I don't worry, since 1) I've never run into a CD crack with a trojan (such things would be noticed quickly by other users) and 2) I never run the executable with an account that has privledges sufficient to let the trojan do anything nasty.
One game in particular, Madden 2004, will tell an unpriveliged user that there are updates to install, pretend to apply them, and then turn around and say that there are still updates to install. When run as Admin, it says there are no updates available. So I don't even know if these updates are installed system-wide when done by Admin, or if the unprivileged user just doesn't get updated software.
This is typically a result of user permissions or user-level registry keys (or both). You can usually fix this by granting the user write access to certain files or registry keys.
I've never found a game where I was required to run with full Administrative rights. Typically a CD crack would fix things. If that didn't work, a registry tweak was in order. The most annoying fix was with Thief 3, where the developers maliciously imposed an artificial "must run as Admin" requirement that made the game self-destruct when an unprivledged account tried to run it, but I was even able to circumvent that one.
My main user account is in the "Power Users" group. The account in the "Administrators" group (which is not the default "Administrator" account -- that one was renamed and then disabled) is only used for software installs that require it and Windows Update.
Could you be more specific? I've never had trouble running Explorer with "Run As" in either Windows XP or Windows 2000. That's how I run Windows Update without logging out of my Power Users account.
I believe that with some apps you have to hold shift and right-click to get the "Run As" option to appear.
Explicitly grant the user access to the installed Palm files in Program Files (rather than doing it via Group access).
Remove the user from the Administrators group.
Voila. Palm hotsync works without Admin rights. The temporary Administrator rights are needed so that the installer can create certain user-specific registry keys. Another way to do it is to install it under an Administrator's account and then export/import the reg keys, but my boyfriend reports that temporarily setting up the user with Admin rights is overall easier.
1. Standard apps (such as palm hotsynch) and many games don't work properly as non-root
For games that "require" Administrator access, I just use a no-CD crack. The only reason that games ever require Administrator-level privledges is for incredibly poorly-designed CD-checking systems (and as there are CD-checking systems that don't require Administrative access, like that used with Unreal Tournament 2004, there is absolutely no excuse for it anymore).
I don't know about Palm sync, but my boyfriend uses a Palm and he's something of a Windows 2000/XP security nut. I'll ask him, because he's very big on not running as Administrator unless absolutely necessary.
2. I don't want to have switch user each time I need to do an administrator-level activity -- particlulary since brain-dead windoze takes a minute or more to do this even on a fast machine.
Solution: right-click on icon, choose "Run As". If "Run As" does not appear, hold "Shift" and right-click, and it should appear. I run Windows Update while logged in via my standard user account (Power Users group) through this method.
Most users, being incredibly stupid, run their default account with full Administrative privledges. It doesn't help when a number of gaming developers use asinine CD-check systems that REQUIRE Administrator-level access, meaning that the only way to run the game without Admin rights is to use a no-CD crack (in the case of Thief 3, you have to prevent non-Admins from having write access to the install directory or the game destroys itself because the developers were either incredibly malicious or frighteningly incompetent) -- the existence of CD-check systems that don't require Admin privs (such as the one used for UT2K4) means that such restrictions are utterly inexcusable.
Blame idiot users for doing it, and blame idiot devs for encouraging it.
...wasn't even intentional. Guy asked a scammer to pose for a photo holding a sign with a company logo.
Scammer didn't exactly pose with a sign. Scammer did something else, something that no one expected, and that now has the baiter being revered by other baiters as a god (this is not my work, I really envy this guy);
...try it yourself. Study the posted scam baiter correspondence and try to mimic it with a few pet mugus. You'll find that while some of them are wise, many of them will fall for quite a bit of bullshit.
I've not yet conned money from anyone, but I have managed to get two scammers to be 'baptized' in the name of my church (the Church of the Golden Shower), and you can see the pics linked in a previous posting of mine (the pics are also in the 419eater.com Trophy Room, along with two other trophies that I received previously, one of them a Father's Day card for my dad, but right now the site is slashdotted). The "Golden Shower" baits are still ongoing, and I'm tempted to get the scammers to send me something via snail mail. Perhaps not money, but maybe hardcopies of the photos.
At some point I plan to document the email exchanges that led up to me receiving the pictures. I'm not as funny in my presentation, but it would at least give other baiters who haven't had luck getting pics an idea of how to convince the scammers to send one (in my case, I played along until they asked for money, then confessed that I personally couldn't afford what they wanted, but I could appropriate church funds ONLY if they agreed to join the church).
