The problem with the Windows 10 Build 10586 (aka v1511, TH2) installer detecting versions of ESET's software that are compatible with Windows 10 as not being compatible has been fixed by Microsoft. Simply allow the installer to connect to the Internet for the latest updates and it will download an update that allows is to recognize all compatible versions of ESET's software.
Customers who were on the latest builds of ESET's software (v9.0.318 for consumer, v6.2.2033 for enterprise) were never affected by this, but customers who had older--but still Windows 10 compatible--builds did have there versions flagged when Build 10586 of Windows 10 was installed.
campaign finance reform (wrt. Citizens United v. FEC) copyright infringement (should it be a civil or a criminal matter) education (vouchers for private schools) intellectual property (in particular, patents on software) prostitution (legalization of)
It will be somewhat useful for troubleshooting, but Windows 7 has had the Problem Steps Recorder (filename: PSR.EXE) for years now, and Microsoft has offered a screen recording tool since at least 2009 for download via TechNet.
Chassis and Power Supply Case: Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl w/ USB 3.0 ATX Mid Tower Silent PC Computer Case Power: Corsair RM750 CP-9020055-WW 750 Watt ATX PS Accessory: Antec Easy SATA Hot Swap Hard Drive Caddy with eSATA Port
Storage Optical: Asus BW-12B1ST Blu-Ray R/W SATA Storage (SSD): 2 x Samsung 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256 256GB SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" SSD Storage (HHD): Western Digital WDBSLA0040HNC-NRSN Desktop Performance 4TB SATA 6Gb/s HDD Storage (USB): Seagate Backup Plus Fast Portable Drive 4TB USB 3.0
Compute, Graphics and Audio Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 PRO LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with USB BIOS CPU: Intel i7-4820K LGA 2011 64 Technology Extended Memory CPU Processors BX80633I74820K Cooling: Intel Thermal Solution Air RAM: 32GB - 2 x Patriot Viper 32GB (4Ã--8) Kit DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz PD000282-PV332G160C0QK Sound Card:: Creative Labs X-Fi Fatality Titanium Sound Blaster PCIe adapter card Video Card:: EVGA GeForce GTX660 SC 2GB GDDR5 PCIe 2.0 SVGA Card
Peripherals Monitor: Auria EQ276W 27" WQHD LED LCD Display Keyboard Rosewill Mechanical Keyboard RK-9000V2 Mouse:: Microsoft Trackball Optical USB mouse
System is used for a variety of professional and personal activities
If one looks at MojoKid's submissions to Slashdot, one notes they exist exclusively of links to articles at HotHardware.Com, which according to the whois data, is registered to a Dave Altavilla of Mendon, MA.
Never to ActiveWin, Ars Technica, HardOCP, Neowin, TechReport, WinBeta or the scores of other web sites which discuss, review or "engage in coordinate PR disclosure" of technology news, but always to HotHardware, never anywhere else.
Are MojoKid and Mr. Altavilla the same person? And why is he (are they?) only posting links to Slashdot to HotHardware,a site which, coincidentally, seems to rely on links to partner.googleadservices.com, www.google-analytics.com/, cdn.taboola.com, tru.am and other advertising and privacy-invasive sites in order to monetize its page views. All these hostnames should be blocked in your hosts file before visiting any links to hothardware.com to ensure you are not being advertised to or tracked (which seem to be very similar, these days).
If MojoKid/Altavilla are going to use Slashdot to generate revenue for themselves, they should at least let Slashdot's management know and note in their submissions that they are sending Slashdotters to a site which they generate revenue from; to not do so is unethical and abusive of Slashdot.
And in case anyone wants to throw a stone at my glass house, I've submitted a grand total of one articles to Slashdot, and it mentioned a free service being offered through the auspices of the IEEE which not just my employer but dozens of our competitors were involved in. Not a single banner ad or privacy-invasive script to be had there at all.
This actually isn't a bad idea... as a training tool. It exposes GHCQ's interns (or other programmers and IT pros) who are not used to programming or managing clusters with the underlying concepts, so they can then go and apply those to whatever real projects they have.
Not everyone gets exposure to distributed computing concepts as part of their education, and having a small, simple system like this is a good and inexpensive means of introducing them to new hires. The homebrew cluster management software is another example of this.
You can also try visiting www.trackballworld.com and looking around at the various offerings there. I've never bought from them, so no specific feedback to give (or, in other words, caveat emptor).
