Social Engineering

Malicious people/worms are getting smarter and smarter. We know that they've always made use of social engineering to get people to do stuff like running programs to propagate them or to give money. From email attachments in the past, to phone scams and MSN worms these days.

We could learn a thing or two from these worms even, though it's best not to emulate them by writing worms of your own =)

Following is an excerpt from one of my MSN contacts. The worm has been trying to send out an image file ("conveniently" ZIPped up for you). And when the recipient doesn't respond in a timely manner (like I did), it tries to resend it again saying that he/she has "fixed the mess up"!

Names have been changed to protect the innocent =)

MSN_Contact says (18:03):
omg look at this pic so old!

MSN_Contact sends: (the ZIP file named image24.zip)

You have failed to receive file "image24.zip" from MSN_Contact.

MSN_Contact says (18:09):
sorry about the messup i fixed the pic! Try it one more time pz

MSN_Contact sends: (the same ZIP file named image24.zip)

You have failed to receive file "image24.zip" from MSN_Contact.

Opposites

The world's mindset gets stressed when the parents of the girlfriend is around. The christian mindset gets stressed when the parents of the girlfriend is away.

Hahahahaha..! Crap, I need to get married soon man.

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 2.0.0.8 Released

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 2.0.0.8 has been released!

Hybrid scooter hi-tech miser

Link

Regenerative braking...wonder what it'd be like if it was retrofitted on a car? ;)

Post-Church Camp Recce Recollections

Disclaimer: this post is a "core dump". I haven't (and won't) refine this one much.

This church camp recce over the weekend was really good.. the recce.. the planning.. the checking out the facilities.. the "trial wedding dinner" for Fen and myself.. =D the two days of bowling resulting in an aching arm.. the learning and forgiving of one another for some of the things we did wrongly unto others..

One of the most vivd, and painful (then), memories would be the realization of one of the basic things that's important to me in a relationship (the BGR - marriage kind of relationship), and what that has meant for me/us thus far. Never realizing it till now, it did cause a fair bit of distress on my side in some situations, and affecting others in the process as well.

What exactly is this thing? The simplest way to describe it would be in terms of the five love languages. (Though I've yet to read it for myself, I've heard about the contents from friends. The five love languages being words, time, gifts, acts, and touch.) (One of?) My main language is touch. It does show itself in the different preferences I have personally, but I won't talk about all of them here.

I realized that the physical distance that we have with one another and others around would be the defining "outward" indicator of the exclusivity of our relationship. That said, we know the relationship is there or not, and isn't defined by things like this. But this is one of the outward manifestations of the relationship, for me at least.

Actually I've never thought of myself that way, not till I realized it there and then. Amazing..

The peace of mind (practically) comes simply from the fact that I've said/described it out to her. I know that she'll be sensitive to this from now onwards, which is a great help truly. But she did change in her thinking/actions a little, but more than enough for me to be grateful and appreciative for.

The challenge continues: to be conscious of fellow brothers and sisters around, especially singles. Not to leave them out when appropriate in a group...

With this, knowing that we both know this, and that she's willing (as ever) to work towards a Christ-centered marriage, my confidence in her has increased. And whilst being thankful for her, I will need to keep working on my end in working towards a marriage relationship.

Words reveal the heart

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Note: This is taken from its larger context in Matthew. While possible to understand this in itself, it'd be far better to see what the author had in mind when he wrote this chunk ;) One way is to listen to the sermon explaining that ;)

In the long run, what you say shows what is truly important in your heart. Two implications follow:

1. How near (or far) are the issues of real importance from the tips of our tongues in our daily conversations? What do our words/speech/manners show about what we truly believe in?
   
2. How near (or far) are the wrong things/ideas/attitudes from the tip of our tongues? What do they show about what we're like inside?

Inner renewal takes time, but let this be an indicator of where our allegience lies, whether with Christ, or with anything else.

Gundam 00 Episode 1

Just watched the first episode for Gundam 00. Really really sets (my) expectations high for this series =D

The thing would be whether it delivers a good story/action this time round, or would it be like the past series where the storyline's similar all of the time?

Ah well, I think I'd better not expect too much of a good story from this one. Would be better to just watch and enjoy it as it is ;D

Facebook Song

Someone referred this song to me in Facebook. Pretty funny =D

Speaking of Facebook, it's pretty interesting in itself, because of the way "developers" (aka anyone) can extend its functionalities by writing apps for it. This way people actually make it interesting by creating content and apps, rather than just Facebook creating all the applications themselves.

The question to be asked though: will this really last?

I suspect not actually. It will last longer than Friendster and MySpace perhaps, but the human desire for more and more "new" things will catch up (sooner or later). Just a thought.

Windows SteadyState

Windows SteadyState is a tool to help manage shared computers, where there's a need to control the state of the OS and what programs can users run/install easily. Those who have administration roles for multiple computers may want to consider using this tool. ;)

The description from the site:

Share computers, not headaches What state is your shared computer in at the end of the day? Hard disk filled with downloaded files? Strange options configured? Programs installed that you don't want? System infected with viruses and spyware? Computer bogged down for unknown reasons? Windows SteadyState, successor to the Shared Computer Toolkit, is designed to make life easier for people who set up and maintain shared computers. An easy way to manage multiple users You can manage whole groups of users as single user accounts. The new Windows SteadyState console makes it easier than ever to create and modify user profiles. A locked-down platform for stable shared computing Not every computer user should have access to every software capability. Your system can be more stable and consistent when you limit user access to control panel functions, network resources, and other sensitive areas. Set it and forget it Once you have everything set up the way you want it, you can share the computer and rest easy. Any changes a user might make to the configuration or hard disk can be undone by simply restarting the machine.

Netcraft: Google Fixes Gmail Cross-site Request Forgery Vulnerability

A CSRF attack previously possible on Gmail has been fixed. Do check your Gmail filters for any rogue filters ;)

[Link]

Gundam 00

Gundam 00 is coming up next! Hope it stays unlicensed ;)