Posted on August 25th, 2008 by Denigris
The Most interesting thing happened to me about five minutes ago. I was attacked by a web site. An intrusion attempt to be specific. The attack was unsuccessful because Norton (yes, I was using MS Vista instead of Ubuntu Linux, see confessional [1]) detected it and blocked the attempt. One of the interesting things about it is that it attempted to gain access to my laptop through high, non standard, TCP port numbers that my router’s firewall totally ignored. While I’m at it, it’s worth noting that network address translation (taking my modems IP address and changing it before it gets to my laptop) didn’t slow it down.
It happened when I logged into the administrators account for TeamTuxedo to do a little work. Akismet, the excellent free spam blocker for WordPress has been catching more and more really yukky garbage lately, and I take a look at it every now and again to see if any legitimate comments get caught in the net by accident.
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Posted on August 22nd, 2008 by Denigris
A friend said this to me one day while we were talking about encryption and wireless networks. I thought he was kidding.
He wasn’t, and he’s a technically savy guy, although I wouldn’t call him a geek (well I might, just to mess with him). That’s why I thought he was pulling my leg when he said it. He’s like that. He has an interesting sense of humor.
He went on to say, “I leave my [wireless] internet connection open [unencrypted]. My neighbors can use it, I don’t care. It’s unlimited access, and I’m just not an interesting target to a hacker. Leo LaPorte (of Tech TV) leaves his access point open, I do too.”
This is the reality; People become targets when they are unaware of their environment, and don’t take precautions to avoid being a victim. Never underestimate the potential of being senselessly harmed by a stranger.
If you don’t understand this, you are at best, naive. If you choose to ignore it, you do so at your own peril. This isn’t paranoia, it’s the world we live in. It’s why we have policemen.
Listen to this podcast with Leo and Steve Gibson to hear what they say on the subject in Security Now! Episode 10 “Open Wireless Access Points”.
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Posted on August 8th, 2008 by Denigris
This is a follow up to the TeamTuxedo entry Guantanamo Bay Prisoner trials begin.
United Press International - Aug. 7, 2008 at 10:00 PM
Guantanamo detainee gets 5 1/2 years
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Aug. 7 (UPI) — Convicted terror supporter Salim Ahmed Hamdan Thursday received a 5 1/2 year sentence, far short of the 30 years-to-life sentence prosecutors wanted. Hamdan’s sentence includes the five years and one month he has already served, making him eligible for release in five months, The Miami Herald reported.
Hamdan was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 with two surface-to-air missiles in his car. He has been held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2002. Prosecutor John Murphy characterized Hamdan, a Yemenite, as an al-Qaida operative and key player in the international terror infrastructure.
Hamdan’s conviction Wednesday followed a two-week trial during which prosecutors tried to paint him as an integral part of al-Qaida but the defense insisted he was merely a civilian employee and was being made a scapegoat.
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Posted on August 8th, 2008 by Denigris
Strange but true. Female police officers in Germany are now wearing bullet proof bra’s. I am not making this up.
You have to admit, the potential for adolescent hilarity is virtually limitless. The sheer quantity of lingerie related punchlines is staggering.
“Dozens of German policewomen have already tested the new bras and, after a two-month long trial, the underwear is being issued to officers as part of their uniform.”
It makes me wonder when bullet proof bunhuggers will be available for that (ahem) special part of the male anatomy. 
Gotta love it: “Germany Hails Bullet-Proof Bra”
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Filed under: Strange But True
Posted on July 27th, 2008 by Denigris
Federal Court fails to protect our children
Update - August 10, 2008: I have received so many disgusting comment spams through links to this article from p-rn sites, that I have disabled commenting for this article. This is unfortunate, but necessary. These sick comments haven’t appeared on TeamTuxedo in spite of their best efforts. If you wish to leave a comment, use the contact page and I’ll add it manually.
On the heels of a troubling ruling it issued this week overturning a $550,000 fine levied against CBS for Janet Jackson’s breast-revealing Super Bowl performance, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia struck down the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), a law enacted by Congress in response to parents’ legitimate concern that their children are highly vulnerable to easily accessible obscene materials on the Internet.
In a shocking opinion lacking common sense, the unanimous court ruled that the government’s interest in the welfare of children did not justify the reasonable regulations COPA placed on commercial po-nogr-phers that required proof of age before a user could view highly offensive s-xually-explicit material.
The United States Department of Justice said it is considering an appeal to the United States Supreme Court. But it needs your encouragement!
