Cosmic Echoes…by Rich Fleetwood

Archive for the ‘Issues’ Category

[ Reading time: 1 - 2 minutes ]

Hi friends,

Here is an update to the hack attack on SurvivalRing yesterday, as mentioned in the email below.

This hack attack seems to have darker overtones than I originally suspected.

While I believe the hack was as I stated yesterday ( a web bot spamming program, which gained access to the site via php script vulnerabilities), I’ve done a bit more research on the destination website that all the spam links were pointing to.

Every one of the nearly fifty hidden links point to a hacked website hosted in the middle east…

hxxp://qasweb.org/library/universe/online/?page=49 (link disabled on purpose)

A quick search found an arabic language based website is the home of

http://qasweb.org/

This is the Qatif Astronomical Society forum website…in Arabic.

You can view a mostly translated into english version here (google cache file)

Following the path of the hacked files, we see this…

Read the rest of this entry »

[ Reading time: 1 - 2 minutes ]

After being offline for a few months, I have finally been able to replace our dead forum board, with a brand new state of the art forum system called the Invision Power Board.

We HAD been using IkonBoard 3.1.1, which suffered massive unfixable security issues, and upon trying to update many different ways to the latest version of 3.1.5, it promptly committed suicide. Hundreds of spams a day were being injected, and the Ikonforum team in the years since I had originally installed the software no longer existed or cared for full path upgrades. This was very disconcerting, and painful to loose so many useful posts.

I was able to save the data in a database, but attempts to salvage them coherently into the new software haven’t been fully successfull…yet.

But… the NEW board is COMPLETELY operational. I’ve already got two new moderators, and more to come.

Jump on over to the SRCC (SurvivalRing Community Center) and register a username and start posting away.

The more the merrier…

Rich
Founder – SurvivalRing

[ Reading time: 3 - 5 minutes ]

Well, it’s been a while since our last visit to this blog to update the worlds on the adventures of Rich in CollegeLand and MeatWorld. Our last posting was over two weeks ago, as you can see below. In the two weeks, we’ve seen the world change greatly.

Saddam is history, having been hanged in what pretty much amounted to a lynching by his adversaries.

Denver has been socked with major snow storms three weekends in a row.

My little hometown of Riverton, Wyoming made the WORLD news with a piece of a Russian Rocket supposedly landing south of town when it re-entered the atmosphere last Thursday (when I was OUT OF TOWN…dang it!) and was captured on video by an airborn TV news chopper live.

One of the local Riverton cops saw it fly overhead as he got the morning paper, and a Wyoming State Trooper found a 3 by 5 foot burned area near the Louis Lake Turnout on South Pass, which I saw a pic of…but no debris was found, even though NORAD has sent pros out to check the story out.

Many other things going on, and the latest is a report in a British Newspaper has reported that Israel has plans to use tactical nukes on the nuke labs of Iran Real Soon Now, although Israel is DENYING it….hmmm.

For me, this is a new year, full of promise, projects, a few classes, and some BIG changes. Future plans include a degree plan change ( to Journalism ), a new college (University Of Montana at Missoula), new business projects (an eBay store, an internet marketing push, adverts in several REAL magazines to sell my two published CD roms), and more.

Another tussel with Windows XP…this time on my laptop. Major errors, blue screen of death, missing XP files, and the XP Recovery Console failed to fix…so, I just removed the drive ( a 2 month old 120 gig sucker), backed everything up to one of my big external drives on the desktop, wiped the drive after backing up all the files, and just finished a FULL FRESH reinstall of Windows. It’ll take me a few weeks to bring it back to full and regular use, after reinstalling all the dozens of programs I use on it, but it should be fine.

At the same time I’ve been installing XP on the laptop, I’ve also been installing Suse Linux on a server I bought at the CWC used computer sale last year. It’s got two 18gig SCSI removable drives, and dual processors, but it’s an older model HP NetServer LPr. I plan on using this rack mounted server as the household media system, with our music and a few movies on it. I’ll add a monster drive (300 gig or more) later this year, after I figure out the media serving systems available for a linux box.

I’m also rebuilding my 75 Jeep Cherokee, with a new full block, new interior, and lots of upgrades. It’s been a few years since I’ve really had some fun doing vehicle work. My last major project was a 1974 Toyota Landcruiser, which I really wish I still had…drats. Before that, it was a 1978 Dodge Van (the cross over year) that I did a full engine and tranny swap on, and before that my original 1974 Ford Van (see a pic here). I spent many years doing work on many vans, and also did conversions and upgrades to cars, trucks, boats, and even an airplane. This year is going to be one that is HANDS ON in many areas.

Many web projects are coming as well. MAJOR upgrade things to SurvivalRing, Civil Defense Now, and more. A few entire NEW projects too, still under wraps. They’ll be announced as they’re ready.

Thanks for checking in. Look for much more frequent updates from me here on Cosmic Echoes!

Rich

[ Reading time: 3 - 5 minutes ]

After much prodding the past year or so, I was able to talk my wife Annie into actually starting her own blog. I’ve had a Wordpress blog set up for her since early last year, but she had never done anything with it, and nary a post was made.

Until this week, that is.

After watching my Google Adsense income take flight this spring, after doing some testing, retesting, and tweaking, I had a thought…and a very good one at that. I thought, wow…what a wonderful time for Annie to share HER wisdom with the world, and with that great Adsense tool, make some income for our family to continue thriving, based on her wonderful and caring perspective on life, from her point of view.

