The so called Google Redirect Virus

November 11th, 2010

In the past two weeks I have been wrestling with the so called “Google Redirect Virus’. Yes you can Google this phrase and find many blogs of people in the same situation. All these blogs talk about how to remove this in Windows. But I am Linux guy. How did this thing get in my Ubuntu Linux?

Well! I do think the whole thing started with me. I do have computers here that are running Windows and are on the Internet. I just recently installed an anti-virus software and scanned the system. It found 255 cookies related to web browsing.

What does this virus or malware look like? if you search on your website, cast-cebu.org, then click on the link, you get redirected to a completely different site. The mouseover link shows a very long URL with many parameters. Other sites have a direct URL to the site. I search for many days on this Google redirect thing and find no solution that makes sence. They all say the problem is on my computer. Lets look at the evidence.

1. Different search engines show the same behavior.
2. Different browsers show the same behavior.
3. Different computers show the same behavior.
4. Different sites show Different behavior. For me, my site is infected, others are not.

The problem has nothing to do with Google. This is not the Google Redirect Virus. All the other search engines exhibit the same behavior. Nothing to do with my computer or browser. So the problem must be else ware. Maybe my website host, a dns server, my website or my local router.

I do have a dhcp(Dynamic Host Configuration Program) server and DNS(Dynamic Name Server) router installed on my Linux box. I need this because I host a local Dynamic IP website. URL http://tetra-wonderland.dlinkddns.com I use this to communicate to my customers and try out new programs I write. Anyway I checked this all out looking for recent changes via a changed date codes on the files. Found nothing. My connection to the Internet is via a cable modem. The modem has no configurations to set. I strike out there. Going further back in the chain, I change the my DNS default Internet name server. The problem is still there. Only one more thing to check, my site. But what could be the malware on my site and how would it get there?

I now go back to Google and search on ‘hosted website malware’. I run into a post that explains a malware that is encoded into all php files. This is code at the beginning of each <?php tag. It looks something like this ‘eval(base64_decode’(Google this phrase). It is then followed by a long list of characters that make on sense. Yes! I found the code string in all my site PHP files. Now I download the complete website. I manuals edit each PHP file with Bluefish and removed the malicius code. That fixed the problem, but is it the final cure? How do I know that I got all files clean.

Today I Google more about removing the eval malware and find web site you can pay to remove malware. Sites with Linux code to auto remove the code string and sites to check if you are infected. I now think I have learned enough that I am smarter than the bad guys that infected my site. Mmmm! Can I reserve my judgment on that statement. I may want to change it later. I still need to know is how the perpetrators got into my website?

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Why am I a Comedian?

September 17th, 2010

As I get older I see myself as a comedian. Things just pop into my head when someone speaks to me. Is this part of my “Turn our brain off” theory? Or just a sign of old age, a return to my childhood. Hopefully I can get some answers by writing this blog.

This thing all started when I discovered that I have a right brain. The side of me that does not think. I have wrote several blogs about this subject. Most of them center on how to be an innovator and create new things.

See:

1. My Brain as a Innovator:

2. Turn Your Brain Off:

OK! Time for some recent stories where I make a fool of myself. I am having breakfast at a local restaurant. The waiter is very attentive and asking all kinds of questions. How was you day? Can I get you anything? Can I get you something to drink?

Of course my answer to “How are you?” is, “I feel terrible today”. This just happened to me today. I’m at Macy’s waiting for two woman to finish looking at womans stuff. The attendant ask me how are you? And I answer her, “This is one of my worst days, I feel miserable”. Her response to me is “You are the first person ever to tell me they are measurable”. Well think of it, I’m just waiting around in the woman’s department while my wife and friend spend hours just looking at things. Am I suppose to be happy?

If someone ask me “Did you find everything you were looking for?”. Of course I’m going to answer. “I was looking money but I didn’t find any”. They always laugh and respond, “ We don’t carry that product.” or “If you find some let me know.”

Getting back to our restaurant story, I’m about to pay the check and there is a sign that reads “Kids Eat Free”. I ask the cashier if she would define the word “Kids”. Why would I need to do that? Well I’m a kid by my own definition and I should qualify for a free meal. I get a scowling look and some kind of a comment that you have to under 10 years old. Mmm! Isn’t that age discrimination?
I’m at a yard sale and the owner of the house was selling a book that she wrote about the ten things an artist should know. In my mind I think “Ahh! Heres a person who has no left brain.” I make the comment, All an artist needs to know is don’t think, just let it flow. Then I make the stupid mistake that artist don’t have a left logical brain. That means that art is a no brainier. Right? My conclusion is that you can’t tell a person with no logical brain to turn it off. If they’ve never had one, how can you turn it off? Anyway the conversation ends and we are all laughing and having fun.

