Financial consultant and founder of two magazines and a newspaper and host of a financial television show, many Australian’s have put their faith in David Koch. Winner of two Logies, extensively published author, Australian Father of the Year for 2007 and listed by Readers Digest in the 50 Most Trusted Australian’s one would be shocked to hear he is apparently a liar. That is according to a teenage kid and his crazed yet amazingly brainless harem of teenage fan girls.
The young singer cussed out a floor manager when the guy put a hand on his shoulder to lean in and tell him where to go he flipped his shit, turned abusive and screamed, “Don’t you ever fucking touch me again.” David Koch, co-host of the Sunrise show, said, “We had him on and he was a thoroughly nice bloke, really decent guy. Our floor manager was directing him to where he was about to perform and he turned around to Nick and said ‘don’t ever fucking touch me again’ and Nick went ‘What?’. And then his sound guy, his audio guy said ‘don’t take offense mate he tells us that all the time’. So I was a little disappointed in that. I thought maybe someone needs to drag you aside and give you a bit of a slap.”
Justin has already taken to his Twitter account to deny the accusations claiming that Kochie ‘made it up’, expressing that he can’t understand why ‘adults’ would ‘tell lies’ and going on an attention whoring tirade in an attempt to save face, albeit it was probably his public relation firm in crisis control who were updating all his feeds, but none the less it was amusing that he’d put his word versus David Koch. What’s more likely, a middle aged father, a earnest and extremely trustworthy man versus a teenage primadonna who’s entire image relies on trying to sell himself as innocence and purity in a handbasket.
He tweeted, “Family time with my mom couldn’t come at a better time….I was raised to respect others and not gossip…nor answer gossip with anger. I know my friends family and fans know the person I am. Hearing adults spread lies and rumors is part of the job I guess.”
I’m not a betting man, but I’d put my money on David Koch any day of the week, guess Bustin’ Jeiber doesn’t want to get caught in a lie. He was definitely right though, someone needs to take that kid aside and give him a slap.
A $5 million dollar bike share has been announced by the state of Victoria in an attempt to make their state seem more ‘revitalised and european’. Gordon Oakley RACV Member & Motoring Services was interviewed regarding it and pointed out some utter failures of the system, you have to bring your own helmet (in Australia it’s illegal to ride a bike without a helmet) and if you ‘subscribe’ you can only use it for half an hour at a time. So, it’s a $5m white elephant state project as the target audience has been marginalised dramatically and it’d barely get used as opposed to what it could achieve.
It’s a brilliant idea, given how many ports they’re setting up for them, however it’s 2010, if they had even half a clue the helmet would be attached to the bike and ‘unlock’ for use when the bike is released from the port, and the bikes would have rudimentary electric motors (I believe the going rate of such a bike in China is about $50 AUD IIRC.) and would recharge from a simple solar cell added to the base station.
Who knows, maybe some company searching for keywords during the data mining part of their marketing team research might see this and pick up the game in the corporate sector providing a real transport solution for their state.
Okay, I was bored and Serbia had a huge amount of votes pouring in, more than possible I thought given how small their demographic is in Australia, but Europeans seem patriotic to their home nations no matter where they are.
I called a friend and got them to fire up their proxies, but while messing about on the site I discovered if you spam click (click REALLY fucking fast repeatedly) on the blue VOTE button hard and fast it counts ALL of them and bugs out the timer so it speeds down to 0 letting you repeat the exploit.
I’ve picked Belarus as they were coming last and were pretty crap just to see if we can get a no hoped country somewhere by pure nerd power, so join in!
It’s obvious that other people have worked this out too as Serbia is going up as fast as I have Belarus going up. :O Halp internets!
In short, the answer is no. But I just watched a cute little review through Xbox Live Australia reviewing Alan Wake, they set up a group of people at the old Quarantine Station, spooking them about how it’s the ‘most haunted site in Australia’ yadda yadda before letting them play Alan Wake.
It was interesting to see how high peoples heart rate got, I think that gaming should count as a cardio work out with those kind of figures. For the record, the Quarantine Station is about as haunted as my outhouse, many years ago I broke into it with some mates which involved some stealthy ninja pissbolting past the guard house everytime the guard was watching TV.
