The 4th Wall

If your familiar with HackThisSite you’ll remember the XeCryption from Realistic Mission 6. XeCryption is a fairly basic encryption scheme that deals mainly with an ascii table. Firstly lets take a look at the setup, an encryption box and an encryption password box.

* Begin by typing in the letter ‘a’ into the text box and leave the password blank.
* The encrypted output with this is “.34.33.30″.
* Encrypting the letter ‘a’ again a new number set shows up, “.17.12.68″ Now lets add these numbers together, in both cases we get the number ‘97′.
* Try encrypting the letter ‘b’. You should get ‘98′ when adding the number set together. Now go check out an ascii table. Surprise, surprise, 97 and 98 are the ascii values of a and b respectively.
* Now lets try putting ‘dd’ into the text box and encrypting still leaving the password blank. My output is “.30.20.50.21.53.26″. The ascii value of ‘d’ is ‘100′. Adding each of the two triplets yields ‘100′.
* So it appears as if the algorithm takes the ascii value of the letter and seperates it into 3 numbers totalling that ascii value. Now we can explore the affects of the password on the text.

* Now that I have given you a shove in the right direction I’m going to try and be a bit more vague in my explanation so that I’m not handing it all out.
* Put something very simple in both the text and password areas, what happens?. Now try something a little more complex.

We’ve now discovered in the most basic form how the encryption scheme works, so now how do decrypt that wall of text in realistic 6. If you can program this becomes a lot easier and quicker, even the most basic programming will work. So far I have come up with two methods of finding the text.

* The first way of going about this is probably the longer way. In any given paragraph the ’space’ character is fairly abundunt, so taking this into account you can subtract the ascii value from each of the added triplets and the resulting number would be the password value. You would have to then take this value and subract it from each of the values and output the ascii character equivalent. So you would have to go through each added triplet to do this and there are 366 of these values, so have fun with this method.

* The second method takes a different route by directly attempting to find the password value. The array of added triplets ranges from 750 to ~900. Now lets say the password value is 800, if we subract this from the values to get the ascii characters we end up with some negative numbers. Taking a look a an ascii table the lowest value is 0 for the charater NULL. Taking these two facts into account we can conclude that the highest possible password value is the lowest value in the value array. Taking a second look at the ascii table, the highest possible value is 127. Hmm, how can this help you. This is the method that I used to crack the code, it is pretty quick if you do it correctly.

This is where I leave and you crack a code.

Lately I’ve been noticing that my computer has been really quite loud, and the internals were running really hot. This was happening even though I hadn’t increased my computer usage or the type of programs I was using. I was having to constantly check the internal sensors and increase my fans speeds to try and dissapate some of the heat in the box. As a side note if your running linux there is a nice little program called lm-sensors that lets you monitor your internal stats via command line, its nice and simple.

My computer was becoming increasing loud because the heatsink fan ontop of my cpu was running faster, pushing higher rpms. I was getting speeds of 3500-4200 and sometimes more and with a side panel that isn’t entirely closed it could gt pretty loud. At first I thought it was just my web browser using the RAM and pushing the cpu. It was getting to be quite annoying having a constantly loud computer. My next thought was that everything was just clogged with dust and needed to be cleaned. Lo n’ behold the heatsink was almost completely covered over in a layer of dust, just under the fan mounting. The fan wasn’t able to dissapate the heat produced by the processor because the dust layer was blocking the way which in turn caused everything to heat up, and the fan had to turn faster to get rid of the increased heat.

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Have you wondered what some extensions on files actually mean? where that type came from? or how it can be opened? Well you can check out File Extension Library on the net. The site presents the most popular searched file extensions and has a catalog featuring over 1,000 extensions. Each extension is supplemented with a brief summary about the file, which applications can open the file and where the file type came from. I have to say this is a pretty handy resource. The team working the site has a catchphrase “Simplicity is harmony”, and so far they pull this off.

Here is a sample link for the “exe” file extension.

I’d been running Debian Etch ‘testing’ for awhile, long enough that it moved into ’stable’ distribution and the next version readying to take the ’stable’ distro. I was also looking to try to fix a few problems I was having with the testing distro. But overall I wanted a nice clean install, after sometime an install can start to feel cluttered and messy.

So What is Etch-And-A-Half anyway?
According to the Debian wiki: “Etch And A Half is an additional set of packages that have been included in Debian Etch, since 4.0r4, to increase the amount of hardware supported by Debian 4.0 (’etch’).” Its not a new distribution, just a regular point release. However in this release candidate a few things have been upgraded, as stated before. It uses the 2.6.24 Linux kernel and has newly availabe xserver-xorg-video drivers for ‘nv’ and ‘intel’. Also instead of the Etch installer it utilizes the Beta 2 Lenny installer. Lenny has just been moved to the stable distribution and is available.

