The Talented Mr. Mitnick

From the MIT Technology Review. Enjoy :) - BLucifer http://www.technologyreview.com The Talented Mr. Mitnick By Gregory T. Huang; March 2005 From hijacked PCs that spew spam to denial-of-service attacks that crash Web servers, cyber-crime means billions of dollars a year in lost revenues and productivity. And no computer user is safe. "It�s not if," says Kevin Mitnick, "it�s when are you going to get hacked." Mitnick should know. The former hacker perpetrated a series of high-profile corporate break-ins in the 1990s--and served five years in federal prison for it. Once the FBI�s most-wanted cyber-criminal, Mitnick is now one of the world�s most sought-after tech security consultants. "A few years back, companies spent more on coffee than on security," he says. Now, they make security their top priority, hiring Mitnick to break into their systems, expose their weaknesses, and teach them how to protect themselves. Hacking has been Mitnick�s priority ever since his teenage years in southern California. First telephone networks, then the Pentagon--then Nokia, Novell, and seemingly every other big company. Today�s laws on cyber-crime were practically invented because of Mitnick. His pranks earned him the respect of hackers as well as numerous arrests, culminating in his five-year prison stint. Mitnick spent eight months of that time in solitary confinement, he says, because the judge was told that Mitnick could start a nuclear war by calling up NORAD on a payphone and whistling modem tones into the receiver. His radio was seized for fear that he would turn it into a cell phone. Even using an electric typewriter in the prison library got him handcuffed and whisked away. "These guys were watching too much MacGyver," he quips. That was the turning point in his career. Since his release from prison in 2000, Mitnick has chosen to use his considerable skills to improve network security. Now 41 and sporting a decidedly buttoned-down look, Mitnick has made a guest appearance on the TV show Alias and earned honorable mentions in many other media outlets. Though he is often recognized as "that hacker guy" in airports and hotels, he says he registers under a fake name only at hacker conventions. But he doesn�t give out his private e-mail address or his city of residence; one can�t be too careful. Indeed, the current pace of cyber-crime amazes even Mitnick. Last fall, he and Avantgarde, a tech marketing and design firm in San Francisco, hooked up six computer platforms to the Internet via broadband DSL and recorded the cyber-attacks that occurred over a two-week period. It took less than four minutes for an automated attack to successfully break through the security defenses of one newly connected PC; most machines without an active firewall (a filter that screens suspicious code) faced more than 300 attacks per hour, while those with firewall protection faced fewer than four per hour. But firewalls don�t protect against "social engineering," a fancy term for conning users out of such sensitive information as passwords and PINs. The idea that humans are the weak link in any security system was famously exploited by Mitnick in his glory days; he comes across as personable and authoritative, so it�s easy to see why people would give him information. Mitnick�s case highlights a point that�s increasingly critical as more and more sensitive information and money change hands over the Internet: in his words, "Hacking is a skill set--how you use it is up to your ethics and morals." And the arms race between malicious hackers and security experts will only escalate. "Computer systems are complex," Mitnick says. "There will always be ways to break in." Which means that no matter which side he is on--let�s hope it�s ours--Mitnick will always be in demand.

The Citizens Foundation

Finally a link for volunteer work in the UAE. Signed up. Have every intention to visit Pakistan regularly to teach. If your definition of big is that of the world, then i've never had big dreams. if big is value and not size to you, then yeah, i dream big and want to be larger than life. And i will be one day, insha Allah. :) www.thecitizensfoundation.org

of blood groups... :S

read this in the papers once. living up to my bad memory, i dont recall if it was te chinese or the japanese who ask your blood group to decide whether to get to try to get to know u as someone more or not. we'll try anything to help us decide if its the right person or not, eh? :)

