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Emory University SCCM Server Accidentally Reformats All Computers Campus-wide
acidradio writes: "Somehow the SCCM application and image deployment server at Emory University in Atlanta accidentally started to repartition, reformat then install a new image of Windows 7 onto all university-managed computers. By the time this was discovered the SCCM server had managed to repartition and reformat itself. This was likely an accident. But what if it weren't? Could this have shed light on a possibly huge vulnerability in large enterprise organizations that rely heavily on automated software deployment packages like SCCM?"
Sounds like a good way to get rid of Malware
Time to test those backups!
Kind of sounds like a snake eating its tail....
The configuration deployment server apparently upgraded itself into a configuration deplorement server.
Ezekiel 23:20
Be interesting to know how much actual data was lost
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
The problem with centralized control is that the center can give any commands it wants...
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
SCCM is pretty good. It makes my desktop techs jobs significantly easier to deploy assets company wide. In this case, it sounds like someone pressed some buttons without being 100% clear as to what was going on. Unfortunate someone will not be working in IT ever again.
I think the big surprise here is that this doesn't happen more often.
Consider how many corporations, universities, and such have huge PC deployments with automated updates. I've seen updates that drop all the PCs off the network, but I've never seen one where everything is wiped.
I'm also surprised that I haven't heard of malware that accidentally wiped a network of 100K or more machines when someone sent the wrong command.
Or maybe the news here is that it was in a more open environment where people hear about it. If a publicly traded company wiped a thousand PCs at its headquarters, you bet they would try to keep it quiet.
I bet the IT department is changing each other's diapers now! And updating their resumés....
Mostly random stuff.
A desperate attempt to delay taking finals?
Considering how easy it would be for a less-than-savvy IT person to accidentally encourage this situation, I doubt this is a sensational case of some huge vulnerability.
As someone who regularly provides consultation to IT staff, I know full well that there's plenty of 'administrators' that wade into waters they don't understand. We often encounter the aging IT staff member that's forced to interact with software they don't quite understand or we have the younger IT staff that impulsively click on what they don't understand, both occasionally leading a company to some manner of pandemonium level disaster. Or you simply have a dysfunctional IT department that doesn't communicate and, "oh, I'll just move this server into this container right here..." Just another day in IT.
No such instruction should be actionable without being compulsorily deployed to at least one test system, and the actions manually checked and confirmation given to the SCCM.
No instruction which affects a significant number of systems should be possible without manual confirmation to continue with the next batch of systems.
An instruction which is applied across several classes of systems should be treated as if separate instructions for each system.
I've seen enough mid-level sysadmins think that being able to write puppet scripts elevates them to god-like status, but being a good IT janitor is hard - it's primarily not about automating your job as much as possible, but about having such an intimate understanding of your system that it ends up running so smoothly that nobody thinks you're needed. (Yes, this creates a problem if you work for THAT sort of company, but nothing will change unless you fight.)
Knowing that people have been running various kinds of centralized update services, perhaps across multiple OSes, and spanning several years now, listening to a story about an update server literally going rogue and nuking everything attached to it, and then for the coup de grace, basically committing suicide at the end by reformatting itself, does not sound like an accident.
If it truly was, I'd hate to see what the hell purposeful intent looks like.
It reformatted the drives and put Windows on them. Eeewww! That's gross!
Bad news most likely on this front. I have worked University IT, and I can guarantee they are going to have problems.
For one, no matter how many layers of backups you have, when you are working with a bunch of 90 year old academics, they will always find a way to miss every single one.
And more grievous, Universities tend to have important data that absolutely cannot be backed up in any normal way. Data that is legally obligated to stay on one specific computer in one specific room and never leave; under penalty of legal action.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
This is why centralized data storage and automated installation are invaluable for managing larger sets of desktop/office computers.
If at my workplace a computer breaks, gets stolen, catches fire, whatever, I fetch a new one from the basement, tell the PXE server to load the installation image. 15 minutes later, the user can resume their work.
Then again, it's probably much more complicated to achieve this with Windows.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
When I worked in the IT in my work study program, shared computers would be re-imaged often. We would usally re-image 300-400 computers at time. Often it was just some professor wanting certain program, it was just easier and safer just to wipe the machines. Malware was big problem at the time, sasser hit all of are computers, that sucked.
It sounds like the commenter above was teachable - he no doubt learned his lesson.
It also sounds like the company's owner knew he could learn this lesson. That's the mark of a great manager.
Whether the Emory staffer responsible for this mistake is teachable or not, I hope his boss can tell the difference. Some folks aren't teachable, some are. If the Emory boss is worth his paycheck, he should be able to tell.
In my company IT tests all upgrades on the isolated small network before deploying. You would imagine that this should be standard practice.
But there's no saying that this would have prevented the problem, so it's irrelevant. You can fatfinger just as easily in production as in test and staging.
