The date and location for the Chaos Communication Camp 2007 have now been confirmed! Hope to see you all there!

Setting Orange, Chaos 25, 3173 YOLD

Since I got a really bad cold accompanied by an annoying cough and have been feeling like sh*t for the past few days, I finally decided to call in sick today. So after sleeping long, all I did for the rest of the day was lying in bed, playing some poker (won my first HORSE Sit’n‘Go), playing World of Warcraft, reading 2+2 and some of the other forums I regularly visit and watching The Simpsons. Although that may sound like a lot of fun, it actually wasn’t that great since (1) I really feel like shit and (2) I realized this wasn’t much different from most other days. Sure, the Poker and WoW sessions were a bit longer than usual, but other than that the saddening conclusion is that lately I don’t seem to be doing anything valuable with my time. But what’s valuable anyway?

Sweetmorn, Chaos 11, 3173 YOLD

After ignoring or even bashing the game for a long long time, i surprisingly bought a copy of World of Warcraft last Thursday, a fact I entirely blame on Joi Ito. Of course I’m playing the game on my shiny new Macbook and I have to say that I really enjoy it so far. Or maybe that’s just because being a monster slaughtering Troll shaman is much easier than dealing with certain real life issues I’m currently facing. As it seems decadence kills depression once again… Considering this last argument it’s a shame that there won’t be a Mac version of Warhammer Online, because I’m pretty sure by the time it will be released I’ll have some new issues which will need some good ol’ repressing.

Oh, before you become the n+1th person (where n is fairly large) to ask: Yes, I know the South Park episode.

Prickle-Prickle, Chaos 9, 3173 YOLD

1. Get intrigued by the low prices of the Intel based Mac Minis and use them as an excuse to finally buy your first Mac.
2. While on holidays in Hong Kong (or any place else without a VAT), get yourself a black 8GB iPod Nano to go along with the Mini. Again, use the comparatively cheap price as an excuse.
3. When your boss offers you a bonus, insist on getting payed in hardware and choose a black MacBook.

Been there, done that, loving it!

Sweetmorn, Chaos 6, 3173 YOLD

Today I started writing a useful little Greasemonkey userscript for a browser-based MMRPG I’m playing. Although I’m no JavaScript guru I feel somewhat confident in the language and am quite fond of XPath ever since I joined the hoodwink.d community. Everything was going well, until I kind of hit a road block: selecting images whose src attribute contains a certain directory (e.g. “funky”) from a frame within a frameset. What sounds trivial at first cost me close to one and a half hours, but luckily enough I finally found a solution. To spare you the hassle, here’s the working result:

var xpath = "/html/frameset/frame[name='main']";
var frameResult = document.evaluate(xpath, document, null, 
   XPathResult.ANY_UNORDERED_NODE_TYPE,null).singleNodeValue;
var document2 = frameResult.contentDocument;
var imgResult = document2.evaluate("//img[contains(src,'funky')]", document2, null, 
  XPathResult.UNORDERED_NODE_ITERATOR_TYPE, null);

Of course if any of you know sbout a better way to achieve the same result, please don’t hesitate to post a comment, thanks!

On a completely unrelated note: I’m probably the last person to find out that Slashdot features random Futurama quotes in its HTTP headers, but nonetheless I find it pretty cool to find stuff like “X-Fry: The less fortunate get all the breaks!” in there!

Setting Orange, Chaos 5, 3173 YOLD

Say you live in a country where access to information isn’t as free as it should be. Sure, there are a lot of free proxy servers you could use, but unfortunately they tend to get blocked after a while. Tor would also be an option, but unfortunately it’s not always as fast as we’d like it to be (run more servers, folks!).

