Original ExistDifferently.com Weblog of David, a Christian Network and Systems Manager, with topics ranging from Apologetics to Worldview, and some crypto, open source, programming, opinion, and daily life thrown in between.

Sun, 2007-03-04 (Mar 04)

WordPress 2.1.1 Dangerous, upgrade!

The official WordPress development blog is reporting that WordPress version 2.1.1 was compromised by a malicious hacker and anyone who downloaded that version in the past several days needs to upgrade immediately to version 2.1.2. Many more details at that link; I checked the two files they mentioned (feed.php and theme.php in the wp-includes folder) and I got one of the infected versions! If you do a “diff” and compare an infected file with one from the 2.1.2 download the infected line becomes obvious. The vulnerability, as far as I can tell, allows an attacker to easily execute any command on the system that’s allowed by the user PHP is running as by using a specially (but easily) crafted query string.

I’m still running 2.0.3 here as I write this, but I’m going to upgrade to 2.0.9 soon; I can’t run the 2.1.* series yet because I don’t have MySQL 4+ installed on my server yet.

Thanks to a post from security blogger Martin McKeay that was my first warning!

Tue, 2007-02-13 (Feb 13)

VA loses doctor and patient data – again!

Filed under: Blog,General,In The News,Security,Tech (General) — David @ 00:30

You’d think they’d have learned by now, but nope, 1.8 million records from patients, and doctors, too this time, have been lost or stolen from a VA research facility.  They aren’t sure if the data was lost or stolen yet, but, “A VA research assistant was using the physician data to analyze VA health care providers and compare them to non-VA providers, according to a statement from the department. The research assistant used the hard drive to back up information contained on an office computer, and the data is not believed to have been encrypted.” according to that article from GovExec.com.

This is the VA’s third data breach in less than a year, and I can only imagine the negative press and blog coverage this one’s going to get! At least the VA should be the most secure organization for data by the time they’re done cleaning up (again) after this mess! (Maybe that last sentence would drip with less sarcasm if this wasn’t their third breach.)

This seems to be a pretty new story, one of the earliest ones I see in Google News after a quick scan is only 19 hours old, but most places have only written about it in the last 6 hours or less. I do see a couple of stories like this one from yesterday (Feb. 11th), but they just now appear to be getting widespread.  Should see some comments from security bloggers like Martin McKeay and Bruce Schneier pretty soon, I would imagine.

Tue, 2006-10-24 (Oct 24)

Firefox 2.0 is out

Yep. Mozilla Firefox version 2.0 was released today.  I’ve been running it since yesterday.  I agree with Martin McKeay about tabs resizing vs. scrolling I think, I’m not sure yet.  I probably won’t try the Tabbrowser Preferences plugin he mentions yet, I’ll try and get used to the new way for a while first.  The spell check in form fields is nice, although writing this post is the first time I’ve seen it in practice.

One thing I missed at first was the del.icio.us plugin which wasn’t updated for Firefox 2.0 when I installed it, although I just checked and they appear to have released version 1.2 today with updated compatibility.  Firefox refuses to install it however, perhaps the old version is cached?  I’ll have to play with it, but the fact that they updated it makes me happy!

My favorite thing about 2.0? The look of the tabs and buttons look much more polished. The search function is improved, spell check I mentioned, phishing protection is good but I haven’t seen it in action yet (not likely to see it unintentionally!), RSS support slightly improved, and maybe something else I forgot.  Oh yeah, they seem to duplicate IE7’s new features and look in nearly every important way. Which is good, in my opinion…I tried IE7 the day it came out (last week), too, and although I’m sticking with Firefox, IE7 is much improved over IE6 and compared to Firefox 1.5, I was a tad jealous!

Mon, 2006-10-02 (Oct 02)

Toss some Phish in the Tank!

