SoftLayer == Niche Player

Anyone who's ever followed Gartner's Magic Quadrants knows the lower left corner is usually the Loser's Quadrant.  If you can't make it to at least the "Challengers" quad (losers with attitude), there's not much your marketing department can do to help you spin the news.

Whenever an MQ is unleashed unto the world, the press releases start to flow from the Gartner-proclaimed  Challengers, Visionaries, and Leaders.

Not so much from the Niche Players.

So it's somewhat surpising to see SoftLayer strutting their stuff over their Niche Player status in the latest Gartner MQ for "Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Web Hosting" (Price US$1,995).

Well, good for them.  They've had a checkered past.  Nice to see they're finally cleaning up their act.

NegotiateHOST/(machine_name)

Did Google bring you here?

I ask because last time I Googled "NegotiateHOST" (Did you mean Negotiate HOST?) I got nothing.

As in Jack Shit.

And that never, ever happens.  Kind of a jaw-dropper.  I mean, Google has everything.

So I decided to get the #1 (for now) Google hit for "NegotiateHOST".  Just because I can.

Anyway, there is this sevice called "lsiagent.exe" (and its little buddy, LsiUser.exe) that you will not find in Control Panel→Services (you can find them in TaskManager) that listens on TCP Port 57632.  If you telnet to that port you will get the response in the title of this blog entry.  And, like me, you will say to yourself, "What the Hell is that shit?"

That shit comes from here.

Relax, it's legit.

I don't want to get into what it is or why it's there.  You can figure that out for yourself.

All I want is the Google hit.

And a port 57632 fuzzer.

Life During Cyber Wartime

Heard of a Prius that's loaded with iPhones
Packed up and ready to go
Heard of a Web site, up on GoDaddy
A place where nobody goes
The sound of noobies, off in the distance
I'm getting used to it now
Squatted in a mantion, squatted in a rental
I squat all over this dump

This ain't no Facebook, this ain't no Twitter
This ain't no surfing around
No time for blogging, or online dating
I ain't got time for that now

Upload the log files, to the sysadmin
Hope for a backlink some day
I got three avatars, a couple OpenIDs
You don't even know my reddit name
Back there at 4chan, hackers uploading
Everyone's ready to troll
I schlep in the daytime, I hack in the nightime
I might not ever get laid

This ain't no Facebook, this ain't no Twitter
This ain't no surfing around
This ain't no MySpace, or fucking flashmob
I ain't got time for that now

Heard about Google? Heard about Yahoo?
Heard about eharmony dot com?
You oughta know not to surf using Windows
Somebody hack you out there
I got some thumb drives, some elite kid scripts
To hack a shitload of sites
But I ain't got no iPod
Ain't got no earbuds
Ain't got no iTunes to play

Trouble in transit, we got through Websense
We blended in with the noobz
We got some shell code, we're hacking telcos
I know that that ain't elite
We dress like hipsters, we dress like camwhores
or in stinky old shorce
I changed my goatee so many times now
I don't know what I look like!

You make me nauseous, I feel like puking
We make a decent Red Team
Don't get exhausted, I'll do some coding
You ought to get you a latte
Why stay in college? Why go to tech school?
Gonna get certified this time?
Can't write an email, can't send e-postcards
I can't do nothing at all
This ain't no Facebook, this ain't no Twitter
This ain't no surfing around
I'd like to hack you, I'd like to pwn you
I ain't got time for that now