modal echoes

theme change

2012-01-09T17:01:00.000+02:00

Being the age of the Cloud I decided to retheme this blog. Hope you like it :-) PS. There's a new review of Melancholia over at the popcorn stand.

Context-keyed Payload Encoding - AthCon 2010

2010-05-31T19:51:00.002+03:00

This Thursday I will be doing a talk on "Context-keyed payload encoding" at AthCon 2010. AthCon is a fresh IT security conference that will take place on June 3rd 2010, in Athens, Greece. My presentation will cover both shellcode detection and NIDS evasion themes, but will mostly focus on the "Context-keyed payload encoding" technique, that allows attackers to bypass many of today's state of the

the new yada yada operator

2010-04-14T10:38:00.002+03:00

Perl 5.12 is out! This release introduces a new operator, called the "yada yada" which looks like an ellipsis (...) and implements a placeholder for code. So, the following snippet is now valid perl :-) do { steal_underpants; ...; profit; };

canaries, black hats and other magic tricks

2010-04-11T02:25:00.009+03:00

Haven't updated my blog for some time now. Hmm, maybe it needs a new look. I've been spending most of my free time on census research projects and PhD stuff. Hopefully I'll be finishing the darn thing this year. Anyway, I recently did a quick writeup on how canary gets randomised nowadays in Linux apps. You can find it over here. In other news, my workmate argp will be presenting both stack

The Netflix prize

2009-06-27T11:45:00.008+03:00

For those of you that participated in the Data Mining session of the recent ellak workshop, there are some new developments regarding the Netflix data mining contest.According to Slashdot and the Netflix Prize Leaderboard, there may be a winning team.. :-)

Concert Audio in Lossless formats

2009-06-27T11:10:00.003+03:00

etree.org hosts an amazing list of concert recordings in lossless formats. There's also a mailing list and RSS to keep you updated on new .torrent files.Nice!

Full Concert Audio online!

2009-03-04T23:31:00.003+02:00

wolfgangsvault.com has some amazing rock n' roll concerts online.The quality is decent, the streaming is good and .. it's free.Be sure to check it out!

Ibrahim Electric

2009-02-08T13:48:00.005+02:00

This band is amazing. I've been listening to their music for almost a year now and I can't get them out of my daily roster.You might wanna check these ones as well [1] [2] [3]...Kudos to George and Alex for introducing me to these fine Jazz-Afro-Surf grooves!P.S. I wonder if we'll ever get to see them in Athens.

Questionable Content Marathon

2009-01-20T11:17:00.008+02:00

I was introduced to this comic by two friends, around a year ago, and started reading it backwards, because:a) The stories that were running back then, were really goodb) There were 1000 or so strips in totalc) It seemed doable (it wasn't).Anyway, a friend was recently reading the first strips and from her enthusiasm I gathered that they must be equally as good. So last night, I did the proper

How to force a reboot when you have a RAID array attached

2008-12-29T12:13:00.010+02:00

When the system gets stuck (yes, this happens in our beloved operating system too) who do you call?- Sysrq of course!My usual approach would be:1) sync all filesystems: alt + sysrq + s (multiple times, the actual value depends on my mood :-)2) remount all filesystems read-only: alt + sysrq + u3) cause a reboot: alt + sysrq + bBUT, this comes with an issue if you're doing software RAID (md).md

Read the sign

2008-12-16T23:31:00.007+02:00

A message from the (post-Katrina) city of New Orleans to our young vandals in Greece..

Leeching Picassa Albums

2008-06-02T17:33:00.013+03:00

Here's a tiny python script for downloading Picassa photo albums!It requires two parameters: the album's RSS URL (there'sa link to this at the bottom of each album page) and the pathnameof the directory where the downloaded photos will be stored.Enjoy :-)#!/usr/bin/env pythonimport urllibimport feedparserimport sysimport osif len(sys.argv) != 3 : print >> sys.stderr, (("usage: %s " + "<

"Software Libre Society events" report

2007-12-19T14:24:00.002+02:00

What was missing?There was a need (for some time now) for a real discussion forum on Software-related issues, targeted towards the growing Free Software community in Greece. A place where developers could meet on a regular basis, present their work and exchange ideas with other members of the local community. A place where sysadmins could talk about "best practices" in their line of work and

Preparing a DivX movie for your standalone DivX player

2007-08-25T00:58:00.000+03:00

Here's an avidemux guide for processing DivX movies to make them suitable for playback on standalone DivX/DVD players.You can use a shell script to prepare all of your movies, since Avidemux can be configured to perform most (if not all) operations from the command line! Cool stuff.