The question is, “Where is all this stuff coming from that just pops into my head?” It comes from my right brain. I’m not thinking so I’m free to create or innovate. See: “My Brain as an Innovator” and See: “Turn Your brain off.” Or another reason this could be happening is that in my old age, I don’t have a thinking brain anymore. I’ve lost it and I have returned to my second childhood.

Now we know that can’t be the answer. I was to bashful to even open my mouth when I was a kid. I was a thinker not a talker. It must be that as I get older I become more intelligent. I have learned to turn my thinking brain off and turn my talking brain on. Yep! That’s it. Now my next move is that I’m going to run for Governor of Arizona or my be the Mayor of Phoenix. We need a good politician that can think before they talk.

My platform is:
1. There is no absolute true in the world, and that is absolutely true.
2. Go for a walk out doors. Explore a new environment.
3. Play computer games. Freecell keeps my intuitive brain working.
4. Do volunteer work. A great thing to do to get the runners high.
5. You can not listen if you talk.
6. And the most important. Turn your brain off.

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The First Personal Computer in the World

June 12th, 2010

I use to own and operate a General Electric 225 main frame computer. It was my first personal computer I have owned. Yes, personal computer because I was the only user. My second personal computer I owned was a GE 645.  More on that story in a later blog.

Part of this story is why I moved to Phoenix. I was living in Richmond Indiana and work as an engineering job for a defence job. There I met Bill Eaton. He later quit his job and joined the Air Force and was stationed at Luke Air Force base in Arizona. The big attraction was a surplus store that tore down old GE computer main frames and sold all the parts to retail customers.

Today the store is still doing business here in Phoenix. It was then (1970′s) and is now (2010)  called “Apache Reclamation”. It is no longer owned or run by General Electric but is privately owned.

Another buyer that was always at the store was Ray Ebbing. He was buying wholesale lots of new components (capacitors, resistors, transistors or integrated circuits). We made a partnership and expanded our buying in to gold scrape. We would buy circuit boards and main frame back panels. They were just covered with gold.

Well sometimes the warehouse was so full of old computers, waiting to be torn down, that the management would just sell the whole computer. Next time you could buy a printer or card punch. Well I ended up with a complete GE225 and all its peripherals, manuals, tapes and operating system.  It was easy to fix, because I had tons of circuit boards.

What did I do with this thing? Err Personal Computer. Nothing. Just got is running to see the lights blink. Well I did get to do something with it and General Electric was my customer. I work for a company in Salt Lake City who got a contract to install a DSU167 system on the GE225 system. The DSU167 ran on the GE425 mainframe. I was to replace a DSU204 with the DSU167.

The DSU204 was a 10 plater single actuator per plater. The DSU167 was a 10 plater removable disk cartridge. The big advantage was that you could move the actuator once and get 10 tracks. The DSU204 you moved each actuator and got 1 track. For more information on the GE167 removable disk system visit http://home.the-wire.com/~mwilson/his/DSS167.html

The problem was solved by converting the GE400 peripheral interface into the GE200 interface. This was not that hard to do because both interfaces were very similar. I added about 20 GE400 cards to the DSU167 controller so I could plug the GE225 IO Controller to the GE167 Controller.

We ship the converted DSU167 to Syracuse New York and I followed to install the system. Things went well and I went home. Things were working fine. The only feedback I got was this story.

A user came in just after we got the thing installed and working. He had a job that required input from a card reader. He inputs the cards, said his hello to the operators and and got ready to leave and the printer started to make noise. He expected to comeback in 30 minutes and get the printout, but after only 3 minutes the job was printing out. The big advantage is the single head actuator per track for the DSU104 verse  the DSU167 10 head actuator per track.

Well I just have this last statement to make before I conclude. I mentioned in the first paragraph that I was the only user for the my GE225 computer, my personal computer. Mmmm! that makes me the first owner of a personal computer in the world. Still wish I still had this computer in my museum, but you know what happened to it. It was tore up for gold scrape. Well the only thing left I have left is the core memory stacks. There is no gold in wire and ferrite cores.

