I have a rat problem at home. It has been eating my bread and most recently, it has eaten its way through a door. I hate rats. I wish that hunting rats was as easy as hunting hackers. I was brought in on an incident at work today. Seems like one of our servers had recently been compromised. Any organisation with a sufficiently large server infrastructure needs to be ever vigilant of attacks.

So, I got my grubby hands on the KVM terminal of the server and started nosing around. Very quickly, I found that it was making two network connections, one to an IRC server and another attack on a remote web server. This is interesting because it is a classic bot-net scenario where the bot sits in the background and connects to an IRC server in order to receive commands from its masters.

Then, I had to hunt down the offending background bot programme. That took a little snooping around the proc filesystem of the server to track down the application. I loved the filenames that the hacker used for its scripts. Some of those names were really creative to say the least. The final step was to track down how the hack was initiated. This was definitely something planted ages ago before being turned-on recently.

At one point, I commented to a colleague that it felt fun playing CSI on the server. As usual, the ultimate flaw in the security lay in the system admin. While nosing around in the system, I got a feel for the competency of that particular server’s sysadmin. There were several things done, that should not be done. So, let’s just hope that they take our advice to heart and fix the flaws.

As for the rat at home. I think that I’ll need to try to track down its entry point into the house. Then, I can plug it and kiss it goodbye.

I’m not sure if it is fortune or misfortune that has resulted in me not having to attend any BTN camp before. However, I have some friends who have attended such courses. Of course, there are also many anecdotal recollections of what has happened inside these camps. There is rarely any hard evidence in any of these cases because of the strict restrictions on bringing information devices into these courses.

However, after reading the article in TheStar, it seems that the government acknowledges that there are problems and steps are being taken to fix them. According to the article, “the co-curriculum [sic] will be brought in line with the Prime Minister’s 1Malaysia, which means it will be more inclusive and will not divide Malaysians. If we have a course for only one racial group, then that is not 1Malaysia,” said our Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz.

To me, this seems like an admission on the part of the government, that something is terribly wrong with these BTN camps. If the courses taught during these camps are designed to instill disunity and spew a whole load of bigoted nonsense, it will ultimately do more harm than good. So, while I will not hold my breath waiting for the thing to be fixed, I will at least accept that the government is aware of the problems and that something needs to be done to fix it (at some point in the future).

At the very least, I now know that my friends were telling the truth of the matter and that they were not deranged attention seeking sociopaths. The present crop of BTN courses has to go. Let us do what my former Malaysian Studies professor did – tear up the pages of our distorted SPM history and re-tell our country’s history from scratch, with the necessary logic, rational and evidence to back things up. I loved his lectures, which at least made sense.

It instilled in me a love for our country, it made me proud of our rich history and made me aware of the beautiful cultural diversity that we have inherited. You don’t have to be a right-wing extremist to be a nationalist. I wish that our government would get his help in drafting the new BTN syllabus. He truly knows how to put the right spin on the truth.

Some people have all the luck. They do not suffer from jet-lag. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people. I can still remember the first time I returned from the UK at the end of my first year. I was only home for a month and it took me a whole week to get over my jet-lag. I was just sleeping and eating all the time. This time around, it has taken me about a week as well. I have spent most of last week as a day-time zombie while trying to sleep at night was a chore.

I got a really good night’s sleep last night and I hope that is enough to overcome jet-lag. Tomorrow is the start of a new day, the start of a new week, and almost the start of a new month.

Alright, we all know that Namewee loves to court controversy. I have this feeling that he is an attention whore and he needs to be in the limelight for the purposes of furthering his career. Honestly, if he did not face the kinds of trouble that he has, it is unlikely that many of us would know the artiste known as Namewee. Fortunately for him, our government is run by a bunch of fools who continue to feed him his daily dose of notoriety.

The latest incident comes from Namewee complaining about the services provided by our utilities company, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (or more affectionately known as Total National Blackout). Regardless of what Namewee has done or is doing to TNB, this is merely a simple matter of a customer being unhappy with the services provided and venting out, which is a perfectly normal thing to do. I don’t think that there is anyone among us who has not cursed TNB at one time or another (or TMNET for that matter).

What I am amazed at is the stupidity of our politicians. Quoting from TheStar, our Information, Communications, Cul­ture and Arts Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said that:

…investigations would be conducted on the lyrics, content and composition of the song before any action was taken against Wee. He said the Penal Code and the Communications and Multimedia Act could be used against offenders. We cannot allow acts that insult which could lead to disharmony…

WTF?!

Honestly, I think that our minister is confused by what is happening (or otherwise misquoted as our politicians usually are). This is a simple matter of a customer being unhappy with a service provided by a company and venting it publicly. This could not possibly lead to any sort of disharmony especially at the national level. It sets a very dangerous precedent if the government decides to step in and stop customers from complaining about services provided by private companies. It is extremely detrimental to consumer rights and the whole economy in general.

Let us not confuse ourselves. TNB is a private company that is providing power utility services. It is by no means the only power provider in Malaysia even if it is the biggest one. If its services levels are not good enough, customers have the right to complain as much as they want. If TNB feels that what the customer is saying is slanderous, by all means, take the customer to court and see how that pans out with the rest of its customer base.

While Namewee may be a total bastard in many ways, it is well within his right to rant and rave if there is cause for it. In a proper market, we would have multiple vendors, instead of multiple monopolies, competing for customers. If TNB sucked, we could always walk off and buy power from another company, if only our markets worked properly. Unfortunately, things do not work that way in Malaysia.

