I had read a while ago that Back Office SMS had a stealth mode, too... I tried to find the article, but couldn't. Maybe it was bad information; I haven't run Back Office. Also, is there a possibility of making Back Office invisible through other (undetected) tools/methods/scripts? If so, it'd still be a security risk.
That's what we used ours for... we needed it to support Sun driver development with PCI cards.
I was also wrong about the speed. Our box was quite something in its day (at least relative to the other ancient (386) suns we have); I guess things moved on and I didn't notice. I thought it was much faster. Oh well. I checked the spec95 ratings and it's on the order of a 400 MHz PIII.
I guess I was just trying to emphasize that a good portion of the money originally paid for the box wasn't for performance, but for Sun compatibility... it would be a shame just to not take advantage of this feature.
Nope, sorry. It wouldn't make a good mail/web/gateway/firewall. It's way too powerful-- it would be 99.9% idle (no joke), which is too close to being a waste. Hopefully that's not what you need your sun for, right? An old intel box should work just fine to handle a lab. Assuming, of course, it's just the lab and not the whole university.
This same question came up with Back Office vs. Back Orifice. Because Microsoft was a "respectable" company (and because it costs money), antivirus companies decided that Back Office was a legit remote network administration tool. However, when the "hacker group" cult of the dead cow released Back Orifice, the antivirus vendors decided that, even though Back Office could do everything that Back Orifice did, because it was free and not released by a corporation it should be classified as a trojan.
So, besides magic lantern, you could have the SMS part of Back Office installed, too. And with its weak encryption, it's a greater security risk than BO2K.
> Anyone who remembers computing in the early '80's should recognize that the industry wasn't going anywhere. Obviously, you don't;-) (just warning that I'm going to be harsh, but harsh in a friendly way!)
$5000 for an Apple 2? 1978: Apple II is $1295. 1979: Apple II+ is $1195. Maybe you're thinking the Apple III ($4340-$7800, yikes!)
> The only software is rudimentary databases and word processors. Like visicalc, in 1978. Or appleworks, an integrated office suite.
> Games are less sophisticated than those on the Atari 2600. Monitors are monochrome. Apple II was color and much better than the 2600. If you're talking early PC graphics (monochrome, CGA), yeah, they sucked. But it wasn't microsoft that improved them.
> Apple is enforcing a closed source policy which improves the quality of the machines, but hampers development. Like publishing the schematics and ROM source code? Most of the demo code is written in listable basic, and code magazines (like nibble) flourish.
> It was the pairing of M$'s DOS with IBM PCs, and an open policy towards clones, that allowed the explosion of PCs seen in the mid-80's. Did you read the article? IBM fought the clones vigourously... Compaq spent $1 million to make a clean-room bios.
It would be fairly easy to do this in software. The cdrecord program can determine the type, laser power required, size, manufacturer, and serial number of a blank cdr/cdrw. This information is stored at the beginning of a blank CD -- it's also how burners tell the difference between the "computer data" cdr and the "RIAA tax paid music" cdr. Of course, it would be pretty easiy for ms to do this check in its software - using standard hardware keeps prices down.
(of course, the drive could still be non-standard!)
I think the cdrecord option is -atip:
-atip Retrieve and print out the ATIP (absolute Time in Pregroove) info of a CD recordable or CD rewritable media. With this option, cdrecord will try to retrieve the ATIP info. If the actual drive does not support to read the ATIP info, it may be that only a reduced set of information records or even nothing is displayed. Only a limited number of MMC compliant drives support to read the ATIP info.
The final proposal calls for two mandatory modulation/access schemes of complementary code keying (CCK) used in 802.11b and the newly allowed orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) used in the 5-GHz 802.11a standard. As an option, however, the 802.11g proposal allows for the inclusion of Intersil's original CCK-OFDM scheme, which supports rates of 6 to 54 Mbits/s, and of TI's PBCC-22 (packet binary convolutional coding) method, which supports rates up to 33 Mbits/s.
Three possible coding schemes? This will either drive the price up (to support all three), or lead to incompatibilities when only portions of the spec are implemented. I'd love to find out more... is there some negiotiation in the protocol too see what coding methods are supported?
I found this scan of a motherboard pic through google images. funxbox.com no longer has the picture referenced on their page (let me guess why, oh, maybe blatent ripoff from some magazine), but the image is still there.
