PSP 5.50 Prometheus4 Firmware

It seems that many games does require the 6.xx firmware now and especially one particular one which everyone is dying to play. Monster Hunter 3.

In any case, there is a Prometeus 4 Firmware (not released by original author), but nevertheless allows players to at least play some games from 6.xx firmware.

Again, simply download the file and then put it into the root of your PSP (with directory intact). Run the Updater from XMB and there you are. Do remember to reboot it when asked to press [X]!
http://www.fileserve.com/file/KU63T8J

Lenovo IdeaPad and IdeaCenter Sandy Bridge Recall

From:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-76673

As stated, the following hardware may be affected:

• IdeaPad laptop B570, G470, G570, V470, Y460P, Y560P
• IdeaCentre desktop K330

If you own a model as above, I suggest you contact Lenovo and see if a replacement for your motherboard is required. It is most likely required if you have SATA and you had your machine before 1 Feb 2011.

XP Mode Gives You Legal Reasons to Use Windows XP on Windows 7

Windows 7 comes with a special piece of emulation software known as XP Mode.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/windows-xp-mode

Basically, XP Mode is a legal fully activated, verified image of Windows XP SP3. You can use the default Windows Virtual PC and install this image to make it work in Windows 7. You used to require Intel VT technology in order to use this, but that had been patched recently.
Make sure you download all components if you decided to use the default Windows Virtual PC
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Although somewhere in the EULA is stated that you can only have 1 Windows XP Mode running, well technically you can have many copies (and only run 1 copy at any one time if you really feel bad about it). Some copying and editing is required, but a cool new tool can XP-More allows you to manage those images by Windows Virtual PC easily.
http://xpmore.codeplex.com/

Now, here is the good part. If you are using VMWare, then life gets simply. You do not need the Windows Virtual PC packages. All you need to install is "XP-Mode" from Microsoft which is about 500MB of download. Just choose Import XP Mode from VMWare and it will make a new VM with the installed XP Mode. And you have 1 fully working and legal Windows XP VM. And technically making multiple copies of a VMWave image is not against the EULA because that doesn't cover a 3rd party application such as VMWare and you are not really making copies of XP Mode, but rather copies of VMs. I know it sound crap, but that entirely up to you. It doesn't mean you will go to heaven if you do not use VMWare... :)

So, why is XP Mode good? It passes all the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) and legal checks. You will be able to run Windows Media Player, Microsoft Security Essentials and other stuff that require an original Windows. BTW, if you do need a free anti-malware, Microsoft Security Essential is one good option. While XP is being phase out because it cannot run IE9 or Live Essentials 2011 etc, it is probably still pretty good for testing of many applications in a controlled environment.

So stop struggling with all the "corp" version of Windows XP or those that require constant cracking of WGA every few months! Go Legit! Use XP Mode!*


*XP-Mode require you to verify that you are using a legit copy of Windows 7 before they allows you to download. Guess that one good point why you should buy a legit copy of Windows 7!

我的離開也是愛 TVB 刑警 片尾曲 ~ 許廷鏗

灰色控訴 TVB 刑警 主題曲 ~ Super4

A Deeper Look at SuckerPunch The Movie

Ok, I finally got to watch it and it blows me away. Before you continue reading, I would want to stress that the below are all SPOILERS! If you had not watched the movie, I strongly suggest you do so before you read on because otherwise, you won't understand what I am talking about anyway. Also, you should catch the 3 short animated trailers SPOILERS below!!

Here is my post to links for the 3 short animated features:
http://nemesisv.blogspot.com/2011/03/suckerpunch-animated-shorts.html

OK, I think this film is really going to be a cult movie very much like Pulp Fiction and Matrix. Some will not agree, but there are many many deep levels to talk about. First, lets set some terms. I group the reality into 3 levels. The first, being the asylum. The second, the brothel and the third will consist of the 3 other worlds - The Nazis, The Dragon and The Robots. Now, before I go on, I want to talk about the number 5 in SuckerPunch. I read somewhere it took 5 years to cook up the whole SuckerPunch movie and so there are a lot of things in 5s. 5 Heroines, 5 worlds, 5 days to lobotomize, 5 items etc... I think Zack wanted it that way. They could had made 5 level 3 worlds for 5 items, but of course the film would be too long.

