Travis Whidden

775 days uptime... I hate shutting these servers down

travis@lvfbody.com — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:04:12 GMT

When you have 775 days of uptime, you really don't even want to touch the server. This Linux server shows how long they can stay stable. I sure hope it boots back up ;)

Another Forklift Video -- This one caught on surveillance software we wrote at my last company

travis@lvfbody.com — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 00:34:52 GMT

Ryan, our Technical Director here at AMHosting.com showed me a video of a forklift driving off the receiving dock. It was posted on digg.com. I remembered that I had a video that our video software recorded at the surveillance company I used to work for. I had never posted it on Digg, but though this is a good addon now that we are talking about fork lifts. From what I remember, the guy tried to run away as if he did not do it. Those are lemons that you see.

SQL Injection - What is it and how can I prevent it?

travis@lvfbody.com — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:16:56 GMT

Recently, we had a customer who kept saying that his site was hacked and his server was not secure. We looked at his clams very seriously and researched as hard as we could. We could not find any possible way that the server was exploited and there really was nothing wrong.

The customer insisted that we had an issue. Somehow, his whole database was hacked.

After a long extensive search, we found out how people were getting into his website. They were using a very old tactic of "SQL injection". SQL injection is actually very clever, and its totally what programmers and hackers both know. A typical person would not know what SQL injection is because its not a typical input you put into a web form. He recognized that it was not our fault, but instead his programmers fault .

A PERFECT example of this is located on Wikipedia.com. I actually have used their example to prove if a site is exploitable. Usually you just put in code like this:

a' or 't'='t

into a username and password field and click login. If the site is vulnerable, you may just login to the account.

Anyhow, there is a quick and simple fix for this. When you take data from the end user, you just need to escape the values. The single quote is the culprit for most SQL injections.

My solution in the past has just been to do a replace on all ' to '' (that is two single quotes). SQL will take that input and make it a single quote in the database.

ASP example: Replace(userInput, "'", "''") or in .Net strInput.Replace("'", "''");

I decided to write about this today because of a funny picture found on xkcd.com (http://xkcd.com/327/). Here is the picture:

When I put this up as my signature on one of the message boards I run, people commented that the picture was very funny, even the non-techies thought it was. I then realized that some of the code I wrote 7 years ago was vulnerable. I even had another website of mine hacked due to this. Old unmaintained code sucks to go back and fix.

I hope the helps understand SQL injection a little more. It is still very common and MANY MANY websites on the internet are still vulnerable. Dont let your website get hacked because of this.

Having strange problems with DSL + a Cisco router (or any router)? It might be your MTU

travis@lvfbody.com — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:01:59 GMT

I recently moved from cable modem to DSL. The move was because of poor customer service provided by Charter the local cable company. When I made the move, I ran into some unexpected problems. These problems had me stumped and confused. This doesn’t happen much when it comes to computers.

I spent hours on hours trying to figure out why I could not have an IPSec tunnel to my office via the network topology that I had configured. All I have is a LAN -> Cisco -> DSL modem.

After 6 hours and 5 Cisco configs later, someone responded to my post on dslreports.com about the issues I was having. Everyone said “sounds like an MTU problem”.

For those that don’t know what MTU is, it stands for Maximum Transmission Unit and it refers to the size of the largest packet that a given layer can pass onwards.

Anyhow, the problem with a DSL modem is that you actually are NATING it even though you may have a public IP address. The modem actually has the IP address bound to it and it forwards it to your machine (or router in this example). Well, if you have a router before your computers, you have to again, NAT it (Nating is where the router re-writes the source/destination address as a packat passes through a router).

As it does this, the packet overhead changes. This is when you need to adjust your MTU on your machine.

I had read an article about it on dslreports.com and people recommended to me that I adjust my MTU to 1458. I did this, restarted my adapter, and everything worked like a charm.

I never though it would be handy in the hosting field, but I recently just helped with a customer with the same Cisco -> Modem configuration. None of the machines in his network could send any emails so I exhausted all my resources trying to figure out why. Once I heard about his network configuration, I felt it was the last chance to fix this guys network.

I told him to download DrTCP (http://www.dslreports.com/drtcp) and run it. When he opened it, I had him select his network adapter in the network settings and type in 1458 and click “save”. I next had him go to his control panel -> network settings and disable and enable his network adapter ( a restart would have done the same thing ). He went into outlook and clicked send / receive and all 14 messages that were waiting to go out went out successfully.

I never though the MTU would ever be back in my life again.. but now I know that this is an important thing to know about if you have a more advanced network then a typical home would.