Filed under: Blog,General,Internet,OpenDNS,phishing,Spam,Tech (General) — David @ 14:27

Created by the guys of OpenDNS goodness, PhishTank is a new site that lets you submit emails you’ve received and lets the community verify whether or not the phishing site is working, and if so it lets application developers query to see if a particular URL is a phishing scam or not!  As this grows, it should provide a resource for programs like Mozilla Thunderbird and others to detect scams and help keep the less-informed users out there better protected.

I like the fact that you can submit phish, help verify phish others have submitted, but also you can tell when phish you’ve submitted have been verified by others and what the status is.  Nice to be able to get some feedback to know you’re helping to make a difference with your submissions!

They also have a blog (who doesn’t) if you want to read the musings of the site’s creators.

Wed, 2006-08-30 (Aug 30)

Vista Public Beta for Download!

Filed under: beta,Blog,download,free,General,Tech (General),vista,windows — David @ 10:56

You can download the Windows Vista Pre-RC1 Beta version here, limited to the first 100,000 downloads! No registration required, it’s publically available. You’ll have to burn it to DVD to install it, and it’s a big download (2.58GB). My copy is downloading as I write this, but I’m not sure if I’m going to test it out or not. I might get a chance to! Not on a system that matters, of course :-) Thanks to 4sysops.com for the link!

UPDATE: Apparently, according to the Windows Vista Team Blog, the download can only be activated if you install with a key as being an existing beta tester. So…not as nice as it would appear, since they never mention this on the download page!

Thu, 2006-08-10 (Aug 10)

OpenDNS steps up to Cameroon .cm challenge

Filed under: Blog,General,In The News,Internet,Spam,Tech (General) — David @ 14:25

The guys at OpenDNS have responded to my (and the general online community’s) issues with Cameroon and .cm domains by allowing you to turn on the option to fix this individually from their prefs page. Turn on filtering if you want, or leave it off, it’s up to you. They even have a great blog post about it. OpenDNS has been doing a great job of setting up a service that lets the user choose what they want for their scenario, something that’s been lacking in the DNS arena for a long time. There are many charges I’ve seen claiming OpenDNS is trying to “control” DNS and they shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing. But as long as you’ve got control of whether or not to use their service, or even better which options of theirs to apply to you (which this post shows they are actively providing and expanding), they’re only going to help, not hurt, the internet in general. It doesn’t hurt that they’re doing it so openly and transparently on their blog! Thanks to David Ulevitch and his team!

Mon, 2006-08-07 (Aug 07)

Cameroon takes over all .cm typos of .com

The country of Cameroon has redirected all unregistered domains ending in their country top-level domain (TLD) of .cm to advertising pages in attempt to capitalize on people that mistype .com. Slashdot is where I read about it this morning, and their source was an article at CircleID.com, and someone else has more details and opinion over here.

Further investigation by a Slashdot commenter at the article above shows that the ads are being served by a company called “NameView Inc,” which is the owner of the IP block 72.51.27.0 – 72.51.27.255 (72.51.27.0/24), a subnet I’ve easily blocked access to from work (which at least gives an error when mistyping domains as .cm, I haven’t stumbled upon an easy way to redirect .cm to the correct .com using the Microsoft ISA 2004 firewall). OpenDNS doesn’t yet fix this but I’ve asked them to, so we’ll see what their decision is on this! If they re-start typo-correcting .cm to .com as they used to before Cameroon’s new trick, it should just work on top of my firewall block since they won’t be redirecting to the advertising IP addresses I’m blocking!

Mon, 2006-07-10 (Jul 10)

OpenDNS: interesting phishing and typo protection

The owner of EveryDNS, David Ulevich, has come out with an interesting new solution to phishing scams and domain name typos: fix it at the DNS level, which I found in an article at Wired.

