"BackOrifice does NOT take advantage of any secret OS backdoors, and operates just like ANY internet server."
That is precisely the problem. Without using any back doors, only an idiotically open API, BO is able to do far more than any userland app should be able to. From the cDc website:
"It uses documented calls built into Windows to do such things as:
Reveal all cached passwords. This includes passwords for web sites, dialup connections, network drives and printers, and the passwords of any application that stores user passwords in the operating system. (This Windows feature was implemented apparently so the user won't be inconvenienced by having to remember his passwords every time he uses his computer.)
Create shares hidden to the user and list the passwords of existing shares.
Make itself mostly invisible. Back Orifice does not appear in the control-alt-delete list of running programs, and can only be killed by a low level process viewer which Windows 95 does not ship with. To their credit, Windows 98 does ship with a process viewer, but it is not installed by default. "
Why should there be parity between "brick-and-mortar" and online resellers when there is no existing parity between b-and-m and catalog/phone sales? The catalog sales approach seems to be much closer to the flavor of e-commerce, and seems to be a far more suitable model of how e-commerce should be treated.
I know the beta is out. I have played with Beta 3, and it is DEFINITELY not ready yet. While PnP support was even more poweful than under w98, it is far too aggressive and stubborn when something has been mis-identified. Many of the system administration tools have been re-arranged to new menu locations inconsistent with the prior tools for administering w98 or NT4. The only thing they look at all like is the hideous "IIS Management console". Active desktop is still hideously slow. If any image type other than windows bitmap is set to the background image, active desktop is required using the Internet Explorer to actually render the static backround image). I have had problems with Iexplore/Explore crashing at seemingly random intervals when Active desktop is left running too long. When IE crashed, it took down explorer.exe along with it. The worstb part is that most of the bugs appear as random occurances that cannot be tracked down easily to a root cause. This is tremendously infuriating after becoming acclimated to the *nix world. After they iron out some more bugs, w2k will be an improvement, in some ways, over other versions of windows. However, the performance/stability difference between nt4 and w2k is inconsequential compared to the same differences between linux 2.0.36 and 2.2.0, just as the UI differences are trivial compared to the differences between linux pre-gnome/kde and most linux desktops now.
Open-source NT... cleaning up the spaggetti code... reusing good ideas buried within the NT code (Not all ideas by MS coders are necessarily bad)... visibility for the unofficial API's that the MS Office and VisualStudio people put in... finding the racy anti-mac jokes buried as source code comments... open specs allowing other systems to be more compatible (and thus making OS selection even more moot)... I care about free(speech) software a whole lot more than I care about any particular OS.
"No, not the brash, young Jedi currently on screen, but Alec Guiness' wise hermit of the Classic Trilogy. You are a quietly graceful leader who people seek out. You may have fallen from grace, perhaps had power usurped by young upstarts, but the right people know you are on the mark."
recisely. He is comparing the fastly evolving linux to MS vaporware. Take a good look at how much advancement there has been in linux and linux apps in the past six months or so. Where do you think we will be before W2K hits.
Found this description of ITSEC assurance levels. "E3: Source code or hardware drawings to be produced. Correspondence must be shown between source code and detailed design. Acceptance procedures must be used. Implementation languages should be to recognised standards. Retesting must occur after the correction of errors."
I, for one, have downloaded. I paid for the boxed set once upon a time, but do not feel like paying for each new version. Keep in mind the large number of college students in the linux world with sweet net connections. I don't think it's ever taken me more than an hour to download a complete install, whether it was RedHat, Slack, Debian, or even FreeBSD.
..when I'm talking to partially techno-literate people (those who may have heard the word "bit" before). Sometimes I have to even lower life-forms than this. If they need a label for me, they can aome up with their own (usually "techie").
Re:Any reasons for using Linux 2.2 instead of 2.0.
on
Linux 2.2 DoS Attack
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· Score: 1
My personal reason - better drivers for my 3c905b card. Seriously, if you don't stumble into any need to upgrade your kernel, you probably don't need to.
1. Mark Hammil could be brought back to play Anikin in Ep.3 - family resemblence 2. Buba Fett becomes a major character, played by Mike Meyers (we get to see him out of the armor for the first time) 3. We discover that Storm Troopers are really Gunguns under that armor.
Anybody else remmber Obi-wan in ANH saying "I've never seen this droid before" referring to R2D2. One would thing he would tend to remember. . .
