A timed disaster!

Here are some timings I collected over the net. Set your stopwatches... Go!

• 24 hours and 23 minutes after the Russian operators began "experimenting" on the Chernobyl reactor, it exploded in the worst nuclear accident in history (1986).
• 2 hours and 40 minutes passed between the time that the unsinkable Titanic struck an iceberg and when it finally sunk.
• 56 and 103 minutes took the WTC towers to collapse over thousants of people(2001).
• 6 minutes took the horrific Hartford Circus Fire to kill over 150 people (mostly women and children) in 1944.
• 73 seconds after liftof the space shuttle Challenger explodes (1986).

The same with computers:

• The Witty worm took 45 minutes to infect every possible machine in its threat portfolio.
• A half an hour is all it took for Nimda to spread worldwide.
• The Slammer worm did most of its dirty work in under ten minutes.

And now for the horrible truth (are you still counting?):
20 minutes is how long your average unprotected PC running Windows XP will last once it's connected to the Internet before it's infected by some spyware or virus!

This statistic is provided from the SANS Institute who clearly declare that 20 minutes is not long enough to update your Windows PC before it is too late. Think that you have to immediately link to Windows Update and get the latest patches from Microsoft. Then reboot. And get more patches. And reboot... (repeat to infinity). Oh, and don't leave out the latest anti-virus updates and anti-spyware updates either. Gotta have those. Oh oh oh, and don't forget WinXP SP2 which can be as large as 260 MB. And users are supposed to download all this in less than 20 minutes?

The Institute provides this very usefull PDF titled: "Windows XP: Surviving the First Day". GOOD LUCK! (Suddenly I feel very happy that I still use WinME)

Asperger? No, thanks (and get away from me!)

I just finished studying Avenue for my paper. Avenue is a programming language used to write scripts on ArcView 3. ArcView is a GIS user-friendly GIS program developped by ESRI. GIS stands for Geografic Information Systems and is a technology that combines databases with digital maps, thus projecting spatial data. Why am I telling you all this? Think about the amount of specialisation involved in this project: I am learning Avenue which is used ONLY on ArcView and ONLY for the early versions of the program, which in turn is one of dozens of software used to represent GIS data. And what is GIS again?

Anyway, I'm not good at learning programming languages fast (I still remember the painful experience of learning C in 3 weeks this Winter...). As I was taking a break I run through this article on the NET about Asperger's disorder It's a mental disease whose symptoms include an inability to interpret peoples' emotions from their facial expressions, incredibly logical thought processes that make math easy but human relations darn near impossible, and fear of physical contact with other people. And it's quite irritating to find small pieces of that behaviour in myself. It must be the walls that close towards me. (No, I'm not insane, it's a figure of speech!)

There is a new book around that is supposed to be very good and describes the life of Christopher Boone, a fifteen year old boy who suffers from Asperger's. The title of the book is "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time". In the beggining Christopher finds a neighbor's dog dead with a pitchfork stuck in it:
I decided that the dog was probably killed with the fork because I could not see any other wounds in the dog and I do not think you would stick a garden fork into a dog after it had died for some other reason, like cancer for example, or a road accident. But I could not be certain about this.

I'm on my way to the bookstore already!

Introducing the Kalashnikov MP3 player

Now that's something new! The AK-MP3 is a Kalashnikov-shaped Mp3 player with 20GB of storage. (visit site)

Andrey Koltakov, the creator, says: "Hopefully, from now on many Militants and Terrorists will use their AK47s to listen to music and audio books. They need to chill out and take it easy." Right on, brother. I doubt that the AK-MP3 will do much to promote world peace, love and understanding... But it will sure deter would-be muggers from attacking you on the street!

And another thing. If you are visiting Athens for the Olympics make sure you don't forget your AK-MP3 player. I am sure the security officers will appreciate your innovative style!

Industrial Design Excellence Award

Check out the 2004 Bronze Award on Transportation!


Seriously. Ever thought about how nice your new mobile is, how sexy a car can be, how pretty your new furniture and so on...? Well the guys behind the Industrial Design strive to make boring things look amazing. And they deserve some aknowledgement. Visit the Industrial Design Excellence Awards site...

Watch Out for 4-1-9 scams!

I've just read a very funny story concerning 4-1-9 scams.