That’s why I thought I’ll show you another possibility to get the information you want without somebody censoring it:

1. Get yourself a free UNIX shell account which is accessible by SSH (consider using SSH keys for authentification).
2. Use ssh’s cool “-D” option to start a local SOCKS proxy. Quoted from “man 1 ssh”:
   

   -D port
                Specifies a local ``dynamic'' application-level port forwarding.  This works by allocating 
                a socket to listen to port on the local side, and whenever a connection is made to this port, 
                the connection is forwarded over the secure channel, and the application protocol is then 
                used to determine where to connect to from the remote machine. Currently the SOCKS4 
                and SOCKS5 protocols are supported, and ssh will act as a SOCKS server. Only root can 
                forward privileged ports. Dynamic port forwardings can also be specified in the configuration file.
   

   
   Example: ssh -D 9999 youraccount@somefreeshellserver.com. Consider adding this to some startup script to make life easier in the future.
3. Configure your browser to use localhost:9999 as a SOCKS5 proxy. If you’re using Firefox, consider using MM3-ProxySwitch or FoxyProxy.
4. Voila, from now on every connection you make will go over an ecrypted connection to the SSH server which unlike the site you really want to access isn’t blocked. The server will then perform your originally planned connection and forward the results to you (once again encrypted and not coming from a blocked IP). And of course this doesn’t only work with browsers, but all applications supporting SOCKS proxies. Additionally tsocks may help with applications which normally don’t support SOCKS servers.
5. If you experience connection problems and are suspecting that someone has tampered with the name servers in order to deliver bogus results for certain sites (bad government, no cookie!) make sure that the option “network.proxy.socks_remote_dns” in Firefox’s about:config is set to true, because then DNS lookups will be performed at the SSH server.

That“s it, please leave a commentary if you have any questions or suggestions regarding this little tip or if you just want to provide me with some feedback how this worked for you.

Sweetmorn, Chaos 1, 3173 YOLD

Lectures seen on day 3:

Nintendo DS

Subverting AJAX

Geschichte der Automaten, Androiden und Homunculi

Ãœberwachungsdruck – einige Experimente

Pornography and Technology

Hacker Jeopardy

Lectures seen on day 4:

Ego Striptease – Ich zeig dir, wer du bist

Software Reliability in Aerospace

We are great together, the liberal society and its enemies!

Security Nightmares 2007

Fnord Jahresrückblick

Conclusion:
As usual the C3 was a blast: interesting lectures, meeting nice people, and generally having a good time with friends is what makes this event a highlight for me. This year’s congress seemed a little less organized and more chaotic than 22C3, but in a way that was quite refreshing.

Sweetmorn, Chaos 1, 3173 YOLD

Lectures seen on day 2:

MMORPGs
Although I’m not into WoW myself, I was looking forward to see Joi talk again at the C3. As expected his lecture was quite entertaining and since it wasn’t about a “heavy” topic it was a perfect starter for what would become a pretty long day.

Tor and China
As you might know I’m a big supporter of Tor and have studied Chinese for several years, so this was a lecture I was obviously really interested in. The talk was pretty nice, although it didn’t offer too much for people already familiar with Tor. Besides that I was a little disappointed that it actually had so little to do with China, that one could easily have used $genericEvilCountry as an adequate substitute.

Hackerspaces
Metalab, C-Base and Netzladen introduced their projects and the challenges involved in creating a Hackerspace in a light-hearted way which was just perfect for me since I was quite tired at that time.

Stealth malware – can good guys win?
Joanna Rutkowska is gorgeous and clever, so she can basically talk about whatever she wants and I will want to marry her afterwards.

Ãœberwachen und Strafen in Entenhausen
Ok, but not as funny as her talk 2 years ago.

You can’t make this stuff up
You can’t blame Fefe and Ilja for trying, but IMHO this was only a weak substitute for the “Literatisches Code-Quartett”.

But the real highlight of the day started at around midnight, when Monochrom started to perform what they call “proto-melodischen interventionismus”. It’s pretty hard to describe how funny this spontaneous concert which moved through the whole building really was if you haven’t been there, so you just have to believe me that this was great stuff!

