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I think that my family's site was hit because it runs ecommerce software that has exploits I have not yet fixed, and my inauguration site was hit by DDOS because it has a higher profile than most. I think it's just coincidence that I'm facing all of this around the same time.
Well you may be singing the praises of Ubuntu/Linux while the underbelly is attacking you while your guard is down. It wasn't my OS that was attacked. In the instance of the Adware, my browsers were attacked – and I think this is a problem people can still experience using Ubuntu (as is suggested in this thread). In the case of the redirection to porn sites, this his my Ipad. Since there are no known Ipad viruses, it may have been a problem which hit my router.Otherwise, these were exploits aimed at my sites online. So yes, even though you may think you are secure because you are using Ubuntu, there are still plenty of things to worry about. Honestly, I don't worry about viruses infecting my Windows desktop very much since I run a pretty tight ship anyway, and viruses are usually easily detectable.
The past week or so I experienced the underbelly of the internet. First, my inauguration site succumbed to that DDOS attack. Then, a site that I built for my family's business was compromised when someone was able to modify the means of payment which directed funds sent by Paypal to someone else (presumably in Korea). Then, yesterday I downloaded a piece of software from Download.com and it had a nuisance program attached to it which changed the homepages of my browsers and my add ons. Oh, and on my Ipad I clicked on a bookmark of mine and I was for some reason redirected to some porn app on Itunes. I looked online at a forum where other people were experiencing that same problem of redirections, but they didn't know why it was happening.So anyway, I guess it goes to show you that there are criminals alive and well, ready to strike online. I have thought that if only online criminals put their efforts into legal activities instead of nefarious ones, they could probably be quite productive.
I don't think I've heard of him, but from the look of the book, it sounds like it's right up your alley. Your better question could have been – why not get it? Incidentally, I was on a trip during Thanksgiving and had less time to tend to the site. I'm glad you didn't wait for the ok from the rest of us to buy the book. 🙂
I just find it interesting that someone would intentionally decide to take down my site, which presumably they thought was an official site dedicated to the inauguration. I'm not sure if this came from an anti-Obama source or an Anti-America source. If they did mistakenly target my site along these lines, the joke was on them. Well, kind of on me as well, I guess.
Sure – remind me how much I charged your cc and I'll refund it. You can keep the free tote bag that you got with your subscription, though. 😉
Yes, I do use that, and it does keep some out. However, they also create more and more email accounts through free services, such as gmail, and they self-activate that way. I also use CAPTCHA at registration, so they are bypassing that.I would really like to read an in-depth article on the world of spammer how they operate, how they evolve to meet new challenges, what kind of programs they are using etc. It's always amazed me that they're able to adapt to security measures that people put in their way.
They must have a point man (point robot?) who finds the answer, then it's loaded into a database that others use to register, probably through automated means. My security question here was “at what temperature (Fahrenheit) does water freeze?” I changed the answer to ask for this in Celsius, and they have not registered since. I bet if I checked the logs, I would find plenty of registration errors being made by people after I changed it.
It makes me wonder how they had enough fuel in their bodies to do so much manual labor. And we complain when we don't get to eat between meals!I remember reading in a Sherlock Holmes story that he (and Watson?) drank beer with their lunches. That inspired me to do the same. A good, historical justification!
The difference that I see is that the voters' pro-Union attitudes and attitudes toward armed enforcement are likely much different than they were in the nineteenth century. Given the fact that most voters were not stirred in this recent election to see the impending disaster of our economy going off a cliff suggests to me that most voters nationwide are not going to care much if a group of states in the south wants to secede and form a self-governing nation. Also, the fact that the current administration was put into office partly through the non-violence/peacenik bloc tells me that any widespread violence enforcing a unified America would be met with outrage. Can you imagine Obama sending in troops to slaughter the opposition over an issue like state sovereignty? I just could not see this happening, barring an Obama elevation to a position akin to dictator.Honestly, though, we're more likely to get to the point where a Republican candidate is elected president in four years than the point at which states truly do secede. And if a Republican is elected, all this secession talk goes out the door.
I think civil war would be a distant second to the more likely scenario of peaceful secession. I disagree about the claim that there is “no advantage to secession”. Sovereignty is a major advantage to living under the rule of a government which is outright hostile to the values and traditions upon which the country was built.Truth be told, however, I don't think that the recent talk of secession is serious. People are upset over the election and the type of voter who voted the current administration into office. So I do agree that it is more of an expression of discontent than anything.
There is no benefit from seceeding, not at this point anyway.
But why not? Isn't autonomy better than being forced to live in a manner inconsistent with one's beliefs? It seems to me that the socio-political divide has gotten so great that there is little hope of real unity, barring some cataclysmic event which forces people to abandon their former ways and come together for the common good.I think that in theory, secession should always be available to the states. A unified America may be important, but is it more important than people governing themselves? If states are categorically denied the right to secede they lose what is most essential to their statehood. They instead become governed regions under the watch of the king and his vassals in Washington, D.C.With that said, I agree that seceding would be disastrous for any state that did it alone. It would be so costly and problematic that people might realize that it wasn't quite so bad after all being part of the larger unified group of American states.
