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User: DaveAtFraud

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  1. Re:Just Suppose on Law of Armed Conflict To Apply To Cyberwar · · Score: 1

    Good point about the threat possibly being enough to bring about a change.

    My take though from reading the news is that quite a bit of the cracking from China is state sponsored while the bulk of it from Russia originates from criminal sources (possibly tolerated by the government; govt' gets the secrets, crooks get the money). Alternatively, the Russians may be just as active as the Chinese but all of the criminal botnets mask their espionage cracking.

    I don't think we would do anything overt to either one unless the issue was on the order of what I described in my original post. On the other hand, anything even approaching being a threat from a minor player (e.g., Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea) would probably elicit an interesting display of force. This is especially true if we're looking for an excuse to do so.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  2. Re:Just Suppose on Law of Armed Conflict To Apply To Cyberwar · · Score: 1

    So have you ever been in a small plane "under positive control" (instrument flight rules) and very limited visibility? It's quite an experience to be in the right seat especially. We flew with a friend of ours who had her instrument rating through a rather heavy rain. All I can tell you is our pilot could only do what the controller told her to do. There were four of us in a Cessna 172 and we were completely dependent on air traffic control to get us to a runway and back on the ground and not run into anyone else while doing so.

    Now lets try that with a few hundred commercial airliners with some of them attempting to land in the same sort of bad weather. You should also note that all traffic above 15,000 feet is under positive control since there is very little likelihood that traffic can see and avoid each other. If you don't believe me on this, check out the number of mid-air collisions that have occurred back when "see and avoid" was thought to be sufficient. Big sky and all that and you'd think it shouldn't happen but the bottom line is that it has happened several times. All it takes is a couple of mid-air collisions and I think you'd have what qualifies as "massive casualties."

    Why don't you try flying in instrument conditions in a small plane before spouting stuff you read in book? And then still tell us how unnecessary air traffic control is?

    Cheers,
    Dave

  3. Just Suppose on Law of Armed Conflict To Apply To Cyberwar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just suppose that foreign crackers penetrated the air traffic control system or the power grid and either caused massive casualties due to lack of air traffic control or they turned off the lights to major portions of the country also causing significant casualties and economic losses. Further, let's suppose that we are able to identify the source of the attack. It sounds like the majority of the posters so far think we ought to call up their ISP and ask that their account be terminated.

    I think a cruise missile would be more appropriate or maybe a few precision guided weapons applied as needed. The source of such an attack is a legitimate target and sending a message that such targets well be dealt with in a manner proportionate to the damage they inflict makes a lot of sense to me. If the attack is state sponsored, retaliation that is far out of proportion is called for since the attack constitutes an act of war.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  4. Re:Up and Running on Windows 7 RC Rush Crashes MSDN, TechNet Pages · · Score: 0, Troll

    I can see why you post anonymously with comments as astute as this.

    My original post wasn't modded up; my karma gets me what's known as a "Karma Bonus." As to why the rest of my OP is interesting... newer MS OSs won't run under qemu unless you have very current versions of qemu, kvm and SDL. That is, Vista and Server 2008 both won't install; probably the same for W7. This information might save some other folks some time if they'd also rather keep MS products confined to a VM. But if you had any experience with running qemu you would have known that. Sad.

    You'll also note that I've followed up with a first few observations of W7 now that I've had a chance to play with it.

    Suggest you revert to an OS that fits your skill level... like Microsoft Bob.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  5. Re:Up and Running on Windows 7 RC Rush Crashes MSDN, TechNet Pages · · Score: 0, Troll

    This is posted from IE8 running under W7 under qemu. See my OP for details.

    Observations:

    - Slower than snot in January.
    - Every web page I've tried to load gets the "trouble loading" pop-up.
    - It doesn't want to joing my domain (Samba PDC).
    - Pretty pictures!
    - Windows Defender won't start.
    - You have to go into "Advanced Settings" for the display to get to a screen that lets you run the display at 1280x1024 and 16 bit color. Otherwise you top out at 1024x768.

