Twilighters: New Mooning

sa·ga

1.

a. A prose narrative usually written in Iceland between 1120 and 1400, dealing with the families that first settled Iceland and their descendants, with the histories of the kings of Norway, and with the myths and legends of early Germanic gods and heroes.

b. A modern prose narrative that resembles a saga.

2. A long detailed report

Well, pretty much says a lot huh? So here’s my take on this film and book franchise meant for the tweeners and middle aged women.

I yawned…. A LOT.

I went to this film with a couple of women one of which has read the books and likes them. Neither are middle aged, nor tween, and happily not overly “GO TEAM EDWARD”.. Because were they, I am pretty sure I would not be consorting with them as I am anathema to all of that. So no fangirl mewling was to be had in my near proximity.. And that’s a good thing.

Anyway, having seen the first film Friday, and nonplussed, I figured what could be the harm in seeing the new one right? I had not taken into account though ,the damage to my frontal lobes from the schmaltzy dialogue and teen angst. It nearly rotted them off. In short, it was a long ass film.

So lets list the things wrong with this film and franchise:

1. Vampires glisten like they are covered in glitter in the sun? Really? Not so much the whole bursting into flames thing that pretty much has been a constant in all vampire novels/movies/lore I can buy the not bursting into flames ala Anne Rice if old enough, but glitter? Oh how GLAM!

1. Tween dialog and angsty feelings: I guess I am just an old crabby bastard… OR perhaps its just suckily written and perhaps even woodenly acted? Oh yeah, I vote the latter. Pattinson is the next Hayden Christiensen. They had a preview for another of his films and the staid acting and type casting will only assure his future in film.. Since Hollywood has mainly been pretty mediocre and averse to taking chances. I predict a bright future of cookie cutter roles and films for him.

1. WAY too much six packs on tweener flesh. If that wolf kid is actually a teen I smell Rhoids in his daily life!

Really, the only thing I liked about this film was the Voltuni angle and the potential plot line that alleges to be forthcoming in yet another film…

A film I will not be going to see.

First it was reality TV.. Now it’s Saga’s that aren’t that rule the day. Truly Rome has fallen

Malware Stego With Proper English

Hackers could evade most existing antivirus protection by hiding malicious code within ordinary text, according to security researchers.

One of the most common ways of hijacking other people’s computers is to use “code-injection” attacks, in which malicious computer code is delivered to and then run on victims’ machines. Current security measures work on the assumption that the code used has a different structure to plain text such as English prose.

Now a team of researchers has highlighted a potential future theatre in the virus-security arms race by working out how to hide malware within English-language sentences.

Though this is a hard exploit to pull off because of all the groundwork that needs to go into it, it is a novel approach for say, a nation state actor such as China to try huh? Of course they would have to work a bit harder at using English properly and not go for the pidgin English that they are known for now in coding sites and malware at times. Imagine just getting infected from a grammatically correct http page on the internet eh?

This exploit would be classic steganography though. Lets see if this exploit shows up somewhere in the future….

“English Shell Code”

Tea Baggers Embrace Igor Panarin

Teabaggers… Yes, they are still around and attempting to “Teabag” this iteration of US administration in the eye. In my mind, they are the worst of the bags of crazy out there. They are the ultra right wing, over the edge, AM radio broadcasting, nutbags crazy enough to actually “try” to bring something like Panarin’s theses into reality.

This week Panarin made a trip to the United States. Tea party activists were waiting. On Monday night, the Houston Tea Party Patriots sponsored a speech by Panarin at a local Hilton. The event was titled “Global Crisis: Can the United States Remain United?” Panarin’s hosts, according to a flier promoting the event, want to “make sure” Panarin’s scenario “never happens.” But they weren’t sure it wouldn’t come to pass

Igor Panarin is a crazy gas bag that has been saying shit like this for a long time and now he is being linked to and welcomed to the teabagger parties. That’s it, the teabaggers have jumped the lithium shark now kids. These folks have become completely unhinged to actually believe this dystopian “Postman” BS that ol’ Pravda Panarin has been peddling.

I frankly fear for the future when we have the likes of Fox broadcasting the fear 24/7 in their “fair and balanced” mongering way with all of these teabaggers seething in front of their tv’s day and night. If anything, these people could try to light the fire in hopes of bringing it all on like the crazies trying to hasten the end times.

