downgrade.orgThe rantings and insight of an ethical hacker, coder and IT samurai.

If anyone has any suggestions on software that I should check out or review please post a comment.  Here is the stuff that I currently use and will review.

SpyWare and MalWare: adAware
PopUps: Alexa ToolBar
Spam: SpamAssassin (server side)
AntiVirus: None

If an all in one solution exists I would love to hear it.  Also let me know if you would like reviews of client side firewall software (like Black Ice).

I had a good xmas!  It involved a lot of traveling around to relatives houses, but it wasnt half bad.  Tonight I going to Gryphn 's parents house for a Bowl party.

Gryphn graduated from Nebraska and her Dad got his masters from MSU so it should be interesting to see the two battle it out in the Alamo Bowl.  Even though I worked at MSU I 'm going to remain nuteraul.

I decided to get off my rump and start studying for security certifications.  I may start easy and go hard or the other way around.  I 'm not sure but I 'm sure I will share my expereince with everyone.

I 'm getting sick.  Stuffy and runny nose.  Cough, watery eyes and some times I feel all dizzy.  It sucks, but its not too bad yet.  Im going to keep my self dosed on cold medicine and vitimins and hope for the best.

The other day I swore I would never purchase another new car because of how quickly they drop in value.  Last night wile playing at The Kelley Blue Book site I made an intereresting discovery… Only american cars values drop like boulders in a lake.

My hatred for american cars has grown over the years and this only feeds it.

Case in point…

BMW 325i
2004 Retail: 28,495
2000 Retail: 20,735
4 year depreciation : 7,760

Pontiac BONNEVILLE SE
2004 Retail: 27,570
2000 Retail: 11,635
4 year depreciation : 15,935

Toyota SOLARA SLE
2004 Retail: 26,510
2000 Retail: 14,920
4 year depreciation : 11,590

I will let the numbers speak for themselves.

I was watching the wings game tonight and thinking “man it would be cool to play hockey”.  But that will never happen with me. reason: I can 't scate.  But then I got to thinking…. you could probably use the stick for stabilization.  If you start to fall just put all of your upper body weight onto the stick and spread your legs… you tri-pod and can 't fall.

Maybe I just had to much wine.

I just read an article that states the Federal Trade Commision is currently involved in a 9 month evaluation of a system that allows for “bounty hunters” to track down spammers and receive 20% of the fines they have to pay if a conviction is achieved.

This to me sounds like the best way to get kill all spam.  Its a hard process to track a spammer down but no one has ever been motivated enough, IMO.  What do you get out of it?  Nothing.  The authorities who you report the spammer to (even with all the homework you did tracking them down) doesnt even get you a “we got the guy, thanks for your help”, it gets you a “We will investigate” and than you never hear back again.  The same goes for hackers.  You will never hear back from an ISP, or Law Enforcement on what they did with the info you suplied.

I feel as if all ruleing orginizations in this country have completly abondoned the people they serve and are all about serving themselvs now.

Im jaded and cynical, but I got that way for a reason.

I have been planning on setting up a NOC (Network Operations Center) in my home office for a wile now… but this article pushed my desire over the top.  I don 't plan on following it to a tee as I have better software than a couple of his refferences… but you get the idea.

I will post pics when its done.

Tonight I have been playing with my guiney pig openbsd server and setting up a standard build for my 'fleet '.  In doing this I have landed on a number of strange sites wile clicking off topic.

SELinux; The nsa aparently has developed a secure distro of linux.  In theory it sounds nice but I do I trust to not be back doored?  If I even have to ask it aint worth it.

Trustix; I gave these guys an awful review about a month back when I was going to write my “OpenBSD vs. Trustix” article.  Shortly after that they got bought out and became TSR Linux.  Now that group filed for bankrupcy protection and was purchased by Comodo… the same doods I have my ssl certificates through.   It looks like they some sort of backing from IBM and have a promising looking distro now. 

I think I 'm too into OpenBSD to turn back now.  On that note I just got “Absolute OpenBSD” from amazon today.  Good fooken book!  I highly recomend it.  Lots of info on PF, how it all works and why it works that way. 

Security Focus has an article that disects an automated spamming program. I find this sort of article 100% more usefull then the generalizations that companys like symantec offer on how things work.

I guess it all comes down to your audience. Biz end users or the people who make the stuff work.

My boss pointed something intersting out to me.  A penis enlargement email that keeps slipping past my spam assasin and his outlook client based anti spam software.

Check out this source…

at l<kwriomldwis>east 3 I<kophixzbmfahpt>NCH<kukntyadvxfru>ES or ge<kjgdkhybxvmbj>t
y<kggudaubtbo>our mon<kxeytamotthnl>ey bac<kpkevvobnpdeccq>k!

They throw giberish tags in between all the words so the spam filters dont find the words and the mail client just ignores all of the nonsense tags.

Spam filters should parse out all HTML and just look at the text IMO.

I watched Pirates of the Caribbean last night again. Good flippen movie!

Yarr, The thanksgivin stuff be done with. I went to my mom ‘s house and my fiancies mom ‘s house on two seperate days to chow. All and all I would say it was a good holiday.

I hate all the travel to relatives that are involved with holidays. I wish we could get both sides of the family together (me and my girlfriends) and have one big shindig… but no… I have to go to two separate holiday gatherings per family… That totals (at least) four different places EVERY holiday. Don ‘t get me wrong. I love spending time with family… but four different trips?! Cumon!

I realized after looking at my girlfriends stats that putting an MP3 song of the day on your site is an awesome way to pull in search engine traffic. I ‘m probably going to write some sort of overly complex MP3 serving mechanism because .. well.. it wouldnt be me if I didn’t.
My Christmas list is in the post below this one. Check it out!