Maëlys McArdle

Blog

  • Music Industry to Sue Red Cross?

    In a nice touch of “do what we say or we’ll sue you”, the music industry had this to say to the Red Cross:

    Michael Speck of Australia’s Music Industry Piracy Investigations said: “We’re preparing our approach to the International Red Cross. I believe this whole thing will come as a complete surprise to them, and we’re only approaching them to stop them disposing of any funds.”

    Speck expressed his hope that the Red Cross would co-operate, adding: “It would be incredibly disappointing if we had to sue them.”

    Source:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/music_biz_red_cross/

    What are they referring to? Sharman Networks, the people who back the international VoIP telephony service “Skype” as well as the original KazAa donated money to the Red Cross. However, Sharman Networks also happen to be embroiled in a legal case in Australian courts against the Music Industry. Not liking this donation, the Music Industry (or more accurately the Recording Associations representing the Industry) decided to threaten… the Red Cross.

    Now THAT’s what I call good PR!

  • Gotta Love SCO….

    A year ago, SCO made the news by their then-latest undertaking against Open Source:

    SCO Goes to Washington
    SCO earlier this month sent a letter to the 535 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate from company President and CEO Darl McBride, raising concerns about open-source software and its General Public License (GPL), the company confirmed on Wednesday…

    …”I urge you to consider the other side because I believe that Open Source, as it is currently constituted, is a slippery slope,” McBride wrote to legislators. “It undermines our basic system of intellectual property rights, and it destroys the economic reason for innovation.”…

    Source: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1455175,00.asp

    Guess what SCO put in their latest memo to their partners?

    Part 1 — An Introduction to Squid
    (Part 2 will appear in next month’s issue of SCO Partner News)

    Looking for faster web browsing and reduced internet traffic? Then take a look at Squid, available from SCO Skunkware and 5.0.7 Maintenance Pack 3. Described on the Squid home page, www.squid-cache.org, as “a full-featured web proxy cache”, Squid can answer many concerns companies have when their employees are using the internet…

    Source: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050113155918432

    What is SCO so happening to be praising?
    An Open-Source GPL-liscenced entity.

    This is SCO people: a company whose entire platform relies on spreading misinformation and lies when they see fit. Then hypocritically completely reverting their stances on a need-by-need basis. In the same letter, SCO also praised their position on the Google Top Search Lists of 2004… though its a good thing they didn’t tell their investors exactly why.

  • The Slashdot Effect

    It all started with this, a Slashdot article with a URL to my site.

    Which led to this…
    A MASSIVE spike in traffic.

    9657 Visits to this site. Most of them in one day.

    The referrers. You’ll notice that there’s alot more requests here than referrers; the reason being that I hosts my signature to various sites (NXSecure, BinRev, Quinnware), and each request for my sig yields a hit here.slashdotref

    6000+ Visitors from Slashdot alone!
    Bandwidth shoots through the roof!

    Note To Self: Kill Spad :p

    Its all good though… I have 15GB bandwidth; this only used up 1GB.

  • Extremely High-Level IE6 Vulnerability Found.

    I’ve posted about IE6 vulnerabilities before. They mostly involved spoofing the address bar, which was in itself dangerous as it allowed scam artists to make their websites be at the address “www.visa.com” or other such honeypot locations. This vulnerability is far worse however: it makes command lines run on the user’s machine. Why is that bad? Because someone can make that command be “del C:\Windows\System32\*.dll” or something equally sensitive, causing Windows to crash… permanently. The solution? Switch browsers; stop using Internet Explorer.

    Vulnerability Test
    Test Now [Internet Explorer Users Only]

    If the test was succesful, you will now have a folder on your C:\ drive called “ie6vulnerability.jmcardle“. This is by far the worst security hole I’ve ever seen. If you wish to run the test multiple times, then please refresh this page before each test. The test requires that you have WindowsXP SP2 & Internet Explorer 6. Disclaimer: You do not have to click any links on this site, including the link to the vulnerability test above. I am not responsible for any consequences to you or your system(s) should you choose to click the aforementioned links. Note: Since I’ve been Slashdotted, I should hand out proper credits. The code I used to base this example was posted on New Order on Jan 5th, as well as on Secunia a few days later. Further Note: It should be stated that Secunia took their code primarily from ShredderSub7.

  • Full Metal Alchemist

    I profess a huge love for the anime series Cowboy Bebop. That said, I must concede that Full Metal Alchemist, a series that I am currently watching, is absolutely phenomenal. I have deep respect for its plot, as it defeats all the corny clich&eaccute; that we’ve come to expect from the great majority of television shows today: things “do not return to normal” at the conclusion of each show. Characters are well developped, and their progression through time is visible. Devastating events do occur to the characters, and the ensuing strain that is placed on the protagonists must be dealt with for the rest of the series. Another thing that makes me enjoy this series so very much is that it is just saturated with some of the greatest humour ever to have surfaced in animated form.

    Full Metal Alchemist: A must-see for any anime fan.