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Our Move to Phoenix Arizona – Home Again

December 2nd, 2009

While I’m back home again to Phoenix Arizona. It’s been a while since I lived here. Ahh! Fifteen years in the Philippines and things have changed or is it me that is just getting set in my ways. Mmmm! That means that I’m getting old. I think I will deny that , I’m not getting old.

Well let me tell my story and I will let you decide. I came to Phoenix to find an intelligent being. I just move from a farm town in California. I needed a job in information technology. The story begins when we arrive and we need an apartment to move into. There are lots of apartments for rent and they are all running specials to attract renters. Our first stop was at Timber Trees Apartments. We were rejected because my credit score was not high enough compared to my income. Well I got into an argument about how stupid credit scores are. We will talk about that in a different blog.

Well we got moved in and now we need a phone and Internet connection. We walk to a nearby mall (MetroCenter) and stop at the Quest kiosk. We sign up and they make a mistake on the apartment number. The say they will change it. We come back the next day, because “we” made a mistake on the apartment address. We are greeted by a new attendant. I sense that he is not to responsive to my request. He changes the install address and ask me if that is all I need. I answer yes. He then says that the billing address is still the original. I say we need to change that also. I then here the comment. “You told me that we are done and nothing more needs to be changed”. I say “ The Install address and the billing address need to be the same”. I again hear the comment “You told me we are done”. I hear this four or five times. In a louder voice I say “I am the customer. You are the dog and I am the master”.

The end of this story ends with the guy calling mall security. They come and talk to me. They are very accommodating and treat me like a customer. We go to the nearby mall customer service desk and I’m ask to fill out a customer complaint against the kiosk. The security officers are friendly and I thank them and continue wonder around the mall.

In our second week in Phoenix I attend a job fair sponsored by the local newspaper. I finally get to meet a lot of intelligent beings. Yes, they are the same age I am and they dress not to look stupid (long dress pants and button shirts, some in full suit and ties). Of course these are all men and no ladies. I find out that represented companies are looking for people that are willing to relocate. The local companies are looking for workers to work in the local defense industry. Well I strike out and my introduction the the intelligent class is a failure.

Our next venture is to ride the local bus and light rail system here in Phoenix. This is a first time experience for me. We buy an all day reduced pass( available for senor citizens). We get the transit schedule and route maps, and we are off on our adventure. We go from MetroCenter mall to Arizona Mills Mall. About a 50 minute bus ride at 3 pm in the afternoon. The bus fills up with students from the local schools and it’s packed and noisy. We get to Baseline Road and transfer to an east/west bus. We arrive at Arizona Mills at about 5 pm and it starting to get dark. We can stay and we move on in our adventure.

We decide to go to the light rail station in Tempe. Arriving a the station, the train is is there and filling with passengers. We are on the wrong side of the tracks and cross the tracks. There is a big sign that says “Do Not Cross The Tracks”. We board the train and we are off on my first train ride in Phoenix. Oh Oh! We didn’t pay. We ask a rider who will swipe our day ticket. Mmm! Seems we bypassed the swipe robot at the correct way to enter to waiting area. The train ride is a very pleasant and we are soon at the end of the line. We get off and two more bus rides and we are home. It’s 8pm, a five hour adventure in the world of mass transit.

My take on my first month in Phoenix

Well I’ve been home here in Phoenix for a month. My experience has been very enlightening and one of my stories to tell when I’m 80 years old. What have I learned?

I’ve been in Phoenix the last month with the old, the young, the disabled, the job seekers and the unemployed. This is what I have found. There is a lot of conflict among these groups. The old is still looking for jobs and are in conflict with the new graduates. The young are in conflict there peers and race is a major factor in this conflict. To be unemployed is very stressful. A lot of unemployed and disabled are riding the bus. The riders on the bus were arguing with fellow passengers or on the cell phone arguing. Public arguments has been very my dominant experience here in Phoenix.

My second take on my return to Phoenix is the tension between the different groups. Tension between races and income class come to the forefront of my mind. My conflict with Quest was race related but I do have to confess that my dog statement did not help. My defense there is that I said “You are the dog” and not “You are a dog”. A possible mix up there. See my blog on “The Dog Theory of Marketing”.

My last take on my return to Phoenix is the robots you talk to when you call a business. Ahh! This one of the reasons I left Phoenix in the first place. Nothing has changed here. Well that’s not true. I have have come back to even a worse thing. Now when you visit a business, the answer to your question is “It’s on the Internet”. Yikes! That’s the same answer I got from my professor 50 years ago. “Read the Manual, It’s in the library.” See my blog “Read the Manual”.

