If you’re a printer, or you’ve ever been in the print industry in any capacity at all, or you’ve ever taken a design class, or even if you’ve ever used the “random text” command in any of a large number of different programs, you’ve probably seen a piece of gibberish text that begins with the words “lorem ipsum.” Since the dawn of time, relatively speaking, that gibberish text has been used by newspaper editors, magazine layout artists, prepress people, designers, even Web designers, as “filler” text to let them see, for example, how many columns of type they need, or whatever. The whole text looks like this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Typi non habent claritatem insitam; est usus legentis in iis qui facit eorum claritatem. Investigationes demonstraverunt lectores legere me lius quod ii legunt saepius. Claritas est etiam processus dynamicus, qui sequitur mutationem consuetudium lectorum. Mirum est notare quam littera gothica, quam nunc putamus parum claram, anteposuerit litterarum formas humanitatis per seacula quarta decima et quinta decima. Eodem modo typi, qui nunc nobis videntur parum clari, fiant sollemnes in futurum.
That’s the full version. That, or fragments of it, are used whenever someone has a need for nonsense text to fill in a blank area in a design, until the real text comes along.
Problem is, that nonsense text is not nonsense.
In the groundbreaking book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins put forth a revolutionary new way to conceptualize evolutionary biology–at the level of the gene, not the level of the individual. A gene’s “goal,” in a manner of speaking, is to reproduce itself. Genes that do this efficiently succeed and become widespread; genes that don’t, disappear.
Many people still have a mistaken view of evolution as “survival of the fittest.” Charles Darwin never used that expression [Edit: Charles Darwin did not use the expression until the fifth edition of Origin of Species, where he adapted it as it had come to be associated with his ideas of natural selection through Spencer’s deliberate creation of an analogy between evolution and market economics using the term)–it was coined by a man named Herbert Spencer–and the term can create inaccurate perceptions of how evolution works. Evolution does not necessarily work on the level of the individual at all; for example, all the bees in a beehive save the queen are not capable of reproducing, and so have no chance to pass on their genes. However, all the bees in a beehive share their genes with the queen. So if a bee dies, but its death helps promote the survival of the hive, that particular bee’s genes survive; it is the survival of the gene, not the survival of the organism, that matters.
In many cases, the survival of the organism means the survival of the gene–in many cases, but not in all. And some genes are passed on by individuals who do not express those genes at all. Male pattern baldness and red-green color blindness in humans are passed on matrilineally–you inherit those genes from your mother–even if they are expressed primarily in men. If you were somehow to prevent every color-blind man or every bald man from reproducing, even though color blindness and male-pattern baldness are genetic, you would not remove those genes from the population.
The human genome project is attempting to map and understand every gene that makes a human being. Each of these genes codes for the production of a single protein, and each of these proteins is responsible for carrying out all the tasks necessary to build a cell and make it go. Human beings have somewhere around 25,000 genes, each made of many DNA base pairs; the ntire sequence of these genes has been mapped, and their function is being explored.
And a lot of them are gibberish.
Biologists call this “junk DNA”. It exists in all species over a certain level of sophistication. Some of it is “obsolete code”–stuff that calls for things the organism no longer needs or uses, like gills and tails in humans. Some of it has been selected against because the stuff it codes for has no or negative survival value, at least in the short run. (New research suggests that mammals carry the genes that would let them, and us, regenerate damaged organs or regrow lost limbs, but that these genes are switched off. If that’s the case, learning how to switch those genes on could revolutionize medicine…but I digress.)
Some junk DNA is old or obsolete…but some is not. A good deal of this “junk DNA” is actually the remnants of old retroviruses, viruses that eons ago infected our ancestors and then became inert, their DNA integrated with ours.
Retroviruses are strange beasts. They work in a simple but devious way. They contain a strand of RNA, not DNA, and this strand of RNA has the necessary code for creating a special enzyme called “reverse transcriptase,” bundled together with the viral code.
When the virus attacks a cell, it injects its RNA into the cell. The RNA is snapped up by tiny machines within the cell whose job it is to read pieces of RNA and build the proteins that the RNA calls for. These machines have no way to tell that a particular piece of RNA is legitimate; they read and process any RNA they see. The viral RNA, once inside the cell, gets read and processed just like any other RNA.
