"After searching about a bit I recalled Ad-Aware and promptly downloaded and installed it. After running a full scan with this software and rebooting, there was no more pop-up ads. Sure, I may not be able to lower my mortgage rate anymore, but at least I'm not annoyed by 5 pop-up ads every time I open slashdot's homepage."
After an ordeal like that, I would also do a sweep with Spybot Search & Destroy. It is more 'evidence-eliminator' oriented but it caught some stuff (spyware registry keys and the like) on my machine that ad-aware missed. The only way your windows installation will be totally clean, though, is clean it out and do a clean install. If you have the time, I would highly recommend you do that.
"Those God damn AOL CDs that junk up my mailbox. You would think that 1 a day would be enough. But no! Everyday its seems that I have 5 of those tin can CD cases stuffed into my small apartment mailbox which causes the mailman to terrible things to the Time/Warner magazines, that I subscribe too, in order to get them in there. The bills I don't mind."
Try unloading your anger in the form of artwork. I cut up my AOL CDs and have a nice mural of their pieced taped onto the doors of my wardrobe. I'd post a PIC if I had a digital camera.
(The preeceding was a joke, except for the part about my mural. That *is* real, no joke.)
Also, you might want to go to CNET's download page for this program and add a comment regarding the nature of this software. It has a 100% thumbs-down rating right now.
" If they were going to rip someone off, atleast they picked the best one."
This has happenned before. The best freeware hard drive + data recovery tool out there, Drive Rescue was ripped off. Although DR is not GPL, the source is available for educational purposes.
Some Russian Company stole it and slapped a registration key on it and is now selling it.
"I'm amazed at the resistance I get... I think it's time to start the 'campaign to disable javascript everywhere'. Javascript is EVIL."
I think that this is the solution if your are forced to walk the net naked and undefended (e.g. I am allowed to use nothing but IE at work.) I turn off all images, scripting, java and activeX as well because we are not allowed to patch and the security on these machines are ~2 years out of date (except for the firewall.)
But there are enough utilities out there to protect you and block annoying content that if you can configure the machine however you want, totally disabling javascript is too extreme.
"Now all of a sudden I get this annoying avatar chick peddling "CokeMusic.com" every single time I start IM. To make matters worse, she also speaks. It's basically a commercial pushed to my box and I hate it."
Buddy! Do the sensible thing a drop the official AIM client. Grab yourself a copy of the freeware Trillian which is a truly excellent messenger and can connect to AIM, ICQ, MSN, YIM (yahoo instant msg) and IRC. I use it religiously when in windows.
"I keep a template of the email handy, so that only a few seconds are required to make the complaint to both the webmaster AND two others who are as high up in the firm as I can discover in a quick web search."
Would it be possible for you to post a copy of this template here?
I read it in a newspaper some years ago... the Toronto Star I think. I did a bit of googling and it seems that this number is way too high. Perhaps the figure was in Yen. So basically, take the previous figure with a grain of salt. It's quite possible I got it wrong.
"And while a mere meter or two might not be all that bad out in the middle of nowhere, much smaller distances (even a few inches) can become very important in downtown metropolitan areas."
For certain... supposedly land in downtown Tokyo costs more than US$250 per SQUARE METRE (!!)
"Linux has less than a 2% desktop share. Unless Linux gamers are willing to pay $500 for a native game, it's a money losing opportunity.
The only companies who will release Linux games are those that really really rely on geek support (like Id) "
Yeah? I saw Quake 3 for linux in the limited edition metal box for CAD$9.99 a few days ago an an electronis boutique. I think id proved that geek support for linux gaming is not strong enought yet to make it profitable.
Is it just me or does that contraption (loadable pics on the mirror below) look totally and irrevocable UGLY? I would want to hide this thing under a cloth so nobody would see it.
"Perhaps the only way to overcome this problems is give IP addresses to trusted MAC addresses only. In the context of a university this could mean the student could apply for an IP address, but could you trust the student? That's the real question"
Even if you don't trust the student, you'd have a name and student id number attached to the IP and MAC so it some port scanning or cracking is going on from that IP, you know who to prosecute.
"But if you can get physical access, why not just use one of the computers so thoughtfully preinstalled by the network administrator? Heck, they were probably even left logged in overnight by the lusers. This doesn't seem all that revolutionary..."If I can get into your building, I can do bad stuff". "
The thing is that you are probably not going to be a recognised employee in this place. You have to get out fast before someone sees you. The pre-programmed DC allows you to plug'n'run. If you wanted to use a logged in machine, you'd have to sit there for a while and someone would notice that there is a stranger at their friend's workstation.
"I'd be suspicious of a Dreamcast box sitting in a cube connected to the network. I'm guessing that the only real reason they're focusing on Dreamcasts and not normal PC's are that they're very cheap to obtain and reconfigure."
Of course you would. The trick is to install it at a jack/hub where you'd find PHBs and not tech people.
"First, the logical limit on an IDE drive was 137 GB, not 120. Second, it's not the laws of physics restricting the size of a hard drive-- it was that only 137 GB could be addressed logically per the ATA standard (it may have been a different standard, I don't remember which)."
I'm talking about the paramagnetic effect, not addressing limits.
"A friend (a girl) was missing... we found her using the EMEI number of her cell phone. It was used by the police to track her and even pinpoint the location."
If the police were able to track by IMEI number, then clearly the phone was turned on, had some battery left, and was conneted to the network. Why didn't you just dial her and say "where did you go?"
