The Life of Wighar Stamfaste

Signed and Done

I payed the invoice last night for another 3 months on the Left 4 Dead 2 Server designated [Stamfaste.se] Left 4 Dead 2 Server #1, I had some donated money that was given to me by hand, though I prefer such be done via paypal as I can keep track of the donations better that way

So why do I do it?, I mean rent game servers that then are payed for with help of donations?
Well the thing is that I enjoy gaming like most and like being able to provide an enjoyable atmosphere for players like my self.
Enjoyable atmosphere?, As in a place where players can enjoy liberty from bad behaved players and cheaters, and can fully enjoy the game without distracting elements.

Query: But you suffer from panic attacks and lowered stress tolerance and should not do anything that increases stress or such things?
Answer: Indeed I should not and I hope that players that are respective and are able to share the burden of administrating the servers, keeping the players on the server following the rules of the game and those In-house rules that we expect players to follow to keep the atmosphere as I mentioned a enjoyable one.

Query: So why donations then if you are so generous and well meaning on your part, why not pay for it in full yourself?
Answer: If I had a job and didn’t have the issues I have, I probably would, but such is not the situation, I hope that I one day can be cured of my stress issues and attacks so that I can get a normal life and can provide more to the online community.
I know that relying on public donations wont expand or keep this up in the long run, but it is my hope that players that enjoy the same values in gaming as I do, consider it a cause worth the investment, after all the money is not used for my own benefit but the players.
If by luck the donations and the ad revenue from the google adsense program goes over that of the total cost of the servers rental period payments, then they will be invested/focused on the next payment period or even on additional servers or new game servers.
So how does this profit me?, my profit out of this might seem strange to some but it is the happiness that people gain from what I wish to provide them, life is to short to simply focus on ones own enjoyment so to go on an old cliche “sharing is caring”, Would I profit financially from this?, from the donations, No as I explained earlier they allready have a use and they would not benefit my own economy, my own economy has sufficient funds to keep me up with a computer to play the games on, a roof over my head and provide me with food and medicine so I don’t see a reason to profit financially from all of this, If i had any specific need that requires additional funds then those that my economy cant handle, I still would not use any of the donations for my own benefit as those donations are for the game servers and not my own usage.

Anyway let’s move on..

Radiation and Biology

So I have this week played BioShock 2 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R Call of pirpyat, I was amazed of how much more improved graphics and feel BioShock 2 has against its predecessor, the new content and additional rework of the special skills makes the game more vibrant and the story makes the game a good qualifier for replay value and a desire for a next installment of the series, dosen’t matter if it be in rapture for a 3rd time as long as the story benefits from it.

If you never played BioShock, BioShock 2 wont be any problem, it will however give you the desire to buy the first game just to get more into the plot of the story

Let’s not forget S.T.A.L.K.E.R CoP (Call of Pripyat), once more you are back in the Zone, now as a Major of USS undercover as a Free Stalker to investigate a failed military operation into the Zone where 5 helicopters did not return.
The graphics have been improved in some aspects as well as many of the functions, and as in Clear Sky the Zone once more suffer from emissions that will kill you if you do not find sufficient cover, investigate the Zone for clues to what happend to the helicopters and what secrets is hidden in the radiation of the Zone.

I believe it is time to end this post here as I can’t think of anything worth of writing.
until next time, have fun and play fair.

The Preorders List

I will once more return to Rapture in Bioshock 2 that at this time of writing is set to be released in Sweden the 9th of February this year.
I hope it will be good or even better than Bioshock, I have seen some videos off it and the new graphics are indeed at first glance a good improvement and I love the addition of the Big Daddy Drill weapon in the teaser videos.

Now as I pre-ordered Bioshock 2 I will receive the book “The art of Bioshock” that comes as a included pre-order gift, as with most games I buy this was pre-ordered at Webhallen obviously .
As I am on the subject of pre-ordered games, I might as well share what else I have on the list of games to come.

Command & Conquer 4 is also on my list and it came with a pre-order inclusive as well in form of beta test access , I have tried it and I have been a beta tester for Command & Conquer series before so I was happy to check for bugs as with all other beta’s I have participated in .
I am one of those people that when I participate in beta tests of games, I do so to find bugs and exploits so that they can be fixed before release, though by experience there are usualy a good amount of people on beta tests that are just there to play the game before release and the most common to complain highly when they find one .

…anyway moving on to yet another game on the list of preorders

The Settlers 7 “Paths to a Kingdom”, the next installment of The Settlers series, I like this series and I have played most of them now and then.
I like games that starts with setteling down in a spot and starting a town and have it progress on the local resources to later expand with research and supply to citizens demands and see if you can supply it on your own or by means of trade and/or diplomacy.

is there a local warlord or enemy faction that has begun to see your presence in the land as a threat to their power of any king like economy or followers, these are games that I can be free to play around with my imagination and explore how to solve the situation and which is the most profitable or best for your settlement.

Moving on in the list we find Napoleon: Total War, I have been a huge fan of the total war games since I first got my hand on Rome: Total War, The Total War games battle system has an easy combat control system that make combat fun and challenging without being to complex to figure out in stressed situations.

