Silly X-UIDs

Can You Feel It? - The Jacksons

2009-07-26T17:04:00.007-04:00

I am sure many people are tired of reading about Michael Jackson and his recent death. Rather than focus on all the tabloid-chunked news stories about Michael Jackson, such as those with his "supposed" 25-year-old illegitimate son who is a Norwegian rapper,or the supposed "fact" that Jackson was going bald since the 1984 burning accident while filming a Pepsi commercial or 5 Million kept by his financial advisors or even Jackson's much more sordid personal past. I would like to talk about one of my all time favorite songs by the Jacksons or Michael Jackson, the 1980 single Can you Feel it?.

I remember this song, not from 1980 as it was not a very big pop hit. From what I recall reading, the song barely entered the Billboard Hot 100. When Michael Jackson was at the height of his fame (Thriller, circa 1983), video channels of all sorts scrambled to find any Michael Jackson-related material to play. I was in middle school at the time and did not have access to cable and could only watch a local UHF channel that played music video (channel 69 in Atlanta). They played in heavy rotation Can you Feel it?, which was already a few years old by that time.

About 2 years ago, I pulled it up on YouTube. It is a well done video for its time. It probably was filmed in late 1979 judging by the looks of Michael and his brothers.

The video is a bit pretentious in looking back, but I still enjoy the song very much. I even bought a cassette of the Jacksons' album Triumph. I was just a bit too young to go to concerts, but the Jackson Victory tour in 1984 did sweep through Atlanta. I wish now I had begged to go, since there were few tours that Michael Jackson had done in the US. I was a big fan, but did not try to go, bummer. By 1985 or so, I had gone to a few big named concerts, but did not try to see the Jacksons or Culture Club, another band I really had liked at the time. Anyway, this song is a long time personal favorite of mine. Great song I wanted to share in case you were not familiar with it.

Troogleblog counter-tweetering apparent "false" Tweets about Google?

2009-06-16T19:27:00.011-04:00

OK, I am blogging about Google today because I am curious about a few Tweets from Troogleblog who just created a Twitter account. I don't usually comment much about Google other than I like a few of their products like Google, GMail, YouTube and oh yea, Blogger.

I noticed this on Twitter: apparently from what little I can tell at best Google created @Troogleblog user so that people on twitter don't report tweet what they assert are reports about Google and its products.

These were the Tweets from Troogleblog from 6/16/09 that made me wonder:

@s0tet RT @flyinghamster: Tomorrow secret Google CEO in attendance @Bildenberg Hotel http://tinyurl.com/msqoy5 -#Troogle #Dasient #blacklist

"Former Google Employees Launch Web Malware Startup" http://bit.ly/HbxKl Web Anti-#Malware #Dasient #blacklist #Troogle

Apparently this article in Informationweek doesn't suit User Troogleblog: Former Google Employees Launch Web Malware Startup. Not sure if that is the case or not, since Troogleblog also retweeted what Twitter user @flyinghamster reported earlier in the day on June 16th, 2009.

Because in the second link, it redirects to this Wordpress entry: Google CEO In Attendance At Bilderberg 2009?

I went to LinkedIN and looked up the 3 fellows mentioned in this article. Only Ameet Ranadive was not an employee of Google, but the other 2 fellows were, so Google takes issue with that perhaps? Shrug, curious, but that is the only thing I can think of.

I think my tin foil hat got too damp and I have to throw it away. I wonder if someone could fill in the blanks for me, a non-Google employee.

I was supposed to post here

2009-06-04T10:55:00.002-04:00

will add something here later.

Search Engine Portal Pages, RSS - Feeds, iGoogle

2009-05-25T17:29:00.013-04:00

Many of us who work online stay busy. Casual surfing of news can be time consuming, so what better way than to use a customized portal at one of your favorite search engines. For the more well-known search engines, such as Yahoo and Google, one needs usually an ID associated with the search engine and to be logged in order to customize the pages to your liking.

For years, I had used Yahoo!'s customizations for my own portal page. I believe I started using it around 2003. Since that time, the onslaught of Web 2.0 infrastructure has vastly changed the landscape of a customized search engine portal page.

I am showing an screen capture of one of my Gmail accounts I use for infosecurity news, general news and spam related news. Being logged into my GMail account, and using Seamonkey as a browser, this allows me to customize your own iGoogle page. I munged my GMail account at the top. iGoogle works fine with the Firefox browser as well. You can also have your GMail inbox on the portal page showing the newest emails you have received. For this particular GMail account, I rarely use the email function as it is spam-ridden. I can pick out which ever news source you like best. On the top left of the graphic, I chose a great anti-spam blog called I Kill Spammers.

So you can add your favorite blogger blogs or probably most any other type of blog out there to your own customized portal page. You can easily drag and drop categories. At the top right, I have Slashdot stories. I am a nerd, so Slashdot is for me to read most days.

I have the weather on mine as well, but it is near the bottom, so it is not seen in that particular graphic. I pick out the weather from some different places just out of my own curiosity.

I believe the coding behind a lot of this is written in AJAX and is embedded into RSS feeds. Some people take their portal pages seriously, especially when Google makes occasional changes design-wise. I tend to keep mine somewhat simplified to where they almost look like a default Google page.

I haven't used Yahoo's portal page much in a while now, maybe I can go back and make it more to my liking. I don't think I have updated my Yahoo portal page in 2 years or so now. I would venture to guess Yahoo is probably trying to play catchup with Google, so maybe Yahoo's portal page deserves a second chance.

What are your favorite search engine portal pages? And if you use them, how do you customize yours?

Forensic Art - Louis Gibson

2009-05-02T19:47:00.008-04:00

Back in 2005, I was researching info online and found a book called Faces of Evil by Louis Gibson. I bought the book from Amazon and was intrigued after I read it quickly in one evening. Louis Gibson is a sketch artist for the Houston City Police Department. Her sketches have helped catch many criminals over the years.

I then enrolled in the Forensic Arts class that Louis Gibson teaches in Chicago. It was for 5 days and was very worth while. And I always enjoy going back to Chicago as it is one of my favorite large cities in the US. I had thought about becoming a sketch artist myself. I haven't really practiced much in a while. I had found out the jobs generally do not pay very well or not at all in some cases. The whole premise is police sketch artists are underutilized in solving crimes. I hope one day to pursue sketch artist work, assuming I can fit art into my busy schedule.

FishNet Security Summit in Atlanta 4/22/09

2009-04-23T16:50:00.011-04:00

For the first time since it has been sponsored in Atlanta for about 3 years now, I was able to visit the FishNet Security Summit this week. I encourage others in other parts of the US to attend this FishNet seminar or one similar to it if you are near by. You can check out their Events listed here.

There I wanted to meet 2 Security Catalyst Community members (SCC) that I have gotten to know online, but not yet in person. Andy Willingham, one fellow SCC member, told me about this FishNet vendor presentation a while earlier, so I appreciate that and also getting to know Andy in person and for him letting me know about this conference. Another member, Martin Fisher another fellow SCC member, was one of the keynote speakers. I got to sit and talk to both Andy and Martin a while. I stayed for most of the presentations and enjoyed the freebies that FishNet and the other vendors gave out. I spoke to about 4 vendors, including Symantec. I then had to head back to work and finish up during a busy work week.

I really enjoyed getting to know and talking to both Andy Willingham and Martin Fisher from Security Catalysts forum. I hope one day to see them again soon. They gave me some great infosecurity tips, such as listening to more podcasts. I haven't yet set up to record podcasts to CD-R to listen to them in my car during long commutes.

Martin Fisher, another fellow SCC member, gave an excellent morning keynote speech. Martin spoke about the difficulties in leading the Incident Response team at Delta Airlines. Martin did a superb job of explaining how he has the manager of the Incident Response team has to make on-the-fly decisions during some very high stressful job situations in protecting the network security of Delta Airlines. Martin's personal stories make his presentation very lively and very worthwhile to listen to. I highly recommend Martin's presentations. You can learn more about Martin by following him on Twitter: Martin Fisher's twitter account is armorguy.