Interesting: this older picture shows all of the ram populated, no seperate fan on the graphics chip (I guess they added it due to overheating problems or paranoia), and only 1/2 of the flash populated. The new pictures don't show the second flash site, so I can't tell if its still the same.
This older picture has a small key showing what's what on the board. Does anyone know which magazine it came from?
Main Entry: juggernaut
Pronunciation: 'j&-g&r-"not, -"nät
Function: noun
Etymology: Hindi JagannAth, literally, lord of the world, title of Vishnu
Date: 1841
1 chiefly British : a large heavy truck 2 : a massive inexorable force, campaign, movement, or object that crushes whatever is in its path
There are some standards in notebooks... For example, my hard drive, floppy drive, and CD all conform to the normal IDE/ATAPI/floppy standards set for desktops. The video accelerator fits the mini pci spec (as do some modems) for internally mounted (not pcmcia) components. The processor module fits the intel standard, the keyboard and mouse both use the standard ps2 protocol. These exact components are found in a variety of notebooks. I'm willing to be that the LCD conforms to some standard, too.
But, all of these products need some sort of notebook-manufactured middleware to operate. The hard drive has a carrier, the floppy/cd come in a removable package and have a docking connector, and the lcd uses a special flex cable to mount to the motherboard. Part of this middleware are all the enclosures; the lcd case should be exactly the same size as the bottom (otherwise it'll overhang, not reach, or hit keys). Its this variety of enclosures that limit the choices... dell can afford to design the special piece of plastic to connect x to y (or the heatsink that pumps heat from place x to y), whereas I couldn't fashion one myself.
But what I was getting at was that there are so many combinations that it would be impossible to satisfy. I'd like a dual monitor, dual processor laptop. Technically, it's possible. It's just that no one is willing to invest in the middleware because the market is too limited.
What I'd really like to see is some of the arbitrary-plastic-shape machines take off (I don't know what they're called; they are used to build prototypes). With a specialized cad program, a person could design a machine, order the parts, and have the custom plastic made cheaply!
Is immediately curtailed if vulnerability becomes actively exploited
How exactly do they know if the vulnerability has been exploited? A box owner may not realize they've been exploited, and even then may not know the exact exploit used. What are the chances of this information getting back to microsoft before boxes #2-#200,000 are exploited?
Second, think of the attitude this takes towards customers: They won't give full disclosure until one of their customers is compromised? Sounds like a hostage sitatuion to me.
And, for the obligitory "if microsoft was a car company" comparison:
Partial disclosure: "one of the 4 seatbelts in your car can fail. Don't worry, there is a 80% chance that its not the seat you're sitting in."
Full disclosure: "Don't sit in the rear passanger seat until you get the belt replaced."
Would you like your car company to say not give full disclosure for 30 days or until someone died?
For the same reason cars aren't standardized. I'll get back to that statement.
For that matter, how standard are desktops? I don't mean interoperability; I mean user interface. I've got a 21" CRT, and 15" LCD, Apple pro keyboard, and a "narrow" microsoft wheel mouse? Does this describe you? Anyone you know? Yet, these things are built into a laptop and would have to be standardized.
Back to the cars: what are the chances that I could interchange my front seat with yours? Windows? Engine? Gas tank? Cars are built for a variety of purposes and are outfitted to match. Beyond that, the reason we have more than 5 models, is that people see cars as an extension of themselves and want it to match their individuality. Same with laptops. Want to bet that New Beetle owners own more iMacs? The dell color panels aren't good enough (that's why cars come in different colors) -- some people want a flower vase on their dashboard.
The Linksys BEFW11P1 - router+firewall+wirelessAP+printserver
Also, the version without the printserver but with more local wired outputs (3 vs. 1) looks similar, but is totally different! Mine has a crummy PCMCIA antenna, the other has 2 nice external antennas. (Same price for either)
I would gladly open up my wireless network, but the firewall/switch/access point puts the wireless network on my side of the firewall. That kindof defeats the whole purpose of the firewall - Sure it's secure from 99.999% of the internet, but people can get in via wireless. Ideally, I'd like to manage the rules between the wireless part and my wired desktop computer, but I guess that would require the purchase of a real firewall. It's a shame; it would just take a little more software!!
Those little buggers are are good at following directions, that's why!
IANANTS (i am not a nano technology specialist)
Here's my guess: The funneling effect of the arrowhead allows more randomly-moving particles flow in that direction rather than the rather small reverse opening.
