On exploiting security issues in botnet C&C software:
Hackers “are learning that it’s not so easy to write secure code,” Toro says. “Most of us in the business of securing our applications and systems know that bulletproofing software is an extremely expensive and exhaustive undertaking. Malware creators who have to look to their own defences would have to slow down the production of new attacks.”
FYI, if you want to know what it looks like when you hack a hacker, look no further than the seminal 1995 film Hackers.
Param([Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$Path);
$excel = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application
$xlWindows=2
$xlDelimited=1 # 1 = delimited, 2 = fixed width
$xlTextQualifierDoubleQuote=1 # 1= doublt quote, -4142 = no delim, 2 = single quote
$consequitiveDelim = $False;
$tabDelim = $False;
$semicolonDelim = $False;
$commaDelim = $True;
$StartRow=1
$Semicolon=$True
$excel.visible=$true
$excel.workbooks.OpenText($Path,$xlWindows,$StartRow,$xlDelimited,$xlTextQualifierDoubleQuote,$consequitiveDelim,$tabDelim,$semicolonDelim, $commaDelim);My second completed app for the Windows Store was Words with Hints a companion to Words with Friends or other Scrabble like games that gives you *ahem* hints. You provide your tiles and optionally letters placed in a line on the board and Words with Hints gives you word options.
I wrote this the first time by building a regular expression to check against my dictionary of words which made for a slow app on the Surface. In subsequent release of the app I now spawn four web workers (one for each of the Surface's cores) each with its own fourth of my dictionary. Each fourth of the dictionary is a trie which makes it easy for me to discard whole chunks of possible combinations of Scrabble letters as I walk the tree of possibilities.
The dictionaries are large and takes a noticeable amount of time to load on the Surface. The best performing mechanism I found to load them is as JavaScript source files that simply define their portion of the dictionary on the global object and synchronously (only on the worker so not blocking the UI thread). Putting them into .js files means they take advantage of bytecode caching making them load faster. However because the data is mostly strings and not code there is a dramatic size increase when the app is installed. The total size of the four dictionary .js files is about 44Mb. The bytecode cache for the dictionary files is about double that 88Mb meaning the dictionary plus the bytecode cache is 132Mb.
To handle the bother of postMessage communication and web workers this was the first app in which I used my promise MessagePort project which I'll discuss more in the future.
This is the first app in which I used the Microsoft Ad SDK. It was difficult to find the install for the SDK and difficult to use their website, but once setup, the Ad SDK was easy to import into VS and easy to use in my app.
A Slower Speed of Light Official Trailer — MIT Game Lab (by Steven Schirra)
“A Slower Speed of Light is a first-person game in which players navigate a 3D space while picking up orbs that reduce the speed of light in increments. A custom-built, open-source relativistic
graphics engine allows the speed of light in the game to approach the player’s own maximum walking speed. Visual effects of special relativity gradually become apparent to the player, increasing
the challenge of gameplay. These effects, rendered in realtime to vertex accuracy, include the Doppler effect; the searchlight effect; time dilation; Lorentz transformation; and the runtime
effect.
A production of the MIT Game Lab.
Play now for Mac and PC! http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/”
A python script that d3crypt5 the input pipe’s ASCII content from ASCII garbage slowly into the correct output.
Irritatingly out of line with what their commercials say, in my area Comcast, under the covers of the national
broadcast digital switch, is sneaking in their own switch to digital, moving channels above 30 to their own digital format. Previously, I had Windows 7 Media Center running on a PC with a Hauppauge PVR500 which can decode two television signals at once setup to record shows I like. The XBox 360 works
great as a Media Center client letting me easily watch the recorded shows over my home network on my normal TV.
Unfortunately with Comcast's change, now one needs a cable box or a Comcast digital to analog converter in order to view their signal, but Comcast is offering up to two free converters for those who'd like them. The second of my two free converters I hooked up to the Media Center PC and I got the IR Blaster that came with my Hauppauge out of the garage. I plugged in the USB IR Blaster to my PC, connected one of the IR transmitters to the 1st port on the IR Blaster, and sat the IR transmitter next to the converter's IR receiver. I went through the Media Center TV setup again and happily it was able to figure out how to correctly change the channel on the converter. So I can record now, however:
My parents visited this past weekend, met Sarah's parents, saw our house, and met our bunny. On Friday we went to BluWater in Kirkland which was pretty busy and the service was slower and slightly worse than we usually find. Saturday my parents helped us with our yard quite a bit and for dinner we went to the Icon Grill with Sarah's parents. I had forgotten how much I enjoy the food at the Icon Grill - I had the very tasty meat loaf. Dinner went well and afterward we stopped at the Three Lions pub in Redmond. On all previous occasions I had tried to go in there the place was packed for a soccer game. This night however there was a man with a guitar, singing and it wasn't nearly as packed. I also found that near the bathrooms on the wall is what looks to be James Bond's jetpack.
On Sunday we went out to see Jeannie and Carl and see the renovations to Jeannie's place. We met up with them at the Fremont Market to which I hadn't been previously, and had a look around there before going back to Jeannie's to see the lovely work they'd done to her place. For dinner my parents took us out to the Melting Pot for my approaching birthday. It was fun having my parents up and I look forward to the next time they're here.
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