Twitter- randomly bragging about your own unexceptional life

2009-03-21T16:12:00.005-04:00

Twouble with Twitters:

This is cartoon clip by SuperNews! hilarious. I think just about everyone would like this video from the Twitter-philes to the rabid Twit-haters. At the time I post this, this video has 56K views on YouTube since I watched it a few times.
I watched some of SuperNews! other videos, but they were not quite as funny as this one about Twitter.

Here are a few Random quotes from the video I laughed at:

- I forgot how much I like pickles.

- Don't you twitterstand? XD

- Just found a parking space.

Infragard - join now to fight cybercrime

2009-02-28T22:59:00.003-05:00

I wanted to mention briefly what Infragard does if you are not familiar with it. This pretrains to the United States. You can join Infragard if you meet certain criteria and assist law enforcement in dealing with cybercrime. YOu can get to know local FBI agents in your are who work on cybercrime issues. Some cities have monthly meetings while others are quarterly like here in Atlanta. I have learned a lot from some presentations given at Infrgard. More information is found here.

Happy New Year - starting a spam blog

2008-12-31T18:27:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year! - I wanted to keep a separate blog about investigating spam and malware. As time permits, I hope to update it at least monthly. Please bookmark: spamrant.blogspot.com

Twitter, useful or not?

2008-12-02T21:51:00.003-05:00

I am not a fan of social networking sites, but there are about 2 that interest me. I cracked up at the Farker posts about Twitter here. I have been lurking a bit on Twitter, following people whose primary interest and / or occupation is internet security. I get news updates and links to interesting blogs. So for me personally, I find twitter useful for internet security. I plan to "tweet" more in the future, but for now, I continue lurking.

Neil Diamond - Number 1 Hit in 2008!

2008-05-29T21:32:00.002-04:00

King of Pop - A number one song and album Home Before Dark! What impressive longevity for Diamond in an industry that seems to cater to the under 30 crowd. Neil Diamond had his first number one album on the Billboard charts after first hitting the charts in 1966.

Crap From the Past - Trivia - American Top 40

2007-12-22T00:27:00.001-05:00

I found a link to a site called "Crap From The Past" (http://www.crapfromthepast.com/ ) which is hosted by Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber on community radio in Minnesota. Ron finds very odd music primarly from the 80s and plays it on his weekly show. He tells the trivia surronding the songs. For example, Sheena Easton recorded a spanish language song of: EL PRIMER TREN (MORNING TRAIN in Spanish)in 1980.

He archives his show to archive.org. I highly recommend downloads of his show for music trivia buffs. Particularly those who used to listen to Casey Kasem's American Top 40 religiously (as I had done).

Computer Dating showcased in 1985

2007-05-28T19:21:00.001-04:00

Now, I watched this show as a kid in syndication. (don't like to admit it as it is typical 80s sitcom cheese, but certainly very clean compared to today's junk) Anyway .... looky this: this 1985 Silver Spoons episode shows an innocent example of teenage dating meeting via a computer. It shows on Rick's screen: BBS (Bulletin Board System) - which people used at that time to connect online. Rick even used a term called "grocking with" the teenage girl he met online. This particular episode called " The Secret Live of Ricky Stratton" was way ahead of its time by over a decade. I vaguely remember this particular episode too, but not the computer part, I recall the part where Rick gets self-conscious and dreams that he has bigger than life ears and a huge zit on his forehead when meeting his blind date. I wouldn't have gotten the joke about the modem quivering watching it back then and certainly did not know about talking to people on computers. Silver Spoons was a better show when funnyman Jason Bateman was on it. I had read he left the show because it was taking attention away from Ricky Schroder.

I didn't even use a personal computer (then called a microcomputer) until 1987 myself (Apple IIe and not a Mac). I played an Atari 2600 when I was bit younger.

YouTube:

Vintage American Top 40 - Casey Kasem on XM Radio

2007-03-18T12:29:00.001-04:00

For the last few months, when I have time, and I am home, I tune into XM Radio and listen to vintage American Top 40 shows. I believe through AOL Radio you can access some XM stations for free. On Saturday at noon ET they play a 70s AT40 show on Channel 7. On Sunday at noon ET, they play an AT40 show from the 80s on Channel 8. Casey Kasem did the Billboard countdowns from 1970 to 1988.

I remember now why I enjoyed Casey Kasem, it was all the trivia he spewed in between counting down the top 40. You can check out PDF files of many AT40 charts from 1970-1995 here.

I was such a geek about the charts in the early 1980s, I would write them down as they were played on the radio. Shortly thereafter I found out my local Turtles' record store had weekly copies of Billboard magazine. I would go there and ask for the old copies. I wish I had kept them, I find out now the old issues fetch pretty good on eBay if they are intact. I also recall back in one summer in the 80s, I was listening to AT40 on the radio and the show was skipping on record! That's when I realized that Casey's syndicated show was issued on LPs. I never saw the LPs but know they also fetch for a good bit now. I had thought that it was sent out to radio stations on cassette tape. Earlier than that, I thought it was done live until my family would travel around the country, and hear the show at different times on the radio.

Image Spam Analysis

2007-01-28T14:43:00.000-05:00

Image spam is very annoying and currently it gets past many filters. I get pump and dump stock spam at my corporate email address. I have some other mail accounts I use to setup for signing up online and they get all kinds of spam. When I had more time, I would go at lengths to report image spam, but these days, I barely have time to check my email accounts. Below I will break down a sample spam that is current (sent to me within the last day). To see more details of the spam above you need to click on it, if you want to bother.

Headers of this image spam - (I removed the recipient address and domains)

==========================
From - Sat Jan 27 18:23:20 2007
X-Account-Key: account3
X-UIDL: 469206877
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 10000000
Received: from bugsbunny.MUNGED.com [66.X.X.235] by beatle.MUNGED.net with ESMTP
(SMTPD-9.10) id A15205E4; Fri, 26 Jan 2007 22:04:50 -0500
Received: from vowwaqv ([209.194.72.195])
by bugsbunny.MUNGED (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l0R34ZN8025082
for ; Fri, 26 Jan 2007 22:04:35 -0500
Received: (qmail 17348 invoked from network); Fri, 26 Jan 2007 21:04:48 -0600
Received: from unknown (HELO xclips) (32.169.85.33)
by vowwaqv with SMTP; Fri, 26 Jan 2007 21:04:48 -0600
Message-ID: <45bac150.2040601@hottomali.org>
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 21:04:48 -0600
From: Peters Jemima
User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 (Windows/20061207)
To: MUNGED@XXXX.com
Subject: By comparison, common kitchen microwaves penetrate several centimetres of skin.
X-RCPT-TO:
Status:
X-UIDL: 469206877
X-IMail-ThreadID: c15201cf00000f64
X-Antivirus: AVG for E-mail 7.1.410 [268.17.12/653]
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=======AVGMAIL-45BC091A462D======="
==========================

This sample of spam arrived at an email address for which I have no filters on at the moment. I tried to locate an image spam that bypassed the filters, but it was on old example, so I found another one. This particular spam would not have been received by many because the from the location it originated, it had no reverse DNS.

32.169.85.33 - an unpingable host at the time of this post is the origin of this pump and dump spam belongs to which is AT&T Global Network Services, it also has no reverse entry which means most mail servers would reject email from this host.

209.194.72.195 - IP, an unpingable host, with no reverse dns entry belongs to the City Of Mobile, Alabama - This IP is in many blocklisted ranges. Just check it out here. According to the selection below of blacklistings, this host is compromised. The red below are some current blacklists of this IP pulled from DNSSTUFF.com.

