its the biggest spyware I have seen. It came installed
on my laptop, and even after I installed Linux, it continued to exists. Everytime I forget to press
arrow key while bootup, it would boot into this spyware. Once I am there, I am given a illusion that
this thing looks very similiar to my Linux system, but everything was slow. There was an ambulance
(I think thats what they use for hijacking my laptop) which would keep yelling "Click here to update".
Then it did have something that looked like konqueror and it did show some internet sites. But I couldnt
open more than one tabs in it. Also, every 2.5 seconds it used to open up a colourful window offering
me stuff I did not want.
Then I got a message saying Cindy wants to talk to me. I didnt want to talk to Cindy, but it kept yelling
at me for not saying Hi to Cindy. Cindy was barely wearing any clothes (shudders)
I finally managed to get rid of this spyware, and everytime I think about it I shudder.
Like many websites (including the whois query page at netsol) have the image
based passwords. Basically, they are images with some text with a lot of wavy lines
and the assumption is that it is hard for programs to do an OCR on them, but easy for
humans to read and understand the text.
Just make the bloggers read and re-enter the text in the slightly-obfuscated images before they
can enter their comments. If they spent atleast a few minutes composing their article
it should not be to hard to type in a few more letters to be allowed to post.
I remember how sharp I was when I was a kid. I know how hard it is to tell kids *anything*
... You are paying to get your ass-kicked by little mites :)
because they always come up with the question that puts you in a fix.
Good luck MPAA/RIAA
Actually this study doesnt say anything about Gator collecting information
other than the websites surfed. The study was motivated by companies
wanting to know what ads are pushed when Gator users surfs their website.
What I want is a detailed information of other ways in which Gator is a spyware.
For eaxmple this
site
talks about how Gator blocks the ads on the pages that the user is visiting with their
competitors ads, and also how it is bundled with other inncouous software
like password helpers etc.
Actually their website says you need to install as Administrator. Wow! Wonder why ...
What do we do when someone tries to grab the freedom of speech from us?
Everyone who has a website will put up exactly the thing that they dont want us putting out.
It will be even better if we gathered a lot of information after installing gator on a junk PC
and backup the logic as to why it is spyware, point by point. Run a TCP sniffer and see
what kind of data it collects. Then make a template webpage that everyone can put on their
website as a protest.
When hundreds of thousands of these pages pop up all over internet, Gator might
come to understand that it is very hard to shut the mouths of citizens of this country,
and they just have to let people say what they want.
I will volunteer to do the "review" of Gator, the next time I get a chance to boot into windows.
Anyone else game ?
BTW: I am wondering what trouble slashdot will get into because of all the posts
saying "Gator is Spyware: YES YES YES" !!!
Haha
Its sad that novell dumped their Unix division just when I joined them, and then :)
they are embracing Linux few years after I dumped them
That apart, I think if Novell is really serious about Linux and Linux specialists, please
do not follow RHCE or any other certification. You should identify what aspects
of linux concerns you most. Then identify the contributions made by the concerned
parties to this field. Also, IMHO, it is much more sensible to identify specialists with
their contributions to the open source community. Redhat certification is very
commercialised, and is for people entering Linux to prove their worth to the world.
What you are looking at is to identify real specialists, many of who may not even bother
to prove themselves to anybody, and their works speak for them.
Identify broad areas such as:
Linux Kernel (Accomplished in kernel development)
Linux Device (Someone who is a wizard in getting any device working on Linux)
Linux Installation (Someone who can troubleshoot all kinds of installation problems,
who knows, redhat, debian, gentoo and what not on the back of their palm)
Linux Application (Someone who specialises in applications, KDE/Gnome, etc.)
Linux Ultimate (Accomplished in all the areas)
Now come up with different titles such as Specialist, Master, Guru etc. These titles identify the
extent of their skills. A Linux Kernel Guru might indicate kernel developer whereas Linux Kernel Specialist
might refer to someone who is good at managing patches, troubleshooting the kernel, installing modules etc.
Of course, people who have not contributed to open source should be able to prove themself by either
working with Novell on some projects, or by taking some certification exams. I think it is necessary to differentiate the two categories.
Infact if Novell starts a centralised Linux forum to attract newbies and experts to discuss (like linuxquestions.org) it will be easy to identify the gurus by their contributions and newbie testimonials.
Hope this helps.