Our adventure into the Q-Station as it’s colloqueally known was uneventful, aside from walking out the door into a patrol car and walking back inside quickly without the guard stopping (unsure whether he saw us, or assumed we were ghosts and shat brix), and stumbling upon a homeless dude sleeping in one of the huts.
It is very atmospheric, but if you’re after spooky sites, it’s far from it, and this was all in pitch black with a thick fog in winter mind you. Maybe we just had higher testicular fortitude than those chosen by XBL AU for their ‘project’.
For more info on their review, go check out ‘the project‘ on XBL, or turn your Xbox on and check out Spotlight if you’re in AU, first cab off the rank.
Tonight Australia will see it’s first 3DTV advert, whilst watching various football games over the next few days, using dicky cardboard 1970′s red and blue lensed ’3d glasses’ given out with a newspaper print run yesterday.
What I can’t fathom is, there’s three styles of tech out there for 3D. One is stunning, cutting edge, and dirt cheap and involves slightly tinted lenses. One involves dicky red and blue lenses and is mad colour distorted and poor quality. Another involves $300 headsets that flicker left-right eye focus on two different angled images and requires a $10k TV specially built for it but has noticable flicker and is equally poor quality.
Which do you think the Australian consumer market would go for? The kind they see in the movies? No. The kind they get told they’re getting. There’s something intrinsically wrong with the Australian consumer, and education is only the half of it.
Blue Lagoon is PG and full of underage sexualised nudity but L4D2 was RC B& until all gore was removed, CP < killing monsters? Idgi. #
My flu is that bad I had to use a nebuliser just to breathe. Fml. :( #
Check out my article on building a large twitter following at: http://bashpr0mpt.com/twitter/ RT if you like it please! <3 #
I love Bankwests new ad, 'Bank takes W out of Banker,' on their free coffee things for business clients: http://twitpic.com/1punrb #lol#
Everytime I blink @maudelicious is on my TV pimping Monster Hunter 3. Add her on Twitter if you haven't already folks, she's kickin' rad. in reply to maudelicious#
The Acer Predator gaming platform looks pretty sweet. I think Acer should let me review it. *hinthint* #acer #gaming #
It appears @maudelicious is more infamous than her 10x per hour Monster Hunter 3 advert, http://bit.ly/aliWF5 -nice job on Pauly Shore too. #
Westall '66, Suburban UFO Mystery, June 4 on @Scifitv #125 worth watching, read the wikipedia entry on it here: http://bit.ly/drAmW3 #tv#
My flu may have made me stop renovating, but it's given me plenty of time alone to rock out with my guitars. Which I plan on doing. Later. #
Lichen's are awesome, many friends of mine know of my ongoing obsession with 'planimals' but seriously, how awesome is that symbiosis?!? :P #
I'm going to go rent Alan Wake considering I'm too crook to do much of anything. Expect a review shortly depending on duration. #
I have white paint in my hair. :( Rocking the salt and pepper look better than George Clooney! #
My local Blockbuster store only has 2 copies of Alan Wake yet 50 of every other crap game that exists. What a waste of time. #
Pickles. Evil shrek dong slices. Oh how they spoil my burgers. :( #
Watching Eragon, so corny but yay for dragons! :D #
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him…”
Friedrich Nietzsche. The Gay Science (1882), s126.
Long have we theorised the above line by a madman bearing a labtern not to be talking about the literal God believed in by so many theists. Instead, we interpret, he is talking about what this god represented for European culture, the shared cultural belief in God which had once been its defining and uniting characteristic.
So to has man thrown off the yolk of theism, every element of the divine has been replicated at large through science, trickery, art, illusionism except one final element; the creation of life.
Until yesterday when flamboyant geneticist Craig Venter held true to the pledge he made nearly 15 years ago, unveiling his magnum opus. This landmark of scientific progress, published in the Journal of Science, stands on the shoulders of his race to decode the human genome in his own laboratory, egotistically his own DNA I might add.
The madman carrying this lantern has indeed created the first instance of purely synthetic life, opening the doors nanoscience falter at with the potential to create designer microbes for special jobs such as production of biofuels, pharmaceuticals, through to filtering contaminents from air and water.
“This is the first synthetic life that has been made, and we call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromasome, made with four bottles of chemcals on a synthesizer from information on a computer,” Dr Venter said.
