Kevin Holler

I randomly got this idea after I bought a coconut the other day. Didn’t bother eating the other half, so I decided to experiment.

Lonely coconut.

Black hole

Tags: 2008, coconut, fruit, Photography

After speaking with about 5 support people from Microsoft, I am left with the only option of creating a new account. And after finally making it clear to microsoft support that the issue was abuse related, I got the following email.

Hello Kevin,

Thank you for writing back to Windows Live ID Technical Support. My name is Ana Lee and I gather that your xxx@xxx.com account has been temporarily blocked due to multiple login attempts. I know how inconvenient this can be and I am very much willing to offer my utmost assistance.

Please be advised that MSN takes privacy or abuse concerns very seriously. The issue that you are having usually happens if someone knows your account and is doing multiple login failures using either an application or through manual sign in attempts. However, there is no way on how we can stop that person from doing that action.

If you do not want to encounter it every time you sign in, I recommend that you create a new account.

So basically Microsoft have an issue at hand, that has obviously targeted a lot of people. And they can simply do nothing about it apart from telling me to create a new account.

Also, small tip if this has happened to any of you. If you are locked out and try to log back in. Wait until you are promoted to enter the CAPTCHA image, be ready to log in with your account. Once you hit the ‘Login’ button, the page will load to verify the captcha + account info. While this happening, log back in with your client and it should work.

Update: I tried to ask if it were possible to have my contact list exported, and this is what microsoft told me.

I acknowledge that you want to export your contact list. I know how important this issue must be for you. My name is Joy and I am here to assist you.

Please be advised that only account owners who have access to their accounts can export their contacts.

This just keeps getting better.

Tags: account, live, msn, skiddie, windows

Everyone loves a bit of scandal these days. Especially when it scandal involving politicians. Now there are two ways of looking at this, and I’m going to try put it out there as best I can. But have a loot at the video first.

What you see here is Nick Killain, the counciler of Meath and a bunch of youths. And as quoted from Mr Killains press release,

In Ratoath, we are experiencing sustained anti-social behaviour by a small minority of young people. Like most residents in the area, I have experienced a deep level of frustration at the negative impact this behaviour has had and continues to have on our community. My frustration is all too evident in the video, and I regret my behaviour, though severely provoked.

So basically we see Mr Killain talking to a bunch of guys and then enforcing violence by pushing one of the youths. Which obviously enough is not acceptable for a man in his position. Nor is it good for his own image as he is suppose to enforce peaceful communication and the likes.

What will happen over this is the same thing that happens everywhere. People will do their best to make this counciler look bad because he went against what he stands by. But I would of done the same thing. If I were being provoked by a bunch of youths acting up, then I would certainly respond in a not so peaceful way.

So all I can say is, fair fucks to the counciler.

The full press release can be read here - http://www.nickkillian.ie/news.htm

Tags: counciler, dublin, meath, media, youths

I figured I may as well write about this since it has been quite a frustrating experience for me. Firstly let me begin by saying that I personally hate the IE domain registration laws and regulations. Why? Well I think you will know why if you’ve ever registered a .ie domain before. I don’t think there is such a complicated system in any other country and I fail to see why Ireland chose to implement it. However, if you are unaware of the painstaking process, then read this - http://www.iedr.ie/IEDRP-Policy.php

On the 8th of March 2008 I purchased a .ie domain from register365.ie. While I was going through the process of registering the domain, I felt satisfied that the process was simple and that I would have my domain ready to use within a few days. And this is where the experience with register365 goes downhill for me.

It was around the 13th of April that I contacted support. Over a month later. I had been monitoring the process for quite some time. And up until the 13th of April, it was at ‘Submitted to IEDR’, which meant that it was pending a review. A month to review a domain registration? I think not. Something wasn’t quite right here. Frustrated and annoyed, I contacted a member of staff from Register365 through their new chat system. But it seemed there was nothing this guy could do. And I’ve spoken with several support staff from register365 before and I often ponder if English was a requirement for their job.