Maybe you have seen a recent film with Nicolas Cage where he's a professional con-man and tries to steal money by promising wealth to people. According to the US government, this kind of fraud is labeled 4-1-9 (see the article) and occurs in various forms like: Disbursement of money from wills, Contract fraud, Purchase of real estate, Conversion of hard currency, Transfer of funds from over invoiced contracts, Sale of crude oil at below market prices...

The most successful cases of Advance Fee Fraud is the fund transfer scam. In this scheme, a company or individual will typically receive an unsolicited letter by mail from a Nigerian claiming to be a senior civil servant. In the letter, the Nigerian will inform the recipient that he is seeking a reputable foreign company or individual into whose account he can deposit funds ranging from $10-$60 million that the Nigerian government overpaid on some procurement contract. Initially everything seems very easy, but soon the victim is requested to travel to Nigeria. Individuals are told that a visa will not be necessary to enter the country. The Nigerian con artists may then bribe airport officials to pass the victims through Immigration and Customs. Because it is a serious offense in Nigeria to enter without a valid visa, the victim's illegal entry may be used by the fraudsters as leverage to oblige the victims into releasing funds. And so on... the victim is trapped!

The funny part comes in: There is guy called Mike who has a site dedicated to fighting back against those who send out the notorious 419 e-mails. The story describes a case where the scammer pretended to be "Prince Joe Eboh of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)" and Mike "Father Hector Barnett of the Church of the Painted Breast"! The scammer took the bait and ended up painting his bare breast with the red Masai war-paint as a gesture of faith and belief...!

Cell-Phone SPAM

If you thought your spam problems couldn't get any worse, check your mobile phone. Cell phones are becoming the latest target of electronic junk mail, with a growing number of marketers using text messages to target subscribers. Cell phones know where they are. So you can get a CD purchase offer when you approach the local CD multistore and so on... Also there are spam messages that request you to forward them to 10 people in order to save the life of a little girl (just like e-mails). It can become very annoying. Don't forget that the same thing made the e-mail providers to start thinking of charging for e-mails in order to fight it! (story)

In Japan, where text messaging is more popular than talking on cell phones, wireless spam was a huge problem a few years ago. NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan's largest cell-phone provider, said spam text messages overloaded its systems at times in 2000 and 2001, freezing some customers' screens and spreading programs that caused some phones to automatically dial Japan's equivalent of 911. The company eventually brought the problem under control by installing security and spam-filtering software on its network and in its phones. But do the companies really want it to stop? Don't forget that the increased circulation of SMS means revenues for them too! I hope yes. After all, considering the expansion of Bluetooth technology, soon we will be bombed with junk sms from every shop we walk by, at no cost for them, only for us.

Kill SMS Spam Where It Starts. Last month, the European Union enacted new digital privacy rules that require companies to obtain consent before they send e-mail and SMS text messages to mobile phones. Each of the EU's 15 members and 10 countries joining in May will set its own penalties. In Britain, Vodafone launched a trial service to allow its users to report when they get an unsolicited text message. If they get one, they can forward it, at no cost, to Vodafone. The company, in turn, will forward it to Britain's Standards of Telephone Information Services.

Coca Cola Spyware?

There's a new security threat at some of the US nation's military bases and it looks very much like a can of Coke. Specially rigged Coke cans, part of a summer promotion, contain cell phones and global positioning chips. The winning cans from the company's "Unexpected Summer" promotion have a panel on the outside and a big red button like a cell phone device. Winners activate it by pushing the button, which can call Coke's prize center.

That has officials at some installations worried the cans could be used to eavesdrop, and they are trying to establish protective measures. The Coca Cola Company explains that there is nothing to worry about, but still US military bases are asking soldiers to xamine their Coke cans before bringing them in to classified meetings. The Marine Corps said all personnel had been advised of the cans and to keep them away from secure areas. Paul Saffo, research director at "The Institute for the Future", a technology research firm, compared the concern about the Coke cans to when the Central Intelligence Agency banned Furbies, the stuffed toys that could repeat phrases!

I'd love to see new McGuyver episodes where he could bring down a nuclear military base using a can of coke and a talking doll! Paranoia goes better with coke...

Super Smart Ringtone Album !

Ok. How about this: A fine example of our digital life and the digital madness...
A group from Germany called "Super Smart" released their first album only in ringtone format. Forget about cd's, the future is here! The price is only 2 euros and it is easily downloadable and portable to your cell phone. The group is supposed to attack the music industry this way bypassing the normal -expensive- music distribution channels. Moreover, the album is not crappy, you can listen to samples of "Panda Babies" on the Official Site.

