Timewaster's Guide Archive

   For this week, I am sending a short story I wrote recently: "Apostle of Death." I originally started this story as a writing exercise to see if I could write a short story based on a starting line that went something like "(Character name) knew he would be dead in 10 minutes." It's my first attempt to write a short story. Since I was busy with family this past week I wasn't able to work on Solitude any more, so I decided to send this out instead. Let's see you think.

A quick search didn't show me any threads dealing with the April 2011 hack of this forum, www.timewastersguide.com wherein 6000 email addresses and hashed passwords were stolen.  I found out about it when my email address started receiving spam.  I only use that address here, nowhere else, and I have never shared it or posted it or made it public.

ANYONE with a SIMPLE password whose email address is one of the 6000 addresses should log in and CHANGE their password.  Even though the passwords appear to be hashed (MD5?  SHAx?), a quick dictionary attack will reveal the passwords.  I assume that this has already happened months ago.

Looking through the forums, I saw that at least one user reported his/her account was hijacked/stolen.

Site administrators, I'm curious as to what actions you have taken since April to close the security hole the hacker used.  Was it a forum software bug that a subsequent upgrade has made secure?

If you wonder if YOUR email address was one of the 6000, check here:

http://pastebin.com/fYdHt3ni

Here are a few 'blog and web posts about the hack:

http://www.cyberwarnews.info/2011/08/16/time-wasters-guide-accounts-database-leaked-by-thehacker12/

http://thehacker12.blogspot.com/2011/08/over-6500-email-passwords.html

Thanks for any/all info.

Aaron out.

Quote from: whynaut on July 21, 2011, 05:47:15 PM

Since they all take place in the Cosmere.  What if a Feruchemist ate some Lerasium, then went and bought enough biochromatic breath to reach the 10th heightening, and then randomly got picked to become an Elantrian?

_{p.s. I haven't read WoK yet.}

That's nothing, what if a Feruchemist, by some twist of fate, somehow found himself with the power of two Shards, which together have the power to create worlds. Wait... That sounds familiar...

Yeah, but at least those are the powers that he already had access to, via his genetics.  Nobody is quite certain what a normal person would do mixing completely different magics.

For fireflyz:

I haven't read them yet, but the reviewers seem to really like Adrian Tchaikovsky's series starting with EMPIRE IN BLACK AND GOLD.  It's on my to-read list after WoT is finished.  The first book may be a bit rough, I've read, but they apparently improve as they go and the latest was well-received.  I can't remember how many books there are so far or how many are expected, but I plan to read them all.

I really enjoyed Dan Wells' I Am Not a Serial Killer.  It was a perfect thriller/character study for a final summer read.  I can't recommend it enough for brilliant insight into the mind of a moral sociopath.  Dan's writing style is fresh and occasionally beautiful.  His apparent love of poetry shows and his humor is pitch perfect.  Completely reliable content, though a bit too gory for some.  Not for me.

I am also enjoying the delicious Patricia McKillip's Alphabet of Thorn.  Some of it is a bit acid-trippy, but the whole thing is intriguing and mostly reliable content-wise.  Thanks again, Mrs. Nessa, for the great steer in her direction!

I've never had a good experience with borders and am not surprised.  All of this has me wondering if companies like Borders and B&N were to go out, might it help out the indie stores?  I could see the brick and mortar local stores being able to provide hardcover and limited editions and older paperbacks.  While this would shift a lot of the business to ebooks (which seems to be the trend anyway), it would allow readers to purchase hardcovers if they wanted and allow the indies to thrive.  I don't know that B&N are going anywhere, but it would be interesting to see what develops.