The Musings of Mike
So today, I went to a flea market in New Castle, Delaware and snagged this sign for $10.
It plugs in, and lights up. Not too sure what I’m gonna do with it, but its pretty cool, and I’d expect hard to find as well.
So about two weeks ago, I ordered a Stylophone from Thinkgeek and have been more than satisfied. For those that don’t know, the Stylophone was a popular toy in the late 1960’s. What sets this toy apart is that it is infact a compact synthesizer. What makes it awesome is the fact that it was used by several big names in music, for example David Bowie played a Stylophone on his song, “Space Oddity” and Kraftwerk used it on their track, “Pocket Calculator”.
I purchased a reproduction Stylophone for $20, and certainly got everything I wanted and more. The new Stylophone has three tone settings as opposed to the original Stylophone’s one, so my Stylophone has the same set of tones as the original, but also two additional. I also learned after purchasing that there is a pitch knob underneath the unit, that can be used to tune the Stylophone to the desired key, but can also be used while playing for strange melodic effects. Lastly, there is a vibrato switch on the top next to the power switch, which can make the tones “pulse” in a way that mimics the human voice.
Below is a wav file of some tones I recorded while I was screwing around with it (yeah, this thing has a line out jack).
So in my summer time, oh so long ago, I picked up with my N64 shenanigans again for the first time in years. Probably about seven years to be more specific. While the software is a lot more advanced then it was back then, we had another innovation called Windows XP which doesn’t really like the software, and a step back, Windows 2K realllllly doesn’t like it. So I had a bit of success on Windows XP with some loopholes, and actually less success then I was supposed to have one one of my surviving Windows 98 boxes. Everything comes down to how the kernal locks down the parallel port of the computer. Windows 98 loves to give away the access, Windows 2K likes to hold onto the access, and Windows XP likes to hold onto it, but let you borrow it if you want to.
So the way it works, through the parallel port of my printer, I hook up a cord that goes to my gameshark, which sits between the N64 console and the game (With the software I have, Goldeneye was used). If you have ever used any console based cheat device, like a Game Genie, you know the kind of in-between cartridge I am talking about.
The back of the Gameshark, showing the SharkPort
So, after I connect everything and set it up, I went to the software side. The first thing I needed was DLPortIO which unlocks the parallel port for the purpose of writing data to devices on connected to the port. It comes with its own basic writing functions, but I only needed it to open access to the port, which it happily did. I then retrieved GE Face Mapper from http://rarewitchproject.com/ which is an excellent website that pushes the limits on games made by the company Rareware years after they come out. I also kept a copy of N64 Utils v3 on hand just in case my Gameshark decided to freak out and delete its own software. It was also useful for retrieving screen caps.
It might not look too nice, but this is one of the outcomes of a texture replacement
So I unlocked my ports, and booted up facemapper and started my N64. I turned on the code generator function of the Gameshark to use some of the in-game features, and loaded up Goldeneye, selecting the first level, “Dam”. Once there, I did a ram dump using the GE Face Mapper, which showed me which bitmaps of enemies’ were loaded in the level, and allowed me to replace them with my own bitmaps, overwriting their places in the RAM. After doing that, I was able to dump the screen capture (as you saw above) back onto my computer.
So for the past year or so, I’ve had increased interest in vintage boomboxes. I believe the appeal comes from the need for a powerful portable audio solution. Previous to having boomboxes, I would take a set of dc-powered computer speakers, chop off the plug, strip down the wires, and hook up a set of 9-volt batteries wired in parallel. The problem with this, however, is that 9-volt batteries are expensive, and most sets of computer speakers run on more then 9 volts of electricity. So yeah, I could mix and match batteries, but to get a reliable flow of electricity, that would require casing, and basically a bunch of wiring I didn’t want to do. So I went around with underpowered speakers that just caused problems when batter life ran short.
Now, I turn to boomboxes to do the hard work for me. Boomboxes were first introduced in the mid to late 70’s and became a facet of audio gear until their decline in the late 80’s. The appeal of boomboxes were their portability, battery life, and most important, volume. Every boombox was made to be cranked up with quality amplifiers and top of the line remixing features.
The thing that makes boomboxes accessable nowadays is the fact that the majority of them included built in cassette decks. With simple adapters purchasable at any electronics store for under $15, any new mp3 or cd player can be hooked up to a boombox, giving it whole new life and purpose.