The viral RNA tells the machines to build reverse transcriptase. Reverse transcriptase is a molecular machine that take a piece of RNA and writes it into the cell’s own DNA. When a retrovirus infects a cell, it injects its genes. Its genes tell the cell to make reverse transcriptase, and once the cell does that, the reverse transcriptase writes the viral RNA into the cell’s DNA; the viral gene becomes a part of the cell’s gene.
Now, normally, at this point the viral gene pretty much shuts down the rest of the cell, and tells the cell to stop whatever it was doing and dedicate all its resources to making more copies of the virus. This destroys the cell, of course, but it’s how viruses reproduce.
Every now and then, though, something goes wrong. The viral RNA is injected, the reverse transcriptase is made, the viral genes get recorded into the cell’s own DNA, and then…nothing. The viral gene just sits there. It doesn’t activate, it doesn’t take over the cell, it just sits there.
But when that cell divides, the viral gene goes with it. that viral gene is now a permanent part of the cell’s DNA. Sometimes, if a gamete is infected, the viral DNA gets passed on to new offspring; it never actually does anything, it’s just along for the ride. Has it succeeded? If it never gets activated, ever produces anything, but the organism it infected becomes successful and spreads all troughout the world, then that viral gene has been spread throughout the world too, right?
In talking about ideas, philosophers often speak of “memes” rather than “genes.” A meme is an idea; memes–ideas–can spread themselves, and can grow. You can look at Christianity as a meme, for example. People who accept the idea of Christianity want to spread that idea; the idea uses their minds, just as a viral gene uses a cell, to spread and reproduce itself. Christianity is a very complex meme, which has fractured and divided into competing sub-species, and most memes are not that complex, but it’s a good example nonetheless.
So what’s the equivalent of a “junk meme?” Lorem ipsum.
Most people believe that the Lorem Ipsum text is meaningless gibberish. In fact, “lorem ipsum” is a generic term for any gibberish text in the print industry–“Oh, I don’t have Sandy’s editorial yet, so I just put some lorem ipsum into the space where her column goes for now.” But the lorem ipsum text is not meaningless, and it’s not gibberish.
In fact, the lorem ipsum text is Latin, and it comes from a work called De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (The Extrmes of Good and Evil), a study on ethics written by the philosopher Cicero in about 45 BC. The fragment that survives as the modern gibberish text placeholder begins not only in the middle of a sentence, but in the middle of a word; the complete section of the original text begins
Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?
Translated into English, the passage reads:
There is no one who who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?
One could argue that, viewed from a certain perspective, this passage represents a meme that is successful almost beyond all reason, because it has been picked up and reproduced over and over and over again. But like the viral gene that becomes an inert, non-functional part of its host’s DNA, this meme is “junk;” it is completely inert, and most people do not even realize it has any meaning at all. It’s filler; it’s treated as gibberish, just like the viral gene is effectively gibberish.
But is it successful? It’s picked up and propagated all over the planet; it has spread far and wide, as inert viral genes which have become a part of the human genome have spread far and wide; but is it successful?
If you haven’t read Greg Bear’s “Darwin’s Radio” and “Darwin’s Children”, you need to. He takes the concept of ‘junk code’ in our genes and does something amazing with it. The neat part is that he starts with sound science.
*G* that was *exactly the same thought i had while reading this… it’s a facinating bit of SF.
Ah, great minds… BTW – LOVE your icon!
I’ve read his “Blood Magic,” and the ending was so awful I’ve been reluctant to look at any of his stuff again. In Blood Magic, which also talks about junk DNA, the story takes a turn in which the individual cells in a person gain consciousness, and because they can observe the universe at a quantum level, they can do anything. He makes the classic mistake of believing that an “observer” in a quantum system is a person looking at something, whereas to a scientist, the word “observer as a much different and more narrow meaning–an “observer” is any thing, such as an electron, whose state depends in a thermodynamically irreversible way on the state of the thing being observed.
Anyway, that was maddening enough to completely destroy my suspension of disbelief and ruin the entire book for me, so I never went back.
If you haven’t read Greg Bear’s “Darwin’s Radio” and “Darwin’s Children”, you need to. He takes the concept of ‘junk code’ in our genes and does something amazing with it. The neat part is that he starts with sound science.
