I'm sure parts of the Registry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE?) are read-only for ordinary (non-Administrator) users; if you're right, though, the Registry is even worse than I thought.
On versions of Windows based on a real OS (NT and above) all the registry objects have security permissions associated with them. For a long time you needed two different registry editors because only regedt32.exe handled security, but XP has finally merged the functionality into one program. Most of the OS-related keys have security permissions such that ordinary users cannot break them.
There is a quantity of broken software (Kodak KPCMS, I'm talking to YOU) out there that just can't cope with storing user settings in the correct hive and thus needs to have its global settings made writable by anyone, but this is slowly improving. Now if only Adobe could fix the bug that requires oridinary users to have file create permissions in the root directory. It's not as if per-user temporary directories haven't been implemented since NT4.
The trick is to not emulate DOS... there are so many nasty things you can do (like, printer drivers which drive the LPT ports directly; these memory accesses need to be intercepted and redirected to the print subsystem) that emulating them all is going to be slow, especially the emulated graphics.
XP's 16 bit subsystem does seem to be noticeably more jerky than earlier versions. Have you tried full screen mode instead of windowed?
Frankly, as a programmer I'd be happy for MS to drop the whole 16 bit real mode x86 compatibility crap. Is this what we have to look forward to with 64 bit machines?
The problem is that emailing streams of random data around looks pretty suspicious. You want to hide random-looking data in a NON-random stream (that has a legitimate purpose, e.g. an image file). THAT's why you can detect it.
Even random data has to fit in. For example, it used to be the case that the A/D stage of some cheap sound cards was so noisy that the recording from line-in gave you a 16 bit audio sample stream with the bottom 4 bits effectively random(like dithering but much much worse.) However, the noise (while random in nature) was shaped in a particular way, so if you just hide your encrypted secrets in those 4 bits it would be obvious that the "noise" wasn't appropriate.
You might be confusing two different things. XP has a real 32 bit console (cmd.exe), a bit like a bash shell. This is what programmers usually mean when they talk about console applications. However, this doesn't run 16-bit DOS programs. That is done by a virtual DOS machine, (ntvdm.exe) which emulates a real-mode 8086 with configurable memory, and some I think some protected mode hooks (but not enough to fool all DOS games). When you run command.com, you're actually starting an instance of ntvdm.exe and a console-like interface to it. It is horribly slow, because it's emulating DOS.
DOSBOX is closer to the command.com / ntvdm.exe view of the world, but does a better job of emulating DOS for games compatibility. (e.g. pretending that there's a SoundBlaster 16 at memory address 0x220). On the native side it uses the SDL layer for accelerated graphics & sound.
It's still slow, but it seems to be usable for all but the "latest" DOS games.
Microsoft provides no way of making functional backups of its newer operating systems!
No, MS provide no way of making functional COPIES of an INSTALLED OS. That's not the same thing at all as making working backup, as any administrator knows. SYSPREP is a red herring; it's intended to solve the problem of duplicating security credentials, something Linux boxes by default don't have (Kerberized boxes would have the same problem)
No it is NOT reasonable. In my experience of travelling to the USA, the larger hotels (e,g, Sheraton) have broadband to the hotel room for $10 a DAY. That is reasonable. $10 an hour is not.
Or use WPA with RADIUS, and centralise all your external authentication. Based on my experiences with a NetGear FWAG114, that would be my preferred option.
Inverting your DC solar power to that will cost you 30-40% of your power. Converting back to DC (for your notebook/desktop) will cost you a second round of 30-40%.
Rubbish. Small inverter efficiency (12V to 110 VAC) is in the region of 80% WORST CASE. Most laptops use switch mode power supplies specifically because they are more efficient than linear supplies, again 85% or better.
This is the same NHS that wants its IT budget extended to 3.2 BILLION pounds by 2006 -2007 (that's UKP 50 from EVERY person living in the UK) so they can piss it away on another EDS cock-up, like the online tax system, the immigration database, the passport office systems etc.
