TorrentFreak seems to have the most involved and comprehensive tale of what they contain.This is a great example of people who do some things well getting caught doing things that are not their strengths.If you are going to establish an organization that will become a target for, arguably, some of the worlds most skilled and experienced technophiles, you should plan accordingly.That they were ever outed at all is a failure, but things like this (quoted from digg article) show how if you are untrained, ignorant, or sloppy, it can bring down an entire enterprise:The genius employee of MD subscribed to a torrent site using the gmail account he had setup as an email archive as the username and used the same password for the torrent site as he did for the gmail account…. Price and availability must be correct or it will be circumvented by someone with time on their hands that will make money created by those that can not, or will not, purchase what you are selling in the way you choose to sell it.This is the gist of all of the DRM, piracy, and putting-the-gene-back-in-the-bottle problem.
Category Archives: Internet
Mobile networking in a pinch
Any geek worth their salt nowadays seems to have a mobile device such as a blackberry, sidekick, smartphone, or data card for a laptop oh their person when out and about.
I am no exception.
I have actually converted several trend-setting alpha nerds over to the Powerbook/Macbook Pro + Nokia E61 combination over the last couple [...]
More wifi, more problems
So my DWL-G550 arrived today.”D-Link DWL-G550 High-Powered Wireless-G PCI Adapter” (D-Link Systems, Inc.)I threw it into the system and it powered up and loaded the correct Atheros drivers…. (Personal meaning you’re not running a authentication service like RADIUS, EAP or LEAP (which is just another kind of LEAP by Cisco), or 802.1x, but using PSK [Pre-shared Key] or a certificate.Second, now that you have your /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf configuration figured out from reading the instructions or from that link I mentioned.
Unreal estate
You (the loan originator) have been paid and are not responsible for it anymore.I started reading about this more closely after seeing some petty whining from real estate agents on Yelp about Redfin…. I wish them the best of luck in their efforts as it is a true David vs Goliath challenge considering the profitability of the industry, the lobbying power of the MLS-running real estate companies, and how vehemently they protect their market.It reminds me a lot about how the established telecommunications companies freaked out over VOIP providers and how they wanted to maintain their artificial profit margin after several generations of technology increased efficiency from the 10 cents per minute levels of yesteryear to the 1 to 2 cent levels previous to the arrival of VOIP.Since trunking systems were already in place, the adoption of VOIP into corporate systems was as simple as getting the bandwidth and quality of service right for the voice data.Perhaps something along the same lines will evolve with MLS.
privacy conspiracy!
If you dont like it, you can opt out on your accounts privacy page.multiple vague links due to association is a stretch for any logical person.that being said, I’m sure that intelligence agencies look at all social networking sites. That’s been published as fact in many trade mags for years.Mostly the funniest thing about this is the notion that your data isn’t being collected when you do things like:- use an instant messenger.- send email.- view websites. any website.- use a telephone- etcI have a facebook page because, due to my highly familiar status with privacy, I have acknowledged that I have none anymore unless it is encrypted with military-grade encryption like OTRPGP/GNUPGTORand other such things.So why not make use of the social aspects of it instead of being a paranoid hidden in my basement. Not using facebook will do very little to safeguard your privacy.
Sun vs Linden Labs
Looks like Sun is doing something useful and worthwhile for a change.
Google and privacy
Concerned about trusting Google with all of your personal data?Perhaps you should think more about it.The success of Google as a search engine, mail service, advertiser, social networking site, and now a rss aggregator makes it a question worthy of consideration.ld you want to know? What can you do about it? Read on.It has been brought up in the past in reference to Google Desktop, amounts of user-specific data available for prosecution and government, past changes in Google’s privacy policy, and in general by the limited number of players in the search engine market..The Wikipedia article on Google and privacy issues goes on to mention:Some critics have pointed out the dangers and privacy implications of having a centrally-located, widely popular data warehouse of millions of Internet users’ searches, and how under controversial existing U.S. law, Google can be forced to hand over all such information to the U.S. government, or any other government of a country which Google serves.This should be worthy of pause for anyone.So Google has all these services you enjoy. Can you still use the internet without surrendering too much information to Google?I believe you can to a degree.For instance, you like to use that seach bar in your browser?
BBB complaint: Vonage
Today I opened a complaint with Vonage with the NJ Better Business Bureau.I think it is worthwhile to serve as an example of what can happen in the mad dash to pay off venture investors instead of keeping their eye on the ball.It reads as follows:I was one of the first Vonage adopters…. No one was listening.No one was capable of correcting my problem or interested in addressing Vonage’s breakdown in processing my situation.After two weeks, I began the process of porting my phone numbers to another VOIP telephone provider as I still did not have phone service and would have to wait another 30 days before my numbers were going to work with this new provider that had more competent employees.Eventually the numbers were ported over to my new provider and my phone was ringing again…. I would get phone calls at all hours of the day and night as they repeatedly issued my phone number to customer after customer of theirs.Eventually I had my previous number disconnected to get away from Vonage…. That is a problem for someone other than me at this time.I want a refund on the two months of service where my phone was not working by no fault of my own after Vonage took it upon themselves to break my service and then have no interest in troubleshooting their failure.
Next generation gaming and continued Linksys failures
Today I needed functionality and was unwilling to tolerate bad consumer implementations any longer.My household network may include the following devices at any given time:• a couple of OSX 10.4 macs• at least one Windows XP workstation or laptop• a Nintendo Wii• a Sony Playstation 3• assorted other laptops• A Zaurus• at least one visiting smartphone or IP phone• Sony PSPs• and other such widgets and devicesOddly enough for whatever reason, the PS3 was not fitting into my brave new world of WPA2. Sony doesn’t (even after the last firmware 1.5 update) support WPA2, but does manage WPA [AES].Sadly after a fair amount of trial and error, I was able to determine that the Linksys firmware does infact not offer WPA [AES], but only WPA [PSK]…. Who cares.I sshed into the now OpenWRT access point and the following commands got things where I needed them to be:ipkg updateipkg install nasrebootA really excellent feature of OpenWRT, I noticed, was that it can support WPA2 and WPA devices supporting both AES and PSK at the same time…. After the usual security warnings about how windows can be owned at any moment by anything (which prefaced the installation instructions), I installed the uPnP module via their somewhat odd procedure:cd /tmpwget http://members.optusnet.com.au/edwardluck/openwrt/packages/libupnp_1.2.1a_mipsel.ipkipkg install libupnp_1.2.1a_mipsel.ipkwget http://members.optusnet.com.au/edwardluck/openwrt/packages/linux-igd_1.0.1.ipkipkg install ./linux-igd_1.0.1.ipk/etc/init.d/S65upnpd startThe PS3 then reported that I was running a type 2 NAT (in place of the previous type 3) and that uPnP was now operational.Thank you OpenWRT for giving me the chance to distract my competition with words and laugh at them when I blow them up.