Re:What the...Star Wars obsession limited to males
on
Star Wars Widows
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· Score: 1
Some women do "get into the whole SW thing".
My fiance is WAY more hyped about this than I am. At the theatre I saw several women in full Queen Amidala makeup.
But I do see that Leia was the only major female character in the trilogy (Mon Mothma doesn't count). While this is not a major anomaly when there are only four major characters (Luke, Leia, Han, and Darth Vader), I can see how some might find this offensive.
Just installed the english version of 5.1 from sunsite.utk.edu/pub/ StarDivision/unxlnxi/. My mashine is running rawhide from about a week before 6.0 came out - should be pretty similar. SO works with libc-2.1.1 ok with about 5 minutes of testing. It still slightly munged a test M$ Word 97 doc I had laying around. Abiword did a better job of importing the same doc.
I do about 90% of my typing left-handed. About all that my right hand uses is the mouse and the number pad. And I'm right handed! This would be good for typists or data entry people, but I find that I spend much more time revising than actually just typing in stuff.
I found one article about a town meeting. It seems like some people actually have a bit of a clue. I especially like the quote:
Processor irrelevant, comic explorer is lame
on
Linux on Dilbert
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· Score: 1
Their eye candy "comic explorer IS butt-slow on any platform. They require a PII300, but is still runs pathetically slow on my PII450. They waste a lot of time with really bad animation of the pages truning as you switch between comics. Furthermore, this viewer fails to resize when a Sunday comic is shown. If you want the exact same content, click on the "4-week Dilbert Archive" link near the top of the "Dilbert Zone" page. Exactly the same content, more rational presentation.
Actually MS-BOB was the original GUI for Windows 95. Think of it as the evil grandaddy of the MS-Office Paperclip, with no way to be turned off. After this failed miserably in usability testing, MS hurriedly threw together the whole "Start" button thing. Maybe we should do an open-source implementation of the Bob idea. Say a dancing gnome that guides you around the entire system, launches applications for you, gives advice, and does not shut up. Perhaps we could make this part of the gnome project, replacing the "panel" interface...
Slashdot Mirror
"BackOrifice does NOT take advantage of any secret OS backdoors, and operates just like ANY internet server."
That is precisely the problem. Without using any back doors, only an idiotically open API, BO is able to do far more than any userland app should be able to.
From the cDc website:
"It uses documented calls built into Windows to do such things as:
Reveal all cached passwords. This includes passwords for web sites, dialup connections, network drives and printers, and the passwords of any application that stores user passwords in the operating system. (This Windows feature was implemented apparently so the user won't be inconvenienced by having to remember his passwords every time he uses his computer.)
Create shares hidden to the user and list the passwords of existing shares.
Make itself mostly invisible. Back Orifice does not appear in the control-alt-delete list of running programs, and can only be killed by a low level process viewer which Windows 95 does not ship with. To their credit, Windows 98 does ship with a process viewer, but it is not installed by default. "
Look at the poll results. Do far most people thing BO2K will either help or both help & harm.
Why should there be parity between "brick-and-mortar" and online resellers when there is no existing parity between b-and-m and catalog/phone sales?
The catalog sales approach seems to be much closer to the flavor of e-commerce, and seems to be a far more suitable model of how e-commerce should be treated.
I know the beta is out. I have played with Beta 3, and it is DEFINITELY not ready yet. While PnP support was even more poweful than under w98, it is far too aggressive and stubborn when something has been mis-identified.
Many of the system administration tools have been re-arranged to new menu locations inconsistent with the prior tools for administering w98 or NT4. The only thing they look at all like is the hideous "IIS Management console".
Active desktop is still hideously slow. If any image type other than windows bitmap is set to the background image, active desktop is required using the Internet Explorer to actually render the static backround image). I have had problems with Iexplore/Explore crashing at seemingly random intervals when Active desktop is left running too long. When IE crashed, it took down explorer.exe along with it.
The worstb part is that most of the bugs appear as random occurances that cannot be tracked down easily to a root cause. This is tremendously infuriating after becoming acclimated to the *nix world.
After they iron out some more bugs, w2k will be an improvement, in some ways, over other versions of windows. However, the performance/stability difference between nt4 and w2k is inconsequential compared to the same differences between linux 2.0.36 and 2.2.0, just as the UI differences are trivial compared to the differences between linux pre-gnome/kde and most linux desktops now.