Tip for saving printing paper

2007-06-14T13:40:00.000+03:00

One can save on paper supplies, by printing multiple pages in single A4 paper sheets.On GNU/Linux you can do this with the pdfjam utilities.# apt-get install pdfjamThe following cmdline turns file[1-3].pdf into a single pdf file$ pdfjoin --outfile single.pdf file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdfWe now put two pages into one (in landscape mode)$ pdfnup --outfile 2_pages_in_one.pdf single.pdfYou may wish

My Little Obsessive Compulsive Friend

2007-05-23T20:38:00.000+03:00

An animated short from a young talented artist. Enjoy :)

Farewell Costas

2007-04-29T22:40:00.000+03:00

One of my favorite drummers, Κώστας Κουβίδης, was lost in a car accident in the early morning hours of April 26th, 2007.I can still hear his signature rhythm in my head, like that time with Kontrafouris in Athens, or with Tilemachos in Thessaloniki..Costas, you will be missed..

Bjork & P. Diddy

2007-04-28T02:28:00.000+03:00

Sylphis3D has been GPL'ed!

2007-04-26T22:29:00.000+03:00

I still can't believe it.. We were all hoping for this to happen sometime, but the actual news took us by storm! Sylphis3D, one of the most advanced 3D engines out there, has been made OpenSource!Congrats to the lead developer Harry Kalogirou, who turned a part-time project into a landmark in the gamedev world. I hope the project will flurish in many exciting ways, bringing the "cream of the crop

Implementing Polymorphism in C

2007-03-28T15:37:00.000+03:00

A few months ago I was doing some work on Linux /proc fs. As you may already know, procfs (just like any other filesystem in Linux) implements the VFS API. The VFS API groups together common concepts between filesystems (e.g. retrieving an i-node from a pathname, assigning permissions to an i-node etc.). This allows for some polymorphism in the kernel code: a module requiring a VFS operation upon

Recovering Deleted Files through open fd's

2007-02-02T01:36:00.000+02:00

oops, you deleted a file you've just downloaded thru a p2p file sharing app.Maybe there's still a chance getting your data back without using your forensics kit.Unix never releases the data blocks that are linked to a file, if a file descriptor to that file is still open. Hmmm, maybe if this p2p app is still running, we can get our file back, no?p2p apps tend to have many file descriptors open

You must be kidding me.. Part 1

2006-11-15T00:48:00.000+02:00

from the manpage of diskseekd (1):Several people have noticed that Linux has a bad tendency of killing floppy drives. These failures remained completely mysterious, until somebody noticed that they were due to huge layers of dust accumulating in the floppy drives. This cannot happen under Messy Dos, because this excuse for an operating system is so unstable that it crashes roughly every

Shooting Super-16mm On A Low Budget

2006-11-02T16:47:00.000+02:00

Excellent intro to shooting on 16mm. Covers minimum costs for a short production.

The linux-gate.so & VDSO story

2006-11-01T01:18:00.000+02:00

If you ever wondered why linux-gate.so keeps appearing on your ldd$ ldd /bin/ls linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000) librt.so.1 => /lib/tls/librt.so.1 (0xb7f39000) libacl.so.1 => /lib/libacl.so.1 (0xb7f30000) libselinux.so.1 => /lib/libselinux.so.1 (0xb7f1b000) libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/libc.so.6 (0xb7de3000) libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/libpthread.so.0 (0xb7dd1000) /lib/

userspace filesystems

2006-10-31T02:16:00.000+02:00

Once a year I do a "filemanager" poll: I check on the status of two-pane file managers, looking for something that resembles Total Commander, only in Unix.This year I ran into gnome-commander while looking for a file-manager that would support libgnomevfs (with its exotic sshfs, smbfs and so on).It strikes me odd, the fact that there is so much code duplication between user-space filesystem

Eternity and a Day

2006-10-29T11:19:00.001+02:00

This is Theo Angelopoulos' view on the crossing to the Other side. The frame says it all.

for Badi

2006-10-24T22:16:00.000+03:00

I love Badi Assad's music.It is sincere, sweet and meticulously played.Badi herself is a wonderful person. I had the chance of enjoyingone of her shows here in Athens last year. I hope shevisits us again soon..This is her home on the web.Her album Verde has a version of Bjork's Bachelorettethat still haunts me.."if you forget my name..you will go astray..."