So, let me talk about the 5 worlds. The asylum is what we all agree should be the reality. I think the brothel is a world created by Sweet Pea as she mentioned she is the star of the show and then later introduced to BabyDoll. The idea of using music as a therapy is also first applied to Sweet Pea. After BabyDoll was introduced to the brothel, she had her own way to "dance" out the other reality necessary for them to complete their mission. I actually had the thought that BabyDoll was Sweet Pea "Guardien Angel", but I kinda think its Wise Men in the end that was her angel. So, there is a possibility that BabyDoll was nothing more than a split imagination of Sweet Pea, because you will notice that Sweet Pea and BabyDoll has many in common especially the sister relationship.

Back to the remaining 3 worlds. Each of these world represents a conflict, especially if you had watched the 3 animated shorts. The first Nazi worlds is a conflict about the living and the dead. This could had been brought out by the trauma of death of BabyDoll's mother. The second world of the Orcs and Dragon represents a conflict of the religion where the Orcs believe in their "god" - The Dragon and the human denies it. I would interpret it as BabyDoll's blaming that a true "god" did not exist or else all the suffering will not had been rushing to her like a tsunami. In the end, we also see that BabyDoll killed the "god" (Dragon) as a form of denial. The third world of the robots. In the shorts, it was revealed that it was a conflict between the rich and the poor, at least in physical cash. This is probably a result of BabyDoll's father selling her out for money.

After looking at this, I was very inclined to believe that BabyDoll exist and is not part of Sweet Pea imagination, until. I reach the end. After being lobotomized, the movie purposely did not want o reveal BabyDoll's face giving the audience some expectation that it could be of Sweet Pea's instead. Which then would really be a SuckerPunch! But in the end it show that it was of BabyDoll and not Sweet Pea. So maybe BabyDoll did exist.

Now, there is also the never ending question whether Amber, Blondie and Rocket really existed. I guess maybe and maybe not. I did recall seeing a few girls fight in the first scene when BabyDoll was introduced to the theater, but are those girls our heroines? I guess not. But Rocket especially was in many way a shadow of BabyDoll's sister whom she had failed to protect and thus dies in the level 3 world. Their existence however does makes the obtaining of the items much easier to explain. Sweet Pea or BabyDoll would had more trouble getting all those item on them own. The question remains then is, did they really died? Remember in the end, to Dr Gorski, there is only mentioned of her setting a fire and letting one patient (Sweet Pea) escape. I think if 3 patients died, it would be worth mentioning. So I did not think the 3 heroines died. At least not physically. They could had been lobotomized, but it was never mentioned that they faced this fate, especially one scene where it was mentioned to BabyDoll that that's her own problem, not theirs. So, we can simply even imagine they got taken away and isolated and thus could not continue their mission and thus have to die away in the level 2 world. Of course, if we read that these 3 heroines are not even real, then its just fragments of Sweet Pea's or BabyDoll's imagination that died off.

The 5 items was pretty clear, especially the map and the lighter. their purpose was to create the fire that unlock the main door and guide our heroines out. The knife was to defend, but ironically it was used both as a defence and as an attack to obtain the key. The only thing left was the 5th item which was the ultimate sacrifice. If BabyDoll was unreal, it would means that Sweet Pea had to make her final sacrifice to give up her last fragment of imagination before she leaves the asylum. I am more convinced that Sweet Pea did really made the escape in the end. And another segment that supported the fact that BabyDoll was not real was that BabyDoll had to made the last sacrifice to set herself free. In the end, she was lobotomized. One way to explain her getting the freedom is through Sweet Pea. And it seems that the whole thing may had been Sweet Pea imagination because of the Wise Man character. It doesn't make sense for BabyDoll to meet him where the only person that saw him in reality is Sweet Pea at the very end. This could only had been possible is all the other characters were created by Sweet Pea to help herself escape in the end. It was mentioned by Rocket that Sweet Pea came in because of her and that is a suggestion that Sweet Pea is totally sane. Well, but every insane person I met says he or she is not insane. Could this be what Sweet Pea cooks up too?