For something a little less conspicuous, a Canary WiFi detector might be a better choice if, for some reason, one couldn't just walk around with a smartphone or tablet.
The first public analysis of the malware campaign (called BlackEnergy by most researchers) was done by Arbor Networks back in October 2007, and Dell SecureWorks did a comprehensive write-up on its second generation in 2010. Additional information on this malware campaign:
What NetworkWorld freelancer Andy Patrizio complains about, cruft or OS decay, in the RTFA was largely addressed by Microsoft in Windows 8.
Microsoft worked in depth with silicon developers (i.e., the folks who make chips/chipsets for various things that require drivers like motherboards, videocards, network adapters and so forth) as well as software developers that used drivers (anti-malware, encryption, backup and so forth) to ensure not just that installation and removal went smoothly, but that performance was within acceptable levels, which in particular had been a problem for some of the bloatier anti-malware programs often seen pre-loaded onto consumer-targeted PCs, not just during startup and shutdown, but also during common day-to-day activities.
Since Mr. Patrizio didn't bother to use Windows 8 for any length of time, though, he didn't find out about the performance improvements, which, I suppose, is why we are commenting on his rather sad polemic.
Driver support, which was mature under XP because of its longevity, took a hit when Microsoft released new models for Vista and was late in delivering its DDK. On the other hand, driver support in Windows 7 and up have been pretty mature. In the case of Windows 8 to 8.1, my employer was able to get away with little to minimal updates of our software, which uses filter drivers, for compatibility with the new version of the operating system. The level of compatibility had previously been rare in Windows for us.
As far as hardware goes, the difference between specifications for Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 has been pretty small. A 1 GHz CPU, 1GB RAM and some disk space were the basic minimum requirements for each, if memory serves. Don't expect it to run great on that kind of systems for all uses, though, but it will run.
And, yes, a new version of Windows usually means new features, both in terms of hardware and software. So, it's not a bad idea to try and time your hardware upgrade cycles to coincide with Windows releases if you want the latest shiny bits, which, as you noted, third-party devs are developing for.
Dell didn't pay anything for it, as far as I can tell.
This is a post by MojoKid, who operates the HotHardware.Com site. I'm guessing he submitted the article to Slashdot in order to get some ad revenue from people visiting his site as a result.
before visiting his site will make that a little more difficult.
I do not know if he is a Slashdot or a Dice Holdings, Inc., employee, but it would be nice if there was some sort of transparency statement, if that's the case.
While I suspect the original reason for secrecy surrounding the No Fly List was to protect government sources and methods, my suspicion is that these days there simply is no criteria at all. Information is simply added from a variety of sources with varying degrees of quality (from high-quality covert intelligence feeds to TSA agents who simply think a person "looks like" a terrorist) and that by keeping information about the lack of controls on what goes in secret, the government uses the list as a deterrent factor to would-be terrorists.
A secondary function would be to reassure the public that air-travel is still safe, but like the much-criticized and ineffectual TSA screeners, it serves as "security theater" and not a bona-fide barrier to terroristic activity.
I know that Slashdot loves to bash Microsoft, but calling it's monthly patching cycle "Black Tuesday" is pushing it. Black Tuesday was the name for the stock market crash that preceded the Great Depression, and for all the negativism about Microsoft, I have yet to hear of someone committing suicide over a Microsoft patch.
Frankly, using Woody "I'm a Windows victim" Leonhard as a source of information about Microsoft patches isn't a good idea, at least until he stops grinding whatever axe it is he has against Microsoft. Go read Microsoft's Security TechCenter if you want to know the patches are for, or at least blogs like ComputerWorld o ZDNet's r>Ed Bott, both of whom are more likely to put facts ahead of opinions. Even Paul Thurrott provides some good coverage, although I think he often is the opposite of Woody Leonhard, e.g.doesn't critical enough coverage.
Regards,
Most people would likely get thrown off the stage at DEF CON for using it to promote their business in such a fashion. Instead, Mr. McAfee gets applause and people lining up to take photos with him.
Aside from that, the whole concept of simultaneously railing against the erosion of privacy while creating a web site that encourages people to share private information (without much information about how it will be safely secured) that is possibly libelous and may even be criminal at times is, well, going to be interesting. Especially with a FAQ which states things like " Yes, any entity can respond to a complaint. However, if the entity is not a subscriber, the response will not be featured in the official response section." and " It must not be possible for information on the site to be altered for any purpose."
It is going to be very interesting to see how this latest business venture of Mr. McAfee's turns out.