*G* that was *exactly the same thought i had while reading this… it’s a facinating bit of SF.
tho as a bit of “viral text” it may be slightly doomed. I work in design, and in truth, I’ve not used the actual “lorum ipsum” copy in *years*.
There’s an extenstion in Quark Xpress called Jabberwocky. It generates all the random nonsense you need in fake latin, fake klignon or other styles. And it is *truly* nonsense. Hmmm.
Yeah, I’ve used Jabberwocky. It’s great to let it carry on for several pages in Klingon. 🙂
Adobe Indesign up through version 2 used the standard “lorem ipsum” text, but I just tried it in InDesign CS on this computer and it’s complete gibberish, not the good old-fashioned “lorem ipsum” at all any more.
tho as a bit of “viral text” it may be slightly doomed. I work in design, and in truth, I’ve not used the actual “lorum ipsum” copy in *years*.
There’s an extenstion in Quark Xpress called Jabberwocky. It generates all the random nonsense you need in fake latin, fake klignon or other styles. And it is *truly* nonsense. Hmmm.
Interesting. The thought is one we could use more of tho LOL.
Interesting. The thought is one we could use more of tho LOL.
Ah, great minds… BTW – LOVE your icon!
I’ve been reading “On the Origin of Species”
And just came across this quote in chapter 4:
Slow though the process of selection may be, if feeble man can do much by artificial selection, I can see no limit to the amount of change, to the beauty and complexity of the coadaptations between all organic beings, one with another and with their physical conditions of life, which may have been effected in the long course of time through nature’s power of selection, that is by the survival of the fittest.
Re: I’ve been reading “On the Origin of Species”
I just did some research. It appears that Darwin included the expression in the fifth edition and later editions of On the Origin of Species, largely because Spencer had already popularized the phrase. There is (no surprise here, I suppose) a Wikipedia article on the subject.
Re: I’ve been reading “On the Origin of Species”
Stephen Jay Gould pointed out in one of his essays that, because of this and other addenda, the first edition of Origin is better than its successors. Sadly, finding a cheap first version is most frustrating.
A note on bee reproduction, however; if the queen dies, the hive does not. They can just make another queen.
Queens and drones are haploid, having one half compliment of genes (like most sexual reproducers); the workers the queen lays, however, are diploid, having a full compliment of genes from both the parents. If the queen dies, the hive workers lay haploid eggs and wait for the new queen and her fetilizing retinue.
Laying new queens takes energy and time, though, precious resources that can reduce the hive’s likelihood of genetic success, so your point about sacrifice of the individual is still relevant.
I mention this not to harp about mistakes, but because;
That the last point is almost never mentioned always seemed to me the work of revisionist feminists working at disseminating surrepticious social constructivism. . . .
I’ve been reading “On the Origin of Species”
And just came across this quote in chapter 4:
Slow though the process of selection may be, if feeble man can do much by artificial selection, I can see no limit to the amount of change, to the beauty and complexity of the coadaptations between all organic beings, one with another and with their physical conditions of life, which may have been effected in the long course of time through nature’s power of selection, that is by the survival of the fittest.
Fascinating essay, as usual.
Thanks! 🙂 This is the kind of stuff that goes on inside my head all the time.
I have things just like this going on in my head all the time, too. Except not as clever, and not as well thought out, and not as articulately expressed.
Fascinating essay, as usual.
Very interesting! In my advertising classes the text was referred to as Greek, and could be conjugated as a verb. “I’ve got the magazine layout all set, but since it’s just a mockup with no articles I just greeked the text.”
I always knew it was Latin, but never had a clue what it actually meant. Thanks!
Side note- realizing that I never have time to read, I’m currently listening to the unabridged audio book of “The God Delusion” (read by Dawkins and his wife). If you haven’t read/listened to it yet, you simply must. I’m about 75% of the way through it, and look forward to the end of the book with great sadness. As high as my opinion of Dr. Dawkins was before, it now approaches the level of hero worship.
I haven’t had a chance to read The God Delusion yet. It’s on the list when I’m done with Why People Believe Weird Things.
🙂 His views on cryonics aside, Michael Shermer is always worth reading. I spent quite a bit of time reading bits of Why People Beleive Weird Things at the bookstore a couple of weeks ago. Fun stuff!
Very interesting! In my advertising classes the text was referred to as Greek, and could be conjugated as a verb. “I’ve got the magazine layout all set, but since it’s just a mockup with no articles I just greeked the text.”
