Out of our hands

People take care to shred their credit card bills and report their lost credit cards to prevent credit card fraud. When performing transactions online, it is imperative to ensure that the vendor site employs SSL and your PC secure to prevent hackers from capturing your credit card number.
However, fraud can still happen regardless of the myriad of cautionary actions that you take. The vendor may not have invested time, effort and $ into securing your credit card details resulting in data theft.

Latest threat trends

Update on the latest threat trends so shore up your defenses. Who can resist "free" stuff? But beware as it comes at a price. Spyware is becoming more and more prevalent so remember to scan your PCs regularly to get rid of this scourge. Ransomware is on the rise so don't be held ransom. Hackers are now moving away from targeting your OS to attacking your hardware and peripherals. Are you prepared?

Food galore

Had my fav prawn mee for lunch today. In case you need directions, head to Hong Lim Complex... second floor to find "The Old Stall". Ho eh. Remember to add their signature curry powder abundantly.

Played Bball today. Boo turned up and he was a monster on the court. I was all over him but he kept sinking turnaround fadeaway jumpers against me. Insane!!!
Headed to my fav Ipoh Hor Fun stall for dinner with the guys. Mmmmmmm. Then headed over to "The Ice Cream Gallery" for Bailey's Irish Cream Ice Cream... mmmmmmmm.

Bus man

My friend, Dor, always asks me for bus numbers to get to places. She remarked that "You the bus man mah! The best one I know!"... hahahhahaha. So anyone need bus numbers to take, call me.

I love NY!

Passed by "New York New York" today... reminds me of the Frank Sinatra song. April and I are interested in trying the food there. Anyone interested?
I love their sign and the background wallpaper with the Brooklyn Bridge. Did I mention that New York is one of my favourite cities in the world? I've been there twice already... its dirty and noisy but bustling with activity... my fantasy is to own an apartment there where I can go to on a yearly basis to chill out.

Brute force

I demonstrated how to crack passwords on machines that you have physical access to previously. This clip demonstrates how to brute force a remote machine that is running Terminal Services. You need to download a tool called Tsgrinder and get a decent password list. The tool will automatically bring up the login window to the remote server and start trying every single password in your password list until it gets the correct one. Powerful!!!

The high res version of this demo can be downloaded here.

Still don't understand

I still don't understand what's the real benefit of having a car when you always end up in a jam. I seldom drive but I was frustrated this evening when I made my way from my home to the airport to pick April up. The traffic was crawling from AYE along Keppel Rd till the Tampines exit along ECP as there was one accident and another vehicular breakdown. Insane.

I kid you not

This is not a prank... the person's name really is Xiao Bo!!! I was giggling throughout the web meeting. Haha.

Labyrinth

I went against my norm today and played at Labyrinth with Yudhi instead of my usual haunt, Pool Junction. The place is amazing. The ambiance, equipment and table is so much more superior. Take the table for example, its from Brunswick for crying out loud and its the professional type where you actually pick the balls out from each individual pocket. This is expected considering that they charge almost S$3 more per hour but I did have a blast though. The only downside is that they don't have Ice Tea or Coke Float like Pool Junction does.

Unbelievable

I witnessed with my own two eyes this morning... a cat wait for a car to stop at a Zebra crossing before it crossed the road. Amazing.

Boost

I was down and out almost the whole of last week with a bug. I was feeling slightly better today but still not at 100%. Decided to have peanut butter toast, eggs and tea to boost myself up.

Same old story... new season

Blackburn gets players sent off unjustly and lose again. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgghh. Hello EPL 06-07.

Ack!

I usually work approximately 42.5 hours a week except when I have to do the occassional OT which I try as much as possible to avoid. But I'm still "shattered"* when it comes to the weekend and I end up spending the whole weekend in a "coma". Don't understand how workers in Apple's China plant could work for 60 hours a week. That's insane and inhumane.

* Picked this word up from The Sushiman.

Under the weather

I've been sick the past few days... really feeling down even though I'm supposed to be happy being out of the office and attending a hacking course. The scene I witnessed this evening did cheer me up a little.