Said another way: Imagine you're standing in the middle of one the arrowheads, and you've got a fan. You'd get more wind blown into the angled down (arrowhead) exit rather than the small hole at the back of the arrowhead.
All this, of course, requires random motion of the particles. The motion must already be present; this shape just directs it.
The north bridge is built into this first chip (it's aimed at embedded systems, see the highly-modded post on killer ap), along with essentially a south bridge, too (includes a 10/100 ethernet core, a pair of 10/100/1000 ethernet cores, PCI, serial and GPIO ports).
In other chips it could be used to talk to the north bridge, or to interface to multiple processors... (as few as 2, see page 10 of the presentation, if it's accurate).
But, I suspect it will get most use in embedded systems where the switched fabric can be used best (i.e. hardware customized to the application at hand).
Actually, the world is moving to a fabric-based interconnect rather than a bus-based one. RapidIO and Infiniband (and Sky and Race for the embedded world) all techincally support only one slot, too. And that one slot goes to a switch, which connects to other slots and all your other resources. Ideally, each processor would get its own connection, and maybe some memory would, too. That way, processor #1 can talking to the video card to play quake, while processor #2 serves up data from your hard drive to the LAN, while data goes directly from your HD to your DVD burner... all data takes a separate path and operates at full speed - no need to time multiplex, like with a bus.
I could read this with Konqueror, too. So, the website doesn't actually require scripts because it works with 2 non-active-scripting competitive browsers... but it's broken with IE? Now that's irony!
I think that some of this video was included in this 'debunking' roswell video (quicktime; I saw it a while ago, so please don't flame me if I'm wrong). If I remember correctly, one of the weird things about parachuting from this altitude is that there is no wind and no good visual point of reference -- you're just in the (very thin) air, floating... no sense of falling at all...
Re:Correct link
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I had read a while ago that Back Office SMS had a stealth mode, too... I tried to find the article, but couldn't. Maybe it was bad information; I haven't run Back Office. Also, is there a possibility of making Back Office invisible through other (undetected) tools/methods/scripts? If so, it'd still be a security risk.
That's what we used ours for... we needed it to support Sun driver development with PCI cards.
I was also wrong about the speed. Our box was quite something in its day (at least relative to the other ancient (386) suns we have); I guess things moved on and I didn't notice. I thought it was much faster. Oh well. I checked the spec95 ratings and it's on the order of a 400 MHz PIII.
I guess I was just trying to emphasize that a good portion of the money originally paid for the box wasn't for performance, but for Sun compatibility... it would be a shame just to not take advantage of this feature.
Nope, sorry. It wouldn't make a good mail/web/gateway/firewall. It's way too powerful-- it would be 99.9% idle (no joke), which is too close to being a waste. Hopefully that's not what you need your sun for, right? An old intel box should work just fine to handle a lab. Assuming, of course, it's just the lab and not the whole university.
This same question came up with Back Office vs. Back Orifice. Because Microsoft was a "respectable" company (and because it costs money), antivirus companies decided that Back Office was a legit remote network administration tool. However, when the "hacker group" cult of the dead cow released Back Orifice, the antivirus vendors decided that, even though Back Office could do everything that Back Orifice did, because it was free and not released by a corporation it should be classified as a trojan.
So, besides magic lantern, you could have the SMS part of Back Office installed, too. And with its weak encryption, it's a greater security risk than BO2K.
More BO2k docs and info
> Anyone who remembers computing in the early '80's should recognize that the industry wasn't going anywhere. ;-) (just warning that I'm going to be harsh, but harsh in a friendly way!)
Obviously, you don't
$5000 for an Apple 2?
1978: Apple II is $1295. 1979: Apple II+ is $1195. Maybe you're thinking the Apple III ($4340-$7800, yikes!)
> The only software is rudimentary databases and word processors.
Like visicalc, in 1978. Or appleworks, an integrated office suite.
> Games are less sophisticated than those on the Atari 2600. Monitors are monochrome.
Apple II was color and much better than the 2600. If you're talking early PC graphics (monochrome, CGA), yeah, they sucked. But it wasn't microsoft that improved them.
> Apple is enforcing a closed source policy which improves the quality of the machines, but hampers development.
Like publishing the schematics and ROM source code? Most of the demo code is written in listable basic, and code magazines (like nibble) flourish.
> It was the pairing of M$'s DOS with IBM PCs, and an open policy towards clones, that allowed the explosion of PCs seen in the mid-80's.
