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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Junk Posts

I have a page on my site that allows interested parties to post questions to my business.  Recently it's been flooded with these junk posts.  I'm not sure what the payload is, because my e-mailer strips out all the HTML and JavaScript before messaging me.  There is one aspect of this that I find somewhat disturbing though.


All the posts are similar, but they come from IP addresses all over the world.  Here are the latest ones:

IP addressevent occuredCountry
125.7.106.362011-01-25 03:15:01.097AUSTRALIA
194.71.15.2422011-01-25 00:15:28.947SWEDEN
58.1.236.522011-01-24 23:48:23.503JAPAN
62.189.102.2292011-01-24 22:36:23.813UNITED KINGDOM
84.170.167.12011-01-24 22:16:55.657
174.133.230.402011-01-24 21:20:31.047UNITED STATES
71.101.103.2472011-01-24 19:31:49.997UNITED STATES
186.88.170.2232011-01-24 14:23:03.003VENEZUELA
216.185.76.742011-01-24 08:58:20.940CANADA
193.137.203.2312011-01-24 06:30:30.783PORTUGAL
74.121.148.32011-01-24 05:55:59.257UNITED STATES
219.234.246.2482011-01-24 03:32:39.443CHINA
68.238.66.1132010-12-09 23:07:47.327UNITED STATES
202.108.50.702010-12-09 09:54:13.323CHINA
190.177.66.1852010-12-09 05:13:55.220ARGENTINA
212.178.200.722010-12-09 05:09:22.023NETHERLANDS
200.55.16.502010-12-09 05:04:51.767ARGENTINA
187.9.58.1942010-12-09 01:14:22.237BRAZIL
212.71.32.942010-12-09 01:06:39.560SAUDI ARABIA
193.56.241.1252010-12-08 23:53:00.620FRANCE
85.255.197.1252010-12-08 21:19:54.407
79.125.121.1212010-12-08 17:09:40.170IRELAND


The thing would not be alarming but the emails (with the java and HTML removed) are all nearly identical. They all look something like this:

Dx6CQw ccvpfvghxsko, [url=http://qdzwgbbwegwf.com/]qdzwgbbwegwf[/url], [link=http://zadpuhxlkcme.com/]zadpuhxlkcme[/link], http://yvetloauhztz.com/


Don't worry, I tried looking for these domains and they are all unregistered. The real payload of the post must have been in the HTML/JavaScript. It is my hope in posting these that some of you googling upon this page might see this and have some insight as to what the point might be. If so, please comment below.





Bryan Valencia is a contributing editor and founder of Visual Studio Journey.  He owns and operates Software Services, a web design and hosting company in Manteca, California.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Snobs

I am a snob.

I had to reinstall Visual Web Developer after a crash.  I edited a few old web sites, and apart from it squawking at me about my .NET 3.5 sites not being upgraded, all was well. Ok, so I decided to take a peek at my own web site and perhaps give it a fresh coat of paint. 

So I created a new project.  I had some great ideas about the menu bar.  3 hours of tormented editing later, it looked just like I wanted.  But I wanted the 'current' web page to be displayed in the "selected" style, so I thought I'd open the code window and see if I couldn't make some magic.

Until...

ACK!  My whole freaking project is in VISUAL BASIC! 

You see, in the 1980's I programmed in GWBASIC.  I was young and had no idea what a programming language could be.  I moved on to Atari Basic.  Then I was working a project on those evil IBM PCs and a friend handed me a Borland Turbo Pascal 2.0 disk. 

My God it was great!  Fast compiler, fast, efficient code - it rocked my world.  And just like that I began looking down on people still using that outdated, slow, interpreted BASIC.

Turbo Pascal led to Paradox, Paradox led to Delphi, and after that, C# and ASP.NET.  Each time I moved up a rung, I looked down on those stuck on the level below me.  But I also encountered others.  People who looked at me and said, "you should switch to MAC" or "you should switch to Linux".  I scoffed and called them snobs.  Apple Snobs and Linux Snobs.  Even within the *nix world, there are POSIX snobs, and UNIX purists, and Red Hat, and Fedora.  Let's not even talk about BEOS/HAIKU

Finally - years ago - I realized that all these languages and OSes have their own place, and even though I like to complain bitterly about Redmond, I have to admit that Microsoft products help me get the job done.

Set the TARDIS for this week.  That web site, and my three hours of work - polluted with VISUAL BASIC of all things.  All my C# snobbery and VB disdain kicked back into high gear.  Not that it's a driving campaign in my life, but it's still there.  Even worse than my VB-infested web site, I am a snob!




Bryan Valencia is a contributing editor and founder of Visual Studio Journey.  He owns and operates Software Services, a web design and hosting company in Manteca, California.

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