Hacker for Hire

I’m really, really tired one of our ex-customers. I have allowed to this charade continue on long enough by allowing myself to be over-ruled in decisions on how to handle this situation we have gotten ourselves into. Basically, we have taken the approach that we can be successful in business by being appeasing people. While I’m not opposed to being nice to customers or people, I refuse to yield to threats or attempts to exploit work. That being said, this is the email I considered sending back to Paul, who has been attempting to steal services over the past two years from my team under the guise that he would “sue us for not signing another contract to work with him.”
Continue reading ‘That’s It’ »

Popularity: 28% [?]

Today, I got an email with a file attached asking me to open it to view some “pictures.” Man … I was so excited. I very rarely get viruses or spyware sent to me these days since the email servers clean most of them out … but I got one!!!

The zip file contained one file, film.src. A careful user would have hopefully just deleted this email, being as they didn’t expect it and it came from an unknown person … take that as a security tidbit for free. The observant, yet careless user, would have opened the email looking for picture and saw a screen saver and wondered what the hell was up. This user opened up the file and tossed it into IDA Pro

I’ll update if I find anything cool

Popularity: 30% [?]

OK, so this went painfully … very painfully. Let me reiterate … I flipping HATE H-Sphere and refused to pay $70+ for a service incident that shouldn’t happen because their crew didn’t do their homework with testing and didn’t provide a “here’s what to do if things go wrong” section.

Followed the instructions here.

Did a cpupdate and received this error:

Well, that didn’t work, so lets just try it again:

Unfortunately, searching the Internet and H-Sphere’s site turned up nothing helpful on the issue except this thread … which didn’t match my situation and didn’t have anything in it except telling me to buy a new support request.

So since I refuse to pay for something I’ve already paid for, here’s the solution to fix it for the rest of you:

Then back into the H-Sphere updater:

And the peasants rejoice … until they try to SSH in. The stupid jaild package that’s provided is busted in so may ways. The easiest solution is to just edit /etc/passwd to a real shell location; however, you’ll give up security to make this happen so I’ll leave the choice to you.

Update 07/12/2008:
Fixed the jaild issue. Apparently, when you do the update, if ANY user is logged in and has an actively running process (yes, I tried it multiple ways) … the jail setup fails oddly and doesn’t allow ANY user to log into the system. The solution? Boot all the users off the box:

/etc/init.d/sshd stop
killall sshd

Reconfig the jaild:

/hsphere/local/config/jail/scripts/config_jail

H-sphere’s attempt here

Popularity: 47% [?]

Screw people who talk about work in the damned restroom. When I go in there, I don’t want to hear about how your crap isn’t getting done while I’m trying head natures call. It’s rude, it’s annoying, and I’m fairly certain that if you talk about your work around where people take a shit, it will make your work shittier. And you know what else? Screw you even more for standing the middle of the door way while you talk about whatever is just so damned important it can’t wait 10 secs for some to take a piss.

Screw you. Screw you right in the ear.

Popularity: 52% [?]

I don’t usually like to just copy and paste from other people’s sites; however, I think I’ll make an exception for this one given what I’ve been working on recently. At work, I’ve volunteered to write a process improvement for the design and development of web-based user interfaces and I have to say, this sums it up quite appropriately.

Originally from Tapestry Central

Popularity: 64% [?]

This really isn’t for anyone else other than myself. I’m sick and tired of having to look up all the vim commands to put in my .vimrc file every time I build/logon to a new system. Maybe you’ll get some joy out of the comments. Here it is:

Popularity: 66% [?]

I know it’s probably mirrored else where and all over the net … but this is just so sweet:

Credits go to someone, I just don’t know who

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Well, since the plane trip to Aruba is going to be a long one … anyone have some suggested reading?

Someone has suggested The Art of Computer Virus Research and Defense; however, I was considering something more along the lines of Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering.

I’ve previously gone through The Shellcoder’s Handbook and it was good (minus the code mistakes). So instead of watching Ask a Ninja and other DVD’s any ideas of books?

Popularity: 85% [?]