Lauded as a tour de force by Prof. Mattick from the Australian Research Council, Dr. Venters work is as ground breaking as science gets these days, the applications for man made life are phenominal and limited only by our imagination. That being said, mans imagination can often be self destructive, so think of all the fantastic synthesized zombie viruses the US military will make with this!
The bacterium used decoded DNA from Mycoplasma mycoides imprinting the synthetic DNA and inserting it into living bacterium, in this case Mycoplasma capricolum, allowing the bacterium to flourish with both it’s own and the synthetic DNA within, then finally using an antibiotic designed to kill all but the synthetic DNA allowing only the synthesized organism to proliferate and produce protein strands from the original Mycoplasma mycoides creating, simply, artificial life.
Cybershack is a half hour show on Channel 9 at 1:30 on a Saturday it seems, SciFiTV Australia has America’s In the Qube. Both of these shows are lacking any serious cool appeal, with lame half arsed wannabe geeks trying to reach a geeky target demographic and failing misrebly. Especially the American presenters of In the Qube. Why we don’t have our own version of In the Qube is beyond me, and if Cybershack is our answer we’re seriously missing out.
I’m sick of these self professed gamer / tech shows where you’ve got absolute brainless dicks trying to be all OMG I R NERD 2 RITE whilst failing so hard they put the I in fail.
The Colony was shot in an abandoned industrial estate in New York in February, 2009, airing in July, 2009 in the US. We’re only just getting it here in Australia, the entire first season is complete, so in true (YARR!) pirate fashion I leeched the entire first season (take that Discovery AU), and watched it back to back. It’s set in a post-appocalyptic environment where a viral outbreak has killed the majority of the worlds people and throws random people into a factory to set up shop, make a home, and survive. Throughout this there are people coming, people going, people vanishing, simulating a real end-world scenario, including marauders!
I promised I won’t go into too much depth reviewing this because a lot of people who read my crap want to watch it for themselves, but I just want to go on record saying, all sexism aside, if this situation occured I would NOT let a single female into my encampment. SO MUCH DRAMA. Omfg. There’s a few guys who are utter dickheads, but one of those dickheads is behind 99% of everything that kept their camp alive, lit, heated, fed, and mobile, but every five seconds this fat he-bitch 22 year old ‘aeronautic engineer’ who ‘makes canals’ (IN THE SKY?!?) keeps raging at him, along with a couple of other lippy motherfuckers who turn every possibly tense scenario into an over the top broiling emotional rage argument packed with dramu that would make the internet double handed facepalm.
So, Morgan Hooker, Leilani Smith, Amy West, Allison White I’m calling you guys out. You’re a pack of fucking bawwing dicks.
One thing that I didn’t quite like, however, is that all of the people involved (whether true or not) had a heap of real world credentials, lots of engineers, scientists, etc. The most likeable of the characters is the handyman, Mike, and the ex-convict guy. They have tempers, and act a bit over the top at times, but they’re the most grounded characters.
There’s a second season in the making to be aired in the US in August, so it’ll probably get to Australia in 2012, but by then we’ll be living in factories post-appocalyptica, mirite? :)
Lisa, Lisa, Lisa. Where do I begin? I recently saw an advert for her upcoming show, that was filmed by the Lifetime channel. She opens with her common pitch line, “Do you want to know everything?” What you won’t hear her telling you is that she is merely a charlatan who exploits the pain and suffering of people grieving using cold reading. Let’s set one thing straight, psychics and mediums do not exist. Conmen and women do. There has not been, in thousands of years of scientific documentation, one SINGLE example of the supernatural or paranormal existing under ANY scrutiny by learned and educated persons. It’s not because academics are closed minded, or have it in for the little guy, or have ANY other motivation other than pushing forward common sense, critical thought, and legitimate honesty of fact. Many deluded people out there honestly think it goes as far as there being complex conspiracies to conceal the ‘truth’ about ‘human psychic potential’, et cetera. In 1988 the U.S. National Academy of Sciences gave a report on the subject that concluded there is “no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena.”[1]
Let’s examine this critically: Not a scrap of evidence ever put forwards that can stand up to scrutiny, or giant illuminati plot to enslave and opress humanity. You tell me which one comes up in that fight.