Open-source NT ... cleaning up the spaggetti code ... reusing good ideas buried within the NT code (Not all ideas by MS coders are necessarily bad) ... visibility for the unofficial API's that the MS Office and VisualStudio people put in ... finding the racy anti-mac jokes buried as source code comments ... open specs allowing other systems to be more compatible (and thus making OS selection even more moot) ...
I care about free(speech) software a whole lot more than I care about any particular OS.
"No, not the brash, young Jedi currently on screen, but Alec Guiness' wise hermit of the Classic Trilogy. You are a quietly graceful leader who people seek out. You may have fallen from grace, perhaps had power usurped by young upstarts, but the right people know you are on the mark."
Can we recruit him into the linux world? Has this already happened?
recisely. He is comparing the fastly evolving linux to MS vaporware.
Take a good look at how much advancement there has been in linux and linux apps in the past six months or so. Where do you think we will be before W2K hits.
I have been told the libraries here in Seattle carry Playboy on microfilm (for people who only read it for the articles)
I remember booting Win98 on a Dell box. Got this little gem:
DOS error: no keyboard detected.
Press any key to continue.
Found this description of ITSEC assurance levels.
"E3:
Source code or hardware drawings to be produced. Correspondence must be shown between source code and detailed design. Acceptance procedures must be used. Implementation languages should be to recognised standards. Retesting must occur after the correction of errors."
I, for one, have downloaded. I paid for the boxed set once upon a time, but do not feel like paying for each new version.
Keep in mind the large number of college students in the linux world with sweet net connections. I don't think it's ever taken me more than an hour to download a complete install, whether it was RedHat, Slack, Debian, or even FreeBSD.
..when I'm talking to partially techno-literate people (those who may have heard the word "bit" before). Sometimes I have to even lower life-forms than this. If they need a label for me, they can aome up with their own (usually "techie").
My personal reason - better drivers for my 3c905b card.
Seriously, if you don't stumble into any need to upgrade your kernel, you probably don't need to.
1. Mark Hammil could be brought back to play Anikin in Ep.3 - family resemblence
2. Buba Fett becomes a major character, played by Mike Meyers (we get to see him out of the armor for the first time)
3. We discover that Storm Troopers are really Gunguns under that armor.
Anybody else remmber Obi-wan in ANH saying "I've never seen this droid before" referring to R2D2. One would thing he would tend to remember. . .
Some women do "get into the whole SW thing".
My fiance is WAY more hyped about this than I am. At the theatre I saw several women in full Queen Amidala makeup.
But I do see that Leia was the only major female character in the trilogy (Mon Mothma doesn't count). While this is not a major anomaly when there are only four major characters (Luke, Leia, Han, and Darth Vader), I can see how some might find this offensive.
Just installed the english version of 5.1 from sunsite.utk.edu/pub/ StarDivision/unxlnxi/. My mashine is running rawhide from about a week before 6.0 came out - should be pretty similar.
SO works with libc-2.1.1 ok with about 5 minutes of testing. It still slightly munged a test M$ Word 97 doc I had laying around. Abiword did a better job of importing the same doc.
I am a palefaced nerd who HAS a girlfriend (still working on porting her to linux, though)
Imagine how it would react to somebody walking through covered with weapons - as in the Matrix (how many guns did he have on his body? 12? more?)
I do about 90% of my typing left-handed. About all that my right hand uses is the mouse and the number pad. And I'm right handed!
This would be good for typists or data entry people, but I find that I spend much more time revising than actually just typing in stuff.
I found one article about a town meeting. It seems like some people actually have a bit of a clue. I especially like the quote:
Their eye candy "comic explorer IS butt-slow on any platform. They require a PII300, but is still runs pathetically slow on my PII450. They waste a lot of time with really bad animation of the pages truning as you switch between comics. Furthermore, this viewer fails to resize when a Sunday comic is shown.
If you want the exact same content, click on the "4-week Dilbert Archive" link near the top of the "Dilbert Zone" page. Exactly the same content, more rational presentation.
Actually MS-BOB was the original GUI for Windows 95. Think of it as the evil grandaddy of the MS-Office Paperclip, with no way to be turned off. After this failed miserably in usability testing, MS hurriedly threw together the whole "Start" button thing. Maybe we should do an open-source implementation of the Bob idea. Say a dancing gnome that guides you around the entire system, launches applications for you, gives advice, and does not shut up. Perhaps we could make this part of the gnome project, replacing the "panel" interface...