Thursday, August 26, 2010

ワ~危なかった

Had a small gathering with high school mates today, kind of a impromptu farewell gathering for one of them (WWW :D).

Had lunch at Gardens Sushi Zanmai, chatted for a few hours, reminiscing the past, gossiping about the relationship statuses of different classmates.

Had a couple foosball matches (GM, tsk tsk tsk) before we finally go home.

That’s when I found out my little yellow car is not responding to my remote control.

“Okashii na…”, I tried pressing the button again while looking closely at the LED on the control – it is certainly working.

It can only mean one thing – the car’s dead.

Manual unlocking works, and the alarm didn’t sound – the alarm’s dead.

Tried igniting the engine, no response – the battery’s dead.

No open-door signal, no ignition ring – the battery is definitely dead.

Ooh yeah, I’m in deep shit now.

I asked a patrolling security guard to hold the bonnet while I pop it open (the bonnet was damaged, the release clutch doesn’t work without someone pulling the bonnet itself).

He got curious and asked, and I replied my battery’s dead.

He said they have a car downstairs and can help me with a jumpstart.

“Safe!” I thought.

Or not.

The colleagues back at their patrol counter told me my car is parked too far (7th floor), if it was parked at the basement, they could help me jumpstart it with their Kancil.

The only option they give me was: I have to find a volunteer car to donate some electrons, while they lend me their jumper wires.

Any sane person wouldn’t help a stranger in doing such a feat, especially in a quiet car park, especially in such a “safe” country we fondly referred to as “Bolehland”.

Luckily, my uncle, a mechanical engineer who likes to collect and tweak cars, who lived nearby, dropped by and gave the car some proper ‘cardio defibrillation’.

Right before the jump start process, the car actually showed some signs of life – the signal lights and ignition ring are glowing weakly, but the car still wouldn’t start.

Moral of the story: Keep a pair of jumper wires in the car, or better, a spare battery – in case something like this happens, and you’re in the middle of nowhere, and it’s dark outside, and there’s a guy holding a knife walking towards you, and there’s a girl wearing white floating towards you.

Shit does happen.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

もう一度、悪い

Sorry for the abrupt (and sloppy) ending to the story. I’m usually suck at writing long essays (they usually end with a sloppy anticlimax), especially when I had to attend college during daytime.

Have to go to bed, tomorrow’s another college day.

青島の大作戦―最終話

Preface

This is a true story portraying how Qingdao Jiahe Dadi Technology Trade Co. Ltd. (青岛嘉和大地科贸有限公司, www.zgqdjck.com) – a faux company in China, lure and scam legitimate foreign businesses, from a perspective of a third party.

Part of the names are intentionally replaced to protect the privacy of some parties.

 

Chronicle VI: The Prestige

[Shattering Hopes]

It was Monday, the day Liu promised to sign the contract after his company’s executive meeting. He called in the morning, saying they will drop by the hotel during afternoon.

Everybody was nervous. Questions like “will they come”, “will they sign”, “what if they don’t come” were continuously popping up in Nacel’s mind.

The family waited until afternoon, and called Liu, to confirm the exact time of the meeting.

This time, Liu said it is before 5PM, and the whole conversation was recorded in Nacel’s iPod.

Nacel and Sister started to compile all the information, photos and other evidence into portable files to prepare them for submission to the police.

At 5PM, Liu and his gang’s contacts were no longer reachable. A final call to the “office” was made and it got through, the woman on the other side of the line said Liu has left the office, while the other two key persons were still around.

When pressed on why the people couldn’t be contacted, the woman contradicted and said everybody left the office. Sister trapped the woman who answered the call to admit the company’s address is indeed No. 7, Changsha Road.

The entire conversation was recorded.

The very last glimpse of hope was shattered. It was time to report to the police.

[Kicked Around]

The entire family went to Changsha Road once more, and called 112. In less than 10 minutes, a 4WD police vehicle arrived at the scene.