Reid has already approved a budget of 2.3bn, so this means the NHS information technology programme has almost doubled in price, before it's even got started. -- The Register
The real culprit isn't Microsoft here, it's EDS! Find the ministers taking the backhanders to make sure EDS get the contracts and JAIL THEM.
The dates between 2.4.1 and 2.4.17 are 1/29/2001 and 12/21/2201, respectively
Cool, time travel as well! Linux really IS in front!
Clearly the humour of the idea of a new kernel every week (16 versions = 16 weeks = 4 months) has sailed on past. I suppose it was a long time ago when things were that bad...;)
FWIW, you don't need admin rights to set the clock; "Power User" will do just fine. Furthermore, if your admins are doing their job, your workstation will be syncing its time with your Domain Controller, and you SHOULDN'T be changing it, even if it is wrong: kerberos timestamps the tickets, and gets upset if you change the time under it.
Oh FFS. No admin with a clue exposes more than the absolute minimum number of ports to an untrusted network. MY firewalls stopped Slammer et al in their tracks. If you are clueless enough to have a box on the internet without a real firewall in between deserve all you get, and it doesn't matter WHAT operating system(s) you run.
I manage a heterogenous network and ALL the operating systems have security flaws, but by and large our network design mitigates them. We run XP and develop on XP, running on Windows, Linux and Solaris, and no-one is helping themselves to any information on those machines.
For the majority of development work, Linux is junk compared to XP; We use Java almost exclusively, and the performance of, say, Eclipse on Linux is 30-50% down on XP.
Grow up. NTFS is technically a fairly decent filesytem, and the ACL system works well. Would you consider Linux insecure simply because I can get full read/write access with a boot floppy? If I have physical access to the box, it's owned.
Email and internet born exploits will continue to provide interested third parties any information placed on Microsoft run computers.
Yeah, those run by clueless idiots. Run along, troll.
Partly that's because writing filesystems ain't like dusting crops, boy; even if you have the specs. For MS that means buying the IFS (installable filesystem) driver kit, for $1000, and I believe it's only available under NDA.
I would like to see ext3 for XP, and UFS too. Windows JFFS2 drivers for removable smartmedia would be nice too, but these things are a bitch to port. Ideally, you'll have a full debug (checked) build of XP and a second XP machine to run a kernel debugger on. One mistake in IFS code and it's off to bluescreen/reboot city.
Just tried it with 3.0M4; either VEP or its dependencies (GEF, EMF) aren't compatible with 3.0 and cause Eclipse to complain on startup that an invalid configuration will result.
Anyone know if there's going to be a 3.0 compatible version before 3.0 is actually released? There's another 7 milestones to go...
You're assuming brute force attacks; a 512 bit key for one algorithm might be harder to crack than a 15360 bit key in a different algorithm, because of flaws or limitations in that algorithm.
After all, if MS really cared about dangerous HTML content and the spam problem they'd have added a "parse all incoming emails as text only" option long ago.
They did, at least for Outlook XP SP1. See MS KB article 307594 (here)
Each to their own; compared to the problems caused by forgetting the "this." and assigning to the wrong instance, I think my way is better;-)
To me, any code that uses "this" deserves special attention, since it's almost certainly wrong except in special cases. Using "this.thing = thing" notation for trivial scope resolution breaks that mental rule.
Not true. A variant of hungarian which I now make my team use on our code base is "m" for member, "p" for method parameter, "s" for static, "i" for iterator, "a" for local scope variable. It avoids the need to prefix every damn thing with "this." which IS utterly gimp-like, and lets you write:
Slashdot Mirror
On versions of Windows based on a real OS (NT and above) all the registry objects have security permissions associated with them. For a long time you needed two different registry editors because only regedt32.exe handled security, but XP has finally merged the functionality into one program. Most of the OS-related keys have security permissions such that ordinary users cannot break them.
