Welcome to Alex’s [new] Weblog!

Posted on January 25, 2009 | Filed Under Unsorted | 1 Comment

New Year, New President, New Blog. I overhauled the whole site and deleted a lot of junk. More changes will come over the semester, enjoy!

Media Defender Gets its Ass Kicked

Posted on January 17, 2008 | Filed Under Public | Comments Off

Media Defender is a company who is in bed with the RIAA and MPAA to try to crack down on piracy…so obviously I don’t have a whole lot of love for them. They were having a reasonable ammout of success until in September, when they got their asses handed to them on a plate. A lowly 17-year-old high school kid hacks their servers and taps their phone calls, emails, downloads some prototype anti-P2P software, and sits collecting information for 6 months. Their security breech was only realized when the kid simply got bored and posted the entire gigabyte-worth of ’spy’ data online and started a virtual shit storm. Who knows how long he could have gone.

Suffice to say, Media Defender has been reeling from this amusing incident since September, and has had to cancel many of their projects and go back to the drawing board. The code for their anti-P2P technology is currently being used to develop new and improved P2P technology which will probably make BitTorrent look like Napster. Anyway, for a very interesting read the article below is an interview with “Ethan” the 17-year-old kid who singlehandedly brought down the music and movie industry’s greatest anti-piracy asset.

The first time Ethan broke into MediaDefender, he had no idea what he had found. It was his Christmas break, and the high schooler was hunkered down in the basement office of his family’s suburban home…Ethan and I had first started talking over an untraceable prepaid phone that he carried with him. He eventually agrees to speak in person, as long as I protect his identity. (Ethan is a pseudonym.) We meet after school, in a bookstore that he says is near his house… He also pulls out a well-creased sheet of paper bearing my name, the first five digits of my Social Security number, a few pictures of me, and addresses going back 10 years. “I had to check,” he says.

(From Conde Nast’s Portfolio)

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/01/14/Media-Defenders-Profile

Fuck MySpace Bandwidth Leechers

Posted on December 12, 2007 | Filed Under Public | Comments Off

After examining my web stats a few months ago I noticed that I was getting a lot of random hits from shitty sites like MySpace. They were hotlinking several images, but one in particular: pentagram.jpg. It was a pentagram shape thing with glowing lights which used to be in my gallery but it was lame so I deleted the links…but not the images. As a result emo teens found it via Google or AOL (more probable) and hotlinked it. Well, I taught those wrist-cutting, snot-nosed little bastards needed to be taught a lesson. Instead of removing the image or whatever, I simply replaced with something a little more fitting: pentagram.jpg

Amusingly enough, some have yet to change their image so it is still up on their page. I just might have to change it to Tubgirl (don’t Google that, seriously).

See below for what damage I did to some shitty kids’ band webpage. I think it is an improvement. (I guess they got bitch slapped this time).

I Should be (Legally) Able to Download ~5 Movies Free Each Year

Posted on October 17, 2007 | Filed Under Public | Comments Off

Why? Because they insist on showing commercials before movies in the theaters. A few years ago people were really pissed off, but eventually we have been pacified into just accepting that pre-movie commercials are just part of the modern movie-going experience even though they really shouldn’t be. We are alreay paying to see the movie, why do they need to make more money? Commercials and advertising should be used excusivly for recouping money for free things, like TV. Movies alreay cost over 8 bucks in both Madison and Milwaukee. It is simple greed on the part of the movie theatre owners and movie producers. Since they waste several hours of my time every year thanks to commercials, I should be justly compensated for my wasted and irritated time in the form of free movies.

Since I figure they won’t agree, and to cut down on the paperwork, I am going to go ahead and help myself to a few movies of my choice. No MPAA, don’t get up, I’m not worth your time.

Inspired by this article.

Police Brutality at its Finest

Posted on September 19, 2007 | Filed Under Political, Public | Comments Off

Don’t get me started about police acting illegally. I have encountered that second-hand. Now they are tasering students who ask legitimate questions at a political rally.