And you can even introduce new problems if not careful. Like a script washing the test deployment environment, like clearing the test target IP by mask, and inadvertently leaving the network address in its place.
With no information about what the real cause was, advocating a cure is not very helpful. Even if it's best practice and something that should be done, it is premature and can derail the investigation and fixing of the real root cause.
mac systems may not even boot with the old Partition tables that are needed for older NON EFI systems that windows runs on.
also the Mac os Recovery Partition may even be wiped out.
"Somehow" makes it sound mysterious and inexplicable. I'd be willing to bet that the truth is far less sensational. I could see a student tech assistant doing something like this on a dare, or a low-skilled admin just clicking OK one too many times, without actually reading the warning message.
Sure but the test environment will almost never be absoloutely identical to the production one. So there is still room for unexpected admin screwups when deploying to the production system.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Not only have they had to re-image all their PCs, you've now slashdotted their web server!
netboot or even an windows script that reformat the system will run on system targeted systems. Also dells, HP, both AMD and Intel and have ways for windows apps to set bios settings and some places have netboot as the default setting in boot order.
It could happen to the whole planet.
And I have seen a lot of machines try to PXE boot by default. That has got to stop.
apple uses EFI / UEFI.
older Pc's don't have it and in some cases with pc that have it have it turned off so they can boot XP, Windows 7 (in some cases), disk encryption, and other stuff.
32bit os's yes some places put 32 bit loads on systems with 4gb or more ram in them.
So it goes, so it has been, so it will be.
Ecclesiastes 1:9 and from Battlestar Galactica the new one. "All this has happened before and will happen again."
I am an SCCM 2012 administrator in real life. This is really easy to do, in fact I've almost had it happen to one of my sites. this is an example of why training is important. Somebody probably attempted to do an automated reload of a single computer lab and issued the deployment to the wrong collection. There's nothing mysterious about it, somebody screwed up.
SCCM is a geat and powerfull tool, but this is the risk that is run whenever you use an automated system. expecally to do reloads.
JB
"Because the university ran nightly backups, they were able to restore all the PCs to the correct state later that afternoon."
If they had a centralized SCCM server, they should have a central backup server as well.
This is why removing domain admin from the list of local admins is the 1st thing to do.
apple uses EFI / UEFI.
older Pc's don't have it and in some cases with pc that have it have it turned off so they can boot XP, Windows 7 (in some cases), disk encryption, and other stuff.
32bit os's yes some places put 32 bit loads on systems with 4gb or more ram in them.
Well in some cases that's for the best. 4GiB or even 8GiB is the standard amount of memory of many computers, not that one would want any thing less anyway (it wouldn't lower the costs noticeable).
And there are reasons to run 32 bit OS installations on 64 bit systems, I've have to use a separate 32 bit Windows installation in a VM to run some important programs.
Obviously human error... there is no patch for it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The God of Regular Expressions is stern and unforgiving. You follow his Commandments strictly. Put a star where a star should be and a dot where a dot should be and respect and obey the square brackets. It does not matter whether an aspiring acolyte priest tried to write a prayer above his station or the Most Reverend His Rootness was careless in writing his prayer, you make a mistake and God of Regular Expression will smite you down like nobody's business.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I can attest to the fact that this was no accident.
You have to explicitly, or have the unfortunate luck of clicking the wrong 20 correct buttons in a row, to do something like this, SCCM is not a one-click wonder.
GJ whoever did this, good luck with the networking department though.
FOG works by defaulting every computer to PXE boot.. so it's a perfect environment for destroying everything? Interesting stuff would happen with something like a fuck up in the dhcp ranges. On the other hand if you serve a nice diskless linux desktop by accident, that's somewhat nicer than the intended boot to local Windows.
We already have things like User Account Control that prompt for explicit authorization for potentially detrimental actions. Perhaps systems like SCCM should have an option to require authorization from two people (like turning two keys to launch a nuke) for operations such as wiping out hundreds of computers.
This would not prevent a rogue administrator from wreaking havoc, but it might eliminate the "accident" defense.
About two years ago, a community college near me had the exact same thing happen. I don't know the excruciating details, but the basics were the same SCCM wiped out all of the servers that it was used to manage..
I didn't work for the college then (I do now), but I did know a few people that did at the time. The person that triggered it is still there. From what I understand what he was doing and the way he went about it, although in hindsight was dangerous, wasn't a really reckless thing.
Our campus is less than 30 minutes drive to Microsoft's main campus, and there was a lot of pressure for us to use their systems. I think the college paid the price for caving to that pressure. Sure, there are other factors involved here as well... A careless employee, an unintuitive result from an interface/script, poor safety mechanisms in both policy and the product, poor design by both the vendor and the college..
From what I understand, one of the most devastating aspects when it came to recovery, was that the server that held backups (Microsoft's data protection manager of course) was wiped out as well.. I think in this particular incident, only system drives were annihilated, so if a server had a "D" drive or other volumes, it was still there, it was just a useless lump sitting on a server with no OS for a while at first.