The primary role of our government is to protect its citizens, and the most vulnerable among us are our children. Congress passed a reasonable law designed to protect children but the court said it infringed the rights of po-nogr-phers and their customers. As usual, the court put the interests of big money ahead of innocent and vulnerable children.
Take Action - Send your letter now!
Encourage U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey to appeal this dangerous ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
For more information contact:
American Family Association
PO Drawer 2440 — Tupelo, MS 38803
1-662-844-5036
Words have been mangled to hamper the bad guys.
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Filed under: General
Posted on July 26th, 2008 by Denigris
According to a 20/20 report, your car’s tires can kill you. This is because as they age, the rubber degrades, essentially “drying up”. This can result in a failure that is more serious than a blow out, because the tread separates from the tire. Tires have no expiration date, and new tires are often sold by well known retailers years after they were manufactured. When the tread separates from a tire, it is impossible to control the vehicle, and the results can be tragic. You can see the remains of tread separation left behind by trucks. Nicknamed “alligators” because they “bite” you if you run over them, they’re those big chunks of rubber debris you see on the road.
The good news is that there’s something you can do about it. The manufacture date is clearly stamped on every tire if you know where to look and how to decipher it’s meaning. To learn more, watch the ABC News video:
Aged Tires: A Driving Hazard?
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Filed under: News
Posted on July 25th, 2008 by Denigris
The Video Playlist players on TeamTuxedo are not working properly at the moment, and I think I know why. YouTube is having technical issues they are currently working on. There was a small announcement in a corner of the help files that sort of amounted to a “sorry about that” note.
Friday, July 25, 2008
SYSTEM ALERT: Video Views in My Account are temporarily down
We’ve temporarily removed the sum of all your video’s views while we sort out a technical issue with the code that generates it. In the meantime, the top-level Insight page allows you to track the sum of your videos’ views on a day-by-day basis so you can identify big changes without checking every single one of your videos. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
This isn’t about embedding custom play list players in webpages like I’ve done here at TeamTuxedo. It appears to be an issue with displaying the view count to a member who uploads the video. Suspiciously, the video playlists started acting up two days before this announcement. I suspect that whatever glitches YouTube is working out are also effecting other functions on their site, to one degree or another. In the mean time, I have taken a few of the best videos and embedded them individually on their respective pages to make them viewable until things are back to normal with the mother ship.
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Posted on July 20th, 2008 by Denigris
Detainee’s Trial in Military System Begins Today
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 21, 2008; Page A03
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — Nearly seven years after President Bush declared an “extraordinary emergency” that empowered him to bring terrorists before military judges, Osama bin Laden’s former driver is scheduled to go on trial Monday in the first test of whether that system can dispense fair and impartial justice.
“I find it ironic that there is this tremendous rush to unfairly discount a very well-thought-out military system,” said D. Hamilton Peterson, of Bethesda, whose father and stepmother were killed on the hijacked airplane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11. “Mr. Hamdan and these other suspects are getting more due process than any of the people who were beheaded by the terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
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Posted on July 9th, 2008 by Denigris
Internet security has become a major issue over time, and even non technical folks are beginning to think in defensive terms. Firewalls have become standard equipment, and when it comes to 
firewalls, a router is mans best friend. The advent of affordable internet access has spawned a whole new generation of internet attackers, and malicious software such as viruses and worms. Malicious software has two basic elements, the delivery system and the “warhead”.
Before the internet connected computer was as common as the dining room table, anti virus software was a must to defeat the delivery system of the malicious code. The virus package was often delivered to a computer by the installation of an application. Frequently the victim was the unwitting carrier of the infection, placing it on their own system. Once the malicious software was delivered to it’s intended target, the “warhead” code would attach itself to your system and begin inflicting the damage it was designed to do. They are very hard to combat because there’s a lot of electronic real estate inside your computer and they hide well. Viruses ranged from the annoying, such as the “I love you” virus that periodically said so on your screen, to the plethora of destructive viruses designed to corrupt your data and render your computer unusable. Anti virus software struggled to keep up with the tide of harmful software in a never ending electronic arms race. But the situation was about to get quite a bit worse.
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Filed under: General, Tutorial
Posted on July 1st, 2008 by Denigris
Vladimir Prelovac has posted a virus alert on his site, warning webmasters of a new strain of malicious software. It appears there is a virus in the wild that is inserting JavaScript code into hosting files such as index.html, and index.php. Read more about it in his article “Warning webmasters! check your website for virus attack!”
Denigris
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Filed under: News