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MapleSEA Registry of Marriages Database is UP!

Author duststar | 18.01.2010 | Category MapleSEA

Following from this post. Belated update.

The user interface (UI) has been completed. Please let me know if there are bugs.

This project was started to maintain an archive of MapleSEA’s wedding gallery, and at the same time allowing users to perform searches of individual player’s records based on player’s IGN (in-game nick) or a specified date.

Why do we need this?

1. For fun!
2. Before you get married in game don’t you wish to know if your partner was married before (and how many times)?
3. Now you can find back your favourite wedding photo shoot easily! Just search for your in-game nick (IGN).

Check out: http://www.duststar.net/projects/maplesea-registry-of-marriages-database/
Hope you all like it.

.duststar

MapleSEA Registry of Marriages (Project ROM)

Author duststar | 16.01.2010 | Category MapleSEA

You see. In real life, we can find out if someone is married or not by checking with the Registry of Marriages. In maplestory (MapleSEA), we have to crawl through every page in the gallery to find out what we want. Therefore, I am working on an automated archival and search project that will automatically collects MapleSEA’s wedding data periodically and allow user to search through these data.

Why do we need this?

1. For fun!
2. Before you get married in game don’t you wish to know if your partner was married before (and how many times)?
3. Now you can find back your favourite wedding photo shoot easily! Just search for your in-game nick (IGN).

While we are waiting for the user interface (UI) for searching to be up, here is some fun statistic.

1. x3ZhuZhux married 5 times ever since MapleSEA keep tracks of in-game wedding.

2009-10-13 ArcanaXII x3ZhuZhux http://www.duststar.net/rom/335d7d90b93fe88ce88a126c05cc08cb.jpg
2008-12-23 MrSp0ngeBob x3ZhuZhux http://www.duststar.net/rom/3dc2c70b578322511785e42035c2ceba.jpg
2008-11-21 xXiaoZaiKia x3ZhuZhux http://www.duststar.net/rom/3676b942b9412a8244c1eb774033acc4.jpg
2008-11-07 x3PeAcHTeA x3ZhuZhux http://www.duststar.net/rom/5d472a37cac68fbb1acd4a5bec8544e3.jpg
2008-10-03 XCrEaTmAgEX x3ZhuZhux http://www.duststar.net/rom/5862c37ebec4ba780bffa806b0eae096.jpg

2. On 14th Feb 2009, we saw the highest number (68) of couples getting married in MapleSEA!

“xXZwordXx”;”MRSCOOKIEx3″
“XxXxShadowxX”;”StarliteDust”
“xSociometry”;”pICkzp0ck3tX”
“XIiaoOnubboi”;”joey890″
“xiiaodidis”;”xPureL0ve”
“XAncientGodX”;”Darlingzx”
“Wizordy”;”xSHI”
“Shaolin”;”BIurrSiiN”
“renry”;”renerine”
“Punchkid”;”b2rusty”
“Nelsonworld”;”Stella279″
“MrZsparrow”;”xDrEDreLx”
“Mickyboyz”;”MinniegirIz”
“meetboyonli”;”ghostlyhq”
“mabaouncle”;”ChubbyKaty”
“Lord0FheaveN”;”YuenakBoos”
“littleboy11″;”x3Tobix3″
“LetMe0ut”;”xbabyMINTxDD”
“IxRuiQuanxI”;”IxXiaoXuanxI”
“HolyRomeo”;”HolyJuliet”
“HIJAYSONL33″;”bonia”
“Godfrey”;”CherAndrea”
“EarthRay”;”xiia0ppEy”
“Chameleos”;”Purpl3YinG”
“BenDanPiggy”;”x3ZacEfron”
“alalulu”;”oOkuenOo”
“nanooo”;”aaMiryonGaa”
“Soospirit”;”o0DeviLry0o”
“SeanPirate”;”BabyLeit”
“JVlyvidanus”;”CutieJoc”
“GodlyAkira”;”MiyuSama”
“Chanceux”;”llEsti”
“3vOlutiOnx”;”xPokeEu”
“zzfreez0nzzz”;”natsuki92″
“xXxDazzyxXx”;”MelodicAngel”
“XiaoMilkx33″;”XiaoAngeIx3″
“xHer3tiC”;”XiAoaNgeLgAI”
“xBakaJey”;”Xqu3lin3X”
“UpInTheSky”;”XiaoLoA”
“SacredLoveY”;”SacredLoveX”
“RangerWANpq”;”CIericWANpq”
“LuVmEgAnLyN”;”lCleriCsiaI”
“l0v3DlT”;”4Everlov33″
“KissChEnDoLx”;”snow1510″
“K4Lieb0yz”;”xXeMoTeddYXx”
“IYoShiRoI”;”xTomat0m3lx”
“IndianPriest”;”ChineseSlN”
“IIDKI”;”baobelx33″
“HoLyAsaSiNe”;”oHoLyoAnGeLo”
“feRmiZa”;”xXClericQiXx”
“ExotherMit”;”Metallicx3″
“BossKen”;”zBabyCrystaL”
“xxxKenSanxxx”;”BubbieDuddie”
“XiaoMoS3s”;”OoKuioO”
“xH0IyI3I5h0p”;”berry951″
“WNU2613″;”H0LySeEeNz0″
“UnKnOwnDeViI”;”tebby”
“QTcolumBOY”;”AlohaGal”
“proaddicted”;”LoVeLoLiPox3″
“mrharry3″;”xaishax”
“gonzafite2″;”BOttleWinter”
“EverDear”;”Ndas”
“Esplarade”;”TeddyJojo”
“Espadadrigo”;”Kittylingz”
“dEverIove”;”LuLuLaLa8080″
“dessertRazor”;”JefenneyRa”
“CafeGalilee”;”PuR3P1r4T3″
“Boy70″;”Preggie”

