Tuesday September 30, 2008

wsxhost.net PHP virus/trojan infection via iframe code injection

One of my domains just got hacked. It must have happened sometime in the past 24 hours because I check on all my domains multiple times per day, and it was just picked up by the corporate firewall.

According to this site :

A lot of popular scripts developed for PHP 4 are currently being hacked through a tmp directory exploit ... it manifest's itself in an appended line in index.php (pls check also administrator/index.php), which through an iframe makes an ulr query (GET) to a count. php file. External website varies (depends on infected slaves/hosts) bit can be picnoc.org, picnoc.info or wsxhost.net. The code line (appended last in above mentioned files) resembles "<iframe src="http://pinoc.org/count.php?o=2" </iframe>

- It's safe to say that all the .html and .php files are infected (I did a check). As of now, sub-domains are still safe for the moment, they are only infecting the main URL (www.[domain].com, etc).

Seems that there are a lot of PHP hacks going on these days. Just a week ago or so, a popular parenting forum of which I am helping out with also got registration-spammed, even through the CAPTCHA - they were using the default PHPBB CAPTCHA though so I'd suppose that has gotten broken and leaks like a sieve by now.

Owners of PHP-based sites beware!

(2008-09-30 18:18:56 SGT) [Tech] Permalink Comments [3]

Singapore electricity rates to rise 21% from Oct 2008 (up 89.6% in 3 years)

This article belongs to the Singapore inflation watch story arc.

channelnewsasia.com, spervices.sg (pdf):

Singaporeans will see an increase of 21% in their electricity bills in the last quarter of this year. For the quarter 1 Oct to 31 Dec 08, the average electricity tariffs will be increased by 5.38 cents per kWh. This represents an increase of 21.46% for households. The increase is due to higher fuel oil prices. For the period 1 Oct to 31 Dec 08, tariffs are pegged to a higher forward fuel oil price of S$155.14 per barrel, which is 38.06% higher than that of S$112.35 per barrel for the current quarter [Q3 2008].

The EMA feels there is more room for Singaporeans to conserve and use less energy. The EMA's surveys and findings show that nearly 40% of Singapore homes are using more energy than they require to. And the air conditioner is one of the largest energy guzzlers in homes here.

- For residential households in Singapore, the electricity rate will increase from 25.07 to 30.45 cents per kilowatt-hour. Quarter-on-quarter that's a 21.46% increase as stated, but if you were to look back a bit further, it's a mind-blowing 89.6% increase compared to 3 years ago, as the tariffs back in Apr 2005 was 16.06 cents per KWh. This is a super-high double-digit rate of inflation, and all we need is for another further one or two rounds of increase to hit a triple-digit rate within a 3-year period. Absolutely super.

The surprise here is that while NYMEX crude oil prices have been driven downward in recent weeks by the ongoing financial market meltdown, the oil price used for electricity rate calculations isn't the historical NYMEX crude oil movements but forward fuel prices for the upcoming quarter, which are, after conversion to USD, around $110 per barrel.

As for conservation measures, they will help somewhat but only up to a point. If the rates were to double, could you cut back to use half the electricity? If they were to triple? Quadruple? Would you be able to cut back 66%? 75%? The price upside is effectively unlimited, while your downside mitigation measures will naturally start to run into limits.

But of course that isn't to say that we shouldn't try. In view of our own pocketbook, resource depletion and environment pollution, we should still strive towards energy conservation as much as we can. As I have chronicled earlier, we have reduced our household power consumption from a whopping 700 KWh per month down to a much more manageable 436 KWh (average over past 3 months). That's a reduction of 37.7% - not too bad, eh?

Here are some of the things we did in terms of energy conservation over the past couple years or so :

- configured the computers to auto-shutdown after the nightly backups
- replaced energy-guzzler continuous-boiling air-pot with thermos flask
- turned off air-con system permanently (outside main switch set to "off" position)
- changed to a more efficient clothes dryer model (still need that with 3 adults, 2 kids, and rainy days)
- replaced living room 29" CRT TV with 37" LCD TV (bigger HD screen, lower consumption)
- replaced all 3 CRT computer monitors with LCD monitors
- turned off electrical appliances when not in use (eliminates the standby power effect)

That seems like a long list of things to do and some of them cost money too. Of course all the LCD's cost money, but we had actually been hanging on to CRT's long after everyone and their grandmother had already upgraded, so there you are. Further improvements would be more incremental tweaks - perhaps I may permanently turn off the second cordless phone which is only occasionally used, replace the very last 19" CRT TV in one of the bedrooms, also occasionally used, sending the children's bathtub to the recycling bin to save on some heated water since they are too big for it anyway, things like that. We'll see how this goes.

See also :

1. Singapore : electricity tariffs to increase April 2008 on rising oil prices
2. Singapore electricity rates to increase 4.98% from Jul 2008
3. Singapore to trial EVS (Electricity Vending System) with 1000 users from Nov 2008
4. Singapore electricity tariffs up by 5.38 cents per kilowatt per hour, increase of 21%, highest in 7 years

(2008-09-30 17:05:34 SGT) [Energy] Permalink Comments [1]

Singapore bus and MRT train fares to go up from 1 Oct 2008

This article belongs to the Singapore inflation watch story arc.

channelnewsasia.com

Most bus and train journeys will see fare changes from 1 October 2008. The Public Transport Council (PTC) has given the green light for an overall net fare adjustment that will result in fare changes that will range from a 7-cent reduction to a 4-cent increase per journey. This will be offset by an increase in transfer rebate from 25 cents to 40 cents. Chairman of the PTC, Gerard Ee said "by raising the transfer rebate this year and making the operators absorb a larger part of the cost, we managed to strike a balance and keep the overall net fare adjustment to just 0.7%, much lower than the fare cap of 3%. This decision comes after careful deliberation, testing many permutations and scrutinising the impact on both operators and commuters."

