Heart.

Breaking.

Odex website HACKED

By Liew Hanqing
hanqing@sph.com.sg

Local anime distributor Odex took another blow when its website was hacked and defaced late on Wednesday.

The company's main website, www.odex.com.sg, was replaced with a gaudy pink page displaynig an angry message from the hacker.

The message read: "This server was fully hacked because the things Odex are doing are just completely wrong!"

The hacker expressed anger over Odex's copyright enforcement actions.

The hacker also claimed the site was poorly designed and programmed.

"You can see that by the fact that the server is now hacked," the person wrote.

The hacker posted links to several anti-Odex sites and suggested alternative methods to illegally download anime.

Odex director Stephen Sing told The New Paper the site was taken down yesterday.

He said: "We are still assessing the damage and are looking into the matter."

He added the company would make a police report.

Odex had recently caused an uproar after it sent out hundreds of letters to alleged anime downloaders, demanding payment of $3,000 to $5,000 for its enforcement expenses.

NOVICE HACKER

Online security expert Aloysius Cheang said the attack looked like the work of a novice who had probably downloaded a simple hacking program to gain unauthorised access to the site.

"Organised hack groups often claim credit for their work. This looks like it was done out of individual vengeance," he said.

Regulars on anime forums are now speculating that the hacker may even have announced his deed on a popular anime forum right after hacking the site.

Just minutes after the attack, a newly-registered user wrote on popular anime forum Animesuki: "I just thought I'd inform you that your all-time favourite anime vendor has been owned.

"The hackers made it clear that corporate ******* like Odex will not destroy our community. Fight back!"

Within hours, forums were abuzz with reactions. Some applauded the hacker, while others said it was foolish and irresponsible.

Wrote one user: "I'm not against taking action against Odex in some way, like boycotting their products, but defacing their website is certainly not the way to do it."

Added another: "Now that they've had their site defaced, they look like the victims of a bunch of unruly pirate hackers."

Under the Computer Misuse Act, it is an offence to access computers or modify data on them without permission. Those convicted face penalties of up to $15,000 and five years jail.

*****

Source: The New Paper, 23 Nov 2007

Let's just move on

I've decided to cut the stupid Taiwan posts because nobody reads them and nobody cares.

It's also been blocking me from commenting on the other things that have been happening, and that includes the epic failure of the England football team this morning, when they lost to Croatia at home and failed to qualify for Euro 2008, the first time since no-idea-when.

Also, I went to the car show last week, and the drifting was awesome. But it was my first time watching live drifting and smelling the burning rubber, so I guess it's all relative.

And I met her.

So far, it's been one of the best things that have happened to me.

It's only a matter of time before I find out if it gets to stay there.

Day 3: High Above

25 October 2007, ????H

A dream... What? Who? What are you doing here? Why are we... Holy...!

0900H

Woke up. What a weird dream. We're changing rooms today, to a room with two single beds. My apparent tossing in bed was preventing Dad from having a good night's sleep the previous nights. Well, problem solved.

1000H

Met up with the Sis. Went out and stopped by a place for breakfast before continuing to the MRT station.

I tried looking for a good jacket I could wear back here, but since the seasons were changing all the brands were pulling out their summer lines for their autumn/winter ones.

Spotted a line of Reebok shoes for Voltron. They even had five different designs and colours for the five lions (red, green, blue, yellow and... white I think). I tried to get a photo of the display but the tender caught me and told me it wasn't allowed.

I found a Muji on one of the floors and went in to get a cool looking and simple black covered lined notebook and a nice looking pen for recording this (I wish my actual memory was this good, and yes, that means some of the things in the first two days might be a little inaccurate).

So then we went up the higher floors and there were a bookshop and a, if you will, tech section. Unfortunately, the bookshop was filled with Chinese books and the tech section was crawling with Apples so I didn't really bother and took the time to sit down and catch up on this record.

1415H

We went down to the basement for lunch at a restaurant called 鼎泰丰 (ding3 tai4 feng1). It was supposedly a really popular and famous restaurant for its 小笼包 (xiao3 long2 bao1). The food of course was great (especially the beef soup), but the irony was in the drunken chicken, which was the most expensive but the only one that pretty much sucked.