Having never heard a similar story with any other software product, I'm left believing that SCCM and it's deficiencies are at least partially to blame, and given what I know about the person that caused it here, I'd say that it's a pretty respectable bit of the blame that should be left on SCCM.
Someone realized pretty quickly what was going on (not the person that caused it), and pulled the plug on the process somehow or our college would have been even more devastated. As it stood, it was still pretty bad.. Probably only about 25% of the full destructive power of the mess as averted.
My policy is that to err is human, to have proper backups is professional. Running a complex SQL update statement on a million records? That sure might have unintended consequences, so first run "select into" so you have an untouched copy to revert to. I EXPECT people to mess up. I also expect them to realize that they'll mess up, and plan accordingly.
In other news, students and staff have reported that their computers are performing much better than usual and site-wide malware and associated bandwidth hogging has massively reduced.
University now plans to do this every month.
hiring incompetent IT staff
Don`t forget True Detective. Time is a flat circle
Watashi wa chikyubutsurigakusha desu.
Schmemory
This is not the sig you're looking for.
Why wasn't the development of such a tool a graduate research project ?
Oh please goddess no. You'll end up with some arcane piece of experimental theology written in a private version of a language no-one has ever heard of, undocumented and unsupportable. Have it written by someone with a suitable track record, a suitable number of decades experience in whatever, and with proven implementations and documentation skills. It will be expensive, but it will cost far less in the long run.
Could this have shed light on a possibly huge vulnerability in large enterprise organizations that rely heavily on automated software deployment packages like SCCM?
This is really about a huge vulnerability in large enterprise organizations that rely on Microsoft. Incidentally, Google Inc. is not one of them.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
SCCM only suports PXE booting to run a task sequence - Mac's can't really boot off PXE.
Ne need to fear about AI enslaving humans in the near future: for now computers remain really dumb!
... and if I'd lost any files to this fiasco, I would henceforth absolutely REFUSE to use any computers that were accessible to SCCM, and I'd be trying to convince all of my colleagues to do the same.
Do you really think someone with that much experience would be wasted on what MS consider a niche product with a captive market?
If it installed Linux on all the computers then on itself.
...it would have installed Windows 8.
How unsurprising to find paranoia is comorbid to your underlying mental problems. It must be very tiring living with all that circular reasoning going round inside your pointy little head.
I don't down-mod you, APK, I don't need to. Other people do that for me. I tend to use my mod-points for rewarding insightful or interesting posts, because I am not pregnant with bile in the manner that you are, poor little boy.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Oh, & funny they're NOT doing it now (it was you & K.S. Kyosuke obviously & you're outta modpoints gas today, lol! You FAIL/lose, as always, vs. the SUPERIOR apk!)
Yup, that's about the reasoning level I expect from you. The 'superior' APK.
Actually, I have five mod points that I've not used yet, expiring tomorrow.
BTW, if you're the 'superior' APK, I'd hate to see how inept the standard-model APK is.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
You, The Liar, wouldn't know truth if it knocked on your front door.
Amusingly you then call everyone else a hypocrite. You are an endless source of funnies, APK.
Oh, and you know the best thing about my post about your mental issues? It's currently scored at 3 but it spent a while at +5 which means lots and lots of people read it, no doubt many of them had a good laugh at you.
Interestingly, it has remained above its initial score which suggests that on the whole, people agree with me about you.
Tell me again how you're my better?
What was that about how superior you think you are?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Too easy huh? Yes, it's very easy to claim victory as you pick yourself back up off the floor, little boy.
Funny, I don't see other people write things like this post about me; no, they're talking about *you*, Mr. Personality.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
You're repeating yourself again, another sign of your mental instability.
Why not post your Hosts file 'look at meeeeeee I was modded up once apon a time' shit again while you're at it? It's sure to convince me this time and I know everyone on Slashdot loves reading your posts.
I know you won't admit it APK but I've really burned you this time haven't I? You think it might have been something to do with this dissertation on your messed-up brain, huh?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
You made it easy for him in raving profanely which contradicts your lies on rational discourse. You stalked his posts foaming at the mouth. You did it to yourself.
And somehow I'm supposed to believe this isn't APK, sock-puppeting his own posts. You've been called out on it so many times yet you persist - the very definition of madness, APK. Every post you make just proves my point further. Keep posting - keep digging your hole.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
He's correct you profanely ravied stalking his posts yet talk rational discourse?
Could you try that again, this time in English?
Give us a break hypocrite.
More circular logic from a fool who couldn't reason his way out of a wet paper bag.
Funny part was his saying you had to "eat your words" and that you only did to yourself.
Did what to myself? Amuse myself endlessly as you squirm on my hook? This line is so rich it just had to receive special mention!