Clockwise, mid 70s Panasonic, mid 80s Soundesign, late 80s Panasonic
So a few nights ago (I don’t remember how many because my sleep schedule is so messed up) I installed NetBSD on an old box I had lying around. This box is a P2 running at maybe 266mhz with 64mb of ram; its been a while since I’ve seen the specs, but these are roughly them. This was the second computer I have ever purchased, and has gone through so many operating systems, I can’t believe the hard disk still spins up. Win98 to Ubuntu to Debian to CentOS to- well, you get the idea.
So I got the impulse to install something new on it. I mean, I completely ignored it for a year or two, and I couldn’t remember any passwords, so an install was logical, but normally I would have just flipped the switch and forgot about it for longer. Something grabbed me. I chose to go with NetBSD because I had used flavors of Linux and Windows before, but had no experience at all with a BSD environment. So the install seems to go well, it boots, I can login, but after a while, I thought it to be lacking. Maybe a bit over my head. There was no help command, it didn’t seem to network itself; I was lost. So instead of continuing with this install, I went over it with a familiar face: Debian.
I had installed Debian for the first time maybe 2 years prior when I had absolutely zero experience. I was trying to make a webserver, and needless to say, that project failed. I could always install NetBSD again later, but for now I wanted something I could use right out of the box.
The install goes smoothly, and everything settles in nicely. This time, I know the thing networked correctly because I used a bare bones netinstall disc and it had to connect to the debian ftp servers to get the additional software to accompany the core. So everything loads up, I apt-get a few more applications, screw around with making directories and whatnot, and admire my install.
After getting an sshd installed, I can now just SSH into the box from any computer on my LAN, and possibly anywhere on the internet if I ever decide to foward the port. So know, I have remote access from upstairs, and its as if I’m sitting right infront of box. The thing I really appreciate about this Debian install is being able to run scripts, may they be python, perl, or my favorite: bash. This way, I can execute a whole new set of programs that I had previosly been locked out of due to OS restrictions.
The WOPR (Named after the Wargames computer of the same name) running a simple “Hello World” script.
So last night, while doing nothing, I decided to full around with eggdrop irc bots. I specifically used Windrop to run on my desktop for easy testing and whatnot, but one day I hope to toss this thing on a nix shell and get it off a personal pc.
The config file was daunting. This wasn’t the first time I made one of these bots, but since I had origionally, the config base file has been altered somewhat, and is far more complex. After I partly configed it, there was the problems of commenting out all the kill commands that were put in it to make sure you went through the entire file thoroughly. Needless to say, I didn’t, and probably wasted more time looking for those damn lines then it would have taken to just read the entire thing. Then there was the problem that the bot worked, but it would flip out when opped and do crazy things to the channel and people. I couldn’t fix this without reinstalling the bot, and the torment continued.
After maybe seven re-edits, the thing became stable enough to op, and utilited some key features. Tcl scripts add so much functionality to these bots I wonder why anyone would use them for anything else. I mean, I can see these bots back in the day used in place for various services, but now, they are just kinda knick-knacks. Tcl scripts allow regular programmers to go off and creat bot code without modifying any key files. These scripts are addons, or modules if you will.
So now, I have all these scripts on the bot. Weather, horoscopes, seen commands, etc. It all functions well, six hours after starting. The possibly best feature I integrated into this bot is the ability to read RSS. I now have a use for these feeds I have been compiling. The beauty is, the bot will check the forums, and the rest of the site every half an hour, If something in the feed is new, the bot will announce it to the channel. Refreshing the pages waiting to see updates becomes obsolete.
So a little bit ago, must have been last year judging now, I was into what some call “Botnet Hunting”. As in, I would go and search for active malicious botnets, pretend to be a bot, connect, and wait out on the server to see what was going on and what information I could gather.
To understand what I was doing, there is first the concept of what a botnet is and consists of. I will specifically be talking of DDoS botnets. Every botnet starts with a person, or botnet herder. The bot herder starts by setting up an IRC server. IRC is an acronym for Internet Relay Chat, a fairly common messaging protocol based around chat on servers, and networks of servers (Such as the elcycle chat). Think chatrooms, but with much more control and capability. So, the bot herder sets up a server and configures it to not be picked up by any IRC indexing services that could expose the server to the general public in any way. Once the server is setup, the bot herder acquires a (usually free) DNS mask. The DNS mask will take the server’s Ip (internet protocol) address and give it something similar to a domain name for connection. Free ones are usually chosen from services such as No-Ip or DynDNS and are used in a temporary fashion. Nothing of the bot herder’s personal information is left with the service, because they are free.