Cold reading, combined with warm or hot reading, is the method by which all ‘psychics’ operate. Many people do this for a living as mentalists, or magicians; these people when asked will usually be outright honest about their art and it’s complete lack of supernatural or paranormal involvement. In 2004, Williams gave a reading to a senior staff member of TV host Merv Griffin. As a result, Griffin worked with her to host a show of her own. The proverbial path to ruin is laid with good intent. Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead aired for two seasons on the Lifetime network 2006-2007 and is set to air in Australia shortly. Her show Lisa Williams: Voices From the Other Side ran for five consecutive nights on the network in October 2008. The shows followed Williams on a typical day, as she claims to have ‘communicated with the dead,’ ‘investigates haunted houses,’ and conducts other ‘spirit-seeking activities.’ She claims she has spoken to Bob Hope, Princess Diana, Natalie Wood, Marilyn Monroe and Ray Charles after they died.
Let’s examine a well known psychic critically: A 2001 Timearticle reported that psychic John Edward allegedly utilized hot reading on his television show, Crossing Over, where an audience member who received a reading was suspicious of prior behavior from Edward’s aides, who had struck up conversations with audience members and asked them to fill out cards detailing their family trees.[2] In December 2001, Edward was alleged to have used foreknowledge to hot read in an interview on the television show Dateline, where a reading for a cameraman was based on knowledge gained in conversation some hours previously, yet presented as if he was unaware of the cameraman’s background.[3] In his 2001 book, John Edward denied ever using foreknowledge, cold or hot reading.[4]
I am VERY familiar with these methods and have used them out of the blue on random people in the streets of Sydney to illustrate the power of commonality to friends, and I know a close friend of mine, mentalist and stage magician Ryle Hilton, is exceptional at his art and absolutely blows peoples minds. I am not detracting from the SKILL involved in these acts, merely that using it to con and exploit people into believing only YOU can give them closure with their dead loved ones is abhorrent.
The following is sourced under fair use from Same Same, a publication for the Australian Gay and Lesbian Community that addresses some of the core elements of fail that is applied when handling ‘psychics’ in the press, with my comments in brackets.
Over the years Lisa has been challenged by many skeptics, including her own father. “He’s one of the biggest skeptics around!” she laughs. “But Dad has also seen first hand what I can do, and he’s seen how I give people a feeling of closure, and he says ‘you know what Lisa, I can’t take that away from you’.” [The closure given is fair enough, but the financial exploitation is unforgivable.]
One of the most public challenges Lisa has faced was with a skeptic named Laura on an episode of ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’. Lisa said that during the reading she kept offering Laura details that should have resonated – like her father’s name, or that he was a ballroom dancer – but Laura remained unconvinced, and was intent on getting cold, hard facts. [Note the use of negative terms such as 'skeptic' just because someone was unconvinced.]
“I gave her the name John, but she wanted his full name, that kind of thing. I told her ‘I am only telling you what he is giving me, I can’t make it change’. I almost got up and walked away. I said, ‘if you’re not open to this then there’s no point in me being here’.” [Ie: Dummy spit.]
Lisa says that she often reads comments about her in online forums, where people dispute her authenticity. “People say ‘oh Lisa Williams gets all the ticket data and uses that to do background checks on people who come to her show’. Well hello, it’s just me. I don’t have a team of researchers. I certainly don’t put microphones in the bathrooms or under the seats. I laugh at it. Of course, when it comes to TV, the producers get given a certain story. The talent tells them ‘I want to communicate with my mum because of…’ but often there’s another story that comes out or that I bring out. [Lol.]
The last paragraph was the best, she admits that–like John Edwards–she has access to the core information, the ‘other story’ that ‘comes out’ is where the cold/warm/hot reading elements come into this.
I figured I would take these channels publishing her crap to bat and sent an email, given that the Lifestyle Channel and W are sponsors of my online life and commonly compensate me for critical evaluation (public or otherwise) of their programs or services, and considering I have a larger demographic reach than Lisa it will be interesting to see if they make a stoic legitimate call or just kowtow to a fast easy buck like a heroin dealer down a dark alley.
