Mike’s Technology Blog

Smartbro DNS is hijacked by Akratz.com and it’s not a good thing. It’s been more than a week already since I noticed that typing a wrong domain in my browser’s address bar shows me a page with lots of links on it. There are pornographic links and lots of gibberish as well. I am using Linux so the possibility of having adware/spyware on my PC is minimal but I checked anyway. I checked by switching my other laptop and my desktop PC on and tried visiting in a non-existent domain. Surely, they too were showing the same weird page.

Clicking one of the links shows up a page that looks like this:

At this point, I already knew there was something wrong with my network connection - most probably with my ISP which by the way is Smart Bro. I checked with other Smart Bro users and it appears that it’s not everywhere. Some reported the same thing and others reported a normal error page. I searched the internet and found one forum topic that discusses the same problem.

The Solution

At the forum, they mentioned that a good solution would be to use OpenDNS. I’ve already heard of OpenDNS before but I didn’t really give much time to learn more about it until now. Good thing I tried OpenDNS because it did fix my problem and DNS lookups appear to be faster.

They provide easy to follow instructions on how to change your DNS which is a big help non-techies but he best part is that it’s totally free. After changing my DNS, I decided to sign-up for a free account to make use of OpenDNS features such as adult website filtering which will help me make sure that my children are visiting kid-friendly websites only.

Who is Akratz? The whois info for the domain says the domain owner is from Netherlands but that can be spoofed. It also appears that Akratz not only hi-jacks DNS but also websites, at least according to this forum. Whoever they are, it’s pretty obvious that the person owning the domain is a very evil hacker that must be put behind bars.

Lastly, kudos to the guys and gals at OpenDNS. You’re helping make the internet a better and safer place for all of us.

While surfing the net trying to look for a way to install a decent office suite on my Motorokr E6 so I can do some work while traveling, I came across a YouTube video that shows something different. The video shows the Motorokr E6 running DOS, Turbo C and Windows 3.1. I am amazed to say the least at what this phone can do.

If it can run Windows 3.1 then I guess I can install one of the old spreadsheet and word processing applications as well but I guess that’d be overkill. What this guy has done with his E6 is still cool though.

Ok, I know that’s quite a claim but I can’t help being proud for being an Ubuntu user. The popular Mac Air got cracked in just two minutes flat at the recent PWN to OWN hacking competition. Geez, I’d be scared to buy one of ‘em expensive Macs if that’s the case.

Good for me I user Kubuntu - the KDE flavor of Ubuntu. Ubuntu stayed secure and uncracked in the said contest. Can’t be prouder!

The Ubuntu Family

Ubuntu comes in four popular flavors - namely:

• Ubuntu - (the original) uses Gnome as its desktop manager
• Kubuntu - (my personal favorite) uses KDE as its desktop manager
• Xubuntu - (the tiny one) uses XFCE as its desktop manager resulting in a simple but fast desktop. I installed in one of my slower laptops
• Edubuntu - (the wise one) also uses Gnome but is designed more for educational purposes

Ubuntu - according to the Edubuntu website - is an ancient African word meaning “humanity to others”. Now that’s some meaning huh? Based on the ever solid Debian Linux-based operating system, all members of the Ubuntu family is easy to upgrade and maintain making it a perfect Linux for those who want to try the free operating system.

Get your copy now - it’s free so piracy won’t be an issue here. After all, why pay for some expensive operating system only to find out that it can be PWNed in just 2 minutes?