Season 2 Episode 15 - His Story

Okay, as promised. I’ve moved to other blog engine. As of now, this blog will be pruned. All contents are preserved not deleted, but no updating will be done on this blog. I’m not quite sure of the duration yet. Might be a year, might be less, might also be more. All depend on how quickly I got bored with the new blog engine. But seeing as vast function the new engine has to offer me, I would say it’ll take a long, long time for me to get bored with it. I’m a programmer, back-end coding gets me high. This new engine offers the ability of doing back-end coding to your post, which what WordPress lacks of. But then, WordPress offers the user-friendliness in its design *sigh*. It’s hard when you have to choose between two equally-good things..

This blog is now officially pruned. Happy New Year 2007.

-stfu out-

I’m going back to Pahang tomorrow. So I would like to take this opportunity to wish all Muslims Happy Eiduladha. And I don’t think it’s too late to wish all Christian friends Merry Christmas. To all regardless of religion/race, Happy New Year. Drive safe, don’t be a statistic.

Just upgraded my PC. Changed my graphic card from antique GeForce2 to a not-so-antique GeForce4. Bought the card for RM50, second hand. Tested, so far everything is running fine. Gonna test for the whole week, if everything is okay then I’ll just continue using this card. If not, then return back to the seller for full refund. Internet transaction, the epitome of laziness..

I’m in the process of moving my blog. Why do I change? Because I’ve already felt comfortable with this blog, and I kinda hate that. Gotta take myself out of this comfort zone, so before I get too accustome to this WordPress I guess it’s better for me to move. Like all of us use to say, changes are good. So, heck, I change!

That’s all folks. Going to reformat my 40GB hdd, install the crappy OS and the stable-but-not-user-friendly OS (dual-boot, heh). See you guys next time. Oh, I’ll put the new blog address here later. Currently still tweaking the Hell out of it. Cherios!

Nice weekend I had. Holiday on Monday for Selangor due to Hari Keputeraan Sultan Selangor. Although I live in KL (was born in KL too), I would still like to say Daulat Tuanku. Nice weekend because I grew one year older and got to celebrate it on weekend. Very rarely though I was able to celebrate the day I was born on weekends.

So, went to a friend’s wedding on Sunday. And because of that, I now have another thing to add to my hatred-things list. I hate going to wedding ceremony. The reason? It would be too usual that wedding ceremony is held in the afternoon between 12pm-4pm. Can’t these people feel that Sun is scorching the Earth? I swear to God my skin was about to burn last Sunday. Thankfully my migrain didn’t decide to join the party, else we’ll have a Hell of day. To add the torment, most of the lauk-pauk were made of beef and mutton, served hot. Oh dear God, how would I eat these lava-like foods? Was sweating real hard under the tent, and the people setting up the tent did a very *good* job by not putting any fan in it. Thankfully my Izma did a good job securing some tissue paper to wipe the sweats of my face. So, note to self: on my wedding ceremony I’ll make sure I do it in an air-conditioned hall. If somehow I can’t do that, I’m sure as Hell will tell my pengapit to bring those electronic mini-fan instead of the useless kipas pengantin. Worst comes to worst, I’ll have my wedding ceremony in t-shirt and track bottom. Don’t care, I’ll do what I have to do to make sure my body temp doesn’t sky-rocketting. Oh to those who are in the dark, yes I can’t stand heat. Any condition above 30 degree Celcius will cause my brain to trigger an automated emergency drill to search for cool place.

In addition to that, I really hate it when people start asking when I’m going to marry especially when I attend a wedding ceremony. Hello, I attended the ceremony to fulfill the brides’ request and to eat. When I get married, I’ll invite all those who know me and I know them (so if you don’t get my invitation, consider we’re not talking). The face of the person who asks "bila ko nak kawen?" surely looks very inviting for a slap or two I guess..

Next one, movie review. Watched Possessed, a Malaysian horror movie last Saturday with Izma and my baby brother. Planned to watch Happy Feet, but the tickets were sold out. To those who planned to watch this movie, one advice: don’t. It was a really dumbfuck movie I tell you. I thought having Malaysian directors (other than the usual jackasses) directing a horror movie would be good, considering what Yasmin Ahmad did in Sepet and Gubra. Nonetheless, this was a movie where you can call it cut-and-paste. You take some scene from this horor movie, that horror movie, and put it in your own and walla, it’s done! Even my baby brother was able to identify scene from Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam, Ju-on, Shutter and Dark Water. Other than seeing a cheapskate bed scene, there’s nothing to be described for this movie. With this quality of work, those recording/movie-making company expects me not to download from P2P..?