	BLOOD GROUP O	BLOOD GROUP A	BLOOD GROUP B	BLOOD GROUP AB
In a nutshell	Cannot stand people who hide the truth	Pessimistic and too sensitive	Cannot take orders easily	Romantic and sentimental
Basic Behavior	Make objectives clear	Careful about decision-making	Make decisions fast	Extremely practical
	Possess great deal of confidence	Make things clear in black and white	Can be flexible	Excellent in analyses
	Honest, optimistic and energetic	Care too much about social rules and standards	Do not care about rules	Give fair criticisms
			Respect scientific and practical findings	Cannot decide when it comes to important issues
Tolerance	Strength and endurance depend on their aim	High tolerance for physical or repetitive work	Maintain the longest interest in what they do	Try to be hard-working
	Give up easily if they find the job meaningless	Cannot take changes easily	Seem impatient	Tend to be impatient
		Lose interest in a hobby easily	Dislike repetitious work
How do they see their future and past?	Positive about the past, thus do not regret about the past	Try hard to forget the past	Hard to forget recent affairs, but able to forget past and memories	Sentimental about the past
	Seek financial stability for the future	Pessimistic about the future		More concern about the immediate problems than anything else
How do they express their emotions?	Usually stable and calm	Able to display cool outlook even though angry	Expressive	Sentimental
	Sensitive towards sincerity	Short-tempered	Cool and objective	Usually cool and steady, but can get upset with an immediate, unsolved problem
	Give frank, direct opinions	Take longer to heal a broken heart	Although joke a lot, could actually be very shy	Can get moody easily
		Sensitive to others' opinions	Change moods like the weather
			Cannot stop complaining when they are upset
How do they work?	Ability to concentrate vary from time to time, depending on aim	Perfectionist	Creative and possess new ideas	Able to handle a wide scope of jobs
	Mostly prefer to lead	Handle one thing at a time	Cannot differentiate between work and hobby	Value hard work
	Can overlook details	Work a line between work and personal affairs	Cannot take orders	Quick in understanding
		Highly responsible	Do not hesitate to introduce innovative changes and are not worried about theirs criticisms	Not highly responsible and unable to follow-up on a project until its completion
		Tend to choose hobbies which help them release stress		Tend to be artistic in approach

Pakistani Idol

a friend works for a newspaper here. he went to the pakistani paviollion in the global village last wednesday so he coudl interview ali zafar, ahmed jahanzeb and abrar ul haq who were here for a concert. Every year we have celebrities entertaining on the pak pavillion. last time noori was the crazy. ali zafar couldnt make it. now i know why... so rumourville has it that ali zafar is gay. haha. anyways... coudlnt be bothered... so my friend is interviewing him and he asks him about his love life. Zafar says: "Well.. i do like girls" lol, looks like he's heard the rumours too. Hell with that. Heres what i really wanted to say. Some Arab chick comes up and asks them to stay back for a party she's having in her farmyard. Ali Zafar and Ahmed Jahanzeb immediately have their tickets cancelled =D Not just that Zafar says: "As long as there are virgin chicks there for me" Now, i know why she asked them to come over. It's nothing new for the rich ppl here or anywhere else, be they arabs, pakistanis, indians or white (yes thats in inconsistant list) They want the thrill of getting that which is unattainable to others. "I can get you the hottest pak celebs. You can do them as u like" That's there mentality. They dont talk about it later on. It'snothing big for them. You might however catch them saying: "Who? Oh him/her... yeah he/she's a ho, he/she comes for free... just ask em to" Oh, btw,, abrar being the good chap he is, was obviously not a part of this shit. He left with the flight scheduled by the organizers. Hmm.. Why am i writing this? No, i don tcare about celeb lives... i know what they are like.. and its futile to follow their lives coz.. u only end up being disgusted... its just that... i dunno if im angry or sad.. but our stupid desi youth idolizes them... and i guess thats the prob with our nations youth... wheres the will to do ahead and do somethign on ur own... why are they always looking for a "leader" to guide them... why can't we americanize them on these things. and no, drugs, booze, women isnt an effect of westernization.. it was always there in our society and don't u dare try to teach me otherwise.

Har Subha...

I wa slistening to lahu' version of the song har subha by the Vital Signs. It's different, and i like it a lot. Heard this song when i was barely a teen, and needless to say never realized the depths to it until today, when i heard it again. This and many other songs of VS which i'd rather not listen to coz they just weren't peppy enuf for a teen. Vs wasnt just a pop band after all, they gave us quite a few creeds to live by in their songs. Of course with all due credit to Shoaib Mansoor. >>Vitals Signs--Time Line >>Lahu's version of Har Subha (aka Aisa Na Ho) And some of u might be interested in their official site... from once upon a time =) >>The Official Vital Signs Site Oh and the lyrics to the song: har subha... yehi kehti hui aati hai roshni... abhi aasma pay baaqi hai andheri raato'n say darnay walo'n mili hai phir roshni isay bacha loe guzartay lamho'n ki yeh kahani honay lagi purani aisa na ho yeh din juda ho'n to phir laut kar kabhi aye nahin ho sitaro'n bhara aasma magar roshni nazar aye nahi'n waqt kay shehar say dekhna pyar ka karavan chal na day zindagi say bhara yeh badan zindagi kho na daay aisa na ho yeh din juda ho'n to phir laut kar kabhi aye nahin ho sitaro'n bhara aasma magar roshni nazar aye nahi'n :)

MIT's OpenCourseWare

Dunno if anyone out there knows about this, but, this is awesome. from the site: MIT's OpenCourseWare: a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world. OCW supports MIT's mission to advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century. It is true to MIT's values of excellence, innovation, and leadership. MIT OCW:

• Is a publication of MIT course materials
• Does not require any registration
• Is not a degree-granting or certificate-granting activity
• Does not provide access to MIT faculty

Heres the link: ocw.mit.edu Enjoy!