I recently watched a video interview of people waiting in line for a chance to get a signed copy of “Going Rogue” and man they scared the holy jeebus out of me with their “Know Nothing” mentalities. The piece made ME want to cling to my gun and my encyclopedia to twist a phrase from a former presidential candidate. Frankly, anyone with a brain stem should be afraid of these people.

And before any of you out there get your dander up, I have no problem with discourse and I have no issue with them having their opinions. They are entitled to them! But, they are just rather scary angry and many seem to be just a bit over the line of sanity for me, thus my sentiment here.

Lets look at it through another prism…

Go in and take an honest look between the most ardent and whacky of these folks and then contrast them to the most ardent insurgents and Wahabists out there…

Yeah, I went there…

Can one honestly say that they are that much different? I mean, how long is it til another Tim McVey shows up with a fertilizer bomb to a federal building?

How long til another body is found with FED scrawled on it (yes that was a suicide, but he tried to incite that whole thing by doing the way he did)

So really, anyone who is blind to the realities and chooses only to get into lock step with their crazy peers may as well be either a Teabagger or a Wahabist right?

Scary times…

It’s in these times that the “strong man” usually shows up and the sheeple begin the following. Of course what’s being said now by these folks is that is exactly whats happened with the election of Barack Obama…

Yep.. “Bag o’ Crazy”

Social Engineering: The Gate Crashers

First off, let me say “KUDOS” for actually getting into a state affair with the Secret Service at the door as well as trained snipers on the roofs and NOT getting shot. However, MAJOR points must be taken away for posting the escapade on your FACEBOOK you numbnuts!

Now with that said, I am impressed at the balls here. I mean sure, crashing a high end star party is one thing, but to get into the White House during such an event is really a crown jewel in the game of gaming people in the social engineering world. I mean, just the layers of security should be daunting with not only the Secret Service, but no doubt some of the Indian services there too there was a lot of opportunity of being caught. Not only caught, but likely stuffed in a car and taken to an interrogation room for many many hours.

But you two got away with it.. Until you decided to bone headedly put the pics on facebook. What were you thinking?

I can imagine now though what the detail on duty is going through, especially the guy who let them in at the final gate must be going through. THIS could be a career ender for the SS guy or woman who fucked the pooch here. In fact the whole team on duty could be in trouble. Lets see what the internal investigation brings shall we?

I also have to wonder what will happen to these two. I am sure some kind of charges will be proffered.

Hmmm I wonder if there will be many more gate crashers now…

“White House Party Crashers: How They Did It”

Leggo my stego!

I have been quiet lately, mostly due to doing two gigs, taking care of my new digs, and fighting the great leaf insurgency of 09. I have though, after winning said leaf insurgency, finally sat down for a bit with intartubes. What follows comes from a foray into the underbelly of the internet that seems to be proliferating very well.

Those whacky jihadists.

Following up on a previous project that kinda went nowhere, I decided to hoover some sites, then cull image files for testing with various steganalysis products. The net result of my searches and testing are here. I have washed hundreds of photos through the Stegdetect (Outguess) process and the files in that container all have a “high probability” of being stegged.

Now some of you out there may be saying to yourselves;

“Come on man, steg is so hard to detect and really, this is a myth. You’re just dreaming that you will find, never mind decrypt anything”

Well, I say why the hell not? I am focusing efforts on little known jihadist sites where those said same Jihadi’s and wanna be’s can easily download JPHIDE and other open source technologies and within minutes be hiding data within LSB’s.. So why not? I think that this is a easy and great way to be having covert channel conversations online. Of course that is the whole point is it not?

PSSST, lemme tell you a secret.. Google stego in the .mil and .gov space.. You will see that I am not the only one to think so. There are MANY RFP’s out there for building a better steganalysis product.

So, the captures continue, but those files above are open to attack. Please, have at them. Use anything and everything to determine if they have indeed been stegged and if you can crack them. If you do, you will get insane props and those files will be passed right on to the authorities. If nothing comes of it, at the very least you have had some fun playing with the tools and noodling about with the technology right?

So I hereby throw the gauntlet down.. Have at it! I will be working in parallel.

