Hack Saw Seen

Hitler's Mustache                Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July “ The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by a security partner that will inform them whether they're infected -- and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the Internet. To check and clean computers, try: www.dcwg.org During which time democrats will have won the November elections.

The password you selected, 'penis,' is too short

‘fhxGH5h’  Ain’t Close To Being A Safe Password Anymore   Cheap GPUs are rendering strong passwords useless

“ The results are startling. Working against NTLM login passwords, a password of “fjR8n” can be broken on the CPU in 24 seconds, at a rate of 9.8 million password guesses per second. On the GPU, it takes less than a second at a rate of 3.3 billion passwords per second.     Increase the password to 6 characters (pYDbL6), and the CPU takes 1 hour 30 minutes versus only four seconds on the GPU. Go further to 7 characters (fh0GH5h), and the CPU would grind along for 4 days, versus a frankly worrying 17 minutes 30 seconds for the GPU. It gets worse. ” All of which generates comments like — “   It is 57 years to crack all 10-char printable ASCII passwords with 4×5970 (95**10/33.1e9/3600/24/365.25 = 57.3 years). Actually a real attack would take less than 9 years, because one must take into account GPU performance doubling every 1.5 years. ” I'm filing this in the "If someone wants to break into your house badly enough, they will"  folder. But, sign me: Trllknffr&)nce2}} via DVORAK

Lisa Moon Virus

Lisa Moon - EAT ME!

Marc Miller sent me this link in an e-mail last week.  As it happened, I had just minutes before run up against something that looked like Lisa Moon.  It just now hapopened again. I know better than to click the RED X , or "OK," so I attempted to close the tab.  Nuh-uh.  I tried closing the browser.  Nuh-uh.  What I do in this situation is right click on the bottom of the screen and select "Start Task Manager." Highlite the browser and click "End Task."  Poof, it's closed in a flash (this is handy for programs that freeze up, too). When you restart (I use Firefox) it may ask do you want to restore last session?  NO! Start fresh. My wife doesn't want to hear all this rigmarole, so I told her to turn of f the computer and re-boot. I'm sure others have solutions of their own, but this works for me. I would dearly love it if we devoted ¼ of the resources we spend trying to find (the prolly dead) Osama bin Laden, and went after these guys.  And killed them.

Vexations

Morning Announcements & Roll Call

Since I never bother you with my own computer prollems, preferring instead to suffer in silence (ahem) , I didn't tell you that MoSup's computer crashed last week and I spent all weekend reconstructing her non-backed up system, which job to back-up was mine.  Everything running smoothly except I cannot get her Verizon e-mail to send (it receives) using Thunderbird and I just spent all morning working on that without success instead of rabble rousing against Obamunists or otherwise being useful.  Just so you know. On the subject of stuff not working - Jamie McD is at wits end because he can't post comments on this site.  It would not be unreasonable for him to conclude that I had for some reason blocked him, and he did wonder that, but in 9 years of C&S I have blocked just one person.  Yoeman Commodore JMcD is a valued Barn Army friend, and I continue to search for reasons.  Unless of course ... wait.  Maybe JMcD was captured on his last mission (to find e-Claire went missing while looking for Linda SOG) and this is a Taliban trick to get Barn Army information.  JMcD - answer if you can.  If  you're being held captive say something like "mmrnpoohhh". This memo is Eyes Only

Criminal Bots

So, Who's Really In Charge?

In Case You Don't Have Enough To Worry About

“ ... Some attacks are driven by revenge as well as financial gain. Last year, a noted Russian spammer nicknamed PharmaMaster – he usually advertises pharmaceuticals – felt his business was endangered by a Silicon Valley anti-spam startup named Blue Security. PharmaMaster initiated an attack that crippled Blue Security’s Web site. The firm countered by placing information about the attack on its corporate blog, hosted by popular blog site TypePad, owned by Six Apart Ltd. PharmaMaster then hired a bot herder to conduct a denial-of-service attack that shut down all of Six Apart’s blogs, including those hosted on its Typepad.com service. Eventually, Blue Security surrendered and got out of the business of anti-spam software. “PharmaMaster paid $1 million to take out Blue Security,” or about $2,000 an hour for the attack, said Schiller, the Portland State professor. “But (PharmaMaster) was making $3 million a month, so it was worth it.” At the time, security experts said the Blue Security attack was so severe that only a few of the world’s largest corporations would have been able to withstand it. Given the power that the bot herders wield, questions inevitably arise about whether terrorists are behind such crimes. There is no clear answer, and security experts are divided on the issue. Terrorism link? [Full WHO'S BEHIND CRIMINAL BOT NETWORKS?] ”