The new service is free and it’s called OpenDNS.  You use it by changing the DNS server addresses on your maching, router, or wherever you get your DNS settings from to use their two DNS server IPs.  Then, they do some filtering to correct typos such as typing existdifferently.cm, which they automatically fix into existdifferently.com.  They also monitor sites that try to pull of phishing scams and block the addresses of the sites requesting your personal information, so even if you click the link in an email (such as “your PayPal account has been marked for fraud, come enter all your bank accounts, credit cards, and social security number at this link so we can rob you blind!”), if OpenDNS knows about it and you click on the link, you’ll be blocked and instead get a webpage similar to the screenshot shown here.

 Sample OpenDNS Phishing Block

Where do they make their money? Eventually, they plan on offering advertising when you type in a domain name that doesn’t exist and they can’t correct.  For now, they just give you some search results.  This is different from VeriSign’s fiasco Site Finder (see the Wired article above for details), because you’re choosing OpenDNS, it’s not being forced on all internet users worldwide at the authoritative DNS server level!

New Gmail features, just what I wanted!

Just a few weeks ago I was cleaning out my Gmail inbox and wishing for a way to apply new filters retroactively to emails already received.  Apparently my wish has become a reality: Google Operating System reports that this is now possible!  It is enabled on my Gmail account, I just checked.  Maybe it’s available on yours, too. ZDnet’s article says another new feature is to “Delete all spam emails” in the spam folder at once, which doesn’t help me much now as I’ve never let more than a screenful of comments accumulate, but should be helpful in the future as that never lasts long on my email addresses! Not that I need to delete the spam, really, but I’m just obsessive like that…I like Monk because I see too much of him in me a lot of times :-)

Okay, really time for bed now…

Sun, 2006-07-09 (Jul 09)

eBay says Google Check”out” over it’s own PayPal

I’m a bit late on finding this out, but apparently eBay has banned Google Checkout from being used to pay for its auctions.  Something about it being “too new.”  Which is perhaps code for “we don’t want to let our PayPal have any real competition especially with Google so we came up with a lame excuse.”  I don’t actually purchase from eBay often, but next time I log in I may hit their feedback page and let them know I don’t appreciate their decision. I’m trying to get to bed now, so I’m not going to hop over there at this precise moment :-)

Thanks to Robert Accettura’s link for the story, which is also carried over at theunofficialgoogleweblog.

Sat, 2005-04-23 (Apr 23)

Glad to be home!

Vegas was great, but it’s so good to be home! I love lots of things that are in my life, and people that are in my life. It’s a good time to be alive, and God is good. And sometime, I’ll be able to share a bit more of it. For now, you get to read whatever I feel like putting here (well, you’ll always get that, it just might not be as interesting as my life actually is :-)

I got my camera, and it’s really cool. Haven’t had much time to play with it yet! Also they didn’t send me an adapter ring that I need to use the lenses I got, but they’re sending me one for free that will hopefully be here next week (never depend on specific timing from the USPS!). So I haven’t been able to play with the macro lens that I was looking foward to…not like I’ve had time anyway, so I suppose it’s all working out :-)

I have two friends that have actually uploaded a significant amount of stuff to “Flickr”:http://www.flickr.com/ now! Takes time, but eventually I bring people around to the latest and greatest I’ve found :-) Sometimes ;-)

Also…I didn’t know until I read one of the blogs I keep up with that “Adobe bought Macromedia”:http://robert.accettura.com/archives/2005/04/18/adobe-buys-macromedia/! Very interesting, but makes sense. I’m sure we’ll hear more soon!

Wed, 2005-04-13 (Apr 13)

Lego Jewelry

Filed under: Funny,Tech (General) — David @ 00:25

“ForeverGeek”:http://forevergeek.com/gadgets/jewelry_for_geeks.php has quite the article about “Lego Jewelry”:http://www.jacquelinesanchez.com/gallery_n.html (click the Forever Young gallery name). I’m sure I’d never get any of this (right, you know who?) but it is somewhat fascinating :-)

At least people won’t bother me for not posting now. Ha. I might even post a picture next! I have some good new ones.

Tue, 2005-03-29 (Mar 29)

Words, Words, and Few for You!

