bc-programming.com

The scourge of the internet, really. Personally, I call them script kiddies. Essentially; they use other peoples scripts to “DoS” a website. A number of fine specimens can easily be found on youtube. For example, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVfEoBPV4Nc. What makes this particular example even funnier is that they don’t even understand what is happening, AND they don’t understand why they are so stupid to even try.

Basically, there are two levels of “hacker” now, 99.9% of them are really just script kiddies, who can hardly even understand Batch files, let alone perl. They copy and use scripts (such as the posted youtube video’s kiddie) created by the 0.1%. What makes it all the more interesting is the 0.1% people often are unaware of their code being used this way.

In either case, a DoS attack is so simplistic to the very core that any cheap 20$ router at the local wal-mart can block it; and any sufficiently equipped server can deal with the extra load from a single PC quite easily.

In this particular example, the first web-site mr.kiddie tried was obviously set to reject constant HTTP get requests. I mean- it’s not too hard to mechanically filter out GET requests that come within, say, a second of each other for the same page, and even the most basic server software implements this.

What happened to the second, less developed (apparently) site simply doesn’t have basic safeguards in place, perhaps because they live in a optimistic world where teenagers go out and get jobs instead of sitting on their asses all afternoon trying to take credit for copy-pasting code from other sources in programming languages they only pretend to know in order to take down some site that nobody will miss for the 10 seconds they manage to bring it down, and then they get called to dinner, where their veteran father yells at them for being so god damned lazy and for not mowing the lawn, to which the “experienced hacker” responds, “you’ll be sorry, I’m gonna start the next M$, and you will be begging for dollaz from me pops” and then he get’s grounded.

The “hacker”… or more precisely, the “script kiddie” culture is really quite simple, much like the social structure of one-celled organisms. You have the fat hairy parameciums, and then you have everybody else. their interactions with one another generally involve using made up english words, like “pwned”, and of course replacing as many of the letter s with z’s in a desperate attempt to look cool. Additionally, conversations often just involve them making stuff up.

“Hey, dawg, I just haxxored Oracle, d00d”

“Oh yeah, well I’ve been buyin stuff off ebay for free using my l33t skills”

ad infinitum. Even early on it’s absurd; I mean, my grandmother could hack an Oracle server with two toothpicks and a ceramic bowl, it’s really that easy, Hell, my second cousins guinea pig was able to drop a few tables from one of their badly administered database servers, but that’s not the point.

You know what? I’ve spent a good 5 years trying to shrug this shit off but I’ve grown sick and tired of putting up with arrogant, know it all little shits whose knowledge could be summarized on the head of a pin. I’m SICK of hearing about how “talented” little Billy is, and then looking at the code only to mistakenly believe little billy designed his code to emulate that mysterious sack of mould in the back of my fridge. Why do I hate this so much? Do I need a really good reason to hate it? really? because honestly I think the problem damn near hates itself, in a manner of speaking.

To make things worse, not only is little Billy a arrogant little prick, but his own ego is fed by his own family members, “Oh, little billy is a genius! He found the file menu in Word, He’s gonna be the next bill gates!” No, Uncle Tom, Billy Didn’t find the fucking file menu, your just too retarded to see whats right in front of you. Do I get points for pointing out a lawn chair for you to sit in when your sitting in it? No, I don’t, and I really don’t think billy should be proud of himself for pointing out the obvious, instead he should feel pity for somebody so stupid they cannot understand a basic UI and then evangelize the person who comes to point out the obvious.

The problem with the entire thing is, either they “have it” or they don’t, and the longer they fester, with no real skills, seated on their high pedestal because they mistakenly believe that employers will come to them after they barely graduate from high school, because of that awesome space shooter program they made in Visual Basic 2.0 and released on a shoddy geocities web site. Is the  longer they don’t gain any skills whatsoever, and the higher the chances that they will be struck down, working as a custodian in their local elementary school. Having been forced to realize that they aren’t bloody geniuses, that copy-pasting other peoples code is plagiarism, not “leet skills” and that they really, really, really, have a lot more respect for their old schools custodian.

Another issue- and this applies globally to programmers,software developers and those that want to pretend they are one of those two, is that they mistakenly believe they have reached a “plateau of greatness” or skill; No programmer, no matter how much experience, cannot learn something new; and it’s far too common that you have people, fresh out of college, or high school, or whatever, that think that because they read the programmers guide included with Visual basic 2.0 that they can crank out AJAX applications; this simply is not the case. It’s not a plateau- it’s a group of infinitely rising mesas, and joy of programming comes from climbing those mesas, every once in a while looking back, and realizing just how far you’ve come; just remember to do one thing before you start feeling satisfied; look up, and realize just how far you have to go.

