Thanks for the term. I was having trouble finding relevant information. After more searching witht he term you provided and associated terms like EMR, the closest information I could find for monitoring data cables is this pdf covering the eavesdropping on EMR from RS-232 cables. From the paper:
"Eavesdropping experiments showed that RS-232 data signals can be intercepted several meters away from a target system, even when a shielded data cable is used."
"A PC-modem connection placed in a living room could be intercepted in the bedroom of an adjacent house!"
I'd have to agree with the other posters. Modern drives (Post 2001 and > 15GB) can't have overwritten data recovered. And that time and size is when all of the drives had advanced, so I'm sure there's plenty manufactured before then that qualify as well.
Most data recovery shops don't even have a clean room. They get people that did a quick format (Wiped MBR, MFT, or partition tables), overwrote just some data, or had failed PCBs. Hell, with mechanical failures, I've gotten about 75% backed up by freezing them overnight before hooking them back up. Another 10-20% I've recovered by swapping PCBs with a donor drive. These so-called "Recovery experts" charge laymen $800 for minimal labor at best or PCB from a $50 ebayed drive at worst. That's a huge profit margin.
There are a few recovery paces that are skilled enough to swap heads and maybe even some that can figure out how to swap platters. But when it comes to recovery of overwritten or physically destroyed media, good freaking luck.
I remember reading about this in regards to CRT. Here's a good article. Regarding the reading of CAT5 from a distance, I call BS. There isn't enough leakage due to the positive/negative pairs. In any case, IPSec in transport mode should be used for secure transmission on any media. No standalone device required. Even fiber can have a splitter installed for eavesdropping if the traffic isn't encrypted.
DoD5220.22-M is what most use and is becomming old-school. That means three passes. Ones, Zeros, then Random. However, the national standard in America is NIST 800-88. Newer drives have a function built into the firmware that do a secure erase in one pass, even covering spare sectors. It's called Secure Erase or SE. The NSA likes it, rating it higher than using an external program. It meets security requirements of HIPAA, PIPEDA, GLBA, and Sarbanes-Oxley. If you want it, check into this man's utility and its educational document.
It's worth whatever someone is willing to pay. As is anything else in this world. Make something valuable to someone with lots of money and they'll pay lots of money for it. It really is that simple.
You can still do the F8, but that means you have to be present at boot. I'm RDPed into my computer from work all day, so that sucks. To get the permanent disabling to work, there's 3 patches that have to be uninstalled and ignored. For the countdown, they mark with the date of the BIOS when it's installed and they also have a countdown. So you install with your date set to something ridiculously high, then you run a sys file as a kernel level driver (unsigned of course) that freezes the countdown. Pretty slick hack if you ask me.
Have you noticed that Vista x64 won't run unsigned drivers? There used to be obscure bypass mechanisms, but they've eliminated them. It's a smart move to help dodge seedy code. The author now has to get a certificate signed by a trusted root CA or intermediate CA which makes it more difficult for them to be anonymous. In my opinion, part of the signing enforcement is also probably to stop the current known bypass to the activation time limit.
First off, let me address the accusations of being a shill. I used to be an Apple fanboy. My first job was at a gray market Apple shop between 96 and 98. After that, I got a job at a local ISP because they needed someone that knew Macintosh. There, I started toying with Linux and FreeBSD. Everyone there was into OSS and hated Microsoft. After some sour incidents with that company, I landed a job in 2000 with an outsource partner for MS, supporting Windows 2000. I got the job due to my customer service, dial-up, and DSL experience that they wanted. I was actually very impressed after learning the NT family and gradually made a switch to using Windows at home as I became more knowledgable. I then went on to support NT4 Server, networking, and corporate infrastructures running on NT. Also, I supported Services for Unix, Services for Macintosh, and MS Proxy/ISA. I had a lab box at my desk multibooting into several OSes and a G3. I've never had any stock in Microsoft or anything for that matter except my 401k of which I didn't start until years later. After that company got bought out by a sweatshop and things went downhill, I left in 2002 to be a sysadmin/netadmin/security/telephony guy for various companies. Two years ago, I started working in IT for a credit card processor. Less than a year ago, I changed jobs within the company to developer support where I help developers of POS systems integrate to our gateways. It's been a nice break from the IT world. So in closing, I'm not a shill by any stretch of the imagination.
