MasterLeaks Gets PayBack

So, in addition to hackers shutting down the sites belonging to Visa, MasterCard, Assange's bank, the lawyers prosecuting Assange, WikiLeaks itself and nearly taking down PayPal, there have been plenty of other troubles that have oddly worked in WikiLeaks's favor, or at least been countered.

Let's take a look at WikiLeaks's host site, EveryDNS. EveryDNS opted to drop the wikileaks.org domain after it succumbed to the DDOS. Plenty of people will say the government intervened as well, but for now we'll act as if it was all decision by the site. After the main domain was removed, two more sprouted up; wikileaks.ch and wikileaks.nl, both supported by EasyDNS (not to be confused with EveryDNS). Following that, hundreds of mirror sites began popping up all over the web. When we say you can't kill something on the Internet, we mean it. Despite the main website being taken down, all of the mirrors and supporters continue to keep the site up and running as if nothing ever happened. The World Wide Web is a tricky place to fight.

One of the more notable effects here is the response of the US government. Interestingly enough, it's not what WikiLeaks is releasing that's embarrassing the US the most, but it's our government's response to the matter. For example, Peter King—a key Republican Congressman and soon-to-be chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee—wants WikiLeaks to be declared an international terrorist organization, and for Assange to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. The government has been bashing both Assange and his site from the start, as well as helping to convince a number of corporations to stop supporting WikiLeaks to begin with. Nevermind the cables; the government essentially wants to shut down Assange's site and silence him forever. Is that not a bigger embarrassment, and the whole point of WikiLeaks to begin with?

There is also an official name for the mass DDOS war taking place. An appropriate title in my opinion, it's been dubbed Operation: Payback.

DDOS

Let's begin with an explanation of what happened to WikiLeaks last week. The site came under a mass distributed denial of service attack. From who, we know not. But it managed to shut down the site for quite a while.

A DDOS attack is simple. The basic goal is to overload a server until it crashes. You see, in order to connect to a server, your system sends a packet of data to the server, called a SYN. The server responds with its own packet, called an ACK. When you receive the ACK, it is sent right back to the server, and thus you are connected. Now, if the ACK is not sent back, then the server sends up to four more to try and get a response from you. This is what DDOS uses to its advantage.

When a metric crapton of random computers all send a ridiculous amount of SYNs to a server, the server has to reply with an equal amount of ACKs. In a DDOS attack, the computers do not respond, thus causing the server to send four ACKs instead of just one. When as many computers do this as fast as possible, it effectively quadruples the bandwidth usage of the server. If enough people do it, it can't handle the traffic and shuts down. WikiLeaks had this issue.

Now, in light of MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and other companies refusing support to WikiLeaks, sites like 4chan are coordinating the same attacks on them. In the past 24 hours, MasterCard's and Visa's sites were both temporarily shut down. PayPal was pretty much brought to its knees. A number of transactions made during this time have not gone through or screwed up because of it; these sites—especially PayPal—rely on the Internet.

What I'm trying to say is, a War of the Internet has begun. On one side is WikiLeaks and its supporters; on the other, the US government and every corporation it can get to fall in line with it.

WikiLeaks, WikiLeaks, WikiLeaks...

So, Julian Assange has been arrested, much to my dismay. Whether or not he will be extradited to Sweden, I don't know. But I do know WikiLeaks has a pretty bleak future at the moment.

Details for all the WikiLeaks news to be posted over the next few days in segments. This'll be a looooong topic.

Midterms!

No, not the tests.

The midterm elections are tomorrow, and with a baffling amount of people telling me they have no clue why they're important, I'm going to use this opportunity to explain why.

First off, a government is only effective if its members can all agree on what to do. In our case, if they don't agree, it's essentially impossible for any form of legislation to conceivably pass with a president and a Congress that can't agree on what flavor of ice cream is their favorite. A Democratic president requires a Democratic Congress, and a Republican president requires a Republic Congress. Otherwise, the president won't approve of Congress's policies, and vice versa. At this point you end up with a stagnant political atmosphere that is perpetually at a standstill. It's a battle between Congress, shooting down what the president proposes and bashing him left and right in the media, and the president refusing to pass what Congress approves. Nothing gets done, similar to Woodrow Wilson's last two years as president (Congress turned Republican halfway through is term and blocked the US's entry into the League of Nations). However, if both parties agree, everything runs smoothly. For the most part, anyway.