I have no reason to doubt the Church of the Painted Breast bait. The guy in the pic was successfully baited by others (note that one of the pics that Shiver/Mike/David sent is of a group of clowns with other pictures of "Joe" photoshopped in -- those came from other baiters, and you can see one where he's dumping water on his head and holding a sign that reads "SOAKED!") and Shiver is a resident expert amongst the baiting community.
You think that these scams are run by individuals trying to pull some cash? They're not. The average Nigerian citizen can't afford Internet access of any kind.
The people running these scams are almost always associated with criminal gangs, and these gangs do pull in quite a bit from their acts of fraud, and they do funnel the money into criminal enterprises.
No, they're not "terrorists", but they are hard-core criminals who will stop at nothing to rob anyone they can blind. They all deserve to die a horrible, painful death. Unfortunately, we don't have that power, so the best that we can do is utterly humiliate them by making them paint their body or getting them to dump water on their heads.
I know of two Nigerian scammers who are willing to defraud a church of over $20,000. How do I know this? Because I claim to be a pastor of the church with the means to give them church funds. They are so greedy that they were willing to be baptized in the name of our Church. I even got them to sign the church membership agreement.
The 'worst' accident came from a pretty stupid mistake, but the overall effect was relatively mild.
I had just built a new Athlon 64 machine, and I tried turning it on. Nothing happened. The system powered up, but I wouldn't even get a POST. I was afraid that something was damaged and that I'd need to hunt it down to replace it.
I took the thing apart to check all of the connectors and discovered that I'd forgotten to plug in the auxillary power cable from the power supply to the mainboard. Popping that in resulted in a proper POST, and all was well -- except that I still had to put the machine back together.
As I was putting it together, I managed to shove the IDE cable into a 120GB Linux drive the wrong way, bending a pin to the point where I could find no way whatsoever to pull it back into position (in addition to being bent, it was also pushed back into the cable). Fortunately, I was using SATA drives for my Windows XP installation, and so I still had a somewhat usable machine, even if it did mean that I was primarily running Windows.
I happen to have a friend who is very good with computer hardware, and I sent the drive to him. He was able to juryrig a quick IDE connection between the drive and his computer, archive all of the data, split it into 700MB encrypted archives, burn it all to CD and send it to me. Thus, I was able to restore all of the data onto a nice 160GB SATA drive, once I got the kernel drivers straightened out. I did lose all of my file timestamps, though, which is somewhat annoying.
That's the worst disaster I've ever had. I've never permanently destroyed any other hardware. I did once break the CD power connector cable from a Sony Playstation when installing a modchip, but I was able to solder it back on without incident.
Good lord, no wonder they're scamming. They're not trying to get rich, they just don't have any other way to afford Internet connectivity!
On the other hand, it does make me feel even better about baiting the scammers. Every minute wasted sending me email (even more when they send me silly pictures of themselves dumping water on their heads) is money that they've lost.
Heh. That wouldn't work with the machines at the local University's computer lab. They're all logged in with full Administrative access for normal users, and security is handled through "policy settings" (the university's IT department is wholly incompetent).
In any case, it still shows utter developer incompetence. If a dev had a requirement that a standard Linux app -- such as a game -- have full root access, they'd be rightfully lynched. Unfortunately there are quite a few morons who think that it's perfectly acceptable to run their Windows machines with full Admin rights all the time. Stunts like this only encourage that moronic practice.
When was the last time that you tried it? I spent last night playing City of Heroes on it. While there are some UI issues (it has a real problem of registering mouseclicks on certain menu options, though it will eventually get them), the game ran at pretty much the same framerate as it does under Windows XP.
You're thinking logically. Some software developers throw in deliberate restrictions that have no logical grounds whatsoever.
Case in point: Thief: Deadly Shadows. Ion Storm says that you MUST run the game under an account that has full Administrative rights. There is no reason to require that a game run with Administrative rights, and no sane Windows user should be using an account with Administrative tasks for playing a game. The restriction is not a matter of the game needing Administrative access for anything. The game can function just fine under a Power Users account. However, the geniuses at Ion Storm decided that they wanted to lock players into this asinine restriction, so they programmed the game to self-destruct by deleting all of the files in its System directory (the game's System directory, not that of Windows) when a non-Admin tries to run it. There is a workaround -- give non-Admin users read-only access to the files (since the game's config and save data is stored elsewhere) -- but that is an example of a completely illogical and pointless restriction deliberately placed on software by a developer. Having the software discover that it's being run under Linux via Wine and self-destructing in much the same way is not a far stretch.
...far too few people understand that spammers truly deserve to die. You're not going to get a lot of support.