It might help. You could probably start by contacting the reporter who wrote the article, or the hospitals at which the surgeries were performed to ask for more information.
The question going through my mind, is what does this mean for Lenovo? Lenovo acquired IBM's Personal Computing Division in 2004, and announced at the beginning of 2014 that they had reached an agreement to acquire IBM's x86 server business.
The fact that IBM chose not to partner with Lenovo for developing all these apps and services for Lenovo's Windows and Android tablets and smartphones is downright bizarre.
Completely unsurprising. Comcast billed me for imaginary hardware, twice.
I set up cable Internet service with Comcast at a vacation home with no TVs in it about two years ago, just to be able to surf the web, etc., while there. Sometime around December, 2013, Comcast apparently decided that we needed TV service and shipped a set top box to the address, where it apparently sat, covered with a light dusting of snow for months (it's a vacation home). And, of course, they billed us for TV service and a rental fee for the box for months. I got that straightened out, and a credit issued.
A couple of weeks ago, I looked at my bill from them, and, lo and behold, they have been charging me an $8.00/month modem rental fee. I bought my cable modem from Fry's for less than the $96/year that would have ended up costing me.
As far as I can tell, when they removed my non-existent TV service and took back their set top box for the imaginary TVs, they stuck on a modem lease fee.
I have finally gotten that straightened out, and, no doubt, will have some new billing failure from them in a few months for hardware or services I did not request, own or otherwise purchase from them.
Slashdot Mirror
Hello,
The problem with the Windows 10 Build 10586 (aka v1511, TH2) installer detecting versions of ESET's software that are compatible with Windows 10 as not being compatible has been fixed by Microsoft. Simply allow the installer to connect to the Internet for the latest updates and it will download an update that allows is to recognize all compatible versions of ESET's software.
Customers who were on the latest builds of ESET's software (v9.0.318 for consumer, v6.2.2033 for enterprise) were never affected by this, but customers who had older--but still Windows 10 compatible--builds did have there versions flagged when Build 10586 of Windows 10 was installed.
For more information, see the following E SET knowledgebase article: http://support.eset.com/kb3733...
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
Mr. McAfee behaved oddly before the success of McAfee Associates.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
For more information about this malware(ish) campaign, I would refer you to Peter Kosinar's talk at AVAR 2014: Stealing the Internet, One Router at a Time">. Disclaimer: Peter is a friend of mine.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
To add to the list:
campaign finance reform (wrt. Citizens United v. FEC)
copyright infringement (should it be a civil or a criminal matter)
education (vouchers for private schools)
intellectual property (in particular, patents on software)
prostitution (legalization of)
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
It will be somewhat useful for troubleshooting, but Windows 7 has had the Problem Steps Recorder (filename: PSR.EXE) for years now, and Microsoft has offered a screen recording tool since at least 2009 for download via TechNet.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
System specifications are as follows:
Chassis and Power Supply
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl w/ USB 3.0 ATX Mid Tower Silent PC Computer Case
Power: Corsair RM750 CP-9020055-WW 750 Watt ATX PS
Accessory: Antec Easy SATA Hot Swap Hard Drive Caddy with eSATA Port
Storage
Optical: Asus BW-12B1ST Blu-Ray R/W SATA
Storage (SSD): 2 x Samsung 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256 256GB SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" SSD
Storage (HHD): Western Digital WDBSLA0040HNC-NRSN Desktop Performance 4TB SATA 6Gb/s HDD
Storage (USB): Seagate Backup Plus Fast Portable Drive 4TB USB 3.0
Compute, Graphics and Audio
Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 PRO LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with USB BIOS
CPU: Intel i7-4820K LGA 2011 64 Technology Extended Memory CPU Processors BX80633I74820K
Cooling: Intel Thermal Solution Air
RAM: 32GB - 2 x Patriot Viper 32GB (4Ã--8) Kit DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz PD000282-PV332G160C0QK
Sound Card:: Creative Labs X-Fi Fatality Titanium Sound Blaster PCIe adapter card
Video Card:: EVGA GeForce GTX660 SC 2GB GDDR5 PCIe 2.0 SVGA Card
Peripherals
Monitor: Auria EQ276W 27" WQHD LED LCD Display
Keyboard Rosewill Mechanical Keyboard RK-9000V2
Mouse:: Microsoft Trackball Optical USB mouse
System is used for a variety of professional and personal activities
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
If one looks at MojoKid's submissions to Slashdot, one notes they exist exclusively of links to articles at HotHardware.Com, which according to the whois data, is registered to a Dave Altavilla of Mendon, MA.
