I recently received a link to the this analysis of the crime-ware. Pretty sophisticated!!! The Conficker Cabal is busy trying to measure it’s function and effectivness. If you have the time, and the stomach for a tech article, I suggest you read this!
Wow, I can’t believe I can still access the web?!?! It’s already April 1st in Australia (right now : Melbourne *Wed 4:50 AM) and the entire internet has not collapsed!
I’m trying my best to act shocked but… I’m not a trained actor. Maybe a few hours into April 1st is too early to call it but.. frankly.. I stand by my first post on this.. much ado about NOTHING!
For entertainment factor, here are some more alarmist articles on the ‘threat’
My friends from Renton arrived this afternoon and we unloaded (well, dragged the thing out of the back of his pickup) the bike and rolled it into the garage. The sun was shining and the weather warm (ish). Perfect day for a motorcycle push. Well, you see, it’s not quite running yet. Something about the carb manifolds having disintegrated from time and neglect.
Kawasaki KZ400 as delivered
It is an interesting beast. 400cc of air-cooled parallel twin power (most of you know my affinity for a pair of jugs) just waiting to be brought back to life. Here are a few photos of it, as it arrived.
A classic UJM
Over the next few days it’s final disposition will be decided. Will I restore it to it’s vintage bike glory, or will I take it down the ill-advised road to vintage cafe racer rat-bike status. Only a thorough inventory of work required, can help me decide.
A pair of raging 200cc jugs.
One of the more amusing aspects of this situation, is the comparison of old and new. Standing next to a modern 1100cc superbike, the KZ400 is every bit as large and, based on how much effort it took to drag it out of the pickup, not that much lighter. But the leaps in performance in the last 30 years is, well, impressive!
I hope to have it ready, for when summer hits, some time in 2010.
There seems to be no lack of technology press on this piece of crime-code, that is set to go off on April 1st. The largest concern is that nobody seems to know what the Command-and-Control (C&C) computers will instruct the infected systems to do on April 1.
For myself, and the company I work for, we are safe for the technical exploit, since we do not run MicroSoft systems, and non-MS systems by all indications are perfectly safe from becoming part of the botnet.
Conficker is a program that is spread by exploiting several weaknesses in Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Various versions of the software have spread widely around the globe since October, mostly outside the United States because there are more computers overseas running unpatched, pirated Windows. (The program does not infect Macintosh or Linux-based computers.)
The speculation is that the bots will try to access a pool of 50,000 different domains (something we can determine by examining the code) looking for it’s C&C. The problem is that defensivly registering the 50,000 domain names is something that nobody seems to want to, or capable of doing.
Other crimeware uses similar technolgy to look for different C&C systems based on a predictable algorythm, this is nothing new or groundbreaking. The size of the pool is by far the largest I have heard of, so that is new.
There are likely man different ways that the nentire network can be thwarted, if the registrars, backbone providers and ISP’s all co-operate (fat chance) to null-route any of the 50,000 domains that might be registered and directed to the C&C systems. That alone makes me think this is much ado about nothing.
Should people running computers infected with Windows ignore this potential threat. Obviously they need to take the possiblity their computer is infected, VERY seriously. If they are unable to switch to a operating system without so many security issues, then they should at least make sure their computer is not exploited.
Later today I will compile a list of reliable links to instructions/software for mitigation the threat on your own computer. As far as the massivly parallel monster system this botnet might become on April 1st…well.. we won’t have to wait long to find out if this is a boy craying wolf, or the real thing.
Researchers in Toronto released a report this weekend, regarding the discovery of a massive cyber-espionage and data theft network that appears to have 3 of it’s 4 Command-and-Control (C&C) located in China.
Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: March 28, 2009
TORONTO — A vast electronic spying operation has infiltrated computers and has stolen documents from hundreds of government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, Canadian researchers have concluded.