Spectrum

I like the way both the glass and CD dispersed light into a rainbow of beautiful colours.

Password cracking

I blogged about how easy it is to crack Windows passwords previously. Well... I finally figured out how to actually make a video of it. You see me restarting a Win XP machine with my Ophcrack CD in my CD-ROM drive. The machine is configured to boot from CD, enters into Ophcrack and it starts to crack the users' password... soon revealing the admin's password which is "password".
The high res version of this demo can be downloaded here.

Busy?

People around me are perpetually busy. I have nothing against work but I don't believe in being a workaholic. My workload has increased twofold since my colleague left resulting in me being OMO but I try my best to juggle my tasks between 8am-5.30pm. There are times when I will have to stay a little late but I restrict it to as few days as possible. Working late every single day is a bit too much.
I've stressed this many times before... there's more to life than OT. There are so many things that I want to do such as meeting up with friends, surfing the net, doing some hacking on my PC, listen to music, watch TV, go to the movies, play Bball...

Clarke Quay

Had time during lunch to walk around Clarke Quay. Nice to be away from AMK for awhile.

On course

I'm attending the SANS SEC504 course this week. There are a lot of uber geeks in the same class. Check out this guy with his Mac laptop loaded with Win XP. Ironic.
The trainer covered mainly theory yesterday with some basic introduction to VMware and Linux. Can't wait for the real heavy duty hacking to start.

Ugly people

No... I am not referring to appearances but people's character. I see these type of people daily at work and every Sunday during bball. Why did God put these people on this earth to put people off? I continually ask this question but have yet to find the answer.

Another guest photographer

April took this in Raffles Place today as it was a working day for her. Funky.

God's campaign

Came across a Powerpoint presentation with slogans from a campaign run by the Church of Singapore. I think DS will like this particular one.
"Let's meet at my house Sunday before the game."
- God
See you tomorrow Dude.

Postcards

Don't you just love those free postcards? I do... check out this one that I just got. Its an advertisement from MDA calling for participants in animation projects. Interested?

Made in Singapore

I'm Singaporean through and through... so much so that I even have a "Made in Singapore" label on the back of my neck. Haha!!!

Funny

Need I say more?

Thank you for smoking

I appreciate the fact that the government is trying to make Singapore a better place for non-smokers. However, I disagree with the way that they went about it. They made it law that eateries be non-smoking areas but allowed owners to designate smoking areas. Take my favourite Ipoh Hor Fun stall as an example... they allocated a few tables as smoking tables but my beef with this arrangement is that the smoking tables are not at the corner of the coffee shop but in the middle of the entire row of tables. So there I was... sitting next to the smoking table with the guy puffing away and I was inhaling tons of smoke. Did I notice any difference before and after the new law? Nope!!!

Its been awhile

Haven't been to a BBQ in awhile. Invited some friends over to my place and had a blast. April marinated the food for us and the beef kebabs were amazing!!! Mmmmmmm. Check out the psychedelic pic. It's so nice to get a few friends together with everyone being busy and all. Hope its not too long till our next gathering.

Feels like a Monday

Back to work... but what a way to start the day with tasty Nasi Lemak and Lime juice. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Had Carl's Jr for dinner. Man... after savouring their burgers, they make McDonald's pale in comparison. We Chinese have a saying... "One Heaven, one Earth".

Happy 41st Birthday Singapore!!!

As always, I'm proud to be Singaporean. Glad that its a public holiday becoz its been awhile since I had a day off. Got out of bed at 2+ and headed to McDonald's for lunch. Helped my neighbour return their shopping cart ;p Got a National Day gift from Singtel... they had guys giving out popcorn in my neighbourhood. Funny.

The portions at Mac's keep shrinking even though their prices keep going up with inflation. Ridiculous!!! My McSpicy burger's bun was the size of a hamburger bun... it used to be the same size as a Big Mac's bun.
Its strange how both Blogger and Friendster scheduled maintenance of their servers on the same day. Wonder if its a coincidence because M$ released new critical patches today. Hmmmm... Blogger and Friendster using Windows servers? Patch your PCs people. *groan*
Another glorious sunset today. Beautiful*!!!