We all know the whole movie is about Sweet Pea and not BabyDoll as the film suggested throughout, before the end. I guess this was deliberate as well. Well, thats the SuckerPunch (SP=Sweet Pea)! I hope you are not more confused after reading my thoughts. Of course, all the above are only my interp[retation. Feel free to share yours in the comments!

SuckerPunch Animated Shorts

The following 3 shorts animated films aims to give more information and details about the 3 world where our heroine visited to obtain their items.










Enjoy!

Sucker Punch Theme for Windows 7

Download at:
http://www.fileserve.com/file/zREjZfX

ATI Catalyst Application Profiles

If you think you don't need it, you could be wrong. The Catalyst Application Profiles are NOT just for crossfire or Eyefinity. As long as you are using the ATI Catalyst Drivers, you will be able to leverage on the application profile to optimize your game play. Here is a link to the original Application Profiles:

http://www.rage3d.com/cap/

And yes, you will realized its actually faster and newer than the AMD / ATI site.

For a understand of the Application Profiles, here is a good FAQ:

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33961798

Enjoy you ATI Card!

Asus Express Gate Update

Well, it seems that when your motherboard is no longer the latest model around, Asus will stop updating the drivers and tools available for it, even though there are newer version out there which will work with your board. Express Gate is only of those tools. So, what exactly is Express Gate? It allows you to boot into a minimized Linux with basic function such as Skype, web browsing etc and all these straight from the BIOS. And in a way this is safer than you normal OS because the hacker will have compromise your Linux image in order to get something working, but the image is not saved and can be restored at every reboot. However, it is not said impossible because basically its a Splashtop OS which if the files are modified, it can still be hacked as described in this article:

http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?11610-Hacking-Express-gate-(Asus-Splashtop)

Here is one of the description of Express Gate:

Technology developed by ASUS and introduced with their P5E3 motherboard that utilizes Splashtop, which is a Linux environment that is integrated onto the motherboard. With this technology users can turn on their computer and in five seconds be able to access the Internet using Firefox, online e-mail,Skype, and the Splashtop desktop without having to wait for their operating system to load.

Now, not all motherboard will support Express Gate. You will know when it says so. After the first Express Gate, there are many other version which differs in the way the image is installed. These are namely Express Gate SSD and Express Gate HDD. In any case, I notice that the latest version can be option via FTP from:

ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/misc/utils/

And the latest version for the first Express Gate is v1.5.17.10 as of today.

DoS on DBS / POSB ATM?

I recently had seen 2 cases of hanging the POSB / DBS ATM machine. On both occasion, it was done with a NETS FlashPay CEPAS Public Transport Top-up card. That lead me to wonder if this is a SURE way to DoS the ATM.

Lets take a look at what happened. Bascially a man in front of me decide to top up his CEPAS card using the built in facility. This is a supported and legit function as you can even see the announcement here:
http://www.dbs.com/newsroom/2009/Pages/press090123.aspx

In both case, the man decided to take out this NETS FlashPay CEPAS-Compatible Card and place it next to the contactless reader (Ermm, why do people have to press it so hard onto the contact, when its suppose to be contactless???). This is how the FlashPay card looks like:
http://www.nets.com.sg/netsflashpay/

And the next thing that happened really pissed me off. The whole ATM just froze there. (Remember, I am next in the line!!!) I can only give that guy a WTF look while he start taking out his phone to call the IBM guys to come fix it because he is not sure if the transaction is done, but either way, his ATM card is stucked inside.

OK, the strange thing was that NETS claim that you can actually top-up their FlashPay card at ANY DBS ATM. Apparantly, I had seen it DoS on me twice...