"Then why is it that if my C: drive (partitioned into Windows C: and Linux HDa) gets too fragmented the damned thing refuses to boot..."
That's f*ing crazy. If you were running NT4 pre-SP4, I'd suggest that you used a 3rd party app to make a system partition greater than 8GB and your boot files got moved beyond the 8GB boundary when defragging (Link. However, XP is unaffected by that and I've never heard such a ridiculous claim. What stop codes are you getting before it automagically reboots? I've honestly seen a lot of positive comments on the performance and stability of 2000 and XP, even from the Slashdot crowd. Regarding NT (3.51 and 4) and 2003 (NT5.2), they're also very stable, but not used as much by end users.
I wouldn't know, but from what I've read just about everyone but you Microsoft employees/stockholders think it's a bloated piece of candy flavored shit. Personally, I think anything that makes your computer run SLOWER can hardly be caled an "upgrade". "Upgrading" from XP to Vista would be like "upgrading" my car from a fuel injected V-6 to a carburated 4 cylinder.
I didn't say it's a great OS. I said it's decent. I have my complaints and resource hogging is the biggest. To get my Vista install almost up to speed where my XP SP2 install was, I had to go from 1GB of RAM to 2GB. However, the caching that is performed using that available memory is making it fast as fuck. I'm thinking about going to 4GB to give it even more for caching. Being able to detect available memory and automatically turn off resource hogging components would be great. It already does this for the GUI. However, search indexing kills the HD and caching kills the memory. Any way, they rewrote so much of the kernel in Vista compared to prior NT releases, that it's going to take some time and revisions to get it right. Despite the current flaws in Vista, rewriting those components for the needs and demands of today and tomorrow is a smart move. Creating more eye candy for Joe User is a smart move. Hell, I like the bling eye candy, drooling over some Linux desktop environments and OS X. Would I suggest Vista for most users? Not yet. I'd recommend sticking with XP until they've got Vista smoothed out.
"You say that like the ONLY reason all viruses are for Windows is market share. Yet there isn't a single virus out there for Mac or Linux. It's not like there are only 500 Macs and 10 Linux machines out there. there a
Wow. I mean, wow. If it werent for the fact that this is Slashdot, I would be surprised that you got modded up for such an obvious piece of reverse-FUD.
I didn't RTFA (I must not be new here) but people don't choose Macs because of any of the Apple's features. People choose Macs for stability and freedom from viruses and other shitware (the reasons we wipe Windows and install Linux) and because some high end graphics programs either aren't ported to Windows or are ported badly.
As another responder said, this is no longer the early 90s. Most high-end graphics programs are made natively for Windows at this point and are no longer ports. Businesses are out there to make money. It makes sense that they would put development effort into software that will run on the OS with the highest market share. Welcome to the real world.
The best way to make your Windows more "like a Mac" is to install Linux for its stability and freedom from shitware. That said, if I ever buy another whole computer (which I haven't done since 1987, I just upgrade parts as needed) It will be a Mac.
WTF? No, really. What kind of argument is that? I ran Mac OS 7.3 thru 8. I've tinkered with OS X a bit and think it's really awesome. However, the Windows versions built upon the NT platform (NT, 2000, XP, 2003) are very stable. Vista is decent (Been running x86 and x64 for about seven months now), but needs a lot of work to catch up to the solid nature of XP SP2.