CBL	LISTED (127.0.0.2)	TXT= "Blocked - see http://cbl.abuseat.org/lookup.cgi?ip=209.194.72.195"	3600 seconds	0 ms
CASA-CBL	LISTED (127.0.8.2)	TXT= "Mail from 209.194.72.195 refused, see http://anti-spam.org.cn/services/rblquery.php?IP=209.194.72.195"	10800 seconds	282 ms
CASA-CBL+	LISTED (127.0.8.6)	TXT= "Mail from 209.194.72.195 refused, see http://anti-spam.org.cn/services/rblquery.php?IP=209.194.72.195"	10800 seconds	282 ms
CASA-CBL-	LISTED (127.0.8.5)	TXT= "Mail from 209.194.72.195 refused, see http://anti-spam.org.cn/services/rblquery.php?IP=209.194.72.195"	10800 seconds	282 ms

SBL-XBL

LISTED (127.0.0.4)

TXT= "http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=209.194.72.195"

1800 seconds

63 ms

SPAMCOP

LISTED (127.0.0.2)

TXT= "Blocked - see http://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml?209.194.72.195"

2100 seconds

0 ms

SORBS-WEB

LISTED (127.0.0.7)

TXT= "Exploitable Server See: http://www.sorbs.net/lookup.shtml?209.194.72.195"

3600 seconds

0 ms

TQM-SPAMTRAP

LISTED (127.0.0.3)

TXT= "Spam received from 209.194.72.195. Removal Requests: http://tqmcube.com/dnsbl/dnsbl_remove.php"

2100 seconds

109 m

The falsified "from" address in this spam is hottomali.org - is being spoofed, it is a legitimate website that I am sure has nothing to do with this pump and dump spam attempt.

At the top is a screen capture of this spam, notice the nonsense text down at the bottom. The spammers put this text in spam in an attempt to bypass spam filters. It was mentioned in an NBC news broadcast that these spammers use excerpts from sources such as the Harry Potter books to get past spam filters. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16757915/

Some interesting reading: - "Criminals 'may overwhelm the web"

The Homeless

2006-12-19T00:19:00.000-05:00

When someone brings up this topic (the homeless) - my first thought about the homeless I think of them with disdain. There! - I said it! - not politically correct by any means, but that is my immediate reaction to that word “homeless” or homelessness.”

“Bum” or “hobo” were the more oft-used words to describe people without a permanent address just a few decades ago here in the US. Funny thing is, when I hear bum or hobo, it does not conjure up the same imagery in my mind of a disheveled looking able-bodied man who is walking the streets panhandling. I tend to think of panhandlers just asking for money to support their own substance abuse, because in times past after dealing with them often, I had offered them food as they would beg for money, and they often would turn me down. I have encountered homelessness in a personal way of being accosted on the street in a number of large US cities such as DC, Dallas, San Francisco and Chicago.

I was hardened to dealing with the homeless in my early 20s while in college. I had lived in Europe and dealt with many persistent panhandlers in major cities there particularly Vienna and St. Petersburg. In Vienna, in the subway one small homeless woman with missing teeth kept yelling at me after I had refused to give her any Schilling at all. She followed me for about 2 blocks continuing to yell in Viennese dialect. It was a very screechy tone of voice and bothersome to say the least. Sometime later, I was staying with a family in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and there were gypsies and homeless people living in the subways in the winter time. At one point, again at a subway, a gang of gypsy kids (some with physical disabilities) attacked me and knocked me down; they then quickly fleeced my pockets of my winter coat. Luckily, I was carrying a money belt underneath my sweaters. It did not take me long to learn to avoid gangs of gypsy kids. Sometimes I would see them beg somewhere for the day and then hop into a nice car at the end of the day and drive off. Seeing all this on another contintent added to my own growing cynicism of panhandlers, who we often equate to being homeless. Of course, we often do not know which ones are truely homeless and which ones are with homes, but supporting their own substance abuse.

Then some years later, I lived and worked in downtown Atlanta. After sometime, I saw some of the same homeless men again and again. One of them was named “Willy” – a black man probably in his late 40s walked with a terrible limp. I was told by another resident who lived there that Willy was hit by car, hence his limp. When my husband and I lived in a loft on Mitchell Street, the tenants would pay Willy with beer to help them complete small chores, such as moving furniture or taking out the garbage. Next door to where we rented a loft was a flop house basically, where homeless men rented rooms. It was an old dilapidated hotel. Now that same former hotel in Downtown Atlanta is boarded up and ivy covers many of the windows and the backside of the building. In fact, in front of this hotel, a scene from a TV movie called Mama Flora’s Family was filmed in 1998. (A few years later when I acquired a TV and DVD player, I bought this movie to see it) – I do recommend watching it.

Nowadays, I work in downtown Atlanta. I encounter panhandlers almost daily. I try never to make eye contact. I do not speak to them most of the time. Several months back, a dissheveled panhandler with a bicycle asked me for money: as usual I walked right past him not acknowledging him. The jerk off then yelled out something about my personal appearance (I shan’t repeat it here as it was a very ugly comment) – I then went ballistic, and I yelled at him with great fiery. He quickly rode off on his bike. I began to think I was the madwoman. He made me so angry! – I yelled so hard, my voice quickly hurt. For those who deal with me in person, I tend to talk quietly for the most part.

The reason I bring this up is I have helped those in need indirectly and directly, but not by handing them any money. When I am able, I have sent donations to the Open Door Community which is on Ponce De Leon in Atlanta. The Open Door Community is a shelter for homeless men. I applaud that some out there commit their time and resources to help the homeless. Many moons ago, I donated my time to help them out one weekend. Additionally, when I was in high school, I helped out in another homeless men’s shelter. It was a very sobering experience: you smell foul body odor, urine, and sometimes the men there are not very polite to visitors. It is one activity that I do not want to do again. However, I do believe in donating such shelters money and/or goods they may be able to use to help one person at a time. I have been told that men behave better at their shelters than do women at shelters for women and children. Those who run these places say women fight more. That could be the case if the mothers are with their children and there is the added pressure of trying to fend for their young ones. May God bless those who help the downtrodden; I do sincerely mean that.

If our country (US) ever had a structural breakdown on a very large scale, due to war, terrorism, weather, or economic collapse (similar to what happened in the aftermath of Katrina) and many of us were thrown into a state of homelessness, many of us would behave so savagely because the vast majority of us have become so removed from hard times and severe difficulty of just trying to survive. I do think the group of people who could withstand such chaos, in most cases, the most successfully would be the first generation immigrants from Latin America. Many of the Latino immigrants have been through the hard times that we Americans cannot imagine. It is something that is very sobering but most likely the truth in my own opinion. Most of us in this country with this high standard of living compared to the rest of the world are not used to self-sufficiency and this may be our ultimate downfall.

I feel very thankful that I have never been homeless. I have encountered a lot of personal economic difficulty many times in the past that would be considered mild to most who have been homeless. I have dealt with joblessness, unsecured debt that has exceeded my take home pay in one year, but one thing that has always been there for me is a roof over my head and a warm place to sleep. My family and I are very blessed.

Atlanta Time Machine

2006-11-30T23:25:00.000-05:00

This is very interesting. Greg Germani has researched old photographs taken in and around Atlanta (most of the photos date from the 1950s) - Greg then would go to the location where the photographer stood and take an updated picture.

The changes found in each of the hundreds of photos is fascinating.

Check out Atlanta Time Machine.

Hurt Building in 1956 and then in 2004 (same vantagepoint)

Fighting Online Fraud - Phishing

2006-10-31T23:55:00.000-05:00

With stories like this one in the news ( Million-PC botnet threatens consumers), there is always a higher demand for people out there to help fight online fraud, such as working to bring down these terrible phishing scams which are defrauding internet users of multi-millions every day world wide. ( What is a phish?) - PhishTank provides a good answer.

I posted about phishing scams here earlier in the year on this blog, but the issue definitely needs more attention. The problem of phishing scams is getting worse not better in the last several months according to organizations which track phishing activity. My older link provides lots of useful links on learning more about phishing.

There are online message boards where you can read about fighting fraud first if you are inclined to find out more before getting your feet wet. Castlecops offers: Phishing, Fraud and Dastardly Deeds.

Check out DSLReports.com as well: simply find the forum by: Forums » Up and Running » Security » Spam, Scam and Phish Busters

Use a lot of caution!

If you want to view live phishing sites, please use browser protection, such as Sandboxie, as some phishing sites harbor malicious files. At Castlecops there is an excellent tutorial on securing your PC Make your own System Security Suite for Free!

So if you are somewhat technical (and willing to learn more) and can commit 5 or 10 hours a week and you want to fight online crome, please step up and help Castlecops fight phishers.

Most Famous Hacker has his website Hacked

2006-08-27T19:06:00.000-04:00

I was looking around in webhostingtalk.com when I came across the story of Kevin Mitnick having his own website hacked this weekend. Mitnick's site is an obvious target. Most likely his site was hacked because one of his webhosting neighbors had vulnerable outdated PHP scripts on their site which allowed intruders to get in and deface Mitnick's website.