Here is a copy of one of my emails in it’s entirety: -
I am writing as a blogger who [details of financial arragements excised]. I write specifically to request that–in an effort to maintain fairness, legitimacy, honesty and integrity–that you cease publication of Lisa Williams, the ‘medium’ and other such charlatans.
Sure, you get viewers, sure you make a quick buck; but these people are exploiting the ignorance and idiocy of the masses, much like a drug dealer who peddles his wares amongst the foolish. These lecherous conmen and women exploit the pain and suffering of people by lying through their teeth, and there are avenues to be pursued for large financial and fame rewards if any individual can prove ANY element of the supernatural or paranormal exists through JREF, however most of these scum refuse to claiming they don’t want ‘wealth’ (even though they charge extortionate fees to fundamentally give people a pat on the back and tell them their dead family still love them), and none of these people pursue this proof of their talents for obvious reasons.
I am posting this letter on my blog, which will be replicated throughout my social networks and blogs demographic reach meaning over half a million people will view this within 24 hours. I would like a reply to this, and I advise you now it will be published as will your choice to continue to air these exploitative shows or otherwise. I hope you make the right decision.
So for now, I advise all of you to pass this on to your wanky airy fairy friends who believe in the supernatural and like a suppository of testicular fortitude it should thwart their idiocy, and stay tuned for the results of my correspondence to these networks, if they even dare reply. Oh, and Lisa, and I know your PR agent has shown you this because with my reach they wouldn’t be worth a pinch of shit if they haven’t, this isn’t a PR nightmare for you honey; it’s just a wake up call that you should get a day job that DOESN’T involve exploitation. In 50 years people like you will be locked up in prison for these crimes you perpetrate on innocent and vulnerable people.
And people like me, who’re probably only in for a night stay due to drunk and disorderly in public, will make sure you drop the soap. ;)
References:
^Druckman, D. and Swets, J. A. eds. (1988). Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories and Techniques. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.. p. 22. ISBN0-309-07465-7.
For quite a while I’ve been trying to think of how to review Final Fantasy XIII without spamming random letters by smashing my keyboard into my face whilst shouting profanities that aren’t even invented yet. I found a video that summarises how I feel. Out of all the games I’ve ever played, this was, by far, the worst gaming experience of my life; it was a corny weaboo video disc with a unidirectional linier pseudo-interactive DVD menu system where you have to repeatedly most the green button to see the next cut scene. It earned my first, and probably my only: 0/10.
I hope this REALLY is the FINAL Final Fantasy ever.
A few weeks back I discovered a wonderful system that allows Android phone users to critically evaluate micro services (their version of app reviews) on the fly in a streamlined way. This is great because it gives consumers more say and a voice when dealing with faceless hordes of dev crap.
They also have the flipsidw application on the board for developers to see their target demographics and get stuff out there.
On asking for more info they told me that an iPhone variant is definitely on the cards, something I’m excited to see as most people fail@using the app review system.
Generation Kill is a warts-and-all series that has just launched it’s pilot over here in Australia on Foxtel showcase, we’re two years behind so I recommend pirating this one if you’re in Australia (Eztv.it haven’t picked it up yet, so use piratebay). It’s a very unapologetic examination of the first 40 days of the firt invasion of Iraq based on the book of the same name by Evan Wright. It indirectly follows his experience as an embedded reporter with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion of the United States Marine Corps during the 2003 invasion.
It was adapted for television by David Simon, Ed Burns and Wright. The series premiered on July 13, 2008 and spanned seven episodes. It doesn’t look like it’ll be up for more seasons any time soon but the realistic feel of the series makes it compelling viewing. From bigoted red necks, to ethnic rows intents through to the ‘shooting dogs’ fanatacism that the US military are notorious for this seems to be shaping up less of a propaganda piece like most US military related things and more like a show it as it is series.
I’ll probably review it once I’ve finished the series, but in the interim, grab the first few eps and tell me if you like it.
Many of you remember my encounter with TPG and the drama that ensued because Telstra reconnected 40 year old infrastructure instead of replacing it with a new connection as contracted to do. That led to me (four months and 120+ phone calls later) calling Telstra’s complaints department and talking to a lovely girl in the Gold Coast named Janice, she didn’t quite understand my complaint (re: infrastructure) and put me through to bloke named John, her supervisor. He didn’t understand my problem and told me that the ‘network boundary’ is the line-in of my property; which I later found out is incorrect, as I stated to him, and the network boundary is the first point inside the house, which meant the fault on the line was on their equipment which made sense as I sure as fuck had nothing connected to it.
