Year of October: January 2012

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

I'm almost duped at Midas

So I go to get my brake pads changed and the guy at Midas says he can't do it because the hub is loose and it will cost 700 dollars to fix it. I actually started to believe him because he had this tone of "from one mechanic to another". I know a good bit about cars and am never afraid to hop under my car and fix something. I do some reading in my Haynes manual for my truck and find that the hub and bearing assembly is "sealed-for-life" and the whole thing needs to be replaced as one. So I call Autozone and get a price on. You won't believe it........$72 dollars!
1 hour later the part is installed on my truck.

Monday, January 9, 2012

WPA cracking?!

A new open source tool called Reaver can crack WPA in most instances because of a weakness Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS). WPS uses a hard coded pin when making WPS connections. Therein lies it's fault. A strong password should be used with any type of wireless encryption. Cisco Valet and Linksys routers seem to be definitely vulnerable because while the the web interface for the router says you have turned WPS off, it remains on. The best protection seem to be to flash your router's firmware to DD-WRT. I'm guessing Tomato would probably work really well too.

If your Router is not able to be flashed to a different firmware then contact your local nerd in the next few months and pay them to get you a different router and flash it for you and have them explain how to use the web interface. Learn how to check your network logs for the latest activity.
I enjoy breaking wifi encrypted signals when I can. I choose not to enter someone's personal home network because it is illegal and I'm frankly not really interested in anything on their network.
Stay safe. Stay private. Stop posting your crap on facebook.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Happy Christmas, New Year, it's ya birfday.

Crazy 11days off of work. I got a lot done. I'll post some pics below. Went and saw BTE at Harrah's on New Year's eve's eve. Popped Fireworks (just sparklers) with the girls. Went to Audubon zoo with the girls. Saw a Gabon viper and a 2 headed snake among other creatures. Shot a music video. Mixed down my first song with some help from my brother Joel. Changed pickups in my new guitar. Received a case of 5 hour energy for Christmas, maybe why my holiday went by so fast. Made Pomegranate martinis for Carly and I. Washed and waxed my truck and got it inspected. When I went over the Causeway the drive was surreal. There were no clouds over the water and the water was calmer than I have ever seen it. I know it's silly but it just looked so freakin' cool. I tried to take a pic, picture quality sucks cause I was more focused on driving. That's all I can think of at the moment.