Last I recall reading about Mitnick was after his serving 5 years for his computer crimes, he was not allowed to use a computer. As his now cleaned up site indicates, he is a consultant and public speaker on computer security. How time flies ...

1985 - music, news and childhood memories

2006-05-20T06:23:00.001-04:00

This Week's Top 10 - 100 and more - Saturday May 18, 1985

This post was inspired by a thread on Stevehoffman.tv Music Forums about commenting on pop charts that are posted for a particular week. Sometimes they post very old charts from the 1950s to some a bit more current, maybe early 1990s. Most of them are US based, they typically pluck from Billboard or from Cash Box magazines. If the thread snowballs and I get hold of a Billboard one, I will post it, if I am allowed, if not, oh well. It is hard for me to believe this stuff is as old as seniors in college. Now where is that email that all your friends or family who forward junk about in this year that freshman entering college? - now that email makes me feel rather old.

I collected outdated Billboard magazines from a local Turtles Records store in suburban Atlanta. The manager there would occasionally give me the old ones. Because I went on a near weekly basis, she grew very annoyed with me, not wanting to bothered by a pesky-nerdy-chart-grrrrl. I am such a pack rat, I still have the stupid little stamps that you could put in a booklet to get dollars on your next purchase. I should scrapbook it, I guess. Sometimes I got some nice ads for records or other music oriented items in Billboard magazine.

I was so into pop music at this time, probably my pinnacle of interest. By 1986, I had lost a lot of interest in current US popular music. That year, just seems lamer and 1987 was mostly even lamer than lamer. while writing this blog entry, I googled for historical events of 1985, this link was the most informative of what I found.

The one event I will comment on is "New Coke", ugh. Gross out. Here in Atlanta, Coca-Cola headquarters, this was a big deal and also a major marketing flop.

I was still buying LPs and cassettes this particular year, Christmas to be exact, I did get a CD player, however, CDs were still out of my budget for quite a while. I bought a lot of older pop music, too, 60s and 70s.

Anyway on to the music. I posted some charts below and a link to a UK chart. At this time I was really into Album 88 WRAS here in Atlanta. Georgia State students ran it. At this time, I discovered the wonderful songs by the Smiths, Bronski Beat and some other bands that escape my faded memory by name right now. I remember the neighboring radio channel which was GA Tech's which frequently played death metal, definitely I seldom listened.

I also was influenced by the musical choices of close high school friend's such as Marie. Marie had turned me into a Duranie and (much later an active blogger), it is hard to say how much interest I would have had on my own without her being crazy about the group. I do believe their earlier music holds up well with time and I am glad I was quite enthused at the time. So there is a lot Duran Duran mentionings below on some randomly charted songs.

Because I chose German as language to study in high school, I was also really dorky and tried to like German pop music and some of it I did like, such as Falco, Opus, Nena and Kraftwerk. Falco had a few big hits in the US 1985 or 1986. I don't think I could get into that music now, but I never hear it and I do not seek it out online, so there. I start cracking up thinking about the Nihilists and awful German pop music in the Cohn Brothers' movie The Big Lebowski. I plan to own that movie on DVD and watch it repeatedly. BTW, if you didn't know, Flea, plays one of the Nihilists.

This Week's Top 10 - May 18, 1985

This is from Cash Box Magazine - source posted here

Cash Box Top 10 - Week Ending May 18, 1985

1. DON’T YOU (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds
2. WE ARE THE WORLD - USA For Africa
3. CRAZY FOR YOU - Madonna
4. ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK - Murray Head
5. EVERYTHING SHE WANTS - Wham!
6. SOME LIKE IT HOT - Power Station
7. SMOOTH OPERATOR - Sade
8. RHYTHM OF THE NIGHT - DeBarge
9. EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD - Tears For Fears
10. AXEL F - Harold Faltermeyer

Watching the UK Charts I do not have permission to copy the equivalent UK chart I googled for,
but go to this link and you will see some examples of overlap (make sure to look under May) and some not of certain pop songson US and UK charts.

Canadian (CHUM Chart) countdown for the same week - reference
Chart #1482 - Saturday, May 18, 1985
Rank Song Title Artist
1. Crazy For You - Madonna
2. Rhythm Of The Night - DeBarge
3. Everything She Wants - Wham!
4. One Night In Bangkok Murray - Head
5. Everybody Wants To Rule The World- Tears For Fears
6. Obession - Animotion
7. Don't You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds
8. Nightshift - The Commodores
9. Black Cars - Gino Vannelli
10. All She Wants To Do Is Dance - Don Henley
11. Smooth Operator- Sade
12. Just A Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody - David Lee Roth
13. That Was Yesterday - Foreigner
14. Walking On Sunshine - Katrina & The Waves
15. Would I Lie To You? - The Eurythmics
16. Welcome To The Pleasuredome - Frankie Goes To Hollywood
17. Rock And Roll Girls - John Fogerty
18. Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid - Daryl Hall & John Oates
19. Things Can Only Get Better - Howard Jones
20. A View To A Kill - Duran Duran
21. We Are The World - U.S.A. For Africa
22. Raspberry Beret - Prince
23. Angel - Madonna
24. Sussudio - Phil Collins
25. Some Like It Hot - Power Station
26. You're The Only Love - The Payolas
27. A Criminal Mind - Gowan
28. Tears Are Not Enough - Northern Lights
29. Heaven - Bryan Adams
30. Tokyo Rose - Idle Eyes

The WICN 90.5 FM of Worchster, MA Top Albums for MAY 1985
Husker Du - New Day Rising
Suzanne Vega - Suzanne Vega
New Order - Low-Life
Smiths - Meat is Murder
Naked Raygun - Throb Throb
Hooters - Nervous Night
Meat Puppets - Up on the Sun
Three O'clock - Arrive without traveling
Slickee Boys - Uh Oh..No breaks
Stranglers - Aural Sculpture

Because I listened to college radio and watched the top 40 in the UK. I was really getting into the Smiths that year. I bought The Queen is Dead on cassette. I listened to the UK top 40 radio show on Sundays and at the time there were still a fair number of tunes they could not locate to play. I recall the charts in the US and UK overlapped only a bit here and there with Madonna tunes. The Smiths albums charted in the US, but no singles ever did. The Smiths were very big in England, but here in the US, they were popular mostly with the college crowd. Lastly, I never had any interest in Morrissey's solo work. I bought Viva La Hate, but only listened to it once.

_____________________________________________________________

May 1985 UK Chart link found here

Comments on selected songs from this era that charted in the UK. Oops, I picked the wrong year, oh well. The UK charts for 1986 are here.

19 - Paul Hardcastle - I had the 12 inch of this song. I adored it, I haven't heard it in ages, but I think if I did, I would still really enjoy it. My understanding is the sampling for this sone was taken from a TV documentary about the Vietnam War in 1982. I am going totally by memory here and no cheating with Google for this comment.

I feel Love - Bronski Beat & Marc Almond Bronski Beat & Marc Almond, the Style Council and Dear Or Alive were among my UK chart topper faves.

Johnny come home - Fine Young Cannibals - I took a song from the UK chart in June 1985. I had the 12 inch of this record too. This is still one of my all time 80s songs. I hear it on XM occasionally. The 12 inch is even better. I do not think this particular song charted in the US or if it did chart, it did not fair too well.

Canadian (CHUM Chart) countdown selections

3. Everything She Wants Wham! - I still hear this one quite a bit on local radio, but not some of their other big hits. Odd. It probably suffers from 80s overplay, but I still can dig it.

4. One Night In Bangkok Murray Head - This one has a superb classical intro that would get cut out in radio play. I know it was banned in Thailand as well, as there are references to
prostitutes. I downloaded this on mp3 format back in 2002 This is about one of about a dozen or so MP3s I downloaded back when I had Gnutella or whatever spyware P2P downloading crap that is evil for your computer.

6. Obession - Animotion - This is part of the Duran Duran chapters, although indirectly and remotely. The lead singer Michael Des Barres who toured with Power Station wrote this song. Catchy tune.