He seemed frustrated and asked why I don’t just use Bigpond so Telstra can immediately fix the line problem, I pointed out that they’re easily 50-60 times the price of their competitors, he disagreed and said he can offer me 200gb @ 20mbps for $89, I said hell yeah sign me up. He bumped me back through to Janice, and ten minutes in my phone died. After calling back, repeatedly, no one at Telstra would match the price offered to me. The closest offer I got was $110 for 100GB @ 20mbps inclusive of line rental (at $9 pm) and a promise that if I filed a complaint someone will get back to me as to the original pricing and fix it up.
My first bill came in for the phone line, $348. What .. the fuck? I called them, turns out they ballsed up and had an installation fee attached to the account creation, even though the line was in place and had been in place for six months, I called up to complain, the guy asked ‘how much of your bill are you contesting?’ and I asked him whether that’s how they price things, they just charge you random large amounts then ask how much you’re willing to pay. They said they’d fix it.
Then I get my first internet bill, $756.20. What the fuck? I’m glad I made sure on my contract that they MUST provide the service at 20 MBPS or I’m not paying a cent, because I’m definitely not paying $756.20 for what three major service providers would charge $39.95 for.
So, this is me venting again about another useless as tits on a bull ISP, and I bloody well hope they read this, and realise, that my 340,000 viewer demographic all know they’re stupid.
Telstra, contact me about this immediately, and if you don’t have this problem fixed by the time you call me, and if you aren’t offering to HALF the cost of my ‘ADSL2+’ because it’s only running at HALF the speed you GUARANTEED, then save me the effort and just remind me to file a TIO complaint and take you through the local consumer tribunal.
A Microsoft employee may have inadvertently given away the biggest secret in gaming this year.
Project Natal is Microsoft’s attempt to revolutionise motion-control in video games.
An add-on for the XBox 360, it does away with handheld controllers altogether, relying solely on body motion and gestures caught on camera to control the on-screen action.
In a slow year for game fans – at least when it comes to hardware – Natal’s release couldn’t come soon enough.
And thanks to Microsoft marketing manager Syed Bilal Tarig, it may be coming sooner than expected.
In an interview with GamerTag radio, Tariq revealed Natal would get a worldwide release in October – a full two months before the end-of-year date that Microsoft had been peddling.
“I do have great news to share with everybody that Project Natal will be launched in Saudi Arabia at the same time it will be launched in the rest of the world, that is to be sometime in October,” he said.
“Definitely it is going to be October 2010, we will have it in Saudi Arabia for sure.”
He also confirmed that it would be unveiled at the E3 games expo in June, as rumoured.
Project Natal is one of a series of updates to the console that Microsoft claims will enable it to remain relevant for gamers until at least 2015.
It first appeared in public at last year’s E3 expo, where a basic unit showed it was capable of motion-tracking up to four players at once.
A notice sent out by Microsoft earlier this year suggests the exact date for the completed unit’s unveiling will be June 13, a day before the start of E3 2010.
Amusing article about a not so secret bnet management system and php sploit: -
Researchers at Imperva have discovered an ‘experimental’ botnet that uses around 300 hijacked web servers to launch high-bandwidth DDoS attacks.
The servers are all believed to be open to an unspecified security vulnerability that allows the attacker, who calls him or herself ‘Exeman’, to infect them with a tiny, 40-line PHP script. This includes a simple GUI from which the attacker can return at a later date to enter in the IP, port and duration numbers for the attack that is to be launched.
But why servers in the first place? Botnets are built from PCs and rarely involve servers.
According to Imperva’s CTO, Amachai Shulman, they have no antivirus software and offer high upload bandwidth, typically 10-50 times that of a consumer PC. Are there disadvantages to this? There are simply fewer of them, the attacker needs to find vulnerable machines using PHP, and they appear to need manual control, although Shulman did say that attacks could probably be automated using a separate script.