- So you see how something that should be relatively simple such as bus and MRT train fare pricing, can be made really complicated, with transfer rebates, concession fares, distance-related fare stages, and so on. They might as well throw in a timing factor and make the price vary by the time of day. No matter what it is, the overall general direction is up, and at the end of the day that's all that the people would care about.

See also :

1. Public Transport Council approves 1.7% fare increase for bus, trains
2. Singapore MRT rail network length to double by 2020
3. Singapore : SMRT adds 700 extra MRT train trips a week costing it S$5m annually
4. Motoring costs drive Singapore MRT passenger trips to hit record 52 million in May 2008

(2008-09-30 11:00:16 SGT) [Energy] Permalink Comments [1]

Sunday September 28, 2008

Japan GDP shrank annual 3% in Q2 2008, revised figures show

bloomberg.com :

Japan's economy contracted more than the government initially estimated last quarter after figures showed businesses cut spending. Japan's GDP shrank an annualized 3% in the three months ended June 30, more than the 2.4% drop reported last month. Stalled growth and the fastest inflation in a decade have created a dilemma for the Bank of Japan, which will probably have to keep interest rates unchanged for the rest of the year. At 0.5%, Japan's key rate is the lowest among major economies. Slumping US demand has forced exporters including Toyota to cut production and jobs. Markets outside the US are also deteriorating - the European economy shrank for the first time in almost a decade last quarter.

- With rising inflation and a shrinking economy, Japan is in full-blown stagflation mode. The entire world is going into stagflation mode, and both the "stag" and the "flation" are going to get worse. It doesn't help that Japan is a large importer of crude oil and natural gas via LNG. When the prices of these commodities rebound, prices will take off as global hyperinflation kicks in.

See also :

1. Japan economy shrinks 2.4% as exports decline; recession looms
2. Japan inflation at fastest pace in more than 9 years
3. Japan wholesale inflation rate hits 7.1% in Jul 2008, a 27-year record high

(2008-09-28 10:43:36 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

Saturday September 27, 2008

Live spot gold price quotes chart on COMEX

A new page has been launched to display the real-time live gold price chart on the COMEX exchange. The chart is powered by Kitco and is updated every minute. The value-added portion is the automatic refresh, which lets you leave the page open on your browser to monitor the gold price without having to hit the reload button manually all the time.

This is a 24-hour continuous gold chart, which works on a 24/5 basis (Monday to Friday). It may initially take a while to get used to the format, but once you are able to understand it, it becomes a very useful tool. The green line represents the current trading session, the red line represents yesterday's (or the prior trading day's) session, and the cyan line is for the day before that.

The gray section highlights the time window during which there is both electronic trading and also floor trading on the COMEX exchange (which is actually just another name for the New York Mercantile Exchange or NYMEX), and the portion outside the grayed-out section represents the rest of the 24 hours where only electronic trading takes place.

This page will serve as a gold-focused complement to the Live Quotes page, which covers more aspects, including crude oil, gold as well as currency/forex rates, and is updated more often on a 10-second real-time basis.

The Live Quotes page displays futures prices for both crude oil and gold, while the Live Gold page displays the spot price. The difference as explained by Kitco follows :

Spot gold vs gold futures

There is usually a difference between the spot price of gold and the future price. The future price is used for futures contracts and represents the price to be paid on the date of a delivery of gold in the future. In normal markets the futures price for gold is higher than the spot. The difference is determined by the number of days to the delivery contract date, prevailing interest rates, and the strength of the market demand for immediate physical delivery. The difference between the spot price and the future price, when expressed as an annual percentage rate is known as the "forward rate".

See also :

1. Live Quotes - crude oil futures, gold spot price and currencies
2. Live Gold : Real-time COMEX spot gold price quotes chart

(2008-09-27 13:07:28 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

Tuesday September 23, 2008

City of San Antonio plans to convert human waste to energy

news.yahoo.com :

San Antonio unveiled a deal that will make it the first US city to harvest methane gas from human waste on a commercial scale and turn it into clean-burning fuel. San Antonio residents produce about 140,000 tons a year of a substance gently referred to as "biosolids," which can be reprocessed into natural gas, said Steve Clouse, chief operating officer of the city's water system. The main byproduct of human waste - methane gas - will be converted by Ameresco Inc into up to 1.5 million cubic feet per day of natural gas to burn in power plants for electricity generation. Methane gas, a byproduct of human and organic waste, is a principal component of the natural gas used to fuel furnaces, power plants, and other combustion-based generators. More than 90% of materials flushed down the toilets and sinks of San Antonio will henceforth be recycled.

- This is a good idea, as a city of any size needs to deal with the stuff anyway. Instead of expending resources to deal with human waste, now it can be turned around into an energy source. 1.5 mmcf worth of natural gas per day is pretty good - that's equivalent to about 250,000 barrels of crude oil per day in terms of energy content.

See also :

1. Singapore company converts Waste2Energy
2. Energy security: a look at other fuel sources

(2008-09-23 21:35:41 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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