"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"

The Back Page

• Wacko Topic of the Month
• Not The Answer Gang
• World of Spam

Coal port

Contributed By Thomas Adam

Hacking

Answered By Jay Ashworth, Iron

[Jay]

Anyone wanna take a swing?

[Iron]

I held back because I know Dan Wilder and Ben Okopnik will soon be posting volumuous pieces of Helpful Advice, and Heather will chime later in with an extra special spin, maybe with a supermarket analogy or something to surprise us.

What do you have to say, Jay?

[Jay] Given that I have to *work* with a new trainee consultant who sounds like this, I don't think it's safe for my blood pressure to say anything. I work for a living; I suppose I ought to pay the script kiddies for improving my revenue, but the whole thing sorta galls my sister.

Our last published piece on hacking I could find was: http://linuxgazette.net/issue71/lg_backpage71.html#nottag ("Help me crack my school") But I'm sure there were more in 2001 somewhere, either in The Answer Gang column or on the Back Page.

I do wonder why a hacker-wannabe is using MSN for a mail service....

The prosecution *rests*.

He's not a "hacker" wannabe. He's a "cracker" wannabe. Or, if you prefer, a juvenile delinquent.

[Ben]

Diving into dry pools head-first is a good start, particularly from the high board - it's been known to cure incipient crackers. Sure, some - well, most - end up looking like a squashed bug, but you've got to admit, it's much better than the alternative. Be sure to try it today!

For advanced hacking skills, take a look at Eric S. Raymond's "How To Become A Hacker", at http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html. That takes you all the way from beginner to advanced... not what you meant? Oh, right, I forgot; when the cracker maggots invade your brain, language skills are the first thing to go. <shrug> I guess you'll never be able to explain what you really want, now. I understand that progression of the disease is difficult to reverse, deterioration is rapid, and the prognosis is NOT positive.

A friend of mine's got a 10th floor apartment, and the pool might even have been emptied for the winter. Want me to ask? Really, it wouldn't take long at all...

Regarding MSN, Good news!!! I've got a *great* cracking opportunity coming up for you; you'll need to break into MSN and establish a new account. See, you'll *have* to do this because I'm about to report your criminal activities to MSN - including your confession of having already "done a few hacks with some trojan programs", so that even their admin people can have a laugh at your terminally moronic behavior. All they have to do is look at the headers in your e-mail (didn't know about those, did you?), compare them with the copy that will still be on their servers (missed that one too, huh?), and TOSs your ass so hard that you'll bounce.

You know, if you ask the folks at your local TV or radio station, they might let you climb their tower - you could get a coupla hundred feet up that way - and you could always drag up a bathtub. Seriously, give it a shot: it can't hurt. Well, actually it would, but it's the kind of thing you're supposed to say...

[Jay]

Now, *see*? I *knew* Ben would come up with something lyrical.

[Ben]

I've got to give MSN their due: they actually have humans assigned to dealing with this stuff, and when these folks LART one, they let you know: "Hi, my name is X, and I'm the one assigned to this case. I've examined the information you've sent us, and terminated our former customer on that basis. Thank you for...", etc. They also seem to pay attention to the info that you send them in the complaint letter. My "spamkill" file contains quite a few from them.

More Tux trivia

Answered By Iron, Heather Stern, Rachel Rawlings

This is a follow-up to an important issue we reported in January, namely:

At the time, I commented:

[Iron]

Four out of five sexist computer nerds surveyed agree Tux is male.

Now we have some updated commentary:

[Heather] That might refer to Linus' original comment that penguins are happy because they have just stuffed themselves full of herring or have been hanging out with lady penguins. We only know that Tux is stuffed full of herring, but we can assume Tux hangs out with lady penguins.

[Rachel]

Which actually doesn't get say definitively whether Tux is male. Tux could hang out with lady penguins cf. Marlena Dietrich, or be a high-class drag king.

However, speaking as a dyke with a largish stuffed animal collection (one of whom is a female Peter Rabbit named Katja), my Tux is male. Other users' Tuxen may vary according to the needs of the user, much like their kernel configurations.

[Iron]

Interesting. I wonder if Eric Raymond's enhanced kernel configurator will have a question for which sex your kernel should be built as.

More on Ben's reputation

Answered By Ben Okopnik, Iron, Faber Fedor

[Iron]

Why, that's mighty fine of you, Ben. You must be getting soft in your old age. You can't wear those dark menacing LG sunglasses anymore.