Lastly, thanks to those who wished me on my birthday. A wish is nice, but none doesn’t hurt at all. I’m accustomed to people not wishing me Happy Birthday or anything. Till other time, k-mie out!

Just formatted one hard disk, hence the topic. It was my future in-law’s hard disk, full of viruses worms spywares and whatever Hell-hole the Internet has. One week I left the computer up and running, and now I’m back again at reinstalling OS onto the hard disk. Am a bit out of luck because they don’t have a 2nd pc available, if not I’ll just install everything in one go and make ghost image of the hard disk. Should anything happens again, put back the ghost image into the hard disk and problem solved.

As I was preparing to format the hard disk, I got the idea of dual-booting the hard disk using XP and FC5. FC5 for Internet surfing, XP for playing games etc etc. Should be OK though, with Linux being an unpopular choice for viruses alike I’m quite sure the pc would sustain the attacks. I looked around for Linux’s antivirus and those sure damn hard to find. Either people are lazy to make one antivirus for Linux or there are scarcely viruses available for Linux environment. Being majority of Linux users are open-source supporters (and geeks), I’ll go with option two. Firewall is already handled by ADSL router, all ports are blocked from outside access. Router itself is closed from remote access other than local network, so it should be pretty good. Well, if they want to get in they’ll get in. But for ordinary user setup, I think this should be enough.

Installation is pretty straight forward. The hard disk is 40GB, so I split 10GB for Windows XP, another 10GB for FC5. The rest is for file swapping between XP and FC5. XP and swap partition are FAT32, FC5 is ext3. Installed XP on the first 10GB, because Windows has a bad habit of wanting to be the one managing boot loader. FInished with XP, then installed FC5. Put 100MB for /boot, 1GB for Linux swap partition, 5GB for /. Should be adequate for all. Installed GRUB on the Master Boot Record (MBR), tricking XP into thinking it’s still managing boot loader heh. Dream on XP. Everything went as planned. Both XP and FC5 loaded nicely, with a nice interface of boot selection with default boot to FC5. Created swap directory for the swap partition, then put shortcut to mount the swap partition on FC5. There must be an easier way to do this, either through cronjob or what, I don’t know. Have to admit my Linux skills are not quite there yet, and the existing ones are rusty. Well at least I had it up and running good.

I figure not many people are going to read this entry though. Well not many are into all these geek things, can’t blame you all. So I leave you to this question. What will you do if you SMS somebody that you know and the person SMS back asking who you are? Obviously the person already lost/deleted your mobile number.

For me, God-forbid I’ll ever contact that person again. If he/she is too reluctant to store my contact information (although I’m his/her classmate/collegemate/whatevermate), then why should I be caring enough to contact him/her? I know it’s not good to do that, but heck that person purposedly don’t store your contact info. Should I still keep in touch with someone who choose not to keep in touch with me? Would be an insane idea to do wouldn’t it. Maybe because my life is not as glamorous or as stylish as him/her, I don’t know..

So if you happen to read this and you realize you’re the one I’m talking about, up to you to decide. Me, I don’t feel any regret of not contacting you. It’s not like the world’s going apart from me.

Damnit I whine, alot!

To my Ex-KT friends:

Miss Akitaniti has passed away on 21 November, 2006. Source of the news comes from Mark Jie, Ayu and A’a. Further info regarding this matter has yet to be known, so do check our MSN Group for latest development. In the mean time, please pass around this news to those who might not know this yet. Thanks and please pray for our beloved teacher’s soul. Amin.

Selamat bersara diucapkan kepada abah terchenta, En. Amdan bin Basirun. Have a great day ahead.