There is a quantity of broken software (Kodak KPCMS, I'm talking to YOU) out there that just can't cope with storing user settings in the correct hive and thus needs to have its global settings made writable by anyone, but this is slowly improving. Now if only Adobe could fix the bug that requires oridinary users to have file create permissions in the root directory. It's not as if per-user temporary directories haven't been implemented since NT4.
Jon.
XP's 16 bit subsystem does seem to be noticeably more jerky than earlier versions. Have you tried full screen mode instead of windowed?
Frankly, as a programmer I'd be happy for MS to drop the whole 16 bit real mode x86 compatibility crap. Is this what we have to look forward to with 64 bit machines?
Jon
Even random data has to fit in. For example, it used to be the case that the A/D stage of some cheap sound cards was so noisy that the recording from line-in gave you a 16 bit audio sample stream with the bottom 4 bits effectively random(like dithering but much much worse.) However, the noise (while random in nature) was shaped in a particular way, so if you just hide your encrypted secrets in those 4 bits it would be obvious that the "noise" wasn't appropriate.
Jon.
DOSBOX is closer to the command.com / ntvdm.exe view of the world, but does a better job of emulating DOS for games compatibility. (e.g. pretending that there's a SoundBlaster 16 at memory address 0x220). On the native side it uses the SDL layer for accelerated graphics & sound.
It's still slow, but it seems to be usable for all but the "latest" DOS games.
Jon.
Jon.
No, MS provide no way of making functional COPIES of an INSTALLED OS. That's not the same thing at all as making working backup, as any administrator knows. SYSPREP is a red herring; it's intended to solve the problem of duplicating security credentials, something Linux boxes by default don't have (Kerberized boxes would have the same problem)
Jon.
Jon.
Jon.
Rubbish. Small inverter efficiency (12V to 110 VAC) is in the region of 80% WORST CASE. Most laptops use switch mode power supplies specifically because they are more efficient than linear supplies, again 85% or better.
Jon
Reid has already approved a budget of 2.3bn, so this means the NHS information technology programme has almost doubled in price, before it's even got started.
-- The Register
The real culprit isn't Microsoft here, it's EDS! Find the ministers taking the backhanders to make sure EDS get the contracts and JAIL THEM.
Jon
Cool, time travel as well! Linux really IS in front!
Clearly the humour of the idea of a new kernel every week (16 versions = 16 weeks = 4 months) has sailed on past. I suppose it was a long time ago when things were that bad... ;)
Jon
I'll get me coat...
Jon
"So the FCC won't let me be or let me be me, so let me see." is the ACTUAL lyric in question, but never mind... ;)
I manage a heterogenous network and ALL the operating systems have security flaws, but by and large our network design mitigates them. We run XP and develop on XP, running on Windows, Linux and Solaris, and no-one is helping themselves to any information on those machines.
For the majority of development work, Linux is junk compared to XP; We use Java almost exclusively, and the performance of, say, Eclipse on Linux is 30-50% down on XP.
Jon.
Email and internet born exploits will continue to provide interested third parties any information placed on Microsoft run computers.
Yeah, those run by clueless idiots. Run along, troll.
Jon.
I would like to see ext3 for XP, and UFS too. Windows JFFS2 drivers for removable smartmedia would be nice too, but these things are a bitch to port. Ideally, you'll have a full debug (checked) build of XP and a second XP machine to run a kernel debugger on. One mistake in IFS code and it's off to bluescreen/reboot city.
Jon.
Anyone know if there's going to be a 3.0 compatible version before 3.0 is actually released? There's another 7 milestones to go...
Jon
Thanks, I now have mental picture of Pavarotti, Carreras et al belting out the menu from my local Italian restaurant. Argh.
Jon
Jon
Jon
Jon
They did, at least for Outlook XP SP1. See MS KB article 307594 (here)
Jon
To me, any code that uses "this" deserves special attention, since it's almost certainly wrong except in special cases. Using "this.thing = thing" notation for trivial scope resolution breaks that mental rule.
Jon
Iterator iThing = mThings.iterator();
while (iThing.hasNext())
{
Thing aThing = (Thing)iThing.next();
}
Jon