Weeeee

They must have arrived.... And its raining... :D Drizzling rather :D Beauuuuuuuuutiful sight, as always :D

Elitist?

Since i'm majorly annoyed by the way things function in the UAE, im not gonna blog until i'm calm. All i'll end up doing otherwise is... uhmm its obvious isnt it? So yeah... what kinda elitist are you? Guess my result below speaks itself for my anger ehh? =) From Timbuktu to Tijuana, you know all about world culture and politics. You've seen it all, and what you haven't seen, you watched on one of the "smart people channels." Your friends tell you that you should run for governor. What people love: You've always got a great story to tell. What people hate: You make them feel like ignorant plebians. Sometimes you slip and CALL them plebians. What Kind of Elitist Are You? brought to you by Quizilla

One thing i love about dubai: there's a ladies day for almost every event! :-D Some dude just told me a while back that the enite concept of ladies only is "gay" I beg to differ on both social and religious grounds. altho they are almost the same. What ever happened to the days of guys hanging out with other guys? saturday nights? i've grown up seeing my elder brothers hang around with their "buddies". Enter grad school and all of a sudden its GAY for a guy to hang around with guys. You'll hear the: "guys are boring", "guys are stupid", "guys are khwar" as their pretty much finit list of pretexts. While girly get togethers are always veyr lively, full of colors and tends to bring on a sense of exite,ment just thinking about it amongst the girls... guys just give the: "WHAT? What are we gonna do with no girls around? That'll be so damn boring!" Now, I, to be very frank, find THAT attitude gay. Not man enuf to hang around with other men? Hanging around with females and not feelng challenged? Right. So this has nothing to do with metrosexuality mind you. It's all good if not overdone. We label women who do it as chamakchallos(loi) and even sluts. Men who overdo it just get labeled gay. Sorry, but that's that! :-D That veru friend who said ladies day is a gay concept was at a new years bbq where it just so happend that all the girls backed off. So it was... a guys only... event! :-D And guess what, he said it turned out to be pretty neat. "Who needs chicks..." Well these young lads are sharpening their skills on picking up girls by readong stuff like David DeAngelo, i feel theyre just losing the ability to communicate with other men. They are infact just turning into malfunctioning blobs of tetosterone. And something is just so not right about that. :-/ In highschool, during my chem A levels class, we were discussing the retior of boys to girls in our class (there were two batches for chem) and how our instructor had divided us. His theory was that senior classes shoudl always be mixed because "boys are rascals. they are animals. and without the presence of girls they will never learn to behave." Been thru universoty and all i can say is that whenever its a mixed gathering, all u will here are lame sexist jokes... and of course ur best friends making it a point to make sure that their friends of the opposite gender bring that guy/girl ur interested in. It just gets s t u p i d after a while. I know one thing for sure tho. Co-ed colleges/universities definitely help us understand the "issues" of the opposite gender better. We're so easy on labeling each other a chauvinist or capricious. No need ot think twice. But when ur spending literally four years of ur life with them, u tend to learn to judge better for u share and understand better. it's an understanding that could NEVER come without co-ed. But... if we dont mind a female only gathering, then why should u have an issue with it when ur allowed to go to the global village on the 6 remaining days of the week? It's like FORCING women to believe that it is backward and rather unfair on them to have a women only day thrown in by the supposed chavinistic organizers. Just to let you know, no matter how many centuries pass by, we still remain women, u still remain men, and nothing can change our intrinsic selfs. Nothing; no amount of media. All the media can do is to make you live in denial and forget the basic tenents of ur culture/religion and the very purpose of those. Of course, when u refuse to think over the purpose you consequently defy the related tenents. I just find this entire hubaaloh guys create the minute they hear 'girls only' rather disgusting and annoying. Have a sex change and you can come along too if u love our company so much. And if ur man enuf, just remember, we're women enuf too. And you can't take out right to be a woman away from us. Try as you may. I wonder how many of these i-believe-i-am-a-liberal-desi men will let their own daughters bring in boys without labeling each one of them boys a jerk, brat, loser, good for nothing rascal. Oh wait, its all cool as long as it is outside the house... right? As long as u dont bring them home. right, there just no specific purpose to the baqwaas above, pretty incoherent too. But, i had a blast this monday. i actually SAW the global village. I saw things i never noticed in that crowd earlier. It's impossible. All your thinking is: I WANT TO GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE! Sure, GB has hykedup prices, but u definitely can't shop anyway in all that rush, there isnt place to stand! And why would all those people want to come everday to see the same stuff again and again? I dont want to go the second time even, coz, it gets boring... who wants to see the same stuff again? Oh wait, they are here to check out the girls? Whatever.. . I was on a shop till you drop spree yesterday, my first ever attempt at house shopping on my own. Mom actually approved of it when i showed her... which means... i passed! haha! :-D this time round i made those stilt walkers STOP and had pics taken with em.. haha.. i always wanted to snap em! i'm not too sure if they were happy with it, coz after my stunt, there was a huuuge bee line to have pics taken... what were they waiting for all this time? for faiza to step in and stop em? :-D It's a festival for gods sake... its all about fun! give them stilt walkers a change too, im sure theyre sick of just walking everyday! :-D the oneson muraqqabat road are awwwwwwwwwwwesome Gotta check out naif souk now... or whatever it's called... I'm wondering tho... the saudi pavillion... the first time i went... they had their traditional dance going on... men only of course.. just the duff playing... but this time... they had other intruments (dont they consider them haraam?) and they were doing their traditional thing (isnt it all haraam according to them?)... and they were surrounded by hottie arabs taking pics with their cell fones... (isnt that haraaaaaaaam?!!!) haha... i just didnt get it... :-/ the lebanese pavillion had belly dancers... wo0t! :-D oh and the pakistani's were the smartest... coz they are the only ones whove put up a "valentines day special" stall in the pavillion when feb started... cashing in on valentines ehhhh... oh and to all those recent addicts of naseeb who didnt really celebrate an year on naseeb like me... HAHAHAHAHA... tuff luck... this is what happens when u geton the bandwagon so late... u addiction never reaches its zenith and hence never declines... me.. i'd deactivated... :-D i dont like em abcd's.. theyre annoying. tfu :-D can we refer to blog entries as BE here? Since it is blogger... of course if u call ur web log ur journal then.. JE it is..

