haxorthematrix

I hate SPAM. Well, actually, I do enjoy the Hormel potted meat product from time to time, but I hate unsolicited e-mails.

The folks over at PandaLabs have found that spammers are now beginning to include subliminal messages in the spam messages. The research is indicating that spammers are placing "BUY" in the messages for 10 to 40 milliseconds. Possibly with some sort of animated .gif? Hmmm....

It is good to see that spammers are learning from history, and are using some methods that have been shown to work (if they didn't why to advertisers still use them - look closely in those ice cubes in advertisements).

We should use those techniques for good! In the setup CDs for wireless routers, put subliminal messages such as "USE WPA2", and set corporate desktop background images to cycle "CHANGE PASSWORD", "STOP PLAYING GAMES" and "WATCH PORN AT HOME, NOT AT WORK". I could think of a thousand different messages that would make my job easer...

- L

New spam technique uses subliminal messages to manipulate users

Posted by Larry at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Hate linux-modules-restricted.

I did cross post this a few days ago over at PaulDotCom, but I did want to preserve it for posterity here. This is also a great test of my migration to my Mac, so that I can now do this from anywhere. Expect more from me now!

Paul and I spent some time a few weeks back trying to get Karma working on my new Ubuntu 6.06 LTS installation. Needless to say we ran into a few problems with the MadWifi-old kernel modules.

For those not in the know, Karma is a great piece of software for demonstrating how insecure open wireless networks are, as well as illustrating problems that can be had by auto probing for insecure wireless networks. Karma uses a patch for the Madwifi-old drivers to answer for ANY open SSID request, and can perform a number of actions - DNS, DHCP as well as HTTP content redirection. The usefulness of such a tool is quite apparent, especially when delivering a demo to those management-types who like pretty pictures. We'll be releasing a video segment of PaulDotCom security Weekly of Karma in the next few weeks.

Paul and I spent a few hours trying to figure out why my installation didn't work, and I proceeded to spend several weeks scouring the internet looking for help to little avail.

I was able to put some of my research to good use, and certainly provided me the right direction. After all of this research I figured that I was not the only one in this predicament. As a result I've documented the steps that I have completed to make Karma work for me under Ubuntu with Madwifi-old. I'd like to release said documentation, so that you can learn from my experiences:

http://www.pauldotcom.com/KarmaUbuntu.pdf

I would certainly consider this a living document. Please, any and all comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated and should be directed to larry@pauldotcom.com

Enjoy, and may Karma be good to you!

- Larry

Posted by Larry at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)