So about 10 minutes later, I am told that the submission to IEDR failed and that I would have to email their support contact address to resolve the issue. So basically, the guy from support couldn’t help me and told me I had to contact support. Seems kind of ironic to me. However, I done as he said. It is now the 17th of april and I never got an email back from Register365.

So a month and a half later, and I am still left in the dark with little or no help from the company. I specifically paid to register the domain for a year, which means I would like to use it for a year. More like 10 months now. I am not happy with the level of support on behalf of Register365 and I certainly will not be recommending them to anyone.

Update: I have just received an email from their support again. And this is what they said,

While this domain name was initially accepted by the IEDR, it was then cancelled by them as it timed out on their registry stalled list. The reason for this was that the domain name itself was not correctly configured on the nameservers on which it was applied for on..
Please see an error message from the IEDR below detailing this..

Then they asked would I like to have it reconfigured with the previous name servers. Which I had supposedly changed a while back. But it seems that replying directly to their support address doesn’t work. Pity I never got an email about that either.

- The verification of nameservers was NOT successful for your request.
- If the configuration is not resolved, your request will lapse in 5 days.
- The administrator of the nameservers must correct the problems
in order for your domain to function on the new nameservers.
- The IE Domain Registry CANNOT rectify the problem as it lies with your
nominated hosting provider.

I also never received a notification about the above issues that needed to be resolved. But what is even funnier is that they never even changed the DNS servers to what I had requested.

Tags: 365, domain name, domains, hosting, ie, iedr, name, register, register365, sales

I’m writing about this out of sheer boredom mainly but I also find the whole thing quite humorous. About a week ago, I was invited into an MSN conversation by someone from IRC. It seemed funny because the ridiculous things that this guy was saying were pasted in the IRC room. So I joined the conversation and the chat began.

Apparently this guy thought he was a ‘hacker’ of some sort. But what put him apart from an actual hacker is that he redefined the term ‘hacking’ altogether. Making fun of this guy seemed like the best route to take. Especially after he asked this question:

<Sh4d0wS> how many sec’s in 5 min

This had us all pretty much in stitches laughing and of course Mr Hacker was having none of it. He was then asking for IP addresses to DoS. So I volunteered to give mine and notify him should I began lagging. So I gave him the IP address of the main FBI website just to see if he would actually check the IP address in a browser. So he began his Denial of Service attack and we kept feeding him with more bullshit basically.

Now he was really pissed off. Which brought the whole thing to a new level of fun. He now began flooding the chat with hundreds of smileys and using his bots to request 200+ contacts try and add me. Which was yet again another invitation to point out his failure.

So Mr Hacker invites me to one of his IRC servers. Now this bit was the funniest because he was running me through a bunch of steps for me to prove how elite I was. Now I am by far no security specialist but I knew enough to work my way around. He insisted I join his regular IRC server and join some channel. Which I preceded to do, but I created an ssh tunnel through my shell account and then connected. They seemed puzzled by who I was until I informed them. Then Mr Hacker tells me I have done good and completed step 1 and was to connect to this IP address and join this other channel. This was all getting boring now, and Mr Hacker seemed to be trying to lure me into some trap.

I was left with a warning to “wait and see what would happen”. This made me laugh even more so I figured I was to either expect some DoS attack from this skiddie. And as expected, the guy tried to DoS my MSN account. Which so far has successfully worked. over a week now and the skiddie has being DoS’ing my account which has effectively locked the account down. MSN support always consider the obvious, so they have been of no help.

I did however manage to log into the account seconds after changing my password. But once I reconnected I was locked out again. Now I don’t know about any of you, but this is the most pathetic attempt at ‘hacking’ I have ever seen. But it goes to show how easy it is for someone with little or no knowledge to use some lame application to annoy people.

Tags: Hacker, irc, msn, script kiddie, skiddie

These two photos were also taken on our unexpected trip to the lake.

Washed apart

Unknown shadow

Tags: 2008, lake, new, Photography