Phone ringtones are big business. An estimated £70m of ringtones were sold in the UK in 2003, up from £40m in 2002. GoFresh (a Mobile Music label) already signed up 20 artists and last month said it has sold a million ringtones in just under a year of operation.
Specialisation on musical production is not fresh. Already there are people who write music for supermarkets, elevators, commercial jingles, computer games, hi-tech devices... So, why not ringtones?
Next up: New-wave painters commit themselves to cell-phone logo production...!

Quick! Hide the weapons!

...and don't forget the laptop!

If you asked me how can a PC be used as a weapon I would think of 2 ways: As a remote bomb detonator and when I throw it out the window over innocent by-passers (especially after 10 consequent blue-screens). Apparently there are more ways...
It appears to be that the U.S. house of Reps. want to classify Pentium 4 and above CPUs as weapons. This would mean that all these will require export licenses.(story). Today, computer sellers are required to get a license to export any computer with performance equal to or greater than a system with 32 Intel Itanium processors. The current version of the defense authorization act would lower that limit to systems deemed "militarily critical" by the Department of Defense. That level is currently set to the equivalent of a computer using a Pentium 3 processor running at 650MHz, state of the art in 1999 but considered feeble today.

Next up: Cell phones!

Want To Be A Hacker?

Remember the 90's classic movie "Sneakers"?

The story was that 6 very talented programmers were hacking the security of big companies and afterwards they informed them of the holes/disadvantages of their network in order to be fixed.
Once again a case of life immitating art immitating life. Since then a lot of people go by the occupation "Professional hacker" and do exactly the same thing. It shouldn't come as a surprise when I read that in Los Angeles there is a Hacking boot camp, where for only(?) $4000 you can learn how to penetrate every kind of security imagined...link
Great stuff! I wish I could attend this seminar too. But, it makes me think. How can the professors teach how to break security that is supposed not to break? Do they know how? Is there a key behind every encryption method just waiting to be taught at a seminar? Do they teach people how NOT to crack systems UNLESS they are allowed to?
I am confused. As much as I admire hackers I can't stop thinking of another movie: "Outbreak". After all the virus that nearly destroyed the world was supposed to serve humanity...

Mongolians need surnames!

Monogolians, who have customarily used only first names, are now required by law to have last names as well. Unfortunately, most people are choosing "Borjigin," Genghis Kahn's tribal name. The director of the State Library is attempting to fix this by publishing advice on historically accurate surname choices for potential Borjigins. Mr. Besud has spent years poring over the dusty archives of the state library to compile a book of possible surnames for the nameless. He obtained access to the highly secret archives of the country's Communist Party, which included detailed lists of the names of noble families who were prohibited from party membership. link

It ain't easy finding your surname..!

Pixies Live in Athens

I just came back from the PIXIES concert in Rockwave Athens 2004. The band was great, everybody had a wonderful time and I remembered how much I like their music. As you may have noticed my BLOG nickname comes fron the title of one of their albums. I believe that Pixies' music is very powerful and sophisticated. It's like everybody on stage is playing a different tune, but together they sound like a wonderful multi-layered formula that needs to be decyphered. It is wonderful, powerful, mind-boggling and raw music with true feeling. I just love them.

Opening with "Bone Machine," and traversing a crowd-pleasing set list that was weighted toward material from their first three releases--the 1987 EP "Come On Pilgrim, the 1988 album "Surfer Rosa" and its 1989 follow-up "Bossanova"--the quartet sounded as if they'd never gone away.

Black's voice remains an incredible instrument, one that seems specifically designed for the loud-soft-loud dynamics that the Pixies perfected long before the style was appropriated by the likes of Nirvana and Radiohead. While he can hold a pitch-perfect note indefinitely--as he proved this night on "Caribou"--his steely vocal cords can still belt out the best scream in the business: he didn't hold back at all on "Debaser," and seemed no worse for the wear when switching gears to "Monkey Gone to Heaven."

If only they had played "Where is My mind?" Where was theirs?

What happens when a blog goes out?

A fine example of the effects of the digital culture on our lives.

