FxChiP

It appears my drug of choice is caffeine. Couple bottles of Bawls (well, actually, one of G33K B33R and one of the blue bottles) and I'm feeling pretty darn good. Amazing how clear, focused, calm and quiet my head gets. Lets me enjoy stuff like music more. Good stuff.

Here's an amusing anecdote (or at least I thought so):

I was on my lunch break one day, and I was hanging out in a burger place. I was sitting at my table, picking at my fries when a song came over the PA system. I thought to myself, "This song sounds familiar..." And then the chorus hit: "Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down..." So I got Rickrolled by a burger joint.

Too bad none of 'em noticed. But there weren't many people there, either.

Beyond that, everything else has been going moderately well. I got an upgrade to Pandora Radio. I find myself constantly listening to it now, it's great.

Life's good. I hope it stays that way.

Written very quickly (like five minutes quickly):

How Palm Pre can Regain iTunes Sync Capabilities:

1.) Emulate a USB Hub (you know those four-port jobs)
2.) One "device" on this hub will be the Palm Pre
3.) The other "device" on this hub will be the "iPod" (complete with Apple IDs and whatnot)
4.) The destination provided to the hub determines which subsystem of the Pre gets the message, and thus
5.) Pre stuff goes to Pre, iTunes stuff goes to "iPod" and emulation can continue as normal.

And of course, there would be no way (at least none that I could think of) that Apple could prevent this short of modifying iTunes and retroactively saying something like "a Palm Pre and an iPod can no longer be on the same USB hub." Which would be absolutely ridiculous.

I don't suppose writing the hub emulation would be that hard, but I guess it could also require a rewrite of the entire USB subsystem of the Pre, so probably too difficult to warrant the change... but if they really wanted to...

So I had this dream, right

In this dream, I thought I was in the bathroom of an airplane that was just chillin' in some parking lot near a really high barbed-wire fence. Not with the other planes, so probably in need of a repair, but you know. I was running back and forth between the windows making sure no one could see me, when I noticed everything was moving. Yes, it turns out that I was not in the bathroom but a storage trailer for the plane that for some reason had had bathroom-like implements until this exact moment in time, and the windows even changed. All the paranoid running back and forth I did had tipped the plane that this trailer was attached to (why was a trailer attached to a plane?) and the entire thing was rolling backwards at around, what, 4-10 mph? Not fast. Realizing we were heading closer to the fence, I tried to stop it by running hard into the part closest to the plane to stop the momentum, but apparently while I'm enough to start it, I'm not enough to stop. So I settle for slamming in as hard as I can... and it all ends up turning and hitting the fence sideways.

Even though once I got out it appeared to be perpendicular to the fence when it hit it rather than parallel. Whatever.

But yes, I did get out, and someone came out trying to look for what happened. Some chick, I can't remember, but she was bitching about the conservatives thinking the airport was their playground -- I think my subconscious was replaying that part from V for Vendetta when the chick goes "Prothero thinks this station is his playground" here. I deftly avoided her, but I was either caught or ended up in some (I guess the airport's?) cheap little mental ward/holding area.

Somewhere around this point, the male psyche part kicked in and decided to have me making out with a bunch of girls who had lined up outside my door/partition of this place. That is, there were four, and I've had made out with one at a time (while the others were trying to figure out how to get me out).... at length and it was quite enjoyable for both parties, so I was definitely dreaming ;)

After all that, though, it was getting to be sunset. I was stuck in a pen with some little girl and, apparently, Krunch Bloodrage. This little girl had been molested, and as a result, was psychotic and hated all men and wanted to kill them -- except Krunch. Everyone was free to choose where they wanted to sleep and I chose to stick around in that particular area without necessarily knowing all the details about this murderous little girl. (I think I figured that since they take all the weapons away, she'd have a hard time killing me).