Did you ever stop to think that malware writers are out to make money or to infect the most computers possible? Again, market share drives developers. There's also a surprising number of rootkits out there for Linux. Don't believe me? Google it. There has been malware written for the Mac mostly as proof of concept, to get the author some name recognition and fame because of the common misunderstanding of security. Apple + low hack factor = high profile media coverage when exploit is written. Guess what, Joe Bob OS has no known vulnerabilities and zero written exploits. It's the most secure OS ever! And what about QDOS/MS-DOS? OMG, they're teh l33t! *sigh*
I'm amused by the car commercial where they're touting its bluetooth, "powered by Microsoft". No way in hell I'd buy one, just because it's "(under)powered by Microsoft." ! I've been using Microsoft's OSes and programs for a quarter of a century, and they used to be the best quality out there. The quality has been declining for all that time, IMO right now Microsoft's OSes and programs are by far the very worst either on or off the market.
You know those people that think they're really technical and everyone just kind of rolls their eyes and listens because they might pick up some ignorant crap to quote and laugh about later? That's you.
You talk about Microsoft like it's a single person or perhaps a hive mind. Do you think the cars with their software are running the same Windows you've used? No. They're actually running on Microsoft's embedded platform. They're running Windows Automotive on Windows CE 5.0. Guess what, Windows CE is made by a division separate from the others. Same deal with Windows Automotive. They've got their own staff with different individuals. Or do you have lots of experience with their embedded product and came to an intelligent conclusion that the quality is terrible? *rolls eyes*
Of course, this only works so long as they pwn Taiwan. There's a lot of people that want to see Taiwan independant of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
This article is about HP not wanting to issue a refund. Still though, it's always fun to spin the issue into another Microsoft flame. Down with the man!
Hooray for reverse-FUD! NetBEUI (Yeah, that's how it's spelled) wasn't made by Microsoft or even made for Microsoft. They adopted it as the default networking protocol when TCP/IP was still a little immature, the internet wasn't mainstream or readily available, and small business LANs were all the rage. It was actually a good choice for the time. Not that most people here really care about truth. Just post "Fuck M$ and WINDOZE" and you get modded as insightful.
Really? What corporations? I've worked in several and this is new news to me. If you meant to say that many companies using MS software also purchase Software Assurance, then they upgrade to the newer version of the software (That's what SA gives them) after a pilot run, then sure. I agree.
You and 90% of the other responses I've seen modded "Insightful" should just stop the reverse-FUD. You're only scratching each others backs and doing nothing to educate others of the benefits to alternative solutions. If anything, you only hurt the cause by diminishing the positive image OSS has.
Uh-hu. Right. My theory is that Bill Gates, George Bush Sr. and Hitler (Now undead) teamed up to thwart Google. Anyone else have a fun theory to throw out there and get modded up for? Apparently, any theory that's entertaining will do!
Someone already did this to counter the Blaster worm. See Welchia. The problem with this one though is that it was flooding networks with ICMP pings, causing more network outages than the Blaster worm it was designed to fight.
Apparently, they don't know how to administer their Windows network. Code can be permitted or blocked using an MD5 or SHA1 hash. See this article. Also, to those that complain about stupid IT decisions, I say this: Yes there is a lot of stupid IT decisions, but given the right network, security can be a top priority. I work at a credit card processing company. Keeping control over what code can be run, then maintaining those programs with patches and forced settings helps tremendously in keeping the network safe. An ex girlfriend works at Lockheed Martin on special projects. She doesn't get an internet connection. She's not permitted to carry in a cell phone. Now a small shop that has absolutely zero hack factor doing these kinds of things is ridiculous. As long as they're protected from drive-by vuln scans, have an AV solution, and keep malware under control, that's almost always enough. Dreaded power users that find all sorts of fun ways to fuck their computer can be kept under control at a management level.
First thing I did was to search the page for "Bear" and found your post. From a review on B&N:
Three weeks later, his backing secured, Hal is in a deep submersible in the Juan de Fuca Trench, looking for the primordial bacteria that long ago invaded human cells and developed into mitochondria. Hal believes that mitochondria, now essential to human cellular activity, are also the triggers for the cellular decay that leads to aging and death. Hal's hope, his all-consuming passion, is to find a way to use "mitochondrial chromosome adjustment" to stop this decay and give human beings immortality.