The officer whom stepped out of the car looked like a veteran in his sixties, he and Dad exchanged conversations and roughly knowing the situation.

While the conversation was ongoing, there was a man, probably in his twenties, tried to snap the photo of the family with the officer using his mobile phone.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the officer immediately turned towards the man.

“I was just playing…” the man replied, panicked.

“What is that? What do you think you’re doing?” the officer repeated, and snatched the phone from the man.

“Get in the car!” a grab on the neck, the man is hustled the man into the back of the police vehicle.

“Is he some kind of spy?” Sister asked Nacel.

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“That’s some kick-ass officer,” Nacel thought.

The family then followed the officer back to the local police station.

At the police station, Dad made a report and explained what happened to the officers on duty. However, the officer has decided that the incident was outside their area of jurisdiction, and should be reported to the local police station near the hotel instead.

It was late evening, the family rushed back to the other police station, luckily the driver was kind and helpful throughout the journey. This time, the police station was packed with people.

As the family walked into the office, a girl asked Sister if she is a reporter, seeing Nacel was carrying a not-so-portable camera around.

Apparently, there were too many cases and too little manpower during that time, the family waited for more than half an hour just to get their turn to report.

There where a few officers questioning Dad, while walking around, and going in and out of the room, before one of the officers finally settled down.

The officer, probably in his forties, was not in a good mood. After listening for a while, he decided the case was out of their jurisdiction, and should be reported to the local police station near MYKAL instead.

Not only after a session of debate and a call with the local HQ, the officer agreed to take on the case, but advised the family to make a report at 8AM the next morning.

“I guess there are scammers in your country too as well?”

Tired, the family headed back to the hotel. The driver only surcharged 10 RMB, even after following the family through all the troubles – has earned himself respect among Nacel’s family members.

The entire journey in Qingdao was very rough and tiring – from flight delays, to simple scammer cabs, to well-planned business scammers, on top of that, getting referred around to different police stations. These incidents had left a deep scar in the whole family, especially Nacel’s Dad, whom had lost a large sum of money during the course of this incident.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

RCX and Ragray

For those who have issues with RCX with Ragray: “Analysis of RoAddr went wrong”.

Because the entire Google has not yet publish any fixes yet, I’m going to tell you what exactly is the problem.

RCX by default reads patch2.txt to determine the algorithm to use for the recv-hooking-address-search-function (what a mouthful).

What you need to do is copy/steal/create patch2.txt (here’s an example: http://nopaste.info/4534d71f72.html), and place it at the root folder of your RO client.

Have fun :3

Friday, August 6, 2010

青島の大作戦―第五話

Preface

This is a true story portraying how Qingdao Jiahe Dadi Technology Trade Co. Ltd. (青岛嘉和大地科贸有限公司, www.zgqdjck.com) – a faux company in China, lure and scam legitimate foreign businesses, from a perspective of a third party.

Part of the names are intentionally replaced to protect the privacy of some parties.

 

Chronicle V: The Struggle

[Planning the Next Move]

After calling the credit card department, only Nacel’s Dad realized the card was charged twice – with an amount of RM7,000 immediately after the initial RM14,000.

Although the second transaction seemed suspicious at first, it took Dad a while to recall he did signed for the second transaction – another 50 grams of gold. A total of one hundred plus fifty grams of gold, worth more than RM20,000 is being given to Liu, clearly demonstrated the amount of influence alcohol can make to a human brain.

Dad obtained the name of the department store Liu brought him earlier – 麦凯乐 (MYKAL), from the credit card customer service representative.

“Maybe we could get a copy of the receipt from them,” he said. A copy of the receipt would be an evidence of Dad paying for the gold, while Liu signed the confirmation of receipt.

“Let’s call the police,” Sister suggested.

“We could tell them we are foreigners here for a business trip, and we suspect the other party is a scammer.”