* The verdict is out. My digicam is better than my mobile based on these two pictures.

A day in the CBD

Spent the whole day in the CBD today. Had lunch with Geo and had the most amazing Wanton mee ever!!! Found the stall along Telok Ayer St... will definately return there soon for more. Check out the view from PWC Building.

Vista cracked

M$ continually markets Vista as its most secure OS to date but a Singapore-based researcher found a way to bypass Vista's highly touted security. Cool.

Reflection

I like the way the glass facade captures the reflection of the sky and clouds.

A time to reflect

Singapore's 41st birthday is in two days time. It is nice to have a day off but it is also a time to be thankful for what we have. How many countries could have made the progress that we have made in the same time frame?
The Sushiman once asked why Singapore and Malaysia are always squabbling? I explained to him that it could be traced back to that time when Malaysia threw us out of the Federation and left us to our own devices to sink or float. This article aptly explains how this animosity arose.

Exploits

Testing is part and parcel of a security professional's life. In order to combat the baddies, we have to actually test out exploits. Besides being a necessity, successfully exploiting a vulnerability is a real rush! Made video clips* of me exploiting the RealVNC Server authentication bypass vulnerability using a modified VNC Viewer written by Blacksecurity and another using Metasploit.
I installed a virtual machine running Win XP to simulate a remote PC. It has a vulnerable version of RealVNC Server software running for me to exploit. I use Nmap to identify that v4.x is running on that "remote" machine. I successfully logged onto that server using the VNC Viewer software after entering the user password. I later use a modified version of the VNC Viewer software by Blacksecurity to gain remote access to the vulnerable machine without authenticating myself.

I compromise the same vulnerability by launching the exploit provided with Metasploit from another virtual machine running BackTrack.

Damn shiok.

* I suggest downloading the clips and viewing them on your PC. Found it hard to view them from my browser.

I want to believe

New signing, Benni McCarthy, has made a declaration that he wants to help Rovers secure fourth place in the EPL this coming season. I want to believe as a die-hard fan but I have to be honest and state that I doubt that fourth place is a realistic goal. I'm not sure if we can replicate the fourth placing we achieved the past season. I will be satisfied if we avoid relegation.
I still wish the team and McCarthy success this season.

New title

Credit for this blog's title goes to Anaconda and The Sushiman. Anaconda remarked that I live a hedonistic lifestyle after reading my blog. His comment inspired the original title "The Hedonistic Man". The Sushiman on the other hand labelled me as a maverick because I'm always rebelling against the establishment.
Update: I changed the title from "The Hedonistic Maverick" back to my original title becoz it never really stuck.

The battle rages on

The mobile phone is attempting to be THE all-in-one device and it's hard nowadays to find a new mobile that does not come with a built-in camera. I have a 2 mega-pixel N70 and a 2 mega-pixel digital camera... I decided to perform a litmus test by taking pics of the same place using both devices. Can you tell the difference? The first two pics were taken with my mobile and the last two with my cam. Which is better?

The colour captured by the digicam is better but the clouds are more obvious in the pics taken with my mobile.

Home-cooked food

Been awhile since I ate at home... April cooked Rosti for me and I have to say that its better than Marche's. Mmmmmmmm. Talking about Marche... did they fold?

Illumination

Had a 7.30am meeting this morning which was why I was at the office early today. Was rewarded with this amazing sight.

Mixed grill

Had mixed grill for dinner last night. Not bad... its well presented and tasty. Filling? Not really.

IM sniffing

Dun know about you guys... but it would piss me off if someone was intercepting my IM messages meant for my friends. If you want to prevent this, read this.

I looooooooooooooove security!!!

I'm such a uber geek... hahahahahahaha. I was reminiscing how Trinity used Nmap* in "The Matrix Reloaded". Very very authentic... none of that garbage animation they use to illustrate hacking like in "Swordfish". ACK!!!
Here's so Trinity-inspired Nmap banners. Cool. Haha.





* Must-have tool in your arsenal.