Now, with 37 seats up for election in the Senate and all 435 in the House, it's possible for the Democrats to lose their majority rule in Congress and be replaced by those dreaded Republicans (is the bias here obvious yet?). If this happens, we get that stagnant government I mentioned. On the other hand, if the Democrats stay in power, all of Obama's changes, including health care reform, will continue to be put in place instead of being repealed under Republicans.

On a somewhat less important note, if the Republicans gain power in Congress—more specifically the Tea Party members—then the far-left liberals like myself are likely to shoot someone. Probably ourselves. It's preferable to someone like Christine O'Donnell being in charge of this country. As was said in Religulous, clearly you don't need to pass an IQ test to be in Congress...

To Put the News in Perspective

A quote from Don't Worry About the Government, which has been mentioned on this blog before, has managed to put the news from the last ten weeks into a single sentence:

"It's the same shit."

Tea party candidates are saying the same über-conservative pledges to get into office, a Chilean mine disaster came and went, people are still complaining about BP, and the rest of the nation's politicians are still bashing one another over midterm elections.

Maybe I'm just jaded from my daily news readings, but it's still a good point nonetheless.

More Than Simple Fans

After going to my first OSU football game the other day, I've come to the conclusion that absolutely nobody takes football as seriously as Ohioans do. What's seen on TV is comparatively little of the stunningly huge crowd that attends the games. Two hundred thousand people, easily, were tailgating outside (and FYI, they make the best food in the world), and flooding into the stadium. The stadium itself seats roughly 150,000; there were no empty seats. Amid the screams of the thousands of fans and the band running through the stands and playing their fight songs, it's pretty clear that when it comes to football, Ohio deserves it's place as the most dedicated fanbase in the country. Just to prove a point, I loathe football with a passion; but the energy of everyone there, along with the food and the awesome halftime show, made it a somewhat unforgettable experience. It was great.

Update

Time for the latest news in my scambaiting. This is what I've accomplished so far:

• Convinced a paraplegic in Bahrain I'll pay him $9,000 for a surgery.
• Gotten three photos of a girl from Senegal who looks suspiciously like Martha Jones from Doctor Who.
• Agreed to give a Nigerian orphanage $25,000 to feed the starving children.
• Promised an investor from the Ivory Coast I would help him invest on buying a London property.
• Promised to help an American soldier in Afghanistan I'd help him smuggle a case of money out of the country in exchange for a share of what's inside.
• Told a Nigerian man I'd help him sign for his family fortune which his brothers are trying to take from him.

If any of these stories are true, I'll be sure to save you all a seat in Hell.

Back Again!

Good news! I seem to have acquired a relatively consistent and easy to obtain Internet connection, meaning I now actually have the time to post semi-regularly on here, seeing as how I'll be using my own PC from here on out.

As a celebratory measure, I've decided to share my latest undertaking to the minute percentage of the world that ever happens to view this blog. For those of you who have ever heard of 419Eater, you don't need to read this. For those of you who haven't, let me explain. 419Eater is a community of tech-savvy people who spend their time and resources in an attempt to waste the time and resources of others; "others" being online fraud artists. All those emails that fill your spam inbox with promises of wealth of fame for a small fee are a gold mine for people like us (we're appropriately called scambaiters). By leading scammers on and getting them to perform complicated steps and a virtually infinite number of favors for an American payoff, not only do we get to revel in our creativity and joy, but we also distract them from targeting otherwise unsuspecting web-surfers. It's good fun for a good cause.

"That smile speaks volumes..."

Back to the point, I recently signed up with 419Eater and I'm already working on four separate fraud artists. I will certainly keep you updated on anything I happen to receive that results in my tear ducts shriveling from so much laughter.

Lack of Dedication

Clearly I'm not as good at sticking to what I say as I should be. This blog has very nearly come close to suffering a slow and painful death in the graveyard that we all know as the world wide web, like countless other blogs and websites. Something about the Internet is unique; it's a great place to quickly post your ideas and get them out to the masses, but it soon becomes such a mundane task that it's not worth doing and we all forget about it. The quality of being able to post something in a minute or less actually seems to work to our disadvantage. There isn't really a point to getting on the Internet solely to put a quick post, and so I'm forced to do so only when I'm online for something else, which isn't all that often.

