Part 2 has finally arrived …. don’t all cheer at once now …

In part two I will cover how to run an IP range scan using bash script, and if the host can be pinged retrieve the MAC address of the connected host.

Now bare in mind this script was written to run from a MAC running OSX Leopard.

#!/bin/bash
#colours
function colours {
CLEAR='\e[00m';
GREEN='\e[0;32m';
RED='\e[0;31m';
YELLOW='\e[1;33m';
}
#ipscan
function ipscan {
IPS_START=1;
IPS_END=254;
IPS_RANGE=192.168.1.
echo "Now running IPSCAN $IPS_RANGE$IPS_START - $IPS_RANGE$IPS_END"
for ((i=$IPS_START;i<=$IPS_END;i+=1)); do
RESULT=`ping -c 1 -t 1 $IPS_RANGE$i | grep "bytes from"`;
if [ -z "$RESULT" ]; then
echo -e "$IPS_RANGE$i:$RED DEAD $CLEAR";
# If you comment out the above to report just the alive hosts, bash gets a bit funny about not processing anything here, so uncomment the below to keep it happy
#holder=$i;
else
MAC=`arp $IPS_RANGE$i | awk '{ print $4 }';`;
echo -e "$IPS_RANGE$i:$GREEN ALIVE $CLEAR ($MAC)";
fi
done
}
colours;
$1 $2

To make this work on your Linux distro replace -t in the ping command with -W and check the awk entry for the arp output, a display of (no) means that no ARP entries could be found for the host, and change the IP range to that of your network.

That’s it for this part, dump this is a file and chmod +x as useual and run with ./script.sh ipscan.

As I sit here tapping away on the iMAC currently in use whilst I wait on my Mac Book Pro, I am looking at various projects around the Google APS API … One notably of which is the Google Docs, file sharing and collab system.

“MacFUSE implements a mechanism that makes it possible to implement a fully functional file system in a user-space program on Mac OS X (10.4 and above). It aims to be API-compliant with the FUSE (File-system in USErspace) mechanism that originated on Linux.”

Not much to the end user, but basically will allow you (with some programming) to mount pretty much anything as a file system volume.

The techdemo video lists implementations such as docFS (Google Doc’s API) and rssFS (rss feeds as a file system).

Looking at the hello world example on the macFuse wiki it should be fairly simple to implement pretty much anything as a file system.

More to come once the MBP arrives.

This question has arrived at my feet a few times now.

Sould I participate with https://no-www.org/ and remove support for www. on my sites?

The answer is no you shouldn’t whilst I appreciate and do belive www. has become deprecated, a LOT of end users still use www. So by removing support for this you are excludinga potentialy large user base from reaching your website, can you as a business afford to do that … of course not!

So what should you do?

In my opinion, add support for both.

You will see that https://blog.oneiroi.co.uk and https://blog.oneiroi.co.uk BOTH work, this allows both “classes” of end users to reach my website, and I have applied this principle to all sites I have recently worked on.

Example httpd.conf entry

ServerName blog.oneiroi.co.uk ServerAlias blog.oneiroi.co.uk

DNS for blog.oneiroi.co.uk is an A record to the IP of my webhost and blog.oneiroi.co.uk is a CNAME of blog.oneiroi.co.uk

This method however does not https://no-www.org/ validate as www. subdomain still exists, so don’t expect a “no-www” validated image to appear on my blog anytime soon.

www. may be depreciated, but businesses can not afford to exclude any potential customers, so don’t expect this no-www to become standard anytime either.

“July 2, 2008

Today we passed 38,000 domains validated through no-www. This is a nice round number so it seems worthy of tooting our horn over. ”

As I write this there are 77,343,623 active domains (source: https://www.domaintools.com/internet-statistics/) making the no-www support less than 0.05% of active domains.

I would be intrested to know how many of this 38k domains are actual businesses, and how support no-www has affected thier online sales.

I can tell you however of the 300 or so domains I currently controll, non would no-www validate as they are all configured using the method above.

Thoughts?

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UPDATE 26/07/09 —–

READ THIS BEFORE POSTING A COMMENT OR SENDING AN EMAIL

THIS PAGE IS PROVIDED FREELY WITH INFORMATION ON HOW TO DISPUTE THE CLAIM AGAINST YOU

THIS PAGE IS NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR PROPER LEGAL ADVISE

THIS SITE IS IN NO WAY PRESENTLY, NOR EVER HAS BEEN AFFILIATED IN ANY WAY WITH LOWELL PORTFOLIO

Sorry for the excessive use of bold and caps, however some people just are not getting the message, and I am getting emails / comments (some with very colourful language I might add) from people thinking this is Lowells website … it is not now was it ever nor will it ever be, this POST was made because I am in the same “boat” as you disputing my claim

— Update 05/01/2009, seems people are not getting the message so I have made this text bright red

END UPDATE 26/07/09 —–

UPDATE 18/02/2011: I am now getting several emails a week from people who are not reading the header of this post,

