Kalimat al-Mutafalsif

I've been really busy as of late. That web contract I spoke of has kept me on as a web admin guy for the indefinite future and I'm looking to put together a team of php/mysql programmers to help me! Also, code for my CS classes has stepped up in complexity, so... ow. But in my spare time I'm still coding for fun.... just to clear my mind. The project I've been doing for the past week or week and a half is one Ammon and I are calling Thieves Tavern. What is it? Read on to find out!
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It's been a wee bit (a good week and a half) since I last posted, due to a variety of factors. The most telling, of course, was that this past week was spring break and I was in the sunny Bahamas. It was a great time, lots of alcohol comsumed (I'm 21 now), tons of pretty girls... it rocked. In actuality I spent Spring break at school, programming, yea what a glamorous life. I picked up a contract for a website about three weeks ago and this past week was the culmination of that, with my site being pushed live for a Beta test last night. Once it gets a bit cleaner (currently I don't support IE) I'll post a link to it so I can get some good testers. So, to summarize, Snarky's still alive (barely), Three Planets Software has its first contract under its belt, and there's a great new social network coming!

I'm in a bad way right now. Personal issues just about every week have made this semester the semester from Hell. Well, today was the worst, I've almost snapped from stress, depression, lots of stuff. Not meaning for this to be emo, just want to set up what goes into these posts more. Anyways I went running tonight. Car's messed up, needed to get out so I just lit out runnin. Ended up (so far, no where near done) at the school library, wanting to do some hacking. A lot of my hacking is done when I'm trying to clear my mind of larger issues, which is how I get issues so bottled up inside that I can snap. This is an problem, but tonight, I just need an escape. So I *just* hit publish on a semi-decent write up of fun I've had with printers, I want to show you some more in depth.

I'd like to start with saying I'm not doing this to be malicious... I'm just curious about these printers. Nothing I do will be aimed at hurting the printer in any way, nor the school network. I'm not doing anything here because I'm bitter or have pent up stress, I need an escape, and here's a great way to spend 30 minutes off in a wonderful world of binary choices where everything works out right. Without further ado: a look at my schools printers.
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So, if you've never read this blog before, quick fact: I have issues with my school's networks. I've been kicked off them before for "SSH brute forcing" a server set up to BE brute forced. I've been denied various requests for accounts being transferred to me due to being a student and the the administration not thinking I need said account. I've had money paid to other people with almost my same name because the administration was too lazy to use my email address.... or something, still not sure how that happened. Moral of the story, there's a lot of annoyances I deal with regarding this network, though its probably mainly my fault for being the way I am.

Now, for the lighter side of things, fun times that can be had with large networks of computers.
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Two nights ago I posted a picture, and a challenge to guess what the heck happened. Didn't get that many responses, though the best was: "While undercover you smoked up and your backup came to arrest you by accident..." from my loving brother. Thanks for the support. Harkins was right close with his: "I’d bet you got in an awful lot of trouble for making your car look like police car." Whoops, I meant: "Oh, it’s the other one? Got me then. Skidded through some ice and onto someone’s lawn?"

So, the fll story goes like this. Saturday here was really weird. I woke up, and it was snowing hard. An hour later it was sunny, and snow was melted. Repeat 3-4 times. 'Round evening time I went over to a friend's place for a Wii party. Was fun, until we realized there was no pizza, bummer. So two friends and I went out riding to grab a pizza and listen to Pirate Shanties, not half an hour after we'd arrive. When we went to the party, the roads were perfectly dry, wonderful traction. When we left, we had to go down a hill that starting from the crest of the hill curves to the left. Also starting at the crest of the hill (so you couldn't see it sooner) was an entire hill of black ice. By the time I realized we were on ice, I couldn't do anything, and we skidded into the curb. Ok, no we skidded onto the curb, and were stopped by a poor sapling who now sits at a 45 degree angle, and more costly, its concrete box. That initial hit busted my axle so my wheels couldn't turn more right than almost straight, luckily the hill curves left, right? So we had to move the car immediately, as the next car over that hill would smash right into me, and past this tree/box was a sloping hill down to a nice tree line, you guessed it, the hill was a nice sheet of ice as well. I kinda got us sliding down the hill again, with just about no control, and managed to skid up onto the left shoulder about a foot in front of that tree.

*Whew* Fun time's over, right? Well, not exactly. My bumper was still about a foot into the road, and some idiots were taking this hill as fast as 40 miles an hour. When I hit it I was only doing about 20, so we saw people whose cars did full 180 turns, even a few 270s as they tried to stop/turn/whatever. Moral of the story, this being a 1 lane on each side road, my car was still in the danger zone if anyone else lost all control. So we ran back up the hill to try not to get hit. Its 18 degrees out, by the way. Took me an hour to get a tow truck out there, an hour outside standing there watching people keep flying down the hill and sinlently hoping one would hit my car so it'd be on their insurance. No such luck, hello $500 deductible. Thankfully a police officer showed up with road flares and was able to guide a bus down that would have just gone down as fast as it normally does. Unfortunately that also means accident report, and that leaves me liable for that stupid sapling I beat up if the management of the property decides to be mean to a poor college student.

Oh, and the best part. I turned 21 at midnight. So I busted my car 2 hours before I was supposed to be in a bar with a coupla friends "celebrating". The really sad thing: Between a web contract I've got now, and my money to go out somewhere nice for my birthday I MIGHT be able to break even with regards to the deductible.

*Mutter* Wish I was a pirate and could just plunder me a new car...

Leave a comment with what you think happened. Best/finniest story will be featured here. And yes, that is my car.

Well, I'm awake on time (9 am), done my workout, eating breakfast as we speak and I'm sqeeky clean from my shower. This new morning routine gives me lots of time to ponder before starting my day, and I was reflecting on an interesting happening yesterday. Quickly summing it up, I was able to apply a hacking method for hardware to an AIM conversation, fun huh?

Quick language lesson: Power Attack - The name of a certain type of attack, usually used on hardware, that determines information from power drawn. This was originally used on smart cards where one could determine the encryption key by measuring the power drawn off the card at certain points in authentication.

So yesterday I was having a somewhat personal conversation with a girl who does CS-like stuff at a really cool University (cool in my mind for some working agreements they have with notable social networking sites). She's a good friend and we'd discussed this topic in the past, but for whatever reason I was being very standoffish. I'll take this time to point out there's nothing illicit going on, I just respect the privacy of anyone I talk to, and the conversation topic might identify her to people that know her.

Well conversation turned to a lighter topic, and involved a scientific equation that I try to live by. At most two people in the world (aside from me) know this equation... and its a closely guarded Snarky-Secret, so it shan't be aired just yet, but after I mentioned this equation I noticed the little 'typing' icon on her GAIM window was on for about a minute. After which she replied "Absolutely true". I pointed out that that was an awfully long time to type such a small phrase, and was able to drag the real message out of her.

Now, that's just a stupid little case where a power attack actually worked, but I was darn proud. This shows that, for those of you who aren't hackers (probably a majority of my readers), you can still apply "hacker techniques" to any area of you life, regardless of if there's obvious overlap or not. Here a technique that's normally used against corporations (to find out when they're working), Smart Cards, and keyboards which effectively took down the most powerful defense known to man.... the female mind.