Category Archives: EN

Anything that does not fit into other categories …

Technical break

Posted on 2009-04-09 by Oliver

Due to a recently dislocated shoulder, the blog will be kind of suspended in the next few weeks. Typing one-handedly works half-way for text, but is slow and error-prone. Programming is out of question. Update: I’ll undergo orthopedic surgery on … Continue reading →

Posted in /dev/null, EN | 1 Comment

Ubuntu giving me a headache

Posted on 2009-04-02 by Oliver

If we consider the scenario where you want to grant only remote access to an account (e.g. user) and know you will only do this via SSH and using key-based authentication, it makes sense to lock the user account for … Continue reading →

Posted in /dev/null, EN, Linux | Leave a comment

Conficker tools

Posted on 2009-03-31 by Oliver

A team of two German researchers has devised a method to detect Conficker (in its known variants) through the RSA keys which originally have been used by the Conficker authors against anyone attempting to fool Conficker into updating from an … Continue reading →

Posted in EN, IT Security, Programming, Reversing | Leave a comment

Note to self: selective target name in DDK builds

Posted on 2009-03-20 by Oliver

Just found out how to properly “detect” in the sources file which one (32 or 64bit) is being built and assign a different output name to the debug symbols and the target file. !if $(386) TARGETNAME=shellext32 !elseif $(AMD64) TARGETNAME=shellext64 !else … Continue reading →

Posted in /dev/null, EN, Programming | 1 Comment

Perl, simply great

Posted on 2009-03-16 by Oliver

In the scope of WinDirStat I am currently migrating our language system to a more generic text-based approach. The final file format has not yet been decided, but it’s likely going to be XML. Perl just enabled me to write … Continue reading →

Posted in /dev/null, EN, Programming | 1 Comment

Oh my, back to the roots … (update)

Posted on 2009-03-10 by Oliver

We just upgraded to CodeGear RAD Studio 2009 in the company – I gave up after BDS 2006 and its overpriced upgrade paths and after noticing the direction the Delphi community was headed – and what does it require? JSharp … Continue reading →

Posted in EN, Programming, Software | 11 Comments

Strange concept of “email”

Posted on 2009-03-04 by Oliver

When trying to contact Amazon, one is forced to use a web form to “email” them. That’s not unusual and often the initial step in establishing a contact with the support staff of a company. The Amazon support does respond … Continue reading →

Posted in EN, Thoughts | Leave a comment

Interesting problem when building GMP during GCC build …

Posted on 2009-02-24 by Oliver

… I needed to unset CDPATH in order to get it to build, because otherwise it tries to cd into tests inside one of the folders from CDPATH (in my case the setting was /mnt) instead into ./tests from inside … Continue reading →

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Reminder to self

Posted on 2009-02-24 by Oliver

… if someone approaches you and asks to advertise on any of your websites, they have more to gain than you. Ergo: any such arrangement is pointless.

Posted in /dev/null, EN, Thoughts | 3 Comments

Curiosity and the need … (updated)

Posted on 2009-02-03 by Oliver

… for more information about reparse points, junction points, volume mount points, symbolic links on NTFS drive (“reparse points” is the generic term for all of them) led me to write a tool called looklink. I put it into the … Continue reading →

Posted in EN, Programming, Software | 3 Comments

Harmful “badware” …

Posted on 2009-01-31 by Oliver

Google had an issue today. I noticed it by chance when looking for the name of an author. Later, coming to the office, Friðrik told me we had a major problem in that Google flags out company website with “This … Continue reading →

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Unpleasant surprise

Posted on 2009-01-30 by Oliver

OpenOffice.org 3.0.1 was released recently. Now I do not normally rush to upgrades but instead have my own system of keeping a clean copy for the worst case scenario. It was time again to update my “clean” image of the … Continue reading →

Posted in EN, Software | Leave a comment

Yippie! IDA 5.4 Pro released …

Posted on 2009-01-30 by Oliver

My personal highlight is still the Bochs debugger, but I am sure I’ll take the chance and also look into the newly acquired kernel debugging features. Check out the highlights over here. // Oliver

Posted in EN, Reversing, Software | Tagged | Leave a comment

“Terrorists” sending aid to UK

Posted on 2009-01-26 by Oliver

Following an article in the Daily Express that as much as one out of twelve pensioners may die as a result of the cold winter, Icelanders have sent woolen garments to the UK. An incredible gesture after last year’s use … Continue reading →

Posted in EN, Island/Iceland/Ísland, Thoughts | Leave a comment

Gimme dope Obama …

Posted on 2009-01-24 by Oliver

Check it out here.

Posted in /dev/null, EN | 1 Comment

IDA 5.4 Pro Beta released

Posted on 2009-01-22 by Oliver

Hex-Rays has released a beta of the upcoming version 5.4 of IDA. I was lucky enough to be allowed for the beta-test and the first new thing I noticed was that the command line field now had a button in … Continue reading →

Posted in EN, Reversing, Software | Tagged | Leave a comment

We have done it all …

Posted on 2009-01-17 by Oliver

“Secure” deletion of some piece of data. Programs, whether commercial or free – such as Eraser – offer to overwrite the data several times according to “DoD standards” (referring to the US department of defense) and so on. A study … Continue reading →

Posted in /dev/null, EN, IT Security, Software | 1 Comment

Useful script for MSVC users …

Posted on 2009-01-16 by Oliver

I wrote a little .cmd script (for the NT script interpreter, cmd.exe) that can be used to get the environment for the newest, or a specified installed version of Visual C++, similar to what the link from the start menu … Continue reading →

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Zlob author leaves new year’s wishes in variant

Posted on 2009-01-15 by Oliver

As you can read here, the author of Zlob has once again hidden a message inside a variant. This time it’s about best wishes for the new year to the MS virus response team and future plans, so to speak. … Continue reading →

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Arrived 1.1

Posted on 2009-01-08 by Oliver

I updated the program Arrived to version 1.1. There is one important change in this version that breaks compatibility, but I am convinced there are rather few users anyway 😉 The change is to use CreateProcess() instead of ShellExecute(). That’s … Continue reading →

Posted in /dev/null, EN, Programming, Software | Leave a comment