Sunday, November 27, 2005

Hunting: A Perversion

Hunting is something I cannot tolerate with unless of course the object of hunting are spammers :D. But seriously, even if hunting is legal, hunters in my area break all kinds of laws and have no respect for anything, be that other people, rare animals, nature or the law.

It is forbidden to hunt near houses and yet today about 100 meters away from my house I saw two ruthless hunters who started shooting again and again. This is not the first time something like this happens but they ve never been that close before. Furious I opened my window and shouted out loud at them that here are homes and its not allowed to hunt here, they should go away. But they kept coming towards my house! So I threatend to call the police. At that moment I heard whistles, this is a sign of the forest police. This finally made them run away.

I managed to make a picture of them with my digital camera, but it was as they were leaving, from the back. Next time they come here, I will make so great pictures with my super duper digital camera that can zoom so much, that the faces are clearly visible.

Beware hunters, for I am not afraid of you.

Needless to mention that I consider hunting as a sport an immoral activity. Killing for fun is actually perverse.

Another thing is that the area I live in is on the countryside in the middle of a meadow and about 100 meters from the sea. Very close is a lake that is a protected area due to the rare kind of birds it attracts. The past days arrived some rare and beautiful birds from some other country and the hunters were definetely after them. In such cases one wonders: where is the state? Why doesnt anyone care for the protection of these species and if we, the inhabitants, dont do something about it, none will.

Fantasy

One of the things I really like are fantasy stories with supernatural elements and science fiction. I m not sure if one can relate them together but to me they are all fairy tales :P.

I visited a website with an interesting atmosphere, the design is just superb and the images may have an interesting impact on the visitors. The website looks as if it came out of a book with fairy-tales. I like it.

http://www.duirwaighgallery.com

Webmasters description: A fine art gallery and publisher specializing in mytho-poetic art. Mermaids, Fairies, Dragons and all manner of magic fill our gallery. We carry original sculpture, vintage animation, storybook illustration, fantasy paintings and contemporary doll art.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Everyone blaims the hacker

The law doesnt really like the hackers... Of course there are good hackers and bad hackers. Bad hackers are mainly the professional ones, those hack to get a financial profit out of it. The good guys dont want any money for it, they just do it for the knowledge, they do it for the kick, they just want to see if they are able to discover the security weakness that a system might have. They are after the knowledge, these are the "great scientists", the discoverers, the innovators, the guardian angels of security, the gods of IT. :))

But the law unfortunately does not disciminate among the good and bad guys. You did it, then you are guilty. We dont care why you did it, we dont care what made you do it, you are guilty and there is nothing you can do about it.

What if someone/something provoked you to do it?

Say you visit an unknown island, nobody has ever been there before. There is a city and near the beach you discover something that looks like a house, the door is wide open and you hear a native from the inside talking about you and your book. You see people coming out and going to a bookstore buying your book. Then they return into the house and continue talking about your book. The door is stil open, you know they wont notice you, your book-sales have increased dramatically and you are so curious to find out what they are talking in there!

Slowly you decide to make a step towards the house so that you can listen to them better. Are they loving or are they hating your book? You notice on the door a notice that says "Entrance only to members allowed" but your curiosity is greater than a silly notice and you take another step. You really need to know what kind of consiracy is taking place in there. Now you are IN! You go through some doors, following the light and the voices that keep talking about you. And finally you are in the main room. You mix with all the guests and none notices your presence. What a delight! You enjoy your incognito stay there, listen to all you have to listen and slowly disappear out of the house, without taking or damaging anything.

Just tell me, who would be the criminal one in this hypothetical story!

How to H(a)unt the Spammer - Instructions

I was working on a greek guide about h(a)unting the spammers last night but here is a short one in english. It might look a bit complicated but once you understand the mechanism it gets very easy and fun.

First of all before h(a)unting the spammer we should know some basic stuff about internet.

- A website needs webspace to be online. It needs a WEBHOST.
- A website needs a domain name to be online. It needs a REGISTRANT.

When we get a spam email, usually it says that we should visit a website. So THAT website is the guilty one, that website is responsible for the spamming.

That website enbodies THE SPAMMER himself :)).

Now that we know who the spammer is, all that is left to do is find out who their registrant and host is. Usually the host is more important for the termination of the spammers account. The registrants are slow to reply and sometimes dont even care. Stil, I send spam complaints to both.

How can we find out the host and the registrant?

Its very simple. By making a whois query. This information is public, its no secret and anyone can view it through a whois query. I usually use the Computerbetrug site for my whois queries. Its the best I have found. Its in german but that doesnt matter, the results are in english anyway.

Once we have identified the host and the registrant, all we need to do is send them an email with our complaint. This email should include the original spam email and its FULL HEADERS. The full headers come along with the email. In outlook express all you need to do is highlight the spam email, right click on it, click on properties, click on details, highlight the headers, copy them and paste them into the email.

Here is a picture-guide.




Now I will show an example with the spam email that Indie got HERE .