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Theory of Faith Chapter 2

August 23rd, 2009

Chapter 2

This brings up another point in my theory of faith. The above sentence could have been “God provides but you have to put your nuts away for the winter. Is God nature? Is he the trees, the mountains, the animals, the planet, the sun and the universe? Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The rational point of view would be that this was a conversion from energy to mass. Einstein’s theory E = mc squared.

I now ask the question. Can you substitute the word “Universe” for the word “God” in the Bible? Well not for the first verse. God must have existed to to be the prime mover in the creation. But did the all powerful God, capable of all things, create a rock so heavy that he could not lift it. I think yes. God is dead. Err I mean God was converted to matter or the “Universe”. We still can communicate with God, but he is the trees, the animals and even us humans. We are God.

Making the above statement, I now have a lot of explaining to do. You know that I am a runner and not a swimmer. I come from the forest. I am a protestant and a need to form a pack or a team. To catch the deer for food you have to work together. These are some of the basic things in the change from a Catholic belief to a Presbyterian belief. A need for a more direct connection to God and not thought a hierarchy of Priest and Bishops.

With this argument I am taking man out of the loop of faith. Man is the dog and not the master.(see dog marketing theory)

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Read the Manual

August 5th, 2009

The theme of this months newsletter has been more of a “RTM” tutorial then about Java code. I have a long history of the “RTM” way of learning new technology. Of course it started with my Father. Although he was a dairy farmer, he always had an interest in radios. He had taken a correspondence course from “Radio Institute” in Chicago. Illinois. A complete set of manuals in radio repair was part of me before I was even born.

The local home town library always had a copy of the “ARRL – Radio Amateurs Handbook”. Did I become a radio amateur? No. Something about you had to be able to send and receive the “Morse Code” with some proficiency.

In college, the professors were always giving you programming projects. I had one professor who suggested that this project could be done very easily in Fortran. “But professor I don’t know any Fortran.” The answer, “ The book is in the library, Read It.”

Now a small story from my recent history, instead of my ancient past. The local book story has a nice lady that is in charge all the computer books. You go in there and you often find her sitting on a big stack of books. Of course there is no chairs to set on in a Philippine book store. I have noticed one thing. She does get smarter every time I see her. In college the idea was to put the book under your pillow and sleep on it. Setting on the book to learn its content is new to me.

Even more recently I read an article from the online New York Times. The piece start out about how the youth of today are TV and game junkies. The youth only have an attention span of three seconds. The text then turned to a comparison between the movie “The Hulk” and the latest book from the “Harry Potter” episodes. The comparison was made on the sales volume and gross income.

The opening one day book sales of “Harry Potter” was estimated at $100 million. The opening weekend of “The Hulk” movie was $62 million. Since they opened on the same weekend the movie attendants declined. The authors comment was “… they sat down and read the book perhaps explaining … the decreasing ticket sales of the movie. (Another likely factor: the movie itself.)”.

A good reading habit is a life long source for new ideas and intellectual development. Maybe we should give more credit to our youth for choosing value over a quick multimedia scheme for our leisure hours.

All of this points out that there was never any teacher for the thing I was interested in. If your at the head of the technology curve, your it. You are the only person at the top of the mountain, there is only room for one at the top.

A quote from the root “HTML is a table. A Server is a script.”. Now this means I need to do more RTM (Read the Manual). I just can’t decide, would I learn more if I stuck the book under my pillow or if I sat on it? I guess it depends which end is closest to the brain.

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Object Containers

August 5th, 2009

This reminds me of a true life story that happened to me only a few month ago. I have the habit of putting things somewhere and then forgetting where I put it.

Of course my original thinking is that someone walked off with it or just borrowed it and forgot to return it. I have to be very careful about making false accusations. Ninety nine times out of a hundred it is me that is in error.

The story is that I have some antique calculators and digital cameras (yes antique digital camera). NJ the 5 year old boy that was staying with me was playing with them as if they were his toys. I thought I place the on top of the bookcase where they are display as a museum peace. The next day they where gone I couldn’t find them.

I look for them for about 6 months and my only conclusion was that they were stolen by some of my students. Well guess what? About 3 weeks ago, well looking for something else, I found them on the top shelve in a closet in my bed room in Cebu Philippines.

Mmmm think. “Universe – World – Philippines – Cebu – house – room – closet – box”. A bunch of object containers, arranged left to right, such that, the  left contains the right.  This describes the exact location of the object camera. Wow! I sound like a geeky computer programmer and the nerds on the TV program “The Big Bang Theory”. Yeks! I think I’m turning into an object and losing my soul. The soul is only thing in this universe that is not an object.

