Cellphone voicemail is usless, stop using it.

Until I saw this retarded ass iPhone ad it had never occurred to me how incredibly useless cell phone voice mail actually is, or at least, how no one seems to understand what the word "message" means. Anyone who's seen office space would know what I'm talking about when I say that 80% of voice mails or answering machine messages contain no useful information.

For the time I've actually owned a cell phone (against my will), about 95% of the voice mails I got fell into one of the following utterly useless categories:

1. Hey XXX, it's me YYY, I'm at ZZZ, call me back when you can, thanks.
2. Hey XXX, I just wanted to talk to you about QQQ, call me back at ZZZ.
3. It's YYY, I just wanted to know when you're going to be back at ZZZ, call me and let me know when you think you will.
4. ...(SIGHUP)
5. Hey XXX it's YYY, just wanted to see what was up, later!

Each one of these has a reason they piss me off so much, let's address them in order.

1) First, (applies for any of these), you don't need to tell me who I AM unless I suddenly come down with a case of explosive amnesia. Second, I know who YYY is because 90% of the time, caller ID actually works right. I should also note that most of these kinds of messages usually came from work about things I could have been told in actual message format, or simply left a callback number. (Hey XXX, it's YYY, QQQ is now RRR, call me at ZZZ so I know you got this).

2) I don't mind these as much as 1, but i find most of the time when I do actually call back, it's not so much 'talk to me about' as much as it is 'tell me something that could have just been as easily left in a message', same as 1.

3) The answer is always "When I get there." you retards. Calling me isn't going to make that happen any faster. If I'm running late according to schedule how the hell am I supposed to know when I'm going to be where I'm supposed to be if my schedule doesn't? I mean, I suppose I could guess and get back to you, but couldn't you just leave a number just the same?

4) These piss me right the fuck off. Why do people wait 20 seconds on a fucking cell phone voice mail if they're not going to leave a damn message? You'd think they'd hang up right after hearing "Hi, I'm not able to answer my phone right now..." but no, they fumble with the damn buttons for 40 fucking seconds, and you can hear the rustling noises on the damn message.

5) Same as 4, if you didn't have anything to say, why the fuck did you leave a message you retard?

The most aggravating part about all of these cases is that the person leaving a message actually wants a call back, but either fails to leave a number (or a place), or leaves information in the message and proceeds to tell you the same fucking thing when you actually call them (Does "Hey did you get my message?" sound familiar?)! Just leave a damn number you fucktards! I'll call you back and you can tell me once instead of twice in some two minute long bullshit message, sucking up my minutes, my time, and my voice mail space!

I mean, sweet Jesus, I can tell you want me to call you back because of the 4 calls I ignored showing up in my phone's missed call logs. Cell phones are for convenience, not the immediate gratification of your every fucking whim or request whether I work for you or not! I get it, you want to know quickly, but cant a man take a shit in peace anymore?!

Now, I'll be the first to admit I've left such messages before, and I won't even attempt to defend that, it wasn't until I actually had to listen to it did I realize how retarded it was and vow never to do it again. But please, just punch in your number after the beep instead of telling me that you want me to call you back. I don't check my voice mail except for once a week when I delete all the messages so the indicator light stops blinking.

TTNET, Routers, Default Passwords and YOU! - UPDATE

Just when I thought that TTNET couldn't make things any worse, they managed to impress me. Looking in my mail server logs (again) I punched in a few of the ip's I got from them, and found something EVEN WORSE than my previous post.

Above is a login screen for an AirTies (Flash Req'd) RT-102 ADSL2+ modem. Being curious, I looked it up on our old friend the default router password list (see previous post). However, I only found a default password for the RT-201 model. Curious, I went to their site. Strangely, the RT-102 does not even appear on their support pages, so I looked up the next-highest model, the RT-103. I didn't find any documentation in english, but I did find a FAQ section, and to quote:

I forgot the password for my router, what should I do?

If you have forgotten the password you have defined for logging in to your router using the web interface, you need to reset your router to factory defaults. By going back to factory defaults, all other settings that you may have configured (DSL, Wireless, LAN settings) will also be erased. To reset your router, press and hold the “Reset” button on the back panel for 5 seconds while your router is on. You can then login to the web interface by leaving the password field blank, and reenter all your settings.

AHA! That must be it! I'm presuming there IS a default password at all! How silly of me! So, I leave the password blank, and viola! I'm in! *sigh* Now, at this point, I will admit I'm impressed with the routers capabilities. It supports 12 DSL modes, which is quite impressive.


Sigh. Not only do we see the same horrible mistake as last time, but I'm afraid it gets even more comical.


Perhaps, in turkey, there is no word for security? Perhaps there is no word for common sense? Perhaps I've missed something. Is it so much to ask for at least a minimum password policy, TTNET? Any ISP administrator that allows a password like that deserves to be flogged.

