Medical Oddities
Number 4 - World's largest handOddee is a very interesting site. I'm hooked!
Check out the cat bomb.
Labels: general interest, links to greatness, lists
posted by scalpel at 2:47 AM
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Number 4 - World's largest handOddee is a very interesting site. I'm hooked!
Check out the cat bomb.
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21 Comments:
Sure that hand isn't a Photoshop job? That first finger sure looks a lot like a chubby woman's leg and buttocks!
This comment has been removed by the author.
Um.
Err.
I'm going to go with the old adage that since I cannot find anything complimentary to say aboutt hat hand, I say nothing...
J
SCALPEL.
This is Mr. Gremlin
The site you've linked to contains a virus/trojan called brastk.exe
JUST GOING TO THAT LINK WILL INFECT YOU.
I was browsing your site from my Windows work PC with Firefox (newest version) and my blocker utilities started picking up activity immediately.
I would advise you to remove that link and I urge anyone who visited it to check your system, this shit isn't even showing up on my fully updated virus scanner.
Let me repeat, IF YOU VISITED THAT LINK THERE IS AN EXTREMELY LIKELY CHANCE YOUR COMPUTER HAS BEEN INFECTED.
I'm cleaning mine out now, beforewarned!
Mr. Gremlin
MG here;
Okay, that site that Scalpel linked downloads a fake antivirus warning that should be appearing in your system tray.
It will say...
"Your computer is infected!
It is recomended (haha at the spelling) to use special antispyware tools to prevent data loss. Windows will now download and install the most up-to-date antispyware for you.
Click here to protect your computer from spyware!"
This is of course a lie, the program that site Scalpel linked installed spyware/malware on your computer which is trying to get you to purchase a program from a random company that rips people off with fake anti-virus software.
The malware scanner from Malwarebytes.org will locate the infection, I'm waiting to see if it'll be able to successfully remove it from this system. (If not, you've just gotten me to install another Linux system Scalpel!)
but regardless, I urge all of you who visited that link to check your systems regardless, it was trying to download and install multiple programs but my monitoring utilities stopped most of it.
None of you need your banking information, paypal, etc information stolen.
I'll try to monitor this blog thread to help anyone who needs it, but yeah, man, that was some shit. You gotta watch out online Scalpel, you might just get punked if you're not careful.
Mr. Gremlin (I can verify it's me from home but like fucking hell I'm logging onto my gmail account from here right now)
I respectfully believe that you are mistaken, but if anyone else has any problems with the site, let me know.
It is a very popular (top 2K on Technorati) and well-established website, and I don't find any similar allegations after a brief search. I don't think it's any more dangerous than most of the other stuff out there on the internet.
Interesting that two people would report problems with the site. I had no such problem and I run a particularly strict suite of security applications which usually flag so much as a duck fart three counties away. Very interesting.
If you don't already have an anti-virus program, you can try this free online scan. You can also download a free free anti-virus program called AVG. You should be able to verify the legitimacy of both of these through a little web searching. If you're buying a security suite I recommend Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 as it is very robust and contains a lot of features, plus it is available to license on multiple PC's and has a great parental control feature for the David Duchovny's of the world (not to mention children and teenagers).
MG here yet again, I just started to switch my work computer to Linux instead of dealing with drive-by downloads in Windows.
There is a possibility that the exploit was contained in an advertisement that only displayed the one time I was on the site, as I tried to replicate the attack with data execution protection on and I couldn't get a bite. So perhaps it was a one time thing, but I'd still be careful. I've been using windows machines forever now and visiting that link is the first time I've been hit by a drive-by download, but in truth it can happen anywhere.
So yeah, just advising everyone to be careful, I was using an up to date AVG antivirus and it didn't pick it up, I eventually opted to install linux over it so I wouldn't have to deal with that anymore regardless.
The problem with Linux is it can be just or more insecure if you don't know how to properly administer it especially in an enterprise environment. But I agree, properly administered Linux is more secure than stand alone Windows.
I've often wanted to make the Linux switch but haven't had enough time to dedicate to learning the OS. What distro have you chosen? Ubuntu has become so popular now, I also like Fedora and SuSE. I even like Mandriva.
Yes, everyone should be aware, AVG is not the best anti-virus application. The free version should never be used on sensitive or high priority equipment or in any kind of commercial setting. You get what you pay for and it is after all free. It's only better than having no anti-virus at all.
I've found that if you have effective network security, good SPAM filtering, updated Windows patches and anti-virus definitions, a good client software firewall with updated ePolicies, and effective use of group policies to lock down each Windows workstation the amount of workplace incidents can be drastically limited. But you're always going to have problems with Windows machines. And if enough people switched to Linux you'd have just as many exploits and vulnerabilities on that platform.
Also, as long as users store their data properly on network share stores, most issues can be quickly resolved by re-imaging and volia user is back up and running.
Is he flashing a gang sign?
mine's bigger... my cucumber... it's bigger than yours...
movie?
That's twice in one day someone has referenced Animal House. Bizarre.
Just one more thing, after watching today's primarily liberal news cycle, this Barack Obama supporter feels he must come to the defense (as if he needs it) of Dr. Alan Greenspan. I do not care for one minute the great economic battle we find ourselves in right now. We have no right, no fact, no basis whatsoever to blame, shift responsibility, or even insinuate in the slightest that Alan Greenspan was and is anything but sound, substantially accurate, trusted, and absolutely necessary for the well-being of this nation's economy. Period.
So that is where I got that spyware attack!
MG is right. It did that to me. AND I fell for it.
So now I am just hoping they didn't get any of my banking info. I cancelled the credit card I used to "buy" the "service."
Going to pick up my computer from the shop today.