Talking is cool. Both online and in person. For me, when I get enough talking one-on-one, apparently I can’t come up with anything worthwhile to post to the general public here (and by “general public” I mean, the two or three people that read this regularly and anyone else that stumbles through from Google or something :-)

Not that that’s a bad thing. Unless you want to read more stuff here. But hey, it’s my blog, so you’ll just have to live. I do respond to comments occasionally, especially from commenters that aren’t, um, regulars :-) Or I would, if there were more than three such comments on the whole site. And one of those is from someone I know in person.

Of course, if I posted more interesting stuff here that was actually worth commenting on, I suppose I might then expect more comments. Catch-22 really. Or maybe the most important things I have to say right now aren’t meant for you to hear. Or you. Or you. Safe bet: if you don’t know if it’s you or not, it’s not you :-) On the other hand, if you do know what I’m talking about, feel free to ignore what I’m talking about, it doesn’t apply to you :-)

Do I get a prize? You know, for least content in three paragraphs? I should at least get runner-up for this one :-) What do you know, I did want to talk. Just not about anything you’re probably interested in, here at least :-) If you’re feeling left out, give it time (sure for this post to sink in or something (like it ever will…ha! Like the blonde that died in the shower when the shampoo bottle said “lather, rinse, repeat” ;-), but what I mean is come back later and perhaps eventually I’ll be able to post something more interesting in such a public forum :-)

Um…”Mozilla Firefox 1.0.2″:http://www.getfirefox.com/ is out. It’s cool. Get it. Um…[looks at multitude of tabs open for something interesting to post]…I found a site called “LinkedIn”:https://www.linkedin.com/ the other day that I hadn’t seen before. Interesting stuff, but I haven’t signed up yet. Still, the tab remains open since I’m curious about it :-)

Also, “Magix music products”:http://site.magix.net/index.php?id=471&no_cache=1 are good stuff…try the demos sometime. Music Studio 2005 is really good and at less than $100 is very powerful, the main limitation I run into is not being able to edit the audio while recording at the same time, which you can do in their premiere “Samplitude”:http://site.magix.net/index.php?id=15648&type=2 product (although it’s $1,000 more expensive :-)

If you have an extra $79 laying around (and who doesn’t?), “Amazon Prime”:http://www.amazon.com/gp/subs/primeclub/signup/main.html/002-2086300-3510456 is a nice program to get into if you like Amazon.com and want to get fast, free shipping (or faster, cheaper shipping). Details are right there on the site, I think you can read it without me :-) Free two-day shipping on over 1 million items, overnight for $3.99, for a year. Yep, I told you anyway! Get over it!

Ran into an interesting site while searching for something (I don’t remember what, a how-to on something) the other day. It’s a computer help site called “Bleeping Computer”:http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/. I get a kick out of the name and wish I’d gotten to that domain…like I need more than the 30+ I have :-)

If you’re looking to buy something computer related, first check out “eCost”:http://www.ecost.com/ because they have a lot of good deals. LCDs and camera memory cards are some of their best and most often discounted items. But they have lots of stuff. Also, for general, daily updated deals (lots of Dell deals that link directly to Dell, sometimes with coupon codes, but plenty of non-Dell, and some non-computer related, like “Overstock.com”:http://www.overstock.com selling down comforters and bedsheets really cheap) are awesome over at “GotApex”:http://www.gotapex.com/. I watch that site several days out of the week to spot good stuff. Not that I buy that often, or I’d be much poorer than I am (although they’re one of the reasons I’m as poor as I am already :-)

For example, GotApex is listing right now that Amazon.com has a “Canon PowerShot SD110 Digital Elph 3 megapixel 2X zoom”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0001G6U9I/ref%3Dnosim/gotapex/002-2086300-3510456 camera for just $159! If I had the spare cash I’d jump on it, the Elphs are awesome because they’re so darn tiny while still be high quality. And usually high priced. But I don’t :-)

And, my last item for this post is “my Flickr page”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/existdifferently/ which, if you’re not on my friends or family list, still has a lot of pictures that I spent all night last Friday night (until 8am Saturday morning) tagging with metadata and making public. I have over 3,200 images uploaded to Flickr, and am nowhere near getting them all sorted (probably never will be) but I like the ones I have available now :-)

Goodnight!