Now that sounds right proper curdgemeonly (sp). OK, you can keep the glasses.

And we'll get you a pirate eye patch to go with it. Hey, you can use that on your sea voyages too! Do you need a flag with a skull and crossbones too or do you already have that? Or maybe your flag is getting a bit tattered....

By the way, guess what came in the spam today. Just perfect for Ben.

Subject: Your metals sunglasses

One of the world largest Sunglasses company is clearing stock.
Get a pair of Sexy Metals Sunglasses model 2002 for free
while stock last.

[Ben]

<Splort> You... you... <Daffy Duck mode> You're dethhhhhhpicable. </DDm>

Besides, you probably wouldn't want "Metals sunglasses"; I understand that Metal gets mean after a few drinks, and he *really* gets upset about people that take his sunglasses. Just a warning to the wise.

[Iron]

Another spam came through too.

From: <[email protected]>
Subject: Spy Ear Blowout Sale

Oh yeah! What a great way to identify spies; they'll be the ones with their
ears blown out. 

- "Excuse me, sir..."
- "What? what? I can't hear you." 
- "ARREST THAT MAN!!!"

[Ben]

<Glare> Your time vill come, Comrade. Ve haff long memories.

In another thread...

[Faber]

I hate to do this, but I have to agree with Ben...again!

[Ben]

Why, Faber! I'm cut to the quick by your implications; I'm shocked - simply shocked, I tell you - by this. <sniffle> Eh, just admit it; I'm always right.

In another thread...

[Ben]

a) Make the script SUID root (!!! use with caution - this is a *bad* idea unless you know exactly what you're doing !!!):

chmod 4755 mswin

[Dan]

Ben, which OS are you running that one on ?!? Last I heard, Linux didn't accomodate setuid scripts.

[Iron]

Dan's too polite. I told him to ask Ben what drugs he's on.

[Ben]

Oh, the same as usual. I think it's the mix, though: I just tried using a little more plutonium and a little less crack, and that's _clearly_ not the way to go.

(Boy, the FBI is going to be all *over* this one. The only thing that's missing is a reference to sex and death... ah, there we go. See y'all in about 20 years.)

[Iron]

You can join Don Marti, future political prisoner.

[Karl-Heinz]

You should maybe consider some strong encryption like rot13 to keep the AFN, SOV and PVN computers occupied ;-)

[Ben]

Shhhay! Isthay isway away IGBAY ecretsay!

Now *there's* a Denial of Service attack that'll take'em right down. My diabolical plan for World Domination is proceeding apace...

In another thread...

[Iron]

I wanted to change "side comments from Ben Okopnik and Heather Stern" to "with snide comments from Ben Okopnik and Heather Stern", but I refrained.

[Ben]

My God, Mike. The incredible amount of self-restraint that must have taken... oh, the feeling of sacrifice... I'm stunned that you managed to overcome such a temptation. Worse yet, you could have always pretended to be innocent and blamed it on a simple misspelling.

Want a pair of these dark glasses? <innocently> Just asking.

Heather can put it in her todo list for next month, to sneak the "for snide comments in" quote when nobody's looking. Which means you'll have to be extra snide over the next month to give her material. Do you think you can handle that?

Besides, I can't possibly imagine how you came by that impression. /Moi/, *snide?* Huh. The very _idea._

If someone *deserves* to be smacked down, however... <rubbing hands gleefully>

Debian and World Domination

Answered By Iron, Jay Ashworth, Ben Okopnik, Heather Stern

[Iron]

Especially when a package depends on itself! This happens a few times a year in Unstable.

(Note that many agitators and activists *do* have "Linux world domination" as their goal,

But many who support World Domination aren't really activist about it.

but there isn't much overlap between the core developers in free software, and the agitators and activists).

As in sports. There's not a lot of overlap between the hockey players who score the most goals and the players hired to pick fights.

Then in another thread...

[Jay]

Defense in Depth, my revered senior partner.

[Ben]

<gasp> Jay has called me "senior" and "revered"! *NOW* I shall rule!

[Iron]

I don't even have to say anything...

[Ben]

"Hello, Central? What's holding up that assassination team? Oh, Seattle traffic. OK. I'll give them fifteen more minutes..."

[Iron]

Tell Mr Okopnik he'd better give us two hours.

