* Posts by Timothy Tuck

14 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Apr 2007

Security audit finds dev outsourced his job to China to goof off at work

Timothy Tuck
Joke

Now on to the second best programmer in the company

I am betting it might be time to go check Alice's machine next, since she was the number 2 programmer I am betting her and Bob have been communicating between each other and nobody knows about it yet.

Or maybe Bob is Alice, or Alice is Bob

Maybe neither of the really exist? lol

Ghost in the machine?

Timothy Tuck
Pint

brilliant

have to love it, probably violated many of his hiring terms and NDA's but hey you do have to admit it has a ring of brilliance to it.

Bitcoin slump follows senators’ threats

Timothy Tuck
Thumb Up

Senators threatening bitcoins? interesting...

Knowing that the Government is putting an eye on it does tell me something though, and its not about drugs. Although the fact they were trying to use bitcoins to run this online drugmart is interesting and novel at best. The real interesting part, Its about the fact that something is out there that they have zero control over could have the potential to be a threat to the establishment.

Now that is interesting.

Face it, The current system of Central Banks that regardless of what everything thinks, are owned and controlled by a very small group of the worlds wealthiest people. The fact that we might have a new currency that they would not have control over could be a threat? well now that is good news!

I think we all need to face up to the facts. That fact is that our current Monetary based systems do nothing for anybody accept for those who run them. If we do not find a way to break free of this control we at least need to come to terms with the reality that we are enslaved by those who control this monetary system. This is true for virtually every country without exception.

Last thing they want is for us to be able to trade goods and services with something they can not control. This little bit of knowledge shows that there is in fact a vulnerability to their system of enslavement we call debt. It only makes sense that it is now to be grouped in with the drug trade so it can be the next evil scourge they must protect us from.

While I have read up on bitcoin I never truly felt it had enough merit that I would accept it as a form of payment. Reading this article is forcing me to rethink this little bit. I prefer direct barter though over all other forms of payment as long as its an equitable trade. Getting the Banksters where it really hurts though? well might be worth it just to try although the fact people are trying to sell drugs with it and online no less kind of hurts my faith in mankind only because nothing we do online is untraceable. You have to admit trying to built out a amazon.com of the illegal drug trade online is incredibly ballsy move, regardless.

Kudo's to those behind it if for no other reason than it shakes the establishment and we really need to rethink this whole Government Concept a bit more before we are all behind bars.

While I don't have much use for anything drug related I admit that I love a good disruptive technology and how they can reshape out current paradigms.

Windows 7 gets the Star Wars treatment

Timothy Tuck
FAIL

Wow, so impressed

That is by far the gayest shit I have ever seen, And i live across the bay from San Francisco!

Hey, its seriously that gay, I give it 2 SNAPs!

Feds want backdoors built into VoIP and email

Timothy Tuck
Grenade

Fear the Terrorists, they are very real!!

Sadly from all information available on the subject....There is in fact a very large contingent of "sleeper cells in america"

In fact the biggest Terrorists are our elected US officials. So I say we start there first. No more secret votes, no more secret meetings, no more secrets... PERIOD!

If you are considering running for any office. You will agree to 24 hour monitoring by your masters, the US voters.

So every phone call they make, every email the send... EVERY time they fart. WE MUST KNOW!

If they want to see everything we do, it shall only be AFTER we know everything they do and all they HAVE done.

State Secrets????

No room for secrets here, I say it's high times we turn the constitution into what it was designed to be. If its not explicitly called out in there you lose it. So every law that has been written needs to re re-examined. And if its in violation of any part of the Constitution, then whoever wrote it, amended it and or voted for it is most likely a TERRORIST! Lets get them onto the no-fly list and start there.

I imagine this might be a bit unpopular, but if your not with us, your against us and from all the information out there, it appears as if the people in office are the ones who have the most to hide and .... we just cant afford to trust you if you have this much to hide.

When the Government can not trust its citizens, its much more than a sign that the citizens should not longer trust their Government.

Oh, and if you have never had a regular job and always been a politician, please step to the front of the line. We need to have you re-educated before we can have you running around causing mayhem out there. You do like working outdoors right? Hope you know spanish cause Julio here is going to teach you about lettuce.

Anatomy of a malware scam

Timothy Tuck
Linux

Social Engineering Expert

Because there is no patch for human stupidity.

Perhaps you have seen this before? I have a shirt that says exactly that and it is clean and ready to be worn to one of my clients next time he calls up. Specifically for him. The guy is a nice guy but well...dumb is the nice way of saying it.

