But you might be sold to a better company?

For those who didn't understand what VP Joe Biden was talking about by being put back into chains, this this getting close to what he meant - and this is what the fortunate ones would get.

Mitt Romney started off claiming that he wanted to attract the independent voters, maybe even be a little bipartisan. Then, he crapped all over that notion and named Paul Ryan for VP. Sure, this candidate will excite the conservative base, but they would have voted for him regardless. More importantly, Paul Ryan is about as popular with independents and democratic-leaning uncommitted voters as the bubonic plague.

And perhaps just as much, Romney can now kiss goodbye much of the senior citizen vote since Ryan shows an open desire to gut social security and medicare.

This was going to be a pretty easy race for Obama to win, and it just got a lot easier. He would need an Al Gore-sized failure to campaign to lose now.

It's been a while since anyone has attempted to hack into my system at home. Really, quite a long while in comparison to how it used to go. This morning some idiot decided to go for it. No botnet this time, just one IP address (of course it could be multiple systems behind one IP address, but that isn't really very well distributed then, is it?). Last night they started with "abmsi" and worked their way through the alphabet from there. While I write this they are attempting accounts starting with the letter "e".

The IP address is

They have made over 1,100 attempts up to now, in less than 12 hours.

The WHOIS shows they are in China:

inetnum: 119.254.0.0 - 119.255.255.255
netname: HUARUI
descr: Beijing Guanghuan Xinwang Digital Technology co.Ltd
descr: 2A-2F,Tower A,East Gate Plaza,NO.9 Dong Zhong Street, Dong Cheng Dstrict,Beijing
country: CN
admin-c: WH271-AP
tech-c: WH271-AP
mnt-by: MAINT-CNNIC-AP
mnt-lower: MAINT-CNNIC-AP
mnt-routes: MAINT-CNNIC-AP
mnt-irt: IRT-CNNIC-CN
status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20080313
source: APNIC

person: Wang Huijun
nic-hdl: WH271-AP
e-mail: chenbincb@sinnet.com.cn
address: Langfang university Langfang Development Area
phone: +86-13311166160
fax-no: +86-64181819
country: CN
changed: ipas@cnnic.cn 20080227
mnt-by: MAINT-CNNIC-AP
source: APNIC

I emailed all three of the email addresses listed, and two (ipas@cnnic.cn and hm-changed@apnic.net) have already failed. I'm not holding out high hopes for the last one (chenbincb@sinnet.com.cn) but we'll see.

Some of their first stuff:

grep 119.254.32.169 /var/log/messages | head -50
Aug 9 21:53:24 web sshd[42266]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user abmsi from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 21:54:00 web sshd[42269]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user about from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 21:54:36 web sshd[42272]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user abuhanif from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 21:55:12 web sshd[42275]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user abuse from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 21:55:48 web sshd[42292]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user academic from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 21:56:25 web sshd[42295]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user account from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 21:57:01 web sshd[42298]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user accounting from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 21:57:37 web sshd[42303]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user accounts from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 21:58:13 web sshd[42306]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user accountsc from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 21:58:49 web sshd[42309]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user achang5884 from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 21:59:25 web sshd[42312]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user acharya from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 22:00:01 web sshd[42315]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user acision from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 22:00:37 web sshd[42334]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user aclinch from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 22:01:13 web sshd[42337]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user acreddy from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 22:01:50 web sshd[42340]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user actaism from 119.254.32.169
Aug 9 22:02:26 web sshd[42343]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user activemq from 119.254.32.169

Some of their most recent:

tail /var/log/messages
Aug 10 09:50:25 web sshd[47473]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user eddiel from 119.254.32.169
Aug 10 09:51:03 web sshd[47478]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user eddyl from 119.254.32.169
Aug 10 09:51:42 web sshd[47481]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user edi from 119.254.32.169
Aug 10 09:52:20 web sshd[47484]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user ediishu from 119.254.32.169
Aug 10 09:52:58 web sshd[47487]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user edincek from 119.254.32.169
Aug 10 09:53:37 web sshd[47491]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user editor from 119.254.32.169
Aug 10 09:54:15 web sshd[47495]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user edphyd from 119.254.32.169
Aug 10 09:54:53 web sshd[47498]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user eds from 119.254.32.169
Aug 10 09:55:32 web sshd[47501]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user edwardchuang from 119.254.32.169
Aug 10 09:56:10 web sshd[47518]: error: PAM: authentication error for illegal user edwardsm from 119.254.32.169

Unsurprisingly they make only one attempt per account. Hence even if they hit a valid account they wouldn't go far enough to try to figure out a password (I presume they are trying blank passwords?). Looks like one attempt every 38-39 seconds. Which for one system, is a pretty good clip - even when it's automated.

no, this is not a joke .