Please take the link down. I think MG is right, that it came from that site.
MG, do you know the country that came from? I want to fly over there and bust those bastards teeth out!
So, how is he hung?
I've spent literally hours on that site both from home and work computers and I've never even gotten so much as a popup ad. I've run Norton, malwarebytes, and Adaware scans and searched my computer for this trojan and haven't found any trace.
There are over a thousand other blogs who link to them. They say they get over 3 million pageviews per month, and that doesn't surprise me. I've searched the web for similar complaints about the blog and haven't found any. I've searched the comment sections of some other blogs linking to it and haven't found any similar complaints.
I don't think that site is malicious.
It's not. I agree with MG that if anything it was probably embedded in the active content of an advertisement on the page that coincidentally both received. The other possibility is that the site was temporarily breached somehow and and visitors within a certain time frame received this threat -- although I find that very unlikely. It is also possible that there was an underlying vulnerability both of them shared which exposed them to a common threat. Either way, I agree that for all the research I've done and the tests I've performed on this site, it's as safe as any other site of its type.
As a security orientated IT person, I cannot stress enough a few basic practices:
1) Purchase a well-rated Internet security package for your home; learn it and enable at least its medium or high level of protection. This will probably seem to be a nuisance as the firewall portion will likely prompt you for explicit confirmation of certain potentially malicious activity but it is worth it. This will keep you informed about what you're doing on your computer. Again, I recommend Kaspersky Internet Security 2009.
2) Run 2-3 of the freely available anti-spyware applications at least every 3 weeks or so; I run Spyware Terminator, Ad-Aware free edition, and Spybot Search & Destroy each one time a week. The more you run the better and the more you surf the more frequently you should run. Yes, this is again a little bit of a nuisance as it's not entirely automated (although Spyware Terminator is free and does contain a decent active shield feature which will continuously scan) but often times any one anti-virus package will not fully protect you from a great range of spyware which necessitates using multiple products. However, do NOT install multiple ant-virus applications. Use one good ant-virus application (I suggest a full Internet security suite) and multiple anti-spyware applications. A combination of the free ones are just as good as any commercially available product.
3) Know the sites you're visiting, know and trust the e-mails you open and the links you click. Do not accept IM conversations from people you do not know. Do not accept "friend" requests on social networking sites from people you do not know. Obviously, do not provide unsolicited requests for banking, financial, or otherwise personally identifying information anywhere on the Internet. If you believe a request for your personal info is legitimate verify by calling your bank, employer, school, etc. before you give out any information: 99.99999% of the time your institutions will never ask for this kind of information online.
4)Change your online passwords at least every 90 days and use complex passwords which are not easy to guess. Set a password for you and any other user accounts of family members on your computer. Use a verified password strength tester to choose strong passwords, such as Microsoft's password checker. If you have a hard time remembering passwords or if you have several passwords, invest in a password keeper program that allows you to maintain one (strong and frequently changed password!) that will encrypt a database of all of your passwords. If you're a BlackBerry person you have a nice utility already on your phone to do just this, but remember to set a password for your BlackBerry that is strong too! Never store your passwords in any kind of plain text document and it's also not good to write your passwords down unless you're positive you're storing that paper in a secure place (i.e. a lock box or personal safe).
5) If you're a Windows user consider making your user account on the computer a non-administrator account. Only login to your computer with an admin account when you need to perform specific tasks that require the admin level of permissions.
6) Use an off-site backup for at least your critical or most important data. I really like Carbonite and it's relatively cheap. If you don't use an Internet based service, make your backups (on DVD or CD's or if you must an external drive) and store them someplace outside of your house such as in your bank's safety deposit box. If your computer and external hard drive are stolen or there is a fire and all is lost in your house that backup isn't going to do you any good.
These are mainly behavioral changes that only seem difficult. Once you adjust to practicing safer computing they will become commonplace. Even remember passwords will become easier, just as you can probably recall the phone numbers of 3-4 of your most important contacts. I assure you as soon as you have to shell out a couple hundred or more bucks to have your computer cleaned, or after you lose 5 years of your family photos, or once your identity has been compromised and you're battling with credit agencies to prove it wasn't you these few steps will have seemed very essential.
Grand, thanks for the info. Yeah, part of my problem was just me being gullible.
After getting my machine back from the computer guys, for $143, I found out that they not only killed the virus, but DID kill off all my written documents and pictures. I didn't want to lose those, and didn't know they were going to just wipe everything. They put AVG on there, and one guy did recommend that Kaspersky, but the other guy didn't.
Oh, well. Stupid is as stupid does.
Great website. Thanks for link.
MJ
me here;
don't worry grand, I'm decent enough with securing linux systems. I have been workin' with them since I was 13
(which was eleven years ago)
If you're weren't using the newer versions of Firefox (like 3.0) I don't think it would've hit you, and as I said, I couldn't get it to do it a second time. I've switched that machine to linux and everything is running just fine. I restrict myself to a normal user account on linux as su is incredibly convenient, on windows I usually leave my account as an administrator, the others as limited users.
either way, no machine I use now is windows anymore. I just run a gentoo x86 or amd64 custom install based on which processor I'm using, if I need windows I emulate it through a copy of virtualbox open source edition or through wine.
With gentoo, and how you custom compile your packages with your own flags, it makes buffer overflows much harder to use because you don't exactly know your address space like on windows or precompiled binary distributions like redhat or ubuntu
but yeah jedi master, I didn't even bother to remove it, although it seemed like malwarebytes would detect it and remove it, I just said fuck it and put in my gentoo install disc.
I guess the guy with the big hand didn't listen to mom. She always told us what would happen if you beat your meat.
How can you have any pudding if you don't beat your meat?
;-)
Joe
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