He had gotten xp-antivirus2008 on his system last week, swore he had no clue how or when he had gotten infected. He had gotten other stuff(malware and virus's) about two months prior and i felt bad since he was a bit on the old side so i gave him a break on the cost of getting his system cleaned up. It had around 100 other nasty bits the first time around. So this time rather than do it onsite i picked it up before the weekend and I dropped his machine off all nice and clean on a Tuesday towards the end of the day. Late the next evening he calls up and tells me he has a screen asking about doing a scan with win-antivirus2009 this time!

I was shocked knowing full well i had gotten the system completely cleaned up. BUT thought perhaps i missed something? i had run EZ-PC-Fix (via BartPE) AVG, Counter-Spy, Viper, Spybot, Adaware, Trend-Micro Housecall, MalwareBytes, SuperAntiSpyware, ClamAV and actually a couple of others too. Each one finding a few more. Not till i was getting clean scans did i deem it safe, BUT, perhaps he had a zero day?!?!?

OK, needless to say i felt bad for the guy, so i told him don't even click on the start button to shutdown, just pull the power disconnect everything and bring it to me, ill clean it up tonight and you can pick it up in the morning.

Worked through the night to not only get it cleaned up but to investigate how he was getting it, where he was getting it from and what ever else i could about this little guy that would let him survive after a rigorous cleaning like that. Well i found in firefox's history the site he got it from was main-scanner.com, got there from a search where he just kept following link after link after link while looking for shotguns. guy likes guns i guess.

Blocked all known domain names via the hosts file, AGAIN, went over how to keep safe and clean while online and as he was leaving he let lose with his freudian slip and asked "so you verified where and how i got it online right"? I said yes and i have prevented you from going to those sites again in the future. To which he responded "ok, good, Yeah i just had to go back and verify for myself that was how i got infected the first time" !@**&#*@&(&(*!&(*!&*(@&!

****mentally i wanted to say****

Go back home, find one of the guns you like. Preferably one with a REAAAALY BIGG barrel, stick it in your mouth, if it doesn't fit not to worry, just pull the trigger and it will fit with no problem!!!!

****but i couldn't speak****

I could not believe what he said, i just stood there dumbfounded.

How dumb are people??? Yes, some of them are even that dumb!!!

So the one thing i have heard a lot of people mention on here is what can we as Admins, IT guys, Consultants and First Responders who DO know better do to help those who do not.

So far other than education its tough but i do have one really good recommendation..

Sign up for a free account on OpenDNS.org and then use OpenDNS to block these types of problems from users who if told pulling the trigger would make the barrel fit might pull the trigger. OpenDNS does work for some of those domains mentioned above and while obviously the bad guys keep buying up new names and well if your a IT guy like myself when you find another malicous site you can block it for every one of your clients just by adding it but please submit it to the OpenDNS community to get it voted on and blocked for everyone else.

It works and actually its good because if and when your client does pickup that gun, i mean end up on one of these sites instead of getting infected he will get a nice warning page complete with your logo and OpenDNS's explaining why he was prevented from pulling the trigger.

Keeps them save and honestly makes you look pretty darn good while doing so. Sure it won't prevent everything but at this point its the closest i have found to having a way to protect them from themselves. Sadly i found out about it After Captain Genius went to verify how he got shot up the first time but i will be rolling this out to every client after this incident.

And yes, good article. sorry for the long winded response. still can't believe he did that to himself a second time less than 24 hours later...

Senator slams DHS boss over border laptop searches

Timothy Tuck
Alien

Welcome to the United Police States of America

What way to many people are clueless about, more so here IN the states probably then outside of the states is that we are headed for a Socialistic Dictatorship as we slowly watch our civil liberties erode away in the name of the "War on Terror".

This is quite similar to the last few wars some of you might have heard of. "The war on drugs" This is probably the longest running and most expensive war in existance. Nixon used the term in 1971 but Reagan really kicked things off. Between the 8 years of Reagan and the 4 of Bush senior they spent over 3.1 trillion dollars. The only thing that change was the number of people in prison.

Less people to pay the tax. Honestly the oldest war was started by Johnson, its was called the War on Poverty, never got the funding the war on drugs did though. Now we are fighting a War on Terrorism. Sad part is its still the same enemy, You and Me! In reality its more about funneling money into the hands of the rich at the expense of the poor. We are no longer the Land of the Free.

The founding fathers did everything they could to keep this kind of thing from happening to most of the US population is to apathetic to give a shit. Its not them they are going after, Think a few people in Germany said that till they themselves got picked up.