[Dedicated to Maxis Broadband Support Team]
IDIOT!!

tak ske btol bile org citer bab2 kawen ngan aku. dok sibuk2 tanye bile aku nak kawen, bile nak bertunang. aku takde plan kawen ke, duit dah cukup ke, dah ade calon ke. pastu ade plak geng2 baik yg kata ‘nikah kawen bukan terletak pd duit’. so, here comes what lies beneath a stressed-up programmer..

the fuck aa korg. aku yg nak kawen, aku punye suke aa bile aku nak menikah ke apa. aku tak cukup duit lg ke, belum plan ke, ada aku nyusahkan mak bapak korg ke? aku nak kawen nnt aku jemput, jgn risau. takdenye aku kawen senyap2, kut kena tangkap basah sekalipun aku bgtau dgn org yg aku dah kawen. aku nak bertunang ke tak, tu aku punya pasal. kira apa aku melanggar adat ke apa, asal kawen aku sah dahla. kut aku kawen nnt aku nak pakai kemeja dgn seluar slack pun, apa ko susah. kut hantaran aku kete bmw ke instead of dulang yg tah ape mende tu, takde aku mintak duit org pun. utk geng2 yg dok kata nikah kawen bukan terletak pd duit tu, ni aku nak tanye. kalau ye sgt sokong statement tu, pesal ramai je lg yg belum menikah? pegi aa menikah, baca 1 surah jek sbg mas kawen. zaman nabi dulu ada buat, aku tau gak sejarah nabi. padahal dok gedik sgt korg tgk pompuan tudung labuh tu, berangan nak kawen bagai. serosak-rosak aku ni, sejahat-jahat aku ni, takde plak bila aku tgk pompuan aku terpikir nak mengongkek je. aku tgk pompuan jatuh terlentang pun mata aku tak pegi kat celah kangkang dia. but these fucking fuckers asal tgk benda2 camtu, terus ‘masya allah astaghrifullah’. apa yg korg pikir sampai bleh terus mengucap tu & apsal aku bleh rilek je? sape sebenarnya yg gatal nak kawen ni, aku ke korg? aku tau la tak elok tgk pompuan, tp kalau dah tertengok nak buat camana? nak suruh aku rewind ke, or nak suruh aku jadi kassim selamat korek biji mata ni? pastu pesal bila aku tgk aku slamber je, tp korg tgk siap bleh geleng2 kepala ni? apa korg ni bila tgk pompuan je pikir nak beromen je ke? celah mananya nak maju bila nak deal dgn pompuan pun tak boleh. aku tak suruh korg tgk blue pun, tp kalau dah nak tgk muka pompuan pun tak boleh korg gi duduk dlm gua la senang.

so lepas ni, whoever tanye aku soalan2 di atas aku akan jawab dgn perkataan ni: "fucker."

p/s: yes this is the evil side of k-mie. don’t ask.

Insya Allah balik kampung jap lg dlm kul 11-12 lebih. On-the-spot annual leave approval semlm, dpt approval pun dgn telefon je. Keje sumer settle, all outstanding issues dah directify. So, guess I’ll not be around for the whole week muahahaha. Cuti seminggu stret, akan kembali bertugas pada Isnin 30/10/2006. Tiada di KL dari 20/10-27/10/2006. Dan sepanjang masa itu jugalah aku tak online. Takde keje aku aih nak online time cuti, aku nak rehat. Last 2 weeks were very hectic, sbb aku kena settlekan payment module utk satu client. Alhamdulillah installation semlm berjalan dgn jayanya, client pun puas ati. Maka dgn itu settle la keje aku hihu.

Dengan ini, aku ingin mengucapkan Selamat Hari Deepavali kpd semua kaum India warganegara Malaysia (dan seluruh dunia). Dan ucapan Selamat Hari Raya utk umat Islam yang bakal menyambut Syawal tak lama lagi. Tak tinggal utk mereka yg tidak menyambut kedua-dua perayaan ni, ucapan selamat bercuti kpd anda semua. Berhati-hati di jalan raya, don’t be next year’s statistic hehe.

Juga ucapan selamat utk Pengarah Jabatan Kaji Cuaca Malaysia yg sudah berminggu-minggu mengulang ayat ‘jerebu dijangka pulih dalam sehari dua lagi’. Ketahuilah anda bahawa saya sudah muak dgn jerebu ni. Harapnye jerebu tak bertambah teruk sbb musim raya camni orang ramai bakar lemang/buat dodol.

