reason is, the vendors want to pay to build it once, and then sell it for the next 8 years. They're too cheap to update it.
Unfortunately sometimes the teachers don't mind. When the budget is tight and there's a whole storage room full of retired out imacs running 9.2.2, and they have boxes of old learning software, it's hard to argue with them that it's not still useful, and it's certainly cheaper than buying new computers for the classroom AND new software.. ABC is still ABC even 8 years later.
In a way that's a double edged sword with macs... they tend to have a surprisingly long useful lifespan, especially in some areas, and people start depending on that and putting off upgrades to the point of where you can't really upgrade anything anymore, you just have to pitch it all and start new. (hardware and software)
I'm finishing up upgrading a newspaper here, their entire company ran on OS 9 until last year. Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, you can just imagine their horror when they found out they could not BUY a new machine that would run ANY of their old software. And the older versions of those apps can't open the docs the newer ones make, so they had to upgrade all of them at the same time. Eight new imacs, mbp, and a mini, plus pro software all around. I bet their accounting department had a stroke.
I remember playing it on the Apple II. Was a fun game, though not a lot of variety. The only examples of it I can find on the net easily were for the commodore, but the game looked pretty much the same. Playable with keyboard, but you really needed a joystick, which weren't very common back then.
Actually, it's already overcome. The only two apps I have on my two Windows PCs that requires elevation to run is Acronis True Image - and it makes sense for it as it's a sector-level backup application - and Age of Wonders, a game released in 2000 that I still occasionally play.
There's still no reason for the former to be true. Why can't Acronis pop up a dialog and ask you to provide an administrator's user/password, and use those credentials for privileges? That's how OS X has always worked.
And you are fortunate indeed to only have ran into those two examples. The small amount of pro software I've interacted with on the PC hit pretty much 100% admin-login-required to install, and maybe 45% admin-login-required to RUN. Countless other minor titles had issues, like libraries, bundles, and various packs being inaccessible to non-admin logins. Works did that with most (but not all?!) of its clip art libraries for reasons I have yet to fathom.
CS4 last I checked, you cannot run the updater if you are not an admin user. The versioncue sys pref won't properly unlock when it opens, and unlocking the padalock doesn't help.
Trying to download and run the updates manually only works for some of the updates, others also require you to be logged in as an admin to run them without errors.
My most recent encounter was with LifeTouch. They come to your school and take pictures of all your students, and then send you a CD that lets you organize them, print class photos, print student barcodes, make IDs, etc.
When installing the software, it behaves like a good mac installer. But then the installer FAILS halfway through with an error. We assume it's trying to write to somewhere that WHEEL has write access to, without using SUDO, since it never asks for a login/password.
So we login as an admin, and the installer runs fine. It doesn't even ask for a password and finishes the install. So almost certainly somewhere WHEEL.
Relogin as the secretary and it works fine. Oh, no it doesn't. None of the PICTURES show up. Everything else works, just no PICTURES. This *IS* their product and it's the only part of it that doesn't work.
Further investigation finds that the pictures are copied into a folder on the hard drive, and the folders they are stored in are executable (directory readable) only by the user that installed them. (the admin)
I called them on this and they said "oh your secretary needs to be an ADMIN to use this software". Idiots. We have a tech-savvy superintendent, and she has wisely decreed that her and the three principals are the only admin users in the building. Just nonchalantly saying "oh just make them an admin" demonstrates a dangerous lack of understanding about computer security, particularly in a public environment like a school. If your only justification for making a user an admin is because a harmless app needs it to run, that's justification to find a different piece of software.
In retrospect, I bet we could have promoted her to an admin , ran the installer, and then demoted her, but still, no other users on the computer could use the software even then.
So after I installed it I went around and fixed all the permissions and it worked fine from there on.
Macs definitely are susceptible to malware, as the recent DNS trojan has demonstrated. Any app that asks for and gets your admin password is going to play with your computer, that's pretty hard to beat.
