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Happy 10/10/10 Binary Day

Ajit Gaddam — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 15:44:38 +0000

The day is made up entirely of ones and zeros, the binary language for computing.

Some other trivia about 10/10/10

0. Converting 101010 from binary to decimal gives 42, the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

1. Apparently, it is a big day for marriages. The reason for the surge is a blend of superstition and symbolism, said Maria McBride, the wedding style director at Brides Magazine. “You cross your fingers and hope it lasts a lifetime,” she said, and so “a perfect 10, times 3” suggests good luck. Besides, Ms. McBride said, “You’ll never forget your anniversary.”

Failure of Security Planning

Ajit Gaddam — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 14:55:04 +0000

I spotted this on a Git doco page:

Secret Knock Detecting Lock

Ajit Gaddam — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:56:49 +0000

Oh man .. epic geekiness… I love it

Why is Windows so expensive?

Ajit Gaddam — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 01:15:30 +0000

If you type in the query of Why is Windows so expensive? or Why is Microsoft Windows so expensive? on Microsoft’s search engine bing.com returns the top result as “Why are Macs so expensive”. This is rather disappointing where bing seemed ready to give Google a challenge in the search engine space.

Why is Windows so expensive.

Following are the top results from Bing:

News about Why is Windows so expensive
Why are Mac’s So Expensive? – Yahoo! Answers
why so expensive?. – Games for Windows Live
Why are vinyl windows so expensive? who provides them cheapest …
Why are vinyl windows so expensive? who provides them cheapest? Find answers to this and many other questions on Trulia Voices, a community for you to find and share local …
Why are windows hosting providers so expensive? – Community Server
Community Server is the platform that powers rich blogging, discussions, and sharing web communities.
Why are Macbooks so expensive? – Yahoo! Answers
WikiAnswers – Why are Apple Macs so expensive
Apple and Mac question: Why are Apple Macs so expensive? Macs are no more expensive … can save money by buying more advanced parts for a windows computer. Also, they are expensive …
Windows Embedded Blog : Why is OSS Commercial Software So Expensive?
Why are Macs so expensive? – TechSpot Troubleshooting
Why are Macs so expensive?
Why are Macs so expensive? techradar.com â” There are some good reasons not to choose a Mac when you … If I feel like Sony are charging too much for a Laptop with Windows I can get a …
Why fish is so expensive! – Windows Live

This is the result from Google:

Why Windows Vista and Office 2007 are so Expensive Â The Firefox …
Is Windows getting more expensive? – CNET News
Windows 7 to be âoemore expensiveâ than Vista, XP
Writing on the Wall: Why Windows is so expensive
Why are vinyl windows so expensive? who provides them cheapest …
Omfg Vista Is so Expensive – Windows Vista and Windows 7
Why are HDTV wall mounts so expensive?
Why is the IBM thinkpad x301 laptop so expensive with mediocre …
Why are Macs so expensive? | News | TechRadar UK
Gizmodo – The World’s Most Expensive Copy of Windows XP – XP

Update: Microsoft seems to have fixed this.

Dan Kaminsky gets hacked

Ajit Gaddam — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:01:16 +0000

Noted security professional Dan Kaminsky’s personal website was hacked into and personal information was stolen from his webserver and posted online on the eve of the Black Hat security conference. The stolen files included private emails between Dan and other security researchers.

Following is the cached result of Dan Kaminsky’s website which is currently offline.

Dan Kaminsky's personal website hacked

According to the note the hackers left on Dan’s website on doxpara.com/zf05.txt,

We hacked Dan’s assets first through finding bugs and writing 0day, and then through abusing him giving away passwords and his silly password scheme. Check out just some of his passes: fuck.hackers, 0hn0z (root account on his mail box), fuck.omg, fuck.vps, ohhai

Five character root password? Niiiiiiice.

From .mysql_history:

SET PASSWORD FOR ‘root’@’localhost’ = PASSWORD(’fuck.mysql’);

See the pattern?

The hackers also criticized Dan for using insecure blogging and hosting services that they used to host their websites and in turn allowing access to their personal data.

If you looked at Dan’s website, he used WordPress as his Content Management Solution and used the Dropshadow wordpress theme developed by Brian Gardner.

Dan Kaminsky using WordPress as his CMS

Looking at the theme, the last development occurred around April 2007. Could the hackers have used some vulnerability in the theme itself or did Dan have an insecure version of WordPress installed on his webserver? Either case, if you are using WordPress as your content management solution, it is important to think about WordPress security.