Did you read the article? IBM fought the clones vigourously... Compaq spent $1 million to make a clean-room bios.
nope, it's not. There are software emulators, just like apple's emulator to run old 68k code, but it's all software.
It would be fairly easy to do this in software. The cdrecord program can determine the type, laser power required, size, manufacturer, and serial number of a blank cdr/cdrw. This information is stored at the beginning of a blank CD -- it's also how burners tell the difference between the "computer data" cdr and the "RIAA tax paid music" cdr. Of course, it would be pretty easiy for ms to do this check in its software - using standard hardware keeps prices down.
(of course, the drive could still be non-standard!)
I think the cdrecord option is -atip:
-atip Retrieve and print out the ATIP (absolute Time in Pregroove) info of a CD recordable or CD rewritable media. With this option, cdrecord will try to retrieve the ATIP info. If the actual drive does not support to read the ATIP info, it may be that only a reduced set of information records or even nothing is displayed. Only a limited number of MMC compliant drives support to read the ATIP info.
more info at eetimes
The final proposal calls for two mandatory modulation/access schemes of complementary code keying (CCK) used in 802.11b and the newly allowed orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) used in the 5-GHz 802.11a standard. As an option, however, the 802.11g proposal allows for the inclusion of Intersil's original CCK-OFDM scheme, which supports rates of 6 to 54 Mbits/s, and of TI's PBCC-22 (packet binary convolutional coding) method, which supports rates up to 33 Mbits/s.
Three possible coding schemes? This will either drive the price up (to support all three), or lead to incompatibilities when only portions of the spec are implemented. I'd love to find out more... is there some negiotiation in the protocol too see what coding methods are supported?
Thanks- it looks like it's from this this wired 9.05 story. The web version doesn't include the picture.
I found this scan of a motherboard pic through google images. funxbox.com no longer has the picture referenced on their page (let me guess why, oh, maybe blatent ripoff from some magazine), but the image is still there.
Interesting: this older picture shows all of the ram populated, no seperate fan on the graphics chip (I guess they added it due to overheating problems or paranoia), and only 1/2 of the flash populated. The new pictures don't show the second flash site, so I can't tell if its still the same.
This older picture has a small key showing what's what on the board. Does anyone know which magazine it came from?
From the spec page:
Hard Disk Drive
2.5" 9.5mm IDE HDD with Ultra DMA66/100 supported
Supported capacities up to 30 GB
Bumping mechanic's design
Fixed type, easy for BTO
Some dancin' auto repair technicain desgined it! Also, the hard drive isn't broken because Bachman-Turner Overdrive would find that difficult to use.
dictionary entry:
Main Entry: juggernaut
Pronunciation: 'j&-g&r-"not, -"nät
Function: noun
Etymology: Hindi JagannAth, literally, lord of the world, title of Vishnu
Date: 1841
1 chiefly British : a large heavy truck
2 : a massive inexorable force, campaign, movement, or object that crushes whatever is in its path
whoops.. bad math:
"one of the 4 seatbelts in your car can fail. Don't worry, there is a 80%"
I was originally thinking 4 seatbelts, and then 5.
There are some standards in notebooks... For example, my hard drive, floppy drive, and CD all conform to the normal IDE/ATAPI/floppy standards set for desktops. The video accelerator fits the mini pci spec (as do some modems) for internally mounted (not pcmcia) components. The processor module fits the intel standard, the keyboard and mouse both use the standard ps2 protocol. These exact components are found in a variety of notebooks. I'm willing to be that the LCD conforms to some standard, too.
But, all of these products need some sort of notebook-manufactured middleware to operate. The hard drive has a carrier, the floppy/cd come in a removable package and have a docking connector, and the lcd uses a special flex cable to mount to the motherboard. Part of this middleware are all the enclosures; the lcd case should be exactly the same size as the bottom (otherwise it'll overhang, not reach, or hit keys). Its this variety of enclosures that limit the choices... dell can afford to design the special piece of plastic to connect x to y (or the heatsink that pumps heat from place x to y), whereas I couldn't fashion one myself.
But what I was getting at was that there are so many combinations that it would be impossible to satisfy. I'd like a dual monitor, dual processor laptop. Technically, it's possible. It's just that no one is willing to invest in the middleware because the market is too limited.
What I'd really like to see is some of the arbitrary-plastic-shape machines take off (I don't know what they're called; they are used to build prototypes). With a specialized cad program, a person could design a machine, order the parts, and have the custom plastic made cheaply!