If your a US citizen and consider yourself to be "Not asleep at the Wheel" and actually do care, go look up Naomi Wolf, Letter of warning to a Young Patriot.

Go lookup Zeitgeist Movie, Freedom to Fascism and start learning what money really is. Its Debt and we are paying over 4 bucks a gallon because of it, not because of how much they are pumping or not pumping overseas.

Its rediculous, most US citizens think the Federal Reserve System is a branch of the Government, Its a PRIVATE CORP, owned by international bankers who are bleeding the US and the rest of the world dry. Or i guess you could just watch dancing with the stars instead. Pathetic!

Take the Red Pill, the Blue Pill is the media and this is why most of the people in this country are asleep. To much shiny stuff to pay attention to reality is everything slowly slips away.

And yes, i used my real name, cause i want them to know I'm mad and refuse to take it any longer, anyone else?

Tnt

Welsh Darth Vader dodges jail

Timothy Tuck
Coat

Jedi with Lightsaber defeated by drunk with crutch, news at 11?

Ok, i have heard of Lame and now i can say i have officially seen it.

A: How the hell does this become newsworthy

B:If your in a "Jedi Church" and "Practicing your lightsaber skills" and the force brings you a drunken version of Drool Vader. And the drunk beats you?

YOU SUCK AS A JEDI!! END YOUR LIFE!!

C: Lets be real, if the whole "DUEL"had not been so rehearsed any of those blows would have hurt a hell of a lot more than the crutch, your swinging sticks at each other at high speed you get hit and you go CRY TO THE COURTS?? Read end of the B: statement, YOU SUCK AS A JEDI!

D: If your fighting in public and using non-padded weapons your going to get hit at some point and its probably not going to feel good, looked like PVC pipe to me and that shit hurts, Metal crutch probably hurts more but i didn't see him seriously scwack him with it. If you get hit and your response is "Ow, that kind of hurt" you take the idiot to court?

LAMERZ!! --> Read end of the B: statement, YOU SUCK AS A JEDI!

Is it right to hit people, no never, unless the other person is accepted the fact and is willing to accept it, like perhaps if your DUELLING IN PUBLIC? If the other guy has stopped asked if he could try it and the outcome had been the same, do you think it should end up in court?

We practice with padded sticks and you do get hit and you are not going to respond "Ow, that kind of hurt" its gonna hurt bloody good! And no i do not play a jedi in real life or on TV. We are practicing Arnis or Philipino Stick FIghting.

Big different here is he had jumped into our group he would have gotten his ass schooled.

And my jacket? its the white one that ties in the back.. ;-)

Microsoft hit by two more EC probes

Timothy Tuck
Joke

MS or Standards Complaint Software, chose one.

Anyone who thinks the EU is just looking for a easy "winning lotto tix" is not seeing the real droids. MS ties everything to THEIR stuff, buy a new laptop/desktop? get MS Office for 30/60/90 days, Windows Desktop Search? WMP? IE?

Of course every document you save "by default" in the latest version of the trialware of Office is saved as a .docx and not a .doc. (Remember Office is their biggest cash cow)

Who really pays the price?

People who are not smart enough to download OpenOffice and use it.

BUT what about Johnny DimBulb, he doesn't even know what a web browser is and opera is just something else he has never been to.

Firefox? that to them is a hot chick who is perhaps a pyro?

If your in IT, as i am, you know what a "ID ten T" error is, and this is more about protecting them than you, some of you get it and perhaps the rest of you just don't care.

Me? I will fix your windows for money, hell your used to paying for everything anyway... but don't expect me to use it, Mac is ok and so is linux but MS is frankly designed for the

"These are not the droids your looking for"

type,

So to them i can only say this, move to the side and just sit down, remember to pull out your wallets and just happily wait your turn, your software will only be a few years behind schedule.

:-)

Spam spewing printer attack pulps security

Timothy Tuck
Flame

Best printer exploit i have heard of

Was delivered by a group out of germany a few years ago at Defcon. They had managed to re-write the firmware of a couple of HP models so that when you sent a print job to them you got a error message that told you to read the display on the printer.

Upon inspection of the printer you would be greeted with a message that said "please insert coin".

Friggin hilarious, but the point being, this is nothing new. I laughed so hard when they delivered their presentation, they were hilarious but they really really new their stuff.

Cops crash invite-only BitTorrent network

Timothy Tuck
Flame

There goes my ability to convert my vinyl collection

I have been buying vinyl now for well over 30 years and have amassed a huge collection, i swore off CD's years ago as it never felt right as a DJ to play CD's.