I always knew it was Latin, but never had a clue what it actually meant. Thanks!
Side note- realizing that I never have time to read, I’m currently listening to the unabridged audio book of “The God Delusion” (read by Dawkins and his wife). If you haven’t read/listened to it yet, you simply must. I’m about 75% of the way through it, and look forward to the end of the book with great sadness. As high as my opinion of Dr. Dawkins was before, it now approaches the level of hero worship.
Successful is an interesting word. It’s basically meaningless in and of itself. Something is successful (or not) only with respect to a specific goal. This is a key idea in personal coaching (at least, as it was taught to me).
You cannot say it’s successful or not in any kind of completely objective way. But you can invent any number of subjective metrics by which it might or might not be successful. That’s really the question, successful from what point of view?
It’s successful from the point of view of spreading itself far and wide.
It’s unsuccessful from the point of view of impacting the most individuals in a direct manner.
It might be successful from the point of view of having influenced a maximal number of individuals, depending on what derivative works were to whatever degree based on it.
It might be unsuccessful from the point of view of dropping an idea into the world and then vanishing without another trace.
To say that it is successful or not based on whether or not it follows the success metric of another category of thing all together is rather like saying I’m not successful because I don’t have gills.
my 2.41 yen.
In this case, biologists tend to define the “success” of a gene and philosophers tend to define the success” of a meme on the same criteria: how widespread it is.
I think both the junk DNA and the Lorem Ipsum both show a shortcoming in that definition of “success,” because while both are widespread, I have trouble conceptualizing anything so completely inert as “successful.” So ‘successful from what point of view’ is exactly the million-dollar question.
I think you’re understating your point. From a biologist’s standpoint, the success of a gene is precisely how well it replicates, with no other value judgments associated. I don’t see this as a shortcoming at all. It’s unambiguous and unclouded by personal value judgments.
From this perspective, I think that it’s entirely correct to say that Lorem Ipsum is (or at least was until recently) a successful replicator whether anyone has noticed or not.
Successful is an interesting word. It’s basically meaningless in and of itself. Something is successful (or not) only with respect to a specific goal. This is a key idea in personal coaching (at least, as it was taught to me).
You cannot say it’s successful or not in any kind of completely objective way. But you can invent any number of subjective metrics by which it might or might not be successful. That’s really the question, successful from what point of view?
It’s successful from the point of view of spreading itself far and wide.
It’s unsuccessful from the point of view of impacting the most individuals in a direct manner.
It might be successful from the point of view of having influenced a maximal number of individuals, depending on what derivative works were to whatever degree based on it.
It might be unsuccessful from the point of view of dropping an idea into the world and then vanishing without another trace.
To say that it is successful or not based on whether or not it follows the success metric of another category of thing all together is rather like saying I’m not successful because I don’t have gills.
my 2.41 yen.
I’ve read his “Blood Magic,” and the ending was so awful I’ve been reluctant to look at any of his stuff again. In Blood Magic, which also talks about junk DNA, the story takes a turn in which the individual cells in a person gain consciousness, and because they can observe the universe at a quantum level, they can do anything. He makes the classic mistake of believing that an “observer” in a quantum system is a person looking at something, whereas to a scientist, the word “observer as a much different and more narrow meaning–an “observer” is any thing, such as an electron, whose state depends in a thermodynamically irreversible way on the state of the thing being observed.
Anyway, that was maddening enough to completely destroy my suspension of disbelief and ruin the entire book for me, so I never went back.
Yeah, I’ve used Jabberwocky. It’s great to let it carry on for several pages in Klingon. 🙂
Adobe Indesign up through version 2 used the standard “lorem ipsum” text, but I just tried it in InDesign CS on this computer and it’s complete gibberish, not the good old-fashioned “lorem ipsum” at all any more.
Re: I’ve been reading “On the Origin of Species”
I just did some research. It appears that Darwin included the expression in the fifth edition and later editions of On the Origin of Species, largely because Spencer had already popularized the phrase. There is (no surprise here, I suppose) a Wikipedia article on the subject.
Thanks! 🙂 This is the kind of stuff that goes on inside my head all the time.
I haven’t had a chance to read The God Delusion yet. It’s on the list when I’m done with Why People Believe Weird Things.