"It doesn't go sluggish like Windows does and you have to reinstall every six months or abouts."
My current Windows install is a Windows 2000 Pro, upgraded to Windows XP Pro, upgraded to Windows Vista. It has been transferred to three or four different hardware configurations by doing a backup/restore with system state. My server is a NT4 PDC, upgraded to Windows 2000 Server (Domain went to native mode), upgraded to Windows Server 2003. It has gone through about as many hardware platforms and is running Exchange, IIS(www, smtp, and ftp), SQL, and SharePoint. All of those products have been upgraded from older versions.
I don't do any special black magic to keep things running. I use street smarts to avoid shady web sites, emails with attachments, and "smiley central with super-bling sounds". I run Symantec anti-virus which has saved my butt maybe two or three times in the last 7 or 8 years when I did something stupid. I have Microsoft Update set to automatic, which as of Windows XP SP2 is the default. I uninstall crap I'm not using every once in a while and keep my startup items down to a minimum. I'm behind a $30 Linksys router which keeps my boxen safe from those wonderful vuln probes.
On the other hand, I try different distros of Linux every once in a while to see how far OSS has come or to use tools that you really should run on Linux. Here's what I've concluded.
If I just want to install, web browse with limited functionality (Thanks to asshat sites that are only tested in IE or use plugins that are only on Windows), and do basic email functions, I can see how Linux would work great for me. If I want to run a custom kernel with limited functionality for a bastion host (A server with a specific purpose that has everything else removed to decrease attack surface and improve performance), I can see how Linux would be a damn good option. If I've been running Linux for a while and have invested all the time in figuring out the workings and I'm willing to spend the time required to learn new software packages with poor documentation (I'll get to this later), Linux can be quite powerful.
If I want to hook up a new gadget I picked up off a shelf and install the CD with utilities and follow the instruction book, Linux isn't going to work. If I want to deploy to end users in a business with an important goal of not slowing down productivity while people learn a new OS and software suite, Linux isn't for me. If I want to run a platform that most software is written on and want to minimize the risk surrounding needing an application that's proprietary and niche and having it available for my OS, Linux definitely isn't for me. If I want to do advanced things with minimal frustration and quick deployment, Linux needs better documentation.
The lack of good documentation I seem to experience with almost everything I've attempted to do in OSS has made it time consuming to figure out for myself how the developer(s) of certain packages want certain tasks accomplished or configuration files written. Now I know there are plenty of closed-source products with shit for documentation, but the good thing is that in most cases, there's a few choices of software vendors and I take documentation and support heavily into consideration when making a purchase decision. The only times I have been cornered into a closed source, shit product is when I'm dealing with an extremely niche market where the software is overpriced, poorly written, poorly documented, poorly supported, but there's no alternative other than making a package myself which means time and money. Time is almost always an important part of the decision.
After getting so far into this French thread, I actually got confused and had to scroll up to the top to discover what the article being discussed is. Boy was I surprised!
The original shooting was thought to be a domestic dispute which is why they didn't lock down the entire school. I wonder if the killer performed the first murder or two in the dorms in a fit of emotions. Over the next two hours, maybe he got more worked up thinking about how he was destined for a life sentence. Result: A desire to be dead instead of life behind bars. Rage.
Then again, he did have a bullet proof vest which I'd imagine isn't something most gun hobbyists have. Did he purchase it in those two hours? Hmmm.
I wish people wouldn't use this incident to argue over politics. Video games, Iraq, gun control, religion, family values, America bashing, decisions made by the school officials, racial stereotypes.
I wish we could know his thoughts. It very easily could make an eye-opening impact, raising public awareness for countless other people on the verge of breaking down. 32 people died. How many others suffer like I assume he did and as a result, kill or hurt others? Thousands? Millions? Shouldn't we focus on learning from these incidents so we can save those yet to be slaughtered?
