A MarketPlace of Ideas                        

This 5 part series details the history of the evolution of English from Friis to modern English.   Very interesting.

A must watch series on your base functions.  Human Instinct

Wikipedia: Ring of Fire

  Documentary Video Film 202: The Ring of Fire, Part 5
  Documentary Video Film 201: The Ring of Fire, Part 4
  Documentary Video Film 200: The Ring of Fire, Part 3
  Documentary Video Film 199: The Ring of Fire, Part 2
  Documentary Video Film 198: The Ring of Fire, Part 1

Interesting that WordPress can be hacked.

Observations

• Blog infected with malware
• base64 decode in index.php
• FAQ
• identified as redirector.ji
• Identified as Trojan:JS/BlacoleRef.W

Research

• Google: base64 decode wordpress hacked site:dreamhost.com 
• Case study of website malware removal
• WordPress Directory and File Permissions

Tools

•  Securi Scan – shows if your site is infected and what it is infected with.
• Searching for backdoor on your server
• TroubleShooting hacked sites
• Example debug sequence

Procedures

• Site that includes steps taken to stop issues
• Looking at recent users

Yikes when will these guys quit and get a real job? This one hides your files and makes it hard to recover.

• Ran TDSSKiller – nothing detected
• Ran MalwareBytes – detected a list of things – deleted
• Found SMART HDD removal instructions at this point
• Ran unhide.exe and the computer returned to normal operation with a few icons missing from the start menu

Better!

More stuff showed up on my personal machine.  Yuk.  rootkit.0access.h

Additionally when using the method I used it breaks the net connection.  I fixed all.  Sequence follows.

• TDSSKiller   – I had to run and reboot several times.  I also may have run Malwarebytes in between.  Should have kept track better!  This was because first I used an older version as I was being blocked by the virus.  After I ran it I was able to connect and get the updated version which found more stuff.
• Malwarebytes  – had to run this 2 or 3 times to come up clean.  After this my net connection was broken.
• XP, Vista, Win7 Network Registry keys -  I double clicked on netbt.reg as refered to on the page that took me to the reg keys  – network was still not restored
• Farbar Service Scanner FSS   -  I ran FSS to find out what network function was not working.  It came back with AFD.sys service not running.  
• AFD.reg  -  I clicked on the AFD.reg key included in the XP registry keys.  I then rebooted.  After that my net connection was back.

• Trail of Genghis Khan 1
• Trail of Genghis Khan 2
• Trail of Genghis Khan 3
• Trail of Genghis Khan 4
• Trail of Genghis Khan 5
• Trail of Genghis Khan 6

From the former Mongol capital Karakorum to the Danube, young Australian adventurer Tim Cope retraced the path of the first nomads and followed the route taken by legendary Genghis Khan as he forged his great empire. Over three and a half gruelling years, and guided by an old Kazakh wisdom – "to understand the wolf, you must put on the skin of a wolf and look through its eyes" – Tim lived just as the ancient nomads did.

Tim travelled 10,000kms alone on horseback across the Eurasian steppe through Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Hungary.

When he set out with his fearless dog Tigon as a companion there was no certainty – no backup from a camera crew, no escape route – and he could barely ride a horse. Ahead lay wolf-infested plateaux, the glaciated Altai Mountains, minus fifty degree temperatures on the 'starving steppe', scorching heat in the Kazakh desert, violent clashes between sedentary and nomadic societies and the deep forests and treacherous peals of the Carpathians. He would also suffer the greatest tragedy of his life. To cope he would have to draw on everything he learnt from the nomads.

The extreme challenges gave Tim empathy and insight into the nomadic way of life, and as a young man growing up; the journey became a personal rite of passage. Along the way, just as the nomads did, Tim sought refuge with local families, who welcomed him with open arms, traditional nomad hospitality and taught him the ways of the steppe.

At the end of his journey, Time arrived on the Danube having achieved the first crossing of the steppe in modern times.

See the video here:  Off the Rails

These sort of trips are what I call "a cultural experience".   You think it is about the bicycle but a strange thing happens when you bicycle.  Your endorphins rise and people open up to you like a door swung wide open.  I know because it has happened to me before.  

See also 

• Off the Rails – production company
• Tim Cope adventures
• Mongolian Adventure on Horseback
• In the Steppes of Nomads  (playlist on youtube)

Very interesting paper on how gold backwardation presages a crackup boom of fiat based currencies and the dynamics of how that leads to shortages.   Gold Backwardation