Never to ActiveWin, Ars Technica, HardOCP, Neowin, TechReport, WinBeta or the scores of other web sites which discuss, review or "engage in coordinate PR disclosure" of technology news, but always to HotHardware, never anywhere else.
Are MojoKid and Mr. Altavilla the same person? And why is he (are they?) only posting links to Slashdot to HotHardware,a site which, coincidentally, seems to rely on links to partner.googleadservices.com, www.google-analytics.com/, cdn.taboola.com, tru.am and other advertising and privacy-invasive sites in order to monetize its page views. All these hostnames should be blocked in your hosts file before visiting any links to hothardware.com to ensure you are not being advertised to or tracked (which seem to be very similar, these days).
If MojoKid/Altavilla are going to use Slashdot to generate revenue for themselves, they should at least let Slashdot's management know and note in their submissions that they are sending Slashdotters to a site which they generate revenue from; to not do so is unethical and abusive of Slashdot.
And in case anyone wants to throw a stone at my glass house, I've submitted a grand total of one articles to Slashdot, and it mentioned a free service being offered through the auspices of the IEEE which not just my employer but dozens of our competitors were involved in. Not a single banner ad or privacy-invasive script to be had there at all.
Regards.
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
Yes. ESET is downtown (Little Italy) and hiring. No EEs, I'm afraid, since it is a software company but there are some dev positions open.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
This actually isn't a bad idea... as a training tool. It exposes GHCQ's interns (or other programmers and IT pros) who are not used to programming or managing clusters with the underlying concepts, so they can then go and apply those to whatever real projects they have.
Not everyone gets exposure to distributed computing concepts as part of their education, and having a small, simple system like this is a good and inexpensive means of introducing them to new hires. The homebrew cluster management software is another example of this.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
A couple of "large" trackball vendors:
BigTrack - http://www.bigtrack.co.uk/
Kensington - http://www.kensington.com/us/u...
You can also try visiting www.trackballworld.com and looking around at the various offerings there. I've never bought from them, so no specific feedback to give (or, in other words, caveat emptor).
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
For something a little less conspicuous, a Canary WiFi detector might be a better choice if, for some reason, one couldn't just walk around with a smartphone or tablet.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
The proceeding number for this case is RM-1737, so if you're interested in leaving a comment on it, the URL is http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/uploa....
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
The first public analysis of the malware campaign (called BlackEnergy by most researchers) was done by Arbor Networks back in October 2007, and Dell SecureWorks did a comprehensive write-up on its second generation in 2010. Additional information on this malware campaign:
Hope this is information is useful to anyone who might be concerned they have compromised hosts on their network.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
What NetworkWorld freelancer Andy Patrizio complains about, cruft or OS decay, in the RTFA was largely addressed by Microsoft in Windows 8.
Microsoft worked in depth with silicon developers (i.e., the folks who make chips/chipsets for various things that require drivers like motherboards, videocards, network adapters and so forth) as well as software developers that used drivers (anti-malware, encryption, backup and so forth) to ensure not just that installation and removal went smoothly, but that performance was within acceptable levels, which in particular had been a problem for some of the bloatier anti-malware programs often seen pre-loaded onto consumer-targeted PCs, not just during startup and shutdown, but also during common day-to-day activities.
Since Mr. Patrizio didn't bother to use Windows 8 for any length of time, though, he didn't find out about the performance improvements, which, I suppose, is why we are commenting on his rather sad polemic.
Regards
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
Driver support, which was mature under XP because of its longevity, took a hit when Microsoft released new models for Vista and was late in delivering its DDK. On the other hand, driver support in Windows 7 and up have been pretty mature. In the case of Windows 8 to 8.1, my employer was able to get away with little to minimal updates of our software, which uses filter drivers, for compatibility with the new version of the operating system. The level of compatibility had previously been rare in Windows for us.
As far as hardware goes, the difference between specifications for Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 has been pretty small. A 1 GHz CPU, 1GB RAM and some disk space were the basic minimum requirements for each, if memory serves. Don't expect it to run great on that kind of systems for all uses, though, but it will run.
And, yes, a new version of Windows usually means new features, both in terms of hardware and software. So, it's not a bad idea to try and time your hardware upgrade cycles to coincide with Windows releases if you want the latest shiny bits, which, as you noted, third-party devs are developing for.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
Did you mean Windows 95 or 98? Or perhaps were you thinking of Office 97?
