Echo Binary

I’m not sick of spooky costumes, decorations or whatever, I’m just sick — as in ILL.

Last Sunday, I felt that my body was aching so much like I was battered or something to that effect. I was still able to watch “The Employee of the Month” with my girlfriend and eat Whooper at Burger King, but the next day, I suddenly felt feverish. I could not withstand the coldness in our office even if I have 3 layers of clothes. I tried to stay back but the chills penetrate in my bones and I could not tolerate my shivering anymore so I decided to go back home after lunch.

It seems that I have flu — fever, combined with colds, headache and sore throat. I don’t mind most of these except sore throat because I could not easily recover from sore throat. Most of the times, it will develop to tonsillitis which is even more problematic. What I don’t understand is when my mouth sore kicks in too. It’s worse now, but it is healing slowly.

Good thing, it was Ramadan last Tuesday and was a public holiday so I was able to rest the entire day. With the help of my medicines, I was able to slowly recover. I went to office from Wednesday to Friday with slight fever and colds. It’s not fun but I need to work since I don’t believe that I could get any better lying in bed.

If I could have just taken multivitamins more often, I’m probably more resistant to flu and other common virus. Well, lesson learned. I should not let stress and fatigue trouble my work and life. Sa panahon ngayon, bawal ang magkasakit.

I watched the movie “The Departed” this afternoon and I was really entertained. I didn’t expect much at the beginning because I knew from reviews that it is a remake of a Hong Kong 2002 movie “Infernal Affairs”. I haven’t watched the original so I did not have any idea how the remake would be.

It’s a cop movie but there’s not much chase-and-run scenes here. It’s a detective story with a perfect blend of action thriller and drama.

Set in Boston, the undercover cop Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) joined the mob syndicated lead by Costello (Jack Nicholson). He leaks information to South Boston Police Capt. Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Sgt. Dignam (Mark Wahlberg). On the other hand, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) gained high position in the Special Investigation Unit using his wit and raw talent in solving cases while serving as Costello’s mole in the police. Soon, Costigan and Sullivan would have to unveal the identity of the mole so it became a race against time on who would be the first one to uncover the true identity of the other one.

I’ll just jump to the ending but I won’t tell any spoiler here. It is shocking. If you haven’t watched the original movie, you will be surprised. It’s not the way I would imagine the ending of the characters at all. WTF. The twist is just too unforgiving.

Since then, I wanted to know more about the film so I watched “Infernal Affairs” and I found out that the ending of “The Departed” departed from the the original. I would prefer the ending of the original but the ending of “The Departed” is also brilliant. There were subtle differences in the story but “The Departed” is essentially an American remake with added action and a bed scene. There’s only one woman involved with Sullivan and Costigan but in “Infernal Affairs” there were several. I would think that at some point, the original is better than the remake but I would rate the two of them 5/5 solely for the story. “The Departed” was Americanized and re-interpreted to suit the environment in Boston since Hong Kong police is very different. And since “The Departed” has a different ending, there won’t be any sequel to it unlike “Infernal Affairs” that has a sequel. However, I doubt that Hollywood would remake a sequel. That is way too much…

I joined the Security Interest Group in our workplace and one of my quest is to make it as my secondary job since I’m interested in security-related programs, vulnerability assessment and protection.

One of my concern right now is how to find relevant information to prove that the improper use of a typical USB flash disk (thumb drive) is a security threat to our workplace. Then I stumbled upon the Hak .5 video podcast episode 2×03 regarding USB Hacksaw:

The USB Hacksaw is an evolution of the popular USB Switchblade that uses a modified version of USBDumper, Blat, Stunnel, and Gmail to automatically infect Windows PCs with a payload that will retrieve documents from USB drives plugged into the target machine and securely transmit them to an email account.

Sounds cool and dangerous.

I tried the proof of concept and I wasn’t able to get the expected result because one of the program was detected as trojan. I am using a corporate anti-virus during my test. If you are not using an updated anti-virus, good luck.

The USB switchblade is supposed to silently steal information from a victim PC with Windows 2000, XP or 2003 OS while a USB hacksaw is supposed to copy files of the unsuspecting user of your PC. The switchblade can be defeated by disabling the autorun option in Windows and using an updated anti-virus. However it is not guaranteed that this precautionary measure will really help the victim. At this moment, the password recovery tool is yet to be encrypted. Using anti-virus disabler can also enable the switchblade do its job unsuspectedly. The thing is, with USB Hacksaw, the hacker (host PC) may have overriden his or her anti-virus program so that the stealthy program does its job copying the whole content of the victim’s USB.