I love the management aspect as well where you control everything from economy to dimplomacy got land you can easily re-conquer at a later point in exchange for some land you can make profitable and allows easier access for your military to advance into the neighbouring countries with a deeper and faster impact *evil grin*.

So I am looking forward to its release as I allready pre-ordered it on Steam.

Now lets move on to something completely different..

Friends of mine that use my Server Computer named BOTNC (Brethren of The Northern Coast) which has an email address that is used as a trash mail has informed me that recently there has been an increase in account phissing mail to it, they stretch to phissing for account details to such MMORPG’s as World of Warcraft, Aion and Vanguard as examples.

Now let me explain somethings, the mail address accepts the incoming mail but dosent open them like a mail browser, instead it types the mail in raw DOS-text to a txt document and stored in a folder naming it simply by time and date.
For the example im going to copy the header info and actually publish it here for you to read

[Phissing Mail Header]

Return-Path: <abie...@hotmail.com>
X-Original-To: (hidden)
Delivered-To: (hidden)
Received: from localhost ((hidden))
by (hidden) (Postfix) with ESMTP id 39C81A0B1
for <(hidden)>; Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:07:12 +0100 (CET)
X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at (hidden)
Received: from (hidden) ([(hidden)])
by localhost ((hidden) [(hidden)]) (amavisd-new, port 10024)
with LMTP id nYfoNRDj4vTE for <(hidden)>;
Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:06:40 +0100 (CET)
Received-SPF: pass (hotmail.com: Sender is authorized to use ‘abie...@hotmail.com’ in ‘mfrom’ identity (mechanism ‘include:spf-a.hotmail.com’ matched)) receiver=(hidden); identity=mailfrom; envelope-from=”abie...@hotmail.com”; helo=blu0-omc4-s25.blu0.hotmail.com; client-ip=65.55.111.164
Received: from blu0-omc4-s25.blu0.hotmail.com (blu0-omc4-s25.blu0.hotmail.com [65.55.111.164])
by (hidden) (Postfix) with ESMTP id 936B535498
for <(hidden)>; Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:06:40 +0100 (CET)
Received: from BLU0-SMTP57 ([65.55.111.135]) by blu0-omc4-s25.blu0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:06:40 -0800
X-Originating-IP: [124.94.43.164]
X-Originating-Email: [abie...@hotmail.com]
Message-ID: <BLU0...@phx.gbl>
Received: from exnhixixb ([124.94.43.164]) by BLU0-SMTP57.blu0.hotmail.com over TLS secured channel with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:06:37 -0800
From: “wowa...@blizzard.com” <wowa...@blizzard.com>
To: <(hidden)>
Subject: World Of Warcraft-Account Instructions
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 00:06:20 +0800

[End of Phissing Mail Header]

Question: “What does all this jibberish mean?”
Well let’s begin with who acctualy sent the mail, Above we see the line “X-Originating-Email: [abie...@hotmail.com]” this basically saying that the mail was sent by abie...@hotmail.com and the original send in accordance to “X-Originating-IP: [124.94.43.164]” it was sent from the IP 124.94.43.164, this being an IP that belongs to “China Unicom Liaoning province network” after a quick whois on APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre).
So then we can assume that a person in China using a free hotmail mail account sent the mail, thus we can asume that the mail is 100% false, and as we allready know this mail was received by a mail account that is not listed to a blizzard account so its busted in before hand.

Question: “Now how do we know it is meant for phissing?”
As we allready figured the mail is sent from china using hotmail, nothing in the mail can be trusted, and the mail account doesn’t have any World of Warcraft account so it is totaly safe to delete it
but to prove the point that it is phissing there is a link in the mail that states the address to the US World of Warcraft website, but we allready know its not from there so we don’t click on it.

(Caution, Do not perform this if you are not totally aware of what you are doing)
I know that if you use Windows and Outlook you should be able to right click the link and use the “Copy shortcut” to copy the actual address that is hidden from view, Now we can visit http://www.who.is and enter the copied shortcut in the search field removing the “http://” and we should get to know where the phissing website is hosted.

In this mail specificly the link points to the registrar information for:

Registrar: XIN NET TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION
Whois Server: whois.paycenter.com.cn
Referral URL: http://www.xinnet.com

the rest of the registrar information on the owner is just plain rubbish, false email address and a random letters name like “asdasd” “fenfen” “gheghe” and such as the domain registrants information.

That it is Xin Net does not surprise me, Xin net has a real bad reputation for bad domains and spam and they are in 7 of 10 cases the registrar that shows up on all spam mail i received on the servers mail address, so don’t think I need to mention anymore on it, but we proven the point of Phissing as the website is not listed as registered by Blizzard Entertainment in the registrars owner information.

For more information on World of Warcraft Account Security read *IMPORTANT* – Account Security at http://us.blizzard.com/support

I recommend any that are World of Warcraft Players that they get the Blizzard Authenticator

Anyway here is where I will stop for this time, Be safe and Play fair