I hope this article helps you as much as it has helped me.

Why doing business with companies in India may be hazardous to your health.

travis@lvfbody.com — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 22:33:35 GMT

I have been going through a fiasco recently. It’s not the normal one I would expect, but it is somewhat humorous. A few weeks ago, I had bought some software from a company called Stellar Information Systems, ltd. The reason I bought this software was because I tested their demo version, and it appeared that it would pull some data off a disk with a bad partition table.

After the demo worked, I paid $99 bucks to a company called Element5, an intermediate party for selling software for vendors. I spent the next 6 hours extracting data from the disk while my server was down. Everything looked like it was fine and dandy.

Around 2am, I my systems installed and all my files are moved over. I start to mess around with getting all my websites on it back up and running. This was my personal server so it had only a handful of high-priority websites / databases on it. I was relieved that some software was able to pull everything down.

Once I started to QA my work when the system was online, it was about 4:00 am. I noticed some very strange things going on. A couple of my source code and HTML files that were less then 2kb was corrupted. I was very curious of this because it was very random. I though maybe it was just one or two files. When I saw corrupt, I am not talking about total loss, but just strange things like this:

HJTCommerce.HJTMenu" Co+ behind="HJTMenu.ascx.cs"

The text should be “Codebehind=” not “Co+ behind”

So, that really got me nervous. I started looking around, and I saw this happening on thousands of other files, including small gif images and jpgs.

Now, I am totally freaked. I left the office at 4:00am, and got back in around 10:00am. I went to my system admin and said. “Ryan, I beg you to help me”. So, Ryan pulls out his linux toolset and starts go to work on the drive at his workstation. He uses a utility to rebuild the partition table. We stick it back into my computer and it boots up just as it normally would, just been offline for 24+ hours.

Ok, so now that you have the background, here is where the fun comes in.

I said, well, I just wasted my time with Stellar broken software, so I want my money back. I would not have asked if it did not screw up thousands of small files on my disk, but it did and on top of that wasted hours of valuable time while I was trying to restore my server.

First attempt:

I call Stellar on their toll-free phone number the Day after to get the refund process going. They tell me that the process to get a refund, I must first submit a tech support ticket explaining my problem. My response is more like “I need to open a tech support ticket to get a refund? Oookkk.. “

So, I send in my first support ticket. Let the games begin!

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--- July 15^th, 2007 – To Stellar Tech support ticket system

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I attempted to use your software this week. It looks like it was working great, and we were recovering about 200 gigs of data off our disk. Once we spent 6 hours doing it while our server was offline, we realized that almost every file that was < 2kb was corrupt. There was no way we were going to manually fix 100k files. We had to go back to the original disk, where there was no corruption. We would like a refund on order number 137595265. I would like you to refund it before I put in a stop payment on my cc. Support was a joke also. Nobody wants to help, and hardly speaking any English.

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---- July 16, 2007 06:39 PM- To me -----

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Hi!

We apologize for all the inconveniences caused!

Regarding your concern, we would request you to please fill this Technical Form –

http://www.stellarinfo.com/support/please_answer.php

Please submit as many details as possible. This would help us collate all the data related to your issue and expedite our analysis of it.

Once we have all your details, we will try our level best to resolve your issue as soon as possible.

Please also remember to fill the ticket# while submitting the technical form.

Thanks for having patience and your kind cooperation!

Warm Regards,
Neeraj Neyol
Stellar Technical Executive

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-- note: So I fill out the technical support form from them. I also call them and talk to them on the phone again and they tell me they don’t have any bugs in their software.

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---- Mon 7/16/2007 11:13 AM - To me

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Hi,

Thank you for filling the technical form!

We have forwarded your case to the second level of our support. Kindly provide us some time and we will revert back to you soon with the appropriate solution.

Hoping for your kind cooperation!

Warm Regards,

Rachit Trehan
Technical Support Executive
Stellar Information System Ltd.

