Helene

MacHeist gives away free software gifts for free on christmas day. Today it’s 1password, doseido, iConquer, SantaSnaps, Enigmo and Synergy. Run and download.

A sample encrypted pdf file can be downloaded from Adobe’s site:
Sample

NB. The encrypted file must have printing permissions.

1. Open the file with Preview
One can verify that it is encrypted by going to Tools -> Inspector -> Encryption Inspector (the lock icon)
2. Go to File -> Print -> PDF -> Save as PDF. And voila, an unencrypted version of the file is saved.

It’s sad to say it, but I had my first incident of spyware… on nothing less than my macosx.

I found out because I had these popups that came up when browsing in firefox:

It always pointed to the same ip adress 216.255.186.11. At first I thought it was something wrong with popup blocker in firefox, so I installed adblock in hopes that it help. It didn’t. That was what pointed me in the right direction.

I installed MacScan, and what do you know. It found a Trojan called DNSChanger..

I have managed to stay ahead of the game so far by being careful about what I install. Obviously, that didn’t help. So I guess… no more gay porn for me. (Hey, JUST KIDDING!)

Unfortunately, after many trials I discovered that MacScan didn’t do their job properly to remove the file. It only removed a file named plugins.settings, but there was a lot more than that happening. I started searching out more information about the problem and found a site containing analysis of what the trojan does. So, here is what one must do to remove it:

Crontab contained this line:
sudo crontab -l
* * * * * “/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/QuickTime.xpt”>/dev/null 2>&1

I removed it using this command (DELETES ALL CRONTABS FOR ROOT) : sudo crontab -r

Delete: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/plugins.settings
Then I deleted /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/QuickTime.xpt

After this session - No more popups for me !!! *Celebration*
Previous history:

Update: DAMN! That popup is still there !!! So what in the hell is it? Firefox is in “show no popup” mode.
So I tried this solution and set privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins = 3 (instead of 2). Hopefully that helps..

Update2: Apparantly, that didn’t help as well. Now I’m really baffled. And it makes no sense, because it pops up randomly on different sites.. *thinking hard*

Update3: My last desperate act is to search through all files on my harddrive looking for the ip adress in question (though time consuming). A tip is to delete all history files (clear browser history etc) where the ip adress might appear.
sudo find . -exec grep ‘216.255.186.11′ {} \; -print

I got a hit on these files:
~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/7kojvnaz.default/places.sqlite
~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/7kojvnaz.default/places.sqlite-journal
So I renamed the file too places.sqlite-journal.old.The files is used for preserving Firefox browsing history. In my case - will not be missed. That didn’t help - the popup is still there.

~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/7kojvnaz.default/sessionstore.js
Firefox session data

Frustration solved! Finally !

I have had my mac for about 10 months, but I still hadn’t figured out where to find those programming keys like curly braces, square brackets, straight vertical (pipe) and tilde to name a few on my keyboard.

The solution was easy when I found it, but it wasn’t intuitive for me. After all, it took me 10 months.

These works for norwegian keyboard layout (and probably some more):
~ = Option + ^
| = Option + 7
[ = Option + 8
] = Option + 9
{ = Option + Shift + 8
} = Option + Shift + 9
\ = Option + Shift + 7

So, you want to buy items from ITunes’ US store, but you’re not anywhere around there, are you?

First you need to create a new ITunes account. Find an american adress (for example an hotel or another “public” adress), and follow the instructions in this video:

Now you have access to the US store, but you still can’t buy anything. To buy something with your non-us credit card will get you nowhere. The answer is an US ITunes Gift Certificate.

I suggest checking out EBay and see who sells them there. To ensure you don’t waist your dollars, take a look at the sellers feedback.

It’s amazing that it has to be so difficult to buy music, films etc. The reason is probably because of the contract ITunes makes with the producers. The producers take is their contract with television channels in the different countries. TV channels pay a lot of money to air TV series. TV series produces viewer ratings, which again provides commercials, which leads to increased revenue for the TV channels itself.

The problem is that producers are fighting a loosing battle. People don’t want to wait for their favorite shows, so they download it illegally as torrents or any other means available.

By doing so the producers actually loose money, but not only because of piracy. The problem is that the producers needs to make things internationally available for purchase, not only for the US. If something is unavailable, then people will turn to piracy. Pirated items are cheaper, but they are also usually of low quality. If something is available (and for a reasonable price) people will purchase it.

And the producers should entice people to buy their products by making the products available, at good quality and even may be give some extra value (like extra features etc) when people buy their products. Furthermore, when people like a show they want to purchase items connected to it, because it supports something they are interested in. If I like a show, then you can be damn sure I want to purchase items connected to it. I want to see the product succeeds because it’s in my interest.

So dear producers: Put a little trust in the consumers of your products. We want you to succeed and we will give you dollars for your work if you only let us to do so. Because we do care (how is that for a slogan? Naah… googling showed it was overused by many others).

…..What is the future of the tv industry then?