Tag Archives: en

Did North Korea hack Sony Corporation?

The attack on the networks of Sony Corporation was revealed in November. Almost immediately North Korea was blamed. Nobody in computer security circles took the accusations seriously. Now it appears that only a couple of weeks after the incident FBI is certain that North Korea was behind the attack.

Apparently, there were many traces of North Korea involvement left behind. So many, in fact, that it becomes reasonable to question the motivation of those who push the blame.

Attackers used computer servers in Bolivia, Cypress, Italy, Poland, Singapore, Thailand and the United States to attack Sony. The IP addresses associated with those servers have “previously [been] linked to North Korea” by the FBI. The malware used against Sony had what the FBI calls “lines of code” and “data deletion” methods similar to malware “North Korean actors previously developed.” The computer-wiping software used against Sony was also used in a 2013 attack against South Korean banks and news outlets, which the FBI attributed to North Korea. The malware was built on computers set to Korean language — unusual in the hacking world. Hackers demanded Sony Pictures pull “The Interview” to avoid starting a war over a movie.

Nobody in their right mind would execute a long term attack while leaving behind so many traces. Like in criminal stories, when something is too obvious, it may well be the planted evidence.

Political motivation is even more questionable. Sony is a private Japanese company. Why does the US government show such involvement? Obviously, they want an excuse to disconnect North Korea from the Internet or, even better, receive a pretext for a war against them. Obama already promised to strike back at North Korea “proportionately”, without waiting for any evidence of North Korea involvement in the act.

Too often, USA declares something to be true and uses their own statements as justification for waging economic and military aggression against other countries. Now it’s North Korea’s turn. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing has been orchestrated and executed under the US command.… -->

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James Bond’s “Spectre” movie script is stolen, just like in the movie

Talk about the irony of the situation now. The story of the next year’s James Bond movie  apparently starts with cybercriminals attacking Sony Pictures Entertainment and stealing a script to a movie. Well, the script to the movie has been stolen during the recent cyberattack to the Sony Pictures Entertainment and posted online. The movie called “Spectre” is set for release in the fall of 2015 and the filming is well underway now.

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EU research peddles feminist nonsense

A reply I got today from one of the research coordinators on the subject of hiring PhD students for an EU funded research project:

“The only thing that EU re-inforce is to achieve a good gender balance, with an aim at 40% female ESRs (very tough in our field). This means that we might need to be slightly more in favor of good female candidates”

Look how this discrimination against men is cynically presented as “good gender balance” to sound, oh, so politically correct. If you forego the niceties, this simply means that EU officially enforces discrimination against men in the computer science research that it funds. Congratulations.

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Redirecting WordPress 404 errors

Interestingly, there turns out to be a built-in mechanism for attempting a redirect on 404 errors in WordPress. It is amazing but this function is built in and it is called redirect_guess_404_permalink(). It is even more amazing that theme developers do not include it as standard in their 404 landing pages.

The function works magic trying to process the given URL and figure out what post is actually required. You may have changed the structure of your permalinks but this function will figure out the new URL of the post if it is not too complicated. At least, you should include it every time just on an off-chance that it helps.

Add to the “functions.php” of your theme this snippet:

/*************************************************
 * Try to find the right page when it comes to 404
 */
function my_redirect_404() {
   if( is_404() ) {
     if ( $new_url = redirect_guess_404_permalink() ) {
       wp_redirect( $new_url );
       exit();
     }
   }
}
add_action( 'template_redirect', 'my_redirect_404' );

Most of redirects will then be automagically taken care of.… -->

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Correcting the WordPress multisite URL when using domain mapping

I have come across a small problem in WordPress multisite. When using a mapping to a custom domain, the domain is apparently mapped but internally the site retains your main domain with a sub-domain as its address. So, while externally it may be “example.com”, internally it is still “example.mysite.net”. Usually, this does not cause any trouble but you may run into unexpected problems with more advanced stuff and some plugins may function incorrectly.

I came across this when trying to configure Facebook with Social Networks Auto-Poster (SNAP) plugin. The plugin will issue an OAuth request to Facebook but the request fails because the plugin uses the “example.mysite.net” instead of “example.com” as you would expect. So Facebook understandably rejects the request to authorize. And this same thing may happen in other places.

The site URL comes from the database, options “siteurl” and “home”. Fire up your favorite SQL tool and head for the database. Find your table wp_XX_options where the site in question is stored (XX being the id of the site, they simply get numbered from 1 up). Change the two options to the correct URLs and things should start looking up.

siteurl http://example.com
home http://example.com

Remember to change the URLs back to “example.mysite.net” when you remove the domain mapping.… -->

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Active/Lethal Dose Ratio and Dependence Potential of Drugs

One picture that is worth a thousand words. The vertical axis shows how addictive the drug is, the horizontal axis – how dangerous it is.