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-- note: Ohh.. second level support. Refunds must be very hard to do

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---- July 16, 2007 8:34 PM - To Stellar Tech support

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Name :Travis Whidden
Email :NA
Order No :137595265
serial Key :WDDRY7S60VVOHxxxxxx
Ticket NoNA
Product :Phoenix_FAT_NTFS
Cause of Data Loss :The software appeared to be working great, but after we spent about 6 hours recovering data, we found that almost all the files that were 1 - 2kb or less were corrupted somehow. We found this out after we went to go live with a fresh install of 2k3. We ended up going back to the original drive and rebuilding the partion table on the disk and we were fine, and none of the files were corrupt. So, somehow, your software has a bug pulling small files. Your support said \"our software has no bugs\" but being in software development for many many years, we all know that all software has bugs. Anyhow, I would like to get a refund as your software was great, but wasted many hours of my time and we could not use the results it produced. This is the last time I submit / call for a refund. Next I will call my bank and charge it back. I have been patient, but this is getting out of hand on the loops you are putting me through to get a refund.
Drive Type(Crashed Hard Disk) :SATA others
Drive Type(Where Stellar Phoenix is installed) :SATA others
Drive Configuration(Crashed Hard Disk) :Standard/Master/Slave
Capacity :200GB
Bad Sectors:No
Partition :3
NoiseNo
Operating System(Crashed Hard Disk):09
Operating System(Where Stellar Phoenix is installed):08

File System(Crashed Hard Disk or Drive from which you need to recover data) :NTFS
File System(Where Stellar Phoenix is installed) :
Brief explanation of problem faced using Stellar Phoenix.:Files that were small in size, would have a strange bit that would currupt the file. Some of our files would have a \"+\" instead of text in the code. Some of the webserver files such as jpg and gifs were bad an unuseable.
What remedies has been tried on crashed disk or the disk from which you need to recover data after data loss?:We rebuilt the partition table and we were able to get back online.
Stellar Phoenix Event Log:
Was the drive compressed before crash?:Not Compressed
Was the drive encrypted before crash?:Not Encrypted

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---- Tue 7/17/2007 1:59 AM - To me --

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Hi!

Thank you for submitting the Technical form!

Regarding your concern, we would like to inform you that our software does not have any bug, this is just a recovery issue which can be easily resolved and we want your kind cooperation for the same.

Please cooperate with us and send us 12 to 15 sample files which have not been recovered properly, so that we may analyze them and provide an appropriate solution. Also let us know the size of other files that have not recovered properly.

Hoping for your kind cooperation.

Warm regards,

Guruasish Singh
Technical Support Executive
Stellar Information Systems Ltd.

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-- note: Our software does not have any bugs? Are you kidding me? Everyone knows that all software has bugs. This was the first sign of a long process in front of me.

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---- Tuesday, July 17, 2007 7:36 PM- To Stellar

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It’s too late for that. I already went back to the original disk because your software wasted 6 hours of my time. I am not going to waste another 1 – 2 hours doing an extraction and looking for bad files.

Please issue a refund. I called the very next day after getting you on the phone, and you guys just are giving me the run around. I don’t want to ask again, and I will call my credit card company and ask for a charge back if you don’t comply. If I honestly used it, I would not be asking for it, but because your software did not perform to any expectation of ours and you won’t admit there is/could be a problem,

Please refund now.. no more run around.. or I call the credit card company today and ask for a refund.

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---- Tuesday, July 17, 2007 12:42 PM – To Me

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Sir,

We understand your concern and we are not giving you any run around. We just want the sample files as it will be very helpful.Thus kindly cooperate.

The refund will not be an issue if it does not work out.

Warm Regards,

Rachit Trehan

Technical Support Executive

Stellar Information System Ltd.

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---- Wednesday, July 18, 2007 1:28 AM– To Stellar

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I don’t have the data that I pulled off the hard drive anymore. I ended up scrapping the results, and overwriting it with my recovered Mirror drive.

There is nothing you can do to satisfy me on this because I have already found an alternative solution to fix my problem. Yours was the first solution and it didn’t work.

Please refund.

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---- Tuesday, July 17, 2007 2:23 PM – To Me

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Hi,

Please donot overwright anything on that drive this may lead to permanent loss of your data and after that nothing can be recovered.

Thanks & regards,

Amit

Stellar Technical Support

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---- Wednesday, July 18, 2007 4:37 AM– To Stellar

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Did you not hear what I said… I was able to recover the original drive. It was just a partition table issue caused by a poor raid controller.

Refund it now.

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---- Wednesday, July 18, 2007 8:48 PM – To Me

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Hi!

We are transferring your refund case to our Orders department. Kindly contact our Orders department at 'orders@stellarinfo.com' for any further queries regarding this.

Hoping for your kind cooperation!

Warm Regards,
Neeraj Neyol
Stellar Technical Executive

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---- Wed 7/18/2007 11:03 PM– To Me

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Hi,

Thank you for contacting Stellar.

This is with reference to your refund request for "Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery (v3.0) - Single User Download(Order No.: 137595265)".

We would request you to send us following details so that we can help you in a better way.