[Heather]

We're all whippersnappers at some point, Ben, your turn will come. <wicked grin>

[Ben]

Why, you young... oh. Never mind.

I'll be turning 40 in a couple of months, so I'm practicing.

[Jay]

I want him to drop and give me 20, myself.

[Ben]

"Hello, US Air Force? Do you happen to have 20 of those bunker-busters left? Here are some coordinates in Florida..."

I got done "dropping and doing 20" almost 20 years ago, Jay. Although I've just started working out again, so that's maybe a reasonable equivalent.

Esperanto

Answered By Iron, Ben Okopnik, Jay Ashworth

[I'm working on an Esperanto translation of parts of LG. It'll be another month or so till it's up. -Iron.]

[Jay]

Heh. "Dubitando ad veritatem venimus" ("We arrive at the truth by being sceptical").

[Iron]

Malfidante ni trovas la veron. (Untrusting, we find the truth.)
Malfidante ni malkasxas la veron. (Untrusting, we discover [=unhide] the truth.)
Per skeptikemo ni atingas la veron. (By our tendency to be skeptical, we achieve the truth.)

[Ben]

<LOL> Well, *that* didn't take long. Do we need a modified version of Godwin's Law here, or what?

(For the humor-impaired: Just kidding. I really like Mike's little Esperanto bits... I also like twitting him about it.

And in another thread...

[Iron]

To support other languages, various 8-bit charsets were introduced. The ISO-8859-x series ("man iso_8859_1") is the most common on UNIX. -1 (aka LATIN-1) covers Western Europe (Germanic/Romance languages), -2 (aka LATIN-2) covers Eastern Europe (Slavic languages), -3 (aka LATIN-3) covers miscellaneous Europe (and Esperanto :).

[Ben]

<narrowed eyes behind the dark glasses> You thought I'd miss that, didn't you? The Revolution Never Sleeps.

[Iron]

No, I knew you'd never miss that. You had extensive training, comrade.

$3 words and Trainspotting

Answered By Jay Ashworth, Iron, Ben Okopnik, Dan Wilder

[Iron]

Since "concur" means "agree", the opposite is "disagree".

[Jay]

Yeah, but that's only a 49-cent word. I prefer the buck-2.98 ones.

[Iron]

Down with $3 words! It's ridiculous that children compete in spelling bees over words that ordinary people would never use and don't know exist. Just because it's *possible* to derive a fancy Latin word for an ordinary English word doesn't automatically make it an English word. It's academickese, not English. There's probably a simple English word or circumlocution that covers the same terrain perfectly adequately, so why not use it? There's nothing to be gained by using words Joe Sixpack can't understand, except for the "few" technical terms that are absolutely necessary for a given field.

[Jay]

I disagree, almost entirely. It depends, of course, on what your *objective* is, and there are many objectives in writing: you might be trying to impress people, to inform them, to persuade them... Each of these jobs requires a different set of tools, just as there is no one answer to the question "what kind of computer should I buy" other than "well, what are you going to *do* with it?"

Certainly, it's possible to use words which are fancier-than-thou, and lose your audience in the process. But that possibility isn't by any means justification for not being literate and -- dare I say it -- lyrical in your writing.

But, contrary to many people's belief, I think that people want to read elegant writing, even if it occasionally makes them need to look up a word that they can't glark from context.

[Iron]

True, there is language-for-communication and language-as-art. I would argue that academic/techical writing is supposedly language-for-communication, thus, its tendency to fanciness hinders its basic purpose.

An urgent example in US society is the language of laws. Nobody but lawyers can understand then, and even lawyers don't agree on what the DMCA means. How are people supposed to obey laws they can't understand and don't have time to read? How can they evaluate whether the law is just? How can they avoid being hoodwinked?

Personal writing-as-art is a personal thing. I just don't like the way it can hinder communication, especially works that end up being read by others than the author intended. For instance, when non-English speakers read Gazette articles. That's why try to keep LG as straightforward as possible. I'd love to clean up the spelling/grammar mistakes if I had the time, but I don't have 50 extra hours per month, so I just do the ones that seriously impede communication.

I read Trainspotting and think, the Scottish phonetic style offends my sense of clarity, but the author's goal is to convey this style of thought/viewpoint as much as it is to convey content, so I can accept it.

I read Star Wars and think, why does the author have to write in such a convoluted manner? It adds nothing to the story except to make it "hip".