Well, yeah, except the girl's a kitsune who turns into a variable-sized cat. Even a kitten can slit your fucking throat in your sleep. So I kept having to ward the fucking kitten off while asking Krunch for help, but Krunch was like "she's a kitten, she can't hurt you." The kitten grew into almost a full sized cat, maybe bigger (hence why I said variable-sized). I point this out to Krunch and he says simply something along the lines of "Oh." Eventually I guess he manages to develop some kind of bond with her while she's an animal (which is apparently closer to her true nature now) and that's what prevents me from dying.

At this point my subconscious chose to fast forward a few years; apparently, me, Krunch and the creepy little girl (whose name I don't think I ever got) escaped and got a large black cat, probably like a panther. It actually strongly resembled Sooba, without the yellow eyes and with lighter fur, so it might just be a placement of me into LFG done by my subconscious which is bad at it. I get on with the cat that isn't the crazy one pretty well, and the crazy one doesn't want to kill me -- actually I think we were on much better terms courtesy of Krunch by that point.

The last part of the dream I remember is rubbing the big cat's fur.

WHAT THE FUCK, SUBCONSCIOUS.

y = ((i%x)+((x*(i%x))-(i%x))/x)%2

For a given number i with a divisor of x, y = 1 if i is *not* cleanly divisible by x and y = 0 if it *is*.

Really only ever useful for boolean logic (replacement for "if i > 0 && i < x") but interesting nonetheless. :)

Dear anti-sec,

I read your manifesto today, and can only feel irritation at your antics and your attacks on the practice of Full Disclosure. While some may be applauding the supposed altruism of your actions, I... question your motives, to say the least.

You claim that if white hats were truly about security, they wouldn't release the information they gained to the world. I say, if the white hats didn't, who would? This is the primary reason I question your motives here; if exploits were found and never disclosed -- which no black hat would, and if there were no full disclosure, white hats wouldn't either -- then they would simply be left in the software, allowing for maximum time of exposure until some independent entity finds and reports it.

And, without question, exploits left in software are extremely beneficial to criminals who would seek to use them to steal or vandalize. The less disclosure the exploit itself receives, the more a criminal can use it to their illicit ends, with the victims all the while having a false sense of immunity and security. Full disclosure, at least, lets those who might be on the receiving end know that there is a threat to their business and customers (or site and visitors, as the case may be). Obviously, a black hat would want as little of that as possible.

You further say that full disclosure is bad because it allows the security industry -- no doubt you mean Symantec et. al. -- to profit off of its consequences; the script kiddies using the published exploits on any vulnerable site. Once again, though, common sense bears this out; just because you don't talk about the gaping hole in the wall doesn't mean it isn't there. All the obliteration of full disclosure would do is make security companies (and software vendors and developers) work harder to find an exploit they know nothing about. This is a double-edged sword in itself; they may find and fix a slew of other bugs, but still miss the original exploit used. Full disclosure would allow them to find and fix the bug quickly and get the patches rushed out for the user before any more damage can be done. Whereas, again, without full disclosure, even the patch is at-risk.

Your means of achieving this goal are also completely unnecessary. Rather than engage in discourse or do a thousand things more productive, you choose to seek the destruction of anyone who supports full disclosure and "the security industry in its present form." So, once again, what are your real motives? Because you're sounding very criminally black-hat to me, disguising your intent with altruism.

In short, I hope you guys get caught and your ridiculous anti-disclosure movement to keep the world insecure for your own unsavory ends fails miserably.

Sincerely,

FxChiP

rd = i^((i%8/2)%7)^ (3+(((i%8/4)*4)%7))^((i/8)*5)

Where "rd" is the transformed number of a given i and ends up being the "right digit" ("ones place") of the final value. Incidentally, this will generate palindromes if you run it over a range of i to i+7 where i % 8 == 0; in other words, any number divisible by 8 (including 0) up to that number +7, if you run it over that range, the first four numbers will *mirror* the last four numbers:

>> for i in range (256,256+8):
... print rsider_hells(i)
...
419
418
416
417
417
416
418
419


(Note, however, that that last bit probably does not generate a proper "rd" for 256 to 264, this just shows off the palindroming bit!)

