My Own Michelson Morley Moment
© 2024 Mark McWiggins
I have been trying to get a web server up for just months! I’ve tried Caddy, Lighthttpd, Flask, and the previously working Apache … all of which showed various crazy errors the past few weeks.
I kept scratching my head and saying “wtf??” watching these strange error messages go by.
But finally I looked below at the error messages on the syslog: they were like this:
2:56:59:a2:6d:5a:fe:00:00:00:01:01:08:00 SRC=83.222.190.110 DST=178.128.191.203 LEN=40 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=236 ID=43215 PROTO=TCP SPT=52360 DPT=1833 WINDOW=1024 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0
Oct 7 18:18:04 cloudy-1717049581157-s-2vcpu-2gb-sfo2–01 vmunix: [233283.185212] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=f2:56:59:a2:6d:5a:fe:00:00:00:01:01:08:00 SRC=80.75.212.9 DST=178.128.191.203 LEN=40 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=243 ID=54321 PROTO=TCP SPT=45074 DPT=19124 WINDOW=65535 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0
Oct 7 18:18:22 cloudy-1717049581157-s-2vcpu-2gb-sfo2–01 vmunix: [233300.881444] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=f2:56:59:a2:6d:5a:fe:00:00:00:01:01:08:00 SRC=89.248.163.197 DST=178.128.191.203 LEN=44 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=243 ID=58937 PROTO=TCP SPT=43895 DPT=1014 WINDOW=1025 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0
Oct 7 18:18:42 cloudy-1717049581157-s-2vcpu-2gb-sfo2–01 vmunix: [233320.721182] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=f2:56:59:a2:6d:5a:fe:00:00:00:01:01:08:00 SRC=154.9.235.80 DST=178.128.191.203 LEN=40 TOS=0x08 PREC=0x20 TTL=244 ID=18100 PROTO=TCP SPT=45101 DPT=8888 WINDOW=1024 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0
Oct 7 18:18:56 cloudy-1717049581157-s-2vcpu-2gb-sfo2–01 vmunix: [233335.559765] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=f2:56:59:a2:6d:5a:fe:00:00:00:01:01:08:00 SRC=139.99.236.119 DST=178.128.191.203 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=44 ID=832 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=34062 DPT=22 WINDOW=64240 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0
Oct 7 18:19:20 cloudy-1717049581157-s-2vcpu-2gb-sfo2–01 vmunix: [233358.752364] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=f2:56:59:a2:6d:5a:fe:00:00:00:01:01:08:00 SRC=79.110.62.175 DST=178.128.191.203 LEN=40 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=242 ID=46110 PROTO=TCP SPT=42926 DPT=14989 WINDOW=1024 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0
I realized then that the whole problem was this malware running on the Comcast network. The scales fell from my eyes and I have a relatively simple fix … a few lines of Python code.
When Michelson and Morley first got their equipment calibrated enough to calculate the Sun’s speed through the “lumineferous ether” it turned out there wasn’t any! This kicked off the revolution in Quantum Physics that we know today. (Instead of WTF, I gather those Victorians must have said “By Jove” or “what Ho!”)
I should have my code shaken out later today and I will post an update here then. Thanks.
I have the code here:
https://github.com/markmcwiggins/supersecure
Mark McWiggins
425–369–8286