I read Ratz Are Nice (PSP) and think, why does the author have to write in such a slangy style? "They go weekend hunting looking for ruffboichail'z. They wontz to be quickened... I Edison basically loseout 3 wayz." Actually, I never got past the first chapter. I don't have time to sound out what he's trying to say, much less guess what dialect they're speaking. God forbid a non-English speaker should take an interest in the book. I prefer a writing style readable by as wide an audience as possible.

But, contrary to many people's belief, I think that people want to read elegant writing, even if it occasionally makes them need to look up a word that they can't glark from context.

[Jay]

I haven't read Trainspotting; I'll assume it's half way to James Joyce.

I'm not gonna get a bite on "glark", eh?

[Iron]

Trainspotting quotes:

"That's no the f*****g point," ah sais, but withoot conviction. "Aye. The point is ah'm really f*****g suffering here, n ma so-called mate's draggin his feet deliberately, lovin every f****n minute ay it!" His eyes seem the size ay fitba's n look hostile, yet pleadin at the same time; poignant testimonies tae ma supposed betrayal.

At the Fit ay the Walk thir wir nai taxis. They only congregated here when ye didnae need them.

"See whit yuv done now, ya big-moothed c**t. Next time one ay us ur walkin home oan oor Jack Jones, wi git hassle fi these wee radges." Ah wisnae chuffed at Sick Boy. "Yir no feart ay they wee f****n saps ur ye?" This c**t's really gittin ma f****n goat. "Aye! Aye ah f****n am, if ah'm oan ma tod n ah git set oan by a f****n squad ay shell-suits! Ye think ah'm Jean-Claude Van F****n Damme? F****n doss c**t, so ye are Simon." Ah called him 'Simon' rather than 'Si' or 'Sick Boy' tae emphasise the seriousness ay what ah wis sayin.

Of course, Scottish literature is pretty scarce and underrepresented, and Irving Welsh is one of the few authors filling the gap.

[Ben]

I'm fairly close to the middle of this one, but with somewhat of a lean in Jay's direction: there are times - especially when writing for a techie audience - when the more spendy variety of verbal pyrotechnics (remember to always and ever eschew needless and unnecessary word usage!) is called for... but the reason is the one that Mike mentions: writing to a given audience.

[Iron]

Believe it or not, I *am* a fan of writing differently depending on your audience. I'm just pointing out that sometimes one's audience ends up being bigger than anticipated, and the assumptions one made about the audience no longer hold true.

PS. Just in case it's unclear, I'm *not* complaining about anything anybody's written on TAG. This is just a problem I've seen other places.

[Dan]

Oh darn. Guess I hafta go get out the old thesaurus more often.

[Ben]

Should be familiar territory by now, Dan; ISTR that you were raised on the stuff. Or was that brontosaurus? Either way, should be pretty tasty with just a touch of lemon and Hollandaise sauce...

[Dan]

Customarily prepared by briefly grilling steaks rubbed with wild onion directly on top of a hardwood twig fire. Also great as thesaurus tartare.

Boring documentation

Answered By John Karns

any body pls give me any utility. don't tell me FAQ. this is boring for me. if anybody wants help me out than pls provide me utility.

[John]

If you find reading FAQ's boring, I don't think you're going to like Linux too much.

University admissions

Answered By Dan Wilder

[Dan]

We are affilitated with no university. None. Nil. Nor college, high school, research institute, preschool. Not even a skateboard park. Nor basketball stadium, automotive repair garage, not even a pizza parlor.

Tennis rackets

Answered By Ben Okopnik, Iron

[Ben]

Oh... bosh. Chris, you often launch interesting questions, and digging down to the bottom of those can be fun. Now quit smacking yourself; you're wearing out that nice new tennis racket.

[Iron]

Next time, Ben, buy him the plastic racket, not the metal one. He'll be less likely to hurt himself that way.

[Chris]

I could wear a helmet for extra protection too. That will help during intense software debug sessions when I keep hitting my head against the wall.

Tea

Answered By Heather Stern, Iron, Ben Okopnik

[Heather]

Well, the deli counter is that way, but it doesn't serve beer or milk or tea much less mango lassi or jumbo smoothies. Only coffee and soda pop. Oh well.

[Iron]

And Rory called my Jasmine tea yesterday "fou-fou". Can you believe it?

