Category: software

software

Spamming Tactic: Exploiting Search Engines

It’s nothing new, but I see it happening right now. Spammers are searching for “leave a comment” on Google, and using those results to feed into spam bots that go and do the work. Google, please stop letting spammers search for “leave a comment”. Just block that string from being searched, as it won’t ever affect an actual user. Nobody would just be searching for “leave a comment” and not have  malicious intentions.

Software doesn’t have insight like this, and that’s why programmers must remain in the business. To help the software learn.

Turbo Conspiracy Wearies

If you haven’t noticed, the Rooster Teeth site’s navbar randomly will display secret messages.

I saw this and within half an hour dug up the JavaScript that makes it happen.

I’ve posted it on my pastebin here.

So the JavaScript originally had a lot of escaped text, which I unescaped for readability.

The messages in my copy are plaintext now.

Discuss what you think things mean in the comments.

One suggestion I heard is that Tex is saying these things, similar to the I Love Bees viral campaign.

An MVpybot update

Just wanted to let everyone know that MVpybot recently had a nice update. For those of you that don’t know (probably most of you), MVpybot is an IRC bot written in Python. It’s main page is here, and the post about the latest update is here. Download  it here (click ‘Download GNU tarball’ to download) and hop on theoks.net/#bots to see it in action.

Screenshot included:

ScriptBot 2.1 is in the works.

Just a quick post, telling everyone that a new version of ScriptBot is in the works, version 2.1.

So far, we’ve done the first xplugin -> bundled plugin conversion in ScriptBot’s short history, as well as added some little features that make a big impact, such as NickServ identifying, configurable connection port, configuration for whether to join on invite, and more features are of course on the way, in order to make this one of the biggest releases for ScriptBot (aside from 2.0, the massive rewrite).

I hope to also make ScriptBot available in the Fedora repositories, starting with version 2.1, but I’ll need assistance with packaging (see my earlier post on packaging ScriptBot). If anyone is willing to help, that’d be great. Just come on over to #bots on OKSnet. The current roadblock, as mentioned in the post, is packaging a library we use, written in Java, called PircBot.

Why Mac OS X Server can’t be taken seriously.

Mac OS X Server just can’t be taken seriously. Why?

A couple things:

  1. It can’t be run on commodity hardware, it has to be on a Mac.
  2. It can’t be virtualized.
  3. It doesn’t have server virtualization solutions designed to run on it.

To further that, Apple seems to take NO interest in virtualization. I haven’t seen one peep out of them about it. They simply sell desktop-class virtualization products in their store.

So if Apple wants to MAN UP and write some virtualization stuff, then they can be taken seriously.

I mean really. Virtualization is taking the world by storm, and Apple, the company that is supposed to be all hip and such is not participating. Every single product on the current Macintosh line supports hardware virtualization. Apple does nothing with that fact.

It’s sad. Just sad.

Fedora 12 Constantine

Yes, Fedora 12, Constantine has been released.  This release is focused on reinforcing stability, as well as making the desktop easier for new users. I’m hosting a release party on IRC, #Main on theoks.net.

You can read the new features in Fedora 12 on this wiki page: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/12/FeatureList

Fedora Activity Day – Fedora Talk (Day 1)

Day One of the Fedora Talk Activity day is over.

Here’s some very quick wrapping up:

  • Icecast streaming is now working pretty decently, however the current test server is in… Germany. (http://publictest16.fedoraproject.org:8000/test.ogg)
  • Improvements on documentation, generally on the web site.
  • Troubleshooting tests are underway.
  • More “ghetto HTML” and such funnies.
  • People thinking my bag o’ chips is popcorn.

Things will continue tomorrow at I don’t know what time. I didn’t hear that part.

The conference has taken place on talk.fedoraproject.org, extension 2001.

Packaging ScriptBot for Fedora, a continuing adventure

You mostly likely know that I’m  a proud contributor to the Fedora Project. I helped out a bit on blogs.fedoraproject.org and I generally also keep the wiki clean. However, I haven’t ever made a package.

So my first packaging adventure is packaging the IRC bot library that ScriptBot uses.

One word: pain.

There’s a few nuances with PircBot. It comes as a jar with source inside it as well as the compiled classes. I extracted the source, made it usable for RPM to build. I scrapped the binaries, and put it into a traditional tarball. So apparently that doesn’t work.

Next, I found RPM wasn’t making a buildroot correctly. So I had to make a hack around that.

Then, it came to the install path. There’s a page on the Fedora Project Wiki apparently. But I didn’t know that! It’s not linked from the frequently visited Packaging pages.

After getting it to build, it went through a scratch build on Koji, then I filed for review on Bugzilla.

That’s when I found the page for Fedora’s Java packaging guidelines. I apparently did need documentation (although all I can put is a link, the documentation isn’t really pullable from the website). So I ended marking the bug for my request as CLOSED DEFERRED.

Expect a part two post when I actually get Pircbot into the repos.  Also likely is a part three when ScriptBot itself gets in.

See the ScriptBot project page at scriptbot.theoks.net.

Spam, spam, spam

Spam is always a problem. It’s a problem for everyone. Blocking it is also a problem. You can lots of the time have false positives. Which gets annoying. Also when your anti-spam doesn’t block enough. Or when it gets in your way. Maybe it doesn’t even work with your specific software.

I have spam problems too. SpamAssassin is the most well known open source mail-based anti-spam solution. The developers behind SpamAssassin need your help. They need you to submit “ham” and “spam” mail in order to teach SpamAssassin to recognize new spammer techniques.

Check the project out at this wiki page.