Author Archives: dontai

SSH Transfers Between Servers: Summary

SSH is a unix tool you can use to facilitate secure and fast transfers between servers, or between your desktop and a server. Instead of transferring a file from server A to your PC and then from your PC to server B, you can more directly transfer files from Server A to server B.

You will need SSH credentials for both servers. These credentials include an ID, the server name, port and a password. You will need to get these from your server admin, or your ISP. Once you have these, start a terminal each and “SSH id@servername”. You will be prompted for a password. Once you login your terminal prompt will change, showing you that you’re on a different server. Keep both open. From the receiving server you can do the scp command. This seems the easiest.

Microsoft POST Spamming me, but Why?

Puzzled, I am, when Microsoft spams me, and they are pretty regular visitors. After all, Microsoft owns the Bing search engine, and I let Bing freely crawl my site. So why would they want to spam me, and do it so often, using multiple ways? inquiring minds want to know.

Usually I see Microsoft come in using a missing user agent, pretty stealthily, and as I want all visitors to be identifiable, I ban them. They change IPs and do this regularly. Then there are the tor exit servers owned by Microsoft. I suppose that having Tor exit servers is Ok, as they are used by everyone.

Hetmanship Referrer Spam Campaign: Case Study

Got it by a small referrer spam campaign today, for some website called “hetmanship”. I’ll not mention the extent, as if you look them up you might download some malware. That would be bad.

As is typical, multiple IPs from around the world: Indonesia, China (8), Russia/UA (5), Mexico, Columbia, Peru, Germany, US. They are indeed difficult to track.
Referrer: http://hetmanship.(will not publish)
UA: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)

Brute Force xmlrpc.php Attack on WordPress: Case Study

Brute force attacked, I was, for the xmlrpc.php API in WordPress. Thankfully WordPress was strong enough to ward off this attack. I’ve had random attacks on xmlrpc.php before, but nothing this organized. I thought I’d document a case of 57 xmlrpc.php POST attempts here for all to see. Maybe someone can identify the culprit, as I could not.

I had 57 POSTs to xmlrpc.php on WordPress. They are randomly spaced apart throughout the day, use different IP addresses and hosts, but use the same POST (POST /wp/xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0), referrer (http://dontai.com/wp/xmlrpc.php) and user agent (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; Trident/7.0; Touch; rv:11.0) like Gecko)

Air Quality PM2.5 Levels: Toronto vs Beijing

Woe is Beijing, China’s air pollution reading. Here is the PM2.5 pollution levels between Toronto and Beijing this morning, ~9:00 EST. Beijing is truly shocking.

The PM 2.5 level of pollution measures air pollution particles that are 2.5 microns or less, or called fine particulate. This particle size will get inhaled and trapped in the lungs. In comparison a human hair is 100 microns in diameter.

Air quality PM2.5 pollution levels, Toronto vs Beijing, 2016 Dec 04, 09:00 EST. Toronto is less than 10% of Bejing's PM2.5 level air pollution.

Air quality PM2.5 pollution levels, Toronto vs Beijing, 2016 Dec 04, 09:00 EST. Toronto is less than 10% of Bejing’s PM2.5 level air pollution.

This cannot be good for anyone living in Beijing or North-East China.

Smartphone and Texting Addiction: Possible Causes

Well known, is that smartphone use, specifically texting while driving and walking is dangerous to both the person and to all others either on the road or sidewalk. There is no question that smartphone use has an addictive nature and seems to be able to tap into something primal in the human spirit.

Recent news articles have come out to try to explain what is happening and why the addiction happens. Here is one on Texting and Addiction.

1. Sending a Text creates a “TR”, a novel brainwave in the prefrontal cortex on both sides of the brain, but only acting when sending a text, not receiving one, or talking on the phone.

Burnbrae Farms 30 Eggs: Inferior Packaging

Burnbrae 30 large egg flatpack does not provide support for the top of the egg, resulting in breakage. The flimsy outer cardboard shell is not thick or sturdy enough for sufficient protection. Toronto, Canada. Photo4 by Don Tai

Burnbrae 30 large egg flatpack does not provide support for the top of the egg, resulting in breakage. The flimsy outer cardboard shell is not thick or sturdy enough for sufficient protection. Toronto, Canada. Photo4 by Don Tai

Eat we do, eggs, all the time, especially Little Weed. He likes the one a day first thing. Eggs are a really concentrated burst of energy that I gladly provide him. Thusly, we go through a lot of eggs each week. NoFrills had a 30 flat pack on sale, but after checking the eggs for damage found that most of them had at least 1 cracked egg. The packaging is not a good design. I prefer the old style. Who wishes to buy cracked or crushed eggs? Not I.