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Maybe they should build their computers properly? That looks like a 0xF4. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;330100
Thanks for the term. I was having trouble finding relevant information. After more searching witht he term you provided and associated terms like EMR, the closest information I could find for monitoring data cables is this pdf covering the eavesdropping on EMR from RS-232 cables. From the paper:
"Eavesdropping experiments showed that RS-232 data signals can be intercepted several meters away from a target system, even when a shielded data cable is used."
"A PC-modem connection placed in a living room could be intercepted in the bedroom of an adjacent house!"
I'd have to agree with the other posters. Modern drives (Post 2001 and > 15GB) can't have overwritten data recovered. And that time and size is when all of the drives had advanced, so I'm sure there's plenty manufactured before then that qualify as well.
Most data recovery shops don't even have a clean room. They get people that did a quick format (Wiped MBR, MFT, or partition tables), overwrote just some data, or had failed PCBs. Hell, with mechanical failures, I've gotten about 75% backed up by freezing them overnight before hooking them back up. Another 10-20% I've recovered by swapping PCBs with a donor drive. These so-called "Recovery experts" charge laymen $800 for minimal labor at best or PCB from a $50 ebayed drive at worst. That's a huge profit margin.
There are a few recovery paces that are skilled enough to swap heads and maybe even some that can figure out how to swap platters. But when it comes to recovery of overwritten or physically destroyed media, good freaking luck.
I remember reading about this in regards to CRT. Here's a good article. Regarding the reading of CAT5 from a distance, I call BS. There isn't enough leakage due to the positive/negative pairs. In any case, IPSec in transport mode should be used for secure transmission on any media. No standalone device required. Even fiber can have a splitter installed for eavesdropping if the traffic isn't encrypted.
DoD5220.22-M is what most use and is becomming old-school. That means three passes. Ones, Zeros, then Random. However, the national standard in America is NIST 800-88. Newer drives have a function built into the firmware that do a secure erase in one pass, even covering spare sectors. It's called Secure Erase or SE. The NSA likes it, rating it higher than using an external program. It meets security requirements of HIPAA, PIPEDA, GLBA, and Sarbanes-Oxley. If you want it, check into this man's utility and its educational document.
It's worth whatever someone is willing to pay. As is anything else in this world. Make something valuable to someone with lots of money and they'll pay lots of money for it. It really is that simple.
Also see their Shared Source Initiative.
Microsoft does open up its source code to the government for review. They refer to the program as the Government Security Program.
You can still do the F8, but that means you have to be present at boot. I'm RDPed into my computer from work all day, so that sucks. To get the permanent disabling to work, there's 3 patches that have to be uninstalled and ignored. For the countdown, they mark with the date of the BIOS when it's installed and they also have a countdown. So you install with your date set to something ridiculously high, then you run a sys file as a kernel level driver (unsigned of course) that freezes the countdown. Pretty slick hack if you ask me.
That's an interesting thought towards CEs potential for vulns. Be on the lookout for related blackhat and defcon presentations, eh?
Have you noticed that Vista x64 won't run unsigned drivers? There used to be obscure bypass mechanisms, but they've eliminated them. It's a smart move to help dodge seedy code. The author now has to get a certificate signed by a trusted root CA or intermediate CA which makes it more difficult for them to be anonymous. In my opinion, part of the signing enforcement is also probably to stop the current known bypass to the activation time limit.
First off, let me address the accusations of being a shill. I used to be an Apple fanboy. My first job was at a gray market Apple shop between 96 and 98. After that, I got a job at a local ISP because they needed someone that knew Macintosh. There, I started toying with Linux and FreeBSD. Everyone there was into OSS and hated Microsoft. After some sour incidents with that company, I landed a job in 2000 with an outsource partner for MS, supporting Windows 2000. I got the job due to my customer service, dial-up, and DSL experience that they wanted. I was actually very impressed after learning the NT family and gradually made a switch to using Windows at home as I became more knowledgable. I then went on to support NT4 Server, networking, and corporate infrastructures running on NT. Also, I supported Services for Unix, Services for Macintosh, and MS Proxy/ISA. I had a lab box at my desk multibooting into several OSes and a G3. I've never had any stock in Microsoft or anything for that matter except my 401k of which I didn't start until years later. After that company got bought out by a sweatshop and things went downhill, I left in 2002 to be a sysadmin/netadmin/security/telephony guy for various companies. Two years ago, I started working in IT for a credit card processor. Less than a year ago, I changed jobs within the company to developer support where I help developers of POS systems integrate to our gateways. It's been a nice break from the IT world. So in closing, I'm not a shill by any stretch of the imagination.
