“Guns don’t kill people… Mythbusters kill people… when people try what the MythBusters do on TV at home!”
Jamie Hyneman, in the last episode of MythBusters said “[Guns] kill people.” He’s so wrong. A gun can not do anything by itself. It’s a tool and is wielded by a person — a thinking, breathing, individual who is solely responsible for their actions and the use of that firearm.
I’m saddened to hear this otherwise thoughtful individual say otherwise.
I really like Apple’s new Snow Leopard OS. If you look back through my blog you’ll see my trials and tribulations I went through, lamenting the upgrade. I felt that Leopard was never quite up to par — that it fell short of Tiger in many ways. I really liked Tiger, that was a solid operating system.
But in any good OS, you have to be able to tweak it; customize it in seemingly mindless little ways to make it yours. It starts with naming your machine. There’s a big difference between a machine named “Dilbert” or one named “Loki”. And you want to start from there and expand. Tweaking your background, cursors, file icons, screen animations, you name it… it should be tweakable and fit into your Norse Mythological scheme or your Dilbert Philosophy.
Please don’t misunderstand me where I’m about to go next. I love astronomy. I like Apple’s sense of style and design. But, I never liked the Aurora.jpg that was the default background for Leopard. I wasn’t happy when it became my default background when I upgraded to Snow Leopard from Tiger. And I wasn’t happy when changing my Desktop background as an administrator there wasn’t a checkbox to Change Login Background also.
It annoyed me. I really grew to despise that image. And for months I’ve searched and searched for the solution — how do I eradicate Aurora.jpg from displaying on my mac? Finally I recently became obsessed and refusing defeat I continued searching Google. Coincidentally, Googles new “Bing” tools made the difference and I finally found the solution.
Open up Terminal and enter in the following commands.
cd /System/Library/CoreServices/
mv DefaultDesktop.jpg DefaultDesktop.old.jpg
sudo mv DefaultDesktop.jpg DefaultDesktop.old.jpg
sudo cp /Library/Desktop\ Pictures/Nature/Horizon.jpg ./DefaultDesktop.jpg
I chose to copy the Horizon.jpg image to the DefaultDesktop.jpg image. But you can choose any image you like.
And that is how to change the default background image for the login page on Mac OS X version 10.6 otherwise known as Snow Leopard. And just as a side note and a way to help other “search engine challenged people” like myself, it helps to figure out the file name of the image you’re searching for and not just call it space image, leopard default image, and other generic things like that.
I’m a little disappointed in Apple. I think it was MUCH too complicated for the Mac experience. I think Apple should pay closer attention to making every little thing easy to customize… and easy to restore to its default values in future versions of their Operating Systems.
It will be the little things that matter in the near future too. The devil is in the details. Google is pressing the court and developing Android to complete with the iPhone. It won’t be long until they follow in Apple’s footsteps and take a Linux kernel and make an OS that rivals Mac OS (although Apple used BSD Unix instead of Linux, I can’t see Google making that same choice).
While I was vacationing in New Jersey I was bitten by a dog. Actually, first the dog went to bite me but wasn’t fast enough. Then, I choked him with his collar and made him stand on his hind legs to breath. When he calmed down and stopped acting like a wild animal I let him down at which time he immediately resumed acting like a wild animal and finally succeeded in bitting me.
I had a very large puncture in my arm which bled profusely. I decided I needed to go to the Emergency Room.
I had a tetanus shot a few months before during my annual physical. I also knew the dog was healthy. So, my the biggest problem I faced was an infection from the bite. So, before going to the Emergency Room I cleaned my wound and then drove myself to the Hospital.
My father and I drove to the Robert Wood Johnson Memorial Hospital at Hamilton. I checked in and waited patiently in the reception area. I was given two pieces of sterile gauze for the bleeding and while I sat waiting I used the sanitary hand foam on the wall to further clean and disinfect my wound. Within fifteen (15) minutes we were lead back into the treatment area of the Emergency Room. There we waited approximately forty five (45) minutes until someone trained to practice medicine saw me. While waiting, I had to go to the bathroom. After going to the bathroom I washed my hands and the puncture wound on my arm with hot soapy water and foam hand sanitizer. When I got back to the treatment area where I had been waiting, I disposed of all my bloody towels and gauze in the red bio-hazard garbage can and took another piece of gauze to keep pressed against my wound. My father informed me I had missed John, the Medical Technician. I said, “They’ll be back. They’ll need this room eventually.”