This name-calling brat would have you believe he is a supporter and not of APK himself - nosiree, nuh-uh, not at all. LOL. The comedy just writes itself! It isn't difficult to see why APK is known as the Slashdot Clown. At least he makes us laugh!
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Hi, APK, I don't think you know what 'contradiction' means. Do you think it might have something to do with your 'faoming' at the mouth?
BTW, I really fail to see why you're so terribly upset about me asking you to fuck off. You only did it to yourself, after all. You certainly seem quite upset, but don't feel it was a one-off: if you want, I can tell you to fuck off in a public forum and not get modded down again and again.. what does that say about you?
Oh, sorry, I forgot! I'm not meant to know that this is APK, right?
How do I know? It's not rocket science. It's simply because nobody writes posts in support of you. If they did, they wouldn't use the same childish language that you use, APK.
You are clumsy and stupid, surely that must hurt by now? Poor little boy.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
So basically, exactly the same as SCCM. Got it.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
You can't even do a decent job of pretending to be someone else, APK. If you can't even fuck up properly, what use *are* you exactly?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Actually, it sounds rather a lot like it is YOU who is foaming at the mouth if your recent posts are anything to go by.. or did you forget that crap-flooding you did, several dozen posts I do believe. Yes, APK, it is obvious you have taken a proper caning and you don't like it one little bit, poor little boy.
Oh and here's another one of your fans replying to my original post, you may find it insightful. I wasn't aware of Depakote before now, perhaps it's something that might help you?
Note to watchers: APK's insightful riposte to this post will likely take the form of "nuh-uh, that's YOU pretending to be an AC!". My response is, as always, I don't need to. My arguments stand on merit with no need of AC supporters to back me up. I'm quite capable of skewering the little wriggling APK maggot all by myself, thank you very much.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
It was a task sequence intended to deploy an entire operating system. Funnily enough, that starts off by preparing the disk for the installation.
Or are you saying Linux is a piece of shit because it prepares to install by running fdisk?
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Try that on 10,000 computers.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
A bit about SCCM for those who are wondering.. It basically allows you to automate Windows and software installations by using what's called a task sequence. The task sequence is a list of commands, for example, reboot to WinPE, partition, format, install windows, join domain, install software, etc. A task sequence can either be available or required. It can then be assigned to a group of computers that the admin assign, for example "All 32 bit Windows 7 machines" Someone obviously did the number one SCCM nono.. NEVER make a task sequence a requirement for All Systems. :)
Here's hoping that maybe, just maybe they had User State Migration enabled so it backed up everyone's data before formatting.
Don't underestimate IPMI and its equivalent (what was Intel's name for their proprietary alternative? ME ?)
With this kind of technologies, you have a small mini-embed system in the motherboard, which talk over a TCP/IP network and provides all functionnality (including wake-on-lan, including shutdown, including reboots (AND specifying what resource to reboot to - like starting PXE or emulated-over-network USB driver), including VNC remoting, and Serial-over-IP (for some server remoting).
Think of all the niceties you have inside a VirtualBOX or VMWare emulator, but on actual real hardware.
It's very popular in enterprise settings so sysadmins can update a whole division's computers, instead to having to walk to each one of hundreds of machine).
So it available under some form on most workstations, servers, and enterprise laptops.
If you need to upgrade machines, the usual procedure is:
1. you politely ask the user to not start any over-night computation and if possible leave their machine off.
2. when the evening comes you log into the lights-out management of each of the target the workstation over *IP* (no MAC-address shenningans, straith IP address) (you either have simple accounts with password, or you can have it integrated to some larger systems)
3. because none of the user would have actually left the workstation off as requested, you first try to nicely shutdown the machines (you send an ACPI soft-off signal, and hope that the OS will react and nicely save and shutdown).
4. after a timeout you force shutdown the remaining machines (you send a Reset or Power OFF signal)
5. you boot all the machine and ask them to load your payload instead of the disk (it can be either classical PXE, or you can remotely emulate a USB drive) so all machine boot the management software even that bizare guy who insist on having CD as his primary boot device on his workstation.
6. you remotely launch the necessary administration. Either it runs unattended, or you can remotely control if needed (depending on the tool used, you might use a proprietary administration tool, or SSH, or Serial-over-Internet. If it's an asinine tool, you might need to VNC)
7. you reboot the machine and let them follow normal boot order.
The system has lots of advantage:
- it can be scripted with command line tools.
- you can even change BIOS settings, etc.
- it's handled by an embed system (usually part of the chipset) so this is completely independent of what the main CPU is doing (the workstation might be running or might be powered off).
The system has a few drawbacks:
- massive security problems: the user-friendly web-interface of lots of "lights-out" implementation is buggy and an exploit-nightmare (most securing recommandation start by "turn the web console off").
