It has been said that the chief export of Chuck Norris is pain. Over the years many TV and movie villains have felt this pain, but the latest victims may include your router, especially if you haven’t changed its default password.

The Chuck Norris botnet was discovered by Czech researchers and spreads by taking advantage of routers and DSL modems that have not had their default passwords changed. It installs itself by guessing default administrative passwords and takes advantage of the fact that many routers are configured by default to allow remote access. If you haven’t changed your router’s default password, now might be the time. According to Computer World:

“Because the Chuck Norris botnet lives in the router’s RAM, it can be removed with a restart. Users who don’t want to be infected can mitigate the risk — the simplest way of doing this is by using a strong password on the router or modem. Users can also address the problem by keeping their firmware up-to-date and by disabling remote-access services.”

It seems that Chuck Norris remains of huge interest among the tech community. Just over a month ago, we wrote about how Facebook used to have a universal password (“Chuck Norris”) to view your profile. Now we have a Chuck Norris botnet. Something tells us that this probably isn’t the last time the tech community hears about Chuck Norris. For some humorous Chuck Norris facts, you can check out http://chucknorrisfacts.com. Some facts include:
 

• Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.
• Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck Norris met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK’s head exploded out of sheer amazement.
• Chuck Norris has already been to Mars; that’s why there are no signs of life there.
• Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

To read more about the Chuck Norris botnet, you can see this article on the Computer World Website.

Here at Mitto we appreciate video games, and we appreciate secret passwords even more. That’s why we were intrigued by one technique used recently by EA in their ad campaign promoting newly released game, Dante’s Inferno.

Recently, if you viewed the source code of many popular social networking or gaming sites, you would see ASCII art from Dante’s Inferno, and a hidden password to be used to gain access to http://hellisnigh.com. However, in order to get access to this site, you need six passwords, each of which are hidden in the source code of different websites all across the Internet. The source of one such site, Digg.com, is pictured below.  



Most non-gamers first heard of this new video game through the commercial that was aired during the  Superbowl (shown below).


The overall PR campaign for Dante’s Inferno has definitely stirred a lot of controversy, especially among several Christian groups, because of its “hellish” themes and outrageous PR stunts (one contest challenged attendees at Comic-Con to harass their “booth babes” for a prize date with them). You can read more about the PR Campaign for Dante’s Inferno on the ars technical website.

We haven’t played or seen the game, but we did think that hiding ads on several popular websites earned EA some geek street cred.

If the code “UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A” isn’t familiar to you, chances are you’re not a hardcore video gamer. Known as the Konami Code this is quite likely the most popular cheat code (password for special features in a game) in video games. This code was used in many video games, but was popularized by the Nintendo version of the Konami game Contra. When you used this cheat code in Contra, you were given 30 lives (instead of the 3 you get by default).

The popularity of the Konami code has extended its reach beyond video games, and on to the Internet. In fact, many sites have hidden features or jokes (known as Easter Eggs) that are made available to them if you enter the Konami code while on the site.

For example, at one point in time, if you entered the Konami code on the ESPN website, you would have seen unicorns and rainbows.

Credit: ESPN screenshot by Jennifer Guevin/CNET (via news.cnet.com)

Although the ESPN site no longer supports the Konami code, there are a number of other sites that still do. Some of the more popular sites you might come across that do include:

Facebook: http://facebook.com

• While logged in, when entering the Konami code, followed by Enter, a lens flare is generated every time the user scrolls or clicks something on the page.

Digg: http://digg.com

• While logged in, when entering the code on any page with comments, replies to comments become automatically nested.

jQuery: http://jquery.com

• On the homepage, when entering the code, you are taken to a page to watch a music video.

Gamespot: http://gamespot.com

• Entering the code takes you to the contra cheat code page

Plurk: http://plurk.com

• While logged in, entering the code animates your timeline.

To find more sites that make use of the Konami code, there is a site dedicated to tracking this: http://konamicodesites.com. But remember, when you go there you will need to enter the code to access the list.


Photo Courtesy of Gizmodo websiteWe just came across a story on the Gizmodo website that, if true, is yet another disappointing example of how Facebook may be taking user privacy too lightly.

According to this recent interview with an anonymous Facebook employee, it appears that at one point in time, Facebook used to have a master password that allowed any employee to log into the Facebook service as anyone, and then see not only their profile, but also all sorts of information including what profiles they viewed and any information they had since deleted. But perhaps the most disturbing information – wait for it – is that allegedly this universal access word using numbers, letters (upper and lower), and symbols spelled Chuck Norris.  The fact that the security surrounding every Facebook user’s profile information was accessible with a password that is quite easily cracked/guessed (even with simple symbol obfuscation) is unacceptable, even if it was only usable from the Facebook offices (as was reported in the article).

The article implies that this was something that existed in the past, and no longer, but given the repeated questionable privacy moves by Facebook, what are your thoughts about the way Facebook seems to handle your privacy? The more we see and hear, the less it seems that they have your interests as a top priority. We can’t wait to hear what Jason Calacanis has to say about this.