zomgpwn!

Olby's @ Kos

Franky we're not huge fans of Daily Kos, and it has nothing to do with our political quirks.  It has more to do with their wonky scripting and heavy-ass page loads.  Sometimes we DO like to check who's contributing though since Markos seems to be able to tap into a certain vein of the zeitgeist that we admire to an extent. 

Turns out Keith Olbermann now as a diary page there and is putting it to good use.  We've been fans since the days of watching him deftly block Dan Patrick's errant spittle using nothing but a sheaf of AAA BBall box scores and Kwai Chang Caine-like reflexes.

You can read his thoughts here.

The Cooper Lawrence Effect

We won't go on and on about this because it's pretty simple and can be summed up in one sentence contained in Lawrence's 'mea culpa' to the NYT. 

"I had asked somebody about what they had heard..."

That's where we stopped reading because everything else is meaningless after that doozy.  There's your journalistic integrity and commitment to professionalism folks.  Just ask SOMEBODY about what they heard.  From that point on you're golden.  Shoot your mouth off endlessly and without bothering to dig into the source of your story.  Third hand information is good enough.

Original story here.

Anonymous - 488 | Scientology - 716,949,386,024

We didn't wanna dip out toes in this (cess)pool until we got some reliable statistics on the DDoS ruckus laid down by Xenu and friends.  We finally have it, so let's get this party started.

If you don't know the background, shame on you.  Go read this.

Here's the part we're most interested in though.

Exhibit A:

• Number of attacks measured on scientology.org: 488 in the past week
• Attacks by date: 488 on January 19, 2008
• Maximum PPS rates seen: nearly 20000 pps (packets per second), with an average attack size of 15,000 pps
• Maximum bandwidth seen per attack: 220 Mbps, with an average attack size of 168 Mbps. This is on the high side of an attack, but significantly smaller than the largest ones we commonly see nowadays
• Maximum duration of a single attack: 1.8 hours, which is on the long end of common, but the average attack lasted just under half an hour

Exhibit B:

• Site                      http://www.scientology.org
• Last reboot          28 days ago
• Domain                scientology.org
• IP address           72.52.6.28
• Netblock owner   Prolexic Technologies, Inc.  <====!!!

Well then.  Nicely played, LRH.

Translation?  Anonymous actually DID hit Scientology's Apache Linux box pretty hard a week ago.  Then the organization (we're treading lightly here) did probably the smartest thing it could have.  It signed up Prolexic to substitute one of their servers and filter down the flood to a trickle.

Now of COURSE we realize that this wasn't the ONLY denial of service dropped on Scientramopolay.  (look in your heart, hackinatorz... look in your heart!) We just wonder if it was the biggest, or what else is coming.  It's fun to see Digg gamed the right way for a change and even though we've watched and re-watched the original Anonymous YT vid enough that we now don motorcycle helmets in our meetings and only communicate with each other via text to speech tools, it has us all a twitter with what could pownceably be next from our new favorite bunch of waxxorz haxxorz.   Even lolcats are in on this one.

Our vote is that Anonymous should start their own church and possibly even take over TMZ's slot on your local Fox affiliate.  They are sooo much more entertaining than Harvey Levin, and Harvey is no slouch.  Well.. OK he's a slouch.  We still think he's pretty awesome.

Also we'd just like to point out that we value the notion of free expression in the good old U. S. of A.  People should always worship who they want to worship, or not.  Not only is the line between legality vs. illegality ONLINE a slightly blurry one, it must be taken into account that Chanologists are OPENLY declaring war.  You know what they say about that and Lllllllllove.  (puke)  While the m$m and a lot of smaller 'news' outlets are chuckling to themselves about what the 'kids' are doing on the intertubes, remember... you have been warned.

We can't endorse either side, mainly due to our lack of a solid legal team.  However we DID see an episode of Matlock in a bar last night. The sound was turned down but we're pretty sure we got the gist of it.

Qaeda don't Skype

OK, so it's a slow day.  We've started, then abandoned posts on the following topics.

Faux News Channel manages to out-stupid itself; gets smacked silly by Keighly.

HTML 5 finally here... almost.

Artificial life is real.  Wait, what?!

AT&T preps "Ministry Of Truth", readies 'thoughtcrimes' filtering online.