Traceroute and Ping work on IP addresses. The DNS lookup happens before the traceroute or ping packets are initiated. Can you check if you consistently get different result for traceroute and for ping?
Well here is a start: Whois query for bestportal.biz provides some real information !
(hope its real since its the billing address)
Billing Contact ID: 683F97442BA1D1E5
Billing Contact Name: Kura Dwa
Billing Contact Organization: -
Billing Contact Address1: 258 Madison Ave
Billing Contact City: New York
Billing Contact Postal Code: 10016
Billing Contact Country: United States
Billing Contact Country Code: US
Billing Contact Email: bulk@wp.pl
As for pinging the www.removeform.com, looks like I always consistently get 1.1.1.1 both from my linux m/c
and a windows pc.
When exactly did you try ? I get the same result for pings, for accesses by a browser and what not.
Maybe the DNS does something based in source IP ?
Forgot to put plain text. However I cannot repost the same :(
:)
in plain text since slashdot has some kind of semi-intelligent filter
Anyway, my previous post contained the Whois query for bestportal.biz and DNS query for the same domain as of today. But I think DNS query from my linux box consistently gives me 1.1.1.1 whereas the other poster
got a valid IP address when they tried accessing www.removeform.com
Needs more investigation
Actually, look at the previous post and the current DNS query output below. Looks like name-services has kinda a screwed this domain ! BTW, another clue here is the domain registration for bestportal.biz: Billing Contact ID: 683F97442BA1D1E5 Billing Contact Name: Kura Dwa Billing Contact Organization: - Billing Contact Address1: 258 Madison Ave Billing Contact City: New York Billing Contact Postal Code: 10016 Billing Contact Country: United States Billing Contact Country Code: US Billing Contact Email: bulk@wp.pl > server dns1.name-services.com Default server: dns1.name-services.com Address: 63.251.163.102#53 > bestportal.biz Server: dns1.name-services.com Address: 63.251.163.102#53 bestportal.biz nameserver = dns1.name-services.com. bestportal.biz nameserver = dns2.name-services.com. bestportal.biz nameserver = dns3.name-services.com. bestportal.biz nameserver = dns4.name-services.com. bestportal.biz nameserver = dns5.name-services.com. > set type=any > bestportal.biz Server: dns1.name-services.com Address: 63.251.163.102#53 Name: bestportal.biz Address: 1.1.1.1 bestportal.biz origin = dns1.name-services.com mail addr = info.name-services.com serial = 2002050701 refresh = 3600 retry = 120 expire = 86400 minimum = 3600 bestportal.biz nameserver = dns1.name-services.com. bestportal.biz nameserver = dns2.name-services.com. bestportal.biz nameserver = dns3.name-services.com. bestportal.biz nameserver = dns4.name-services.com. bestportal.biz nameserver = dns5.name-services.com.
Rereading the articles it seems so. Well ... I am eager to see a few of these domains.
I think between the ISP, the domain name registration and DNS provider there is always a
way to trace it back to some service provider. Well, this is an interesting problem.
However the other thing I am more interested is that, it looks like the number of home winpcs that
are "hijacked" is pretty high. I just heard that my friend who is also a techie who has a windows PC at home
found a lot of unidentifiable programs installed. They all seemed to be ad related. It will be nice
if someone with a windows PC, lets their system get affected, and trace all the packets coming in,
to hack the command format. The we can write a small program to scan home PCs for signatures
of being hijacked, and probably re-hijack them, to turn them against their masters !!
Infact tracing the packets controlling these hijacked machines might give a clue about the "real" computers
being used for spamming purposes. I am almost wondering if I should buy an old windows PC just for this.
But, having a windows m/c in my home? Yuckkkk!
Did anyone here try the sites mentioned in the article:
rackshack.net seems to be a static address hosted at ev1.net
removeform.com does not even work, since it seems to always point to
bestportal.biz which has an IP address of 1.1.1.1 which is not even valid.
HuH? What are they talking about?
Even if they did somehow create cloaked IP address, you can still go after the domain name.
The article does not seem to make a lot of sense to me. Some one explain if they found anything
real.
Does anyone use the good old 'talk' program anymore? I know it was around for a long long time. Definitely before 1990. It used to give real-time indication of the other person typing, heck it used to show what the other person was typing, which most IMs couldnt for years (sigh)