But let's look at the situation for a moment. This is a different router than before, with the same problem. The WAN configuration option turned on, and no password set. There is only one conclusion to draw from this: TTNET is doing this on purpose! Sure, the router company is nearly as much at fault, but it appears the TTNET employees are INTENTIONALLY turning on the WAN side configuration at setup!

I wish I had more to say about this, but I think the above speaks for itself.

Failure of the Week - nymamicutie

I was planning on looking for a male blogger this week, but I couldn't resist once I came upon this amazing whore.

I'm not sure what it is about myspace that encourages terrible page layouts, it seems to have some sort of feature that compells people to put on-load-playing videos and flash-powered music on their profiles, in front of their 1024x768 bitmapped backgrounds.

Today's victim of neowhoreism? nymamicutie (Kristie Lynn)



Per custom, I'll start with the profile. A 25 year old stupid spoiled whore from new jersey. Doesn't say where in new jersey (yet), but it's probably safe to presume that she crawled out of some tire dump adjacent to a roadside motel. Likely the abandoned spawn of a hooker and some cranked up guito at the peak of the 1980's cocaine boom.

From her profile, she has some of her 'classic' (her words) posts linked (which need no further commentary):

♥ Anger Management
♥ How to Get ANY Guy you Want *including the Asshole: a 3 Part Guide
♥ Handle Your Business! Or Someone Else Will!
♥ Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thang, Baby
♥ A Date with ~*Kristie Lynn*~
♥ Roll Up your Sleeves! I am About to Get Wet!
♥ The First Step to Goodbye
♥ I Know Karate, Kung-Fu, and 47 Other Dangerous Words
♥ Yummy, Yummy I've Got Love in my Tummy!

Note that this is under the "Interests" portion of her profile. I would say this is correct and that it's probably safe to presume that she is in fact only interested in herself. In fact, things about her seem to be the ONLY thing I could find on her profile page (besides the obligatory blinking-rotating-3d-low-contrast-text-gifs and offsite-oversized-pictures). Skipping past the form-generated "what does your name mean about you" and "Friends comments", we get to her "edumacation" and real profile information.

Catholic? Really? Seriously? Are you shitting me? No? Well fuck. There's two reasons this section makes me kind of sad. One, I feel bad for her kid. I was an only child myself, but my mom had better things to do than whore for attention on the interweb, and she did. Two, I feel bad for her college of choice's admission director.

But enough of this!

Let's move on to the real meat and potatoes of this shining example of academia; THE POSTS!



Before we get to the posts but after all the 600x400 header images, we see:
"ALL BLOGS COPYWRITTEN AND OWNED BY ME! DON'T STEAL..."

First, "copywritten" is not a word. Second, I'm reasonably sure you don't own half the images in your posts, so you can do everyone a favor a shut the fuck up. However, I'm pretty sure most people would people would obey your request simply because there is no reason to 'steal' such drivel. But I have some bad news for you; screen shots and quotations are fair use, so brace yourself.

I really can't stand reading this kind of crap, so rather than try and process it all, I'm going to give you a few choice quotes. In summary, she frequently posts about sex (that she's not having), relationships (that she's not in), and personal things (that nobody cares about). She's also apparently new to paragraphs, usually not making it past two sentences before making a new line (at what point did this become acceptable?). For your sanity, I will reformat them.

From the post: "Fuck Buddy" (Thursday, July 26, 2007)

I suppose I will be addressing those today who do not get BOOTAY on a regular basis. Sucks, don't it? I haven't been getting any ass for AWHILE now but that is by my own choice. Sure, I know people that have just gone out and had fun and never thought of the night again... I'm sure drunk enough almost anyone has done that.

From the post: " Late Night Confessions and Secrets" (Sunday, July 29, 2007)

But there are still confessions that need to be made. Want one? OMG, it's kinda embarrassing. Maybe even pathetic. But hey, You guys are my friends, so why not right? Ok... here goes. I have been wearing a wedding band. Like everyday. Everywhere. But ~*Kristie Lynn*~, you have never been married! I know! But I am so broken hearted that I wear a wedding band to keep guys away. My heart is somewhere else and I don't have much to give.

Of course, it doesn't take long until you get to the cash whoring.

From the post: "SAVE MY BLOG . THANK YOU'S WILL BE COMING SOON! I PROMISE." (Thursday, July 26, 2007)

Hey guys! How are you all? I am doing OK. But I miss you! Well, I am struggling to catch up from my ex moving out and leaving me with all of the bills! My home phone and internet are currently disconnected. I have so many blogs in my head but I haven't been able to get them to you guys! If you want to help, please send a few bucks to my paypal account.