Details of the exploit vector are exactly spelled out in the article, but it would appear that this software infection of computers capable of monitoring email and other traffic. By description, it sounds like the malware/trojan/crimeware employs a network sniffer to watch traffic I/O on the infected machine, sending interesting data back to one (or more) of the C&C systems. The researchers also indicated that they stumbled upon some of this by accident, and there could be other capabilities of the network not yet exposed.
I plan to look into this further to see what types of systems have been infected.
Tyres
After 10 seasons on grooved tyres, Formula One racing returns to slicks in 2009, as part of moves to increase the emphasis on mechanical rather than aerodynamic grip. With no grooves, grip will increase by around 20 percent, bringing a significant performance gain. However, that gain will be offset by the vastly reduced downforce levels of the revised aerodynamic regulations (see below). The overall effect should be reduced performance through high-speed corners.
massive aero overhaul to improve passing
Aerodynamics
Along with slick tyres, this is the biggest area of change for 2009. Downforce will be dramatically reduced and the cars’ bodywork will appear much cleaner, thanks to new dimensional regulations that effectively outlaw extraneous items such as barge boards, winglets, turning vanes and chimneys on most areas of the car.
As well as reducing overall aero performance, the revisions are also designed to increase overtaking by making the car less susceptible to turbulence when closely following another driver. The most obvious changes are to the front and rear wings.
New electric (slightly related to a hybrid) electric boos system
Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS)
From 2009 teams have the option of employing a KERS to boost their car’s performance. As its name implies, a KERS recovers the (normally wasted) kinetic energy generated by the car’s braking process. This energy is stored using a mechanical flywheel or an electrical battery and then made available to the driver, in set amounts per lap, via a ‘boost button’ on the steering wheel. Under the current regulations the power gain equates to around 80 horsepower, available for just under seven seconds per lap. This could be worth several tenths of a second in terms of lap time, but the weight and packaging of the system – and its impact on the car’s weight distribution – also have to be taken into account.
Bottom line is that the new cars are pretty darn ugly, with huge front aero wings but tiny rear wings. It’s looks way out of proportion. This is one of the changes they made to cleanup air behind the cars to encourage passing. In this first race of the season it seems to have done just that.
Round 1 of the season presented a bunch of things that seemed like ‘upsets’ to me. One of the more surprising things was the utter dominance of the new BrawnGP team.
Another was the amount of passing. That really made for an interesting race, much more interesting than the Micheal Schumacher Show of seasons past.
It also seemed that the new front wings were quite fragile, many were damanged in the first lap of the race. It was obvious that the teams forsaw this issue and spent plenty of time training in the pits to handle swapping out the noses.
You can get the rules changes highlights on the Official Formula 1 Website, as well as detailed updates last night’s (well, this mornings) race.
I wish BrawnGP luck in it’s first year, basically running last year’s 2008 Honda team but with Mercedes Power.
I’m not always a ranting old Conservative, sometimes I kick-back and indulge in the more bizzare and sometimes twisted art that comes out of Hollywood. Tonight… it was… ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas‘. What in incredibly insane film that is. Gilliam shot that film just the way you’d have to do it, with odd angles, distortion lenses and in settings to bizzare you could only find them in Tijuana or Las Vegas.
It is not only a strange story of an insane multi-day drug binge by the two characters ‘Raul Duke’ and ‘Dr. Gonzo’, but it’s also choc full of cameo appearances! Cameron Diaz, Christina Ricci, Mark Harmon, Lyle Lovett, Flea, and (I did not notice this until I watched the additonal features) Hunter S. Thompson himself! The encounter was so obvious I completely discounted it.
The outrageous amount of destruction, and rampant weirdness (I still have no clue how he ended up wearing the lizard tail), is bracketed by moments of near sobriety where Duke attempts to decode the activities of the nights before.
No, not a complete fan Hunter S. Thompson’s politics, I do respect his need to live, and die, on his own terms. But he was not only a more intelligent version of Timothy Leary, he also wrote some pretty amazing stories (including the book that inspired this movie).