Since moving to this version of Etch I yet to have any significant difficulties and is so far a very stable, comfortable environment. I currently use Gnome for my display manager, but I might try something I little different like Fluxbox or something similar. I’ve been using Gnome for as long as linux has been my OS of choice, and I will probably continue using it in the future. I might begin some experimentation with other display managers.

If your interested you can find Debian Etch And A Half here, but since Lenny was just moved to stable and Etch is on the backburner now I suggest going with that.

As of late I have been frequenting several guitar sites, including a site called Songsterr. Songsterr has a pretty cool programming running on their site. They have an expanding database of acoustic guitar tablatures. I’ve tried out a few of the tabs on the site ad they are very accurate. What makes Songsterr unique is the program that actually plays the song note for note. This is a great resource for a beginner guitarist. They provide several functions including half-speed and full-speed so that you can get the notes and chord progressions down before playing at full speed. I discovered Songsterr via GuitarFlame, another guitar site I’ve come to visit on a regular basis.
I’ve just been there and it seems they have updated their software. A new functionality called multi-track, which allows you to examine each instrument individually. You can mute and play the instruments solo. Its great!!
I don’t have an acoustic guitar, however I do have an electric but without an amp so I’m halfway there. I’m working on a few songs now. I suggest any learning guitarist to check it out.

Do you have a growing business with stores popping up in all counties, then you should probably look into ZIPCodeWorld Store Locator Live. ZIPCode is a store locator service that allows your customers to locate your stores using a zip code along with a radius distance. I bet you have used a similar program when locating a chain store. ZIPCodeWorld Store Locator Live is currently supporting 1089 companies and upwards of 31000 unique stores and growing. The service has pushed into international waters and is supported in 33 countries include the United States and Canada. ZIPCodeWorld is a free service for any business with under 100 stores however in return for the free service they request a banner linking back to the ZIPCode web site. The Store Locator Live service is hosted on the ZIPCodeWorld servers however it is available in bot PHP and .NET for Webmasters and web designers to install on personal servers. The hosting services take care of everything, all the programming codes, hassles and system maintenance. It takes only minutes to apply and set up your store locations. ZIPCodeWorld also provides zip code and postal code services to the United States, Canada and Mexico. ZIPCodeWorld has set up demos of the Store Locator Live service from both the client and admin view points.

For the past few weeks I decided to disconnect from The 4th Wall, which is apparent by the lack of posts. I took a short vacation to Cape Cod, where I picked up a job for the time I was there. I have a few projects lined up and will include posts:

• On going search for a replacement power supply

• Continue LFS/BLFS (on condition of previous point)

• Look into and test alternative X Window Systems (currently Gnome)

• Possibly upgrade from Debian Etch (stable) to Debian Lenny (testing)

• Find a few fun programs to code

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I recently posted that my LFS/BLFS project was on hold because the power supply shorted and started smoking. This post isn’t really an update on the project. Out of boredom today I decided to take a look inside the power supply. I wasn’t really worried about voiding the warranty because I’m pretty sure it ran out years ago. I probably voided it when I a linux operating system on it, and I would certainly void it when I disassembled the power supply.

So I cracked the box open, not literally mind you just a few screws. I wasn’t planning on taking every piece apart to look around, mostly because it says right on the label “DO NOT REMOVE THIS COVER” and getting shocked wasn’t on the to-do list. The thing wasn’t plugged in but a bit of precaution is always good. Under the hood I found some coils, circuits, 2 large black cylinders and it was all pretty compact. I was mostly looking for some corrosion, rust, any hint of melting or circuit shorts. After grabbing a flashlight I found no sign of anything that would pinpoint a short or exact location for the failure. This was definitely odd, a failed device with no visible short or failure. I wasn’t able to see everything in the case, more disassembling is necessary however putting it back together is usually harder than taking it apart so I think I’ll save a full dissection for another day.

Looking to get rid of some old or used items, well then take a gander on over the UsedPrice.com. Used Price is the biggest and best online used pricing and fair market pricing service. Using the virtual market place any user can reliably determine an accurate price for any item they are trying to get rid of, via any means. The service has been proven by numerous dealers, auctioneers, appraisers, collectors, pawnbrokers, and investigators from the government to industry officials by taking the guesswork out of current and used equipment value in the fair market. The appraisal directory is pretty extensive, ranging anywhere from vintage musical instruments to used guns. If your looking to get some used items appraised I suggest this service.

Used Equipment Value