Next, the bot herder works on the bot code. Commonly, sources are taken and modified to the herder’s liking, but sometimes these bot codes are made from scratch. Common bot scripts are created and compiled in C++ though I have seen some in other languages. The purpose of this code is to connect the victim’s machine to the irc server the bot herder had set up, and assign it a nickname based on the OS of the infected computer, as well as a number (Either random or based on the victim’s location, for example a bot nick could be “XP|73590257″). This bot code is very lightweight, designed to hide from anti-virus programs, set to run every time the computer restarts, and imbeded into the registry. It would not be a surprise if you had one of these bots infecting you with no knowledge.
After the bot code is compiled into an executable ( a .exe file). The malicious file is then usually bound to another legit executable. For example, this bot file could be hidden within a Firefox installer and be launched covertly when you try to install firefox. Because of the design, you would be unaware the bot code was even being run. The binders that combine the executables are also easily found and used. Some of the programs that bot herders use come with Windows distros and are expected to be used to make install packages for mass updates.
The hardest step is distribution of the infected file. Thankfully, there are many unintelligent internet users who will blindly download and install anything as long as they think it will do what they desire. Consider releasing this application on a P2P network (Limewire, Kazaa) with a bogus name and having victims willingly download.
Once they download and run the file, thats all it takes. The bot infects the computer, hides itself, covers its tracks, and then connects to the IRC server. Sometimes, these bots are a bit more sophisticated and can contain a RAT (Remote Access Trojan). This bot herder could gain full control of the victim’s machine, and take things like stored internet logs and credit card numbers, as well as send a copy of itself to everyone in the computer’s email address book.
Once on the IRC server, the bot joins a channel (room) and waits. The bot herder then goes to this room whenever he/she pleases and takes controls of the bots using several commands (these commands usually start with a period, for example “.upgrade http://xxxxx.com/botupdatefilename.xxx”). The main purpose of these bots is Distributed Denial of Service attacks on servers. The bot herder will issue a command to all the bots and tell them to all ping a single server. The amount of ping the server gets is too great, and causes the server to lock up and go offline. The more bots there are, the quicker this will happen. Some botnets have been found to have populations in the area of hundreds of thousands and could render a server useless quickly.
The bot herder does not always restrict this botnet to self-use, and can offer services to other groups in exchange for information, stolen passwords, money, etc. Botnets have also been used recently against various websites that deal with scientology.
I recently ushered in spring break yesterday by installing an operating system that doesn’t exist. The infamous Windows Neptune. Somewhere between Windows 2K and Windows Me, there was this humble little operating system. I got ahold of the 5111 build and I am certainly not disappointed. Despite the tiring install, and a few driver errors in the beginning, its been running solid as a rock. I have no idea what I’m gonna do with it. The computer that I had it on used to be my little webserver project, so I’m gonna see how Apache holds up on it soon. If you have any idea for it, leave a comment, I open to stuff.
I had heard about the fon early in December I believe. For some reason, I wasn’t smart enough to order a load of free ones to toy with. For those of you who don’t know, the la fon, or fonera as it can be called, is a wireless router designed solely to be set up giving free wireless access to anyone and everyone that happens to connect. It creates 2 wifi networks. One public and one private WEP encrypted dealy for access to all your private whatnot. The reason most people flocked to these was because they were being given out for free by the company that makes them. So you got a free wireless router, and you could sign up a bunch of times and order a dozen of them. For some reason, I overlooked the link and got one right on the deadline before they stopped the free offer. And because of this act of karma, the power supply for my fon doesn’t work so I had to splice a D-Link psu together to get something workable. By the way, their tech support is lacking. They claim one day wait and I’m on the fourth day with nothing.
Anyways, the problem that many people had with these devices is that as soon as they plug a fon into the internet, the company locks it down and you can only use it for the fon service. There is an answer to this. Disgruntled or just perhaps curious people discovered a way to run DD-WRT on the fon making it a fully accessible wifi router. If you get all the files needed to do this ahead of time, its quite a simple procedure. Because I suck at gathering necessary materials, it took me near 5 hours to complete the istall. Bear in mind that if you have ever used SSH , telnet, and know your local ip, this shouldn’t take you more than half an hour. Theres the golden question of “Is this worth it?”. Depends on your situation in particular. Am I gonna use this day to day? Probably not. If I need to set up a quick wifi for my laptop at a lan party, this small box may be just what I need.
Hopefully soon, fon will offer another free giveaway. I could use some more of these to screw with, along with one to actually use with their service. Its an interesting idea all in its own that I hope will catch on. For more information and perhaps the opportunity to obtain one of these suckers, check out The main fon website
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Fonera, post hack
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