Is immediately curtailed if vulnerability becomes actively exploited
How exactly do they know if the vulnerability has been exploited? A box owner may not realize they've been exploited, and even then may not know the exact exploit used. What are the chances of this information getting back to microsoft before boxes #2-#200,000 are exploited?
Second, think of the attitude this takes towards customers: They won't give full disclosure until one of their customers is compromised? Sounds like a hostage sitatuion to me.
And, for the obligitory "if microsoft was a car company" comparison:
Partial disclosure: "one of the 4 seatbelts in your car can fail. Don't worry, there is a 80% chance that its not the seat you're sitting in."
Full disclosure: "Don't sit in the rear passanger seat until you get the belt replaced."
Would you like your car company to say not give full disclosure for 30 days or until someone died?
For the same reason cars aren't standardized. I'll get back to that statement.
For that matter, how standard are desktops? I don't mean interoperability; I mean user interface. I've got a 21" CRT, and 15" LCD, Apple pro keyboard, and a "narrow" microsoft wheel mouse? Does this describe you? Anyone you know? Yet, these things are built into a laptop and would have to be standardized.
Back to the cars: what are the chances that I could interchange my front seat with yours? Windows? Engine? Gas tank? Cars are built for a variety of purposes and are outfitted to match. Beyond that, the reason we have more than 5 models, is that people see cars as an extension of themselves and want it to match their individuality. Same with laptops. Want to bet that New Beetle owners own more iMacs? The dell color panels aren't good enough (that's why cars come in different colors) -- some people want a flower vase on their dashboard.
The Linksys BEFW11P1 - router+firewall+wirelessAP+printserver
Also, the version without the printserver but with more local wired outputs (3 vs. 1) looks similar, but is totally different! Mine has a crummy PCMCIA antenna, the other has 2 nice external antennas. (Same price for either)
I would gladly open up my wireless network, but the firewall/switch/access point puts the wireless network on my side of the firewall. That kindof defeats the whole purpose of the firewall - Sure it's secure from 99.999% of the internet, but people can get in via wireless. Ideally, I'd like to manage the rules between the wireless part and my wired desktop computer, but I guess that would require the purchase of a real firewall. It's a shame; it would just take a little more software!!
Those little buggers are are good at following directions, that's why!
IANANTS (i am not a nano technology specialist)
Here's my guess: The funneling effect of the arrowhead allows more randomly-moving particles flow in that direction rather than the rather small reverse opening.
Said another way: Imagine you're standing in the middle of one the arrowheads, and you've got a fan. You'd get more wind blown into the angled down (arrowhead) exit rather than the small hole at the back of the arrowhead.
All this, of course, requires random motion of the particles. The motion must already be present; this shape just directs it.
The north bridge is built into this first chip (it's aimed at embedded systems, see the highly-modded post on killer ap), along with essentially a south bridge, too (includes a 10/100 ethernet core, a pair of 10/100/1000 ethernet cores, PCI, serial and GPIO ports).
In other chips it could be used to talk to the north bridge, or to interface to multiple processors... (as few as 2, see page 10 of the presentation, if it's accurate).
But, I suspect it will get most use in embedded systems where the switched fabric can be used best (i.e. hardware customized to the application at hand).
You're losing it :)
Actually, the world is moving to a fabric-based interconnect rather than a bus-based one. RapidIO and Infiniband (and Sky and Race for the embedded world) all techincally support only one slot, too. And that one slot goes to a switch, which connects to other slots and all your other resources. Ideally, each processor would get its own connection, and maybe some memory would, too. That way, processor #1 can talking to the video card to play quake, while processor #2 serves up data from your hard drive to the LAN, while data goes directly from your HD to your DVD burner... all data takes a separate path and operates at full speed - no need to time multiplex, like with a bus.
RapidIO is in the PPC G5 roadmap and will be in moto's first g5-based chip. I've been drooling for some time now...
I could read this with Konqueror, too. So, the website doesn't actually require scripts because it works with 2 non-active-scripting competitive browsers... but it's broken with IE? Now that's irony!
I think that some of this video was included in this 'debunking' roswell video (quicktime; I saw it a while ago, so please don't flame me if I'm wrong). If I remember correctly, one of the weird things about parachuting from this altitude is that there is no wind and no good visual point of reference -- you're just in the (very thin) air, floating... no sense of falling at all...
< kw> And here's the link straight from the horse's mouth </kw>
(with kh being karma whore, of course!)