That being said, I refuse to promise weekly posts--or even monthly. But I will promise to come and write you all a lovely and compelling piece on whatever is going on in the world whenever i happen to be online and feel like doing so. Good day to you.

A Lovely Letter

Dear Nouri al-maliki,
The best way to make yourself not seem like an autocratic leader is to not crack down and silence the media when you don't like them calling you authoritarian.

Love,
Braden

I know I'm very late on that. Shut up.

Jumping On the Indian bandwagon

Seems Obama finally has the sense to acknowledge India as a world superpower. He invited Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the White House Tuesday. My favorite part was this quote from Singh:

"India and America are separated by distance, but bound together by the values of democracy, humanism, rule of law and respect of fundamental human freedoms."

Can I just say, I love how world leaders always kid themselves. This meetng was supposed to be used to discuss trade, counterterrorism (in reference to the Mumbai attacks), the long-delayed India-US nuclear agreement and technology. Yes. The Indian PM did just visit, and they are talking about all of those, but will they honestly make any progress with any of it? Probably not. This is all just to satisfy the people. The two leaders are discussing current issues, so something is going to be done about them, right? WRONG.

A Victim of the Corporation

I know I haven't exactly kept to that one post per week idea, but I've been busy...

Walking through Kohl's earlier, I realized something. Looking around, I saw nothing but bright, flashy colors and big, attention-grabbing letters. I remember being a child, and falling victim to the cool little animations and pictures plastered on everything down the toy aisle, and being subjected to the idea that having one of them would make me just as awesome as whoever was in the picture on the box. Looking back on that, a thought came to me.

Advertising sucks.

I know I'm not the only one who was fooled by fake images and the false messages they convey. Everyone was. And because if that, we've wasted more money, more time, and more resources than we care to remember. So maybe it's time to cut back on it, you know? Force advertisers to send a more realistic message with more creative means. It's doable. Plenty of companies have done it. Why not every one of them?

And Now They See It!

What am I talking about? Why, the new report from the European Union that states Georgia provoked Russia in the 2008 South Ossetian conflict, of course!

Not a lot of people took the time to do any research during the mini-war to find out exactly what happened. I did, and I've been trying to tell people this for months. Basically, Russia was supplying small guerrilla groups and rebels in the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which declared independence from Georgia a while back. Mikhail Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, didn't like this, so he invaded the capital of Tskhinvali, killing 1400 civilians. Russia called an emergency session of the UN after the attack, which was denied. Once word of the invasion reached the major news outlets, all hell broke loose. mainstream media placed all the blame on Russia, saying that it was in fact the Russian army who was invading Georgia and trying to retake the lost territory. However, reprts from eyewitnessess sprouted up all over the internet saying the truth: the Russians sent in troops to protect South Ossetia (losing ten soldiers in the process). I would post a link to one of them, but I can't find the URL I'm looking for.

This is a testament to the anti-Russian feeling spread about by the media. When something bad invloving Russia comes up, they're immediately the ones to blame. Why? Is this still a continuation of the propaganda started during the Cold War? Are Americans still predjudiced against the "Reds?" How can you people be so stupid as to believe one of the world's greatest superpowers with wonderful foreign relations would actually invade two soveriegn nations? It's blasphemy.

For the first time ever, I'm going to thank Fox News for something that the other networks should have done: bringing in an eyewitness. After the invasion, a twelve year-old South Ossetian girl was brought on and interviewed. She said Georgia started the whole thing, and the Russians deserve to be thanked. It's a shame Fox News has such an idiotic base of viewers and such a bad reputation, or someone may have actually paid attention to this.

Good Times

Obviously I have been very excited and happy all week because of two things:
1. The meeting of the 64th UN General Assembly, and
2. The G20 Summit, which is conveniently being held in Pittsburgh this year.

