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Friday, February 13, 2009 - 04:00 PM - Tampa Indie Film Log for Filmmaker C. A. Passinault
Hack Jobs
I should be blogging about
this on my main C. A. Passinault Blog, but since that blog is in the process
of being put together right now, and this blog is relevant to this post,
I’ll just do it here and be done with it.
It seems that I am the victim of my own success. Early indications that
I’ve done well with my web site endeavors began four years ago,
when cybersquatters seized my abandoned domain names and lawsuits almost
flew over some issues with local Tampa modeling industry people. Well,
the latest things going on have been particularly annoying. I now have
hackers targeting my sites.
I’ve studied these things, about how some sites can have java script
where your browser automatically downloads malware or viruses as soon
as you go on them. As an Internet expert, however, with serious attention
to security and detail, I never thought that these things could happen
to me. It just did.
I now have a fleet of 50 web sites. Most of these sites have excellent
search engine performance and thousands of readers / visitors a week.
A few of them have many thousands of visitors a day. It now seems that
the high profile of my sites have attracted the attention of hackers.
From what I can see, the hacks are on my indexes and are being done by
an automated script exploiting security holes in my web hosting providers
servers. The script will copy my root index, add a malicious javascript
into the source code, and then refresh the index on the server. In some
of my compromised sites, the script cannot handle all of the content,
and merely dumps it, replacing the original content with the javascript
and uploading that instead, creating a white screen with an automatic
download of malware. One of the sites, by new Tampa Headshots site, does
not have a lot of content in the index compared to the others, and the
javscript has been added to the source code, which enables people to see
the site but still triggers the download. In the past week, five of my
sites have been hit with this crap, which includes Tampa Bay Modeling,
Tampa Headshots, and three of my five main blogs. The Tampa Film Blog
has been one of the targets, and with the white screen effect, especially
on the blog sites, this effectively brings those sites down.
Two weeks ago my web sites went on standby as I spent time on other projects.
During this time, this crap started. Last Friday, I routinely checked
my sites and found out that five were compromised. I refreshed their indexes,
and everything was fine for a few days. Yesterday, I received a phone
call from the head of my corporate security, who is a computer and Internet
security expert with skills which exceed my own (he was one of the people
who founded Myspace). He had been looking into some issues that I had
brought up earlier in the week. He reported that Tampa Bay Modeling and
my blog sites were completely down, displaying white screens. He also
reported finding weird javascript in the source code of all of my web
sites. Well, I was working on a project away from the studio at the time,
but I booted up the computer system in my car and activated the virtual
terminal (the one which I built into the car and projects the monitor
onto the windshield, and where I can update web sites and work while seated
in my car). I copied the corrupted indexes and refreshed them again, noting
that the indexes were the same ones which were compromised a week earlier.
I also launched aggressive measures to address this now ongoing issue.
My web team traced the malware back to its source, and they forwarded
me the information. That information was sent to my hosting provider and
the FBI’s computer crimes division.
The FBI is now investigating these hacks. For those who don’t know,
these hacks on my web sites are crimes, and are being treated as such.
I also spent a long time talking to my hosting provider, who launched
their investigation because the security breach seems to be on their end.
I am confident that the cause of the breaches will be addressed, at which
time I will refresh the content on all fifty of my web sites.
Tampa Bay Film, which was not effected by all of this (it seems to have
happened to my busiest sites), has new content and a new Tampa film scam
analysis database which is almost done. It was already scheduled for a
complete server refresh next week, and I need this issue to be resolved
before that happens. Tampa Bay Film may be another of my sites to lose
its Google ads and be used to directly market my service companies; you’ll
know it after the next code refresh, although I have yet to make a decision
regarding changing the ads.
Neither Tampa Bay Film or the Tampa Bay Film Online Film Festival was
compromised during all of this (although I can see certain people who
would welcome those sites being brought down). In a few days, this should
not be an issue anymore.
I do see some changes coming in how I work on web sites. I will be changing
my passwords and other information today. I will also be spending several
hours today checking on all of my web sites and making adjustments where
needed. In the next few days, I will be forming an entirely new web crisis
team of several Internet and security experts. Each member will be assigned
to monitor certain web sites, and all of them will have full FTP access
and backup files to all of my web sites. This done, if my web sites were
to experience any issues or go down while I was in the middle of a shoot
or otherwise busy, they could make the corrections within minutes and
prepare a report for me. If I do any updates, I will notify them of the
updates and have them download copies to a quarantine directory separate
from their main backups. This will enable them to check the updates for
questionable content before incorporating them into the primary backups.
I did something like that yesterday morning, when I downloaded the corrupt
indexes of the five web sites into a newly set-up quarantine film directory
so the javascript could be analyzed. Those files were also sent to the
FBI and my hosting provider to aid them in their investigations.
Let’s just say that this hacking B.S. is going to stop, now, before
my business interests are damaged. Oh, yes, and conspiracy theorists out
there thinking that I am out to infect computers with malware can stop
thinking that. I was not behind this, and I am doing what I can to remedy
the situation.