- security problem: you need to setup proper accounts and passwords (to avoid a script kiddie wrecking havock after having guessed a few standard passwords. Minimum is setting acceptable local accounts)
So, going back to the discussion:
- if the workstations have Lights-out remote administration (virtually all enterprise hardware is sold with)
- if the remote administration is properly setup...
You have full control possibilities on the whole fleet of workstations, without any of the hassle of dealing with low-level functionnalities like PXE, WOL, etc.
If an administrator has done a bad job at automating it all, you might end up with the whole enterprise being remotely reformated.
At least the students machine are probaly safe:
- the consumer grade laptops don't usually feature "lights-out" management.
- the student who has bought an enterprise-class laptop probably hasn't it activated (and if the student is savvy enough to turn it on for own use, the student has sure enough setup decent accounts).
Given the security problems mentionned above, that means NSA and China have probably full administrative access to 1/3 of all enterprise workstations running everywhere.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Umm, offline backups?
That's why you have off-line backups, indeed. Also filer snapshots. Otherwise, instead of a rather big problem you have a gigantic showstopper problem.
But when I do, I reformat the entire campus and SCCM http://i.imgur.com/zpMmtNw.jpg
YOUR question? Your question APK?
Now, following this is the text of that question, purportedly posted by someone other than APK. That's right, APK wants us to believe he has supporters who will argue in his defence. Oddly, they all seem to say the same childish things and are written in a very familiar style. That's right - this is the level of intellect at work here ladies and gentlemen. I give you: APK, the Slashdot Clown!
An 'Anonymous Coward' writing in support of APK (no it's not APK nuh-uh no way!):
How did your words taste since you had to eat them rammed down your throat since your foot was in your MOUTH washed down with "the bitter taste of SELF-defeat" when APK made you eat them http://slashdot.org/comments.p... [slashdot.org] for your blundering stupidity opening your mouth which wrote a check your dim brain can't cash? (Tell us since we've been asking & "inquiring minds want to know") 244++:1 odds against you from your own /. peers contrary opinions to your own butthurt obviously biased stalker troll "opinion" which got shot down in flames by apk.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
You're repeating yourself again APK. Protip: merely repeating an argument doesn't strengthen your position, it actually weakens it because by doing so you publicly demonstrate that you actually have nothing.
Oh, and as far as this goes:
244++:1 odds against you from your own /. peers
This is one of my personal favourites, the cherry-picked list of up-mods. Most amusingly, the lowly childish troll APK doesn't realise that his cherry-picked list only demonstrates his own lack of intellectual capacity and honesty. For your list to NOT be cherry-picked, APK, it would need to be compared against a list of all the times you were DOWN-modded. You won't do this, because you know damn well your list of down-mods would dwarf your up-mods. Furthermore, you purposefully fail to understand because to do so means you would be proven wrong. Can't have the truth getting out, can we APK? Might make you look bad.
You failed to understand this when I explained it earlier and unsurprisingly you still don't agree with my conclusion. However it's not really myself you are disagreeing with; you've only to look up the principles of the scientific method (or even basic Statistics) to see that I am correct, but you won't do this because you are convinced of your own superiority to those around you and because you are a coward who barks like a dog but runs at the first sign of intelligent rebuttal. You then hypocritically accuse others of 'running' from your 'argument' when its painfully obvious to all onlookers that you haven't actually managed to scrape together enough of an argument to respond to.
Thus we return to the present position with APK; his head in the sand, speaking directly from his anus.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Ah, no. Sadly, just like APK, this 'anonymous' troll doesn't understand basic stats. Also, we're all supposed to believe that other people hang around Slashdot just to support APK, cunningly using the same language and links APK does.
You are a liar, APK. You resort to dishonest tactics because you know you're wrong and you know you are near-universally disliked. I shouldn't have to explain the simple fact to you that getting a mod point from someone seven years ago doesn't mean they LIKE you, nor does it mean they AGREE with all of your points. It certainly doesn't mean they STILL agree, after all this time.
You're got nothing but lies, shameful fraudulent behaviour and a (likely deliberate) misunderstanding of statistics to back you.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Hmm, your first link should probably be to one of my posts, shouldn't it? It instead goes to another one of your own laughably-childish posts which attempt to discredit me by linking to an old post of mine. Well, I'm not afraid at all - here, I'll reproduce it below. It was my (somewhat restrained) response to a snivelling post by APK, who was whining about how unfairly his crapflood-posts are modded down. Apparently, this is what APK considers a "FoaMiNg-@-The-MouTh" ReAcTioN:
Fuck off you predictable, useless waste of space.
Meanwhile, APK crap-bombs this thread with dozens and dozens of outraged, shrieking posts about what a meanie I am. I think this is a rather nice demonstration of what "foaming at the mouth" really looks like, yet it took APK himself to show us how it's done. Thanks APK! =)
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
What's that you say? Haven't actually GOT an argument so you've gotta keep repeating the old one that I ran through the shredder here and here?