"Then why is it that if my C: drive (partitioned into Windows C: and Linux HDa) gets too fragmented the damned thing refuses to boot..."
That's f*ing crazy. If you were running NT4 pre-SP4, I'd suggest that you used a 3rd party app to make a system partition greater than 8GB and your boot files got moved beyond the 8GB boundary when defragging (Link. However, XP is unaffected by that and I've never heard such a ridiculous claim. What stop codes are you getting before it automagically reboots? I've honestly seen a lot of positive comments on the performance and stability of 2000 and XP, even from the Slashdot crowd. Regarding NT (3.51 and 4) and 2003 (NT5.2), they're also very stable, but not used as much by end users.
I wouldn't know, but from what I've read just about everyone but you Microsoft employees/stockholders think it's a bloated piece of candy flavored shit. Personally, I think anything that makes your computer run SLOWER can hardly be caled an "upgrade". "Upgrading" from XP to Vista would be like "upgrading" my car from a fuel injected V-6 to a carburated 4 cylinder.
I didn't say it's a great OS. I said it's decent. I have my complaints and resource hogging is the biggest. To get my Vista install almost up to speed where my XP SP2 install was, I had to go from 1GB of RAM to 2GB. However, the caching that is performed using that available memory is making it fast as fuck. I'm thinking about going to 4GB to give it even more for caching. Being able to detect available memory and automatically turn off resource hogging components would be great. It already does this for the GUI. However, search indexing kills the HD and caching kills the memory. Any way, they rewrote so much of the kernel in Vista compared to prior NT releases, that it's going to take some time and revisions to get it right. Despite the current flaws in Vista, rewriting those components for the needs and demands of today and tomorrow is a smart move. Creating more eye candy for Joe User is a smart move. Hell, I like the bling eye candy, drooling over some Linux desktop environments and OS X. Would I suggest Vista for most users? Not yet. I'd recommend sticking with XP until they've got Vista smoothed out.
"You say that like the ONLY reason all viruses are for Windows is market share. Yet there isn't a single virus out there for Mac or Linux. It's not like there are only 500 Macs and 10 Linux machines out there. there a
Wow. I mean, wow. If it werent for the fact that this is Slashdot, I would be surprised that you got modded up for such an obvious piece of reverse-FUD.
I didn't RTFA (I must not be new here) but people don't choose Macs because of any of the Apple's features. People choose Macs for stability and freedom from viruses and other shitware (the reasons we wipe Windows and install Linux) and because some high end graphics programs either aren't ported to Windows or are ported badly.
As another responder said, this is no longer the early 90s. Most high-end graphics programs are made natively for Windows at this point and are no longer ports. Businesses are out there to make money. It makes sense that they would put development effort into software that will run on the OS with the highest market share. Welcome to the real world.
The best way to make your Windows more "like a Mac" is to install Linux for its stability and freedom from shitware. That said, if I ever buy another whole computer (which I haven't done since 1987, I just upgrade parts as needed) It will be a Mac.
WTF? No, really. What kind of argument is that? I ran Mac OS 7.3 thru 8. I've tinkered with OS X a bit and think it's really awesome. However, the Windows versions built upon the NT platform (NT, 2000, XP, 2003) are very stable. Vista is decent (Been running x86 and x64 for about seven months now), but needs a lot of work to catch up to the solid nature of XP SP2.