One of my favorite examples of his work, is the story ‘Song of the Sausage Creature‘. It’s a fantastic story, about an afternoon where Thompson is asked to write a review of the new Ducati 900ss motorcycle. The description of what it’s like to light one of those things off and take to the wind is… a little twisted but so aptly descriptive:
But when we ride very fast motorcycles, we ride with immaculate sanity. We might abuse a substance here and there, but only when it’s right. The final measure of any rider’s skill is the inverse ratio of his preferred Traveling Speed to the number of bad scars on his body. It is that simple: If you ride fast and crash, you are a bad rider. And if you are a bad rider, you should not ride motorcycles.
The emergence of the superbike has heightened this equation drastically. Motorcycle technology has made such a great leap forward. Take the Ducati. You want optimum cruising speed on this bugger? Try 90mph in fifth at 5500 rpm – and just then, you see a bull moose in the middle of the road. WHACKO. Meet the Sausage Creature.
So, if you find yourself bored of the straight-down-the-middle milk-toast crap typically excreated by Hollywod, check out the movie. Or, if you want a little light reading, the story is rather amusing. 🙂
Working with web scams on an hourly basis, I never paid much attention to those annoying ‘FreeCreditReport.com’ commercials. They are annoying at best, bait-and-switch at worst. What I’m happy to see is the Federal Government activly educating people about such ‘services’.
What I found this morning (thanks LinkedIn contacts) was this blog on the ITAC about two new FTC ads regarding services such as the one mentioned above. You can go there for the source, but since these videos are public, and the FTC is trying to educate people, I’m embedding them here.
The rapidly heating earth has caused yet another snow alert to be issued last night. I’m happy to report that the weather experts were wrong (again) and this time it did not bring us a dawn over streets of white. Will this winter ever end? Is it finally over, or will tomorrow bring out the snow plows and tire chains?
It has only been 4 days since I last saw snow, and 8 days since it really unloaded on us. I was starting to think it really was Spring, for Western Washington.
March 15, it's almost Spring!
A short 8 years ago I relocated the family here from sunny, smoggy, silly Kalifornia. I knew to expect rain, and boy did we get it, pretty often. But being on a coastal zone I made the assumption the weather would be mild. For a few years that was the case.
Lately, at least over that last few years, the winters have become longer and longer. This years winter season, although technically over, still seems hell-bent on sticking around.
Having grown up on the West Coast, almost entierely in California, when you see something like this, you have to wonder if it’s a harbringer of the end.
What's not right with this picture?
I hope we don’t freeze during Saturday’s ‘Earth Hour‘. I plan to turn up my heaters, open all my windows, turn on all my lights and I’ve posted an ad on Craig’s List to hire some people to drive all my cars and bikes around in circles for the event.
Sadly they won’t let me post my ‘Earth Hour’ event on their website. I want my globe to warm up! I’m tired of the snow!
UPDATE: 25-Mar-2009
Snow is back in the forecast again tonight, really!??! Mountain passes are seeing heavy snowfall tonight. And it’s spring. Now I’m thinking it’s quite possible we’ll see snow on the first day of Summer too. PLEASE… PLEASE.. let this Winter end!
Temperature: 32ºF / 0ºC
Restrictions:
Traction Tires Required, Chains required on Vehicles over 10,000 gross vehicle weight. Oversize Vehicles Prohibited.
Conditions & Weather:
Snow & slush on the roadway // Snowing
Updated: 12:11 AM, Mar 25, 2009
This is the most current info available
and is promptly updated when conditions change
A friend posted this on Facebook. It’s about 4:30 so not a lot of time invested. The digital graphics are not perfect but I found the video itself compelling, and the sound track very well matched. It’s Sci-Fi (I hope).
The concept of it is really, quite frightening. Watch. Enjoy. Cringe. Panic.