Within 30 minutes after hanging up from the 112 emergency number, two police officers arrived at the hotel room – an efficiency never to be seen back at home.

After explaining the whole incident to the officers, one of the officer stated that they did not have enough evidence to support the claim of the other party being a scammer.

“You will need to pay the company, in Changsha Road, a visit and report to the local police there,” he explained (again, in Mandarin – virtually nobody there speaks English), with a heavy accent.

Before sleep, the family discussed various ways of collecting more evidence, from subtle actions such as letting the other party sign an agreement on the few merchandises they had already given them, to more aggressive approach such as recording conversations secretly while leading the other party into disclosing the whole event.

It was already past sunset, they would have to wait for the next day. They had only one day to act.

[Investigation]

On the next day – Dad and Sister had a fight during breakfast. Nacel’s Dad planned to called up Liu for a meeting on the day itself, while secretly recording the conversation, but Sister insisted on a more thorough plan before calling them up.

In the end Dad and Mom stayed at the hotel, while the others began their investigation on the shady company – Qingdao Jiahe Dadi Technology Trade Co. Ltd. (青岛嘉和大地科贸有限公司, www.zgqdjck.com).

First stop – No. 7, Changsha Road.

The journey from the hotel to Changsha Road was around half an hour. Nacel had prepared a printed map from Google Maps the night before as the local cabs were mostly unfamiliar with the area.

Changsha Road is a long-stretching main road with supplier shop lots of different kinds of hardware at the sides, When they finally arrived at No. 7, Changsha Road – they discovered something odd.

“Looks, there’s 7-1, 7-2, 7-3… The whole block is No. 7!” Nacel exclaimed.

They started asking the different shop tenants for directions to the company printed on the business cards of Liu and his colleagues.

Nobody knew the company existed, not until they met the middle-aged woman.

They stopped and bought drinks from a small roadside food stall, and the woman was looking after the stall.

“They moved away a couple of weeks ago,” the woman said when presented one of the business cards.

“Have you seen the company before? Where was it situated at?” Sister asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen them before. I’m not sure where they moved to either,” the woman replied.

“How does she know they’ve moved when she has never even see the company before?” Nacel was thinking.

“Here’s a package left by the postman a few days ago,” the woman took out what appeared to be a document parcel, placed on top of another box which looked like a bigger parcel.

The parcel is addressed to Qingdao Jiahe Dadi Technology Trade Co. Ltd. (青岛嘉和大地科贸有限公司, www.zgqdjck.com) , sent via EMS (International standard Express Mail Service) from a Singapore company.

Upon closer inspection, the customs declaration form stated it is some sort of product sample.

The parcel was delivered to the woman because the postman couldn’t find the address. The woman told Sister usually someone will approach and collect the parcels from her.

From the looks of it, the company is definitely non-legit, and Dad’s company is not the only one getting conned.

They immediately hired a taxi, and moved on to another location – the registered address of the company. Changsha Road was the printed address on the business card and website.

However, from the findings in the Qing Dao business registrar’s website, the registered address pointed at another address – Liaoning Road, which was the next destination they were moving to.

During the journey, Sister phoned up the Singapore company through details obtained from the parcel and informed the person-in-charge about the matter.

“At least dad helped another company through his misfortune,” Nacel thought.

Liaoning Road is a techno-geek’s paradise – a high-tech hub of Qing Dao, along the road are full of shops and shopping malls selling digital consumer electronics, computers, and repair services. It was like Lowyat Plaza, Digital Mall and everything other electronic stores back at home at one place.

“If it wasn’t for these bunch of bastards, I’d spend a damned happy day right here.”

The address pointed to a shop lot inside an electronics mall. The walls in the shop lot had wallpapers with 青岛嘉和大地科贸有限公司 written. Looks like they finally struck the jackpot.

The problem is – it was closed.

“Oh, they moved away a few months back,” when asked about the company from the nearby shop lots.