    I'll scan the installation with nmap and nessus to see if anything interesting is open.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  6. Up and Running on Windows 7 RC Rush Crashes MSDN, TechNet Pages · · Score: 0, Troll

    Got it from a torrent this morning and now it's up and running in a qemu VM (That's as close as I let Microsoft's bug ladden bloatware get to my hardware). Host OS is a customized CentOS 5.3 installation. Customizations include running a 2.6.28.7 kernel, kvm-84, qemu-0.9.1 and SDL-1.2.13 (and you need gcc 3.x to compile SDL). I'll bump to 2.6.30 if/when I can get HAL working with it.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  7. CAT 6 Throughout the house on Handmade vs. Commercially Produced Ethernet Cables · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I ran CAT 6 cable though my house a couple of years ago (pictures). All of the cables were custom made by me and test at gigabit speed. Testing was done by dragging a box with a gigabit NIC to each jack and making sure the connection was gigabit. I don't remember the network speed test program I used but the test was actual transfer speed. This was my first time making cables and let's just say I didn't spend over $50 on the crimping tool and the punch-down tool was the free one that came with the jacks.

    That being said, if your boss says do it his way and he'll give you the budget to do it that way, salute and say "Yes sir." Doing it yourself means that, at best, you proved your boss wrong. Not a good career move. If anything goes wrong (even if it's not your fault like a squirrel chews through a cable) it will be your fault for not doing what your boss said.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  8. Re:Let me be the first one to say it ... on Pirate Bay Trial Ends In Jail Sentences · · Score: 1

    I was trying to come up with a similar situation in which those who abet crimes by the public are found guilty of those crimes, whilst the public continue to commit them in ever larger numbers and find nothing reprehensible in their behaviour.

    Pimping, pandering and other "sex for hire as a business" type crimes appear to be an example where those who abet the crime get punished more so than those who actually commit the crime. The "johns" tend to get a slap on the wrist and, at worst, some bad publicity. The sex workers only get slightly harsher treatment while those who run a brothel get significant punishment for the crime itself plus hit up for all the taxes and tax penalties they didn't (and couldn't) pay on their profits and usually some money laundering and other "organized crime" type charges.

    Oh, and this business seems to be continuing (and often growing) in spite of the efforts of the authorities.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  9. Re:business as usual for conspiracy theorists on Project OXCART Declassified From Area 51 · · Score: 1

    You are absolutely right. Elvis told me a year ago that this story would be released to debunk the conspiracy theories.

    I remember the conversation clearly. We were flying in a black helicopter on our way to the grassy knoll in Dallas (he likes to walk around there every November). He said the aliens really liked the idea of tying the UFO sightings to a spy plane being tested.

    After all, we all know that the complete lack of evidence of a conspiracy is the best evidence that the conspiracy is still working.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  10. Why stop at nukes? on Obama Calls For Nuke-Free World · · Score: 1

    Why don't we just outlaw war and be done with it? Sort of like the Kellogg-Briand Pact back in the 1920s.

    Oh, wait. That didn't work. Some really nasty people just decided to ignore it since it was inconvenient for them. Well, who knows, maybe this time it will work. What have we got to loose except civilization as we know it?

    Cheers,
    Dave

    BTW, I'm currently reading "Return of the Enola Gay" by Paul Tibbetts (autographed by the author).

  11. Re:Yet another example of incompetence on Obama Calls For Nuke-Free World · · Score: 1

    Cleaning my guns and buying ammo in case I have to shoot back.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  12. Me too (sort of) on Reasonable Hardware For Home VM Experimentation? · · Score: 1
    I signed up to check out how well KVM/qemu supported security testing of virtual machines for a network security class I'm taking. The box I'm running the VMs on looks like this. Dual core AMD X2/64 CPU:

    [dave@bend ~/]# cat /proc/cpuinfo
    processor : 0
    vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
    cpu family : 15
    model : 67
    model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+
    stepping : 3
    ...
    flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy
    ...
    address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
    power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc

    processor : 1
    vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
    cpu family : 15
    model : 67
    model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+
    ...

    Lots of RAM:

    [dave@bend ~/burpsuite_v1.2]# cat /proc/meminfo
    MemTotal: 4048572 kB
    MemFree: 44832 kB
    ...

    and plenty of disk space (I'm at the better part of 1TB on the host for a variety of reasons).

