Hilarious hack attempt

So some guy sets up a honeypot, and this dude connects to it...


Judging from the way he doesn't seem to know what to do when a command fails to work, I'm guessing this was someone who had just learned how to use bash.
The most incomprehensible (and funny) part is around 1:14 when he downloads Windows 2000 SP3. The best explanation I can come up with for all of this is that some kid wandered into an IRC channel where he didn't belong and the regulars thought it would be funny to send him to a honeypot and feed him ridiculous commands to type in.

PS: Doing this blog would be a bit more fulfilling if anyone actually read it.

Hopefully final update post

Ok, I've added an automatic update notifier to the proxy and the server.
Also, having finally implemented version numbers, the updates logs will now be kept on the Mineshafter site instead of being posted one after another, here.

One other change, I've changed the server to redirect all failed attempts to get a player's skin to the official Minecraft server. Hopefully this will let people see the skins of other players using the official auth server as well.

Yet another bugfix

I found out that the Mineshafter proxy had been mangling the data it was grabbing from the server. Changed so now it works a little better. Java is annoying.

Mineshafter updates

If you don't know what Mineshafter is, then go look or stop reading this post.
Since it's gone up I've changed a few bits of code to fix some bugs on the server side, and been working on a new proxy for the client side.
Keep in mind, the only thing I've ever written in Java before was a "Hello world!", but so far the new proxy seems to be working well.

For the client version, just download it and run it. Doesn't matter where; it uses the latest launcher from minecraft.net.

For the server version, you'll need to make sure that the proxy is in the same directory as the minecraft_server.jar file. If you have a mod that you want to run with it, then use mineshafter-server.jar <mod.jar>.

Bugs, responses, hate mail, etc, can all be left in the comments or sent to my email address which is on the Mineshafter page.

Fun with Google App Engine

Recently I've discovered the joy of coding web apps in Python, and the (arguably) greater joy of finding a free hosting service that's fairly reliable.
I refer, of course, to Google App Engine.
While some of my attempts at writing apps have failed miserably (for reasons too involved to get into here), others have come out a great success.
Here are a few of the GAE services I have written so far:

Mineshafter, a Minecraft online service replacement.

Treador, a personal torrent RSS service with a simple bookmarklet for adding torrents from any site.

Trollr grabs the latest videos from a bunch of youporn-like streaming sites and shows them all in one place. Also automatically grabs direct download links for you.

I have a few others as well, but they are not done yet.

If anyone is interested in learning more about this platform, they can go here.
That's a link to the Python section, which I really do advise that you use, as opposed to the Java section, for which I advise that you gouge your eyes out before viewing.