Most people, if left in a room with a baseball bat an Alan Ralsky tied to a chair would probably let him go. I'd make sure that he suffered until his last breath.
As someone who has personally sued a spammer, I can attest to the fact that the only way to make spammers stop is to hit them in their pocket books.
I disagree. You can also stop spammers by hitting them in the head with a blunt insturment repeatedly, until they are no longer breathing. I think of such a solution as far more satisfying and it carries a much lower risk of recidivism.
Nearly all web server operators pull spammer sites offline as soon as they realize what has hit them to cut off the money chain before the transaction even happens
Obviously you've never heard of Verizon, Verio, Qwest, Cogentco, MCIWorldcom (aka Spew-You Net), Level 3, EV1.net...
Far too many ISPs, such as Cogentco and UUnet are so corrupt that I'm convinced that they would whore out their own children to child pornography sites on their network if paid enough.
Re:Plenty of colors for the dirty deed.
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Reverse Graffiti
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Graffiti with negative paint (cleaning fluid) is still graffiti, is still done without the permission of the property owner, and the doer thereof should still be subject to the legal penalties for trespassing and vandalism.
I actually have something of a problem with this statement. To me, it's kind of like punishing someone for littering because they cleaned up some of the trash in an area, but not all of it, even though they didn't dump any of the trash in the first place.
Re:Depends on the kind of graffiti
on
Reverse Graffiti
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Can I have your home address, so that I can "shove" my ideas onto your private property?
Re:I may screw this up...
on
P2P Bits
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· Score: 1
I wonder if the MPAA campaign is appealing to the public any better?
Absolutely. I felt really guilty after downloading a bootlegged copy of Harry Potter 3.
note: I didn't really download a bootlegged copy of HP3. I did download a bootlegged copy of Kill Bill: Vol 1, but I ended up buying the DVD less than a week later anyway
but then the same kind of clueless user that allows his/her box to fester with viruses will switch to another ISP which wont cut the service off...
And that ISP will quickly discover that no one wants their packets.
because the clueless user might not understand the root cause of being cut off.
That's why you explain it to the clueless user, as one would a child. If they still don't understand, have a contract clause that allows the ISP to confiscate the customer's computer and burn it.
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I don't worry, since 1) I've never run into a CD crack with a trojan (such things would be noticed quickly by other users) and 2) I never run the executable with an account that has privledges sufficient to let the trojan do anything nasty.
One game in particular, Madden 2004, will tell an unpriveliged user that there are updates to install, pretend to apply them, and then turn around and say that there are still updates to install. When run as Admin, it says there are no updates available. So I don't even know if these updates are installed system-wide when done by Admin, or if the unprivileged user just doesn't get updated software.
This is typically a result of user permissions or user-level registry keys (or both). You can usually fix this by granting the user write access to certain files or registry keys.
I've never found a game where I was required to run with full Administrative rights. Typically a CD crack would fix things. If that didn't work, a registry tweak was in order. The most annoying fix was with Thief 3, where the developers maliciously imposed an artificial "must run as Admin" requirement that made the game self-destruct when an unprivledged account tried to run it, but I was even able to circumvent that one.
My main user account is in the "Power Users" group. The account in the "Administrators" group (which is not the default "Administrator" account -- that one was renamed and then disabled) is only used for software installs that require it and Windows Update.
This is as per Microsoft's own recommendations.
Could you be more specific? I've never had trouble running Explorer with "Run As" in either Windows XP or Windows 2000. That's how I run Windows Update without logging out of my Power Users account.
I believe that with some apps you have to hold shift and right-click to get the "Run As" option to appear.
I just called my boyfriend and asked.
The solution for Palm hotsync:
Give the user Administrative-level access.
Install the Palm software.
Explicitly grant the user access to the installed Palm files in Program Files (rather than doing it via Group access).
Remove the user from the Administrators group.
Voila. Palm hotsync works without Admin rights. The temporary Administrator rights are needed so that the installer can create certain user-specific registry keys. Another way to do it is to install it under an Administrator's account and then export/import the reg keys, but my boyfriend reports that temporarily setting up the user with Admin rights is overall easier.
1. Standard apps (such as palm hotsynch) and many games don't work properly as non-root
For games that "require" Administrator access, I just use a no-CD crack. The only reason that games ever require Administrator-level privledges is for incredibly poorly-designed CD-checking systems (and as there are CD-checking systems that don't require Administrative access, like that used with Unreal Tournament 2004, there is absolutely no excuse for it anymore).
I don't know about Palm sync, but my boyfriend uses a Palm and he's something of a Windows 2000/XP security nut. I'll ask him, because he's very big on not running as Administrator unless absolutely necessary.