Then we saw THIS nugget and we couldn't resist.  al Qaeda's #2 crocktard A-a-Z is taking questions on the freaking intarwebz!  WTH?!  OK, ok... so far the questions have just been submitted but isn't that kind of ballsy, even for these guys?  It gives us a slightly queasy feeling to know that they are comfortable enough to even think about casually chewing the non-pork fat with their peeps.

Actually it almost seems innocuous, until you start to read the questions that have been submitted.  Even allowing for cultural differences, we're just a little bit unnerved - and it's not even because we're on our third cup of coffee.

The only plus we can see in this whole weird development is that there DOES seem to be a considerable LACK of communication between AQ's devotees and the official power structure.  Most of the questions we've seen are so varied and so broad in nature that it gives a picture of disarray, if not downright confusion.  Good enough for us.  As freaky as it is to see someone demanding that the jihad be spread into Egypt and Palestine immediately, it would be a lot freakier if homeboy Ayman actually started responding.

So, we'll just pretend that it's a big, early April Fool's joke for now and laugh nervously while we try not to click on any links that will get us tossed into the 'persons of interest' file we've heard so much about.

All we can say is, we reallly hope this guy jumps onto Skype or some VoIP service so an AC-130 can cruise by to weigh in on the discussion.  C'mon, fignuts!  Pick up the webcam and let's do this thing.

International Federation of Peurile Imbeciles

Oh good LORD!  We were in the middle of whipping up an uninspired wrap-up of what's not really happening today and then we saw the coverage of the new IFPI report just out.  This is really... getting stupid.

Where oh where to begin?

The first lie we'd like to disassemble is the one that goes like this...

"...the spread of unlicensed music on ISP networks is choking revenues to record companies and investment in artists"

"ISP cooperation, via systematic disconnection of infringers and the use of filtering technologies, is the most effective way copyright theft can be controlled."

Ohhh rrreaallly?  Well explain this then.  University networks have, for all intents and purposes, been dammed against most p2p and distributed file sharing systems, including not just blocking them outright but also choking off the associated traffic to a trickle.  Yet.... music sales overall continue to decline.  So do box office numbers..  and WHAT was that percentage of dirty file swappers responsible for the Film Industry's spectacular profit dive, MPAA?  Mmm hmmmm....  If the MPAA is 29% full of crap then the IFPI just lapped them.

It's the SAME lie again and again.  The reason music sales are declining has very little to do with what's deemed 'illegal' file trading and much, MUCH more to do with the music companies' inability to find, nurture, develop, market, promote and SELL artists to the public.  It's been this way for a long, long time friends.  If these companies and their A&R teams had the slightest clue what they were doing, then why do they still engage in heavy duty payola to get their 'artists' exposure on radio and music television?

The tragic fact is that the old school machine designed to pump mediocre pablum down consumers' throats can not operate in the same way it used to, which means people are now increasingly more aware of their own freedom to think for themselves.  An entire generation of music fans who have grown up unrestrained by the influence of B.S. like "Playlist Consultants", "Pay per spin" and homogenized broadcast conglomerates mainlining what gets put into peoples' ears is upon us and THEY control what they consume more than any generation since SoundScan first revealed to us that Paula Abdul wasn't actually the #1 record of 1991, it was N.W.A.

Even though that was an exhilarating moment for Hip-Hop and really, music in general, it was a brief window into the actual music buying habits of the general public.... a window that had to be slammed hard and quickly.  We won't go into the whole wretched and ugly neutering of SoundScan but it IS helpful to look at how the Industry of Music set about muzzling and controlling the data compiled via Billboard to make sure they could again shape the top ten to their own will and needs, as they saw fit.  If you don't think that the top slots are essentially bought and paid for the same way Gamespot reviews are, you're just fooling yourself.   The #1 release in the country is RARELY the one that sold the most copies in the previous week.  Algorithms matter more than sales.

It's exactly what's happening now, with two big differences.   1. It's not just a horse that got out of the barn this time, it's a stampede of wild broncos who've never even SEEN a saddle.  2. There's nothing that can be reigned in or controlled, except public opinion - which is what's under attack here.

Flat out, you are being openly lied to when you read that the cause of declining music sales is p2p or file trading.  It's the overall declining quality in the music choices being offered up.  Just look at the previous example of Hip-Hop.  It, like most other genres are dead in the water, artistically and commercially.  The best, most thoughtful and scarily talented Rappers, Graffiti Artists, B-Boys and DJs have no real exposure because they exist outside of the crumbling machine of promotion still utilized by the major label/distribution system.  The same way old, white America (sorry to generalize but it's just true) was scared shitless every time they even SAW the words "Fuck The Police", they are scared shitless now when they hear "Bin Laden didn't blow up the projects, it was YOUR Nigga.. tell the truth, nigga."