The General Assembly has turned out to be both enlightening and hilarious so far. If you hadn't heard anything of Muammar Qaddafi's ridiculous speech (and I'm sure you have), here are a few highlights:
-George Bush should be investigated by the UN and put to death because he started the Iraq War.
-Swine flu was made in a laboratory by the companies that make the vaccine as a large capitalization scam, and the "fish flu" is next.
-The proposed two-state solution regarding Israel and Palestine should be thrown out and the new state should be called "Isratine."
-Mines make a great defense tool. His argument: If you invade then you die, but that's okay because you're invading me. He also mentioned his website.
-The Taliban is okay.
-The General Assembly should be moved from NYC, because he suffered from jet lag on the trip.
-If the European nations do not pay reparations of exactly $7.77 trillion, Africans will come to Europe and take the money from them.
-Obama is a "son of Africa."
After the speech? Well, the American diplomats who watched mainly sat with shocked and stunned faces. However, one Chinese diplomat was cracking up in laughter. I wonder why.

The G20 Summit has pretty much gone as planned. Now, you may be wondering why the G20 is beginning to replace the G7 and G8. Simply put, the G7 and G8 are too small; they consist mainly of the most powerful western nations, and do not include some of the biggest emerging economies. Twenty is just a better number. The G7 and G8 will be used primarily as a political forum rather than an economic one. By doing this the G20 has supposedly helped balance the world economy by giving emerging nations greater say. Is this true? I guess we'll have to find out during the next two G20 Summits in Canada and South Korea next year.

There weren't a lot of particularly new or interesting things that happened at the G20. One thing popped out a bit, though. With the recent discovery of TWO nuclear facilities in Iran, Obama was reluctant to say much at the General Assembly. At the G20, however, Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown decided to take a stronger stand. This is what he said:

"Iran's decision to build yet another nuclear facility without notifying the IAEA represents a direct challenge to the basic compact at the center of the nonproliferation regime."

Technically, Iran does not have to alert the International Atomic Energy Agency about their nuclear enrichment facilities until at least six months before they start up. Ahmadinejad says there are 18 months left until become functional, i.e. Tehran has a year before it is required to say anything. The problem here is that the plants apparently do not contain enough material to produce energy, but do contain enough to produce a weapon. Also, according to Obama, the structures do not fit the description of a peaceful nuclear power facility. This may turn out to be a major inhibitor of peace talks between the US and Iran.

Aw well. Not like we're doing anything right on that front anyway.

Why Are We There?

"Afghanistan has been known over the years as the graveyard of empires." -David H. Petraeus

There is no better way to put it. Afghanistan is and always has been an unconquerable land. Genghis Khan couldn't do it, Britain couldn't do it, the USSR couldn't do it, so what makes the US government so confident that change can be brought to one of the poorest and war-torn nations in the world? Donors and foreign investors pour money into the country, but do it such an inept way that it all goes to those at the top of the food chain. The citizens with the least education and wealth are forgotten. In a country where only one-third of the population is literate and half of the GDP comes from opium exports (Afghanistan singlehandedly set and broke the record for the most amount of heroin produced in the entire world... ever...), it should be obvious that any real change has to come from an organized central government, which doesn't exist. When foreign nations intervene a conflict of interest arises; we become interested in the resources and economic opportunities available, rather than the establishment of a functioning government.

I feel a bit sorry for poor ol' Karzai. His country has gone to Hell because of the exact countries that supposedly try to assist him. Can anyone honestly say that they would appreciate armies bombing their nation, even if it is for a good cause? Quit trying to destroy the Taliban; they aren't the problem. Afghanistan is filled with rogue warlords who set up their own spheres of influence and control their own parts of the nation, and with a small, untrained army, there's not much Karzai can do about it. When other nations target the wrong enemies and cause innocent deaths, it leads to more people wanting to join the resistance. This is simple logic, people. C'mon now.

Maybe we should try something we gave up on not too long ago: compromising with the Taliban. We never had a problem with them before, and they used to be considered a friendly force. Now with the rumors of al Quaida* and other Middle Eastern threats, our government is trying to eliminate anything that even ranks as a low-level threat. Of course, if we compromise then the Taliban, which happens to hold a fairly strong influence in Afghanistan, could fight the warlords for us. Problem sloved.