- Supportive data of your purchase of another software

- Supportive data showing that you were able to recover your file with the other software (a screenshot will suffice)

Please be informed that we need these details for the processing of refund.

Hoping for your kind co-operation.

Best Regards...

Soni Dhull

Stellar Information Systems Ltd.

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---- Thursday, July 19, 2007 7:37 PM – To Stellar

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OMG, you guys are trying to put me through the ropes. I have given you plenty of time to refund my order, and asked over and over. I have done all your steps.. I am not going to waste any more time. I am going to call my bank this afternoon, and put in a charge back. I have all the reports to show it and support my case. I am not doing anything more for you.

I did not purchase any other software, we used a free Linux tool to rebuild the partition tables on the disk (my Linux admins did it for me)

That what I used to recover the problem that we had.

You have enough details.

If I don’t get an email back within the next couple hours, you are going to be dinged with a chargeback and my online reviews will show how you harass your customers when they request a refund.

If you send me ONE MORE stupid ass email like this one, I swear I give up going through your process, and I am calling the bank.

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---- Fri 7/20/2007 2:50 AM – To Stellar

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Hi,

Thank you for your message. At the same time we feel sorry for the inconvenience caused to you.

We would like to inform you that according to our refund policy we need to have these details and once we have these details there will not be a problem in your refund.

So we request you to provide us the supportive Data of your purchase of the other software so that we can help you in a proper manner by processing your refund.

Please be informed that Unless and until we have these details we will not be able to help you in any manner.

Finally we request you to revert back to us with the details asked so that we can help you in a proper manner.

Hoping for your kind cooperation.

Best Regards...

Soni Dhull

Stellar Information Systems Ltd.

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---- Fri 7/20/2007 2:50 AM – To Stellar

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Somewhere in here, I wrote them back a response for this. I am sure I wasn’t as nice as I could have been. Just getting frustrated trying to get a refund from them.

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---- Monday, July 23, 2007 11:16 PM– To Me

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Hi,

This is with reference to your request for the refund of Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery (v3.0) - Single User Download .

We would like to inform you that according to our refund policy we need to have the suppotive data of your purchase of another softawre and once we have these details there will not be a problem in your refund.

So we request you to provide us the supportive Data of your purchase of the other software so that we can help you in a proper manner by processing your refund.

Please be informed that Unless and until we have these details we will not be able to help you in any manner.

Finally we request you to revert back to us with the details asked so that we can help you in a proper manner.

Hoping for your kind cooperation.

Best Regards...

Soni Dhull

Stellar Information Systems Ltd.

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---- Tue 7/24/2007 6:49 AM – To Stellar

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Again, I did not buy any other software. Your software did not work, and we found a free open source software to repair my system. Please refund. I have provided you with what I had did.

-- Somewhere in here, more emails exchanged…

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---- Tuesday, July 24, 2007 8:57 PM– To Stellar

--------------------------------------------

Hi,

I am really upset with Stellar. You guys have been giving me the run around. I did not buy any other software to fix my problem. Your software did not work, and I would like to get a refund. I have asked and exchanged emails like 20 times now and you keep giving me the run around. I would like to avoid doing a charge back because it costs both of us money, but I will do it if I cant get you to refund.

PLEASE DO NOT WRITE ME BACK SAYING YOU NEED PROOF OF SALE FOR ANOTHER PRODUCT BECAUSE I DID NOT BUY ANYTHING ELSE TO FIX MY PROBLEM.

Please refund. I have been very patient about this and its not fair that you do this to your customers.

Sincerely

Travis Whidden

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---- Tuesday, July 24, 2007 11:10 PM - To Me

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Hi,

Thank you for your message. At the same time we feel sorry for the inconvenience caused to you.

We would like to inform you that we do consider request for refund if our Technical Support opines that the user is not able to recover the data due to the limitation of the software.

Please visit the link given below to know more about our refund policy.

http://www.stellarinfo.com/refund-policy.pdf

Should you have any further query please feel free to contact us.

Soni Dhull

Stellar Information Systems Ltd

-- So here, I read their refund policy, which is a joke in the first place. I fill each one out and send it to them.

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---- Wednesday, July 25, 2007 7:28 PM – To Stellar

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Stellar,

-Here is a response to each line item in your refund polity. Please read each of my responses as I spent the time to read your 1 page return policy. The ball is in your court. Please send me whatever I need to get this refund.