"We could as simply change the law to allow anyone to modify the IMEI unless it is tagged stolen. And then only to an AVAILABLE IMEI. "
To avoid grey area, it might be better to only allow modification if the phone was marked as non-stolen. Perhaps there should be a 'custom-IMEI-charge' of $50 or so for the assigning of a non-used number in the IMEI space. The fee of course would only apply to people who decide to change the number on their phone and NOT to new phone purchases.
"Isn't this the purpose of the DMCA? To ensure that if "copyright protection measures" are included in your PC (or other "digital device"), it's illegal to remove them?"
No. That would be the Bill formerly known as SSSCA. (It was given a hard-to-say name... now it is CBDTPA.)
"Anecdotally, there are cases of people being bombarded with malicious, nasty text messages, who live in fear of their phone ringing, but they still need that phone."
In many cases, you can probably say the same thing about slashdot and its messaging system.
"I suppose next they'll be suggesting that thieves be allowed to break into my house, just to see if it is secure."
The difference with homes is that everyone knows what they are, what they're for and the most common routes of security breakage.
When we got a security system installed at my current place, I slinked around and tried to get around without being seen by the motion detectors. Eventually I found a way to get from the back door to my computer without triggering a single motion detector. This resulted in us having them moved around.
Computers, in contract, are big nebulous boxes and most people don't know much about how they work or how to secure them. This is why they should be treated differently than homes with respect to how the security is tested.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps you should go to the corrections page for usatoday.com news and politely mention it to them. I certainly did.
After an ordeal like that, I would also do a sweep with Spybot Search & Destroy. It is more 'evidence-eliminator' oriented but it caught some stuff (spyware registry keys and the like) on my machine that ad-aware missed. The only way your windows installation will be totally clean, though, is clean it out and do a clean install. If you have the time, I would highly recommend you do that.
Try unloading your anger in the form of artwork. I cut up my AOL CDs and have a nice mural of their pieced taped onto the doors of my wardrobe. I'd post a PIC if I had a digital camera.
(The preeceding was a joke, except for the part about my mural. That *is* real, no joke.)
Also, you might want to go to CNET's download page for this program and add a comment regarding the nature of this software. It has a 100% thumbs-down rating right now.
Also file sending is still lacking, but I just send e-mail attachments or use FTP with my friends, so again it's not a problem for me.
This has happenned before. The best freeware hard drive + data recovery tool out there, Drive Rescue was ripped off. Although DR is not GPL, the source is available for educational purposes.
Some Russian Company stole it and slapped a registration key on it and is now selling it.
I think that this is the solution if your are forced to walk the net naked and undefended (e.g. I am allowed to use nothing but IE at work.) I turn off all images, scripting, java and activeX as well because we are not allowed to patch and the security on these machines are ~2 years out of date (except for the firewall.)
But there are enough utilities out there to protect you and block annoying content that if you can configure the machine however you want, totally disabling javascript is too extreme.
Buddy! Do the sensible thing a drop the official AIM client. Grab yourself a copy of the freeware Trillian which is a truly excellent messenger and can connect to AIM, ICQ, MSN, YIM (yahoo instant msg) and IRC. I use it religiously when in windows.
Would it be possible for you to post a copy of this template here?
I read it in a newspaper some years ago ... the Toronto Star I think. I did a bit of googling and it seems that this number is way too high. Perhaps the figure was in Yen. So basically, take the previous figure with a grain of salt. It's quite possible I got it wrong.
correction... that's more than US$250,000 per square metre. Yes, I was off by a factor of 10^3 before.
For certain ... supposedly land in downtown Tokyo costs more than US$250 per SQUARE METRE (!!)
Yeah? I saw Quake 3 for linux in the limited edition metal box for CAD$9.99 a few days ago an an electronis boutique. I think id proved that geek support for linux gaming is not strong enought yet to make it profitable.
Is it just me or does that contraption (loadable pics on the mirror below) look totally and irrevocable UGLY? I would want to hide this thing under a cloth so nobody would see it.
I wouldn't be surprised. There are kits in existence that are designed to help people do such mods.
Even if you don't trust the student, you'd have a name and student id number attached to the IP and MAC so it some port scanning or cracking is going on from that IP, you know who to prosecute.
The thing is that you are probably not going to be a recognised employee in this place. You have to get out fast before someone sees you. The pre-programmed DC allows you to plug'n'run. If you wanted to use a logged in machine, you'd have to sit there for a while and someone would notice that there is a stranger at their friend's workstation.
Of course you would. The trick is to install it at a jack/hub where you'd find PHBs and not tech people.
I'm talking about the paramagnetic effect, not addressing limits.
If the police were able to track by IMEI number, then clearly the phone was turned on, had some battery left, and was conneted to the network. Why didn't you just dial her and say "where did you go?"
Perhaps I am misunderstanding here. I thought the IMEI number was unique to the phone. How would a whole batch of Nokias have the same IMEI?
To avoid grey area, it might be better to only allow modification if the phone was marked as non-stolen. Perhaps there should be a 'custom-IMEI-charge' of $50 or so for the assigning of a non-used number in the IMEI space. The fee of course would only apply to people who decide to change the number on their phone and NOT to new phone purchases.
No. That would be the Bill formerly known as SSSCA. (It was given a hard-to-say name ... now it is CBDTPA.)
In many cases, you can probably say the same thing about slashdot and its messaging system.
Damn trolls. :P
The difference with homes is that everyone knows what they are, what they're for and the most common routes of security breakage.
When we got a security system installed at my current place, I slinked around and tried to get around without being seen by the motion detectors. Eventually I found a way to get from the back door to my computer without triggering a single motion detector. This resulted in us having them moved around.
Computers, in contract, are big nebulous boxes and most people don't know much about how they work or how to secure them. This is why they should be treated differently than homes with respect to how the security is tested.