*Just a little fact: al Quaida is nowhere near the threat it's made out to be. The organization has been around for years, and spans worldwide, yet they rarely actually do anything that classifies as a terrorist act. The entire group is completely disorganized; there is no central leadership, and it's not as if members of al Quaida hold meetings or anything like that. By the time a plan actually does go underway, the communication has taken long enough for the authorities to have been tipped off. Quit worrying about them.

Shortest Post I'll Ever Do

So today I rediscovered the genius that is the Wendy's hamburger. It blew my mind, and it tasted divine.

Get Over Your Idealism

Somehow I've gotten over my iPod. I don't know how, but I did. Perhaps it was the idea of getting a brand new phone! Yep.

On with the post. I feel like making a quick point today:
Every day we wake up. We are hopeful and optimistic in the fact that we want the day to turn out exactly the way we want it to. So, we pull ourselves through and expend so much energy in attempting to perfect our pointless lives, that when it doesn't work out, we are crushed. People need to realize that we are born and we die. What happens in between is not important. Go about your lives doing what you want, but don't try to make it overly idealistic; that ends solely in disappointment and regret.

That's it. Until next time.

Apple Needs a Reality Check

Lo and behold, my iPod Touch was stolen today. Oh joy. I just might go insane.

I realized after it was stolen that I have one heck of a security breach on my hands. Yeah, I locked it with a passcode, but what if they get past that? Then the thief will have access to my email, contacts, Facebook, MySpace and various other sites. This person could also charge up a massive bill in the App Store (thank God that has a seperate password, which I gurantee is invincible). So, after spending two hours going around the internet changing my passwords, asking my friends if they know anything about this and probably viewing too many Cyanide and Happiness comics, a thought came to me.

Apple does nothing to help detect a stolen iPod. They keep a database of serial numbers that match stolen items, and know when those devices connect to the internet, seeing as how all transactions initially go through Apple's database. The company seems to make a big deal about it being too difficult to do, but in reality it's quite easy. So, why do they not do anything to help their poor customers? Perhaps Apple realizes that a stolen device can still make purchases, and with 59% of the company's revenue coming solely from the iTunes store, it is understandable that they would think this way. Leave a stolen item unchecked, and rake in the dough. But is this really the answer as to why one of the most consumer-friendly corporations in the entire world refuses to help retrieve stolen property? I certainly hope not.

Religious Freedom? Yeah Right...

I hate how in the United States, a presidential candidate can have all the answers and all the solutions to every problem, but if they said they didn't believe in God or they weren't a Christian, they would instantly be shunned by most voters. How is this even remotely fair? Isn't the USA supposed to be a land of possibilities? Apparently not.

I'm not going to use this post as a rant against religion... well, not entirely, anyway; that'll come later. All I have to say is that people need to get some freaking perspective. Not everyone is going to believe what you want them to. Just because they don't believe what you do doesn't make them immoral, evil or stupid. No, it's quite the opposite. If you can honestly feel prejudiced like that, you are the one who needs to change your beliefs.

A Stupid Move, or a Smart One?

Russia has developed a reputation for wasting money and making bad business deals, and it looks like they may have done it again. Norman Foster, who is known in Russia for the reconstruction of New Holland Island, is proposing a 56-story, diamond-shaped building to be built... in the middle of Siberia. The town is called Khanty-Mansiysk, and only has a population of about 60,000 people. The town has hosted the Biathlon World Championships and the Chess World Cup, but aside from big events like these, would the building really get any use? Maybe, maybe not. Only time will tell.

This incident vaguely reminds me of the business deal between Russia and Nigeria, in which the Russian gas giant Gazprom and Nigeria's state oil company were meant to lead a joint venture in Africa. The name of this venture was Nigaz. Good job.

Heck, there are a lot of mishaps that come to mind now. Such as the Ford Pinto, which in Brazil means small penis, and the Pepsi slogan "come alive with the Pepsi generation." In Taiwan this motto translated as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead". Or KFC's motto of "Finger-lickin' good," which translated to "Eat your fingers off" in Chinese. There's also the famous branding of the Chevrolet Nova, which never caught on becuase it translates to "doesn't go" in Spanish. The same is true for Colgate, which translated to "Go hang yourself." Oh, the blunders of modern franchises.