lulzsec

Sorry for the long absence, I had exams. But it's all over now and thats good. Time to relax!

Making new headlines around the world this week is this group calling themselves 'lulzsec' or Lulz Security with their tagline "Laughing at your security since 2011". They have hacked into and released many personal information (usernames, passwords, email addresses) from many different websites. Their first release was a database of FOX's X-Factor contestants back in May although members of this group may have previously been involved with the attacks on Sony where personal information have been stole. They do this to provide lulz - in other words, laughter at the expense of their victims in a Joker from Batman sort of way. They do not appear to be using these stolen data for criminal purposes (though the people they release this to may be).

Their methods of hacking include SQL injections and when that is not possible they do a distributed denial of service attack against their targets. Surprisingly many websites in this day and age are vulnerable to SQLi (including MySql's own website which is ironic). One of the goals in their hacking they say is to draw attention to this insecurity that exists. They also hacked various gaming sites which made everyone pissed off at them. Other times their goals seemed political when they attacked servers belong to corporations.

Some argue that this group is a false flag operation by the FBI or other government agencies. Many argue that lulzsec will provide governments around the world with the justification to lock down and censor the internet.

Other groups have accused lulzsec of being script kiddies - using simple scripts and making a big deal about it. Indeed the best hacking groups are the ones you never hear of. Compare that to lulzsec with its public facing website, a twitter account and even a hotline for fans to call in raid targets these people seem to be huge attention whores. http://pastebin.com/pbhBQLKy

But lulzsec is now coming to an end. They are now in the spotlight of many law enforcement agencies and one arrest has been made in connection to the lulzsec hacks. Also they are drawing fire from many hacking groups and other script kiddies. They have now ended their operations, claiming they only intended to last for 50 days.

http://lulzsecurity.com/releases/

http://twitter.com/#!/LulzSec/

http://www.v3.co.uk/print_article/v3-uk/news/2081699/worst-lulzsec-attacks

A story about humans

Humans first walked the Earth many millions of years ago.

The first civilisations started about 10,000 years ago when we decided to form and live in towns and cities with most of us working in farms rather than running around looking for food.

It's amazing how much we've changed.

We do not have fur.

Humans do not have fur. Why? Some argue that it was because we did such a horrible job of cleaning ourselves that it became an evolutionary advantage _not_ to have fur (which lice and other parasite could hide in). This exposed the skin to the sun and depending on where you lived you would get different amounts of sunlight creating different skin colours leading to the different races. There are three 'great races', Caucasoid (white people), Mongoloid (asian people) and Negroid (black people).

Oh and not having fur meant that we had to find other ways of keeping warm - like making a fire, one of our great ancestor's most important skill. It served a social purpose by bring people together to cook and share food. [Although we do get goosebumps to keep us warm.]

Another thing that serves a social purpose is alcohol. Our bodies are designed for alcohol (our largest internal organ, the liver, is there for the purpose of metabolizing alcohol). At the beginning of civilisation we started living in towns and cities and worked on the farm tending to crops and animals. Half of the grain was used for making beer. Beer was the one big draw of city life, it was something you couldn't get as a roaming solitary nomad. Beer is a social lubricant - it makes social situations much easier to deal with.

As towns and cities developed and grew larger and larger it became quite difficult keeping track of all the people. How did we managed to solve this problem? By inventing gossip. The first uses of our more complex language (originally probably developed to coordinate hunting) was to sit around the campfire and exchange information about the ones who weren't there, behind their backs.

That use of language--that sharing of juicy secrets about who was sick, or dying, or who was mating with who--let us gather information about other members of the group who don't happen to be present. This is what the other animals could not do, and it let us create the kind of complex societies other species can barely understand.

Ever wonder why women seem to talk--and gossip--more than men? Some think it's because while the males were out hunting, it was the females who did the gossiping around the campfire.

Now there are problems that need some personal time to solve. Sometime we just gotta get away from people and from society. Well thats why we have depression. Depression makes you want to cut off contact from others until we could get our act together. Depression is a part of being a normal, healthy person.

Well I hope you guys found this story fascinating!