Yeah, thought so. This is one of the many reasons why you are a loser, APK, and will always be.
I've thoroughly and exhaustively answered your question, but because you're completely devoid of any intellectual ammunition, throwing the same question at me again and again is your only choice.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Ho ho ho, another APK 'supporter' who (just happens) to have not commented before now on an old thread that is not being viewed by anyone except APK and myself, spewing the same lame tripe APK is known for, writing in APK's style and posting links to APK's posts.
Are you going for some sort of award for publicly-and-obviously-doing-something-whilst-all-the-while-loudly-proclaiming-to-not-be?
Oh, and I've answered your question plenty of times before, but because you don't like the truthful answer, you think you can 'win' the argument by simply asking the question again. I've really met my intellectual match in you, haven't I? [rollseyes]
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
What question?
You ask no questions in that post you don't answer yourself, so I'm not sure what you think I'm avoiding. In case it helps (because I know you're pretty thick and have trouble with anything that requires thinking) we call a question like that rhetorical. Go look it up before complaining.
Perhaps instead of mindlessly crapping out another link to the same post, you could instead try explaining why you think I'm avoiding your 'question'?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Ah look, the intellectually-dishonest APK is asking his repeatedly-addressed question again.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
They may boot with the old partition table, but if you do not obey the old partitioning, they will not get any further.
You see, when Macs boot, they use a special OS loader in the EFI partition (a FAT-formatted partition). The EFI loader loads it (bootx.efi, IIRC) and executes it as an EFI program. That EFI program then looks for the OS system partition and loads the kernel. The OS loader uses the EFI library to access the hard drive and display and has a built-in filesystem driver to read HFS+.
Without the EFI partition, you'll just get the blinking question mark as EFI can't find the OS loader.
So, what you're really saying is that you've no answer to any of the above?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
APK, your post is delusional. You have not made anyone 'eat their words' because you don't have what it takes to do so. You've yet to come up with a cogent argument so hold off the champagne cork popping buddy, you've won nothing.
Why do you continue this ridiculous charade, pretending to be someone else?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Wishful thinking, APK.
To debate with logic and facts you'd need to have some. I've yet to see any logic from you APK and your 'facts' are nothing of the sort.
If you actually had anything you wouldn't need to keep telling me how terribly you crushed me, now would you?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Run like a dog? Isn't that what I just said to you? Why do you always co-opt other people's words? Is it because there's not much imagination going on in that pumpkin inside your skull?
BTW this was not off-topic stalking, you retard. YOU were off-topic in the thread and were being RIGHTLY TOLD TO FUCK OFF. You can expect this sort of reaction to you posting whiny little snivellings like the puerile bitch you are.
Don't like it? Don't fucking whine. Bitching and complaining that you're being 'stalked' is the height of selfish, childish stupidity. A pity your parents didn't do a better job of bringing you up.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Perhaps in your stupidity you failed to understand that a question that has already been answered by the asker is not a question at all.
Prove otherwise.
As to your re-asking, here's another answer for you (don't forget to claim I'm still avoiding the question though!): "FUCK OFF" is an entirely appropriate response to the infantile level of garbage you post here. Your anus is still burning that most people around here seem to agree with my assessment of you.
After all, in all the time you've been here you've only got that paltry list of up-mods to show for yourself. Pity you didn't record all the down-mods, now THAT would make a very, very long list - don't you agree? HAHAHHAHAHAHA
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
You bet!
And, if you keep stalking me and posting your feeble stupidity to Slashdot, you can expect more of the same.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
You wish!
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Avoiding my question because it's difficult? How quintessentially 'APK' of you.
As has been explained to you, my post that upset you so greatly was a response to your childish complaint and had nothing to do with what Trax had said to you.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
More wishful thinking buddy!
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Only a fact in your own private universe where maths works differently than it does for the rest of us.
Once again you can't handle the truth so you run. Is this why you're so obsessed with telling people they've 'run forrest run' from your silly accusations?
I see you've avoided my question again. What is it about you that makes you so damn hypocritical? You always do that which you've just accused others of.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Nope - not stalking, just sick of seeing your tripe on Slashdot and prepared to call you out for your pathetic behaviour.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
I'll take that as a "Yes" then.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
More wishful thinking, APK. Keep beating your head against the glass like a dirty black blowfly. We'll just sit back and watch you. Don't hold your breath waiting for someone to open a window for you though.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Wladimir:Obviously eatng your words upset you greatly & you stalked apk raving profanely http://it.slashdot.org/comment...
What are you talking about APK? You've never made anyone eat their words because you're too busy eating your own! HAHAHAHHAA!!!
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Is 243 greater than 1? Yes. Eatng your words made you stalk apk raving profanely http://it.slashdot.org/comment...
That wasn't my question. You've re-framed it to avoid answering because you know you're wrong. Pity you haven't got the chops to stand up against me and have to resort to childish diversionary tactics.