7. Don't You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds - This song still makes me think of the Breakfast Club. Classic teen movie that is still worth multiple watches, even to this day, IMHO. Maybe I will buy this movie's soundtrack, sounds like a good online purchase.

8. Nightshift - The Commodores - I still adore this song and hear it regularly on Atlanta FM radio. Still after 21 years, this one can bring tears to my eyes. Ode to Marvin Gaye who was shot by his father a year earlier. Jackie Wilson is mentioned as well, I think he died a few years
earlier. I recently discovered some Jackie Wilson material on an Ed Sullivan appearance on VHS, Jackie Wilson style and singing seems pretty amazing if you ask me.

10. All She Wants To Do Is Dance - Don Henley - I do like this song, not great to dance to, but you know. I heard this very recently on FM radio and it had been quite a few years, and brought back vivid memories of how I would have imagined the video.

11. Smooth Operator - Sade - wonderful song, I do not hear much air play of this on FM or XM. What happened to Sade? Even during my almost total loss in music in general I picked up her album on CD with no cover art in a pawn shop because of this song. Hmmm

12. Just A Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody - David Lee Roth - Not much into Solo David Lee Roth, but this one was a good remake. It seems like Diamon Dave's solo material is largely ignored on retro 80s radio. I went to Youtube.com recently and watched a David Lee Roth video, talk about bringing back memories. Hmm, is this right?

13. That Was Yesterday - Foreigner - this is a wonderful song that is somewhat emotional to me, it can make me cry if I think about it, and that is rare for me to get choked up about most pop music.

14. Walking On Sunshine Katrina & The Waves - (this one is overplayed on 80s channels and elsewhere) – still catchy tune, one hit wonder here, I believe.

16. Welcome To The Pleasuredome Frankie Goes To Hollywood - I had this on 45, one of my last 45 purchases. I never hear this one on radio satellite or otherwise. I think it is Frankie's last dint on the US charts.

17. Rock And Roll Girls - John Fogerty - it took me a while to like Fogerty, at the time in high school, I knew only a little of his significance. Fogerty puts on a great live show if you catch him. I saw him live in 2005. I really now dig his 80s material and may go out and get the album Centerfield. I love the baseball track, "Centerfield."

18. Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid - Daryl Hall & John Oates I like
most of Hall and Oates stuff, this one is one of my favs, I do not think this one charted well in the US. I never wanted to see these guys live, did anyone? Well, they had a loyal following of fans, I guess. Big time chart toppers for the 1980s.

20. A View To A Kill - Duran Duran
25. Some Like It Hot - Power Station
Being a big Duran Duran fan at the time abd I adored these songs, though I really much prefer their earlier albums. I saw Power Station in concert that summer of 1985; it was one of my first concerts. A few months ago, on Amazon, I picked a Power Station CD reissue with a DVD with those vary cheesy videos included. I even have a compiliation of the 12 inch mixes of the Power Station. I adore their ablum from 1985, to me it holds up well, the entire album.

Not so long ago, I learned that Power Station regrouped later, but I never heard the efforts. Sadly, half the group has passed away, leaving us John Taylor and Andy Taylor, formerly of Duran Duran. Hmm, did Duran rejoin with the original members? - well, I don't know, I will have to google and find out. I am kind of googled out for this entry. Maybe if you can enlighten me here.

[Edit]
OK, here is the Cashbox top 100 - just added to this post

I still love Limahl's Neverending Story and I bought an 80s compilation one just for that song. Julian Lennon's TOO LATE FOR GOODBYES is great too, I never hear that on radio either.