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
It's such a slight slap on the wrist that I doubt Verizon even felt it.
According to Wikipedia, Verizon made $120.55B in profits last year. That's a little over $330M a day.
Or about, $13.8M an hour.
So, a $7.4M fine means they paid the equivalent of 32.4 minutes of profit.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
Dell didn't pay anything for it, as far as I can tell.
This is a post by MojoKid, who operates the HotHardware.Com site. I'm guessing he submitted the article to Slashdot in order to get some ad revenue from people visiting his site as a result.
I'm guessing that blocking
googletagservices.com
googleusercontent.com
tru.am
before visiting his site will make that a little more difficult.
I do not know if he is a Slashdot or a Dice Holdings, Inc., employee, but it would be nice if there was some sort of transparency statement, if that's the case.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
While I suspect the original reason for secrecy surrounding the No Fly List was to protect government sources and methods, my suspicion is that these days there simply is no criteria at all. Information is simply added from a variety of sources with varying degrees of quality (from high-quality covert intelligence feeds to TSA agents who simply think a person "looks like" a terrorist) and that by keeping information about the lack of controls on what goes in secret, the government uses the list as a deterrent factor to would-be terrorists.
A secondary function would be to reassure the public that air-travel is still safe, but like the much-criticized and ineffectual TSA screeners, it serves as "security theater" and not a bona-fide barrier to terroristic activity.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
I am really unsure of what confusion there is.
Windows 'Threshold' appears to be the codename for 'Windows 9.'
About the only thing those speculative articles seem good for is generating page views for advertisements.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
I know that Slashdot loves to bash Microsoft, but calling it's monthly patching cycle "Black Tuesday" is pushing it. Black Tuesday was the name for the stock market crash that preceded the Great Depression, and for all the negativism about Microsoft, I have yet to hear of someone committing suicide over a Microsoft patch.
Frankly, using Woody "I'm a Windows victim" Leonhard as a source of information about Microsoft patches isn't a good idea, at least until he stops grinding whatever axe it is he has against Microsoft. Go read Microsoft's Security TechCenter if you want to know the patches are for, or at least blogs like ComputerWorld o ZDNet's r>Ed Bott, both of whom are more likely to put facts ahead of opinions. Even Paul Thurrott provides some good coverage, although I think he often is the opposite of Woody Leonhard, e.g.doesn't critical enough coverage.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
Most people would likely get thrown off the stage at DEF CON for using it to promote their business in such a fashion. Instead, Mr. McAfee gets applause and people lining up to take photos with him.
Aside from that, the whole concept of simultaneously railing against the erosion of privacy while creating a web site that encourages people to share private information (without much information about how it will be safely secured) that is possibly libelous and may even be criminal at times is, well, going to be interesting. Especially with a FAQ which states things like " Yes, any entity can respond to a complaint. However, if the entity is not a subscriber, the response will not be featured in the official response section." and " It must not be possible for information on the site to be altered for any purpose."
It is going to be very interesting to see how this latest business venture of Mr. McAfee's turns out.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
It might help. You could probably start by contacting the reporter who wrote the article, or the hospitals at which the surgeries were performed to ask for more information.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
The question going through my mind, is what does this mean for Lenovo? Lenovo acquired IBM's Personal Computing Division in 2004, and announced at the beginning of 2014 that they had reached an agreement to acquire IBM's x86 server business.
The fact that IBM chose not to partner with Lenovo for developing all these apps and services for Lenovo's Windows and Android tablets and smartphones is downright bizarre.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Hello,
Completely unsurprising. Comcast billed me for imaginary hardware, twice.
I set up cable Internet service with Comcast at a vacation home with no TVs in it about two years ago, just to be able to surf the web, etc., while there. Sometime around December, 2013, Comcast apparently decided that we needed TV service and shipped a set top box to the address, where it apparently sat, covered with a light dusting of snow for months (it's a vacation home). And, of course, they billed us for TV service and a rental fee for the box for months. I got that straightened out, and a credit issued.
A couple of weeks ago, I looked at my bill from them, and, lo and behold, they have been charging me an $8.00/month modem rental fee. I bought my cable modem from Fry's for less than the $96/year that would have ended up costing me.
As far as I can tell, when they removed my non-existent TV service and took back their set top box for the imaginary TVs, they stuck on a modem lease fee.
I have finally gotten that straightened out, and, no doubt, will have some new billing failure from them in a few months for hardware or services I did not request, own or otherwise purchase from them.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky