KCLUG December 2004

44 participants
121 discussions

RE: Fighting a spam fire with a DDoS
by Brian Densmore 02 Dec '04

02 Dec '04

> -----Original Message----- > From: Dustin Decker > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: kclug-bounces On Behalf > > Of Isaac C. > > > This idea didn't sound like a good one the first time > > I heard about it years ago, and it still doesn't now. > > I have to agree with you on this one. The thoughts I share > here aren't very > original either, considering I've snagged 'em from /. (and > gave this guy one > of my mod points for the day as well.) I think we will ALL > suffer if this > sort of thing continues. I have to agree too, and dang I wish I had some mod points on /. <rant back at rant> > > It's funny when people use terms like "business model" > > in relation to spammers because it paints a picture of > > spammers as clean, intelligent, well-organized > > business professionals which I think is rather > > inaccurate. Rather, I see spammers as a very untidy > > bunch of no-account hoodlums of various shapes, sizes, > > and dispositions. The reason I use those terms is the worst spammers are both organized and hoodlums at the same time. Oftentimes these will be people in criminal syndicates with both legitimate and black-market businesses. You think that just because someone is a hoodlum they are disorganized? No, generally the opposite is true. Successful criminals must be highly organized to avoid capture and conviction. Spamming is big business, and it is definitely run by underworld characters. There was a time when cracking systems was the venue of teenagers, but it's gone mostly to criminal syndicates these days. That is not to say *all* spammers are organized or criminals. Some may be victims of get rich quick schemes. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. </rant>

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RE: X terminal distributions?
by Rob Becker 02 Dec '04

02 Dec '04

Use them as thin clients. Build a decent box with a little power and then set them up to boot from floppies and run as diskless thin clients. Check out ltsp.org for more information on how to do so. Let me know if you have questions. Thanks. Rob -----Original Message----- From: Duane Attaway [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 5:47 AM To: kclug(a)kclug.org Subject: X terminal distributions? I have several old laptops that could live a good life of xterminals. Unfortunately, some don't have hard drives, most have memory less than 64MB, and one is a 486 with 4MB. All can use a pcmcia ethernet card. What do most people do with these? Are there distributions catering to these or do I have to build them myself? I'd hate throw them away. They use so little power, have well designed hardware, and look nice. _______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug(a)kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug

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Re: Fighting a spam fire with a DDoS
by Isaac C. 02 Dec '04

02 Dec '04

> Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 12:24:47 -0600 > From: "Brian Kelsay" <Brian.Kelsay(a)kcc.usda.gov> > Subject: Fighting a spam fire with a DDoS > To: <kclug(a)kclug.org> > Message-ID: <s1adb816.020(a)KCC.USDA.GOV> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > > This method looks like it is being accepted by the > general public. > I only hope that something positive comes about from > it and not > just more net slow-downs in the long run. > > Spammers get taste of their own medicine > http://news.ft.com/cms/s/cd592a7a-433e-11d9-bea1-00000e2511c8.html > > Brian Kelsay > This idea didn't sound like a good one the first time I heard about it years ago, and it still doesn't now. -- Warning: rambling rant aimed at no one in particular follows -- There is a finite amount of bandwidth out there, so why do we want to use up even more of it? It's funny when people use terms like "business model" in relation to spammers because it paints a picture of spammers as clean, intelligent, well-organized business professionals which I think is rather inaccurate. Rather, I see spammers as a very untidy bunch of no-account hoodlums of various shapes, sizes, and dispositions. *Some* spammers might be dissuaded by a DDoS campaign, but since DDoS and spam are only marginally different (i.e. they're both floods of useless crap data that drastically reduce your efficiency), I really doubt it's going to have much impact overall. In any case, even assuming some best case scenario where the DDoS actually targets the right computers (it won't) and the spammers have a miraculous Grinch-style change of heart (they won't), there's still this basic problem: there's always a fresh crop of young teenagers who can send out boatloads more spam as an effective DDoS/annoyance/way-to-get-back-at-the whole-world. So... I really don't think DDoSing spammers is a good idea. It's just a modern form of childish vigilante-ism and one that I don't expect to be particularly effective. ===== -- Furry cows moo and decompress. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

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Re: Fighting a spam fire with a DDoS
by Brian Kelsay 01 Dec '04

01 Dec '04

Funny, whenever I try that sight I get this: "Yes, attacking spammers is wrong, you know this, you shouldn't be doing it. Your ip address and request have been logged and will be reported to your ISP for further action." On a reload I got this added to it: "Also, note: This machine is not hacked, this page is returned for EVERY request. Thanks for noticing though." What Monty spoke of sounds a bit like LaBrea. It is a program to feed fake content to page crawlers, crackers, skimmers, etc. and slow them down in the process. Think of a slow Honeynet. You may be able to add to its effectiveness by adding a Honeynet. Brian Kelsay >>> "James Sissel" <> 12/01/04 03:33PM >>> True, except the Lycos people are very careful and are using a database of well know spammers. Visit their website to get more information. http://www.makelovenotspam.com

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RE: Fighting a spam fire with a DDoS
by Brian Densmore 01 Dec '04

01 Dec '04

The fatal flaw in this logic is that, most spammers are using other peoples 0wn3d boxes and thus there is no cost to them. Other than perhaps not sending as much mail. So maybe they make a smaller profit, but when you have a zero cost business and everything is 99.94% pure profit, a smaller profit isn't a big deal. This probably won't work. > -----Original Message----- > From: James Sissel > > I heard about this from the register (www.theregister.co.uk) > Monday and > download the software. It's great. As of this morning over > 90,000 users > were hitting back at the spammers. The idea is to make it > too costly for > them to run their sites and they close up shop. I don't see > how this will > slow the web down in the long run. If we could just close > one of them down > the amount of spam that stops will more than offset the > traffic caused by > this effort. > > >This method looks like it is being accepted by the general public. > >I only hope that something positive comes about from it and not > >just more net slow-downs in the long run. > > > >Spammers get taste of their own medicine > >http://news.ft.com/cms/s/cd592a7a-433e-11d9-bea1-00000e2511c8.html > > > _______________________________________________ > Kclug mailing list > Kclug(a)kclug.org > http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug >

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RE: Multiple desktop clients per kdm server
by Brian Densmore 01 Dec '04

01 Dec '04

> -----Original Message----- > From: Brian Densmore > > I believe that the tty2 could be written as tty[1-6] > (where [1-6] means to write in any one of tty1 ...) > and still have the same effect ... > I'll try the tty1 and tty2 methods tonight and report back my > findings. > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Brian Kelsay > > > > > > So, for clarity sake, the :0 is the first Xserver instance > > and it is being attached to the 7th virtual terminal (vt7). > > The :1 is the 2nd Xserver and it is attached to the 8th > > virtual terminal... Works as expected. vt7 and vt8 are used and Alt-F7 and Alt-F8 work to get to the screens (Ctrl-Alt-Fn from inside X). > > > > >>> Jeremy Turner <> 11/30/04 01:46PM >>> > > On Mon, Nov 29, 2004 at 11:13:02AM -0600, Brian Densmore wrote: > > > I'm running kdm and would like to know if anyone is > > > running more than one desktop simultaneously? > > > > Check the /etc/kdm/kde3/kdm/Xservers file. I have a line that says: On my system it is /etc/kde3/kdm/Xservers and there are commented out lines like the one below. Although they have "reserve" in between the local.. and the X path. I removed that and restarted the system. I know I didn't need to do that. The commented out lines used progressive tty numbers so I left it alone. Hopefully it was done that way for a purpose. I was too chicken to change it. Maybe over the weekend when (theoretically) I have more time to fix anything I break. So I now have entries like this in my Xserver file: ... :0 local@tty1 /usr/X11R6/bin/X -nolisten tcp vt7 :1 local@tty2 /usr/X11R6/bin/X -nolisten tcp :1 vt8 #:2 local@tty3 reserve /usr/X11R6/bin/X -nolisten tcp :2 vt9 #:3 local@tty4 reserve /usr/X11R6/bin/X -nolisten tcp :3 vt10 #:4 local@tty5 reserve /usr/X11R6/bin/X -nolisten tcp :4 vt11 #:5 local@tty6 reserve /usr/X11R6/bin/X -nolisten tcp :5 vt12 ... You'll note the there is a :1 on the second line. This is necessary. It won't work without it. > > > > :0 local@tty1 /usr/X11R6/bin/X -nolisten tcp vt7 > > > > My guess is that you would add a line just below it that says: > > > > :1 local@tty2 /usr/X11R6/bin/X -nolisten tcp vt8 > > So Thanks again Jason, I didn't find that in any of the man pages I looked at. Just curious did you find it in a man page, or by browsing? Brian

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Fighting a spam fire with a DDoS
by Brian Kelsay 01 Dec '04

01 Dec '04

This method looks like it is being accepted by the general public. I only hope that something positive comes about from it and not just more net slow-downs in the long run. Spammers get taste of their own medicine http://news.ft.com/cms/s/cd592a7a-433e-11d9-bea1-00000e2511c8.html Brian Kelsay

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RE: Multiple desktop clients per kdm server
by Brian Densmore 01 Dec '04

01 Dec '04

> -----Original Message----- > From: Jason Clinton [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 10:08 AM > To: Brian Densmore > Cc: kclug(a)kclug.org > Subject: Re: Multiple desktop clients per kdm server > > > Brian Densmore wrote: > > So Thanks again Jason, I didn't find that in any of the man pages > > I looked at. Just curious did you find it in a man page, or > by browsing? > > Erm... You probably meant Jeremy. Yes, sorry about that. Thanks Jeremy. > > In any case, docs regarding this stuff exist. On the web you can find > very thorough GDM docs -- including some really interesting features > that enable all kinds of interesting possibilities in behavior for X > sessions. KDM's docs are online in KDE but they are rather > threadbare at > the moment. KDM is essentially an extension to XDM. XDM's docs are > pretty good, too. You can find them in 'man xdm'. > Also I've read the man pages for kdm, X, X11R6, xinit, XFree86, and probably a few others. I don't have the xdm man pages because I don't have xdm. But Jeremy's hint wasn't in any of them, there was something in the kdm manpage, but it wasn't clear on what the syntax I needed was. Or maybe I read it wrong. I do try to RFTM before asking questions, and I am mostly successful in doing that. Hence since I didn't find it in any of the man pages I "read" (some are quite long and I confess to only skimming over them), I am asking where the information was found. For future and further reading. Thanks, Brian

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screen scrollback
by Jonathan Hutchins 01 Dec '04

01 Dec '04

Regarding some recent discussion of getting a convenient scrollback buffer working with screen in an Xterm: I notice that Ctrl-PgUp works fine in Putty under windows.

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Re: "Cyber cafe" timekeeping software
by Brian Kelsay 01 Dec '04

01 Dec '04

cwgee9801-RR wrote: > I'm trying to find a solution for kids PC online use without constant > monitoring and arguing. So I'm considering implementing a "cyber cafe" > accounting system at home to regulate my two kids online access. They think > it is a terrible idea. I think it is a good one. Ideally, the software would > allow me to credit them with xx hours per week, and they could have their > online use within other restrictions ... no more than x hours in any one > day, no more than one hour without a one hour "break", no use after 9:00pm > and so on. They would know their limits and could pace their own use > accordingly. > > Sounds like a job for a linux router that controls the WAP. > (Note: The PC they use already runs a kid filter and keystroke monitor that > I personally review, often. The PC has a nice video card and runs WinXP, > as almost all their games run under Windows. > > I'm checking Sourceforge for suitable software and a reasonable hardware > configuration. Trying to see if this is practical. Any experience or > comments > invited. I know I talk about IPCop quite a bit, but it does this mostly. You can set the hours of usage in the Squid proxy, meaning the time frame of allowed use. To get the hour on, hour off, you need some accounting software. You can also add Dan's Guardian for filtering. ---------------------------------------------- Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.

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KCLUG December 2004