Naseeb[dot]com

Finally blocked by etislut :-D Oh, thats etisalat for you. Orkut was blocked even before i knew it existed... coz.... its a dating site. haha i guess they blocked off naseeb coz of all the anti-islam and other versions of islamic believes and practices that were posted on it and discussed. nomads to the core. the jahalat in them hasnt gone. they believe in dictatorship. convert by force, irrespective of whether they believe or not. hyporcisy isnt an issue to them at all; forced loyalty is. stupid baddus. why does friendster still work? i mean u can post all kinds of pics there... and that is definitely a hook up joint and it doesnt even have a muslim label. all the pilipinos i know are on it. haha. they be so cute. =) guess etisalat loves philipino's more =( death to the etisluts. *end of transmission*

Blood

I'm starting to realize why some siblings haven't even seen each others faces for decades. They don't want to. You walk away. And then you realise that there is something you miss and miss it you direly. But its not that which you had; its that which you never had. For how can you miss that which you never had? It's not possible. Inconsistancy of thoughts? None. Think about it. And have a nice day! =)

death to spam

I worked so hard on the college portal. The main site, the student govt site, the lecture blogs, the many sites run by students... hours and hours and HOURS of hard work... and then came a hacker... :-( yes there were backups.. but they were so HUGE, we'd just leave em on the host. our emails got flooded with spam. Needless to say it was all porn. ARGH! That was supposed to go on my god damned portfolio! Damn you hacker uncle! The moron even left a message on the main page: SORRY YOU HAVE BEEN HACKED Anyhoo, I was on a friends site today, and hers had been hijacked by porn spammers. I couldn't stop laughing. She was all red I'm sure sitting in her room while I kept on pasting the comments she had on her tagboard into our msn chat.

El 1*beep*2 Licker: you are gay. great sex last night tho. hit me back.. I love using you!.. evan as a last resort! ~teresa!!

