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Monthly Archives: July 2006

The Ultimate IRC Lovestory

Image the ultimate Otaku, geeky looking, the worst glasses you can imagine and hiding in books and behind the screen most of your day.

One day this character find himself in a commuter train together with a pretty girl and the ultimate bad guy that is harassing the girl.

He saves her! And naturally, falls in love with her on the spot …

A few days later he receives a package form the girl, it contains a note and a set of Hermes teacups.

Having no idea how to handle the situation, the guy jumps on IRC using the nick Train_Man and asks his online friends for help. Interested about his sudden interest in a girl, his IRC pals supply him with the info he needs for his first date …

The guys undergoes a complete makeover, having no idea what this story will grow out to be later on.

This true story has since been released as a book, and has recently turned into an anime by VIZ Media, and will be released theatrically in New York in September 2006.

One User Causes Networkwide ISP Ban on GameSurge

“At approximately 5pm PST today all BellSouth hosts were blocked due to inaction by their abuse department. We are currently working with BellSouth support to resolve this issue. Once BellSouth addresses our abuse complaints with them, we will remove the block on BellSouth hosts”, GameSurge admin Cradly announced on the networks’ website.


Major IRC networks are occasionally forced to GLine an entire ISP due to inactivity after abuse reports. This time however, it was a single user. “… it was an actual user who would persistently evade bans and G-lines” another GameSurge admin, Entrope, explained to IRC-Junkie.

Bellsouth is a dynamic ISP, making it hard to GLine a single user, as (s)he can simply reset his connection to gain a new IP.

After the network tried to contact Bellsouth to solve the problem and found no reply, they decided that a ban for the entire ISP was unavoidable. Entrope explains: “The ISP-wide G-line included a contact number for Bellsouth customers to call and let Bellsouth know that the lack of response was causing problems for them.  Once that happened, Bellsouth responded in an admirably quick time, and they have assured us that they will make appropriate efforts to resolve the problem.”

Within three hours after the GLine was put in place, Bellsouth replied and the GLine was removed. “Ideally, ISPs would respond to abuse reports without their users having to call in”, Entrope said.

Hacker 9 Years in Jail

23-year-old Brian Salcedo appealed against his sentence which was 9 years old, which the judge reconfirmed.

A fried of Salcedo detected an insecure wireless network while wardriving. Returning with Salcedo they were able to enter the network and modify software in such way that the two could gain creditcard information of customers of Lowe’s in Southfield, Michigan, USA. Salcedo was at that time in hist last month of probation of a 3 year period which he received for computer-criminality while being underage.

The two discovered that from the server gained access they were able to enter the main server of the company serving the whole country. Lowe however discovered the crack and warned the FBI. The FBI posted and noticed a car with antenna’s and went in for the arrest.

At that time, the malicious software only gained 6 creditcard numbers, of which the two haven’t seen a single one with their own eyes. Despite this, Brian Salcedo got convicted to 9 years of jail, the heaviest sentence ever against a cracker. The sentence is especially remarkable as other crackers who were responsible for far more damage got much lighter sentences.

The judge however did not based the sentence on what damage they had done, but what damage they could have done.

Salcedo appealed against this sentence, and now has lost. He can at the earliest be released in May 2011. His friend was sentenced to 26 months in jail.