Category: Geek Stuff

It’s been a virtually spam-free week here in my new home on the web. And it’s not because the spammers are taking a holiday break. My Qmail logs report that, since the shields went up on Monday morning, over 600 chunks of spam have been deflected. What’s the secret? Nothing new and innovative, just an… Continue reading Canned Spam

“Wardriving” is the term geeks use to describe driving around with a laptop looking for insecure wireless networks to hack. So what do you call driving around with a laptop and no pants, hacking wireless networks to download kiddie porn? Bad fiction? A whole slew of articles vouch for the fact that it really happened… Continue reading Warwanking?

Once again, JMatt.Net is in a new home. Notice anything different? Actually, for the time being, I hope you don’t. Everything should look the same. The differences are in the underlying infrastructure. If I get ambitious, there are some interesting opportunities for enhancement, but for a while, I’ll mainly be playing with things invisible to… Continue reading We’ve Moved Again

A story in The Register reports that Diebold automated teller machines at two financial instiutions were infected with the Nachi virus. The affected ATMs were new “advanced” ones running Windows XP Embedded. As the ATM industry seems to be moving away from the old reliable OS/2 to the latest bugware from Micro$haft, we should probably… Continue reading A Preview of the Future?

I can sympathize with this guy. A Wired article reports that a Californian has been arrested, and faces a maximum of five years in jail and a $250,000 fine, for threatening spammers. Maybe he overreacted a little bit, but the spam problem has gotten so bad that it might be tough to find a jury… Continue reading Spam Rage

Microsoft has announced a $5 million reward fund to catch virus writers, kicked off by $250,000 apiece for the SoBig and MSBlast creators. I wonder if they considered whether it would be cheaper to just write better software that’s not susceptible to hacking by any bored teenager. Naah … cleaning up Windows would probably cost… Continue reading Microsoft Rewards

I’ve frequently said that the solution to spam should be legislative and not technical. I don’t want to engage in a never-ending battle of technology with spammers, constantly upgrading my filter technology to combat their latest tricks. I just want the government to make them leave me alone. I know some people disagree with that… Continue reading Canning Spam

Some of you loyal email subscribers may have wondered why you haven’t received any mindless musings lately. Really loyal fans who faithfully checked the site in the absence of email may have noticed that folks who were relying on email were missing a little, but not much. I just haven’t had much to say lately,… Continue reading Blogging Blackout?

A Wired article reports that researchers at the University at Buffalo have reported their development of a system that could allow the sense of touch to be transmitted across the ‘net. The article mentions several possible practical applications of the technology. I just couldn’t help but be reminded of Dennis Miller’s quote from several years… Continue reading Reach Out and Touch

Richard clued me in to another amusing Google anomaly. Searching for weapons of mass destruction and following the top link (or using the Google “I’m Feeling Lucky” button to bypass the results list and go directly to the top site) has an amusing result. Since these Google encounters are sometimes only temporary as rankings change,… Continue reading I See No Weapons of Mass Destruction Here