    So far I've successfully created VMs for Ubuntu 8.10, Fedora Core 10, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Home, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Server 2003 and 2008, CentOS 4.7 and CentOS 5.2. I'm running CentOS 5.2 (x86_64) as the host OS and I had to rebuild the kernel, qemu, KVM and SDL to get everything running correctly. All of the OSes except FC10, Ubuntu 8.10, Vista and Server 2008 run fine on the base system. Ubuntu and FC10 needed the newer kernel. Vista and Server 2008 needed the other software updates. The upgrade to the 2.6.28.7 kernel from kernel.org is usually stable but I still run on the latest CentOS kernel unless I need to play with Ubuntu or FC10 just to make sure things are stable.

    More details on my blog. Vista and Server 2008 are both dogs but everything else has acceptable performance in a VM.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  13. Re:Deer repellent/hot pepper spray (capsaicin) on How To Keep Rats From Eating My Cables? · · Score: 1

    All I can add is that this approach also works for squirrels. I have point-to-point wireless with an antenna on my house's roof. Damn squirrel ate through the data lines but left the power lines. My ISP shows the antenna was good but I couldn't get to the internet. When they finally sent a tech out, he found that the wire had been chewed. After he replaced the wire I "painted" it with Gold Cap hot oil. Haven't had a problem since.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  14. Too much information!!!!!!!! on How To Keep Rats From Eating My Cables? · · Score: 1

    Ouch!

  15. I used to work for a government contractor on Why Do We Name Servers the Way We Do? · · Score: 1

    So, I started out with waste, fraud and abuse. When I needed more names I added bend, fold, spindle and mutilate. fraud is how I got my user name since I'm dave@fraud.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  16. Re:Ring Ring! on Toward Autonomous Unmanned Aircraft Technology · · Score: 1

    Count the number of disabled cars you see along the road during your typical commute. If they were flying when whatever it was went wrong, just pulling over to the side of the road wouldn't be sufficient. It is sufficient if existing cars just have a few nines of reliability. Once you start flying you need a lot more nines or "Oops, I forgot to buy gas." could be fatal.

    One other big difference that further aggravates the above is the duty cycle required of engines and such once you start flying. A typical car is only rarely accelerated and run at full power. Cruising down the highway only requires about 30% of the power the engine is capable of. Aviation engines run at full power at every takeoff and even cruising takes a substantial amount of the power the engine is capable of. Running things at a higher duty cycle requires a much more robust design. Air and Space magazine had a really good article on this subject a few years back.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  17. Re:Science includes BOTH strengths and weaknesses on Texas Board of Education Supports Evolution · · Score: 1

    Jeese. And I thought I was cynical.

    Actually, the Darwin issue probably makes very little more money for SA than any other issue. If anything, a hot topic, special issue on say global warming, health care, mars discoveries, the change in the scientific political climate since the election, etc. would probably sell better. The Darwin issue was to honor him on the 200 anniversary of his birth (and 150 years since Origin of Species). I really doubt if there will be significantly fewer copies remaindered than any other issue.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  18. Re:Science includes BOTH strengths and weaknesses on Texas Board of Education Supports Evolution · · Score: 1

    > Perhaps because the theory of evolution has had a profound impact on Western thought,
    > far more so than any other scientific theory I can think of.

    In what way? And how does this relate to the question?

    I was going to just add this as off topic but it appears to be on topic. You might take a look at the January issue of Scientific American. As February 12th is the 200th anniversary of Darwin's brth, SA devoted an entire issue to looking at the impact of Darwin's theory on western science and thought. The very fact that SA would devote an entire issue to this subject speaks volumes for the profound impact Darwin has had.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  19. Re:when will it on Oldest Weapons-grade Plutonium Found In Dump · · Score: 1

    I'll bid. I bet it would go really well next to my boxes of trinitite and my copy of "Enola Gay" autographed by Paul Tibbets. Unfortunately, the CAF won't sell me their B-29 so I could have all of the pieces.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  20. Re:Out of line on Sniping Could Be the Next Killer iPod App · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Center-of-mass hits are much more reliable than head shots.

    Yeah, but a head shot with a "pink cloud" is a confirmed kill. If the target is worth sending a sniper and you only get one shot, go for the sure thing.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  21. Re:dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda1 is enough for ever on Single Drive Wipe Protects Data · · Score: 2, Informative

    Why not:

    dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hda

    instead?