“I’m not sure where they moved to,” it was Déjà Vu once more.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

悪い、悪い

The Qing Dao saga is put on hold, while I’m preparing to sit for a test tomorrow.

Monday, August 2, 2010

青島の大作戦―第四話

Preface

This is a true story portraying how Qingdao Jiahe Dadi Technology Trade Co. Ltd. (青岛嘉和大地科贸有限公司, www.zgqdjck.com) – a faux company in China, lure and scam legitimate foreign businesses, from a perspective of a third party.

Part of the names are intentionally replaced to protect the privacy of some parties.

 

Chronicle IV: The Deception

[Ambushed]

It was the day Liu and his superiors have a meeting with Dad. Worried about keeping the other party waiting, the family settled for breakfast at the restaurant in the hotel lobby.

Unfortunately, the buffet breakfast had finished, at an early time of 9:00AM. Back at home, it is customary for the hotel breakfast to be served at least until 11:00AM, but to think of it, the sun in Qing Dao is already halfway in the horizon as early as 6:30AM.

Fortunately, the restaurant serves simple ala carte menu, consisting of only two items – noodles and soup dumplings.

The noodles in plain soup, when taken with the soup dumplings, was surprisingly good, Nacel thought. The soup dumplings were so much better than the ones served the night before, and the whole breakfast for five only costs around 35 RMB.

The family then briefly discussed how they were tricked into dining in a “tourist restaurant”.

At noon, Liu brought along two other men to the hotel room Nacel’s family stayed in – a medium sized man with a face full of acne scars who introduced himself as Zhou Xin Bo (周新博, Supervisor 总监); and a slightly taller man with a tanned skin, Yu Jie (于杰, Manager 总经理).

Dad was talking to them in the living area, while the rest of the family stayed in the bedrooms to avoid disturbing the meeting.

About an hour later, Liu and his companions invited the family for lunch, again at the hotel lobby restaurant.

The youngsters were given the chance to pick and order the dishes, while the adults continued with their discussion.

As for the drinks, it would seem that it is customary for liquor to be taken – Zhou ordered a bottle of traditional rice wine for the adults and a bottle of Qing Dao beer for each of the youngsters.

Nacel’s Dad obliges out of respect, although he is not a drinker back at home.

Before the food arrived, Dad invited Liu, Zhou and Yu Jie for a group photo. Strangely, they were a bit reluctant.

During the course of the meal, they chatted on topics ranging from the population of Qing Dao, to the higher education in China. Yu Jie even suggested Nacel to further his studies in China.

“Chinese scholars, when working abroad, serve the purpose of glorifying the name of the motherland (China) by providing their expertise abroad; while those who chose to remain in China, are serving and helping the development of their motherland,” Yu Jie said.

“It is good for our Chinese brothers abroad, to return and serve the motherland. We are all the same kind.”

“Son, did you hear what he said?” Dad asked Nacel.

Nacel nodded, for manners’ sake. Deep down, he was thinking about the matter – with all the censorship, filters and limitations placed in China, accessing the latest information is already an obstacle by itself.

Meanwhile, Dad’s face was already bright red, although he barely finished 3 quarters of a glass of that white wine. Mom was worried and kept asking him to stop.

“No, I know my limits. I’m okay.”

Halfway during the meal, Liu whispered to Dad and they both left the table shortly, without explaining anything.

“Discuss about private matters?” Nacel thought.

The remaining of the group continue their conversation as if nothing has happened.

“Why don’t you kids go out and play? You don’t need to accompany us adults,” Yu Jie suddenly said.

The youngsters smiled.

“No, it’s okay,” Sister replied. Having Mom alone with two strangers is not a good idea.

While waiting for Dad and Liu to return, the men drank bottles of beer and smoked packets of cigarettes. They invited the youngsters to do the same, but as non-smokers, the youngsters only drank beer.

“Do you know where is Liu and Dad?” Sister asked the men after waiting for half an hour.