If anyone can find an easier/simpler way to do all that (the generation, not the palindroming)... me love you long time.

ETA: fixed paste mistake in the example; also, the "rsider_hells" function is just a shorthand I made so that I wouldn't have to write out the equation but could test it using an arbitrary value for i.

For the given pattern of operations done:

0, 0, 1, 1
2, 2, 3, 3
4, 4, 5, 5
6, 6, 7, 7
5, 5, 4, 4
7, 7, 6, 6
1, 1, 0, 0
3, 3, 2, 2

The equation to figure out which one it is is:

op = (((i-(i%2))/2)%8) XOR (5*(i/16))

(thanks Jennie!)

( Cut for geekiness this time )

It's good to learn...

OMG APPLE WTF IS THIS SHIT

0xbc0-0xbc8: ffee0011 6262bfbf
0xbc8-0xbd0: eeff1100 40409d9d
0xbd0-0xbd8: ccdd3322 40409d9d
0xbd8-0xbe0: ddcc2233 6262bfbf
0xbe0-0xbe8: 4455bbaa 51518c8c
0xbe8-0xbf0: 5544aabb 7373aeae
0xbf0-0xbf8: 77668899 7373aeae
0xbf8-0xc00: 66779988 51518c8c

So you anticipate noticing the patterns in the individual numbers and then proceed to start doing much the same thing within *those* patterns!? This is cruelty!

Obfuscation tables: Apple's way of FUCKING with me.

( cut for excessive vertical length and whitespace )

Ah well. That's what makes it fun.

I just had dreams about it. I wanted to say last night, but really it was earlier today, like right after I got home from work. I seem to want to do that fairly frequently lately.

I actually dreamed about my new job. It was kinda weird. I was basically just hanging out with coworkers at the place I work, as a social event, I guess, and still getting tips on how to do stuff.

Ah well. Back to sleep for me, right after I get stuff done.

( Cut for image size. )

I'm... I'm kinda having one of those days. Not nearly as bad, but....

It breaks your ability to use QuickPwn, PwnageTool, and iPhone Tunneling Suite (ssh over usb). We don’t think this is a deliberate breakage of these tools. It’s just that Apple has updated a low-level USB protocol that normally only Apple cares about (but jailbreakers care about).

WAIT WHAT THE HELL!? Did USBMux/MuxTCP (the over-the-wire USB protocol used to communicate with the iPhone) get modified or something!? Am I going to have to rewrite that part of libiphone!?!?!? AAAAAARGH

( ... that nun had a moustache. )

Seems my random rambling on LiveJournal has given me an idea for a setting that I can only really describe as "modern medieval" -- but really, it's probably more like cyberpunk with lots of blatantly ripped off borrowed MMO content.

The setting is sometime between the present and the future. Gas and oil reserves have been depleted, and America (if not the world) hasn't really caught onto the whole green/renewable energy thing; the total loss of energy has also crashed the economy, leaving America's/the world's currency basically worthless and sending everyone back to, essentially, gold and/or barter and trade. Scraps of technology remain; most of it is scrapped, some of it is kept as souvenirs and sentimental value; a CD/casette player, a radio, a computer. Batteries, especially those with charge, have become a commodity, especially to those techno-junkies who need at least something electronic in their lives.

Celebrities are no longer the most famous people around; nationwide tours for musicians are unheard of. However, a side effect of this is that more musicians pop up in local areas; they are the modern-day minstrels, singing, writing, telling stories, entertaining for a bit of food or a place to stay (who said it was glorious?). This is the part that stood out most of this setting idea: the idea that many of the old medieval professions would come back, and everyone goes back to those roots where electricity wasn't even a glimmer in the eye of any living soul, giving the earth a chance to recover its energy to be discovered and used again. You would have knights, soldiers, you would have merchants, cooks, smiths, tailors, shoemakers, writers, farmers, anything that doesn't require a machine of some sort.