CASH BOX TOP 100 SINGLES
Week ending May 18, 1985

TW LW 2WK 3WK WKS
1 DON’T YOU (Forget About Me)
Simple Minds (A&M 2703) 3 4 7 13
2 WE ARE THE WORLD
USA For Africa (Columbia 04839) 1 1 1 9
3 CRAZY FOR YOU
Madonna (Geffen 29051) 2 2 2 12
4 ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK
Murray Head (RCA 13988) 4 5 9 13
5 EVERYTHING SHE WANTS
Wham! (Columbia 04840) 8 13 16 9
6 SOME LIKE IT HOT
Power Station (Capitol 5444) 6 8 11 10
7 SMOOTH OPERATOR
Sade (Portrait 04807) 7 12 14 12
8 RHYTHM OF THE NIGHT
DeBarge (Gordy 1770) 5 3 3 14
9 EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD
Tears For Fears (Mercury 880 659) 12 14 22 10
10 AXEL F
Harold Faltermeyer (MCA 52536) 13 20 30 8
11 ALL SHE WANTS TO DO IS DANCE
Don Henley (Geffen 29065) 9 9 12 13
12 OBSESSION
Animotion (Mercury 880 266) 11 6 6 17
13 DON’T COME AROUND HERE NO MORE
Tom Petty & Heartbreakers (MCA 52496) 14 16 18 10
14 SUDDENLY
Billy Ocean (Jive 9323) 18 22 28 9
15 THAT WAS YESTERDAY
Foreigner (Atlantic 89571) 10 10 10 10
16 IN MY HOUSE
Mary Jane Girls (Gordy 1741) 23 29 40 10
17 THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER
Howard Jones (Elektra 69651) 21 27 32 9
18 NIGHTSHIFT
Commodores (Motown 1773) 16 7 4 17
19 NEW ATTITUDE
Patti LaBelle (MCA 52517) 19 21 23 13
20 FRESH
Kool & Gang (De-Lite 880 623) 25 30 37 9
21 SOME THINGS ARE BETTER LEFT UNSAID
Daryl Hall & John Oates (RCA 14035) 15 15 17 10
22 ANGEL
Madonna (Sire 29008) 31 39 48 4
23 HEAVEN
Bryan Adams (A&M 2729) 32 35 45 5
24 ONE LONELY NIGHT
REO Speedwagon (Epic 04848) 26 28 31 8
25 WALKING ON SUNSHINE
Katrina & Waves (Capitol 5466) 27 34 38 8
26 JUST A GIGOLO/I AIN’T GOT NOBODY
David Lee Roth (Warner Bros. 29040) 28 31 35 9
27 CELEBRATE YOUTH
Rick Springfield (RCA 14047) 29 32 36 7
28 RASPBERRY BERET
Prince & Revolution (Paisley Park 28972) -- -- -- 1
29 SUSSUDIO
Phil Collins (Atlantic 89560) 35 -- -- 2
30 SAY YOU’RE WRONG
Julian Lennon (Atlantic 89567) 33 36 43 5
31 INVISIBLE
Alison Moyet (Columbia 04781) 34 37 41 10
32 ONE MORE NIGHT
Phil Collins (Atlantic 89588) 17 11 5 15
33 NEVER ENDING STORY
Limahl (EMI America 8230) 37 42 46 9
34 THE SEARCH IS OVER
Survivor (Scotti Bros. 04871) 40 46 62 5
35 SMUGGLER’S BLUES
Glenn Frey (MCA 52546) 39 44 49 7
36 ’TIL MY BABY COMES HOME
Luther Vandross (Epic 04760) 36 40 44 9
37 WOULD I LIE TO YOU?
Eurythmics (RCA 14078) 42 52 70 4
38 A VIEW TO A KILL
Duran Duran (Capitol 5475) -- -- -- 1
39 SHOW SOME RESPECT
Tina Turner (Capitol 5461) 43 47 52 5
40 OH GIRL
Boy Meets Girl (A&M 2713) 44 48 57 7
41 LOST IN LOVE
New Edition (MCA 52553) 41 45 51 8
42 THE GOONIES ’R’ GOOD ENOUGH
Cyndi Lauper (Portrait 04918) -- -- -- 1
43 LUCKY IN LOVE
Mick Jagger (Columbia 04893) 47 57 73 4
44 VOICES CARRY
’Til Tuesday (Epic 04795) 53 64 71 6
45 TOUGH ALL OVER
John Cafferty & Beaver Brown Band
(Scotti Bros. 04891) 65 -- -- 2
46 I’M ON FIRE
Bruce Springsteen (Columbia 04772) 20 17 8 14
47 VOX HUMANA
Kenny Loggins (Columbia 04849) 22 23 25 9
48 ROCK AND ROLL GIRLS
John Fogerty (Warner Bros. 29053) 24 24 26 10
49 WALKING ON THE CHINESE WALL
Philip Bailey (Columbia 04826) 49 54 59 7
50 DO YOU WANNA GET AWAY
Shannon (Mirage 99655) 50 50 55 7
51 MISSING YOU
Diana Ross (RCA 13966) 30 18 13 25
52 CRAZY IN THE NIGHT (Barking At
Airplanes)
Kim Carnes (EMI America 8267) 71 -- -- 2
53 ALONG COMES A WOMAN
Chicago (Warner/Full Moon 29082) 38 19 20 13
54 MATERIAL GIRL
Madonna (Sire 29083) 45 25 15 15
55 FOREVER MAN
Eric Clapton (Duck/Warner 29081) 46 26 24 11
56 EVERYTIME YOU GO AWAY
Paul Young (Columbia 04867) 78 -- -- 2
57 BE YOUR MAN
Jesse Johnson’s Revue (A&M 2702) 51 51 56 8
58 WELCOME TO THE PLEASUREDOME
Frankie Goes To Hollywood (Island 99653) 48 49 54 7
59 CAN’T FIGHT THIS FEELING
REO Speedwagon (Epic 04713) 52 33 19 18
60 LOVERGIRL
Teena Marie (Epic 04619) 54 38 21 22
61 BABY COME AND GET IT
Pointer Sisters (Planet 14041) 55 41 42 9
62 TOO LATE FOR GOODBYES
Julian Lennon (Atlantic 89589) 56 43 29 18
63 PRIVATE DANCER
Tina Turner (Capitol 5433) 57 53 27 18
64 WAKE UP (Next To You)
Graham Parker & Shot (Elektra 69654) 75 88 -- 3
65 WE CLOSE OUR EYES
Go West (Chrysalis 42850) 58 55 33 12
66 YOU GIVE GOOD LOVE
Whitney Houston (Arista 9274) 82 -- -- 2
67 OO-EE-DIDDLEY-BOP!
Peter Wolf (EMI America 8254) 68 75 84 4
68 THROUGH THE FIRE
Chaka Khan (Warner Bros. 29025) 69 76 85 4
69 ONLY LONELY
Bon Jovi (Mercury 880 736) 70 78 90 4
70 I WAS BORN TO LOVE YOU
Freddie Mercury (Columbia 04869) 72 80 88 4
71 DANGEROUS
Natalie Cole (Modern 99648) 80 87 -- 3
72 MATHEMATICS
Melissa Manchester (MCA 52575) 73 81 89 4
73 BLACK CARS
Gino Vannelli (HME 04889) 83 -- -- 2
74 WAYS TO BE WICKED
Lone Justice (Geffen 29023) 86 -- -- 2
75 HOLD ME
Menudo (RCA 14087) 84 -- -- 2
76 DAYS ARE NUMBERS (The Traveller)
Alan Parsons Project (Arista 9349) 77 85 -- 3
77 SAVE THE NIGHT FOR ME
Maureen Steele (Motown 1787) 85 -- -- 2
78 (Come On) SHOUT
Alex Brown (Mercury 880 694) 89 -- -- 2
79 SATISFACTION GUARANTEED
The Firm (Atlantic 89561) 87 -- -- 2
80 REGGAE ROCK ’N ROLL
B.E. Taylor Group (Epic 04862) 88 -- -- 2
81 MY TOOT TOOT
Jean Knight (Mirage 99643) 81 90 -- 3
82 MEETING IN THE LADIES ROOM
Klymaxx (Constellation 52545) 90 -- -- 2
83 SOMEBODY
Bryan Adams (A&M 2701) 59 56 34 16
84 SQUARE ROOMS
Al Corley (Mercury 822 241) -- -- -- 1
85 RADIOACTIVE
The Firm (Atlantic 89586) 60 58 39 14
86 LITTLE BY LITTLE
Robert Plant (Es Paranza 99644) -- -- -- 1
87 PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE
Depeche Mode (Sire 29221) -- -- -- 1
88 FIND A WAY
Amy Grant (A&M 2734) -- -- -- 1
89 THE HEAT IS ON
Glenn Frey (MCA 52512) 61 59 47 24
90 ALONE AGAIN
Dokken (Elektra 69650) -- -- -- 1
91 STEADY
Jules Shear (EMI America 8259) 62 62 68 6
92 CAN’T STOP
Rick James (Gordy 1776) 63 61 53 8
93 JUST ANOTHER NIGHT
Mick Jagger (Columbia 04743) 64 60 50 15
94 LONELY IN LOVE
Giuffria (MCA/Camel 52558) 66 63 58 8
95 THE BIRD
The Time (Warner Bros. 29094) 67 65 60 13
96 CARELESS WHISPER
Wham! featuring George Michael
(Columbia 04691) 74 66 61 22
97 TALK TO ME
Fiona (Atlantic 89572) 76 77 86 5
98 I’M THROUGH WITH LOVE
Eric Carmen (Geffen 29032) 79 79 87 4
99 RELAX
Frankie Goes To Hollywood (Island 99805) 91 68 64 25
100 MAGICAL
John Parr (Atlantic 89568) 92 69 69 6

Blue Security Under Attack

2006-05-04T19:35:00.000-04:00

Snowball

I did a quick search in blogger and cannot find any other blogs on blogger.com covering this spammer attack that has been going on this week against the controversial anti-spam tool called Blue Security. I tried searching around on Live Journal as imagine this fiasco is being blogged about, but I seldom use Live Journal and had no successful search results.

An angry spammer announced his pending attack against Blue Security, which I wrote about in my previous 4/26/06 post. (I am new to using their software and I have some doubts as to how effective or not it is). The spammer then sent out threatening email to subscribers asking them not to use Blue Frog as it is spyware set up by a company of Russian Jews. (jezz, just how bigoted is a spammer?) Then Blue Security announced this thread and played down the email as a threat. The spammer then DDoSed blue security websites. As the week wore on, the attack brought down Live Journal on 5/3/06 as well. Blue Security's website and message board have been mostly offline all week. On Tuesday, Blue Security had redirected its domain over to LiveJournal which caused LiveJournal to get targeted by the DDoS knocking it offline for several hours. Some US-based ISPs were caught up in the DDoS attack too and large portions of their networks suffered outages. TuCows was one of the targets. Right now, people who are using Blue Security are unable to report their spam, but Blue Security will have a new setup in time, probably a system that can better handle such sudden unauthorized traffic than before.

So in summary, if you prefer not to take the time to read all those links with much more information than I have the time to type here: here is the situation in a nutshell - some spammer has his boxers in a bunch about blue security by attacking its sites after sending out threatening spam to people who subscribed to Blue Frog and some who did not. This anti-spam group then goofed by redirecting their domain to a major blog while under attack. In the end, many suffered outages on the Internet including some ISPs, some blogging sites and a domain registrar. It makes me wonder how more prevalent such cyberattacks will become.

Other blogs with more details covering this unfolding story:
BlueSecurity, BlueFrog & BlueFreaks That Love Them
The Spamhuntress
The Spam Diaries
Blogger News Network

Message Boards - Discussion about Blue Security
Castlecops.com
Blue Security's Bad Publicity Week Continues: Accused Of Knocking Out Six Apart

5/4/06 News Stories:
Blue Security attack linked to blog crashes
DDoS on Blue Security Blog Knocks Typepad, LiveJournal Offline
Blue Security shifted attack, brought down blogs

Easy way of reporting Spam

2006-04-26T18:30:00.000-04:00

While reading a consumer message board, I recently stumbled upon Blue Security - a spam reporting tool that does all the work for you. The little blue frog program installed on my computer goes to my bulk folder in Yahoo, GMail and Hotmail and reports the spam all on its own through the web interface! In 2 weeks or so, the little program has reported well over 500 spam messages much of which I had never even viewed myself. That is a very easy way to report spam, instead of reporting emails individually or clicking on report spam options with your ISP. You can sign up to 10 email accounts under one account for Blue Security.

Some users report that the volume of spam they get decreases after using Blue Security. I do not think I have used it long enough to notice.

