Category: Intarweb

Mostly weird things I find on the Internet

Paranoid, Init

Posted on by Andy

Having marvelled at the er… unique nature of MikeeUSA’s Systemd Blues: Took our thing (Wooo) blues homage to the perils of using systemd, I decided what the world actually needs is something from the metal genre.

So, here’s the lyrics to Paranoid, Init.

Default soon on Debian
This doesn’t help me with my mind
People think I’m insane
Because I am trolling all the time

All day long I fight Red Hat
And uphold UNIX philosophy
Think I’ll lose my mind
If I can’t use sysvinit on jessie

Can you help me
Terrorise pid 1?
Oh yeah!

Tried to show the committee
That things were wrong with this design
They can’t see Poettering’s plan in this
They must be blind

Some sick joke I could just cry
GNOME needs logind API
QR codes gave me a feel
Then binary logs just broke the deal

And so as you hear these words
Telling you now of my state
Can’t log off and enjoy life
I’ve another sock puppet to create

50 Shades of grep (NSFW)

Posted on by Andy

<grifferz> unixmen.com is a bit of an odd name isn’t it

<taras> i thought it was going to be unix fanfic

<grifferz> maybe you could write and post some there

<taras> Torvalds cupped Stallman’s bristly sack in his delicate Finnish hand

<taras> “Let’s see if you’ve ‘Hurd’ of this position,” he whispered

<grifferz> 50 Shades of grep

Dear Intarweb, please provide ethics check

Posted on by Andy

Earlier this evening I received a marketing email from a company I had never heard of, for an event I wasn’t interested in, to an email address I had only ever given to a differently, seemingly-unrelated company that we shall call Company U.

When this sort of thing happens it may be an indication that Company U has leaked their customer address database or else decided to sell the contact details on, so I’d sometimes follow it up instead of just opting out and consigning the address to the bitbucket forever.

In this case as many times before, I decided to have a whinge on twitter about it first.

Anyway to cut a long story short they got in touch, and it turns out that this marketing email has been sent by Company S. Someone from Company S emailed me to apologise and to remove my address from their list.

I asked this person how they obtained my email address that had only been sent to Company U, and they admitted that they used to work for Company U and that their “rampant CRM system” had somehow “indexed all of my PERSONAL emails”.

Now, from my point of view, this would actually suggest that this person has likely taken a database of customers of Company U with him to his new employer.

So, Internauts, do I have a duty to shop this guy to his former employer Company U? Or am I just frothing in my nerdrage here at the terrible inconvenience of being sent a piece of email I don’t want? Is the man a menace, or should I just get over it?

Which site’s database got sold/leaked?

Posted on by Andy

Earlier today I received several emails of the form:

Return-path: macdaddy@dedibox.fr
Envelope-to: andy@example.com
Delivery-date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:58:02 +0000
Received: from impaqm2.telefonica.net ([213.4.138.10]
        helo=telefonica.net)
        by bitfolk.com with esmtp (Exim 4.69)
        (envelope-from <macdaddy@dedibox.fr>)
        id 1QRZl3-0006v3-06
        for andy@example.com; Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:58:02 +0000
Received: from IMPmailhost3.adm.correo ([10.20.102.124])
        by IMPaqm2.telefonica.net with bizsmtp
        id qQYS1g01y2h2L9m3MQlr7A; Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:45:51
        +0200
Received: from sd-1622.dedibox.fr ([88.191.14.154])
        by IMPmailhost3.adm.correo with BIZ IMP
        id qQlq1g00D3KS0VC1jQlqTB; Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:45:5
        +0200
X-Brightmail-Tracker: ??
X-original-sender: electricidadromero@telefonica.net
Received: from [88.191.14.154] by sd-1622.dedibox.fr id
        96YxWPB6QbSt with SMTP; Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:52:25
        +0200
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:52:25 +0200
From: Support <macdaddy@dedibox.fr>
X-Mailer: The Bat! (v4.05.2) Personal
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
Message-ID: <0288215865.30146090204853@sd-1622.dedibox.fr>
To: XXXX <andy@example.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
        charset="windows-1252"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Subject: Your order reference is 1460489

Dear User, XXXX.

Your order has been accepted.

Your order reference is 18973.

Terms of delivery and the date can be found with the auto-generated msword
file located at:
http://www.macarthurmumsnbubs.com/Orders/Orders.zip?id:11190401Generation_mail=andy@example.com

============================
Best regards, ticket service.
Tel.: (050) 404 53 824

The above is verbatim other than I’ve replaced my email address with “andy@example.com” and the “XXXX” is actually a password that I’ve used on multiple web sites.

I assume that the linked Zip file is a trojan; I haven’t looked at it.

Does anyone else who’s received the same email know which site it might be who’s leaked or sold their user database?

Please don’t contact me to tell me that I should use a different password on every web site. That is impractical for me; I already use several different classes of password and the one in the email is one I only use on the most trivial sites. I’m not particularly worried over what details have been leaked, I’m more interested in which site leaked because whoever they are, they store their passwords in the clear.

I also can’t tell by email address. They seem to have used my generic email address, so this would be from before I started using a unique email address for each site.

Any ideas?

Sites which it is not:

Amazon, Apple, The Book Depository, Ebay, Facebook, Forbidden Planet, Giffgaff, Lulu, Moonpig, Novatech, PayPal, Play, T-Mobile, Twitter

(either I’m not a user of these services or my email/password there isn’t what were used)

Update 2010-Jun-02: It was Friendster.

Reporting it was hard work, but they did eventually agree to look into it.

One for the paramilitary wing of the FSF

Posted on by Andy

Paging Matt Lee…

From: Federal Buyers Guide <ListingUpdate@gov-world.com>
To: someone@lug.org.uk
Subject: British Linux User Group listing update - DoD Buyers
        Guide

   LAST OPPORTUNITY FOR 2009

   Complete or update information to list British Linux User
   Group, as a supplier available for Department of Defense
   bid and sales opportunities in the 2009 Department of
   Defense Buyers Guide.  The information on your company
   and products will be accessed by Federal and military
   purchasing agents and buying facilities.