You see, Annie is disabled…and has been in a wheelchair for several years now, due to an injury received in a car accident in Alabama (where we lived before moving to Wyoming), nearly 14 years ago. Her injury came about when we were rear ended on a county highway overpass, at Exit 100 on Interstate 20 in Bucksville, Alabama, waiting to turn into a gas station. Her hip was injured, and diagnosis was not fully made until about five years later, by a very good bone doctor. During this same accident, I earned a broken back (compression fractures in the vertebrae between the shoulder blades), my daughter a broken arm, and both my boys suffered with cuts and contusions.

By the time the damage was actually proven with good xrays, the top of the femur at the hip joint was dying, and the hip socket itself was grossly pocked with extreme calcium buildup, making any movement of the hip very painful.

This was in 1999.

Now, 7 years later, Annie has been in a wheelchair full time for almost 4 years. During this time, she has also earned TWO college degrees, helping our kids move into the adult phases of their life, kept ME fed and clothed, and helped us keep working towards our own home based business, with growing success each month. And, she is now a grandmother of two adorable kids.

Also during this time, we have moved 4 times ( once across the country in 2000 ), been homeless for a few weeks (Spring of 2001), and started over again…twice. And throughout it all, she has been the key to us making it to the next phase of our lives.

She has been through a lot, yet has a LOT to share for others who may be going through the same things we have gone through. With my background of prep and survival skills, learning self reliance the hard way, and my extreme research skills, I’ve brought a lot of new found knowledge into the family.

She’s had to come to a lot of it the hard way, from the point of being disabled, taking care of meds and doctor needs on a very small income, and learning to let go of a lot of things…and grabbing the horns of bigger issues, and wrestling with them on a grand scale…i.e. dealing with the administration of Central Wyoming College, and getting their attention regarding the very disturbing lack of awareness about accessibility issues all over this campus.

She puts a lot of effort into helping others (much like I try to do on a daily basis) and doesn’t notice so much some things that she needs to focus on for herself…others first is her thing sometimes…

I love my wife dearly, and in a few short weeks, we’ll be celebrating our 25th anniversary of marriage.

I hope that you will support her in her blogging career, and that she will be able to reach out to folks the world over, and help them become more self sufficient, personally enriched, and successful individuals….disabled or not.

You can visit her blog here…

[ Reading time: 1 - 2 minutes ]

Author Dan Simmons imagines a not-so-distant future…of war, one hundred years worth…for the world, against the Nation of Islam.

While a science fiction, fantasy, and horror genre specialist, this particular story hits you right in the pit of your stomach. It IS a fictional piece, but Jee-ZUS…does it hit close to home.

I’d recommend you take a few minutes to read the article at the link below….

April 2006 Message from Dan
Greetings Readers, Friends, and Other Visitors:

The Time Traveler appeared suddenly in my study on New Year’s Eve, 2004. He was a stolid, grizzled man in a gray tunic and looked to be in his late-sixties or older. He also appeared to be the veteran of wars or of some terrible accident since he had livid scars on his face and neck and hands, some even visible in his scalp beneath a fuzz of gray hair cropped short in a military cut. One eye was covered by a black eyepatch. Before I could finish dialing 911 he announced in a husky voice that he was a Time Traveler come back to talk to me about the future.

Being a sometimes science-fiction writer but not a fool, I said, “Prove it.”

Three little words….

I need to know….

Rich

[ Reading time: 2 - 3 minutes ]

As a (nearly) degreed web design student, I pay particularly close attention to web and internet threats to the average user. First, I don’t want my site or software to be hacked. Second, I don’t want to be the source of someone else getting hacked.

It appears that Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash has been found to have some security holes. Why is this an issue? Well, it seems that 98% of Web users have the Flash Player installed on their computer. Here is today’s report from the CERT team.

National Cyber Alert System

Cyber Security Alert SA06-075A

Adobe Macromedia Flash Products Contain Vulnerabilities

Original release date: March 16, 2006
Last revised: –
Source: US-CERT

Systems Affected

Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and other operating systems that use
the following products:
* Adobe Macromedia Flash Player
* Adobe Macromedia Flash
* Adobe Macromedia Flex
* Adobe Macromedia Breeze
* Adobe Macromedia Shockwave Player

Overview

There are critical vulnerabilities in Macromedia Flash player and
related software that may allow an attacker to take control of your
computer.

Solution

Apply Updates
Adobe has provided the updates for these vulnerabilities. To obtain
the update, visit the Security Bulletin. US-CERT recommends that
you update to the most current version of your Macromedia product.

Description

Some features of Macromedia products contain critical
vulnerabilities. If an attacker can convince you to open a
malicious Flash file, which may be hosted on a web site, he or she
may be able to take control of your computer or cause it to crash.
The Macromedia Security Bulletin provides updates that address
these vulnerabilities. For more technical information, see US-CERT
Technical Cyber Security Alert TA06-075A.

References

* US-CERT Technical Cyber Security Alert TA06-075A.html -

* US-CERT Vulnerability Note VU#945060 -

* Macromedia – APSB06-03: Flash Player Update to Address Security
Vulnerabilities -

* Microsoft Security Advisory (916208) -