ZOMGPWN! is not advocating any political stance here, (We're as sick of Loose Change as you are.) just making the overall point that there is a driving NEED on the part of the Industrialized Music Machine to CONTROL what and how you are exposed to new artists, songs and IDEAS for that matter.  So much so that they will willfully attempt to shape public opinion by making claims that are patently false.

Here is one of our favorites from the IFPI report.

"Research by IFPI debunks a myth about illegal P2P services: in fact, fans get better choice on legal sites. IFPI conducted research with a sample of 70 acts on the legal site iTunes and on the copyright infringing service Limewire. In 95 per cent of searches the artists requested had more songs available on iTunes than on the leading P2P service."

Ah, gee thanks.  Now let us debunk your debunking.  You compared LIMEWIRE to iTunes, then you make the claim that 'fans get better choice on legal sites'?!  PAY CLOSE ATTENTION HERE.  We don't even think that most of the people who were involved in putting this disinformation out are even on the ball enough to realize they are passing along bullshit... but this is some grade A pooporzz right here, buddies.

Let's just take it slowly...   beyond the fact that Limewire sucks ass, let's consider the fact that it's ONE Java client sitting on top of GNU and doesn't rock SHA-1.  Were you using the free version IFPI or PRO?  Just curious since you don't seem to know what the frack you're talking about in general.

This kind of thing wouldn't be so bad if media outlets and news organizations didn't pick it up and report is as fact without digesting the info before shatting it out on the largely uninformed and well meaning, yet STILL kowtowing public.

ZOMGPWN! would like to state unequivocally that restaurant goers always get better and move varied choices at Sushi Restaurants when compared to Steakhouses.  Don't argue with us.  We did a study.  :|

See, not only do some people prefer one cuisine over the other mightily, when you break it down to individual locations you'll see that some Sushi places really suck and some Steakhouses rock.  Some Steakhouses will give you salmonella.. and the occassional Sushi place can put you on culinary cloud nine.  They're all different.  You can use the same anti-logic to shade any opinion you wish to, as long as the people who you're talking to are uninformed, distracted or uninvoled enough to believe you.

Let's compare ANts to Rhapsody, Stealthnet to Napster... .and just for the hell of it.. Pirate Bay to Connect. I believe their selection should match up on a 1:1 ratio on any given day. 

In other words it's YOUR CHOICE.  If you love iTunes then rock on, peoples.  Get your music the way you want.  But never, ever believe a press release from the RIAA, MPAA, IFPI or any other organization with a vested interest in you taking the blue pill.  We merely urge you to THINK FOR YOURSELF.

According to other bullet points in the IFPI report, at least some people are doing just that.

There are more than 500 legitimate digital music services worldwide, offering over 6 million tracks – over four times the stock of a music megastore.

The growth rate of around 40% in digital sales did not offset the sharp fall in CD sales globally, meaning that the overall market for the year will be down on 2006.

So again... how can the argument be made that the overall decline in music sales is due mainly to 'illegal file sharing' when according to the SAME report, choice at  'legal' services far outstrips that of evil p2ps, and digital music sales GREW by 40% year over year?  It makes no sense.  If anything both should be on the incline.  If one grows, so does the other.  It is NOT inversely proportional.  To say it is simply reveals what amounts to a sophomoric attitude towards, and knowledge of the digital music space... at best.  At worst it reveals a deliberate campaign of distortion and veiled threats against the very people who stopped going to Tower and Virgin years ago due to the wave of total crap they saw being marketed ad nauseam.

The machine wants to keep feeding you crap despite your preference for medium rare T-bone and/or avocado spring roll.  (Damn, it's past our lunch time!)  Fling it back in their faces and eat what you want.

Weekend at Glickman's

Normally we don't jump on stories that have already achieved interdork levels of ubiquity but when the lion's share of outlets miss the real uptake on one, we feel compelled to voice our own irrelevant opinions on the matter so we can all read them back to each other and nod seriously while we go "Mmm hmmm... you are totally right about that, man.  I'm gonna ping Technorati right now."