Rebuilding freetype on Debian

2006-10-23T01:57:00.000+03:00

My rather slow desktop (450mhz) is becoming more and more sluggish.A friend insisted that I should try compiling [1] libfreetype for my machine. Debian uses "-g -O2" for the official libfreetype6 package, which I turned to "-O3 -march=k6-2" in debian/rules.apt-get build-dep libfreetype6apt-get source libfreetype6cd freetype-2.2.1vi debian/rulesdpkg-buildpackage -b -nc -rfakerootdpkg -i ../

Catharsis (flushgmail)

2006-10-15T20:30:00.000+03:00

When I got my gmail account I read the ad saying "this is a fantastic spot to subscribe to all your favourite mailing lists and never delete any email EVER". Saw I said, "ok, let's do that". I started subscribing to a few mailing lists (with lots and lots of traffic) and what do you know? 22k email messages on the first month. So I said "my bad, let's delete all these messages and I'll just read

Catharsis

2006-10-15T20:29:00.000+03:00

I'm going through some kind of catharsis weekend.On Friday night, I watched "Empire of the Senses" a film about sexual obsession, at a film festival in Athens. This was followed by a Pilali/Poulikakos show (a blend of greek rock and rempetiko-blues) at RODEO club. The place had poor air conditioning, but the show was excellent. You don't get to see people dancing on tables in rock concerts and

BLOG WARS

2006-06-28T11:40:00.000+03:00

BLOG WARSIt is a time of civil war.The Rebel fleet leaves planet LiveJournal andseeks refuge on the Blogspot system.Seven Articles have been left behind. The future is uncertain.Will there exist another post?

Privacy

2006-06-17T07:37:00.000+03:00

(recovered from livejournal)I'm becoming more and more concerned about privacy issues on the web, especially the so called "user-tracking" problem. Let's say that provider A is controlling the web sites A1, A2 and A3. User Stella is browsing through the web, hopping thru websites Z -> A1 -> D -> E -> A2 -> A3. Provider A can track a good proportion of Stella's web-browsing activities, by

Is internet TV here already?

2006-04-26T11:03:00.000+03:00

(recovered from livejournal)First, a message to our sponsors:If you are a person working for (or in charge of) a greek TV station I'd like you to know that whatever you're doing is wrong and you should stop doing it. Thank you.I really can't say that I'm not a TV-buff. I've spent hours and hours in front of the telly during the '80s and I miss all the thrills I used to get from cliffhangers on

Jung gives me the creeps

2004-10-22T13:01:00.000+03:00

(recovered from livejournal)According to this test, I'm an ISTJ. Now, isn't that special? :PCurrent Mood: sleepy

Hair today, gone tomorrow

2004-10-17T12:33:00.000+03:00

(recovered from livejournal)Lost some things of value today. Missed a night out with the guys. Saw "Sky Cpt and the world of tomorrow" at the movies [1]. Cancelled tomorrow's piano lesson since I got work for the weekend. I don't know what else could have gone wrong but I guess the day is over and I should be forgiving.Need to get a warm cup of coffee at a nice cafe [2]. Haven't done that for a

..and in the darkness bind them

2004-10-14T11:11:00.000+03:00

(recovered from livejournal)I've been planning all day to return home early so I can get a head-start on some work I've been postponing for a week or so. Got some tax-related stuff to sort out, a few exam papers to mark, come up with some questions for an oral test tomorrow, do the laundry and practice for the saturday piano lesson (which is my first one this seazon).Managed to return home 'round

Cm7

2004-07-22T11:51:00.000+03:00

(recovered from livejournal)If this journal was a tune it would probably start off with a minor C chord. Yes I admit I'm a lazy piano player and like to start off things at points that I feel comfortable with. On a second note, I would probably enrich that C chord with a 7th, bringing in some blues-y feel to this story, since little to nothing makes you exuberantly happy and if you're anything