SamuraiNet Blog

While working on my web-spider class for an application I was developing, I did some searching for efficiency of spidering algorithms. I came across this comparison of the depth-first versus breadth-first search algorithms. http://www.leekillough.com/trapopt.html

Using a combination of Javascript and CSS, it is possible to enumerate parts of a user’s history. This site demonstrates this with a “finding your gender” based on which sites you have viewed. http://www.mikeonads.com/2008/…-history-estimate-gender/

The following two links provide a breakdown of file systems based on capabilities (the wikipedia post) and performance (the linuxgazette post.) I’ve been using these lately while re-installing a few machines and have found them to be more than helpful.

http://linuxgazette.net/122/piszcz.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems

Typo-squatting is a well known method of gathering data or presenting spam-sites. This article from TechRepublic gives a few methods for protecting against such a threat. http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=543&tag=nl.e036

This is a handy little web application that will generate your .htaccess file to restrict access based on what country the IP address is from. http://blockacountry.com/htaccess.php

If you are a programmer anything I like I am, you are constantly trying to find ways to better yourself or keep skills sharp. A friend of mine showed me this set of exercises designed to help keep things fresh. http://codekata.pragprog.com/2007/01/code_kata_backg.html

“90% of emails sent are spam” is a statistic found on the following article. With such a large percentage of emails being considered spam protection techniques need to move to proactive, rather than reactive. One method being suggested is tracking the sources and flow of email traffic.http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14698112

In my continuing search for information pertaining to cyber warfare I have found the following two articles. The first describes why global hackers are so hard to detect and the problems both security related and political this creates. The second article shows that France is making an effort to join the “digital front line.” It explains France’s strategy to get into the cyber warfare game. http://www.livescience.com/technology/080619-chinese-hackers.html http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/19/content_8402780.htm

This article lists 10 of the most infamous “black hat’s” over the years along with what they are known for doing. Interestingly enough, the fact that they are known shows they are not quite as good as people make them out to be. http://www.itpro.co.uk/603831/ten-of-the-most-infamous-black-hat-hackers

With anti-virus software and firewalls on the rise, virus writes have moved to targeting routers. By changing the DNS settings on a router the attacker gains control of all traffic the infected network has access too. Pointing sites to malware ridden pages or conducting man-in-the-middle attacks are only the beginning of this potential. http://www.itpro.co.uk/603852/new-trojan-threat-able-to-control-network-routers

“Be careful what you say” is something we’ve all heard, but in the current day and age perhaps “be careful what you email” is more relevant. Two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers have been brought up on charges for misleading investors. Part of the evidence are email records proving that these two knew the market was not where they claimed it to be. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080620/bear_stearns_investigation.html

MySQL may be partially going closed source thanks to Sun, but IBM is taking DB2 to the open source market. It is not directly going to be put out for all eyes, but according to Chris Livesey it is inevitable that DB2 will end up in the open source world. Read more here: http://news.cnet.com/IBM-to-open-source-DB…1694.html?tag=html.alert.hed

For those of you old enough to remember some of Blizzard’s classics: Diablo and Diablo II (and Lord of Destruction), it seems Blizzard is going to be blessing us with Diablo III. So far 2 character classes have been released, the barbarian and the witch doctor. http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/

Spam is annoying.

Spam trying to avoid spam filters with it’s 1337 5p34k is more annoying.

Idiotic spammers are the worst. I have been receiving spam from myself for quite some time, but only today did I actually think before simply clearing it out. Why would a spammer send me spam from a spoofed address that is mine? Obviously it would help to avoid certain filters, ones looking at allowed or disallowed email addresses. This method of filtration is extremely weak however and any decent spam filter would still block the email. I also verified these emails were infact spoofed and that my account had not been hijacked. They were indeed spoofed emails.

Beyond my confusion for the reasoning of using the rcpt address as the from address was one question: Who would open spam from themselves?

Here is a collection of subject lines I have received… from myself.

• Try these on the dirtiest surfaces in your home..
• Get up to 15OO USD by tomorrow..
• Vl@gra Cl@lis 72.5324% Save
• dirty teein stripping sincerode

Funny… I don’t remember sending any of these emails to myself.