Meanwhile, also enjoy this little file. It’s the third gen jihadist manual that I happened upon with some fancy Googling in Arabi.

Enjoy.

PS.. Dear NSA, yes I know I have downloaded a Jihadist manual. If you wanna know where I found it just ask. I will happily bird dog it for you.. But please, no JTTF folks knocking at my door at 3am mmmkay?

CoB

FEDWIRE

What didn’t make it on the air was part of an interview with Jim Lewis, one of the nation’s leading authorities on cybersecurity, in which he discussed efforts by the Federal Reserve Board to secureFed Wire, its funds transfer network in which trillions of dollars a day flow through.

Lewis, director of the technology and public policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the group that sponsors the Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency, said the Fed has put so much effort into Fed Wire that he doubts it can be hacked by criminals to steal money. In an outtake posted on the 60 Minutes website, Lewis characterized Fed Wire as a criminal hacker’s Holy Grail:

“If you can hack into it for even a minute, you’d be rich beyond your wildest dreams. but the Fed has done a really good job, so the backbone of the banking system is safe. At the edges, though, we’re beginning to see significant losses.”To make his point, Lewis referenced a recent, hushed-up virtual bank robbery that netted real money:

“It’s great to be a cyber bank robber; you have zero chance of getting caught, and you make a lot of money. There is a bank that recently lost $60 million in an online hacking incident; it didn’t make the front pages, but $60 million is a pretty good haul for some guy.”

Ahh FEDWIRE, I remember you well. It’s so fun to know that one can transfer at least 20 million dollars easily without being caught. Especially when the systems used to connect to FEDWIRE are not properly secured.

Of course you could just Google the docs one might need to start an exploit.. But whoever would do that? Good to see nothing’s changed…

CBRN: Protective Steps

Given all the talk lately about Nantaz and the new secret facility that, well, ain’t so secret, I thought this was an appropriate heads up.

How To Survive A Dirty Bomb

The Oil Factor

Looking at this with the 6 years of history one cannot but see some validity.Take note of the debate now about pulling out of Afghanistan as opposed to the lack of talk in removing forces from Iraq. The difference is of course that there are no petrodollars to be made there. Poppy dollars sure…

Oil Factor

Yo mamma is so stupid….

(CNN) – In her big interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired Monday, Sarah Palin took a slap at Levi Johnston, the father of her nearly year-old grandson, for engaging in what amounts to “porn.”

“We don’t want to mess up the gig he’s got going, aspiring, aspiring porn, some of the things that he’s doing,” the former Alaska governor told Winfrey. “It’s kind of heartbreaking.”

Winfrey asked if Palin was referencing Johnston’s upcoming photo spread for Playgirl.

Palin said she was. “I call that porn, yes. So it’s a bit heartbreaking to see the road that he’s on right now,” she said.

The former Republican vice presidential candidate appeared on Winfrey’s show ahead of the release of her new book, ‘Going Rogue.

God, the stupid just… It’s so brain damaging! Of course I am not saying that he won’t go all John Wayne Bobbit.. But… Really? Porn?

God I hope that 2012 does bring an apocalypse just to prevent her kind of stupid from taking over the government.

2012

 

Went to see 2012 today and have some observations:

1) Neutrino’s? Really? C’mon this is just not physically possible nor did you really explain “how” the solar burst changed the neutrinos to make them boil the core!

2) Pretty generally the theory that this movies premise is based on has been poo poo’d by the scientific community. Frankly, it makes good fodder for a fiction, but largely lacks in science.

3) Dialog is important.. Please hire better writers.

4) So, the Mayan’s had quantum mechanics and astrophysics all down eh? DANG, they could have at least left a stele with say a message saying something like “HEY WORK OUT HOW NEUTRINO’S WORK CUZ THEY ARE GONNA MELT THE EARTHS CRUST!” but Nooooooo… They leave nothing but this silly cryptic calendar!

Ok, brass tacks, I had fun with the film. Woody Harrelson was great! He reminded me of a cross between Alex Jones and every host for Coast to Coast on the AM/SW today. The SFX were good even if the premises of what they were doing were not too based in reality.

See this film in digital at a matinee showing kids…

Oh.. and one more thing. This film really made one pine for the Doctor to show up and save the day… Good thing I am downloading “The Waters Of Mars” now to sate that desire.