And people would thrive. Of course, it'd be hard, and you'd see it in the landscape: decrepit and abandoned office buildings, streets and street lights falling into disrepair, many people in the streets or having taken command over someone else's household.

But I think the interesting part of this is that while the major communication-oriented parts of our culture would go away (i.e. no more twitter, Myspace, anything like that), some of the things commonly taken for granted -- music, theatre, the written word -- would persevere even in the face of the entire obliteration of technology. Unfortunately, so would politics, but somehow I think that already-volatile field would have to reform greatly in order to adapt.

This all stemmed from me worrying that computer talents won't be worth that much if and when all the energy goes away. That post is blocked off because there's probably some sort of sensitive information in it. It's probably sort of a valid concern, but at the same time, I also don't see all of this going away anytime soon. It would take something extreme, worldwide, for it to happen all at once. Maybe it won't happen all at once, but it would come out before long that something strange is happening.

I worry too much. :)

I might actually go to bed now, but I felt I should share all that. Later all.

I actually added a feature or two to it today: an option that makes the third column (the IP of the hostname acquired by the reverse lookup of a given IP or one of the IPs in the given range) simply read out "match" if it matches the IP in the reverse lookup. Plus, the way I implemented it sets it up so that I can easily add more command-line options later.

Nicked from takhisis -- the Auto-Meme is a script that randomly puts together a bunch of memes for often hilarious combinations.

Here are some of the excerpts I have:

- IPOD IS THE BOX OF RAPE OF THE PENGUINS
- CEILING TORRENT IS WATCHING YOU GET LAID
- THESE ARE NOT THE WHALES YOU'RE LOOKING FOR
- BLOGGER'S CLOSED DUE TO STEVE BALLMER
- I'M A BUTTON! I'M A BUTTON! SUCK MY DIIIIIICK! I'M A BUTTON!
- JESUS CHRIST IT'S A TROLL GET IN THE TRAP (that's terrible)
- MAXIMUM TECHCRUNCH RUMOURS YIELDS MAXIMUM LAWYERS
- PROTIP: TO DEFEAT THE MORON, SHOOT AT IT UNTIL IT DIES.
- I REALLY DO HOPE YOU'RE GETTING LAID AND NOT ACTUALLY THAT FUCKING ILLEGAL.
- NOOOO THEY BE GOOGLING MY DONG
- I AM ELVIS, HEAR ME GET LOW
- I WILL NOT TEABAG THIS PIG — IT IS DIZZY.
- I REALLY DO HOPE YOU'RE SHOOPIN AND NOT ACTUALLY THAT FUCKING RETARDED.
- THIS IS BUTTHURT. I CAN TELL BY THE DICTIONARIES, AND FROM HAVING SEEN A LOT OF GUYS IN MY DAY.
- 2GIRLS1CUP? IN MY ICE CREAM? (anyone who has actually seen this will understand; anyone who has not -- don't)

I can't seem to get it to output any gold like others, though.

WARNING: Technobabble! You may not understand a lot of this! (If you do, though, so much the better)

Recently I had need of a script or tool that would reverse DNS a bunch of IPs, and then do a forward lookup on the results of the rDNS to ensure that the hostnames given would, indeed, point back to the IPs originally looked up to begin with. Something like this would, of course, be done to verify proper DNS operation of a host; essentially to make sure everything is pointing to the right place.

Take a look at the output and capabilities of it thus far: ( double-lookup output behind the cut )

I use a chunk of the Googlebot subnet as it's publicly available and I don't think Google would mind me hammering their rDNS too much in the name of getting things working. They probably deal with worse on a daily basis. I don't get into changing the second octet, because I don't really have forever to wait for my script to go through 65,535+ hosts, and that would almost certainly get me into trouble -- but the capability is there (or so I hope) in case someone really wants to play with it.