2. I don't want to have switch user each time I need to do an administrator-level activity -- particlulary since brain-dead windoze takes a minute or more to do this even on a fast machine.
Solution: right-click on icon, choose "Run As". If "Run As" does not appear, hold "Shift" and right-click, and it should appear. I run Windows Update while logged in via my standard user account (Power Users group) through this method.
Most users, being incredibly stupid, run their default account with full Administrative privledges. It doesn't help when a number of gaming developers use asinine CD-check systems that REQUIRE Administrator-level access, meaning that the only way to run the game without Admin rights is to use a no-CD crack (in the case of Thief 3, you have to prevent non-Admins from having write access to the install directory or the game destroys itself because the developers were either incredibly malicious or frighteningly incompetent) -- the existence of CD-check systems that don't require Admin privs (such as the one used for UT2K4) means that such restrictions are utterly inexcusable.
Blame idiot users for doing it, and blame idiot devs for encouraging it.
...wasn't even intentional. Guy asked a scammer to pose for a photo holding a sign with a company logo.
Scammer didn't exactly pose with a sign. Scammer did something else, something that no one expected, and that now has the baiter being revered by other baiters as a god (this is not my work, I really envy this guy);
Behold.
...try it yourself. Study the posted scam baiter correspondence and try to mimic it with a few pet mugus. You'll find that while some of them are wise, many of them will fall for quite a bit of bullshit.
I've not yet conned money from anyone, but I have managed to get two scammers to be 'baptized' in the name of my church (the Church of the Golden Shower), and you can see the pics linked in a previous posting of mine (the pics are also in the 419eater.com Trophy Room, along with two other trophies that I received previously, one of them a Father's Day card for my dad, but right now the site is slashdotted). The "Golden Shower" baits are still ongoing, and I'm tempted to get the scammers to send me something via snail mail. Perhaps not money, but maybe hardcopies of the photos.
At some point I plan to document the email exchanges that led up to me receiving the pictures. I'm not as funny in my presentation, but it would at least give other baiters who haven't had luck getting pics an idea of how to convince the scammers to send one (in my case, I played along until they asked for money, then confessed that I personally couldn't afford what they wanted, but I could appropriate church funds ONLY if they agreed to join the church).
I have no reason to doubt the Church of the Painted Breast bait. The guy in the pic was successfully baited by others (note that one of the pics that Shiver/Mike/David sent is of a group of clowns with other pictures of "Joe" photoshopped in -- those came from other baiters, and you can see one where he's dumping water on his head and holding a sign that reads "SOAKED!") and Shiver is a resident expert amongst the baiting community.
You think that these scams are run by individuals trying to pull some cash? They're not. The average Nigerian citizen can't afford Internet access of any kind.
The people running these scams are almost always associated with criminal gangs, and these gangs do pull in quite a bit from their acts of fraud, and they do funnel the money into criminal enterprises.
No, they're not "terrorists", but they are hard-core criminals who will stop at nothing to rob anyone they can blind. They all deserve to die a horrible, painful death. Unfortunately, we don't have that power, so the best that we can do is utterly humiliate them by making them paint their body or getting them to dump water on their heads.
I know of two Nigerian scammers who are willing to defraud a church of over $20,000. How do I know this? Because I claim to be a pastor of the church with the means to give them church funds. They are so greedy that they were willing to be baptized in the name of our Church. I even got them to sign the church membership agreement.
Now if I can just get a tithe from them...
Evolution is *not* the "change in allele frequencies over time."
"In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next."
- Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989 Worth Publishers, p.974
The 'worst' accident came from a pretty stupid mistake, but the overall effect was relatively mild.
I had just built a new Athlon 64 machine, and I tried turning it on. Nothing happened. The system powered up, but I wouldn't even get a POST. I was afraid that something was damaged and that I'd need to hunt it down to replace it.
I took the thing apart to check all of the connectors and discovered that I'd forgotten to plug in the auxillary power cable from the power supply to the mainboard. Popping that in resulted in a proper POST, and all was well -- except that I still had to put the machine back together.
As I was putting it together, I managed to shove the IDE cable into a 120GB Linux drive the wrong way, bending a pin to the point where I could find no way whatsoever to pull it back into position (in addition to being bent, it was also pushed back into the cable). Fortunately, I was using SATA drives for my Windows XP installation, and so I still had a somewhat usable machine, even if it did mean that I was primarily running Windows.