Noticed how tight the skirts on the waitresses were (what? ...what? .........what?). I got a bit freaked on the lift trip down before eating in here, because there were these... What do you call them? They're lift ladies but they don't do it all the time, only when they happen to be in it. They probably have other responsibilities as well but didn't really tried to find out. I'd seem like, you know, a stalker.

So what happened is when the lift door is closing, they'll wish you a... Was it a safe trip or a happy day? And they'll bow to about 75 degrees in front of the door, and they won't move until the door closes. That was the thing that kind of freaked me out, because it's something so obscure to a Singaporean. I mean, service like that? Never going to happen here, man.

After we were done we left the restaurant and we hung around a bit because Dad was buying some local foodstuff to bring back. We left the building after he was done, and went to (guess what) another Sogo down the street. Apparently, there are three Sogo buildings within 50 metres of each other, and I have no clue to why.

Sis was going in to get something for some coupon so we just left her to go in alone while we waited outside. I noticed a very interesting thing near the front door; there was a big sign telling you the amount of people in the building, and a supposedly maximum number of people the building can contain.

So I began to wonder: what if the capacity was reached? Does the whole building go into lockdown and people aren't allowed in and the whole place makes a big hoohah out of it? It kept me busy for like a minute before the Sis came out. Tough luck, they were out of that thing.

Just saw a girl who looks like Amanda. Big, freaky eyes. Brrrr.

Then I was reminded of how I was thinking about the variety of taxis here. They had almost every model you could think of converted into taxis; it was as if that if you wanted to be a taxi driver, you would just take any car, paint it yellow, install the meter and light, get a license, and voila! Mr. Taxi Driver.

I've seen Corolla, Altis, Camrys, Cefiros, Civics... I remember seeing a Lancer too. Of course they're not so hard to tell apart from other road cars, but it's pretty interesting. There was one with a big-ass spoiler on its back too.

1545H

Went back to the MRT and took a station down to 忠孝新生 (zhong1 xiao4 xin1 sheng1) station. We were going to a place via recommendation, a place called 光华商场 (guang1 hua2 shang1 chang3), or Guang Hua Marketplace, which is possibly the Taipei equivalent of Sim Lim Square.

They sold all kinds of tech stuff, and I saw an oh-so-familiar list of prices for parts. There wasn't much to see really, except when we walked into an alley and found a shop selling... "Special stuff".

We took a cab back to our hotel, with me still thinking about the shop. Took a short nap.

1900H

Met up with everyone and left for...



...currently the tallest building standing in the world.



We got tickets and went up on a freak-fast lift (5th to 89th in 32 seconds)...



...up to the viewing gallery on the 89th floor. We were given these ridiculous-looking phone things as our tour guides...



...but it didn't really matter much. I took loads of photos, of course.





Well, the real star of the show was really this little bugger:



It's called a damper. It reduces the shifting of weight in the building for protection during storms and especially for Taiwan, typhoons.



When you are there, you can buy another ticket to go up a further two floors so you can go outdoors and feel the wind in... Well, everywhere. It was so windy it got really cold and felt like a storm. We even saw some clouds up there. That's how high it was.



When we were done having our faces blown off our heads, we bought some souvenirs and headed back down. This time, I took a video of the display in the lift while going down. Notice the speeds on the display.



I guess you can't really go down as quickly as you go up.

We went down to the food court in the basement for dinner. We had steak, which was awesome. Haven't had really great steak in a very, very time. When we were done we had Tau Huey for dessert. The Taiwanese have a thing about peanuts it seems, it's everywhere! I'm having none of that, thanks. Plain tau huey for me, ok, thanks, bye.

We went to a nearby supermarket nearby to buy some snacks. When we were done with the shopping and gaping at the things they were selling, we saw something straight out of AltaVista Babel Fish.



It should really translate as "Green Tea Cake Roll", I think.

2200H

We went back, changed to something lighter and spent a long while at the terminal again. When I was done and went up, I decided I was quite sick of the bed hair I was carrying around the past couple of days, so I put off the shower to the morning.

They change the sheets everyday, no?

Day 2: Time To Shop

24 October 2007, 0815H

Woke up. *groan*

Went down for the breakfast when we got ready. By the time we got there, most of the food was pretty much gone. It was already 1030 by the time the Sis got ready, and we left for a nearby shopping complex called "Asiaworld".