Last Sunday Blogging pioneer Dave Winer unexpectedly closed Weblogs.com, his free blog-hosting service, leaving thousands of bloggers without access to their blogs. (Article)

The content of this Blog-site (just like the one you are reading right now) was just plain-type texts written without special significance or purpose. They were ideas and thoughts expressed on the free time of 3000 people. The buissnes world and the stock market didn't collapse. Nobody heard it on the news. Nevertheless, these blogs were valuable for the people who created them. Because a blog is common-knowledge. A blog is alive...

"I just have my fingers crossed that my girlfriend gets her blog back," said software programmer Tom Gortell. "She feels like someone just sucked out her brains. I don't get it, it's just an online journal, right? But she feels like her entire life has been stolen."

Are e-mail viruses really alive?

Evolution requires:

• A genetic code, such as DNA
• Replication
• Mutation
• Natural Selection

These elements can be found in e-mail viruses. The ones with the best fake letters, e.g., the ones that persuade the most people to open the attachment, will survive and reproduce. The ones that aren't very convincing die out. The next stage, which may have already happened, would be for the virus to modify a couple of words at random in the text of the message before sending it out. Instead of blasting a million people the same message, blast groups of 100 people the same message with a different random change. Eventually random mutation will improve the ability of these messages to survive and reproduce by fooling people into opening the attachment.

 

 

SPAM his G-mail

I have to admit, this guy has a lot of patience.
Prattboy ha made a site that he checks how efficient in stopping spam is the new G-mail account. (link). He welcomes every spammer in the world to send him his junk in order to see if the new Google mechanism will stop it. He even publishes weekly statistics of the progress and up-to-date he has received 300 MB's of mail with about 50% success of junk recognition.
So, e-mail him with every kind of useless, trash, junk, virus, spam, promotional, fw, DOS-attack mail you can think of! Admirable mazochism if you ask me...

Man beats Horse!

Recently I am feeling really proud to belong in the human race!
We have seen man fighting with various animals, or winning over artificial intelligence in a chess game, we have seen man conquering over mother nature or overcoming himself.
This time man won a 22-mile race against horses! Here is the story. What will they think of next?

Why spam?

The word spam has recently been added to our language. Each one of us recieves daily tons of unwanted mail. But why "spam"? Who baptized this phenomenon?
SPAM, was the label of a conserved meat can made in England, which was very popular in the army during the Second World War. It's circulation was so overwhelming that very soon people got really tired of it.
During the 70's, Monty pythons made a scetch on their show (entitled "Spam") where a couple was trying to order a spam-less meal in a restaurant-with no success. The menu listed: egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam
With unbelievable foresight, the Pythons made it clear that the words Spam! Lovely spam! Wonderful spam! wont be heard again in our time...

And I quote...

Somebody said that everything has been said before. (I wonder if it was the first time this was said...)
Human wisdom is spread over millions of written words and unwritten acts. Sometimes there are few words that stand out and deserve more attention. QUOTES! I like reading quotes. They are like condensed knowledge - fun, easy to read and intelligent. You can use them to make a point, back-up your thoughts or enrichen your texts. And it's a great way to spend your time reading pieces of wisdom from great minds.
I suggest having a look at site#1, site#2 or site#3 and for the movie freaks to take this test.

Who do you want to vote for today?

A fine example of the digital revolution serving democracy in India.
For decades, millions of illiterate Indians voted by pressing their thumbprints on voting-paper. This year, they'll just press a button. And so will everyone else.This months'
general elections in India are set to make the world's largest democracy also the world's largest user of computerized voting machines.
For the first time, India's 660 million registered voters will be able to exercise their right on one of approximately 1 million computerized voting machines in an electronic, paper-less election.

DVD-9

The next step in Dvd recording has happened!
Every new hi-tec PC sold these days includes the DVD-RW tag as "Stunning new features"... What they don't want you to know is that with the existing technology, you could only record 4.25 GB of information in a single layer of the disc. Thus making it impossible to burn a movie of over 90 minutes in duration. Of course every DVD in the market takes advantage of the disc's both layers for years now.
All this has changed with the release of Sony's DRU-700A and Liteon's SOHW - 832S models. Both capable of burning dual-layer DVD's. At last you can copy a full sized DVD without worrying about the duration and you can merge 13 of your cd's in a single DVD disc. You can make mp3 collections of over 190 hours of music!
Last but not least, the devices cost only 200 euro. And they are the first to hit the market. I'm hoping 100 euro by christmas...