It was cool talking to my hosting provider today, however. They pulled
up my account and told me that they had never seen anyone with so many
web sites, and also commented that the web traffic was incredible. Well,
I already knew that. If only they could stop my latest web site, JoeGerbilLove.Com
: The comprehensive online guide for bipolar, neurotic, lonely, sociopathic,
insecure, overweight failed filmmakers who long for the companionship
of small rodents, from being hacked. That site is my latest, and
greatest, site, especially when I start selling a line of teflon coated
string and paw cuffs from the advanced e-commerce section. Squeak, squeak.
Seriously, though, I am currently studying PHP, databasing, and Flash
during the spring slow time of my web sites. Expect some new sites, new
designs, and more interaction in the future.
Oh, in closing, going back to my virtual terminal system in the car, I
used the windshield projection system for something cool tonight while
I was driving. I recently obtained a military surplus Israeli army night
vision system and modified it for my sportscar. It was a difficult installation,
but I did it, while making it discrete; you don’t know that the
car has it until it is activated. The video feed from the night vision
gear is patched through a video switcher to the projection system. Tonight,
it was very, very foggy, and I had somewhere to be. The display from the
night vision was projected onto the windshield and overlaid what I saw
naturally. This enhanced visibility, and gave everything a slick “virtual
vision” effect. I could see through the fog, and it was cool. From
what I understand, high-end luxury cars now have the option of night vision,
which can be monitored from an in-dash screen. What I have created makes
those systems look primitive in comparison, and I am confident that I
have the most advanced night vision system of any car in Florida. I’m
used to that. I have technology that no one else has, and you can’t
get anywhere. Wait, though, as far as cars go, you haven’t seen
anything yet. I will soon be building a car which will be one of a kind,
incorporating some of the coolest technologies and most clever innovations
in the world. For more on that, check out my Phantom project post on my
C. A. Passinault Blog archives:
The car will be 100% street legal, will be
built with inexpensive and plentiful parts, and will have lots of technology
integrated into it that doesn’t exist anywhere because I designed
the tech.
The car will have slick-road traction assist, integrated cameras, integrated
sensors, GPS, a 3D audio system, an alarm system based on the one that
I created for my studio (it uses ultrasonics), BEAM robotic components,
computer assisted systems, proximity panel control interfaces, a heads-up
monitor, transphasic lighting based on LED arrays (controlled by its own
computer and a lot like the LED lighting used in newer television station
production sets - think of custom car neon integrated into the car body
and undercarriage that can change color), software-controlled vehicle
lights, and a lot of classified technology which I cannot disclose. Let’s
just say that there might be faster cars out there, but it doesn’t
mean that they catch this one. The car would have the ability to be stealthy,
highly visible, or to dominate other cars if it had to, depending upon
the situation. It would be 100% legal, but a show-worthy car with capabilities
and ideas that other cars can’t touch. GPS, ATR, Night Vision, Scanners,
Mobile Net, Glass-Cockpit styling... All those are just icing on the cake
for this project. Oh, and I’ll need a monster electrical system
with a beefy alternator and several batteries.
It will be called the Phantom. It will be one-of-a kind. The interior
will look more like the glass-cockpit of an aircraft than a car (actually,
my present sportscar kind of gives me that feeling if being in a cockpit,
but not nearly as much as this one will). It will have ideas and technology
that car manufactures would love to get a look at. It will be all mine,
and very few would ever get to ride in it, or even look at it. Just don’t
expect me to take any pictures of it once it is built. I may only drive
it at night, too, simply because I wouldn’t want many people to
get a good look at it. It’ll be one of those things that will be
larger than life, and that much more impressive simply because it eludes
study and comprehension. Kind of like “I saw this car the other
night that was incredible, but I don’t know what it was. I tried
to get a look at it, but couldn’t get close to it. Before I knew
it, it was gone.” It’ll be like catching a fleeting image
of a legend, a bad-ass ghost, and be left imagining what it could be and
what it could do. The irony would be that its actual capabilities would
far exceed what most could imagine. It’ll be like being a God on
the highway.
Also, building such a car won’t be as expensive as you might think.
Back when I was a teenager, and a young adult, I used to hack technology
and do a lot of tricked-car work. I designed and installed a lot of car
electronics back in the day, and built competition-level car audio, video,
and other systems (I designed mobile video systems long before they were
common in cars). No one has what I can do, and what they can do they can’t
do at the cost that I can do it at.
I should turn this into a business, but it’s more of a passion for
me, or a sophisticated hobby, and it would lose something if I turned
it into a business. Kind of like washing and detailing cars- I wouldn’t
ever want to make a business out of it, but I do enjoy doing it. It’s
kind of like one of my forms of therapy.
Well, I have to run. I have
to work on contracts and check the firmware on one of my PSP’s.
I want to play Mike Tyson’s Punch Out on the go. Who can blame me?
200 IQ X 32 years of college study + enhanced creativity + enhanced analytical
ability + talent + experience = a more interesting life than most have.
Remember that.
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