I have a garage full of crates of vinyl. Or as DJ's call it, Black Crack. During my most serious years i was spending 400 dollars a month just on vinyl.

There is a HUGE problem with that though. CD's can be ripped to MP3's in a matter of minutes, Vinyl you must do in real time. Basically there is no way to rip all of my Vinyl to MP3 that would not take literally several years if not decades.

I managed to rip the few hundred CD's i had purchased over the years in less than a week. I have been using Oink to help get the songs i have on vinyl in MP3 format.

Dj'ing has changed so much and my original reasons for never buying a CD now trap me. I purchased a Conectiv Torq MP3 mixer earlier this year, i never did nor will i ever know how many vinyl records i did have or what songs i had. Never really understood how much music i had. MP3's has changed all of that.

Now they (RIAA) have gone and fucked up that too. I find myself now with a really fucked up reality that if i want to convert the remaining vinyl i have to MP3's that to do a 20 minute record i get to spend 40 minutes to do it, and that is assuming it works the first pass.

Because of this i will NEVER buy another release from any major label if i can help it. I will only support the small independent Labels out there OR the artist directly and only if i can download it in a high bitrate MP3 format.

In the words of Bender, They can bite my shiny metal ass!

Palm directs Sprint to Centro

Timothy Tuck

Does it run crashhappy palm or stable linux

Cause if its just running garnet count me out. Personally i love my treo 700P but the damn thing crashes all the time. I am not going to shell out even 1 dollar for another palm device running garnet. Now if its running linux and i can get a shell? ill happily plop down whatever the cost is...

But garnet, NFW! As much as i love my treo the thing is as unstable as a windows ME machine with 5 megs of free disk space and active desktop enabled.

The day they release something running linux i will buy it, BUT if someone beats them to market. Goodbye Palm, hello the new love of my life! Personally i do not care which it is but Palm should care and get their Ass in gear cause we all know its going to happen.

I'm almost hoping that palm does drop the ball on this, then they can see how important it is granted it would be to late but it would show them what the market thinks of a unstable OS for a cell phone. Palm OS is ok for a PDA but smartphones demand more than a PDA based OS and are totally lacking the stability consumers expect from a cellphone. Never heard of cellphone crashes till i got a treo.

Microsoft waves in Minority Report-style computing era

Timothy Tuck

Yeah! MS is inovating... AGAIN!!!

Of course none of it is original nor is it even their own or original ideas.

BUT people do remember, this is as close as they can get to inovating anything.

See they hope they can make everyone forget about Jeff Han and the ReacTable and all of the other various REAL INOVATIONS out there and then they can claim it all as their own.

Soon coming to you the MS DinnerTable, can't quite have dinner without one! And even if you could, it wouldn't be the same.

Why even bother to see "their demo", the originals are the only ones worth beans. MS can show you how NOT to build it but get it right... yeah, right! That is right up there with MS Works.

lol

Tnt

Program Names govern admin rights in Vista

Timothy Tuck

UAC != Security

Gee, when was the last time i saw virus's and spyware hanging out in the various TEMP folders, and they are not protected at all? How about daily!

Working on windows systems every hour of the day, and day of the week tells me one thing. THANK GOD I JUMPED SHIP YEARS AGO. I jumped to linux cold turkey about 10 years ago and it has paid me back a million-fold. Sure it was hard, its much easier now.

Thank god not everyone has done it though. doubtful i could have all of the work i do if it wasn't for Microsoft's failed attempts at security and reliability.

Why don't they just speak the truth. "Windows - Now Almost Secure This Year." Do the Nasty, Everyone else is.

Last time i lost data...... running windows, 10 years ago.

Last time i got a virus .. Also running windows, 10 years ago.

Last time i missed windows? about 9.75 years ago.

Last time i was GLAD i quit using windows.....Every day for the last 9.75 years

This is not to say linux is perfect, its not, it needs lots of improvement, but its been getting it every day and every day it just gets better.

That is the major difference, if Linux did something like this anyone in the world could look through the code and if they had a better solution they could implement it, some might suck even worse, but everyone who wanted to would have a equal chance of replacing it with their code. Nobody but Microsoft can fix the mess that we call windows and even they have proven they are not capable. Linux, everyone has the opportunity to step to the plate.

Who here can seriously tell me windows has ever gotten better or even between releases got better. I mean better in the ways that matter too, not just more lipstick on the pig, kind of better.

Ill give you that 2000 was better than Windows ME, but dude, 98 to ME was pure and total carnage, like twin towers kind of bad.