“I’m not sure myself. Let me give them a call,” Yu Jie replied while taking out his limited edition gold plated Nokia phone.

“I have to go to the washroom,” Mom suddenly stood up and left the table.

“It’s fine, you kids can go out and play. We’ll wait for your dad. Don’t worry, we entrusted Liu with your dad’s safety,” Yu Jie explained.

Nacel was puzzled. The thoughts of “where did they go”, “what are they doing” were appearing in his mind.

“Something is fishy. I’ve asked girl to take a photo with the men.” Nacel received a text message from Mom.

It is not until Dad returned, accompanied by Liu, Nacel let out a silent sigh of relief.

“Dad, your hair is messed up,” Sister said.

“Really? Maybe because of the strong wind in the cab,” Dad replied while excusing himself to the washroom.

After Dad returned, they chatted for a while before leaving.

[Crisis Core]

Back in the hotel room. The rest of the family members were curious and started questioning Dad on what happened.

“I’ve received a call from the credit card department on a RM14000 transaction on your card. They said they couldn’t contact you,” Mom said.

“We took a cab to a jewelry shop in a department store, to buy gold bars as gifts to the officers.”

“Gold bars? What were you thinking?” Nacel thought.

“He said the receipt will be reported to the company and the cost will be deducted from the 5%,” Dad appended.

“Do you have a copy of the receipt?” Sister asked.

“No, I don’t,” Dad replied after checking his pockets.

“Are you sure we’re not being cheated?” Mom asked, worried.

“I don’t rule out the possibility of getting cheated. But I’m willing to take the risk,” Dad affirmed.

“Dad, you should have at least insisted on the receipt!” Sister started to panic.

Dad remained quiet.

Nacel sensed something is not going right and opened up his netbook.

“There should be a record of this company somewhere on the Internet,” he thought.

“This is odd,” Nacel thought after checking the whois records of the company website (www.zgqdjck.com), the domain was registered March the same year.

Upon closer inspection on the web pages’ URL, they were oddly named “new_page_x.htm”.

“A large company’s website in HTML, and sloppy filenames to boot, what were these people thinking?” Nacel’s suspicions grew stronger.

Upon inspecting the web pages’ source code revealed that the web pages are authored using Microsoft Front Page. On top of that, a shocking discovery – the forms inside the web pages were all static JPEG images – there is a high possibility that these pages are plagiarized from another website.

“Something is wrong, something is terribly wrong,” the red alert siren in Nacel’s mind started to sound.

“Oh my god,” Nacel suddenly blurted out.

“Dad, you have to see this. The pages are copied exactly from another company’s website,” Nacel announced, after viewing the crosschecking results of Google search on the keywords used in the website.

(i)

骗子网站Scammer’s websitehttp://www.zgqdjck.com/new_page_2.htm

抄袭来源Actual source fromhttp://www.cncie.com/about.asp

(ii)

骗子网站Scammer’s websitehttp://www.zgqdjck.com/new_page_4.htm

抄袭来源Actual source fromhttp://jbgj.cn/cn/products_list.aspx

(iii)

骗子网站Scammer’s websitehttp://www.zgqdjck.com/new_page_7.htm,

抄袭来源Actual source fromhttp://jbgj.cn/cn/contact.aspx

(iv)

骗子网站Scammer’s websitehttp://www.zgqdjck.com/new_page_1.htm

抄袭来源Actual source fromhttp://jbgj.cn/cn/job.aspx

“My god…” Dad’s final words before he sat down on the sofa, holding his head.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

青島の大作戦―第三話

Preface

This is a true story portraying how Qingdao Jiahe Dadi Technology Trade Co. Ltd. (青岛嘉和大地科贸有限公司, www.zgqdjck.com) – a faux company in China, lure and scam legitimate foreign businesses, from a perspective of a third party.

Part of the names are intentionally replaced to protect the privacy of some parties.

