EvilZone

There is a holiday hacking challenge at https://www.holidayhackchallenge.com/

I checked it out and it's like a Pokemon game combined with some hacking challenges! It's really awesome, so I wanted to share it here! Now I'm going back to the game, I have to find out some hot chocolate to get some info about a pcap file from an NPC 

You can avoid it being downloaded to your machine if you don't install the updates that are *supposed to make upgrading to Win 10 easier*.  If you don't want to install Win 10 you have no need for them, and along with shoving Win 10 to your face, they are also backporting some of the privacy invading shit to Win 7 and 8.

You can verify if you installed the  updates by checking if you have this hidden folder in your system drive: $WINDOWS.~BT  (this is where Win 10 gets downloaded to). If you delete it without uninstalling the updates, it will just get recreated.

Lena's tutorials are awesome, that's what I'm going through at the moment and I can say I've learned a ton. They are a great example of what you can learn by doing instead of reading ( not that reading is bad, but in my case, I've had best results with practical learning).

You can find Random's tutorials along with other guides and tutorials here: http://octopuslabs.io/legend/blog/sample-page.html

Tiga's video tutorials on Ida is also a good series: http://www.woodmann.com/TiGa/idaseries.html

If possible, I recommend finding a dojo where you can learn kendo...receiving formal instruction is important, especially at beginner level (that applies to all martial arts). I think it's best to have a teacher in disciplines that might cause physical injury if improperly applied / learned. Nevertheless, training alone isn't impossible, it's just harder and riskier in my opinion. Also, from personal experience, since I've always been interested in swordsmanship but didn't have the chance to learn it from somewhere, I practiced some things alone, from descriptions or videos. I started doing suburi (the basic move in kendo) with a  suburito (that's like a short, thick stick used for doing suburi, and much heavier than a normal shinai or bokken), and also tried to imitate what I've seen in a dojo that I've visited. But I thought..starting gradually is boring, why don't I do 1000 every day? So I did...until after a few weeks I had to stop because of an injury, which ironically, is common in kendo, especially if your technique when doing suburi is wrong. So if you do start training alone, I advise to go for steady, gradual progress, to minimize the risk of injury.

About Musashi and the other swordsmen who learned by themselves, they are an example that it can be done. However, those times were different, and samurai as dedicated as Musashi probably spent their whole time just training and thinking about the sword, and testing things out. Those were days when their survival depended on their skills..in our age we can't dedicate that much time to training with a weapon that is no longer used in combat, so our progress wouldn't be as good as theirs.

The KendoWorld forums and youtube channel are a good place to start informing yourself about kendo. Also, I've found the youtube channel of a Japanese sensei called Hiro Imafuji quite helpful and easy to understand for a beginner.

And by the way, kendo is a more modern version of Japanese swordsmanship, and it's not exactly what the samurai used in combat, which was referred as kenjutsu. Musashi's Ni-Ten Ichi Ryu and other styles are all forms of kenjutsu. Kendo evolved from that to become what it is today.

The Ilium/Olympos series by Dan Simmons.

Humans in a distant future have a way to witness the famous battle between Troy and the Greeks as if they were there. Some history scholars picked from various ages are able to actually teleport there and report the historic accuracy of the events to the Greek gods..which are not what they seem. Eventually, the Trojan war will digress considerably from what it was supposed to be. The humans who were watching it will also have to start a fight of their own for their survival, and there are sentient machines interested in Shakespeare and Proust that will also play an important part in the plot.

The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton

The story is set in a future where humanity has colonized a lot of space, there are also sentient ships and some living space stations where humans can transfer their memories when they die. Something causes the souls of all who died in the past to return to the world and possess the living, while also having some special powers. A war erupts between the possessed who need living hosts to bring even more souls into the world and the humans who haven't been possessed yet.

I really enjoyed these series, both have many characters and alternate sub-plots at the beginning, before everything converges to the final climax.

Just wanted to share a site that I've just found:

http://www.cybrary.it/

Apparently they offer free classes on networking, pentesting, forensics, etc.


The classes themselves seem to be just videos and links to additional resources. I can't say anything yet about their quality since I just stumbled upon it, but you can take a look at the huge and disproportionate screenshot I took of their course catalog:

@Phage Thanks for the additional info. I looked into some statistics too, and all appears to be well, at least for the moment. Of course, I have a hard time trusting them after some of their earlier misinformation, but they couldn't make up numbers for something so serious either, especially since the international community is also keeping an eye on the Fukushima developments.

@Pak_Track Now I'm chill, you should have seen me the first day. Someone was complaining about I don't remember what, and I said "That's no big deal, I'm going just 300 km away from a nuclear apocalypse. I'll come back with extra arms."

I am still interested in bringing a Geiger counter with me though 

I have always been fascinated by Chernobyl. I couldn't point out what exactly interested me, was it the effects of an enormous power gone out of control? The easiness with which humans could destroy themselves and the planet? The spark of genius that led to the invention of nuclear technologies? I couldn't say. I didn't try to better understand nuclear technology, I just felt content with watching Chernobyl documentaries, watch the desolate area and wonder about the danger hidden deep inside, and marvel at the surrounding nature that tries to reclaim its course. This interest waned for a while, until I regained it by, you will laugh, playing the STALKER games. There was something in them, the atmosphere, that rekindled my earlier fascination with Chernobyl. This also prompted me to watch the movie and read the novel. But I will get more to the point of this post now. Just wanted to add some background to this post.