I happen to have a friend who is very good with computer hardware, and I sent the drive to him. He was able to juryrig a quick IDE connection between the drive and his computer, archive all of the data, split it into 700MB encrypted archives, burn it all to CD and send it to me. Thus, I was able to restore all of the data onto a nice 160GB SATA drive, once I got the kernel drivers straightened out. I did lose all of my file timestamps, though, which is somewhat annoying.
That's the worst disaster I've ever had. I've never permanently destroyed any other hardware. I did once break the CD power connector cable from a Sony Playstation when installing a modchip, but I was able to solder it back on without incident.
Good lord, no wonder they're scamming. They're not trying to get rich, they just don't have any other way to afford Internet connectivity!
On the other hand, it does make me feel even better about baiting the scammers. Every minute wasted sending me email (even more when they send me silly pictures of themselves dumping water on their heads) is money that they've lost.
Heh. That wouldn't work with the machines at the local University's computer lab. They're all logged in with full Administrative access for normal users, and security is handled through "policy settings" (the university's IT department is wholly incompetent).
In any case, it still shows utter developer incompetence. If a dev had a requirement that a standard Linux app -- such as a game -- have full root access, they'd be rightfully lynched. Unfortunately there are quite a few morons who think that it's perfectly acceptable to run their Windows machines with full Admin rights all the time. Stunts like this only encourage that moronic practice.
When was the last time that you tried it? I spent last night playing City of Heroes on it. While there are some UI issues (it has a real problem of registering mouseclicks on certain menu options, though it will eventually get them), the game ran at pretty much the same framerate as it does under Windows XP.
You're thinking logically. Some software developers throw in deliberate restrictions that have no logical grounds whatsoever.
Case in point: Thief: Deadly Shadows. Ion Storm says that you MUST run the game under an account that has full Administrative rights. There is no reason to require that a game run with Administrative rights, and no sane Windows user should be using an account with Administrative tasks for playing a game. The restriction is not a matter of the game needing Administrative access for anything. The game can function just fine under a Power Users account. However, the geniuses at Ion Storm decided that they wanted to lock players into this asinine restriction, so they programmed the game to self-destruct by deleting all of the files in its System directory (the game's System directory, not that of Windows) when a non-Admin tries to run it. There is a workaround -- give non-Admin users read-only access to the files (since the game's config and save data is stored elsewhere) -- but that is an example of a completely illogical and pointless restriction deliberately placed on software by a developer. Having the software discover that it's being run under Linux via Wine and self-destructing in much the same way is not a far stretch.
...far too few people understand that spammers truly deserve to die. You're not going to get a lot of support.
Most people, if left in a room with a baseball bat an Alan Ralsky tied to a chair would probably let him go. I'd make sure that he suffered until his last breath.
As someone who has personally sued a spammer, I can attest to the fact that the only way to make spammers stop is to hit them in their pocket books.
I disagree. You can also stop spammers by hitting them in the head with a blunt insturment repeatedly, until they are no longer breathing. I think of such a solution as far more satisfying and it carries a much lower risk of recidivism.
Nearly all web server operators pull spammer sites offline as soon as they realize what has hit them to cut off the money chain before the transaction even happens
...
Obviously you've never heard of Verizon, Verio, Qwest, Cogentco, MCIWorldcom (aka Spew-You Net), Level 3, EV1.net
Far too many ISPs, such as Cogentco and UUnet are so corrupt that I'm convinced that they would whore out their own children to child pornography sites on their network if paid enough.
Graffiti with negative paint (cleaning fluid) is still graffiti, is still done without the permission of the property owner, and the doer thereof should still be subject to the legal penalties for trespassing and vandalism.
I actually have something of a problem with this statement. To me, it's kind of like punishing someone for littering because they cleaned up some of the trash in an area, but not all of it, even though they didn't dump any of the trash in the first place.
Can I have your home address, so that I can "shove" my ideas onto your private property?
I wonder if the MPAA campaign is appealing to the public any better?
Absolutely. I felt really guilty after downloading a bootlegged copy of Harry Potter 3.
note: I didn't really download a bootlegged copy of HP3. I did download a bootlegged copy of Kill Bill: Vol 1, but I ended up buying the DVD less than a week later anyway
...hammer the spammer's ISP with complaints until the advertised website is DEAD, DEAD, DEAD.
but then the same kind of clueless user that allows his/her box to fester with viruses will switch to another ISP which wont cut the service off...
And that ISP will quickly discover that no one wants their packets.
because the clueless user might not understand the root cause of being cut off.
That's why you explain it to the clueless user, as one would a child. If they still don't understand, have a contract clause that allows the ISP to confiscate the customer's computer and burn it.