Did you ever stop to think that malware writers are out to make money or to infect the most computers possible? Again, market share drives developers. There's also a surprising number of rootkits out there for Linux. Don't believe me? Google it. There has been malware written for the Mac mostly as proof of concept, to get the author some name recognition and fame because of the common misunderstanding of security. Apple + low hack factor = high profile media coverage when exploit is written. Guess what, Joe Bob OS has no known vulnerabilities and zero written exploits. It's the most secure OS ever! And what about QDOS/MS-DOS? OMG, they're teh l33t! *sigh*
I'm amused by the car commercial where they're touting its bluetooth, "powered by Microsoft". No way in hell I'd buy one, just because it's "(under)powered by Microsoft." ! I've been using Microsoft's OSes and programs for a quarter of a century, and they used to be the best quality out there. The quality has been declining for all that time, IMO right now Microsoft's OSes and programs are by far the very worst either on or off the market.
You know those people that think they're really technical and everyone just kind of rolls their eyes and listens because they might pick up some ignorant crap to quote and laugh about later? That's you.
You talk about Microsoft like it's a single person or perhaps a hive mind. Do you think the cars with their software are running the same Windows you've used? No. They're actually running on Microsoft's embedded platform. They're running Windows Automotive on Windows CE 5.0. Guess what, Windows CE is made by a division separate from the others. Same deal with Windows Automotive. They've got their own staff with different individuals. Or do you have lots of experience with their embedded product and came to an intelligent conclusion that the quality is terrible? *rolls eyes*
Of course, this only works so long as they pwn Taiwan. There's a lot of people that want to see Taiwan independant of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
Must...quote...Venture Bros.
"There are no prisons in Ünderland, as the Baron has seen fit to impose the death penalty for all infractions of Ünderlaw"
This article is about HP not wanting to issue a refund. Still though, it's always fun to spin the issue into another Microsoft flame. Down with the man!
Hooray for reverse-FUD! NetBEUI (Yeah, that's how it's spelled) wasn't made by Microsoft or even made for Microsoft. They adopted it as the default networking protocol when TCP/IP was still a little immature, the internet wasn't mainstream or readily available, and small business LANs were all the rage. It was actually a good choice for the time. Not that most people here really care about truth. Just post "Fuck M$ and WINDOZE" and you get modded as insightful.
Really? What corporations? I've worked in several and this is new news to me. If you meant to say that many companies using MS software also purchase Software Assurance, then they upgrade to the newer version of the software (That's what SA gives them) after a pilot run, then sure. I agree.
You and 90% of the other responses I've seen modded "Insightful" should just stop the reverse-FUD. You're only scratching each others backs and doing nothing to educate others of the benefits to alternative solutions. If anything, you only hurt the cause by diminishing the positive image OSS has.
Uh-hu. Right. My theory is that Bill Gates, George Bush Sr. and Hitler (Now undead) teamed up to thwart Google. Anyone else have a fun theory to throw out there and get modded up for? Apparently, any theory that's entertaining will do!
Someone already did this to counter the Blaster worm. See Welchia. The problem with this one though is that it was flooding networks with ICMP pings, causing more network outages than the Blaster worm it was designed to fight.
Apparently, they don't know how to administer their Windows network. Code can be permitted or blocked using an MD5 or SHA1 hash. See this article. Also, to those that complain about stupid IT decisions, I say this: Yes there is a lot of stupid IT decisions, but given the right network, security can be a top priority. I work at a credit card processing company. Keeping control over what code can be run, then maintaining those programs with patches and forced settings helps tremendously in keeping the network safe. An ex girlfriend works at Lockheed Martin on special projects. She doesn't get an internet connection. She's not permitted to carry in a cell phone. Now a small shop that has absolutely zero hack factor doing these kinds of things is ridiculous. As long as they're protected from drive-by vuln scans, have an AV solution, and keep malware under control, that's almost always enough. Dreaded power users that find all sorts of fun ways to fuck their computer can be kept under control at a management level.
Three weeks later, his backing secured, Hal is in a deep submersible in the Juan de Fuca Trench, looking for the primordial bacteria that long ago invaded human cells and developed into mitochondria. Hal believes that mitochondria, now essential to human cellular activity, are also the triggers for the cellular decay that leads to aging and death. Hal's hope, his all-consuming passion, is to find a way to use "mitochondrial chromosome adjustment" to stop this decay and give human beings immortality.