Well, you'd better find something stronger by way of argument, because we adults have known for a long, long time how to deal with naughty children like yourself.
So, will you man up and answer my question or will you "run, Forrest, run" like you always do (screaming "I won! I won!" over your shoulder as you retreat) because you're a cowardly little boy?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Wladimir: You stalked apk off topic raving profanely since you can't disprove his points http://it.slashdot.org/comment... since you've tried that before and failed miserably being unable to do so.
Come up with a valid point first before complaining that I can't disprove it.
So, will you man up and answer my question or will you "run, Forrest, run" like you always do (screaming "I won! I won!" over your shoulder as you retreat) because of your immature-little-boy cowardice?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
you're unable to disprove apk's points validly on adblock being inferior to hosts files
WTF? You really are a complete fucking retard, APK. If your mental illness wasn't clouding your (already sketchy) judgement, you might not make such ridiculous claims.
Go on, demonstrate to me where I argued that Adblock is superior to your hosts files nonsense?
Well go on you fucking accusatory cunt, show me! What's that, you fuckwit loser? Cat got your tongue? You can't remember how to speak English? Frankly I'd be impressed to find you have the mental firepower to walk and chew gum at the same time.
From APK: wounded silence. Well, cunt? I'm waiting for your answer!
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
243:1 odds against you http://it.slashdot.org/comment... Wladimir you stalked apk off topic raving profanely http://news.slashdot.org/comme... and Wladimir you're unable to disprove apk's points validly on adblock being inferior to hosts files http://it.slashdot.org/comment...
No, 'APK' maths does not equal 'real world' maths. Come back to me when you have an argument.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Accept it - it's fact
I accept that you have no understanding of what you are talking about.
Go on, prove to me that you are correct and that your cherry-picked list is in any way statistically valid. Go on, I'm waiting.
Get some medication for your math difficulties. You need them. It's also "mathematics" dolt. Not "maths". Get a real education also.
1. Maths is a perfectly legitimate abbreviation for the word 'mathematics'. I suggest you do some research before opening your cake-hole, dolt.
2. I am satisfactorily educated, thank you very much. You may have noticed that I write at a much higher literary level than you can muster. I also find it typically hypocritical of you to attack my education, given the common knowledge of how poorly the US educates its children. You are definitely a product of this sub-standard education, as evidenced by your need to attack mine.
You need that too judging by the fact you *think* 244 1.
No, I don't 'think' 244 is less than 1. However, as you've had explained to you a number of times, you are an utter failure. Your comparison is merely another example of your incompetence and I laugh derisively at you for failing to understand such a basic concept.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Sardaukar86, hate to tell you this but, 244 apk favoring posts is greater than your trolling 1. Now stfu and go back to "eating your words" (lol) chump - it's not polite to talk with your mouth full (as you eat your own words, hahaha)
You are an utter failure. Your mental incompetence knows no bounds. You are a narcissistic, lying, crap-flooding, deceitful scumbag and your only hope of surviving an argument is to plug your ears and yell 'im not listening'.
Oh and as for that silly list of yours, why don't you tell me again how it's not cherry-picked? Why don't you argue for the validity of your 'data' with a cogent debate?
We all know the answer. You're completely outclassed here and your ship is taking on water. I think it's time for *you* to shut the fuck up, arsehole.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Sardaukar86's "FoaMiNg-@-The-MouTh" stalking
Hypocrite.
and completely off topic
Hypocrite.
Why? Sardaukar86 had to "eat his words" vs. APK
More of your wishful thinking, loser.
Yup, as I expected, APK the coward flees in terror.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
No, I think you'll find I haven't trolled you, cunt, what I have done is voiced the sentiment of MANY people on Slashdot who are FUCKING SICK OF READING POSTS BY APK regardless of their content.
Get that through your thick skull you fucking loser.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
More copy-pasta to prove APK has nothing at his disposal but a red, sore anus and a bad attitude. Loser.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Dreamer, try refuting my arguments instead of pasting more crap.
I'm going to have to take this as a white flag of defeat on your part. You've got nothing so you just keep pasting the same shit in? Yeah, you've lost.
Appropriate for a loser like yourself, wouldn't you agree?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Sardaukar86: 244 is greater than your 1 - accept it. It's fact. Elementary school math. Now, "eat your words" (lol) -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... which hopefully you have some manners and don't keep talking with your mouth full as you eat them (sparing us your bullshit).
No, idiot, you're not going to worm your way out of this one by copy-pasta, you little arsehole.
We've been through this, I've proven you wrong many times and yet you come back again and again with the same bullshit.
It's obvious you don't have anything, you sad little loser, so why don't you crawl back down that shithole you came from and leave us all in peace?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Excellent post, you just confirmed that you are not only ignorant, you are stupid as well.