Over the years, many different games have been published. many different genres explored. People think games have gotten worse over the years, but really, that is simply not true. Parents are simply paying attention now, whereas before they kind of used the Nintendo as a baby-sitting tool (“dammit kids, go play your tendo, or whatever the flip you call that thing”…. “dad, that’s a VCR…”) now they are actually paying attention to what their kids play, the “violence” and “nudity” they expose them too. I of course put those in quotes because seeing red particles come out of a polygon hardly consists of violence to me. And I mean, really, they might have improved the whole modelling concept, but I’m afraid that my experience has taught me hard lessons that game characters often lack any sort of anatomical correctness. In the case of kirby I imagine this is really for the better, last thing we need is more confusion over what the hell he is. As he… it, whatever stands now, he’s a giant pink testicle that happens to be able to swallow and eat other enemies and absorb their powers. Sorry, did I say testicle? yeah, I meant balloon. Anyway, imagine him anatomically correct. little pink member flappin around as he flies through the air. he does littles spins with his hammer weapon and his little doodle slaps the enemy in the face… hmm, maybe it’s better the way it is.

Anyway, as I was saying, the worst offender for me has been The Zelda Series, breaking RULE after RULE. I mean, not even ten seconds into the game, and your encountered with this screen:

There are FAR too many rules being broken here. I mean, first, you don’t just barge into some old guys cave. you knock, I mean, for badger’s sake, what if he was naked or something. Secondly, you NEVER accept wood from some old guy. It never turns out well. And Lastly, WTF are the flames here? are we encouraging children to light balls of fire in their bedrooms? NO, this is NOT SUITABLE for children. they are far too damn impressionable, they might start walking around talking to people in badly translated two line broken english, like “give me the tomato for the old man” or “sign permission slip for go on field trip” or something stupid like that. NO! not right at ALL.

And then we have the old man on the mountaintop. I was too lazy to go that far into the game, but basically he gives you a little parchment and says “give this to the old woman”. There is no statement of what is ON the paper, and most people might assume it’s a recipe or some shit. But no, I’m almost certain it’s a picture of somebody nekkid. it always is. Sure, there are little lines on the side of the parchment implying text, but those are just stink lines from the actual subject. And His vague suggestion “the old woman” Like, for the love of scented candles woman, there are like 10 or 20 old men living in caves in this god forsaken shit-hole of hyrule, which cat-snuffing old man do you want me to give it too? Oh, wait, let me guess you old liver-spot ridden old dustbag, it’s the one wearing red. well they all wear red, god damn it.

And then you go into a cave and the bastards are all, “I’ll take 10 rupees for the door repair” and it’s like, WTF, that wasn’t a door, it was a god damn cliff wall, you smelly old weirdo, I’m LOOKING FOR TREASURE. If you don’t have treasure, just tell me you don’t. What the assweasel do you want 10 rupees for, I mean, for the love of all marsupials, you poke the god damn roof and the rocks tumble back down, there, and your door is repaired, you miserly old coot.

And those damn moblins in the caves, all “It’s a secret to everybody”, stop telling me to shush and get the hell outside and start shooting arrows out your belly like the rest of your kind, you lazy bastard. Get a god damn job. Bloody moblins, always “oh, it’s a secret, here, have some rupees” Like, god dammit moblin, I know these rupees are either from drug money or from your pimping, But I’ll be damned if I’m going to refuse rupees.

And then we have the graveyard. here, you touch a gravestone, and a ghost appears. How many young, impressionable children do you think saw this and went to a graveyard and tried to summon ghosts? A bloody lot of the little buggers, that’s how many, And you can be damn sure at least 14 of the little pukes became zombies, It’s mathematically proven via a number of statistical models that kids+graveyard =… well, actually, nobody really knows what it equals, but it sure as hell cannot equal chocolate cake, if that’s what your thinking.

If your thinking that only the first zelda is an offender, well, you’d be wrong.

What do you see wrong with this picture? Looks innocent enough. BUT! It’s important to realize that people, and fire dragons, lock their god damn doors for a reason. What if you were to catch them nekkid or something? huh? I mean, for god’s sake, don’t bosses get a little god damn privacy? anybody ever think, “shit, you know, maybe these bosses really just want to be left alone” they evidently don’t WANT to fight you, or there would be a huge sign and the door wouldn’t be locked and the key hidden in an ornate treasure chest halfway across the dungeon.

And half the time, the boss doesn’t even really do anything to provoke you- you just, for example, start smashing them in the head with a bloody sledgehammer. does THIS give a good impression to kids? Smash things with a sledgehammer first, ask questions later. NO! they are too impressionable!

As you can see above- the dragon may LOOK fearsome, but you can see that look in his eye- you know, the one that says, “where the flip are my god damn SMOKES! who took my smokes! I don’t need a freakin lighter, my hair is made of fire for Possum’s sake, but if I don’t get my smokes I’m gonna get really tempermental” you really think smashing it’s face with a sledgehammer will make it feel any better? I mean, he just quit cold turkey, have you ANY idea what that’s like? just look at the poor guy. He has the look of somebody who just quit smoking, finished there coffee, and now REALLY wants a cigarette, but can’t have one. a look of pure helplessness. and we are just supposed to smash the c-button and smush his face with a hammer? No, actually we’re supposed to do that then cut up his face with a sword, too.