Data source: Gable, R. S. (2006). Acute toxicity of drugs versus regulatory status. In J. M. Fish (Ed.),Drugs and Society: U.S. Public Policy, pp.149-162, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Also published at Professor Gable’s page.… -->

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Jed McKenna, “Spiritual warfare”

The human race isn’t defective, it’s just broken.

I often state that the knowledge comes whenever we are ready to receive it. For me, most of the knowledge comes as books. I seem to nearly always have the right book that tells me exactly what I want to know at the moment.

This book is beyond belief. It is so true that it invalidates any and all criticism that I may have had for the second book of the trilogy. From my perspective, the second book was weak and purposeless, with many anecdotes and little substance. This, the third book, remedies all that with a vengeance.

This book not only reaffirmed my own thoughts and ideas on the subject of spirituality and enlightenment but also brought some new ideas and information that I have not considered before.

Scoop a jar of water out of the ocean and put a lid on it. Study it in its segregated state. Where is the ocean in that jar? Where are the tides and the currents? Pour it back into the ocean and it returns to its integrated state. The temporary entity no longer exists. By scooping it into a jar, you’s created a new entity, a sub-ocean. It’s not possible to subdivide infinity, of course, but try telling that to your new entity. It has all the properties of the ocean from which you scooped it, in no way greater or lesser than any other sampling you might take, yet it bears little resemblance to its authentic oceanhood. It has an independent existence, yet as soon as you pour it back, it merges seamlessly back into the integrated whole. Where is that particular sub-ocean entity after you pour it back in? The same place it was before: everywhere and nowhere. It didn’t exist before you scooped it up, but you didn’t create it. It doesn’t exist after you pour it back, but you didn’t destroy it. So what was born when you segregated that jarful? What died when you reintegrated it?

Most importantly, the book contains what amounts to practical advice in so far as such can be given and that makes its value even higher. An excellent read and an excellent source.

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Air dryers may not be so good for hygiene…

University of Leeds performed a study comparing jet-air dryer, traditional hot-air dryer and paper towels highlighting coming to an unexpected outcome: air dryers contaminate the air around them and may lead to decrease of hygiene.

Participants then dried their hands in a controlled environment and scientists tested bacteria in the air near the various hand-drying options. What they found: the air around jet-air dryers held 27 times more bacteria than was found around paper towels, and 4.5 times more than around warm-air dryers.

Further, “a similar pattern was seen for bacterial counts 1 meter away,” they write. And that bacteria lingers: Half was collected in the air around dryers five minutes after use, with bacteria still hanging around after 15 minutes.

“Next time you dry your hands in a public toilet using an electric hand dryer … you may be splattered with bugs from other people’s hands,” a researcher says in a statement.

The researchers conclude “air dryers may be unsuitable for use in healthcare settings, as they may facilitate microbial cross-contamination.”

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Japan re-elections: fight back! Vote for DPJ!

So Abe has called for early re-elections of the parliament of Japan. Obviously, he is counting on getting the positions of his LDP party (自由民主党) confirmed and therefore receive a mandate to destroy Japan’s economy further.

He would not have called for a re-election if he was not sure his party, the LDP, would win the elections. So the chances of opposing him are slim.

Nevertheless, people of Japan, please, please, please, go all out and vote for some other party! Don’t sit and wait, don’t think that it will all be all right, don’t say that it all makes no difference. You can make a difference. Get out and vote against LDP (自民党). What’s the democracy for? If you don’t know what to vote for, vote for DPJ (民主党), they are the opposition, they are more likely to reverse the atrocities of the current ruling regime.

I wrote enough about the outrageous ways the Abe’s government is playing along with the large banks and corporations to destroy the economy of the only developed and stable country in the world. It pains me to see the great achievements of Japan flushed down the drain.

Fight back! Don’t let your country be governed by greedy politicians!… -->

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How do I know that I love you?

It’s very simple. Let me be sentimental for a minute. When I think about death, here is what I think about.

If I had to die real soon, what would I want to do before dying? What would I want to do as my last thing before I am gone? Would I want to write a book? Who cares. Would I want to accomplish accomplishments at work? Fuck, no. Would I want to go jump with a parachute? Sounds good… but no. Grow a tree? Build a house? Say good-byes? No, not really. It all just stops making any sense. I am not interested.

So if I had to die real soon, I would simply want to spend that time hugging you. That’s how I know I love you.… -->

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