Go to www.paypal.com and type in: Send Money to:(REMOVED)

Thanks!
8:28 PM - 58 Comments - 98 Kudos - Add Comment

It's this kind of thing that brings shame to the Internet. Too lazy to get a job? Think you're worthy of unearned income? Post some nude pictures or drivel about sex on the Internet, get famous, and then plea for cash! There's always going to be some moron who thinks that your blog and/or retarded ass web-comic is more worthy of their spare change than a real charity. Seriously, who cares about a bunch of black kids getting AIDS/raped/sold anyway? I mean, isn't high speed internet all that really matters?

Tell ya what bitch, you get AIDS and sure, I'll give you a few dollars.

Less lies, more interface.

It's been going on for too long now - video game marketing has been on a steady march down the tubes since 1996. I've gotta say, I'm awful disappointed by an industry created by the more recent generation, but not surprised.

The particular offense in question today is the common practice of posting "screenshots" of games with no interface or actual gameplay, usually featuring in-game cut scenes and cinemas instead. Similarly, posting trailers or whatever the hell marketing wants to call them with no actual footage of gameplay.

Take for example, the World of Warcraft site. Besides other offenses (giant JPEG backgrounds), it's a well known example of this crime against good taste. During normal gameplay, you can press ALT-Z to hide the interface, but you can't actually play the game like this, and I would estimate that 97% of the time, most players don't use the feature during a session.

Their website has approximately 170 screenshots, only 4 (2.35%) of which actually feature images containing the interface that you'll be staring at 97% of the time. That makes that portion of the site about 97.65% filthy fucking lies. Furthermore, it features 29 movie trailers/demos with a total of 16 (55.17%) scenes of actual gameplay. Not as much of a lie, but not too far from one either.

To put that in perspective, it's like those children's toys ads where 80% of the commercial is the 'theme' of the toy and 20% is actual play with music to make it sound like more fun. I can tolerate that, because kids are stupid. However, the majority of MMORPG players are not between the ages of 8-12, now are they (or are they)?

Final Fantasy XI is possibly an even worse offender. In order to take a screen shot you HAVE to turn off the interface. No exceptions unless you use an external utility to do it for you. There's no explanation for it, so it's probably safe to presume they don't want the game's extremely obtuse interface (amusingly absent from the Wikipedia page) to show up in screen shots.

Even more disappointing is when a game's "Screenshot" section cops out entirely. Take this example from the Age of Conan's (upcoming MMORPG) website.


See that? See the angle? Do you think the camera tilts at that angle during normal gameplay? I hope to hell it doesnt. That means it's a cutscene. But more importantly, the game has titties yet they're censored in the screenshot. Well, which is it; am I gonna see me some titties, or not?

Sadly, it takes a childrens game to get it right. For shame, marketing departments, for shame.

Failure of the week - Nipplemania

This is a new 'section' which will be updated every Saturday.

See, I hate blogs, really. More accurately, I hate people blogs (blogs about people, livejournal, for example). If I wanted to read some random assholes diary, I'd phone a number in the book and ask them to reveal their personal lives to me. Of course, on the phone no one in their right mind would do such a thing, but on the internet, well, that's different.

It will feature one lucky blogger and a special examination of their postings and the following:

• Narcissism
• Camwhoreism
• Ugly colors/layout
• Number of 'friends'
• Moronic hardcore political/religious association and rants
• Bad poetry/Emoness/Teenage Angst
• ...And more!

I was originally planning to call this 'fag of the week' but remembered that I have nothing against homosexuality, and to put the bottom feeders on par with with them would be insulting.

This week we'll be taking a look at 'Nipplemainia'.

It goes without saying; If you want to find bad blogs, look no further than Xanga. I didn't even have to go further than the second page of google searches to come across this little gem.

Before I get into the details of the posts, let's start with the profile:

Name: Serena
Country: United States
State: New York
Metro: South Glens Falls and Glens Falls
Birthday: 9/9/1983
Gender: Female

Okay, a 24 year old from upstate New York. Your classic yuppie, nothing strange there.

Interests: cars (muscle cars, 60's vintage, some 70's), music (hard rock, heavy metal, grind, gore, what-thefuck-ever as long as IT HAS SOME BALLS) men... real men that talk like men, and don't want to organize my fucking closet. cats, horseback riding.. naturally world domination and the end to all existence.. did I forget I like roses too? :D
Expertise: sarcasm, dry humor, the obvious, artistry, and poetry.
Occupation: Computer related
Industry: Business

Vintage cars, okay. Her taste in music is questionable at best..but, what do we have here? I see, she wants a man to treat her like dirt and slap her around a bit. I can do that, I think. But hello, what's this?! World domination AND destruction? One or the other you dumb bitch. Can't have your cake and eat it too. Note the expertise and occupations; "Artistry/Computer related". That's going to be important later..