In a few minutes John came back, looked at my wound and was surprised at how clean it was. He took my vital signs, blood pressure, oxygen, pulse and temperature. Then we waited some more for the Doctor to come in. It’s important to note that the Doctor put gloves on his hands, but he never touched me. He asked me about tetanus and rabies, and I explained that I was only worried about infection. I came because the wound was large enough I thought it needed to be stitched closed. He advised me that it was an infection risk if it were closed and I’d just have to live with a scar there. I asked about shaving my arm to keep the hair out of the wound and I was told that was not necessary.
The Medical Technician, John, squirted some triple antibiotic on the wound and slapped a large band-aid on my hairy arm. I picked up a prescription for some antibiotics and was asked how I was going to pay for my visit. My insurance has a $50 co-pay. So I gladly put that on a credit card and went to the nearest drug store to fill my prescription.
Not counting the antibiotic that were prescribed (2 pills per day for 7 days) the actual emergency room treatment I received lasted all of two hours. In two hours the large band-aid I had been given by John had filled up with blood and was leaking. I had to remove the band-aid, along with a large portion of arm hair that stuck to it, to redress the wound. At this time I shaved my own arm. Three band-aids a day is enough reason to look slightly silly by having a bare patch around an extra large band-aid. Plus, hair trapped in a wound is just plain unsanitary.
Today I checked my health care account and I was shocked. Just to remind you, my medical treatment consisted of being ignored for more than an hour and a half, having my vital signs taken, speaking to a Doctor for all of five minutes about the injury, three pieces of sterile gauze, a smidgen of neosporin, a large band-aid and a prescription for amoxicillin. The Emergency Room charged my Health Care company $1004.46! My Health Insurance agreed to pay them $465.00 to which the hospital agreed. $373.50 of that cost is covered by my plan. So I’m personally responsible for $91.50. $91.50 for three pieces of gauze, neosporin, a large band-aid, and an antibiotic prescription! In my opinion the services rendered were barely worth my $50 deductible!
I would have rather walked up to a counter like in any fast food chain to be greeted with a cheerful hello and a list of services and prices up front. The Doctor’s hourly rate is $300 per hour, PA’s and RN’s are $150 per hour and Medical Technicians are $75 per hour, but that’s only the actual time they spend in the treatment room with you. A Doctor’s time comes to $5 per minute. Prescriptions have an additional $20 fee — seems fair. There’s a $20 fee for incidentals used, gloves, gauze, band-aids, etc. Sure, sure, sure. My total would have been less than $90. If medical services were priced like this I wouldn’t have a co-pay on my insurance.
I’d love to see the itemized breakdown by the hospital to justify a bill of $1004.46, which I think is just completely absurd.
I received an email from my brother yesterday. It was a joke email with a subject “Don’t swallow ocean water” and had the following attachment:
Don't Drink Ocean Water
I had a chuckle. I am a guy after all. Low-brow humor affects me. But several hours after receiving this email, the horror of the image hit me. That poor, harmless, mammal, has been killed, hauled up on deck, and will be carved up, shipped to Japan and sold for close to $115 per pound at current exchange rates.
For a brief moment, I was ashamed that I thought it was humorous. Then it hit me. This is genius! If other people react like I did, then they’ll laugh, email the photo around, and hopefully come to the same conclusions I did and be horrified they laughed at a photo depicting slaughter. This image is viral. It should be passed around harmlessly as a joke, and hopefully the image will slowly eat away at the psyche of the viewer and convert their way of thinking.
I don’t condone the killing of whales. I personally think something needs to be done. I feel protesting with your wallet is the most powerful way to make a statement. You vote every time you reach for your credit card. Maybe a boycott of all Japanese electronics? All goods Japanese?