"It doesn't go sluggish like Windows does and you have to reinstall every six months or abouts."
My current Windows install is a Windows 2000 Pro, upgraded to Windows XP Pro, upgraded to Windows Vista. It has been transferred to three or four different hardware configurations by doing a backup/restore with system state. My server is a NT4 PDC, upgraded to Windows 2000 Server (Domain went to native mode), upgraded to Windows Server 2003. It has gone through about as many hardware platforms and is running Exchange, IIS(www, smtp, and ftp), SQL, and SharePoint. All of those products have been upgraded from older versions.
I don't do any special black magic to keep things running. I use street smarts to avoid shady web sites, emails with attachments, and "smiley central with super-bling sounds". I run Symantec anti-virus which has saved my butt maybe two or three times in the last 7 or 8 years when I did something stupid. I have Microsoft Update set to automatic, which as of Windows XP SP2 is the default. I uninstall crap I'm not using every once in a while and keep my startup items down to a minimum. I'm behind a $30 Linksys router which keeps my boxen safe from those wonderful vuln probes.
On the other hand, I try different distros of Linux every once in a while to see how far OSS has come or to use tools that you really should run on Linux. Here's what I've concluded.
If I just want to install, web browse with limited functionality (Thanks to asshat sites that are only tested in IE or use plugins that are only on Windows), and do basic email functions, I can see how Linux would work great for me. If I want to run a custom kernel with limited functionality for a bastion host (A server with a specific purpose that has everything else removed to decrease attack surface and improve performance), I can see how Linux would be a damn good option. If I've been running Linux for a while and have invested all the time in figuring out the workings and I'm willing to spend the time required to learn new software packages with poor documentation (I'll get to this later), Linux can be quite powerful.
If I want to hook up a new gadget I picked up off a shelf and install the CD with utilities and follow the instruction book, Linux isn't going to work. If I want to deploy to end users in a business with an important goal of not slowing down productivity while people learn a new OS and software suite, Linux isn't for me. If I want to run a platform that most software is written on and want to minimize the risk surrounding needing an application that's proprietary and niche and having it available for my OS, Linux definitely isn't for me. If I want to do advanced things with minimal frustration and quick deployment, Linux needs better documentation.
The lack of good documentation I seem to experience with almost everything I've attempted to do in OSS has made it time consuming to figure out for myself how the developer(s) of certain packages want certain tasks accomplished or configuration files written. Now I know there are plenty of closed-source products with shit for documentation, but the good thing is that in most cases, there's a few choices of software vendors and I take documentation and support heavily into consideration when making a purchase decision. The only times I have been cornered into a closed source, shit product is when I'm dealing with an extremely niche market where the software is overpriced, poorly written, poorly documented, poorly supported, but there's no alternative other than making a package myself which means time and money. Time is almost always an important part of the decision.
Anyway, there's my take.
After getting so far into this French thread, I actually got confused and had to scroll up to the top to discover what the article being discussed is. Boy was I surprised!
The original shooting was thought to be a domestic dispute which is why they didn't lock down the entire school. I wonder if the killer performed the first murder or two in the dorms in a fit of emotions. Over the next two hours, maybe he got more worked up thinking about how he was destined for a life sentence. Result: A desire to be dead instead of life behind bars. Rage.
Then again, he did have a bullet proof vest which I'd imagine isn't something most gun hobbyists have. Did he purchase it in those two hours? Hmmm.
I wish people wouldn't use this incident to argue over politics. Video games, Iraq, gun control, religion, family values, America bashing, decisions made by the school officials, racial stereotypes.
I wish we could know his thoughts. It very easily could make an eye-opening impact, raising public awareness for countless other people on the verge of breaking down. 32 people died. How many others suffer like I assume he did and as a result, kill or hurt others? Thousands? Millions? Shouldn't we focus on learning from these incidents so we can save those yet to be slaughtered?