sakura byebye: July 2012

By Nick Bromberg | From The Marbles – Wed, Jul 11, 2012 10:12 PM EDT

Many of us like watching races in the company of other NASCAR fans, but Linda Chase of Jackson, Mich., might have taken that just a bit too far.
 

 For the past 10 years, she lived together with Charles Zigler. And when Zigler passed away, they continued to live and watch NASCAR together for approximately 18 months until authorities found Zigler's body on Friday.
 

We'll let the Jackson Citizen Patriot take it from here:
 

Zigler, known as Charlie, died naturally, Linda Chase said. "He just fell asleep." She kept him in his chair after he died, keeping him dressed and cleaned. His body did not stink, she said. She would talk to him and watch NASCAR races on television with him.
 

Jackson officials believe that Zigler, who would have been 67 or 68, died around Christmas of 2010. That was 18 months ago. When Zigler's family members went to check on him after not hearing from him for a while, they went to the police, who found Zigler's body in his chair.
 

Chase kept Zigler's body around for more than NASCAR races, however. She's admitted to cashing his social security checks, saying "I'm probably going to prison." She's currently being investigated. When family members, with whom Zigler did not have a close relationship, tried to contact him, Chase would tell them that he was gone. She told the paper that "It's not that I'm heartless. It's just that after so many bad things happen to you, I don't know.
 

"I didn't want to be alone. He was the only guy who was ever nice to me."
 

So, next time you have friends over for a race, check on them every once in a while. Yeah, they could be just taking a nap because it's Pocono, but you never know.

src: sports.yahoo.com

(originally posted by: "King Dude")

"Hundreds of thousands of Internet users whose computers are infected with a particularly nasty virus will be unable to access the Web starting on Monday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation will shut down Internet servers that it temporarily set up to support those affected by malicious software, called DNSChanger. Turning off those servers will knock all those still infected offline.

Over the past five years, a group of six Estonian cybercriminals infected about 4 million computers around the world with DNSChanger. The malware redirected infected users' Web searches to spoofed sites with malicious advertisements.

In November 2011, the FBI and some overseas partners arrested those responsible, commandeered their servers, and attempted to warn those affected to get rid of the virus.

The FBI did not immediately take down the rogue servers, as infected computers would have lost Internet access, an FBI spokesman said.

To remedy the problem, the FBI had the nonprofit Internet Systems Consortium set up temporary servers. That way, computer owners would have time to get rid of their malware.

The servers were supposed to be shut down in March, but hundreds of thousands remained infected. Nearly 304,000 computers worldwide (about 70,000 in the United States) still had the virus in mid-June, according to the FBI's latest report. That's a large number, but it's a very small subset of the 1.6 billion PCs worldwide, of which an estimated 339 million are in the United States.
Still, the FBI decided to give people even more time to check for the malware, extending the deadline until July. The agency now says the time has come to cut the cord, and the emergency servers will be shut down on Monday.

Though the FBI tried to send notifications to those infected, it could not identify all of them, a spokesman said."

read more at: money.cnn.com

and visit washingtonpost.com to see more info about this virus and how to fix it.


Unneeded scare 

A couple of Indian dailies (here and here) have picked up on 3 day old news reports (here and here) that starting Tuesday Google will warn users of a ‘possible’ internet blackout from July 9th.  
First
 of all the reports are misleading for the simple reason the possible 
blackout or inability to connect to internet is most likely to occur to 
users in US, Canada and Europe and less likely for users in India
 (it is possible though as several hundred PCs in India are still 
suspect).  In any case, it will be individual users who will lose their 
internet access and it doesn’t mean a whole scale blackout.
The 
root of the original problem lies, as usual, in what else, but online 
criminal activity.  Sometime back cybercriminals using a malware known 
as DNSChanger managed to change the DNS Server address of several 
hundred thousand PCs.  The FBI in a takedown broke the crime ring, but 
installed a couple of ‘clean’ DNS servers to enable the infected 
machines access internet.  Now, the FBI is all set to shut them down on 
July 8th.
So what has this got to do with Google?  Last Tuesday Google announced in its blog
 that it will use a technique to detect possible infection when a user 
comes searching at Google and display an alert (in the preferred local 
language of the user) to warn him.  Those warnings are due to appear 
from today.  So if you notice a warning when you Google for something, 
the PC is supposed to be infected with DNSChanger.
If you do not
 receive the warning, your PC is most likely safe, from DNSChanger, that
 is.  In case you don’t want to wait on Google to do the dirty work for 
you, you can head straight to the specific FBI webpage and check whether the PC is infected with DNS changer by:

entering
 the DNS Server address inserted in your PC (or router) into the box - 
but you have to know the DNS Server address in the first place; or
clicking on any one of the 9 URLs in the table below the box - those sites will tell you whether your PC is safe or not. 
If you get the all green message similar to the one above, forget 
about the whole issue, and go on your merry way.  But if you see 
anything red with a warning instead, the PC (or Mac) is infected.  Here 
are two excellent write-ups on cleaning a DNSChanger infection:
DNS Changer Working Group (DCWG) Fix webpage, or
PCWorld webpage on DNSChanger removal.
BTW if you want to look up or change your PC’s DNS server addresses, here is the how to look up DNS settings. 
 In case this post alarms you about the dangers of rogue or 
untrustworthy DNS servers, you can switch to one of the trusted, public 
and secure DNS servers from the updated public DNS Servers list, instead of the usual ISP’s DNS server.  
My own recommendations are:
*ScrubIT ‘filtered’ DNS servers: 67.138.54.100 and 207.225.209.66;
**DNS Advantage DNS servers: 156.154.70.1 and 156.154.71.1;
Comodo Secure DNS servers: 8.26.56.26 and 8.20.247.20;
OpenDNS DNS servers: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220; and
ScrubIT DNS Servers: 67.138.54.120 and 207.225.209.77.
*
 ScrubIT ‘filtered’ DNS servers (67.138.54.100 and 207.225.209.66) 
restrict access to porn and malware sites, which is great for small 
commercial setups (or home use).
**DNS Advantage DNS servers 
(156.154.70.1 and 156.154.71.1) are blazingly fast if you are located in
 India.  They beat every other DNS Server hands down.
As a 
footnote, I never use my ISP’s DNS Server.  On my home PC is it either 
DNS Advantage or OpenDNS.  When asked for advice in homes with children 
who use PC, it is always ScrubIT filtered.  For all others it is Comodo 
secure DNS auto install with Comodo Internet Security.
(source: madmadrasi.net) 

Monday, July 23, 2012

Tokyo Ravens! manga

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Woman watched NASCAR with deceased man for over a year

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Internet Blackout on Monday

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Happy birthday akane! :D

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