Lately, I’ve heard a lot of talk about “Registry Boosters” and “PC speeder upper’s” and fix-it programs. They make big claims, and it seems that a lot of their customers refuse to accept that they paid for something that was either a scam or completely useless.

I have decided to put some of these programs to the test. The idea is simple; under various conditions, run the program “scan”- probably watching the program with process monitor. Then ensure everything works properly.

The test I have decided on so far will use a VMWare Workstation Guest OS, namely, XP Pro.

For each program I wish to test, I will start with a CLEAN install of the XP SP3 OS.

First, I will run the program right away- right after the clean install. Then, after another clean install (I will probably make a clean install Image) I install a number of common applications; MS Office XP, Visual Studio, and a few freeware programs such as IMGBurn. Then I will run the “booster” again. Making sure to test each program afterwards.

Each run will be monitored with Process Monitor; I’ve found that some of these “Scam” programs hardly access the registry at all, and simply make a claims of bad entries. Obviously, these are complete scams. There are also programs that do very little but are purported to make the PC much faster, a claim that I aim to disprove based on the fact that it simply doesn’t make sense. IF it does make the PC faster it is not in the order reported and likely has a few trade-offs that either aren’t reported or simply aren’t known.

I am uncertain what programs I will test with this method; suggestions are welcome. It won’t be hard to develop a list, however, through a quick web search. Also, I aim to put the copy of System Mechanic andFix-it Utilities I have to work, too. See just how “comprehensive” these utilities really are.

When first encountering a x64 based system running windows, one of the first questions posed is often, “what is C:\program files (x86)?” The simple response is that it is the equivalent of Program files on 32-bit systems; that is, 32-bit program files are installed there. This is true; but this is far from the only difference between the two systems and their file systems.

There is, however, further redirection within both other folders as well as The registry.

For example, the “real” %systemroot%\system32 folder actually stores the x64 system files; the 32-bit files are stored in %systemroot%\syswow64. However, when a 32-bit application access this system32, Windows automatically redirects all requests to the syswow64 folder, so accessing, say, “C:\windows\system32\file.txt” is actually accessing C:\windows\syswow64\file.txt. This includes any file operation at all. creation, editing, etc. there are a few folders exempt from this redirection- that is, they are not redirected. these folders include %windir%\system32\catroot,windir%\system32\catroot2,%windir%\system32\driversstore (this folder is redirected on all pre-windows 7 systems),%windir%\system32\drivers\etc,%windir%\system32\logfiles,%windir%\system32\spool. There are a few other features, for example, running “C:\windows\regedit.exe” from a 32-bit program will in fact run the program from C:\windows\syswow64\regedit.exe.

An additional feature is that a 32-bit program can access the 64-bit folder, Vista adds a “sysnative” alias folder in the windows folder, by accessing C:\windows\sysnative instead of C:\windows\system32, one gains access to the real C:\windows\system32 folder rather then being redirected to C:\windows\syswow64. The caveat of this feature is that most programs have validations before they accept a filename; since sysnative is not an actual folder but rather an alias used by the redirector, many validations (including the standard Open/Save dialog) can fail, meaning that one cannot “force” the access to a specific file. the main purpose is for use by the application for various reasons, not so users can access files within the folder from 32-bit applications.

The registry posesses redirection as well; the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive on x64 systems contains a key called “Wow6432node”, when a 32-bit program accesses, for example, “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\company\app”, they are in fact accessing “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Wow6432node\company\app”- basically, it separates 32-bit machine-specific data from 64-bit data. The only caveat is that, unlike the file system redirections, registry accesses are “mirrored” across the two; for example, COM classes are stored in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\classes. when either HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\classes or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\wow6432node\classes are have keys within changed, the change is reflected to the other location.

Additionally, certain 32-bit compiled applications can be given special treatment; if the image file (exe,dll, ocx) has the IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE flag set, wow64 (the windows 32 on windows 64 emulation layer) gives it a 4GB user-mode address space, whereas with a 32-bit system it would be given a 2GB user mode address space. the flag is required, rather then being the default behaviour, because such large addresses may not have been expected when the program was written; therefore, by adding the compiler flag, you are telling windows “yes, I understand and am able to deal with the larger address space in my program”. It doesn’t actually do anything to the program itself, just changes how windows deals it memory.

another special-case is with regard to program installers for some older 32-bit programs. Many such programs used a stub 16-bit windows 3.1 program to determine the windows version, and then, launch the 32-bit installer if possible. Since 64-bit windows cannot run 16-bit applications, Microsoft decided to hack about a little fix; the followint 16-bit installer technologies have 64-bit equivalents that will be launched instead:

Microsoft Setup for Windows 1.2

Microsoft Setup for Windows 2.6

Microsoft Setup for Windows 3.0

Microsoft Setup for Windows 3.01

InstallShield 5.x

the list of such redirections can be found in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NtVdm64, the 64-bit equivalents are found in Syswow64.

For the most part, these changes make using a 64-bit operating system nearly indistiguishable from using it’s 32-bit equivalent; windows itself bears the brunt of the change, and the application developers pick up a little of the tail-end of it.