Watch out for more updates coming soon!

.duststar

Chinese’s attack on Google, and IE 0-day is out.

Author duststar | 15.01.2010 | Category Cyber Security

In case you was not aware, Google got hacked from what is seems to be another series of “targeted attacks” by the Chinese.

Bojan Zdrnja from ISC wrote that “It appears that the initial attack vector on Google (and 20+ other companies!) was probably a malicious PDF document. Judging by attack dates posted by Google (middle of December), it was maybe even the very latest vulnerability”.

George Kurtz, CTO McAfee wrote that “McAfee Labs has been working around the clock, diving deep into the attack we are now calling Aurora that hit multiple companies and was publicly disclosed by Google on Tuesday.” Follow on, “In our investigation we discovered that one of the malware samples involved in this broad attack exploits a new, not publicly known vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer. We informed Microsoft about this vulnerability and Microsoft is expected to publish an advisory on the matter soon.”

My personal thoughts on this hacking spree:

1. Seems to be using a combination of “Social Engineering” attack with “0-day” payloads. And I would not be surprised if a root-kit was used.

2. How individuals can protect themselves? Always patch your OS and applications, use limited rights account, configure firewall to limit outbound access, and use an anti-virus that relies on not only signatures to detect malware but behavioral  and heuristic detection capability as well. It was all described previous in this post.

3. If you wish to do more, for the more technical individuals:
- Catching an IE/Firefox running in your process list but you see no “windows” on the foreground? Probably a trojan horse is using it to bypass your personal desktop firewall since you would have allowed these web browsers to access the Internet.
- Monitor your network connections. Look out for those connections that are frequent and periodic to single address. It might be the trojan horse’s communication channel.

4. It is a good time for corporates to re-look at their cyber security defensive strategies.

.duststar

First Microsoft vulnerability (MS10-001) in 2010: Vulnerability in the Embedded OpenType Font Engine Could Allow Remote Code Execution (972270)

Author duststar | 14.01.2010 | Category Cyber Security

Official link to Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS10-001.mspx

This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user viewed content rendered in a specially crafted Embedded OpenType (EOT) font in client applications that can render EOT fonts, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office PowerPoint, or Microsoft Office Word. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs, view, change, or delete data, or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

There are 3 points worth mentioning here:

1. The vulnerability is privately reported.

What if this vulnerability was not reported, and kept for private use? It becomes a 0-day. That means undetectable by signatured-based anti-virus, undetectable by network intrusion detection systems. Host-based intrusion detection systems might works in this case if you configure it to detect any code execution attempt performed by these client applications. In case you are thinking that your host-based firewall will save you; no. they can be bypassed.

2. The vulnerability is delivered to users through “piggybacking” popular applications.

In short, any applications that can render EOT fonts will be affected. Therefore, the possibilities to get infected increased drastically. It is imperative to patch your system immediately.

3. Lockdown accounts on system does reduce the impact caused by the exploitation of the vulnerability.

In my previous post, I mentioned the importance of using lockdown accounts and it is applicable to this issue now.

.duststar

Adobe Reader v9.2 and below. PATCH!

Author duststar | 13.01.2010 | Category Cyber Security

Taken from: http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb10-02.html

Critical vulnerabilities have been identified in Adobe Reader 9.2 and Acrobat 9.2 for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX, and Adobe Reader 8.1.7 and Acrobat 8.1.7 for Windows and Macintosh. These vulnerabilities could cause the application to crash and could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.

If you do not patch your Adobe Acrobat Reader, your system will get infected with a malware such as keylogger or trojan horse when you open an infected PDF document.

Another way is to use other PDF reader such as Foxit rather than the popular Adobe Acrobat Reader. However, because it is less popular does not mean it is not vulnerable to other forms of attack. Most probably the truth is that nobody has discovered any new vulnerabilities for it yet, or they are keeping it for private use.

.duststar