Update: I do find it somewhat ironic how long this post ended up being, and how much info I included, given the title. So much for intent! :-) But aren’t you glad I got around to some actually useful information after all that stuff at the top?

Sun, 2005-02-20 (Feb 20)

Spoonman

I really can’t say that I’ve ever seen any Anime beyond a minute or two of Pokemon here and there a while back. Can’t say I see myself getting into it. But, if you know me (and no, just reading this blog doesn’t count…IRL(In Real Life) is preferred…if you know me well enough you should figure it out pretty fast when you see it), you might figure out why this is hilarious!

Spoonman“:http://daveschool.com/spoonman/

I like it for the same reason I liked the main character (and his nickname) in “I, Robot“:http://www.irobotmovie.com/ (in addition to that just being a cool movie!).

Anyway. Past bedtime!

Oh yeah, but I do want one of those laptops they have at “Boxxtech”:http://www.boxxtech.com (I customized to the “one I want”:http://www.boxxtech.com/products/configurator.asp?ModelSeriesID=98, starts at $2,985.00 and it’s only $5,068.00 when I get done with it :-) Oh yeah, plus I also played with customizing their high-end desktop system. With nearly every add-on and high-end item I could add (actually I picked my favorites instead of the most costly option a few places) it went from a base of about $3,000 up to over $24,500!!!!! I can’t think of a comparison to my salary that wouldn’t reveal too much, but let’s say I’m not going to be able to afford that system on mine any time soon! Actually, the $3,000 one isn’t exactly in my budget, either…

Okay, now it’s bedtime :-)

Tue, 2005-02-08 (Feb 08)

Considering Cameras (part Yipee! I mean…two)

Filed under: Blog,Digital Cameras,General,Tech (General) — David @ 00:51

(There’s also a “Part One”:http://www.existdifferently.com/archives/2005/02/05/considering-cameras-part-1/ to this post.)

See, “AbesOfMaine”:http://www.abesofmaine.com/ dropped their price on the “Fuji FinePix E550”:http://www.fujifilm.com/JSP/fuji/epartners/digitalE550Overview.jsp?item=I789908&dbid=789908&urltype=overview&NavBarId=I789908 to about $273 plus shipping. Overnight shipping would have been about $35 or so, ground would have been $20. CircuitCity.com was having a deal, web-only, “$314.99”:http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Fujifilm-FinePix-E550-Digital-Camera/sem/rpsm/oid/108877/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do but you could pick it up in-store. The store had it on the shelf for $349.99, but since I ordered online I paid $333.90 including tax. It was a tad more for same day-service, but not that much. And I put off the 512MB xD Picture Card until tomorrow because “eCost”:http://www.ecost.com/ was $25 cheaper even with (overnight) shipping! Hey, the included 16MB card holds a whole two pictures. But that’s at the highest quality; it holds like eleven or twelve medium-quality pics! I think the included rechargable hi-capacity AA batteries with charger is a much better included accessory, but I will have to get some more of these rechargables. At least it only uses two at a time instead my old one’s four.

It might be a dissected fetal pig for lunch...(click for full, 4MB version)What? You didn’t think I was going to go through all that and not give you a sample? Well…okay. I was dissecting a fetal pig for a snack earlier and grabbed this one (click picture for full version but be warned, it’s a 4MB file!). If you ask nicely, I might resize it down a bit (the thumbnail doesn’t show the whole picture), ’cause if you’re on dial-up you may want to just say no to 4MB!

Oh yeah, and I’m taking the afternoons off work all this week. If you know me, you might know the past weekend (Catalyst Vision Banquet) as being a bit long. Gotta have some recovery time sometimes. Photography takes time, after all… ;-)

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