I like to engage in open conversation - but spammers believe open conversation is one-sided. If their comments were REALLY interesting, that would be good. But I REALLY have all the watches I need, and am uncertain about ordering non-prescription vi_A-gre from an international source with no return address. ("Does this have fresh goat extract?"). So I've taken steps to block them.

The spreadsheet shown above is a real-time list of unsuccessful attempts to post a message at http://www.niemannross.com/postoffice . If you go there, you can select a member of my family and send them a message. But you also have to recognize and type in two words supplied by a service called recaptcha . Machines don't know how to do this, and will therefore add a line to the above spreadsheet. (Note: some computers can now recognize these visual puzzles - so you'll see the visual puzzles getting more difficult)

Some interesting notes about the spreadsheet:

• On Sunday, January 24th there is a sudden cessation of activity. That's the day I removed the postoffice link from this webpage. Spambots can't find it anymore, and hey presto, no more spam.


• They used to be a lot more polite, including a saluation ("Hello! I like your thoughts") followed by their own thoughts about cheap watches. Now they just dump their paper bag of flaming feces on your doorstep and run.


• The IP address indicates where the spam came from. The time and date indicate when it came from that address. Given these two pieces of information, an internet provider could track these guys down and give them the boot. But they don't because it's not financially rewarding to do so. As an experiment, I did notify a few internet providers, and the ones that I could actually contact did the right thing. But the job is un-ending, and until I automate the process, I have other things to do.

Or perhaps having thirteen chickens scratching around the side yard colors everything I write and say. (I'll have to be more aware of that. Kind of like being at a Toastmasters meeting and having some guy clink their glass every time you say "and...um.")

Or perhaps my personal and private lives were never separate. That's probably the best explanation, considering I work at home.

In this case, my personal/private lives have collaborated on the title of a presentation for the Evans Developer Relations Conference. In November, I breezily suggested a presentation for the conference, titled "Ten Expensive Things You Can do to Foul up Your Developer Program." The clever title would have been "Ten Expensive Things You Can do to Fowl up Your Developer Program" - fortunately, my "don't be cute" filter caught that one and grepped out "/fowl/foul/g." But I do wonder about the feathered part of my brain slipping in a reference.

All bird references aside, I'll be in San Jose March 15th and 16th, condensing twenty years of experience into ten points (in 45 minutes!). I've already identified fifteen topics I'd like to cover - so I'll need to trim.

What about you? You're probably a developer, or have worked with developer programs. If you were my co-presenter, what three points would you put on the slide?

if you can't leave a comment, send me mail at http://www.niemannross.com/postoffice

I've been puzzling over how they are getting in - their attack isn't obvious from any of the server logs. But I did discover some interesting activity that seems to happen at about the time of the intrusion, indicating that someone is interested in finding a copy of XMLRPC available on my machine.

POST /nucleus/xmlrpc/server.php
GET //nucleus/xmlrpc/server.php
GET /nucleus//nucleus/xmlrpc/server.php
GET /nucleus/nucleus//nucleus/xmlrpc/server.php HTTP/1.1
GET //xmlrpc/server.php HTTP/1.1
GET /nucleus//xmlrpc/server.php
GET /nucleus/index.php?catid=10&blogi%20...//xmlrpc/server.php
GET /nucleus/nucleus/xmlrpc/server.php
GET /xmlrpc/server.php
GET /nucleus/xmlrpc/server.php
GET /nucleus/index.php?catid=10&blogid=1/xmlrpc/server.php
GET /nucleus/index.php?catid=10&blogi%20.../xmlrpc/server.php
GET /nucleus/index.php?catid=3&blogid%20.../xmlrpc/server.php
GET /nucleus/index.php?catid=10&blogid=1/xmlrpc/server.php
GET /nucleus/index.php?catid=3&blogid=1/xmlrpc/server.php
GET /nucleus/index.php?catid=3&blogid=1/xmlrpc/server.php

wikipedia has an interesting write-up which describes xml-rpc as a precursor to SOAP. In any case, it appears that I've had a interpretive server available on my website since I installed Nucleus. There is also a discussion about the XML-RPC vunerability here.

On further research, xml-rpc is used by blogging software to allow for commenting and other blog activities. That would explain why it is included with nucleus, which is what I use to run this blog. I've also noticed miscreants searching for the serendipity blog versions - see the following:

69.57.190.234 - GET /nucleus/serendipity_xmlrpc.php
69.57.190.234 -GET /serendipity_xmlrpc.php

Since then, I've removed xml-rpc from my website. If I don't repost on this topic, then that probably fixed the problem.

These tags can be used by list owners to modify the html pages that you can edit on the General Options Page->Edit the public HTML pages and text files.

If someone knows how to post this onto the mailman wiki, please feel free to do so.

Formatting heads up - I've had to insert some spaces in the tags to keep my blog from going crazy. When you use these tags, there are NO SPACES in between the "<" and ">" brackets.

here's a link to the mailing list archives

 and 

Forgotten Your Password? Click this button to have your password emailed to your membership address. 

	function hexColorCmp($aValue,$bValue) {
	 	$aValueSplit = str_split($aValue, 2);
		$aValueSum = hexdec($aValueSplit[0]) + hexdec($aValueSplit[1]) + hexdec($aValueSplit[2]);
	 	$bValueSplit = str_split($bValue, 2);
		$bValueSum = hexdec($bValueSplit[0]) + hexdec($bValueSplit[1]) + hexdec($bValueSplit[2]);
		return $aValueSum - $bValueSum;
	 	}

	function init() {
		do {	
			$thisThemeID = rand(11,16065);
			$kulerURL = 'http://kuler.adobe.com/kuler/API/rss/search.cfm?searchQuery=themeID:' . $thisThemeID;
			$kulerRoot = new SimpleXMLElement($kulerURL, NULL, TRUE);
			} while ($kulerRoot->channel->recordCount == "0") ;
		$kulerItem = $kulerRoot->channel->item->children('http://kuler.adobe.com/kuler/API/rss/');
		$this->previewKulerURL = $kulerItem->themeItem->themeImage;
		$this->nameKuler = $kulerItem->themeItem->themeTitle;
		$this->themeURL = 'http://kuler.adobe.com/#themeID/' . $thisThemeID;
		foreach ($kulerItem->themeItem->themeSwatches->swatch as $swatchValues) {
			$this->swatchHexValues[] = $swatchValues->swatchHexColor ;
			//echo $swatchValues->swatchHexColor;
			}
		usort ($this->swatchHexValues,array($this, "hexColorCmp"));

		for ($i=0;$i<5;$i++) {
		   if (empty($this->swatchHexValues[$i])) $this->swatchHexValues[$i] = dechex(16777216/($i+1));
		   }
	 }