I’ve had my same Windows XP and Office 2003 installation for at least 3 years and I have to say that I cannot understand why I have had to install at least 25 different releases of Microsoft’s Genuine Advantage software. Every time I need to do an update, “We need to make sure you’re version of Windows hasn’t been stolen since the last month you did an update.” It makes me the kind of nuts that only leads to carbines and random notes. I just don’t understand how I’m going to ‘re-steal’ a version of Windows if I haven’t stolen it the first 25 times. And secondly, why in the hell would I steal it? You’re pretty damned optimistic there Microsoft if you think anyone would steal crap.

Popularity: 92% [?]

As a developer, I constantly use API’s and platforms created by others to develop software … just like every other developer in the world.

Well, I got it in my head that I wanted to write an application for the S60 3rd Ed. platform, the same one that runs on my Nokia E61. So first things first, I head over and download the SDK from Symbain, which requires registration, but I’m used to that so I don’t mind. Well, there are two downloads … the SDK files … and then the recommended IDE to build the application in without the SDK files. Which brings me to the first way to make developers hate your platform.

1. Make the IDE not include the SDK files

OK, I get that not everyone wants to use Carbide.c++ to develop their application in … especially since Nokia charges for it. And just so you know, Carbide.c++ is nothing more than Eclipse SDK with Nokia’s extra bells and whistles.

2. Steal open source IDE’s and call them your own

Screw that, I’ll use my copy of Visual Studio and run with it for free and not pay for your more than likely busted-ass Eclipse plug-in. I’m sure that if I really wanted, I could break apart your stupid Carbide.c++ plug-in to not require any registration for all your “features” in your stolen IDE. Whatever, I’ll start downloading the 400mb of SDK from Nokia and while that downloads and I’ll read some more on how to build a Symbian application instead of wasting my time (I like Visual Studio better for Windows style development anyway.)

Now if you’ve never played with a Nokia application, all of the applications have to be signed with a certificate … which is really, REALLY frustrating. You can’t install an application unless it has been signed, which brings about the question, “Why the frick can’t I choose what to install on my phone???” It’s my phone, if I want to melt it into a pile of goo after I write 0-s to the stupid flash module on it, I should be able to do that … especially if I’m a developer.

Well, alright, I’ll go get a certificate so I can test my application on my own phone. There are a ton of places that tell you how to do this. Here, here, or here … but they’ve all been replaced with go to SymbianSigned.com method. Fine, I’ll go here and get a certificate … oh wait, I can’t, I have to register to get a developer certificate. OK, I’ll register … again … CRAP!

Your email has address has been rejected as we do not accept registrations from publicly available email domains (e.g. gmail, yahoo, hotmail etc).

Well, I’m glad I have another domain name in my pocket … not everyone does Symbian, you flippin’ jackasses. Alright, now I’m registered at another site (that I couldn’t use my perfered email address at) so I can get a developer certificate just for my phone. Which brings me to my next way to make developers hate you:

3. Make it so developers can’t test their applications without restrictions

Trying to get a certificate results in a:

Your request has failed. Reason:
-Developer Certificates will be ENABLED for users who have a Publisher ID ONLY
-ONLY if you used a Publisher ID to create a .csr file with the DevCertCreate tool will you be able to use Open Signed Offline to create a Developer Certificate.
-Developer Certificates are currently DISABLED for users without a Publisher ID. Users who DO NOT have a Publisher ID CANNOT request Developer Certificates or use Open Signed Offline.
-If you have recently obtained a Publisher ID and are unable to create a Developer Certificate using Open Signed Offline please request support through the Symbian Signed forum on the Symbian Developer Network.

4. Make the development process painful by requiring developers to send you their applications before usage.

Well that’s just fricken great, I can’t even test my application on MY PHONE THAT I BOUGHT WITH MY MONEY. FINE, where do I get the stupid fricken Publisher ID? Oh wait, that’s $200 per year to get a certificate (A.K.A Publisher ID) so you can take your stupid application, submit it to THEIR test center, so they can charge you $20 for each submission that THEY HAVE TO TEST so that it can be Symbian signed so “normal” users can actually install your application.

F - THAT!

I’m not going to pay $200/year so I can give away an application for free. I’ll go write apps for Windows Mobile or the fricken iPhone or some other platform because of this crap. Screw you Symbian. Screw you.

Popularity: 100% [?]