Adios my friends, see you in next two weeks. Jemputlah dtg ke rumah nnt. k-mie out!

Was reading the newspaper today, and my eyes caught the headline titled ‘Banks on track to fully use online ID security‘ in The Star (Sat 14/10/2006). Briefly, all banks in Malaysia are required to implement ‘two-factor authentication’ on their online banking website before 1 Dec 2006, following regulation set by Bank Negara Malaysia. Being a guy who is interested in computer security topics, this sure caught my eyes.

As far as I remembered, I read and discussed the importance of multi-factor authentication in my final year project. One-factor authentication is like the use of password alone to enter a system. One would consider the use of username and password as a two-factor authentication, although I quite disagree with that. For me, username/password combination is like a one-and-a-half-factor authentication, because the method of transmitting the values are still the same. A truly two-factor authentication for me would be like what the current ATM machines implement, a bank card and PIN code to authenticate the person.

However, this is not what I’m gonna discuss here. What I’m interested is the reaction of public as well as security experts with regards of this matter. As for public, yeah, they’ll come out with all the cliche answers. Ask any ordinary civillian, and the answer that’ll come out would be ‘hackers, system not good, not secure enough yada yada‘. Generalization tends to come in all of living aspects, without the feeling of researching for information before conveying the conclusions. Frankly speaking, I’ll give my respect to those who says ‘I don’t really know about the matter‘ rather than the jocks that keep on blabbering to show that they keep updated with the IT scenario and do know stuffs about online thingy. It fails to come to their mind that the banking industries are trying their hard to make online transactions as secure as possible. Most of us wouldn’t notice the layers of protection we go through while logging on to the system, but the background processes are thorough. From secure channel (SSL), cache, cookies, last login time and date, all these are implemented as an additional steps to delay hacking process. I wouldn’t say that online banking is bulletproof, God no, the moment a security analyst says a system is hackproof is the moment he/she is no longer a security analyst. But what they the banking industries are doing show that they are keeping up with the current technology. Sadly, we failed to recognize and affirm the things they are doing.

Based from the news, the victims of this so-called ‘online banking tragedy‘ was due to their inability of detecting a phishing attack. In layman terms, phishing means the act of getting information (usually sensitive data) through the means of bogus websites, spoofed e-mails/SMS, data-mining and so on. These phishers are actually continuing what Kevin Mitnick had done years ago, online. If you’re to analyze the steps done to steal the money from online banking, you’ll realize none of these involves hacking processes (as per current case). All they did was to set up a bogus site which kept the login information of the victim, sending e-mail/SMS to the victim saying he/she has won something and required to login to the online banking system to redeem bla..bla.. and just waited for the victim to fall for the trap. And this victim, being joyous from the prospect of winning something, dutifully logged in to the website given by the phishers failing to realize the website was actually fake. What this website did was to capture the login info, and then redirects the victim to the real online banking website. The victim will fail to detect any difference from this point on, because he/she is now in the real online banking system.

Victim –> Fake website (captures login info) –> Redirected to real website

I personally believe this wouldn’t happen if the victim took his/her time to check the validity of the message received. All the security that is provided would be useless if the mindset of the public doesn’t change. It’s like giving some stranger the key to your house, and later you’re mad because things in your house are stolen. Sounds stupid, but that’s what really happened nowadays. To those asking the steps to prevent phishing attacks, I would say if you have the time to read this blog then you should have time to google it yourself.

And to that so-called ‘pakar komputer‘ who said he has lost his trust with online banking because he too once become a victim of phishing, I would like to ask this: You call yourself a ‘pakar komputer‘ and you fell for phishing attack? D’oh!

p/s: I am too lazy to check for grammatical mistakes, so if you have something to correct please click here to inform me through my personalized website. Thanks.

[additional]
Further info can be viewed here and here.

No words could describe the great deeds you’ve done for me. No words could describe how you stay with me during hard times and fun times. No words could describe the sacrifices you’ve shown that enables me to accomplish many things in my life..

So long, my faithful friend. May you rest in peace, being assured that all your kindness would not be forgotten by me. God bless you..

Rest in peace,
Nokia 6610
(September 2003 - October 2006)

p/s: huaaaa, my phone died :’(