First of all, I've noticed some unforeseen activity on some back entries. Surprised as I may be, fun to see other people actually reading this.

Disclaimer: I'm afraid this is going to get very technical very fast, there's no way around it.

So I've been running a home server for a couple of years now, running www, mail and file services. I've also experimented with others from time to time. I never really paid much attention to security because hell, why bother if you're not forced to, eh? A potentially costly dismissal.

Today I turn on my computer, kontact starts automatically in my kde session and I see I'm getting 4000 identical spam messages from the imap server in the closet downstairs. Feels funny because with spamassassin I've been able to battle spam quite efficiently and I only get a couple of messages weekly that I have to filter by hand. Well, something's not right so I start checking my spam filters. It seems they aren't filtering these messages properly. I also took a closer look at the mail headers only to stumble upon the fact that there is only one mail hop in the trail. That means the messages seem to be sent from my mail server, oddly enough. The reason I'm also getting it is because I've set up postfix to bcc myself all outgoing mail, so that I can keep track of messages I send.

Sure enough, a couple of hours later I get an email from my ISP threatening to shut down my connection unless I can stop the flood of spam emanating from my computer. First things first, shut down postfix to stop all outgoing mail. Then I start looking at the server more closely. No strange processes spotted, nothing suspicious in lsof.. Then I see some changes in /tmp and /var/tmp. A couple of tar archives, some files unzipped, seemingly a binary compiled here and there. And under conspicuous names, like bash. :wth: Ran chkrootkit but it didn't report any changed binaries. This is odd, I can't figure out how those email messages are being sent. The files I spotted are all irc bots it seems, which would be a classic purpose of cracking a box.

But knowing I have no choice, I tar'ed up the whole filesystem and started reinstalling. I wonder if I can find out more about the damage on closer inspection.

It's been a while since I've done a movie review but this one's so unique that it's worth mentioning.

It's the kind of movie that I both love and hate, because it both challenges and frustrates me. In this case it's far more good than bad, because it's so engrossing. The premise is that 7 people get trapped somehow in a cube. A cube of square rooms, not knowing where they are in the cube or how they got there. Some of the rooms are trapped, going into them is imminent death. The people are all very different in background and personality, the flick has its share of psychological skirmish. But most perplexing is the configuration of the cube and how they are trying to get out of it. Along the way of course we find out something about each person and they all influence in each other in how they respond to the evolving situation.

I'm not a fan of gore stuff and there isn't that much of it in the movie (at least considering how much more there potentially could be) but that's the major downside for me. I'm also not satisfied by the ending, of course I rarely am even with stories less complicated than this one. But the story being told is fascinating and I can see it being one of those times where every viewer takes something unique out of it, because the backdrop is so abstract that you simply have to set your own reference points.

The most interesting movie I've seen in quite some time. It's a Canadian low budget production btw, which could explain why it is so interesting rather than something out of Hollywood.

8/10

So I have this daily routine going now. At some point during the day, usually multiple times, I open the balcony door to get some air in my room. Sooner or later, there is this wasp which flies in and spends the rest of the day interminably buzzing at the window, looking out from inside, like it's trying to fly out. After observing and concluding that it's not gonna stop, I get sick of the buzzing and I bat it out on the balcony. That usually knocks it out cold but it's back the next day. I'm getting bored with it so if it comes around today, I might just swing the bat a tiny bit more, so it lands in the neighbor's yard.

You won't believe this but throughout the day, no hickups of any kind with the projector. All speakers today brought their own laptops, (Windows, Mac, Linux) all of them worked seamlessly. :eek: :eek: :eek: No jaw dropping presentations today but the 3 lectures on grid computing in Norway, Scandinavia and Europe respectively were very interesting.

There was a poster session and it was way too long, 2.5 hours with lunch in the middle. Not exactly crowd control at my poster but I was just happy to be there. Of course I didn't win the prize either. :D But the conference committee was very eager to collect those feedback forms, so much so that they had a lottery with a bunch of prizes for those who did turn them in. I won a kewl IBM bag with a tux picture on it. A Swedish guy from KTH was one of several people who won a bunch of SGI cups but since he had traveled by air he wanted to dump them so I took one off his hands :)

Of course I brought my poster home and I'm gonna put it up in my house. :D

EDIT: a picture from the conference (atrocious quality).

Rise at 6.45, get up and get to the printer at 7.52. Get my poster printed (looks gorgeous btw, no screwups of any kind), cost me a hefty 600 bucks but I'll try and get the university to pay for it ;)

Get to the conference before 9, put up my poster as the only one there (apparently there was no rush, the poster session is tomorrow) and I start work, taking presentations from speakers, putting them on the laptop and making sure it works for when they gotta do their talk. Mostly a smooth run, but I had an angry chemistry professor on my back when his Mac wouldn't work with the projector (booo). Turned out all it took was to kick it into standby mode and wake it up (the laptop that is) to make the projector aware of it. After day one no screwups, minor hickups with a couple presentations as I wasn't prepared for embedded movie clips but I made it work

Then the jaw-dropping presentation: Prof. Kenji Satake from Japan. You know the animations of the tsunami wave we all saw on tv? He did the simulations. Not only that, he explained that it's actually very easy (and he really made it look easy as well). Quite a long talk, it was 45 minutes and I won't bother re-hashing but definitely the peak of today's program.

Other than that, people seem to treat me with respect and I don't sense much elitism, which I expected to be the case. :)

Now I'm off to a fancy conference dinner, all expenses paid of course.. ;)