At 11:07 this morning I submitted Lenovo CEO Gives $3M Bonus To Employees . Like everything I submit, it was not accepted.

Two and a half hours later, the infinitely more awesome ndogg submitted the same thing and it became slashdot front page material .

The surprise here isn't that someone else submitted it, but rather that it was accepted at all after I had submitted it earlier. This particular example, though is more impressive in that it took only 2.5 hours to go from my submission being not accepted to someone else's being accepted. Usually it is closer to a day and a half.

While not exactly Robin Hood - Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing made $14M on the year without his $3M bonus - it was still nice to read that he divided up his $3M bonus amongst his employees. For some employees, the gift was roughly equivalent to a month's salary.

In China that is seen as "looking out for your fellow man". In the US it is "dirty corrupt socialism". I submitted the article for the front page, but it will never make it for two reasons - one, because I sent it, and two, because it doesn't favor ron paul / ayn rand style unchecked greed.

This shit is getting old. You still haven't changed my karma - and you probably never will - but this is getting really annoying. I don't know what the point is that you think you are making, and I don't particularly care. I am writing this to say that if you don't either stop or at least do a better job of being covert about it, I will bring it up to slashdot.

Here's a hint if you want to try for the latter - moderating comments that I write in my own journal entry as "overrated" or "flamebait" is a dead giveaway that you are pursuing some obtuse agenda against me.

... Then wouldn't a Ron Paul Presidency automatically be one, too? After all, the Paullowers claim that there is a socialist takeover even when there is no socialism and no takeover. Hence a Paul presidency, being part of the government, would have to be another socialist takeover under their understanding of the concept.

It appears that a very calm, rational, and friendly ron paul supporter has added me to his foes list. Oh wait did I say calm, rational, and friendly? No, he appears to be none of those:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2960361&cid=40565745

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2960361&cid=40564419

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2960361&cid=40563945

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2960361&cid=40563627

The second-to-last was actually part of a reply he wrote to something I wrote. The others were just comments that were shown immediately when clicking on his name.

I seem to be the latest addition to his list of ~40 foes. Do you suppose he wonders why he has a couple dozen freaks (though not as long as his list of foes)?

There is a front page story featuring ron paul that is almost 9 hours old, with fewer than 400 comments. I was expecting to see the usual bump of paullower comments propel it into the stratosphere by now.

While Tefon Tim Pawlenty claims he doesn't want to be Romney's VP, he has committed a lot of time to chasing Obama to spread Romney's message .

They are calling it the

Whatever the hell that means. Being as Romney is promising to do the same shit that Obama has actually done (as opposed to what Obama was supposedly going to do) it is especially difficult to make a case that Romney would somehow result in a different outcome.

I know that when a bully threatens you - even if the bully is an idiot - you are best not to respond and egg them on. But sometimes it's more rewarding to ignore that advice.

As of this moment, the user who just foe'd me has yet to write a single comment on slashdot. They do, however, have 7 other foes. Interesting...

Teflon Tim Pawlenty has said he doesn't want to be Romney's VP.

I expect this is because his handlers were smart enough to realize that Romney will not win in 2012. And since Teflon Tim wants to be president, he may be better off not running as VP on a losing ticket, where he could be blamed for the loss. By waiting it out he can try to run for president again in 2016, when there will also be the benefit of no incumbent.

This was sent to me as an image, here it is as text (I don't know who the original author is):

• Twitter: I'm eating a #Donut
• Facebook: I like Donuts
• Foursquare: This is where I eat donuts
• Instagram: Here's a vintage photo of my donut
• Youtube: Here I am eating a donut
• LinkedIn: My skills include donut eating
• Pinterest: Here's a donut recipe
• Last.fm: Now listening to "donuts"
• Google+: I'm a google employee who eats donuts

I think they should have added:

• Slashdot: Ron Paul told me to eat your donut

Except that, of course, nobody reads slashdot any more.