When the earthquake in Japan happened in 2011, I followed the developments more keenly than I would have for another disaster because I had a personal connection with the country, having been there and knowing people there. Eventually, the things improved somewhat, and I was impressed by the Japanese ability to recover and move forward in such a short time. I was also relieved to see that none of my friends there were hurt. Then I stopped looking into it, feeling that things were under control. I also didn't exhibit the same interest for Fukushima as I did for Chernobyl. I was happy to see things didn't escalate in an even more serious disaster, and let it go.

To my shame, the reason I am writing this now and looked more into it after 3 years since the initial incident is not some sudden scientific interest, or detached curiosity. Being convinced that all is well, I didn't feel the need to investigate it further. But I've been granted a scholarship, and I am going to move to Tokyo shortly, for a period of 1.5 years. And someone brought up to me the discussion about Fukushima and the danger of radiation in the Eastern area of Japan. In my comfortable ignorance, I was surprised by this and quickly wanted to discard it by proving that the crisis is over and all is well. And what better way to do that than some quick research on the internet?

That was 2 days ago, and what I thought would be a 30 min break from my other activities, turned out to be 2 full days of reading, watching, and talking about what I discovered. And the more I did that, the more worried I became. And the more I marveled about how I stayed so blissfully ignorant about such a matter, even though I knew I would be going to Tokyo for some time.

However, this is the internet, and one can't take everything at face value. I always laughed at the doomsday preachers and the people who expected apocalypse because it was predicted by X, the planets are aligned in the Y formation, and all such nonsense (in my opinion). But when I tried to ascertain whether Fukushima is a danger to Tokyo, it actually became clear that it's a much higher danger to the entire world than I thought.

Below I will drop some links with a quick summary. But I am not knowledgeable in such matters. As such, I may not be able to discern accurate information from fabricated lies / overreaction / mere speculations. What worries me might be quickly disregarded by people with more know-how. Of course, I would be happy if that were the case.

# Physician warning about the contamination of the soil and food in Tokyo
http://www.naturalnews.com/046112_radiation_fukushima_tokyo.html

# Rising cancer cases attributed to Fukushima radiation
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2014/04/07/japanese-physicians-link-spike-in-cancer-to-fukushima-radiation/

# Fragments from Japanese newspapers (in English of course) about the situation at Fukushima
http://enenews.com/pro-nuclear-newspaper-seriousness-current-situation-fukushima-be-understated-report-unmitigated-radiation-pouring-pacific-video-dont-stop-radioactive-leaks-never-stop?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

# The title says it all
http://en.ria.ru/analysis/20140823/192281175/Physicists-Say-Fukushima-Reactors-Pose-Eternal-Threat-to.html

# More information about Fukushima, including the government trying to withhold information from the public (what a surprise)
https://news.vice.com/article/no-one-wants-you-to-know-how-bad-fukushima-might-still-be

# Symptoms attributed to radiation
http://enenews.com/time-doctor-links-recent-outbreaks-mysterious-rashes-fukushima-cancer-specialist-societal-pressure-mention-word-radiation-video-huge-number-cancers-already-govt-actively-engaged-safety-propagand

# Some of the lies of TEPCO (the company responsible for Fukushima maintenance and cleanup)
http://enenews.com/japan-times-sources-reveal-fukushima-radiation-cover-up-tepco-has-hid-data-on-about-record-levels-since-july-official-something-like-this-cannot-happen

http://www.naturalnews.com/041881_fukushima_radiation_leaks_deception.html

Most, if not all of these, are from 2014, so fairly recent and relevant, in my opinion.

And here are some more random things that I recall reading:

- Tepco was falsifying documents pertaining to nuclear plants, to avoid costs and inspections. To lower the costs, they apparently used duct tape to seal some leaking pipes inside the plant. They also knew about the reactors entering meltdown after the earthquake, but insisted all is well and didn't report it until some time after

- One of the ways the Japanese government has tried to persuade its citizens that there is no danger was by telling them to smile, because radiation doesn't affect happy people (this is too good so here's a link)
http://www.naturalnews.com/041720_fukushima_radiation_japanese_government_propaganda_brainwashing.html

- The destruction of the plant by an earthquake or the incapacity of the authorities to keep cooling the reactors might turn into a worldwide disaster that would affect the entire world. Also, the radiation released would render North America and Canada uninhabitable (again, this is something I have no sufficient knowledge to comment about)

- The Pacific ocean is poisoned by the contaminated water that is being tossed down into the ocean ( I read somewhere about figures like 200 to 400 gallons every day).

- There is no international organization helping Japan to solve this crisis, mainly because the Japanese are refusing assistance? I don't know if that is the case, but how could the other countries of the world stay silent in the wake of such an ongoing disaster, and with the potential to do even more destruction? This I find terrifying, if it really is the case.

- If you ask the Japan government, all is well. The radiation in Tokyo is lower than in other cities of the world. The rice grown in Fukushima after rice paddy decontamination is tested and perfectly safe to eat. The situation is under control.

There is much more to this subject, but the length of this post exceeds safety limits already ( I picked up some nuclear lingo, it seems).

I don't have a conclusion, or even a question to end this post with (there would be too many of them). I am just wondering about what might be true, and what are just exaggerations born of fear. Of course, I am also thinking about my safety. The media coverage is very modest when it comes to what might be a bigger nuclear disaster than Chernobyl. In Japan, that may be understandable, because they apparently have a law that spells prison for sharing what they deem state sensitive information. It's called the state secrets law or something like that. But I can't believe the rest of the world is ignoring this. Unless the danger really isn't that serious. Wouldn't that be good, but I am skeptical.