This thing is pretty good; you can pass it a single IP or a range (x.x.x.x-y.y.y.y) and it will cycle through the IP addresses in the range given, getting their hostnames and getting the IP address attached to the hostname (not always the same as the IP given to it!). But see, here's the thing: this is where my ambition grows and threatens to take over and deny me sleep tonight.

Because I want to add more.

I want to make the IPs you can pass to it capable of being comma-delimited; that is, you can pass a range and three individual IPs, or you can pass four ranges, an individual IP, and then another range. Basically I want to make this versatile as hell, so you only have to use it once from the command line and get all the information you want with regards to what it is.

Technically, it's as simple as throwing a split() function in there and iterating through the resultant array of that; applying my regex and routines to each member of that array, which results in the ability to query for a bunch of different machines at once, rather than just one range or just one machine.

The problem, of course, is that it's 1:50 AM (again... I planned on sleeping earlier but I'm a perfectionist), and I quite honestly don't have the time to pursue this further. Besides, it's complete enough for what I need to use it for, and that's the important bit, because now it's like, ten times easier to do the task I have to do. But that comes tomorrow. :)

However, for anyone who's interested in my ugly-ass Perl code, it's all behind the cut.

( double-lookup.pl )

Caveat: the column formatting used in this script is fairly atrocious (although to be fair, the script itself ain't exactly aesthetic... or commented). The output won't be pretty, but it should be separated enough so that you can see all three columns distinctly and it won't be too hard transcribing it into something else, if need be.

Oh, it's also not commented and fairly messy. Watch your step.

So as Stan Lee might have used to say, farewell for now, true believers!

I've done this before, but what the hell.

---

I miss the weather. I'm the strange sort that loves overcast days, looking up and seeing gray. I miss not being blinded by the sun every day, but not having to walk through the rain, either. I miss walking in South Side under that cloudy sky; even if I only ever did really see the strip that is E. Carson St, and that isn't all of South Side, I still miss it. The air I breathed there had character to it; a sort of volume I can't ever seem to find out here in California, try as I might. But even the feeling I got from daytime is nothing compared to the way it comes alive at night, when all the lights are on with colors everywhere. Sure, it's mostly bars; bars I never went into, and still (probably) wouldn't even though I'm of age.

And I miss the public transit. Granted, Port Authority is becoming more and more strapped for cash and is cutting service while raising prices, but I could still get where I needed to go. And as I mentioned before, Pittsburgh at night is nothing to scoff at; put your headphones on and start listening to techno or trance, staring out the window. Surprisingly, the surroundings fit the music, even if only blandly. I used to have Aphex Twin in a CD player as I took the 51B, 51B/D, 51C, or whichever buses I needed to take home, and... well, the music matches the town, is the only way I can really describe it.

Pittsburgh -- and living there -- taught me to walk long distances and be resilient, gave me the drive to go on despite what happens, and gave me hope that there's always something better at the end. Even though all good things, also, must come to an end, the experience is still all the sweeter. Most of the heartbreak in my life comes from Pittsburgh; but most of the firsts, and the best experiences of my life, all there.

I moved to Sacramento to be with the girl I love, and I'm moving to Stockton (eventually) to give us and others a better life, but there is no other location on Earth that truly feels like home to me... not even my place of birth, Minneapolis, MN. I don't feel nearly the same familiarity there as I do to Pittsburgh.

I wonder if that will ever change, for any place and not just this one.

Things to be said for my time out here, though... I'm twice the person I was two years ago, better in nearly every way. More focused, more skilled and more knowledgeable. And I would never have found out about OWbN or learned so much by doing their web stuff if I had never moved. I wouldn't have gotten this sweet job that I enjoy more than any other job I've ever had (even though I've only had a few jobs, so it's not saying much). And, of course, I wouldn't have found the love of my life were it not for this place.

That won't stop me from reliving my memories, though, and it won't stop me from missing one of the few places I could ever truly call home.

Hmm... I seem to have rambled on long enough... time for bed.