Category: Life

This morning, I awoke to find that a spammer had sent no less than 10 spam-comments to my blog. These were created by 2 attacking IP addresses. Interestingly enough, alot of the attacker IPs have HTTP websites and FTP servers running.

The attacker IPs:
68.83.28.204 – pcp01453785pcs.blurdg01.pa.comcast.net
66.219.161.190 – jcarrell-ws-13.direct.neobright.net

The websites those resolve to:
http://downpour.mine.nu/
http://burrotech.net/ [Doesn’t resolve directly]

Are these people aware of what they’re doing? Hard to tell. The sites that these IP resolves to look pretty innate, hardly the work of some evil spammer. Both attack systems run different distros of Linux (one is CentOS, the other is Mandrake Linux); and both run Apache. Maybe this attack is being launched from a common infected PHP page. Or maybe both systems got compromised due to poor knowledge of linux security management. This second option is possible as these are both IPs appear to be those of home-servers, not professional solutions.

Suggestions? I’m going to try to email these blokes ASAP.

Update: I’ve succesfully contacted the second bloke. He apologised, and said he would fix the problem. I have been unsuccesful with the first person however – I can’t find his email anywhere. However, I did leave some comments at his blog, which should automatically send an email to his account.

Update: The second bloke has stopped, but I’m now at the 20th comment submitted by the %#@$#@ first person. It just won’t stop. I’ve been forced to blacklist a particular word that is common throughout all his posts. Anyone posting that word in a comment automatically has their comment deleted; and that said I’m pretty sure normal comments will never use this word, even when referring to spam. Contact me if you wish to know what it is.

Got the following in my mail today (yes, as one big image as well):

It seems like someone was able to create subdirectories on an open-source software site, to be used as a phishing haven. Upon clicking the link in the above picture (via an imagemap), a person is brought onto a clone of the Paypal site. I “logged in” with a non-existing email and password. I was then asked to fill in everything from my credit card info, to my banking information, address, and even my SIN number.

This is the second such Paypal-based phishing email I’ve received in as many months. Both were reported to Paypal.

Update: Paypal [the real one] wrote me back to inform that indeed what I received was a fraud, and blah blah blah…

GAHHH #$%#$%$# !!!!!

It’s been like this for days. At times, some sites absolutely refuse to resolve. You’re surfing, and suddenly… nothing. All the 5 sites you were simultaneously trying to load all give you DNS errors.

Then in games… BF2… Your connection suddenly drops after minutes of play. You go to go online to see if its a regular problem, but DNS errors on accessing Google.

The router (Linksys Wireless B) bears some of the blame. Resetting it fixes the problem… sometimes. But this is driving me NUTS!

Can you tell when I’m not working? I have a pretty irregular schedule, but judging by the graph below you might have a glimpse of which days I had off. It shows when I post entries here on this blog. The graph was made using OpenOffice.

Asian films get little coverage here in North America. I find it odd, because most of these films, esp. those produced by Korea as well as Hong Kong, and to a lesser extent Japan, release movies that rival Hollywood in every sense of the meaning.

I can only attribute it to North American ignorance – we, who turn a blind eye to anything outside our borders. The special effects and cinematography found in these titles, easily rival anything of Hollywood. One only has to look at titles like Tae Guk Gi [Korea] and Hero [China].

However, special effects alone do not make a movie. Plot is equally important. This is something that I feel Hollywood has failed to notice; and the reason for the demise of film in this country. It is also something that I believe Asian films excel in. The psychological thriller that I watched the other day; Antarctic Journey comes to mind, as does Oldboy.

Here in Canada, we’ve produced quite a few movies. But whereas Asian films have effects and plot; we rely solely on plot and do not have the budget for effects. We also seem to stick to movies that carry the loaded plot rivaling that of a hefty novel; oft negating light humour or immature titles (read: catering to teens). The result are some great movies [ie. Atanarjuat], but some which could have been greater with the aid of thematic diversity and/or financial support.

When will we see movies like “My Wife is a Gangster”, or the teen “Attack the Gas Station”, or “Initial D” [the Chinese live-action movie based on the anime/manga], or the awesome “Stereo Future” be produced here in Canada? Or France? Or the UK?

I’d argue that the best films today are not made in the USA; but in Korea. Japan has some excellent titles (Takeshi Kitano titles come to mind), as does Hong Kong/China (though I find there’s been a steady decline in quality productions in the last decade). But Korea seems to be dishing it out. Bollywood (India) is another big film producer, but it doesn’t seem to cater to Western tastes which is why I’ve excluded its presence.

I wonder how long this quality market will remain unknown to the rest of the world. Some Chinese hits have made it accross into the mainstream here (Kung Fu Hustle, Hero, Croutching Tiger Hidden Dragon); but I’ve yet to see any Korean ones make it through.