    That way you get random data, not just all zeros. Also you probably want /dev/hda so you blank the entire drive; not /dev/hda1 which only blanks the first partition.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  22. Re:Not a Surprise on Windows 7's Media Hype Having the Opposite Effect As Vista's · · Score: 1

    Replying to both comments but I'll pick on this quote:

    Win2k was an absolute masterpiece at it's release. It just never caught on outside of enterprise, which was really a great shame. It was bad marketing on Microsoft's part.

    First, I still run W2K for when I need a "real" Microsoft OS (just in a QEMU VM). My complaint with W2K is that it is only half the OS of XP. That is, Microsoft never intended for it to be a consumer OS. It was strictly for servers and corporate desktops. If you didn't want to run games or other "consumer" applications, it was (and still is great). If you did want to run more consumer oriented applications, you were stuck with either 98 or ME. I point to XP as being the relatively successful convergence of Microsoft's consumer and corporate operating systems. Yes, it was a little bigger than W2K but it provided quite a bit more capability in return.

    The problem with 95 was it was essentially a new, 32 bit GUI on to of the old, 16 bit Windows 3.1. If it worked for you, it was great. If it didn't, the old 16 bit limitations of Windows 3.1 came back and bit hard since it didn't really take advantage of 32 bit addressing. Back when, I took a look at the internals of 95 and moved to OS/2 since it was a true 32 bit OS. Never regretted it since OS/2's stability was fantastic. It wasn't until 98 that Microsoft actually moved to 32 bit for internals and, no surprise, it still took them two releases to get it right.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  23. Not a Surprise on Windows 7's Media Hype Having the Opposite Effect As Vista's · · Score: 1

    It has usually taken Microsoft two releases of an OS to get it right. Compare the following:

    Windows 3.0 vs. Windows 3.1
    Windows 95 vs. Windows 98*
    Windows 98 vs Windows 98 SE (Second Edition)*
    Windows NT 3.1 vs. Windows NT 4.0
    W2K vs. Windows XP

    Attempts to prolong a decent "second release" such as Windows ME as a successor to 98 SE have also usually been miserable failures.

    Cheers,
    Dave

    * The original 98 was better than 95 but Microsoft really didn't get 98 right until SE.

  24. Re:RTFA on 3 Cups of Coffee Increases Hallucinations · · Score: 1

    Yeah. I usually *averaged* about six or seven hours of sleep each day if you considered the whole week. I tried to do a normal sleep schedule on weekends so I would sleep Saturday and Sunday nights. This meant I'd get up on Monday morning at some sort of normal time but then be awake until I got to bed Tuesday afternoon. So, I'd be awake about 36 hours. Then I'd have a fairly normal sleep schedule of six or seven hours of sleep just from 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon until 9:00 at night each day until I was done with work on Saturday morning. I'd sleep for "a while" Saturday morning to around noon and then get up and have my "normal" sleep schedule weekend.

    Bottom line is I never got really sleep deprived; just REALLY tired (who knows, maybe I was just too tired to appreciate the hallucinations). Luckily, I only had that schedule for one year and then it was on to graduate school with a teaching assistantship and tuition waived. I was one of the few people in grad school who found the schedule and workload easier than when I was an undergrad.

    Cheers,
    Dave

  25. Re:RTFA on 3 Cups of Coffee Increases Hallucinations · · Score: 1

    During my senior year of college I worked graveyard (11:00 pm to 7:00 am) to support myself. After work I would head to class and then go home and go to bed sometime in the middle of the afternoon before getting up around 9:00 pm and doing it all again. I was probably drinking 10 to 15 large cups of coffee each day to keep going. Never had a problem with hallucinations, paranoia, etc. Worst side-effect was getting an involuntary muscle twitch from time to time.

    It took me several years to gradually get my coffee consumption down to a level that didn't cause other people to be concerned. I still drink about five mugs (12 oz each) of coffee every day because I love the flavor. Unfortunately, since my coffee consumption has come down I can no longer drink "regular" coffee after about 6:00 pm without having trouble sleeping. Good quality, brewed decaf is a reasonable substitute but I miss just being able to just get a good cup of the real thing whenever I wanted.

    Cheers,
    Dave