In this case, biologists tend to define the “success” of a gene and philosophers tend to define the success” of a meme on the same criteria: how widespread it is.
I think both the junk DNA and the Lorem Ipsum both show a shortcoming in that definition of “success,” because while both are widespread, I have trouble conceptualizing anything so completely inert as “successful.” So ‘successful from what point of view’ is exactly the million-dollar question.
I have things just like this going on in my head all the time, too. Except not as clever, and not as well thought out, and not as articulately expressed.
🙂 His views on cryonics aside, Michael Shermer is always worth reading. I spent quite a bit of time reading bits of Why People Beleive Weird Things at the bookstore a couple of weeks ago. Fun stuff!
I think you’re understating your point. From a biologist’s standpoint, the success of a gene is precisely how well it replicates, with no other value judgments associated. I don’t see this as a shortcoming at all. It’s unambiguous and unclouded by personal value judgments.
From this perspective, I think that it’s entirely correct to say that Lorem Ipsum is (or at least was until recently) a successful replicator whether anyone has noticed or not.
Re: I’ve been reading “On the Origin of Species”
Stephen Jay Gould pointed out in one of his essays that, because of this and other addenda, the first edition of Origin is better than its successors. Sadly, finding a cheap first version is most frustrating.
A note on bee reproduction, however; if the queen dies, the hive does not. They can just make another queen.
Queens and drones are haploid, having one half compliment of genes (like most sexual reproducers); the workers the queen lays, however, are diploid, having a full compliment of genes from both the parents. If the queen dies, the hive workers lay haploid eggs and wait for the new queen and her fetilizing retinue.
Laying new queens takes energy and time, though, precious resources that can reduce the hive’s likelihood of genetic success, so your point about sacrifice of the individual is still relevant.
I mention this not to harp about mistakes, but because;
That the last point is almost never mentioned always seemed to me the work of revisionist feminists working at disseminating surrepticious social constructivism. . . .
Sometimes, it surprises me that you’re still alive… 🙂
Sometimes, it surprises me that you’re still alive… 🙂
It’s certainly not too late to learn to touch type. You would just need to decide how much time you want to invest in it.
If you want a proofreader/editor/data entry specialist, I’m cheap.
…okay, I’ve always been cheap. I’m cheaper than usual. :-p
It’s certainly not too late to learn to touch type. You would just need to decide how much time you want to invest in it.
If you want a proofreader/editor/data entry specialist, I’m cheap.
…okay, I’ve always been cheap. I’m cheaper than usual. :-p
Re: Leaseweb.com. Hosting and Ip addressing. ¿a hackers network?
Hi Tacit.. I was faster and saved my results. noticed that DNS forit was created on 30/03/2007 and expired on 30/03/2008 . NMAP to that host on 2008-03-25
[*]503\x20Service\x20Unavailable
Initiating Ping Scan at 22:40
Scanning 85.17.184.31 [2 ports]
Completed Ping Scan at 22:40, 0.22s elapsed (1 total hosts)
Initiating Parallel DNS resolution of 1 host. at 22:40
[*]
Initiating SYN Stealth Scan at 22:40
Scanning hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31) [1715 ports]
Discovered open port 22/tcp on 85.17.184.31
[*]open port 21/tcp on 85.17.184.31
[*] open port 443/tcp on 85.17.184.31
[*] open port 80/tcp on 85.17.184.31
Increasing send delay for 85.17.184.31 from 0 to 5 due to 204 out of 509 dropped probes since last increase.
Discovered open port 8080/tcp on 85.17.184.31
Completed SYN Stealth Scan at 22:42, 115.70s elapsed (1715 total ports)
Initiating Service scan at 22:42
Scanning 5 services on hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31)
Completed Service scan at 22:44, 93.95s elapsed (5 services on 1 host)
Initiating OS detection (try #1) against hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31)
Retrying OS detection (try #2) against hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31)
Initiating Traceroute at 22:44
85.17.184.31: guessing hop distance at 13
Completed Traceroute at 22:44, 10.41s elapsed
Initiating Parallel DNS resolution of 14 hosts. at 22:44
Completed Parallel DNS resolution of 14 hosts. at 22:44, 0.19s elapsed
SCRIPT ENGINE: Initiating script scanning.
Initiating SCRIPT ENGINE at 22:44
Completed SCRIPT ENGINE at 22:45, 31.72s elapsed
Host hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31) appears to be up … good.