Stayin' Alive ... but Busy

2006-04-22T09:21:00.000-04:00

Staying rather busy with work and having busy weekends. The PCs I use to log onto the Internet have had their share of problems: removing malware and viruses, and dealing with external drive failures. It is annoying this is all going on at the same time, but it is. So I have spent a lot of frustrating time sorting all of that. My family life has kept me busy, too.

In the Blogging World of things, a blogger I enjoyed reading for the past year is moving on. I will miss Brian McWilliams' blogging about spammer news, but lately I haven't been reading any of my regular blogs all that much. And apparently, he has found a great job opportunity, I wish the best for him. I will post later when I feel I have a breather.

XM Radio vs. Talk Radio

2006-04-06T03:58:00.000-04:00

Our family has had an XM radio for a while. The antennae was non-functioning for a while, so I ordered another part for the Roadie unit (the radio you listen to in your car) on the Internet because stores that carry XM radio gear just do not have a lot to select from. XM is great for all kinds of music. Last time I checked, you could get a free listen for 2 or 3 days of XM online by signing up by Email address. Check it out if you haven't.

I listen to all kinds of music that you just don't hear on local radio. In fact our local radio stations, the ones with the classic rock format, have played the same freakingLed Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, and Boston songs going back at least 2 decades now. One definitely does not need any Led Zepplin album if one lives in Atlanta, and listens to rock-oriented commercial FM stations on a regular basis. Plus, one has all those annoying commercials on FM and AM talk radio for that matter. XM radio receivers are not cheap, but the prices for receivers have steadily declined since even 2 years ago when we first bought a receiver. You can easily spend $100-200+ for all the gear just to listen. One has to be careful about where to buy XM radio gear. Sometimes stolen sets show up on Ebay for instance, which is a raw end of the deal because reported stolen sets are nonusable.

Due to the popularity of satellite radio, I know that newer manufactured car models are automatically equiped with satellite radio receivers. That is a good thing to know. However, since we plan never to buy new cars ourselves anytime in the near future; it will be a while before we get such a car with gear built in it. There are just some things that it is best to be cheap about and one of them for us is not buying a new car where the value plummets so quickly once it is driven off the lot. Between my husband and I in our mid 30s owning cars for 3 decades combined in years, we have only purchased 1 new car.

I have been a talk radio junkie since sometime in the 1990s, but over the years, I have grown tired of the shows, just as I have to hearing Led Zepplin on a daily basis on the radio airwaves here in Atlanta. In times past, I would listen to syndicated shows, such as Gordon Liddy, Kim Komando Clark Howard, Dave Ramsey, Neal Boortz, and even on occasion Rush Limbaugh. I am really overall tired of all these shows ( to borrow from Spiro Agnew: nattering nebobs of negativism) and seldom listen anymore. Some shows I listened to have come and gone, such as a local radio talk show Random Access Radio which was about computers and aired on WGST 640 AM. The hosts could take calls on AS 400 or Macs, you name it, very versatile group. One of those hosts had even attended my undergrad college at the same time I had. Random Access Radio is sadly missed. I believe that show no longer aired after 2002 here in the Atlanta AM radio market. I even won a copy of Windows XP from these radio guys when I went to one of the appearances, so I recall them quite fondly. Yay!!!!

Search Engines and News Stories

2006-03-31T15:13:00.000-05:00

I have been away from my blog a bit. Many personal things going on to take up all of my creative energies. Now back to my entry.

Eventhough Google in of itself can be construed by some critics as being an online version of Big Brother, I have been using its search engine since late 2000. Earlier, I had used dogpile and earlier, back in 1999 it was Mamma and Metacrawler Now, it is google almost all the time. Back in 1996 I had used Yahoo. I use Yahoo today for its content and not for searching.

I have a Gmail account and I stay logged into and I have created my own customized page. I
mostly read tech related stories. The regular news stories of if it leads, it bleeds have just warned me thin. However, one of the most interesting articles online I have read lately is Snapper refusing to sell its mowers in Walmart. I believe I will never shop at Wal-Mart myself again. I seldom do as it is. Wal-mart is very unpleasant for me to shop. I, like others, are driven to shop there by the low prices. That Snapper story hit me hard personally. Snapper (the lawn mower company) is based out of McDonough, GA. They make all their fine lawnmowers in McDonough, Georgia and not in far flung places like China or Indonesia. Before reading that article, I had thought that was one of their plants. McDonough, a town I had lived in for a few years ago , lies approximately 30 miles south of Atlanta. McDonough was chosen by Amazon in the dot com hey day to build a distribution center. So the big warehouse was built. Some friends and I even applied for jobs at Amazon in McDonough, GA. My guess is Amazon stayed open for less than 2 years in McDonough, GA. Its closing by Amazon was part of the NASDAQ fall out or dot com flame out which started in the spring of 2000.

At the bottom right of the customized Google page are Words of the Day:
benignant: kind; gracious; favorable.
invidious: tending to provoke envy or ill will.

Perusing at these words reminds me of the endless hours I spent prepping for the SAT and GRE as young'n. Maybe I should incorporate them somehow in my blog, if I were update it daily.

Exposing Online Fraud – Phishing

2006-03-19T12:05:00.000-05:00

Phishing is very common place on the Internet. Basically, it is a spoof sent via email in the form of spam purporting to be a bank, Ebay or some other payment service. The purpose of the spam is to trick the recipient who reads it to divulge his/her personal information to a fraudulent website. The phishers then take that information and go to Ebay or some specified bank and clean them out. Phishing has evolved online over the years. No one knows exactly how many phishing gangs are operating currently on the Internet.

Phishing fraud is a still a real menace, tricking people into divulging their personal information daily. Organized crime is believed to behind some of it. I am writing about this because the financial losses are substantial: according to the Wikipedia entry on phishing: "It is estimated that between May 2004 and May 2005, approximately 1.2 million computer users in the United States suffered losses caused by phishing, totaling approximately $929 million USD. U.S. businesses lose an estimated $2 billion USD a year as their clients become victims.^"

Phishing in 1995

AOL IM SPIM – form of phishing One of the earliest widespread forms of online phishing that I am aware of is the AOL IM spim that AOL members would receive where the fraudster would pretend to be someone from AOL Support asking for AOL user passwords and credit card numbers. This activity was prevalent back around 1996 or so. I knew of someone who was tricked this way on AOL. A few short years later, the fraudsters turned to spoofing the popular Ebay and Paypal websites and other payment services

Phishing in 2006

There is more to this problem on the backend, or from the viewpoint of an ISP, or a webhost, so to speak. Phishers operate worldwide. Often they work in groups rather than one lone person attempting to undertake all the things that must be done to make it a successful theft. Another approach phishers, use is that they upload viruses and trojans to the phishing sites, so that unprotected PCs get infected if they visit the phishing URL. You must use caution when going to any supposed phishing URL.

The fraudsters spoof all kinds of financial institutions, banks in Brazil, Turkey, UK, France and other places. You can see a list of payment services which have been spoofed in phishing exploits kept by FraudwatchInternational (FWI)

What is spoofed the most?

Fraudwatchinternational has been tracking phishing frauds as far back as 2001. This is its tally of the top 6 reported phishing frauds by name as of 3/18/06 You will see Paypal is spoofed the most, followed by US banks and UK bank Barclays.

Rank - Reported organization - number of separate reported phishing incidents(FWI)

1. PayPal 6551
2. eBay 6080
3. Washington Mutual Bank 1225
4. Chase Bank 1018
5. Barclays Bank 735
6. SunTrust Bank 603

The newer Phishtrack on DSLreports has this tally as of 3/18/06. This tracking system was only setup in November 2005.

Rank - Reported organization - number of separate reported phishing incidents (Broadbandreports)

1. paypal 201
2. ebay 113
3. chase 88
4. barclays 25
5. wellsfargo 15
6. bofa (Bank of America) 13

On the DSLreports forum, you can view how long a phishing website stays online. There is a Phishtracker utility, written on Perl posted on dslreports forum where users can report phsihing websites Ranking. Fraudwatchinternational (FWI) has been tracking phishing frauds as far back as 2001. FWI has over 31,00 reported cases of phishing in its database as of March 2006.