I will start a “wall of shame” for those people very shortly, DO NOT be among them …

I hate scam artists … the latest today comes as “Lowell Portfolio”, apparently these guys bulk buy “bad debts” in the hope of scaring the unlucky sod that is their target into paying them without question, 99% of the time these debts don’t actualy exist …

Well I’m having none of it …

1. First things first DO NOT TELEPHONE THEM, they will try to extract personal information from you, and attempt you get you to admit to the debt.
2. Keep and file any letter from them as evidence.
3. If they do telephone you demand everything in writing and hang up, at no point admit to the debt, it is down to them to provide evidence of the debt, an admission on your part absolves them of any “burden of proof”
4. As posted here: https://www.moneysupermarket.com/COMMUNITY/forums/t/lowell-portfolio-1-16516.aspx by boyboynova respons with the following template letter RECORDED DELIVERY.

Response template:

To Whom It May Concern:

Your Reference: xxxx

I DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE ANY DEBT TO YOUR COMPANY

With reference to the above account, I request that you send me a true copy of this credit agreement before I will correspond further on this matter.

This is my right under the legislation contained within section 77 (1) and section 78 (1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, and I am entitled to receive a copy of my credit agreement on request.

Your obligation also extends to providing me with a statement of account. I enclose a £1 postal order, which represents payment of the statutory fee payable under the Consumer Credit Act.

I understand that a copy of my credit agreement should be supplied within 12 working days from the date of this letter.

I understand that under the Consumer Credit Act, creditors are unable to enforce an agreement if they fail to comply with a request for a copy of the agreement under these sections of the Act.

Also, since you are a Debt Collection Agency, I would also ask that you supply a signed true copy of the executed deed of assignment for the above referenced agreement.

This is an obligation, whether you are the original creditor or not, under section 189 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

Non-compliance with my request is a criminal offence under the above Act and will result in a report being submitted to the relevant statutory authorities. In summary,

I DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THIS DEBT AND THEREFORE REQUIRE YOU TO SUBSTANTIATE THIS BY PROVIDING THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENTATION BEFORE I CORRESPOND FURTHER:

1.True copy of original credit agreement 2.Statement of account 3.Copy of the executed deed of assignment from (INSERT COMPANY NAME HERE ) 4.Fair Processing Notice.

As you are aware, a credit agreement that is not properly documented and signed by the customer is totally unenforceable under the CCA and therefore is a complete defence to any court claim that is issued.

Take note at this stage, that any legal action you may contemplate will be both vigorously defended and contested.

Further to the above, please ensure that any contact by yourselves is made in writing only to the above address. Telephone calls and personal visits will not be accepted and viewed as harassment.

As this account is now in dispute, I would also draw your attention to The Banking Code section 13.6:-

We may give information to the Credit Reference Agencies about personal debts you owe us if:

·The Amount Owed is Not in Dispute. ·The Office of Fair Trading provided a Code of Guidance that is in relation to Debt Collection: OFT 664 Response to consultation paper and final guidance on unfair business practices dated July 2003 Deceptive and/or Unfair Methods- 2.8 Examples of unfair practices are as follows:- k. Not ceasing collection activity whilst investigating a reasonably queried or disputed debt.

If you continue in your pursuance of this account I will have no other alternative than to report you to both, The Information Commissioner and The Office of Fair Trading.

Furthermore, I shall submit a Consumer Credit Act 1974 complaint to the OFT upon the basis that you have failed to comply with the OFT’s direction of 5 April 2006 and are therefore not a ‘fit and proper person’ to hold a consumer credit license under the 1974 Act.

If you do not understand what this means then seek advice from your legal department.

I look forward to hearing from you within the statutory time limit.

Yours faithfully

<< YOUR NAME HERE >>

UPDATE 14/01/2009: I have received a letter in the post today from ScotCall Debt Collecting Services, it appears their client Lowell Portfolio 1 LTD has passed the debt onto them for recovery, no doubt in an effort to disgusie the collection as not being for Lowell no doubt due to people fighting and winning cases against them.

After a friendly telephone conversation with one of ScotCall’s agents I stated “my right under the legislation contained within section 77 (1) and section 78 (1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, and I am entitled to receive a copy of my credit agreement on request.” and queries whether this should be in writing to themselves or lowell, the reply came “No problem Sir, as we only receive your contact details and the debt amount, we will simply pass this account back to our client”, at which point I thanked the agent and requested confirmation in writing, “All telephone call are recorded, and you will receive a standard letter detailing this conversation in a couple of days”.

More updates to come.

UPDATE 26/01/2009: Lowell On Watchdog https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/01/the_chase_for_debts_not_always.html

UPDATE 23/07/2009: Claim dropped! Well I can say after sending this letter via email and a very long discussion on the phone with one of their supervisors, Lowell have said “They are unable to provide a signed credit agreement” and that “Their client in the interest of taking a commercial view, without admitting liability have agreed to clear their claim”, I have a letter confirming the amount owed is now £0.00