Imperva uncovered the attack by obtaining the server attack source code, which was simply run through Google, revealing a list of servers infected with it. The company was then able to watch as the attacker used a compromised server to launch a real denial-of-service attack on a Dutch ISP. The purpose is probably extortion-related.
The controller of the botent had used the Tor anonymity system to hide his or her incoming connections, which made it impossible to judge location. The servers themselves were lone servers at hosting companies, perhaps ones not carefully monitoring outgoing traffic patterns.
Would hosting companies or website owners know they were being hijacked by one of the Internet’s oddest botnets? Most likely, only if the authorities or third-party ISP comes calling with complaints of unwanted Internet traffic.
The botnet’s GUI hints that the hijack program, and perhaps the botnet itself, was probably created to be rented out to third-parties. A message in the simple interface reminds its users “Don’t DoS yourself nub.”
The 370 children at Southway Junior School, in Burgess Hill, west Sussex, saw a ‘spaceship’ crash near their school and then aliens grabbed a member of staff as part of the performance. The ‘alien invasion’ show, which was supported by Sussex Police, took place without parents being informed, leaving some furious that they had to comfort their snivelling brats.
The event was designed to “develop youngsters writing skills” and fire their imagination – but some children were left traumatised by the show. Southway School admitted that a number of parents complained after their children returned home in a “state of shock”.
Brats had to be reassured that the abducted member of staff was safe and well after he was carted off by the aliens. Police contributed to the invasion by providing sirens and flashing blue lights to signify the landing of the craft just before morning classes on July 10. Diana Goss, the headteacher, informed pupils that an alien craft had crashed near the school and pupils were encouraged to “follow a trail of debris” before stumbling across the UFO.
A member of staff was then abducted by aliens before the children were sent back to class. One parent, who did not want to be named (probably out of shame for having a pussy of a kid – ed), said he daughter had come home in tears. She said: “God only knows what the school was playing at. I mean to shock children into thinking that the aliens have landed and have abducted a teacher is just a little too much for seven-year-olds. My daughter was deeply upset by it all and came home looking shell shocked. She wasn’t sure what had happened and really wanted to know that everything was going to be alright.” said the parent, who is clearly as much of a pussy as her kid.
Another parent said: “By all accounts it sounds like something out of that film Mars Attacks or War of the Worlds. I don’t know what the school was thinking.” In 1938 thousands of Americans were left terrified after a broadcast by Orson Welles describing an alien invasion. The War of the Worlds radio announcement on October 30 lasted 60 minutes and was presented as a series of breaking news bulletins – suggesting that aliens really had landed in America.
It should be noted that internet dweebs the world over would clearly not be as scared given our invasion plans on various survivalist forums that already cover zombies, cyborgs, and of course alien invasions.
The ill-fated demonstration, by Flash “platform evangelist” Ryan Stewart in front of a crowd of developers, will come as an embarrassment to Adobe, which is embroiled in a bitter war of words with Apple about the quality and stability of its Flash technology.
Jeff Croft, a Seattle developer who attended the Flash Camp event last week, recounted the incident on his blog. He said that Stewart attempted to show off the mobile version of Flash Player 10.1 on his Google Nexus One by loading up the Eco Zoo website, which uses large amounts of Flash animation.
“The site’s progress bar filled in and the 3D world appeared for a few seconds before the browser crashed,” wrote Croft.
“Stewart tried it again and got the same result. So he said to the audience: ‘Well, this one isn’t going to work, bur does anyone have a Flash site they’d like to see running? Someone shouted ‘Hulu, but Stewart said that Hulu doesn’t work, and wrapped up his demo.”
Technology experts have been quick to point out that the Android version of Flash is still in beta, so is likely to contain the sort of bugs that caused the demo to crash. But Croft observed that Adobe needs to build developer confidence in the mobile version of the technology.
Apple refuses to support Flash on its range of multimedia devices, such as the iPhone and iPad, with Steve Jobs branding the software “buggy”. Instead, Apple prefers the rival technology HTML5.
The hard line Apple is taking is appreciated by some of the technorati as a means of defeat of the corporate monopoly in office spaces, including the Australian government, who use PDF (which requires $600 licenses per computer to create) which is claimed as tax payer funds wasted. Further the stability of Adobe media systems on older technology is questionable at best.