There is a Phishtracker utility, written on Perl posted on dslreports forum where users can report phsihing websites

To navigate to the phishtracker for the first time, you have to click through the website a few times. 1. URL: http://broadbandreports.com 2. click on Forums --- 3. Under + Up and Running··Online, what next? Select this forum: “Spam, Scam and Charge Busters” 4. Select first posting called ‘Submitting to the Phish Tracker” and the the link to the Phishtracker is listed at top: http://www.dslreports.com/phishtrack

The top link contains the phish tracker. This tracker was activated in November 2005 and believe it or not, some phishing websites from late last year are still active. There are 2 over 100 days old listed as still active! Most often these hosts are in Asia where they are not responsive to spamming issues or any other security issues for that matter. There is also a breakdown there of what institution is spoofed. I sent this information below today to the Indian organization so they can remove this phishing site, I also CCed spoof@ebay.com

Long Living Phishing websites - One is active for over 120 Days old online!

Example of a long lasting Paypal phishing website hosted in India: as of 3/18/06, this Paypal phishing site has been active for over 120 days and as of today 3/19/06, the phishing URL has been removed. Yay. finally.! Removing link below.

(link gone)
WHOIS info gone.

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Anatomy of a Phishing Scam Setup

Here is a typical scenario on how a part of a phishing fraud site is setup. Fraudsters share stolen credit card information with some other trusted gangs, for example. They will go and buy domain names at registars such as the Korean registrar such as Yesnic that look similar to Ebay. Examples include: ebay-cgi-login.com or paypal-login.com, etc There are literally thousands of variations of these fraudulent domain names. The contact info in the WHOIS for these domains is fraudulent as well, often they use yahoo or some other free email address as an Email contact. With this domain, they purchase a webhosting account, usually it is an automated purchase with a small or large hosting company. Then as soon as the site is enabled, the actual spam itself is sent out through compromised machines on the Internet. So while the spoofed website is online, a few unsuspected people receive the Ebay phishing spam and think they have to update their Ebay accounts. Often the phishers have a text file or another email address where this data is sent to.

The new spin to this is phishers now use a dynamic redirect where once imbedded in the phishing spam itself, it will continually redirect recipients to newly hosted phishing sites. In this approach, the spam running gets more out of scamming users than using a specific URL that has been disabled. (when I find this information, I will post more of it here)

Brute Password Hacks
Some of the patterns I have seen: phishers exploit existing webhosting accounts. Often they brute force passwords on older systems where a lockdown of password tries has not been implemented.
Typical : Ebay phishing URL (fake of course)

http://members.someISP.com/~john/ebay/aw/cgi-login.htm

If you take a close look at this. For the username, John after tilde ~john, his username has been guessed via FTP and the phisher uploaded the phishing files to appear like an Ebay login page. This is why they use words like aw or cgi – it looks like part of an actual Ebay URL.

Exploit Vulnerabilities
Phishers also exploit ecommerce software, PHP messageboards and many other online programs where the software versions are often out of date and hence, vulnerable to an attack like this.

USEFUL PHISHING URLs

Forums and useful Messageboards
Broadbandreports - message board about large scale spamming and phishing. This site you may have to navigate from the main page.
Castlecops Phishing forum - this one contains some useful information, not very active. Castlecops is a good site for securing your PC.
Scam.com - Online scams of any kind, and other scams posted, mostly for newbies.

Anti-Phishing Organizations
Anti-Phishing Working Group - a US based organization designed to collect information on phishing. They have a useful mailing list for those who work to minimize phishing scams.
FWI - FraudWatchInternational – An Australian based organization which collects info on internet scams, including 419
Miller Smiles – a UK based anti phishing organization. They also have a messageboard, however, it is not as active as the one mentioned above.

Anti-phishing Vigilantes
phishfighting - These guys work at bringing down phishing on their own by any means necessary. I do not recommend partaking in this activity at all. Definitely a grey hat area.

Books and Articles on Phishing
Phishing Wiki information on phishing, very detailed and useful.

Phishing Exposed (2005) by Lance James – listed on Amazon - Lance James is active in the APWG (Anti-Phishing Working Group). This book probably is considered definitive on phishing.

Phishing : Cutting the Identity Theft Line (2005) by Rachael Lininger, Russell Dean Vines - listed on Amazon. I have had a chance to read this book.

Hideousness of Some Very Dark Online Activity

2006-03-15T20:21:00.000-05:00

Child expl0itation, of course, of all forms flourishes on the Internet; this is definitely one of the most disgusting subjects to blog, isn't it? - Reportedly arrests have been made in an online international kiddie p0rn ring. Great news: the more arrests the better where ever these disgusting people hide. I occasionally go to the Drudge Report and on this evening found this screaming ALL CAPS headline: CHILD P0RN RING TRANSMITTED ACTS LIVE ON WEB - Here is a link to that very news story.

Maverick online media man Matt Drudge, a long-time netizen and a pioner blogger, capitalizes on lead stories (when it bleeds, it leads) so goes the contrite quip about media in general. Drudge brings down a lot of smaller shared websites when he links to them since his mega site generates so much traffic. According to Alexa, Drudgereport.com is the 265th busiest site online and according to Drudge himself, a total of 3,633,320,392 visitors clicked on his website in 2005. I know in times past, DrudgeReport ranked higher than the humble 265th place his site is listed now. Drudge has his own set of detractors such as this one who was wise enough years ago to buy a shorter domain name; this website owner probably gets some of drudge's own traffic for those not very proficient at typing out longer domain names. According to netcraft.com there are 53 active domains containing drudgereport and well over 200 active domains containing drudge. I can surmise without visiting all these sites that the vast majority were created because of Matt Drudge; with domains activated such as: drudgeisajoke.blogspot.com, drudgepuppet.com or bizzarodrudge.com you know that Drudge has a lot of Net buddies.

I first learned about Drudge when the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal story broke. Drudge already had a significant following at that time 1998. Since then, when I am in a news mood, I go to his site for top stories. I have heard the traditional media despite what Drudge has done. I think Drudge is a very interesting one man media show online. However, over the more recent years, I frequent geek-infested Fark.com for reading unusual news stories where one can get an account and contribute a note worthy newstory. Heck, you can even customize the title to the news story to make it eye catching! I guess this is the democraziation of spreading news when any ol' online Jane or Joe who knows how to get around online can site odd news stories for others to read. Interestingly enough, Fark.com is ranked by Alexa as the 867th most popular site.

Now back to the sordid topic of online child porn0graphy. I know from friends in American ISPs that in the US the FB1 does investigate cases of online child p0rn0graphy which is deemed graphic. Fighting online crime of this nature is a very tall order and task undertaken by any government agency, non-profit organization, or a humble ISP's security department. These kiddie p0rn peddlers probably do all they can to hide their tracks such as persistant ROKSO spammers do or the sneaky gangs of phishers who send out spam to steal banking, creditcard or other personal information to empty bank accounts or commit identity fraud. The US based Antiphishing.org does a fine job in helpig banks and organizations and end-users fight this very large online criminal activity. It is known within those who work at ISPs that some kiddie p0rn sites pop up on the net from setting up fraudulent shared hosting accounts, sharing data on IRC channels. P2P websites or compromising existing webhosting accounts. It is rather interesting to note how these illegal p0rn peddlers behave like rogue spammers and phishers.

Dirty Laundry Online

2006-01-30T14:46:00.000-05:00

Be careful what you write online, whether it is in email, a blog or otherwise. You never know if the data may become available to the public. Just take a look at this Enron email avaiable for any pairs of eyes online to peruse. As I am a news junkie, from time to time (and not on a daily basis), I read some headlines. Lo and behold! - I came across this story on Wired. The Wired article mentions that these Enron emails contain information such as: "... All this among countless jokes about Texas, sex, nuns, women, Latinos and priests. " Beyond tacky, I might add.

I haven't taken the time to go in there and read much what the supposedly private email typed by morons and victims alike at that meltdown company (Enron was indeed one of the biggest corporate flameouts in recent history). I am sure it is more interesting than wadding through spam on any given day. Speaking of spam: recent estimates are that at least 70% of all email on the Internet is Spam. Additionally, AOL users have reported the most common type of spam noted by contents in 2005 - Penis Pump. Most people who have been online for any length of time might think: if cyber newbies would never bother with reading spam, and never, never, never responding to it, spam would should then go away, right?