Interesting ports on hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31):
Not shown: 1710 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
21/tcp open ftp ProFTPD 1.3.1
22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 3.9p1 (protocol 1.99)
|_ SSH Protocol Version 1: Server supports SSHv1
80/tcp open http Apache httpd 2.2.6 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.6 OpenSSL/0.9.7a PHP/5.2.5 mod_fastcgi/2.4.2)
|_ HTML title: H-SPHERE
443/tcp open ssl OpenSSL
8080/tcp open http-proxy?
1 service unrecognized despite returning data. If you know the service/version, please submit the following fingerprint at http://www.insecure.org/cgi-bin/servicefp-submit.cgi :
SF-Port8080-TCP:V=4.60%I=7%D=3/25%Time=47E971DF%P=i686-pc-windows-windows%
SF:r(GetRequest,D4,[“*H*]TTP/1\.0\x20503\x20Service\x20Unavailable\r\nCache-Co
SF:ntrol:\x20no-cache\r\nConnection:\x20close\r\nContent-Type:\x20text/htm
SF:l\r\n\r\n<[*]ht[*]ml>
\nNo\x20serv
SF:er\x20is\x20available\x20to\x20handle\x20this\x20request\.\n\n”)%r(FourOhFourRequest,D4,”HTTP/1\.0\x20503\x20Service\x20Unavaila
SF:ble\r\nCache-Control:\x20no-cache\r\nConnection:\x20close\r\nContent-Ty
SF:pe:\x20text/html\r\n\r\n
503\x20Service\x20Unavailable\nNo\x20server\x20is\x20available\x20to\x20handle\x20this\x20request
SF:\.\n
\n”);
Aggressive OS guesses: Linux 2.6.9 (92%), Linux 2.6.18 (92%), Linux 2.6.22.1-32.fc6 (x86, SMP) (89%), FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE (88%), Infoblox NIOS Release 4.1r2-5-22263 (88%), Linksys WAP54G WAP (88%), Linux 2.6.18 (CentOS 5.1, x86) (88%), Linux 2.6.18 (CentOS 5, x86_64, SMP) (87%), HP Brocade 4100 switch; or Actiontec MI-424-WR, Linksys WRVS4400N, or Netgear WNR834B wireless broadband router (86%), HP 4200 PSA (Print Server Appliance) model J4117A (86%)
No exact OS matches for host (test conditions non-ideal).
Uptime: 2.295 days (since Sun Mar 23 15:40:02 2008)
TCP Sequence Prediction: Difficulty=200 (Good luck!)
IP ID Sequence Generation: All zeros
Service Info: OS: Unix
TRACEROUTE (using port 21/tcp)
HOP RTT ADDRESS
[…]<- Here i deleted my own ip and saved some characters (It has a limit of 4300) Also notice on the reply i added [*] to break up HTML codes and save characters 7 94.00 [*](193.251.241.26) 8 109.00 [*] (208.184.210.234) 9 125.00 [*](208.184.210.233) 10 141.00 [*] (64.125.23.6) 11 78.00 [*] (64.125.23.25) 12 78.00 [*] (64.125.26.45) 13 78.00 k331.leaseweb.ams1.nl.above.net (82.98.254.66) 14 78.00 temp_ip.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.3) 15 78.00 hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31) I hope it helps,... Kind Regards
Re: Leaseweb.com. Hosting and Ip addressing. ¿a hackers network?
Hi Tacit.. I was faster and saved my results. noticed that DNS forit was created on 30/03/2007 and expired on 30/03/2008 . NMAP to that host on 2008-03-25
[*]503\x20Service\x20Unavailable
Initiating Ping Scan at 22:40
Scanning 85.17.184.31 [2 ports]
Completed Ping Scan at 22:40, 0.22s elapsed (1 total hosts)
Initiating Parallel DNS resolution of 1 host. at 22:40
[*]
Initiating SYN Stealth Scan at 22:40
Scanning hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31) [1715 ports]
Discovered open port 22/tcp on 85.17.184.31
[*]open port 21/tcp on 85.17.184.31
[*] open port 443/tcp on 85.17.184.31
[*] open port 80/tcp on 85.17.184.31
Increasing send delay for 85.17.184.31 from 0 to 5 due to 204 out of 509 dropped probes since last increase.
