Since it’s near the 4th of July, I thought I’d post a safe (as safe as any other firecracker) way to get a nice big bang out of $5. Read on for instructions and photos.

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After I wrote my previous post, the complaints I got were mostly along the lines of “well, a $2500 computer is a nerd computer.” So I decided to do a much more reasonable comparison. I will now see what I can get for $999. This will be a comparison of desktop computers again, since trying to get a laptop for $999 would leave certain companies out in the cold.

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You have $2500 to spend on a computer. How could you spend it? Let’s find out. I’ll see what kind of desktop I could get from Dell, HP, and Apple for $2500, and I’ll compare it to what I got about 7 months ago. Read on for more.

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Read on for some nice pictures of my workstation.

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This site will soon be getting another server in adition to the main one. This on could be a database server among other things.

Just had to harden my server some more. I have now set up an account with an easily guessable username and password who’s login shell is a script which:

A. Sends me an email with the IP the attacker is from
B. Drops the attacker into a chrooted shell.

Anyway, a recent script kiddie left behind some files, most of which were long lists of usernames and passwords, while others were lists of IPs which had been portscanned on port 22. A few files were executables, which were apparently used to hack more machines. One of them was called “ssh”, and when I ran ./ssh, I got this:

./ssh <cate pizde sa incerc…>

I thought this must be some internationalized version of SSH. But when I tried to run ./ssh localhost, I got this:

Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola!!!!!!

I had seen this message before, in my apache logs:

72.252.209.134 – - [10/Jan/2009:04:27:44 -0800] “GET HTTP/1.1 HTTP/1.1″ 400 344 “-” “Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola”
72.252.209.134 – - [10/Jan/2009:04:27:45 -0800] “GET /roundcube//bin/msgimport HTTP/1.1″ 404 340 “-” “Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola”

And this:

147.83.113.228 – - [13/Jan/2009:23:50:47 -0800] “GET HTTP/1.1 HTTP/1.1″ 400 344 “-” “Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola”
147.83.113.228 – - [13/Jan/2009:23:50:48 -0800] “GET /mantisbt/login_page.php HTTP/1.1″ 404 339 “-” “Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola”
147.83.113.228 – - [13/Jan/2009:23:50:48 -0800] “GET /tracker/login_page.php HTTP/1.1″ 404 338 “-” “Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola”
147.83.113.228 – - [13/Jan/2009:23:50:49 -0800] “GET /bugtracker/login_page.php HTTP/1.1″ 404 341 “-” “Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola”
147.83.113.228 – - [13/Jan/2009:23:50:49 -0800] “GET /bugtrack/login_page.php HTTP/1.1″ 404 339 “-” “Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola”
147.83.113.228 – - [13/Jan/2009:23:50:50 -0800] “GET /support/login_page.php HTTP/1.1″ 404 338 “-” “Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola”
147.83.113.228 – - [13/Jan/2009:23:50:50 -0800] “GET /bug/login_page.php HTTP/1.1″ 404 334 “-” “Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola”
147.83.113.228 – - [13/Jan/2009:23:50:50 -0800] “GET /bugs/login_page.php HTTP/1.1″ 404 335 “-” “Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola”
147.83.113.228 – - [13/Jan/2009:23:50:51 -0800] “GET /mantis/login_page.php HTTP/1.1″ 404 337 “-” “Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola”
147.83.113.228 – - [13/Jan/2009:23:50:51 -0800] “GET /login_page.php HTTP/1.1″ 404 330 “-” “Toata dragostea mea pentru diavola”

Great. Now I have script kiddies trying to crack things that I don’t have installed, and they are using my server to portscan and hack other servers. Seriously, script kiddies, I know you’re not reading this, but GTFO my server.

Update: to see how script kiddies operate, I recommend you read this.

The server is currently at 85 days, 10mins of uptime as of this post. I am going for 100. Hopefully, there will not be a >1hour power failure, or a software crash (there never has been). I will be going for 200 days of uptime after this. I’d also like to thank the Debian team for a rock-solid OS.

Update: A live tracker is up: http://mattventura.net/uptime

Also, mattventura.net has a folding@home team (team 161515). The team will hit 100,000 points in a few days. I hope to pick up a few members to speed up the team. The team, in it’s current state, will hit 1,000,000 points in about six months. Anyone who wants to join is welcome. If you contribute, I will give you a link back to your site on a page on this site that will list all the contributors to the team (currently only me).

Read more for suckiness.
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If you want to install Debian on an external drive, you can follow these instructions. THis has the advantage of being portable and persistent, and works for hard drives and flash drives.

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Just Installed Debian on my laptop again a few days ago. Already upgraded to sid repos. I like the new network-manager. I’ll post if anything new comes up.