All returns for downloaded software must be pre-authorized by Stellar Information Systems

Ltd. (SISL) as described below. Your right to obtain a refund for downloaded software lasts

only for a limited time. Your request for a Return Merchandise Authorization Number ("RMA

number") must be made to Stellar Information Systems Ltd. within 30 days of the date SISL

made the software available to you for download (the "Purchase Date"), and SISL must

receive, at its offices, your fully completed and signed Letter of Destruction ("Affidavit") within

35 days of the Purchase Date. No refund will be made until the Affidavit has been received by

SISL and if the time requirements described above are not met. SISL is not responsible for

lost or misdirected mail, delays for downloading, or other communication system delays.

-I have been asking for a refund since the first day

Products not purchased directly from SISL must be returned to the place of purchase (Web

store, etc.) and are subject to the return policies of the place of purchase.

-Called Element 5, and they told me you have to approve it.

Unless otherwise indicated SISL will only refund the purchase price if there is a technical

problem with the software that cannot be resolved within 10 business days of the customer

request.

-Nothing to resolve. I resolved the problem on my own. Server was down, could not wait

If a CD version of the software was purchased it must be returned in original resalable

condition including hardware lock, packaging, documentation, warranty cards, manuals, and

accessories as a part of this return process. CDs and hardware locks that are not returned in

original condition will be charged a restocking fee. The freight charges for sending back the

CD version will be bourn by you.

-Software Only. No CD was purchased.

To receive a refund for downloaded software purchases from SISL, you must obtain from

SISL a Letter of Destruction (described below), and complete and return the Affidavit to SISL

along with the manual and CD if the Download Kit was purchased. No credit will be issued for

incomplete or non-stellar component returns. You must also destroy all copies of the software

you may have made or stored in any place, as well as uninstall the software from any

computers owned or controlled by you where you have installed the software. Once you have

returned the Letter of Destruction to SISL (and the Download Kit, if applicable), all licenses

you may have to use the software will be immediately terminated, and any further use of the

software will be an infringement of copyrights as well as other intellectual property rights.

-Nobody has sent me this, but I have already uninstalled the application and deleted the install file.

All Letters of Destruction must have a Return Merchandise Authorization Number (RMA #)

issued by SISL clearly displayed on the form. To receive an RMA number, contact SISL at

orders@stellarinfo.com. You must provide sufficient information for SISL to be able to identify

your transaction, such as the SISL order number and/or invoice number and/or date of

transaction given to you when the download was ordered. If SISL is able to identify your

order, and the request is made within the time frame discussed above, you will be given an

RMA number as well as a copy of the Letter of Destruction ready for completion and return to

SISL.

-I can’t send you a letter unless you actually send me this forum. Are you going to send it or is this necessary?

You must fill out all required information on the Letter of Destruction, sign and date the

Affidavit, and return it to SISL as instructed on the form.

-I will do that when you send me this form. YOU have not sent it to me yet

When SISL receives your properly completed and signed Letter of Destruction (and

Download Kit, if applicable) within the time frame discussed above, SISL Software will

provide a refund to you of the amount you paid for the software plus refund any appropriate

taxes charged with that order. SISL will not refund any shipping and handling charges that

may have been charged to you. Refunds will be made in the same manner as you purchased

the product. If you purchased by check, SISL will send you a check, so please be sure we

have your mailing address. If you purchased by credit card, your credit card account will be

credited. If you purchased by company purchase order, your account will be credited.

-Can’t send you a form that you have not requested me to fill out. Please send it to me

Please allow 28 days for the refund to be processed.

-Yea, on top of the 28 days you give me to for the run around. Its faster to do a chargeback.

-Please send me whatever form you need for a refund. This is ridiculous on how much you are putting me through to get this.

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---- Wed 7/25/2007 10:04 PM – To Me

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Hi,

Thank you contacting us .At the same time we feel sorry for the inconvenience caused to you..

This is with reference to your request for the refund of "Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery (v3.0) - Single User Download (Order No : 137595265)"

As per our refund policy we need to receive the letter of destruction for the software .

Please find enclosed herewith a format of the same and send it back duly filled and signed so that we can proceed further without any delay.

Your RMA # is 070722

Please be informed that only the processing cost will be deducted from the total amount.

Should you have any further query please feel free to contact us.

Hoping for your kind cooperation.

Best Regards...
Soni Dhull
Stellar Information Systems Ltd

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So, I filled out this retarded form they wanted. It’s a total joke. I love how they have a processing fee for refunding. I am going to submit this to the credit card company so they can see how hard I have been trying to get a refund. I don’t even have all the information and call history in here. This is just what I have in my Mail App.

My lesson Learned: Don’t buy software online from places that are not in the USA. They will run you through hoops if you ask for a refund.

We will see if they actually do refund it, or of the credit card company refunds it first.