We're going to skip over the contact information and subscriptions, and skip straight to the "Blogrings", whatever the hell those are.

 ~*~ My Creative Imagination ~*

~`ART is muh Evrthing`~



















Painting Pictures with Words
 Poets Corner
!!!~DEAD POETS SOCIETY~!!!
my sarcasm is better than yours...so i win

Oh yeah, we got some real gems here. Teenagers of all sorts posting quality art and poetry. Clearly she's a patron of the fine arts. But enough boring profile details, let's move on to the good stuff, the posts!

You don't have to go more than two posts down to get to the bottom of this 'mysterious artistic blog'. Before you can even finish saying 'camwhore' you're confronted with a cold hard dose of her reality:


"Artistic Nudes" Yep. Sure. Right. Let's be honest here. Before us is a sad, neglected 24 year old who does anything for the short lived attention of a horny 16 year old looking to blow a load looking at some titties or some asshole macho boyfriend. Oh, and don't forget, pictures of cats.

But, let's not be too judgmental here. Perhaps her poetry can tell us something about her 'depth'.

Written: June 2, 2007
Title: W o r s h i p
I feel alone; perhaps not alone
so much as empty and helpless
with a fear inside of me so strong
I can't stop it from coming out.

I loved you and have for so long
it gets harder each moment to
tell truth from inner sanctions;
I've built a temple for you.

I envy your resonance and pray
for my rebirth in your mercy;
Surrendering my soul to your all
while I worship you.
© ~Serena~

Nothing there either. Hang on, I think I just threw up a little...

Had enough yet? No? Well, here's her info so you can get even more of her!

Message: message me: email me
Website: visit my website
AIM: nipplemaniea
Yahoo: neoandromedaxo

I personally recommend her website. She has no less than 3 blogs and two art-website accounts linked from there.

In conclusion, a classic narcissistic camwhore, no ifs/ands/buts about it. If you read this; please - get a life, make someone in your family at least a little proud of you. Go to school, get a real job, do something other than post your naked ass on the internet. We have enough of that already.

TTNET, Routers, Default Passwords and YOU!

I maintain a mail server, and occasionally check my logs. Occasionally, I investigate hosts that attempt spam, see why they were reject and what lists they were in, etc. Well, yesterday, I found something amusing.

A number of spam have in the past, come from a turkish ISP called TTNET.

Curious to see if a web server was operating on one of the hosts (many spammers have simple "user name/password" logins to a web interface for the various machines or bullshit "unsubscribe" forms), I popped a few IP's in my browser.

What I discovered...

See that? That's a login screen for a router.

I know what some of you are thinking, there's lots of those out there, right? Not with the default password set.

That's right, you can just log on in! In fact, the router even WARNS you to change the password, how thoughtful!

..Well, actually, it just asks you politely. Of course, if you're lazy, stupid, or just a DSL installer for a turkish ISP, you can just mash ignore and pretend you never saw it.

From there, you can do pretty much anything you want including (but not limited too):

• Set up port forwarding to any host in the network.
• Tun on traffic filters (some models)
• Turn on/off view logging (some models)
• Configure VPN settings (some models)
• Change connection settings (notably fun: DNS for all your phishing phantasies)
• VIEW/SET THE DSL USERNAME AND PASSWORD.

What? But they're all ***'d out?

Silly EndUser™. ***'s on webpages that aren't plopped in by auto complete are filled in by the webserver itself! I'll save that for another post, but essentially, the password is in the source, see?

See those massive black squares? That's not porn, that's user information and the associated password! Not exactly a shocker, but it further illustrates the moral of my story here. There were a number of hosts in the IP range of TTNET configured just like this, default passwords with the web interfaces turned on.

I realize turkey is probably not a upper-class high-tech heaven with super-awesome DSL installers, but there are still lessons to be learned here.

1. Don't trust the guy getting paid minimum wage to install your service correctly.
2. Secure your router, at least change the default password.
3. Don't leave the "WAN Configuration Enabled" option on, ever.
   
4. Don't ignore important warnings about password security.
5. Device manufacturers do not care about security, be careful with your wallet.
   

If you work for a device manufacturer (HA HA HA), there's even more to learn here:

1. Require a password change before allowing the WAN Configuration option to be turned on.
2. Caution users about the horrific gravity of default passwords.
   
3. Don't turn the WAN Configuration option on by default.
4. Put the WAN Configuration option on a timer by default (with a stern warning before turning it on permanently).
5. Instead of plopping the current password in a field, have a "change password" button with a separate page for setting the WAN password without the current password in it. This relieves the requirement of having to send the password in the form. (Of course, it makes recovery more difficult for us white hats.)

Well, I hope my readers (HA HA HA) learned something useful from this.