I was browsing my logs today. I get bored sometimes. As a security guy, it’s something I know I should do more often. It just seems a little pointless. No bragging here, my time is expensive. Every minute I’m not working is a minute I’m not securing my family’s future. I sound like an investment commercial there, but it’s true. In life, nothing is free, there is a cost that can be associated with everything. Like the costs of running this site. Some would argue it’s only a few dollars a month. I feel though that it’s more than that now. You see today, I’ve seen tracks… traces of an undesirable element in my log files. Yes, today, I have seen the tell tale sign of haxors.
zero sum game
I use that spelling specifically. I’m one of those old-fogies that call themselves a hacker. But I’ve never done harm. Never deleted a file. Never defaced a website. Never threatened anyone’s lively hood. I have played a practical joke or two. But nothing that brought any harm, real or perceived. In my mind a true hacker is a ‘computer enthusiast.’ A person who likes to play games and solve puzzles. A person who likes to cobble together creative solutions to technological challenges. For example, the other week I decided to see if I could have a radio-show without a microphone. Why? For the same reason people climb mountains, “Because it was there.”
Haxor is my way of identifying one who is not a true hacker. One who is trying to spread malicious code, create a bot network, deface a website, etc. You might have heard terms like script-kiddie, cracker, hijacker, etc. I like haxor.
Anyway, I started my site using iWeb to publish static content here. It seemed to work fine. But one of my very close friends, also in security, basically refused to come here because the created code was so javascript heavy. I kept my eyes open for a solution to this dilemma. I want something that I can quickly and effortlessly publish and update that produces good clean code. Another colleague of mine suggested WordPress. I did some research and found it to be quite nice. I have some reservations running a php based site, but I put a little effort into setting it up properly. I also found that I could use Gallery with iPhoto (there’s a nice plugin that allows me to publish effortlessly) and I now have a site that is accessible, robust and easy.
Today, I saw why I was originally hesitant of running a PHP site. The requests in my logs were for install configuration php files and other files that had my database password within. Now while this is distressful, it’s not something I didn’t expect to happen some time sooner or later. I didn’t think my site was popular enough to warrant a haxor presence, so on one hand I’m pretty flattered. On the other, I just have to wonder why? Is it because I’m in security? It is because I’ve upset someone? It wouldn’t be the first time, believe me. What is the benefit and what is the cost?
No-win scenario
Well, the benefit might be bragging rights that a security guy’s site was haxed. But there’s really not much to brag about. I put very little effort into securing this information.
What is that you say, Mr. Haxor? You own my database? You know my password? That password is either really lame and low security or randomly generated. It won’t even get you into my email. Believe me, it’s only used for the database. And I have backups of my database. Purge, reinstall, restore, and I’m back up again.
What is that you say, Mr. Haxor? You have uploaded nasty maleware to my site? No worries, rm -rf ./* will fix that. And I have backups of my site too. It might take a few days to upload it all, but you’ve done nothing but waste some of my precious time.
What is that you say, Mr. Haxor? You pwned me? You think this is a game. That’s funny, because I wasn’t playing any security games with you. I don’t have time to. You’re really not worth my time. Nor is finding and plugging any security holes in WordPress or Gallery.
Will I plug holes that you so rudely point out? Yes, because I don’t want to continue wasting my time restoring my website. Will that mean you won and forced me to play your stupid games? No. There is a secure way of using these programs, it’s just a waste of my time and website resources. Will I eventually do it? If you piss me off enough probably. But then again, where are you going if your goal in life is to piss people off? My guess, prison.
So everyone knows, this site is a soft target. Nothing special here. No time, money, or desire to secure it. If you’re just a griefer, realize this, I could not care less. As in, I care as little as possible. As in, this is my notebook. If it’s lost, burned, or soaked in coffee, I’ll just replace it.
If you crack this site I officially declare you to be a script-kiddie-wannabe. Weak. Lame. Tired. Pathetic. Go beat up a first grader. You’re still worthless. You have proven nothing.
Time to step down from my soapbox.