Thanks for proving my point for me, you just lost the argument. Loser.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
My superior? You really are an egotistical fucking cunt, aren't you?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Ah, no, I believe you'll need to do that yourself. Or, if you're so certain of the validity of your workings, why don't you post an Ask Slashdot and see for yourself? You don't need to take my word for it.
Oh, and the CAPS were to enunciate the point carefully so you'd understand it, not a sign of annoyance on my part. Seems it was a wasted effort; there's no teaching the wilfully ignorant. You go on then, telling me how you beat me with your illogical point. Pity you can't back it up with reason, eh APK?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
APK knows very little, if your previous posts are anything to go by.
Go on, prove me wrong.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
It's fact. Like the fact you have to "eat your words" vs.your SUPERIOR, apk -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment...
Well, if you weren't being wilfully ignorant you'd understand my argument.
Because you know you're roundly beaten, you instead bang on this 244 is greater than 1 thing. Well, if it makes you feel any better, then yes, I agree, the number 244 is larger than the number 1.
Where you fail is when you try to apply this to our discussion. You can't use faulty statistics to win an argument when your opponent knows that they are faulty. I'm honestly amazed you can't get your head around this. Don't take my word for it, go educate yourself before using tools you don't really understand.
Until then, you'll be ridiculed as you deserve for using bad stats to prove your point.
I've shot you down in flames over and over again, repeatedly made you eat your words (all flavoured with the bitter taste of self-defeat). I didn't have to do anything, it was you that did it to yourself. Truly delicious.
Loser.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Now, go "eat your words" (not good nutrition but hey. that's how you roll) http://it.slashdot.org/comment... LMAO!
So you're going to avoid my point again? Sounds like the tactics of the thoroughly beaten.
Face it APK, you may squirm all you like but you're caught in the cold hard light of reality and everyone can see you're fucked.
Loser.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Hahahhahahaa
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Claim it all you want but the truth don't lie, APK. I'm not the one arguing against the way statistics work - prove me wrong if you can.
Coming up: more copy-pasta because APK has nothing.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Yeah, Slashdot DID speak for you - it said "You are a troll". What else would you expect, you hypocritical, stalking, crap-spouting Slashdot Clown.
Wiping tears from my eyes, thanks for that good laugh... do you honestly think people here LIKE you? You're the most reviled, pathetic piece of shit to ever grace this site - that's saying a LOT too, because we all remember people like MichaelKristopeit and you don't even compare.
Let me repeat this for you: YOU. ARE. NOT. LIKED.
No amount of mod points will change that, ever.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Dreams are free; unfortunately, the truth doesn't come easy to retards like you, APK.
Keep on fantasizing about your 'victory', loser.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Circular reasoning from APK, content-free posts.. is there anything you're useful for?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Wriggle, squirm. Can't make any ground against me so you have to repeat yourself.
Nothing to say, nothing to add, empty arguments, empty head, you couldn't fail any harder if you tried, loser.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Answer: none whatsoever, but you'd have to understand basic stats to know why.
Loser.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
APK demonstrates his childish lack of intellect by simply re-posting, thinking that this will somehow prove his point.
If you had something you'd offer it; instead you repeat yourself.
Logical conclusion: APK has failed.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
You FAIL again: Now, GO "eat your words" & I'd recommend a dietary change - since eating your words != GOOD NUTRITION (lmao) -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
I would have thought it important to get your links right, especially so for a self-important little prick like yourself.
Actually, thanks for giving me those broken links because you put me on to an interesting conversation with mmell. Looks like he's YET ANOTHER Slashdotter who has witnessed your stalking, lies, impersonations, then hypocritical accusations against others of same. Or did you think people wouldn't notice? Did you think you were too clever, perhaps? I wouldn't be surprised if you thought you were the cleverest person on Slashdot, you arrogant little cunt.
See, you may post your list of up-mods to try and prove your validity, but it doesn't hide your continual dust-ups with people because you are an arrogant, obnoxious, attention-seeking child. So yeah, there's nothing you can say that will 'prove' your value, there's no amount of up-modding to help you, because you are generally disliked here (see my previous post). Care to rebut that, or will you just evade and mindlessly rattle on about 244:1 again?
I think we all know what to expect from you, APK. Loser.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Unlike you, I don't *need* the "support" of others: I merely use facts
Well, I have to responses to that:
1. You clearly DO need the support of others as evidenced by your screaming tantrums when you feel 'disrespected'. Prove me wrong.
2. No, you do not know how to use facts. If you did, I would be able to debate the matter with you, as evidenced by my repeated attempts to do so. Instead, you cherry-pick and misrepresent data to suit your argument. In case it isn't blindingly obvious, this is called FRAUD and deceit and loses jobs for people in public positions.
Now do you see why I call you a cunt? You are utterly devoid of integrity and you disgust me.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Well, I have to responses to that:
s/to/two
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?