So, OK!  Either the MPAA couldn't pass a pre-Algebra class or they have been deliberately inflating the percentage of their content being passed around CollegeNets.  Whatevs, homey!  Like we didn't know that crap already.  Now M$M is ROFL and having a good old time reporting this as if they are somehow not part of the problem. 

But dig this. (Actually if you could Twitter it or something that might be better.)  Whether this was actually 'human error' or deliberate obfuscation on the part of the MPAA matters little now.  If they can be THIS wrong about THIS statistic then WHAT THE HELL ELSE ARE THEY 29% WRONG ABOUT?  Ummm... wdk..  EVERYTHING?  When you're talking 'billions' of $ then 29% matters, a lot.

Also there seems to be a curious lack of interest or care on the part of the blogiverse regarding the inverse conclusion to be drawn here.  Where is that missing % actually coming from?  Broadband growth might be slowing a tad on the global scale, but only because it was blowing doors for a couple of years.  Plus, guess which market bucks the overall trend and just keeps on booming.  Thaaat's right, noodlenose.  The good old North American one.  *brushes own shoulder off*  Yanks + Canucks + Fat Pipes = <3.

Additionally, the concept that it's only or mostly students utilizing p2p is antiquated.  Especially when you look at the issue in 'internet time.'  Of COURSE it's still present on most campuses, but the massive smackdown that most network managers/administrators have been engaged in for quite sometime, combined with the uptick in malware attacks means that a significant portion of the student population has found other ways to share what they want to share.  (Our lips are sealed.)  While the MPAA and RIAA have been busily sighting up this relatively easy target, everyone who ISN'T rocking an .edu address has been busily and increasingly enjoying their content for free.

So while it feels good to point the finger at the MPAA and laugh at their, now exposed and naked, ridiculous claims.  Let's all take a moment to point the finger up our own silly asses and regroup here.

The RIAA is lying to you.  Music labels and distribution companies are lying to you.  Game publishers/sites, media conglomerates and 'news' outlets... all tell you that they're wearing protection.  But trust your own instincts.  They actually blew right by the drug store on their way over without even slowing down.  The simple reason is they CAN'T WAIT TO SCREW YOU and they don't care what they have to say or do to get your face in the pillow.  Their very real attitude is 'bend over, shut up and take it.'

When any massive corporation begins to sue individual users of its content, regardless of the details involved, that means one thing and one thing only.  The global chief of that corporation just realized that he can't buy the private island he wanted to give to his mistress for her birthday, so he had to settle for buying her a yacht instead.  Think we're exaggerating?  That's OK.  It IS hard to imagine it, even for us sometimes.  But we've seen it with our own eyes, and it is NOT pretty.

The issues of 'piracy' and or 'illegal content' should be decided by each individual based on their own moral compass, not the supposedly shrinking coffers of Interglobal Recordz & Moviefilms Inc.

We realize there's a large segment of the consumer population out there that would take this as an extreme or borderline conspiratorial statement.  Hey... whaddaya gonna do?  It's analogous to that friend you had at one time who was dating someone that was ssoooo wrong for them.  You know... the kind that's not even subjective.  Like when your friend was banging that 62 year old Philosophy prof. for a better grade, and he got inside her head and convinced her she was in love with him?  You couldn't change her mind with a sledgehammer so you just had to let her figure it out for herself.  Then she showed up at your place in the middle of the night sobbing about how he pushed her out of his car in front of Food Lion and sped away without saying a word.  It's like that.  Exactly.

She wasn't stupid. She just bought into an attractive lie so she could pretend she was 'making love' instead of getting used like plastic or paper ma'am.

It's time to force that old prick into retirement, or at LEAST get some incriminating shots of him while he's drunk at a frat party and post them on Facebook.

The next time you see some 'report' put out by the RIAA, assume it's a lie.... because it is.  The old business models are dead.  They have been for quite some time.  We're living through their echo... the sounds of their death throes are still bouncing around the canyon walls but the corpse is already stinking.  If the MPAA and RIAA want to slap sunglasses on it and drag it around to try and collect its Social Security checks for a little while longer then that's what they're gonna do.

Just don't let them get into your head with threats and/or false information.   Remember that YOU have the choice to pay for what you feel has value and to NOT pay for what you feel doesn't.   Support new business models, especially the ones who favor cutting out the traditional middle man tier and instead increase the profit share for the people who are creating the art.