Discovered open port 8080/tcp on 85.17.184.31
Completed SYN Stealth Scan at 22:42, 115.70s elapsed (1715 total ports)
Initiating Service scan at 22:42
Scanning 5 services on hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31)
Completed Service scan at 22:44, 93.95s elapsed (5 services on 1 host)
Initiating OS detection (try #1) against hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31)
Retrying OS detection (try #2) against hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31)
Initiating Traceroute at 22:44
85.17.184.31: guessing hop distance at 13
Completed Traceroute at 22:44, 10.41s elapsed
Initiating Parallel DNS resolution of 14 hosts. at 22:44
Completed Parallel DNS resolution of 14 hosts. at 22:44, 0.19s elapsed
SCRIPT ENGINE: Initiating script scanning.
Initiating SCRIPT ENGINE at 22:44
Completed SCRIPT ENGINE at 22:45, 31.72s elapsed
Host hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31) appears to be up … good.
Interesting ports on hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31):
Not shown: 1710 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
21/tcp open ftp ProFTPD 1.3.1
22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 3.9p1 (protocol 1.99)
|_ SSH Protocol Version 1: Server supports SSHv1
80/tcp open http Apache httpd 2.2.6 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.6 OpenSSL/0.9.7a PHP/5.2.5 mod_fastcgi/2.4.2)
|_ HTML title: H-SPHERE
443/tcp open ssl OpenSSL
8080/tcp open http-proxy?
1 service unrecognized despite returning data. If you know the service/version, please submit the following fingerprint at http://www.insecure.org/cgi-bin/servicefp-submit.cgi :
SF-Port8080-TCP:V=4.60%I=7%D=3/25%Time=47E971DF%P=i686-pc-windows-windows%
SF:r(GetRequest,D4,[“*H*]TTP/1\.0\x20503\x20Service\x20Unavailable\r\nCache-Co
SF:ntrol:\x20no-cache\r\nConnection:\x20close\r\nContent-Type:\x20text/htm
SF:l\r\n\r\n<[*]ht[*]ml>
\nNo\x20serv
SF:er\x20is\x20available\x20to\x20handle\x20this\x20request\.\n\n”)%r(FourOhFourRequest,D4,”HTTP/1\.0\x20503\x20Service\x20Unavaila
SF:ble\r\nCache-Control:\x20no-cache\r\nConnection:\x20close\r\nContent-Ty
SF:pe:\x20text/html\r\n\r\n
503\x20Service\x20Unavailable\nNo\x20server\x20is\x20available\x20to\x20handle\x20this\x20request
SF:\.\n
\n”);
Aggressive OS guesses: Linux 2.6.9 (92%), Linux 2.6.18 (92%), Linux 2.6.22.1-32.fc6 (x86, SMP) (89%), FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE (88%), Infoblox NIOS Release 4.1r2-5-22263 (88%), Linksys WAP54G WAP (88%), Linux 2.6.18 (CentOS 5.1, x86) (88%), Linux 2.6.18 (CentOS 5, x86_64, SMP) (87%), HP Brocade 4100 switch; or Actiontec MI-424-WR, Linksys WRVS4400N, or Netgear WNR834B wireless broadband router (86%), HP 4200 PSA (Print Server Appliance) model J4117A (86%)
No exact OS matches for host (test conditions non-ideal).
Uptime: 2.295 days (since Sun Mar 23 15:40:02 2008)
TCP Sequence Prediction: Difficulty=200 (Good luck!)
IP ID Sequence Generation: All zeros
Service Info: OS: Unix
TRACEROUTE (using port 21/tcp)
HOP RTT ADDRESS
[…]<- Here i deleted my own ip and saved some characters (It has a limit of 4300) Also notice on the reply i added [*] to break up HTML codes and save characters 7 94.00 [*](193.251.241.26) 8 109.00 [*] (208.184.210.234) 9 125.00 [*](208.184.210.233) 10 141.00 [*] (64.125.23.6) 11 78.00 [*] (64.125.23.25) 12 78.00 [*] (64.125.26.45) 13 78.00 k331.leaseweb.ams1.nl.above.net (82.98.254.66) 14 78.00 temp_ip.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.3) 15 78.00 hosted.by.leaseweb.com (85.17.184.31) I hope it helps,... Kind Regards