 

Chronicle III: The Inception

[Masquerading Daemon]

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have now arrived at Qing Dao Interrrnational Airrrprot. *gibberish* apologize *gibberish* delay *gibberish* due to weather. Yourr underrstanding is much apprrrreciated.”

It was very foggy outside, hard to tell if it was caused by mist or haze. The ground was wet, hinting the cause of the flight delay was probably due to rain.

As they are walking out of the arrival hall, Nacel’s family was immediately greeted by a man of slightly plump figure, with short and slightly curled hair.

The man immediately identified himself as Liu Zhi Qiang (刘志强, International Affairs 国际部) and helped with the luggage while leading the family to the already-prepared transport.

“You must be tired, with all that lengthy flight,” he said in Mandarin with a typical Chinese accent, while loading the luggage to a China-manufactured MPV.

“No, no, it’s okay. Sorry to have kept you waiting,” Nacel’s Dad immediately apologized.

En route to the hotel, Liu and Dad had a conversation on the possible future collaborations between the companies, as well as other random topics like the weather and attractions in Qing Dao.

“The Qing Dao beer is originated by the Germans during their stay in Qing Dao. We have an annual beer festival here,” Liu said when the topic moved on to the famous Qing Dao liquor industry.

The entire trip from the airport to the beach hotel took almost an hour. Going through rural areas with many small factories, towards the more urban main city.

青岛东海大酒店 (lit. Qing Dao Dong Hai Grand Hotel) has a lobby that smelled of traditional Chinese herbs and dried fish, probably due to the exposed restaurant on the same floor.

The family performed the hotel check-in process, oddly, with their own credit card. As Liu explained, the hotel bills would be refunded by his company at a later date.

The hotel suite was spacious, with a fusion of western and antique Chinese decor, 2 bedrooms, a living area, a kitchen, but only one toilet.

There was another problem – there were not enough beds.

While the family is satisfied by calling an extra bed from room service, Liu insisted the family to rest in the room temporarily while he contacts the manager for a more suitable room.

Moments later, the family is relocated to a very similar room, but with just enough beds for everybody.

Liu sat down and talked with Dad for a moment while the others were unpacking and settling down.

Then he asked about the two units of iPhone 3GS.

“The phones are not for me. The wives of the supervisors requested for them.”

Nacel’s Sister hesitantly handed over the phones to Liu, while Dad expressed his intentions of giving them away as a gift.

“No, no. We don’t do business this way – there’s a difference between private and business matters. The receipt of the phones, along with the hotel bill will be submitted to the company and the costs will be deducted from the 5% rebate,” Liu firmly declined the offer.

“I will bring you to dinner later. At the mean time, please take plenty of rest,” Liu said before he left.

[Calm before the Storm]

It was a very foggy sunset in Qing Dao, Nacel was busy trying to snap a decent photo from the hotel room’s dirty stain-covered glass window.

The room’s phone rang and broke the silence, with Dad picking up the phone.

“Liu said he will let us rest, so he will not be joining us tonight. Tomorrow morning he will be bringing his superiors over for a small meet-up,” Dad announced after hanging up the phone.

“Such a considerate man,” he added.

With empty stomachs need to be filled, the family headed out and hired a cab for a place to dine.

After a few minutes of drive, the cab brought them to a crowded seafood restaurant, with a small mutton satay stall right in front of it.

The service was very poor and lengthy, some of the customers were upset and ended up ordering the waiters to cancel their orders.

Strangely enough, the ordered food showed up only moments after the cancellation request, baffling the customers.

It was not until a bill of over 1000 RMB is presented to Nacel’s Dad, that the family realized they were probably duped by the cab driver into dining in an overpriced “tourist restaurant”.

Worst of all, the food wasn’t that great. With that price tag, anybody could enjoy a five course meal multiple times in a decent restaurant at home.

Little do they know, this was just the beginning.

痛い

Qped-Peja eh o zaorjrod. Uixb.