Society will be rewarded when it nurtures talent and genuine prolificacy over executive salaries and profit margins.  We love making money and the free market economy as much as the next schmo with a rent payment due.  What we don't love is a manipulated and pre-formed assembly line system of 'approved entertainment'.  You don't need someone to tell you what music, movies or tv shows are 'good' or 'bad'.  You can and should decide that on your own.

Actual MySpace URL pedo exploit still alive and kicking. Nobody really cares.

User videos on MySpaceTV that are not individually made 'private' - but still behind a private profile barrier - are accessible to anyone by fiddling with the URL minimally.

This is identical to the image exploit that was plugged up earlier this year by the Space staff.  Kudos, we guess?  But wouldn't videos be actually worse than images for the lonely mouth breathers to get all hot n bothered over? 

Don't believe me?  Try it yourself.

Step one: Find a private profile.
Step two: Navigate to an accessible videos page for a user who is your friend or who simply has everything out in the public.
Step three: Paste in the friend ID of the person who has their profile set to private.

Even if they don't have any videos posted, you are now partially behind their privacy screen.  If they DO have videos posted, you can view them to your hearts content.

ZOMGPWN! will monitor this one and report on any fixes.  However until a larger site picks this up, we suspect that nothing will change.

Mashable and Wired drop the ball on alleged MySpace 'bug'

Yes, it's quite page view inducing to pimp a headline about how pedophiles are secretly grabbing the private photos of underage kids to populate ad-supported sites with illicit images of your children.   So much so that it must be tempting for all the so called tech bloggers out there to pull a quote or two from the original story, and re-post it as news.  The only problem is, it's not exactly true.

First let's be clear about this.  There are all KINDS of crazy, evil perverts out there dreaming their evil thoughts.  We're not saying that there aren't plenty of problems with the newly deposed king of the socialz either.  However...

Item One: There have been many exploits along the lines of 'replace friend ID in URL' that would let users see things like friend lists, photos and the like.  But the method reported on by Wired and subsequently Mashable... was one that had been plugged for months.  However it was relayed via their posting as if the story on Mashable had caused MySpce to run and plug that hole immediately in a 24 hour period.  This was simply not the case.

Item Two:  The best evidence of the general lack of understanding regarding this exploit, on the part of the so-called tech blog-verse is the fact that both sites reported it incorrectly.  Perhaps they were trying to not tip off would be perverts, but in the comment section of the first story posted at Mashable, writer Mark Hopkins made this statement:

"I don't know any folks under-age for me to try it on, but I did give it a shot on several of my own friend's profiles, and it seemed to work as described."

To be very specific, this had to be someone who had their profile set to PRIVATE but had PUBLIC photo albums.  Being underage has nothing to do with it... except that MS users under 16 default to private profiles.  Regardless, 'not knowing' any underage people has zero relation to this issue.  You can browse or search and find an underage user easily.  However this applied, as stated, to private profiles with public albums.   His very specific statement shows clearly that he just misunderstood the nature of the exploit.  If you are already friends with someone, replacing your friend ID with theirs in the URL is the same as clicking on the 'pics' link.  No l33t skillz required there.

Anyone who works in online security has been aware for a while that this one was plugged in early 07, thank goodness.

So there is simply a fundamental misunderstanding of what's being reported. This could be solved by the people reporting on it actually being users of the sites they cover, or at least putting in some research time on the specific issue. 

Of course though, this item was dutifully picked up by ABC News and many other major outlets and people got to be all indignant about how awful this is... which harbors a far MORE evil result - namely that other, worse exploits are STILL EXTANT and being thoroughly ignored by the same bloggers and reporters.

If the issue is child safety, instead of increasing your ad revenue - then why not do the full story instead of ctrl-v-ing your way through it? 

This issue spurred the resurrection of zomgpwn! and we will be reporting on it as much as possible in the near future.  Stay tuned...

No one expects the Bruin Inquisition

Wow.  How freaked out are people these days?  Huh?  *eats a cheeto*

Yeah, we know you've seen the video already.  But Olbermann breaks it down with some good slo-mo and close-up action.  Plus, expert opinioning, courtesy of a Daily Bruin reporter with a black turtleneck and a cool, scholarly attitude toward the whole situation. 

Also we would be remiss if we didn't point out that regardless of the absolutely unsettling circumstances involved here, there's one thing about tazering that just always stays the same... the hilarious noises that never fail to emit copiously from the unfortunate human on the wrong end of the electrodes.