RE: SeaWyrm's Talon Exercises
11-06-2012, 06:17 AM
It's a thankless job, but somebody's got to let people on the internet know when they're wrong.
That's my job.
The name's Clubs. Danny Clubs. I have an office downtown - a small place, and not very clean, but it's what I can afford. It has an old beat up desk and a creaky ceiling fan that only works in the wintertime. I don't go there much.
My real base of operations is a webpage. It's not much either, but it's mine. I set it up way back in the nineties, when the internet was fresh and new. I still have a guest counter hanging on the wall. Threw out most of the cheap animated gifs a while back, but I still have a couple of those around, too, for sentimental reasons.
So there I am, sitting behind my e-desk, watching the flickering green glow from the guest counter reflect off the wall, when I get an email. That's unexpected. Mostly what I get is walk-ins or frantic IMs from the commissioner, telling me there's trouble somewhere out there on the information superhighway and I'm the guy whose name they picked out of a hat.
But email? I don't know why I keep the account. There's only so much Viagra a man can usefully buy, y'know? Especially when he's single.
I almost deleted it unread, but checked it anyway. I have an instinct for getting into trouble like that.
It was from some dame with a suggestive number at the end of her handle. Something frantic about a SQL injection. I sent a quick reply, told her I'd be right there, and locked up shop behind an account password. I readied the crawler.
But there was something fishy about all this. Nobody who's concerned with SQL databases uses a hotmail account - least, not for anything serious. And I'm no security expert. I'm a trollhunter. I go after griefers, flamers, that obnoxious guy who keeps quoting everyone else in the thread when the argument is long over. That sort of thing. I know just enough about input sanitization to keep my own nose clean. I figured, maybe I'd help her, maybe not, but either way, she owed me some answers.
When I reached her IP block, I could immediately tell that something was wrong - the front door was hanging on its hinges, misdirected packets lying about. I went around to my trunk and pulled out Godwin's Law - that's what I call my favorite shotgun.
---15 Mins---
Bonus lines:
"Traffic was tight in the cloud today. Some group of crowdsourcers holding a big rally."
"She was a hefty broad. Looked like she knew her way around a banhammer. Me, I usually like 'em leggy, but she still made me stop and take a second look. That was the kind of forcefulness she had. You couldn't ignore her."
"It was a sleazy joint called the Rule 34. Lowlifes loitered outside, trading secondhand memes. This was the kind of neighborhood where you had to watch what alley you walked down, or you'd find yourself rickrolled from behind and wake up in the morning with a nasy headache and an empty paypal account."
...now I want to turn this into a real story.
That's my job.
The name's Clubs. Danny Clubs. I have an office downtown - a small place, and not very clean, but it's what I can afford. It has an old beat up desk and a creaky ceiling fan that only works in the wintertime. I don't go there much.
My real base of operations is a webpage. It's not much either, but it's mine. I set it up way back in the nineties, when the internet was fresh and new. I still have a guest counter hanging on the wall. Threw out most of the cheap animated gifs a while back, but I still have a couple of those around, too, for sentimental reasons.
So there I am, sitting behind my e-desk, watching the flickering green glow from the guest counter reflect off the wall, when I get an email. That's unexpected. Mostly what I get is walk-ins or frantic IMs from the commissioner, telling me there's trouble somewhere out there on the information superhighway and I'm the guy whose name they picked out of a hat.
But email? I don't know why I keep the account. There's only so much Viagra a man can usefully buy, y'know? Especially when he's single.
I almost deleted it unread, but checked it anyway. I have an instinct for getting into trouble like that.
It was from some dame with a suggestive number at the end of her handle. Something frantic about a SQL injection. I sent a quick reply, told her I'd be right there, and locked up shop behind an account password. I readied the crawler.
But there was something fishy about all this. Nobody who's concerned with SQL databases uses a hotmail account - least, not for anything serious. And I'm no security expert. I'm a trollhunter. I go after griefers, flamers, that obnoxious guy who keeps quoting everyone else in the thread when the argument is long over. That sort of thing. I know just enough about input sanitization to keep my own nose clean. I figured, maybe I'd help her, maybe not, but either way, she owed me some answers.
When I reached her IP block, I could immediately tell that something was wrong - the front door was hanging on its hinges, misdirected packets lying about. I went around to my trunk and pulled out Godwin's Law - that's what I call my favorite shotgun.
---15 Mins---
Bonus lines:
"Traffic was tight in the cloud today. Some group of crowdsourcers holding a big rally."
"She was a hefty broad. Looked like she knew her way around a banhammer. Me, I usually like 'em leggy, but she still made me stop and take a second look. That was the kind of forcefulness she had. You couldn't ignore her."
"It was a sleazy joint called the Rule 34. Lowlifes loitered outside, trading secondhand memes. This was the kind of neighborhood where you had to watch what alley you walked down, or you'd find yourself rickrolled from behind and wake up in the morning with a nasy headache and an empty paypal account."
...now I want to turn this into a real story.