Have you seen something like this happening?

Mozilla - Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey all re-patched AGAIN

The reason why I gave up on Mozilla is really because its unsafe. Such poor poor patching and testing... Within 2 days of release, we get yet another important update. And this actually address multiple vulnerabilities, so it is not optional.

Category: Widely Deployed Software
Affected:

• Mozilla Firefox prior to 3.6.14
• Mozilla Firefox prior to 3.5.17
• Mozilla Thunderbird prior to 3.1.8
• Mozilla SeaMonkey prior to 2.0.12

Metasploit Framework 3.6.0 Released!

Here are the new additions:

New Modules since 3.5.2

Exploits and Auxiliaries¶

• Wireshark CLDAP Dissector DOS
• Microsoft Windows MRXSMB.SYS _BowserWriteErrorLogEntry Pool Overflow DoS
• SAP Service Discovery
• SAP Management Console getEnvironment
• SAP Management Console Brute Force
• SAP Management Console Extract Users
• SAP Management Console getStartProfile
• SAP Management Console List Logfiles
• SAP Management Console Instance Properties
• SAP Management Console Get Logfile
• SAP Management Console ABAP syslog
• SAP Management Console Version Detection
• NetSupport Manager Agent Remote Buffer Overflow
• Citrix Access Gateway Command Execution
• Mozilla Firefox Interleaving document.write and appendChild Exploit
• Internet Explorer CSS SetUserClip Memory Corruption
• Microsoft Word RTF pFragments Stack Buffer Overflow

Post modules

• post/multi/gather/firefox_creds
• post/osx/gather/enum_osx
• post/osx/gather/hashdump
• post/multi/gather/filezilla_client_cred
• post/multi/gather/pidgin_cred
• post/windows/escalate/screen_unlock
• post/windows/escalate/service_permissions
• post/windows/gather/filezilla_server_cred

For those who had been using the svn, you should get 3.7.0-dev by now.

Xmas Getaway Day 4

And so this was the last day of our short trip. We basically did not have a good idea where to go, and we only have that much time in the morning. So we went back to Sungei Wong and we finally saw a pet shop this time. We did not really buy anything there, but we saw something of interest... You will never guess.. Its a pair of Prairie Dogs... They are.. well... hyperactive... We did not take any photo because they shop owner probably won't like it, but here are some info and photo about Prairie Dogs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_dog

Then we went back to the shop and bought the "Prawn Cracker King". We tried a few that other day and loved it. The normal one that is. I didn't like the Tapioca one though. So we both bought one deluxe pack of 3 x 3 pieces each and carried it all the way back.. And I also found out that although the packing looks great, it wont really last... You will still have to finish them soon.

So for the last meal here, we decided to try out the Toilet Cafe here... I had heard rumors that its real bad in Taiwan and Hong Kong, but what the heck, you have to try it to know it. And guess what, the rumors were right after all. It look cute, but the taste just won't make it.. Maybe its because when you associate it with toilet and such, you lose appetite somehow. 

Here are some photos of the food we got:

And of course, even the restaurant is designed as a toilet :

After that, I took a little bit of time to quickly buy some flashrive (which was cheaper there) and we rushed back to our hotel to finish our packup and finally bought the bus back. The bus was a double deck, but our seats end up in the lower deck. We had our usual stop and such. What we did not anticipate was that it turns out to be a holiday on the day we were coming back and there was a bad jam at the course way. To make it worse, there was this China lady which was like skipping queue (with a stupid excuse like, you all do not want to move in front, so I moved). At first, it was only her. Then I grumble to get the people to unit against her. EVIL. But social engineering was one of my better trade of skills. And when she tried to ask her group to slot in as well, everyone turns and gave her a good scolding. But the real reason I did not took it against her at first was actually because SHE IS ON THE SAME BUS as me! So you can imagine because of her, we got delayed. And more jammed. And really really late when we get back. It was ok, I did not really care because I was with Jane. With her, every second feels nice.