PS: I wish that TMNet did not suck and provide us with 10Mbps broadband speeds at a low-cost in Malaysia.

I hate jet-lag. I’m wide awake at night and half-asleep during the day. Let’s hope that this long weekend will give me enough rest to cure it.

And I need to find out what result my nephew got in his end-of-year school exams. I sort of remember promising him a Wii if he managed to top his entire cohort. However, seeing that he is still pretty new at his PS2 games, I may defer getting him the Wii first. I really do not want to waste my money on a Wii if it turns out that he has little interest in playing games. Alternatively, I may get him something else that he wants, instead of a Wii.

This is interesting. I have never considered my photography of sufficient quality to warrant printing but a Japanese print magazine had recently contacted me to ask for permission to use one of my photographs in their magazine. It is for a special issue of their magazine that will be coming out next month. They have been upfront with their terms, which is good:

Why I would like to use it is so beautiful and really suit for the concept for the special issue. I’m afraid it’s going to be for free although, I will e-mail the page’s PDF to you after it’s published. If you allow me to use it, of course your name will be on it as a credit.

The photo is presently published under a Creative Commons license (SA-NC-BY). I think that it is exceedingly good form on their part to actually contact me for permission in using the photograph for their magazine. There are so many companies out there who will just take your stuff and pretend that it is theirs while hoping that nobody would notice. There are also plenty of professionals engaged in such activities. I decided to grant them the permission to use the photo for their print magazine. In addition, I had asked them to send me a small amount of money to make the transaction all legit.

The photograph was received. The message is done again if there is a question concerning the photograph and others. It makes an effort about Japanese coins being possible to do. Thank you really for polite correspondence.

Now I noticed that the standards of English were not quite as good as the standard message that they sent out earlier. I did not really know if they had understood my request about the Japanese coins but I didn’t bother too much about it. If they did send me the money, I would be happy. The first thing that I found when I came home was that they had sent me a print copy of the December 2009 issue of their magazine along with my photo in it, and the bit of money that I had asked for.

This totally made my day.

PS: I had asked for a single coin of each denomination in Japan, which totals up to about RM25 (666 Yen).

I am in for another long haul flight back home, soon. I am not looking forward to it. I will try my best to get some work done on the flight back so that I can kick start things once I get home. Life will be very interesting over the next couple of weeks. Let’s just hope that I make it back home safely.

It’s nice to know that I have friends. I got a bunch of emails, text messages and instant messages to wish me luck and all the best, just before my big day. On one hand I was quite glad that there were a lot of people who believed in me and supported me while on the other hand, I was also feeling the weight of all that expectation that I did not want to let down. The day is finally over and the memory of it is something that will probably stay with me for the rest of my life.

It was not a pleasurable experience but a real learning experience and not one that I would soon forget. It did not turn out very well but it could have ended up being much worse. Thankfully, it was not and I think that I got the best result that I could have expected. In fact, the funny thing was, a friend of mine asked me a few days ago what I would do if I was my own examiner and I said that I would have done the exact same thing that I ended up getting.

Well, at least this is finally over and the finishing line is within sight. Now, is the rightful mad dash to the finish!

I got to see the queen again, today – she drove past me in her royal car. I went into town to meet up for lunch with some friends today. We planned to eat at a small restaurant on King’s Parade but it turned out that the queen was having lunch at King’s College right opposite. So, the entire street was blocked off from traffic. Well, I got to see the Queen as her car drove past everyone else on the way to King’s. I got the video to prove it too! The first time I got to meet the queen was in my first year at Cambridge. Since the road was so busy, we adjourned elsewhere for lunch.

It was nice to get to meet up with some of my favourite friends at Cambridge – these two in particular, are in my good books. I do so wish that we could spend more than just an hour or so catching up. There are so many interesting things that are happening in everyone’s lives. Well, some of my friends will be coming back to Malaysia to work after they graduate. I do hope that I’ll be able to catch up with them more often at home. I am such a busy-body, trying to know how people get on with their lives.

I also managed to get my copy of Burnout Paradise (non-ultimate) swapped with a Burnout Paradise Ultimate for the same price. All is well in this world.

PS: I hope to get a good rest tonight but I kinda think that it will be difficult. I do hope that I will be alert and thinking on my feet tomorrow.

I need to draw a line at some-point when it comes to bluray purchases. This was particularly true as I had the option of getting some movies and also tv series on bluray instead of DVD. However, it would be slightly more expensive. I deliberated this a bit and decided to draw a line.

I would continue to purchase DVDs for films that were shot prior to the HD era. There are a number of old classics being re-mastered into bluray. There is no reason to purchase these in bluray because they were not shot and made for HD. In essence, the originals are just being up-sampled to a higher resolution. A PS3 can already handle the up-sampling fairly decently by adding an oil-canvas feel to the images instead of noise.

I would also continue to purchase DVDs for sets that I already have parts of in DVD. It would not make sense to re-build my entire collection in bluray just because they were there. For example, I already have Spiderman 1 and 2 on DVD and it would not make sense for me to get Spidey 3 on bluray. Ditto for Battlestar Galactica. I already have everything except the last two seasons on DVD. It would not make sense for me to get the entire series again on bluray.

However, I made no qualms about getting the new Star Trek on bluray. I am actually looking forward to watching it on my PS3 in full-HD glory on my television. I think that I will probably organise a small gathering with some friends of mine to watch Star Trek on bluray after I get back. It’s supposed to be region free and it does not state a region on the cover. I just hope that it plays on my PS3!