See also:
23C3 day two

Pungenday, The Aftermath 71, 3172 YOLD

Lectures seen on day 1:

Who can you trust?
Business as usual: introduction by Tim Pritlove, followed by the keynote. This year’s speaker was EFF’s John Perry Barlow, who talked about ethics and responsibility in the hacker community. Quite nice, although I wasn’t all too fond of the way he encouraged people to police their fellow hackers. But for me the most interesting thing possibly was the confirmation of a Chaos Communication Camp in August 2007!

Design and Implementation of an object-oriented, secure TCP/IP Stack
Quite interesting and despite Andreas Bogk’s involvement it didn’t include too much Dylan advocacy.

The Grim Meathook Future
Despite not really having a concept, this lecture wasn’t all bad. The speaker was a quite funny and opinionated guy, as were the people who joined the discussion in the end. Nothing great, but quite entertaining.

Dylan Introduction
No concept, terrible English, and altogether not really informative – at least if this wasn’t your first contact with Dylan.

Drones
My personal highlight for the day: interesting topic, good and funny presentation, motivating people to go out and have fun. That’s how talks at the CCC should be.

Know Your Citizens
Hacking the Electoral Law
We don’t trust voting computers
Revenge of the Female Nerds
Since I’ve been to this talks but haven’t payed close attention (IRC, surfing, working on a MySQL problem with berq etc.), I can’t really say much about them. I picked up the occasional interesting fact, but other than that I don’t think I really missed much.

See also:
23C3 day one

Sweetmorn, The Aftermath 69, 3172 YOLD

After a mostly sleepless bus journey and “some” waiting, we’ve finally made it to the already quite busy Hackcenter, where we met a few people we know from previous years. About half an hour ago the queue at the ticket counter was way too long, so we’re trying our luck a little later. Since we’re getting up quite early tomorrow (around 9am) to see the keynote, I’ll try to catch a few more hours of sleep tonight.

See also:
arrived @ 23c3 (red667)

Setting Orange, The Aftermath 68, 3172 YOLD

In a little less than four hours, berq, lippi, red667, and me will leave for Berlin where we’re going to attend the 23C3. Since the ÖBB still sucks, we’re once again going by bus, arriving tomorrow at around 6:30am. Judging from last year the time between our arrival until we can check into our hostel at around noon will be spent drinking beer, which definitely isn’t a recommended breakfast option. Kids, don’t try this at home!

I’m pretty sure we’ll once again have loads of fun, and unlike the last years I plan on regularly blogging and posting pics from the event, so stay tuned! Anyone interested in meeting up at the 23C3 either post a comment here or send a mail to my GMail account.

Prickle-Prickle, The Aftermath 67, 3172 YOLD

Jethro Tull, Christmas song

Once in Royal David’s City
Stood a lonely cattle shed
Where a mother held her baby
You’d do well to remember the things He later said

When you’re stuffing yourselves at the Christmas parties
You’ll just laugh when I tell you to take a running jump
You’re missing the point I’m sure does not need making
That Christmas spirit is not what you drink

So how can you laugh when your own mother’s hungry
And how can you smile when the reasons for smiling are wrong?
And if I just messed up your thoughtless pleasures
Remember, if you wish, this is just a Christmas song

(Hey, Santa! Pass us that bottle, will you?)_

Pungenday, The Aftermath 66, 3172 YOLD

A few days ago I’ve blogged about me being uncertain whether to get myself a Nintento Wii or an Xbox 360 (please don’t tell me to get both, that thought is too tempting already!). Currently Big N’s latest offering is a slight favorite again, since – after an exhausting few days partying – I spent the late afternoon and early evening playing Paper Mario: The Thounsand-Year Door, which is one of the most entertaining and funny games I’ve ever played. Later on I decided to finally try out the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection with Mario Kart DS (friend code: 197655187733), and I have to say that I just love it, which means that now I really have to get myself a copy of Metroid Prime Hunters as soon as possible.