We identify the spammer as h**p://www.rightvisitor.com/

1. I visit computerbetrug and make a whois query (dont forget to tick the ip whois box, the IP belongs to the WEBHOST, and this will lead us to tracking the webhost)

2. So they have spoofed their contact emails, thats ok. We dont mind. We dont want to contact the domain owner anyway. We want to contact their provider!

3. The ip belongs to ThePlanet.com Internet Services, Inc. so we get the abuse email
abuse(@)theplanet.com this is where our complaint email will go with the full headers and the original spam email.

4. The registrant is enom.com, so lets visit their site and try to get an abuse email in their contact pages. I find this email in their site info(@)enom.com. So our complaint email will go there are well.

Now in Indies case, this is not about email spam, its about blog spam, so we have no original email and headers to send them. But we can send them the link to the spam entry, it should be proof enough.

Any questions? :D



Here is the email I sent:
Subject: Unsolicited email/blog abuse

Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to report a spam send in a blog by one of your clients. The spam is from ***.rightvisitors.com posted in this blog http://indeterminacy.blogspot.com/2005/08/new-delhi-office-was-kept-dark-to-save.html:

"Anonymous said...

Hey, you have a great blog here!


I have a buy targeted web site traffic site. It pretty much covers ##WEBSITE TRAFFIC## related stuff.

Come and check it out if you get time.

I'm new to blogging so sorry if it's not right for your blog.
Hope to see your blog grow.

Thanks again
9:29 PM, October 11, 2005"

Please take the necessary action to prevent spammers from spamming our blogs.

Sincerely

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

H(a)unting the Spammer

Today I was feeling like hunting down some spammers again... ITs a delight to do it. Especially when the spammer is silly enough to have a non-asian host and domain registrant. This way I can get all the abuse emails I want. Amateur spammers are easy to track down and report, the big problem are the professional ones. Another problem I come across often when reporting spammers to their isp and registrants, some registrants (including a german one specifically) just dont care about spamming. They ignore spam complains and keep on offering spammers the freedom to carry out their illegal activities. I wonder if we can report the registrants themself, when they dont take the necessary actions. (?)

Anyway, I have a good feeling about todays ha(u)nting. Sometimes its fun to send the spammer an email and threaten them but... today I thought it will be more fun when their host just shuts down their account. Hehehehehe... I am mean I know. But if you consider the tons of spam we receive, the violation of our privacy, the violation of the laws that take place, and the millions of dollars that these spammers earn in an illegal way, then you are bound to have a thing for them. :))

I have started to make a comprehensive guide about tracking and reporting spammers but I have a problem with the email program, its in german... err and I need it in greek or english. Maybe I should consider installing the english office but oh! I have a greek office in my old pc, I can make screeshots there. Great.

Non-blogged becomes Viruswitch

I ve changed the url of this blog, so some people will have difficulty finding their way back here. The ones who will notice it, please change your links. I will create another blog with the old url, just because I find the name cool :D.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

The Programmers Revenge

This is a hilarious article I discovered today in the dotnet zone forum. It is about how to write code in a way that nobody else will ever be able to maintain it. Even though I am not in the position to judge whether these pieces of advice are really applicable (a real programmer could enlighten us about it), they are written in a very funny way. A must-visit.

How To Write Unmaintainable Code

My favourite part:

"Randomly intersperse two languages (human or computer). If your boss insists you use his language, tell him you can organise your thoughts better in your own language, or, if that does not work, allege linguistic discrimination and threaten to sue your employers for a vast sum"

:))

Monday, November 21, 2005

Humility

I read this in another blog and I dont even remember where. It was a saying going like this "Dont be so humble, you are not that great yet." I am not sure the logics in it are perfect but it is interesting indeed. I d like to comment on it by rephrasing it a bit "Dont pretend to be so humble, you are not that great yet". :D I think this settles the logic in it. :))


Here are some more cool quotes I found:

"Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them."
Abraham Lincoln

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."
Albert Einstein

"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."
Mahatma Ghandi

Sunday, November 20, 2005

The philosophy of Programming

I m currently trying to learn PERL. For a specific reason actually. But this is a secret! No its not something illegal. Its just something original! When its ready I will post it here.

I m basically trying to learn the philosophy of programming. Finally after so many years of aimlessly wondering in the internet trying to understand some things on my own, I am starting to understand what programming is about. I am stil not very comfortable with the way it functions, it will take me a lot of time but I will eventually learn. Right now I know html, css, basics of javascript. I have started to cast freightend glances on php and mysql. My goal is perl, java and python. I think I will be happy then :D. And if I could become an expert in oracle.. and a network administrator... a security advisor... dreaming on...

Is the image gone now?

Seinfeld

One more posting to push the posting with the picture downwards :D that it doesnt spoil the template :D.

I know I wanted to say something but I forgot. Oh! Yes, a friend from Israel send me a couple of cds with "Seinfeld". This is completely hilarious american comedy show. Its very interesting, reminds me a bit of the german "kabbaret" (with 2 t?).

I love Kerio

Kerio is being discontinued and this is a time of mourning for many people who have loved this program like me. Kerio is the only program ever that has managed to make a fanatic out of me.



image created by viruswitch