Archive for category Tech
74 Days, 41 Minutes, and 18 Seconds
So, do you think I have enough music?
The scary thing is that I still have more CDs to import into iTunes!
It’s all Chad’s fault!!
Yeah, so my hard drive decided to die on me today… it’s got the click of death. Now I have to take it to a data recovery center and see how much it’s gonna cost to get it (well what they can even get) back. I blame Chad, since he is the one who said it was going to. And then I blame myself, for not being quicker to back it all up after we talked about it.
AAAAAAAAHHHAHHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
What a pain in the ass!
Symantec Hacked?
Update: A reply from Symantec’s webmaster claims”it is a caching issue with Akamai,
and is being resolved.”
It appears Symantec, one of the leading computer security companies, has possibly been hacked.
I went to the main symantec.com site, looking for info about Norton Utilities for my family’s windows machine. (Which BTW appears they only ship bundled with a bunch of other stuff as System Works now.) So I clicked on “Products and Services.”
Main Symantec Page:
Products and Services:
I chose System Works from the menu:
Which is where the first odd thing happened. All I got was this page full of broken images, so I tried to click on “Buy Now”:
This page actually looked more like it should, so I clicked on compare:
And up came this lovely pop-up! Something’s not right here:
So I can only come to the conclusion that they were either hacked, or they really need to get a new web staff???
“Hot Chick” spreads infection
Posted by PYRO in Randomness, Tech on 2/4/2005
A new computer worm is out and about. Luckily, as with most, mac users are immune. However, I thought this was humorous enough to post.
It seems that the worm Bropia.F is spreading itself via MSN messenger pretending to be some sort of scandalous image. Common names for the file are: Bedroom-thongs.pif, Hot.pif, Naked_drunk.pir, Underware.Pif, LOL.scr, New_webcam.pif, RoFL.pif, and Webcm.pif.
Users receive the following humorous image of a “hot chick”en with a bit of a tan.
Symantec rated this variant as high on damage and medium on distribution in the wild. The worm sends itself to all of the contacts in an infected users buddy list.
Bropia.F is a regular party animal, and it brings friends. It also Drops the Rbot-VH network worm and backdoor trojan horse, allowing hackers to take remote control of computers having been infected, capturing keystrokes and screenshots. A plethora of credit card and identity theft opportunities are available, heck it even lets them capture webcam footage. Also along for the ride is agabot.ajc which can perform a DDos attack on certain services.
Bropia.F hides behind the guise of a humorous photo, but it’s no laughing matter. The file size for Bropia.F is about 184 KB, and it affects Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, and XP.
Yet another reminder to keep you computer up to date, not to open unsolicited attachments (even from people you know), and better yet… GET A MAC!
California Hacker penetrates T-Mobile systems
I read an interesting story from SecurityFocus.
Apparently a hacker broke in to T-Mobile’s system and had access to information such as a user’s name, SSN, DOB, username/password, voicemail password, and more. It appears the hacker has had access to the systems for at least a year.
The hacker was able to obtain communications from a secret service operative who had been using a “sidekick” in the field. Also obtained were candid photos from many celebrities mobile devices. Celebrities included Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Nicole Richie, and Paris Hilton.
The hacker was able to infiltrate the system because “There was flaw in the way the cell phone servers were set up” according to one of his friends.
The secret service and T-mobile are trying to keep this “hush-hush” right now. Despite California’s anti-identity theft law “SB1386,” the company is obliged to notify any California customers of a security breach in which their personally identifiable information is “reasonably believed to have been” compromised. That notification must be made in “the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay,” but may be postponed if a law enforcement agency determines that the disclosure would compromise an investigation.
I guess the good news is that:
- I don’t use T-mobile
- They weren’t able to get any credit card information
- They were caught
Just goes to show that your information is never really “safe.” Someone is always going to find another way to hack a system. Especially if it is a Winblowz system. 🙂