Sweetmorn, The Aftermath 59, 3172 YOLD

As you may know I’m a big fan of video game consoles. I currently own two NES, a SNES, a Mega Drive (aka Genesis), a PS1, a Dreamcast, a Game Cube and loads of games. I also played quite a lot on the other systems common in Europe (Saturn, N64, PS2, Xbox). Among the listed systems, the Dreamcast is probably still my favorite for being really innovative and having lots of great games, with the GC coming in a close second. But I’ve had great times with all of them – the original Mario Kart on the SNES and most Square titles on the PS1 come to mind. Of course I also love handhelds and own an original Game Boy (which is unfortunately broken), a GBA and a black Nintendo DS LIte, which IMHO is the coolest portable gaming system I’ve ever seen (with honorable mentions for the Sega Nomad and the Turbo Express).

As you can see I own everything Nintendo ever made except for the N64, which too had a lot of great games but which I somehow never bought. And I really love their products. But I also was always very fond of Sega’s systems, and when the company announced that they wouldn’t produce any more consoles after the DC, I was pretty sure that I won’t buy another game console ever. That held true for a surprisingly long time, until I got myself a GC at the beginning of this year, because (1) the console fever got me again and (2) it was ridiculously cheap because it was already close to the end of it’s life cycle. And although I currently hardly take the time to play with the systems I already own, I’m considering buying a seventh generation console.

Ladies and gentleman, it’s Xbox 360 vs PS3 vs. Wii. I’m definitely not going to get myself a PS3. First off I’m not interested in Blu-ray, HDMI and the other fancy stuff, and secondly I think Sony sucks. Besides that at least two of my friends will get one, so I can play the newest PES or GTA with them. So of course the Wii would be an obvious choice: it has Twilight Princess, is made by Nintendo and features this incredibly cool controller. And did I mention Twilight Princess? Besides that it offers wireless, the option to play my GC games (I could save a little room by storing the GC someplace else), a cool download feature and I’m sure there will be interesting possibilities to use it in conjunction with the DS. But yesterday I suddenly realized that I never considered the Xbox 360. None of my friends has one, and nobody mentioned any plans to buy it. So I read up on it a little, and somehow I started to like the system. Sure, it’s made by the big evil company and it doesn’t exactly offer original games. But it has Gears of War, F.E.A.R, Prey and a lot more good shooters. And I really like playing shooters. Then there’s Oblivion, which by itself may justify getting a 360. Considering the upcoming Halo 3 and Star Trek Legacy, the system might well be worth its money for me. Plus I’ve never owned a Microsoft console. Actually I was pretty sure I never will, but since colo mentioned that he’s interested in a PSP, I’m surprised by anything anymore.

Anyway, I’m still pondering wether to buy a new console or not, but if I do, I’m not sure anymore that I will be a Wii.

Sweetmorn, The Aftermath 54, 3172 YOLD

This evening I found some time to work on my blog again, so here’s a quick rundown of things that changed:

• Share and save: After reading the templates used by Serendipity to get a hang of Smarty, I’ve edited entries.tpl to include a mailto link to share entries, as well as the possibility to digg posts or add them to del.icio.us. There ya go, Web 2.0 lovers.
• Feed love: Syndication rocks, especially when using Feedburner which offers great features like the Link Splicer which automatically creates this “Links for the day” entries out of my del.icio.us bookmarks. But since I also got an account on SuprGlu, I’ve decided to additionally provide you with the citizen428stalker feed, which additionally contains my flickr photos, my Plazes traze, info from 43 Things and 43 Places and much more. So if you’re up for the whole citizen428 package, you might want to give this new feed a try.

I haven’t come around to do any more CSS changes yet, but that’s next on my list.

Prickle-Prickle, The Aftermath 52, 3172 YOLD