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The Tong Business is getting Tough

July 12th, 2009

Last week I was riding on a jeepney at the corner of Gorordo and Arch Reyes. This is a busy intersection close to one of the major shopping malls here in Cebu. There is always a tong taker at this corner. He’s suppose to direct traffic and load your jeepney with new passengers. Of course it is illegal for jeepneys to stop here. It’s to close to the intersection and cause big traffic tie ups. So he also has to pay the traffic enforcer or the traffic enforcer will run him off.

He collects a peso from the jeepney drivers for this service. A jeepney is a conversion of a military jeep in to a bus for public transportation. The tong man will not let the jeepney stop at his corner if you don’t pay the tong. He will chase you off.

Well the tong business has taken a new twist. The home made spite wad gun is popular with the street kids here in Cebu. I remember we used to make these when I was a kid. An art I learned from my Father. We would use a branch from a mulberry bush. It had a hollow or soft center and you could push it out with a stiff wire. A hard wood stick was then carved and fitted into the hollow tube. A couple of spit wads and Walla! A Pop gun!

Here in the Philippines the kids use the trunk of small bamboo tree. Now if you have a little money, you are able to buy a plastic pre-made pop gun that shoots small plastic pellets. These have been popular for about a year. Now the new trend in pellet guns is much bigger model and more realistic looking.

Well to end this story, the tong taker had a big old pellet gun sticking out of his back pocket. Big enough for all jeepney drivers and traffic enforcers to see. Mmmm don’t pay the tong. Bang! bang your dead. The tong business is getting more serious.

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Know Who and Know How and You Know All

July 10th, 2009

When I was living in Phoenix Arizona, I had a friend and business partner that always played golf and then visited the local pub. He was one of the regulars. As you know in a bar or pub, you could always get into some kind of a discussion (or argument) about anything in general. A long standing topic was the personalities of the regular patrons. They would give each other some kind of a nick name and use it in their greetings when that someone walk in. Of course this was just bar talk and everybody just had a good time.

The topic of a remembered conversation was the words “self aggrandizement “. The friend claimed I was a self aggrandizing person. When I ask what he meant  by that. I got the answer  “Well it’s in the dictionary, look it up” (Mmmm! The classic RTM -Read the Manual- response). My response was “Your an aggravating person, You can’t even spell that word.”. Well to end the suspense, the word means — self promotion –, you only think about yourself and your personal goals.

Well this friend and I was none of the above. And us two combatants where always great friends. He was a salesman and marketing person. He was just using “Reflection” to find out who people are and what they are all about.

Could we apply these words to some of today’s leaders and politicians. Mmmm! I think the word fits very well but we will leave any more comment to readers.

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Innovation

July 8th, 2009

For our story for this month we again visit the television programs I remember form my past. The TV channel I enjoyed the most was the public supported station PBS (Public Broadcasting System) or in the UK the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). These are station that are supported by federal tax money and from local community contributions.

There was a program called “Connections” hosted by James Burke. Connections told the story of how two different technologies where combined to create a new technology. The show tracked over a period of centuries the history of two technology and how they were combined in modern times to create a new idea.

An example would be that you can’t make a sword until you know how to melt and cast metal. You can’t make a light bulb until you have produced and can distribute electricity. Or you can’t write Java code if computers where never invented.

So let’s follow the track of Java. Where did it come from and how was the light bulb turn on in the mind of James Gosling, the inventor of Java. For that answer we can ask ourselves a series of questions: “If there was no …? Then there is no invention of …” If there is no computers there is no Java. If there is no transistors there is no computers. If there is no periodic table there is no transistors. If there is no chemistry the is no periodic table.

Now we need a companion track. For this I will use the invention of the notes and staff used to write code for music. What are the technologies that had to proceed the invention of the language of music?

Why do I choose music as the companion track? Music is a language. Music appeals to the right side brain. Music is standard all over the world. And where did James Gosling see the light bulb? At a rock concert . The right brain made a connect with the left brain. Java! Music! — Logic! Beauty! Yes, a computer language that is like the music language. Runs anywhere and universal to all users.

Was the idea of an intermediate byte code (Java compiles to a byte code that is then interpreted by the virtual machine) a new idea for Java. No, I remember that Pascal had compiler that generated a intermediate code called p-code. A new idea is not necessarily new. I could be just a better fit to the task at hand.

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