[Ben]

Well, *yeah*. I keep telling you to get rid of the little plastic umbrella and the maraschino cherries - they really _do not_ go with jasmine tea - but would you listen?...

Iron

Answered By Ben Okopnik, Jay Ashworth

[Ben]

There's always the "--view-the-Ethernet-source-and-destination-addresses- of-three-packets-with-no-time-stamp-data-added" switch (one of the standard GNU long options.) Be sure to type it out every time, too; cut-and-paste won't work, since the "cut_and_paste_detect()" function will just reject it.

[Jay]

tcpdump: command line switch too long.

[Ben]

You probably mistyped it. Try it fifteen or twenty more times. If that fails, try

tcpdump --irony

Dear Future Millionaire:
I'll make you a promise. READ THIS E-MAIL TO THE END! - follow what it says to the letter - and you will not worry whether a RECESSION is coming or not, who is President, or whether you keep your current job or not....

===WHEN YOU PLACE YOUR ORDER, MAKE SURE =====YOU ORDER EACH OF THE 5 REPORTS! ==You will need all 5 reports so that you can save them on your computer and resell them. YOUR TOTAL COST $5 X 5 = $25.00.

Within a few days you will receive, via e-mail, each of the 5 reports from these 5 different individuals. Save them on your computer so they will be accessible for you to send to the 1,000's of people who will order them from you.

Analysis by Chris Gianacopoulos

I wonder if it'll be non-detectable like a computer virus.

Almost like a clown face!

Oh no! If I look like a movie star, then, people will know who I am. There goes my private life.

Analysis by Ben Okopnik

Oh yeah! What a great way to identify spies; they'll be the ones with their ears blown out. - "Excuse me, sir..." - "What? what? I can't hear you." - "ARREST THAT MAN!!!"

Can we test that? Go ahead and put that thing in your ear, and listen closely: ***AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!***

Oh, oops. Look at that; your poor eyeballs. Are they supposed to protrude like that? Say, that ear looks blown out, too. Are you *sure* you're not a spy? Quick, somebody - ARREST THAT MAN!

[Nice grammar there, "your". -Iron.]

Dear [email protected],

Do you have a product or service to sell? Do you want an extra 100 orders per week?

NOTE: (If you do not already have a product or service to sell, we can supply you with one).

Big Brother will hide on your computer and secretly record all instant messages, chat, email, web sites and more! Once you install it, it becomes completely invisible. Then, after the computer is used, you just enter a secret key-sequence, and you can see everything that happened!

***************************************************
Since India has no anti-spamming law, we follow the US Unsolicited Electronic Mail Act of 2000, which states that mail cannot be considered Spam if it contains contact / removal information, which this mail does. If you want to be removed from the mailing list then you must reply to this mail with "Remove" in the subject line and e-mail for faster response and action.
********************************************

[ Here's an evil spam. Not only does it pretend to be a WinXP patch (making you think it's an official Service Pack), but why is it base64 if it claims to be an *.htm file? -Iron.]

Content-Type: application/octet-stream;
	name=NOMODEM.HTM
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

PEhUTUw+DQoJPEhFQUQ+DQoJCTxsaW5rIHJlbD1zdHlsZXNoZWV0IHR5cGU9InRleHQvY3Nz
IiBocmVmPSIuLlxzZXR1cFxtc29ic2hlbC5jc3MiPg0KCQk8TUVUQSBodHRwLWVxdWl2PSJD

I have plenty of fresh verified email names and can get you results. You simply furnish your message and I do the rest. I guarantee you 100% delivery. It can even be done in full color at no extra cost.

[I wonder how he manages to show full-color messages on pine. -Iron.]

[A paltry $12.5 million? I'm sure there'll be a better deal later in my inbox. -Iron.]

This will definitely be the choke point of raising reputation and business development deeply of your company. We fully believe that with our service, visitors of your web site will increase significantly.

At present, there are about 500,000 search engines in the whole world, but fortunately XXXXX is the rare breed that can help you register your website with the famous search engine companies.

[I admire the quality of your "thorough research". Especially since Linux Gazette is on plenty of search engines. -Iron.]

Clean it off now !

Happy Linuxing!

Mike ("Iron") Orr
Editor, Linux Gazette, [email protected]

Copyright © 2002, the Editors of Linux Gazette.
Copying license http://www.linuxgazette.net/copying.html
Published in Issue 76 of Linux Gazette, March 2002