When you read things like this, you will now have second thoughts on plugging in someone’s else thumb drive in your PC or laptop or using your thumb drive in someone’s else PC or laptop. There are some flash disks with password protection and encryption but I doubt that it will be useful at all. So the next time you use flash disk, handle it with care because it is regarded as a security threat.

Links:
Hak .5 Wiki - USB Hacksaw

Today I have to uninstall the faulty six-years old power supply unit (PSU) in my old Pentium III PC so that I could install a relatively-new-yet-old power supply which currently works only half of the time. What I plan to do is buy a branded power supply unit with twin fan for my Pentium 4 PC and replace the semi-faulty power supply in my Pentium III computer so that every power-related problem I have with my PC will be resolved. I run my primary PC 24/7 so I have to buy a reliable power supply geared towards the overclocker enthusiasts to avoid heat problems resulting to abnormal shutdowns.

I’m quite hesitant at the moment because I’m deciding to buy an Enermax EG465P-VE (430 Watts) power supply. At the moment, I have a generic 350 Watts PSU which is not enough according to my experience. Even though my PC is quite aged already, collectively I have 5 fans to keep the system cool including the fan for graphics card, the chip set and the processor. I also have one extra fan at the side of the casing and an exhaust system fan at the back of the tower casing. Include my devices that hooks to my USB ports — printer, scanner, mouse, and occasionally my flash disk and Nokia phone cable — that’s already 5 devices. Inside, I have an integrated 10/100 LAN card, integrated sound card, Radeon 9550 256 MB video card, 1 Gig DDR memory and an “extension” card containing firewire and additional USB ports. I run 2 hard disks, a DVD-writer and a floppy drive which I have not used for almost 3 years. I may plug in more devices in the future so to make my upgrade future proof, I think that a 430 Watts PSU would be the right choice. I have read very good reviews about Enermax and it seems to be the most available PSU in my favorite PC shop.

Why do I have to do all these? Well, first of all, I want to transfer the current PSU in my primary PC to my old PC to replace the PSU it has, yet again. Secondly, I do not want my PC to restart every day due to heat problems. I care for the integrity of the data in PC because some of them are really precious to me. I have created back ups but it’s too troublesome to find out one day that my PC is clinically dead due to power supply issues. I do not want that happening to me since I do not have much time for PC repairs during weekdays.

Perhaps I will buy my new PSU on my next salary and I’ll post a review about it after I have used it continuously in a week.

Btw, the main reason I am hesitant to buy the Enermax PSU even though I’m almost ready to buy it is because of the price… I’ll have to shell out 4k just for the unit. I should have been saving up for PS3, not PSU! x_x

Typhoon Milenyon, also known internationally as Xangsane, have brought Metro Manila, including nearby provinces, down to its knees. Many people have suffered the onslaught of Milenyo due to its unexpected strength. Many were caught by surprise as the strong wind surge Milenyo brought torn down many billboards, uprooted countless trees and even overturned trucks. The damage was so devastating that even I could not believe my own eyes.

I had witnessed super Typhoon Rosing 11 years ago and Milenyo is not really that strong compared to it, yet, Milenyo managed to cause wide scale damage comparable to Rosing not only in Metro Manila but also in the provinces that Milenyo passed by.

I have counted the battered billboards from Alabang to Makati via SLEX. Along the west service road, I counted 15 and 8 along east service road. Most billboards were twisted, mangled and toppled like scrap metals ready for junk shop. It is disturbing how these billboards caused structural damages to the nearby buildings and houses. Some houses were flattened while the stronger buildings survived. The sight of the billboard which used to advertise Pancake house in the middle of Skyway-EDSA-Magallanes is just stunning — in a dreadful way. Everytime I look at it, I get chills down my spine. Most of the big trees in Filinvest Alabang seemed to be cut down to serve as firewood. It’s a pity that many trees didn’t survive Milenyo. It’s also NOT typical to see flying corrugated iron roof in our place but I saw several taking off from our neighbor’s house.

Apart from its immediate effect such as suspension of classes and work, cancellation of flight and sea travel, Milenyo also caused blackout in Luzon. Fallen trees, posts and billboards contributed much of the power disruption. Our area was unlucky because we didn’t have electricity for 4 whole days. It was a torture and test of patience.

Some lessons and revelations that I learned from Milenyo:

1. Huge billboards along the road or near buildings are VERY dangerous especially with the tarpaulin or canvass on it.
2. Having a fully-charged cellphone and spare battery helps a lot in times of calamity
3. Battery-powered radios are cool
4. My office is my second home. Thanks to the generator.
5. Scrabble is the best family game to waste your time on
6. My PC is useless without electricity (duh!)
7. Without electricity, I go to bed 3 to 5 hours earlier