It's within walking distance, so we walked. The initial directions were to take the MRT there, but it was a stop and it was like (for the people who live nearby) walking from 888 to Woodlands to take a train to Admiralty.

So we walked, and got to this corner where we got a little lost. We asked an uncle nearby, and was told to take a bus there. "Any bus would do," he said. So we did. We found the bus stop, and got up. Although it was flexible, they had a different system here. You know how, over here, we board the bus, pay and take a seat, and then get off the back door?

They get on through the back door. And when they alight, they use the front, and they pay while they do it. And it doesn't even seem like the driver really cares. What's more, the fares are same for any distance you are traveling, so an adult going from end to end pays the same as the other adult who's only getting off the next stop. It costs NT$15 (about S$0.67 based on current rates) for a ride.

We had to get off only two stops later. It was rather near and we realised we could have just walked here instead. But oh well, what's done is done.

It wasn't a really big centre, but it had pretty much everything. Clothes, shoes, living products, even some tech products. No supermarket though. It's kind of a rare thing over here, it seems.

We started from the top floor. It was the toys level. Took a quick walk and went down a level. There was a shop named "Working House" selling... Well, general stuff. Things around the house, mostly. But not kitchen appliances or power tools. Furniture, notebooks, clocks. There were umbrellas too. Ella, ella, eh eh eh eh...

You know, I have this thing for really nice looking notebooks and writing pads.


It's cute, but trust me you don't wanna go there.


Weird, swirly thingies.


Some inhouse advertising.


These felt weird.


Mmmm, leather...

I bought quite a few items, and then we set off to meet Mum for lunch.

1215H

Met up with Mum and her colleague, Ivy, a local. We were going to have lunch at this barbeque place called "熊八"(for the uninitiated, it's directly translated as "Bear Eight". It doesn't make sense, I know. Probably wasn't supposed to) .


The signboard.


Nice, juicy beef.

So you know how it is. Conversation starts and since it's Taiwan, it inevitably drifted to politics. It was nothing heavy though, thank goodness.

After lunch we first went to an area called 五分浦 (wu3 fen1 pu3) to look around.

There wasn't anything but clothes and I hate shopping for clothes. Didn't stay long, and then we went back to Asiaworld again and this time we went down another level and it sold sports items. There was a special on shoes, and since I needed a pair I went around looking for nice ones.

I found a pair of black Adidas shoes and a pair of flip flops that look mighty durable, and didn't linger around the bottom half of the building for too long before we found our way to the basement food court, and had some really good western.


It's... You know. Soup with roti prata on top.


Pork chop and udon, a weird concept of East/West fusion.

Mmm, they were selling pretzels here. We got some and went back to the hotel. And when we got back, I slept again while the Sis watched her stupid TV show.

1915H

Went to 西门町 (xi1 men2 ding1). It was kind of like the Bugis here. Except there were no real arcades and more indie sellers on the streets. We walked around a bit and finally decided on this Japanese restaurant for dinner.

The sashimi there was a killer. The slices were about twice as thick as you can get anywhere else, and the price was rather reasonable. The curry katsu was disappointing though. The potatoes got all soggy from being overcooked and mixed into the curry, which made it bad.


Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Other than that, the other things were good. The miso soup is also worth mentioning, however. It was real miso soup, not some MSG-laden powder mixture they have in other places (in Singapore too).

After stepping out of the restaurant, the Sis spotted a shop on the second floor of the opposite building. It was a shop selling plushies. I'm talking plushies, fullstop. That was all they had. Anything from the size of my hand to the size of the Sis were available, and we eventually found what we were looking for.

After we were done with the place, we headed back.

2220H

Went to the terminal again, except this time an old lady came over and started speaking Japanese to me. Which brings a point about the amount of people who (seems to) think we are Japanese even though we've spoken in fluent Mandarin quite loudly for an amount of time.

She asked if to check the rates of NT$ to the US$, and it was a big conversion too. Then she asks me to check with some TV channel's site. Apparently it offers free videos and other things, but since the sound was disabled at the terminal she left.

And when I was done, I went up. There's no hurry in the morning, so we get to sleep later tonight...