Anand: hi I am Anand from India age 23 male am professional webdisigner Can I see you please bye

El 1*beep*2 Licker:Loved the humpydunk last night, Hard fucking core. like... our strap on. Yay. too bad I forgot to pay you this time.. you just couldn't cut it as well as you used to. ta ta love

HAHAHA! Not just that they had RUINED her files so no one could post/delete/modify comments. They even left their respective urls to their darned porn sites(almost an oxymoron had it been respected ;) WHY!!!!!!? The other day my firewall betrayed me. I got all sorts of spyware into my PC. So when I put up my 84783974823648237th blog on blogger, and entered the description as "feel analyze express" it turned the anal in analyze into a link! Do NOT ask me what it linked too. Grr... My hotmail account got hacked once. Was using a public terminal like an ediot. Those damn keyloggers. The next day at college a friend I was talkin to cut of the convo saying: "yesterday there was someone on my list with the nick 'come and fcuk me'. I tell the kid I couldn't be bothered! I come home... and all of a sudden it dawns unto me... was he talking about ME!? I checked my mail at SCHOOL yesterday! I log onto msn and hahaha... it WAS me... I knew there would be more... so I log into my profile and a wonderful signature had been put up too... sigh. Fortunately during those very days, hotmail was being a pain and wouldn't let you change your password. Hence them damn "hackers" couldn't change it either... :-D to all the bad hackers in the world: GET A LIFE! Everyone isn't so low life as y'all. I HATE SPAM. I belong to the spammers club on naseeb tho, we spammed a journal entry upto 60k comments. Haha. Oh course the owner of the JE was leading in the spamming. We came up with spam lines like: spam to hona hi tha, adidas: all day I dream about spamming, papa kehtay hain bara spam karay ga, spam kiya to darna kya... hmm there were better ones, but I cant recall :-D Back then naseeb.com used to list the top three most active je's (base don number of comments). But after our hijack attempt, they changed the concept and made je's with the most amount of users commenting as most active. We went around telling the whole of naseebia that we broke the naseeb counters :-P that was FUN spamming. Oh and before I forget, I broke all boundaries and spammed the CEO of naseeb! Haha! Everyone was like nooooooooooooo if we spam THERE he's gonna kick us out.. knew he wouldn't... and he didn't :-D I deactivated the next day as I had intended to and rumor spread that I had been kicked out for spamming. My sister comes home from work, usually she drops on her bed, but that day she hurries to the room and asks: Why isn't ur profile working? Me: Coz I've deactivated it? She: deactivated or...? ME: Deactivated! Coz I was bored, and I wanted to leave with a bang.. I mean spam... ;-) She: Well someone told me you spammed Monis (CEO of naseeb) hence you got kicked out. ME: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH! Whatever... u and ur friends... LOSERS! The next day I reactivated, laughed at all the ediots who thought I had been banned and deactivated again :-D There's NO stopping the Faiza! temme ur hijack|hack|spam stories/attempts :-D if you got any :-D or mebbe ur just not popular enuf? :-P Thank GOD blogger has a spellcheck! loi loi? thats laughing out inside. coz seriously, how many of u are actually laughing out LOUD when u type lol? ur definitely laughing out inside tho... hence LOI when ur not realy going BWHAHAHAHAHAAH :-D ¤ ¤ ¤

colors

there are just two color schemes i use.... PASTEL PINK/WHITE/GREY combo... OR BLACK/somecolor combo. Talk about extremes. ^^ I prefer lighter colors tho, they are easier on the eyes... especially for a site thats all about READING... common sense eh? And for a BLOG!?.. god forbid, why'd i make this black? Well... a name like lucifer in PINK would make the damn thing look gay! I mean... pink satan? hahaha... =S its all too dark... I'm bumping into the same "cool" people i've bumped into on the web elsewhere. I guess... the number of "cool" people really is limited. The same ones keep bumping into each other everywhere... or wait... mebbe i just need a life... and stop crwaling on the net all the time. Hmm... listening to nirvanas version of lake o fire.. :-|

Ufho

This is ridiculous i tell you. Why would someone who already has a site, runs five different forums, has a bazillion active blogs, want to come back to blogger? I mean why blogger when i can code my own blog? No! I dont know the answer either! Oh wait, i do. Haha. Just fascinated by this lot. Bumped onto one persons blog thru bandbaja.org, landed up on a page with links to tons of pakistani bloggers, and there i was, a happy blog READER again :-D Yes i'm stupid like that :-P Yea yea, so i'm in the UAE, a country stuffed with desis, a country MADE by desis, but i'm selective. every desi i come across doesnt impress me all too much u know. my mom and sisters think im a horrid hag who hates on people she dont like. i dunno? i'm not an apologist. why keep company u dont like, only to go and bitch behind em? thats just sad. :-| Sue me :-P So an adorable ULLU dropped by, and i dunno how, did i really leave this addy off somewhere? ::shocked:: Coz, im just messing with the layout. :-P It's past 4pm and my mom's screamed at me thrice to go have lunch. Do i ever listen? Why won't she just give up? :-D Do i believe in syntax and grammar? Isn't the answer obvious? :-D