So we came back and took a cab home. That finally ended our 4 days short trip to KL.

Here were the previous posts:

http://nemesisv.blogspot.com/2011/02/xmas-getaway-day-3.html

http://nemesisv.blogspot.com/2011/02/xmas-getaway-day-2.html

http://nemesisv.blogspot.com/2011/02/xmas-getaway-day-1.html

Bad Chinese from Local Chinese Newspaper

Ever wonder why is Singaporean kids really bad at Chinese? Just take a look at this photo...

This local Chinese newspaper manage to make 2 mistake in writing 7 characters! Wow! That must be some record.

Farewell Onee

Onee (04 Jan 2010-25 Feb 2011)

Onee came to my house the very night Hino passed away... I almost felt as if Hino held on until Onee came to me... But it as only been a short 1 year plus and now Onee had gone over the rainbow bridge as well. Onee had been a really fun loving hamster and had many signature moves (the twist, flip over etc) that made us laugh at many times. Onee was well and even the day before, he enjoyed his strawberry yogurt snack when my mum gave it to him. On the 25th Feb night, Onee just slept, peacefully as ever and did not wake up.

I just want to share this poem with you Onee, for one last time...

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.
There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together.
There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by.
The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together....

Flash Drive Wiping

From article
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/21/flash_drive_erasing_peril/

I just want to add some of my views here. I had tried to wipe a flash drive once before, but with any recovery tool, you can easily get the data back. It seems that for flash drive, when there is a write, it will automatically try to spread the write evenly so that the drive will wear out uniformly. As such, the wiping does not work.

Solution to the Web Hacking Game from OWASP EU

The original game:
http://www.appseceu.org/?page_id=175

Here is my solution:

In the first request, grab the Viewstate and decode it. Its basically Base64 with the linefeed 0d0a at the end.

Just submit. Do not change the userguess because there is a check that it must be 3 digits. You will get it right with 1 attempt.

Click continue and you can change the count to 0 and the viewstate to any number above 999.

This accomplish part 1 of the game. 

Next, there is a form input, which allow you to search player. This is vulnerable to SQLinjection. It as a MySQL server and you do not even need to use commenting. Just inject:

' or 2=2 or '

and it completes the whole sql statement nicely. I dun use 1=1 because its, well too common.

With the big list, its just a matter of finding the WORSE possible guess. At first, I would think its the HIGHEST number of guess, which I am wrong because the way the answer choose is based on the SIGNED long int, so the negative score is HIGHEST. Weird. Basically its user "appseceu"

Or really if you just want to cheat, view those who hacked the db and all their names has appseceu there! :P X_X

Just back and resubmit the first request to make that record with the user appseceu and with a POSITIVE score (because its a requirement).

Anyway, have fun.

Web Hacking Game

There is a small mini hacking game on the OWASP EU page at
http://www.appseceu.org/?page_id=175

Its too late for the ticket winning, but you can still play with it. I will give the answer in the next post.

Upgrading Windows 7 SP1 Beta to RTM / Final

Now that the final version of the Windows 7 / Windows 2008 Service Pack 1 is available to everyone, you may want to install that. However, for those who had installed the BETA, you may realized that when you ran hte update, it just said that the updated had already been installed (or something similar).

If you compare the beta file and the final file, there will be a few hundred MB of difference (depending on which version). That probably mean if you keep the BETA, you will be missing those hundreds of MB of patches. So my best advice is to uninstall the BETA. However, where will you get the information to uninstall? You will only get it when you manage to get to the first installation screen in the help link.

So here you are, I had copied the instruction out here:

To uninstall SP1:

1. Click the Start button, click Control Panel, and then click Programs.
2. Under Programs and Features, click View installed updates.
3. On the Uninstall an update page, click Service Pack for Microsoft Windows (KB976932), and then click Uninstall.
4. Follow the instructions on your screen.

So here you go. Go ahead to uninstall the BETA, then it will reboot and reboot again before you can cleanly install the new RTM or Final.