Viruses, and worms in particular, do covert, automated spreading. Worms are able to exploit on-by-default network services remotely in the background. (we just had a new one announced yesterday! affects xp AND vista, good lord you'd think they'd learn by now!) Viruses require the ability to circumvent LOCAL security, and get their hooks in the system and replicate locally without user interaction/permission. OS X (and unix in general) are designed from the ground up with this in mind, and have always been far less vulnerable to these two issues.
I don't see this changing anytime soon, just due to the differing design philosophies inside the two systems. From the start of OS X, apps didn't just have free access to do as they pleased, they were restricted by a security model, and learned to develop in OS X under these restrictions, being forced to learn good coding practice. Windows started in the wide open, and their devs got used to it, before they realize the scope of their mistake and tried to close the doors. The devs refused to stop writing apps that just "oh lets just assume we have full write access to the entire hard drive" etc. and so MS has had to go very slowly to avoid completely destroying their established software market. That's hard to overcome.
Even today I can count on one hand all the mac apps I've ran into that either (1) have to be installed while logged in as an admin, or (2) will only run properly (or completely) when logged in as an admin. And I count those developers as idiots for not knowing what they're doing and just assuming they have privs. Until Windows software approaches these numbers, I don't think we can call the Windows security model "fixed".
There are two things that most interest me here. First, Norton has been considered anything from "bad" to "poison" to OS X from the get-go. It's been known to create a wide variety of system problems, and in most cases, when OS X is misbehaving, and they admit they are running norton, the first advice they get is to remove it. (and "good luck removing it" to boot) Symantec has been of little help there, their first "removal tool" was 300+ lines of terminal commands, and still didn't completely uproot it. Their current removal tools are more effective and user-friendly though. So to see Apple RECOMMEND norton is something of a shock. I don't know of a single person in any of the mac support forums that recommends anything for Norton besides uninstalling it.
Second, I thought AV products don't "stack" well? Our PC tech here is constantly having problems with computers that come in and are running 2-4 AV software, and they're fighting like cats and dogs and crippling the system to where only a fresh install will fix it. From what I read on that Apple post, it sounds like Apple is encouraging you to install multiple AV software. And OS X already runs ClamAV doesn't it? Although I have yet to see such a thing get pushed out, I assume Clam can get updates via SoftwareUpdate? I seriously question where they're going by recommending you install additional (or possibly multiple) AV software.
guessing that you're already aware of the "dispute the charges" option, and were here looking to solve the problem differently. People stateside in this situation are most interested in getting their money back and ordering somewhere else etc so that's why so many answers are going that way. You being deployed are probably more interested in any other way to get the laptop you ordered.
Unfortunately you may be downhill of someone that makes a business of lifting computers from the delivery chain there. It won't matter how many times they send it, you won't get it. One poster recommended seeing if you can get special instructions to plain-mark your box. A better option is to get it delivered back home, and have someone ship it to you. Then you are not dealing with Dell as the shipper that has to go after the shipping company. Right now as the receiver you're pretty powerless to get involved. Should save on shipping costs from your friend's stateside base to you of course too as another option.
well one would hope that, at least after a few years, that would become true. Problem for some people is, they achieved that goal, and then lost it. That's a bit depressing.
I know two people that lost new cars in the floods here, that didn't have insurance to cover flood damage. So they got another new car, and rolled their old car payments into the new. So they're driving around cars that are worth significantly less than their loan.
That reminds me of a certain book, with the Department of Defense being in charge of waging war...
Wow that is quite a lot. I wonder seriously how much of that is being wasted or mis-spent. You think it's a matter of like the $800 toilet seats? or more for the $80,000 missiles?
I realize that we can't have it all. That's part of the reason we're in the mess we are now, we're overspending pretty much across the board. I'd be a hypocrite if I said we need to cut spending on ABC but don't touch my XYZ. Here's hoping he has a sensible, balanced plan.
I'd like to know how he plans to combat pork though. I get the impression that's the biggest budget bleeder.
I expect the majority of easter eggs in software today are debug type commands. When a customer calls you with a freaky error message that's produced by a failed sanity check for something that should never happen, you can tell them to hold a few keys and click your logo or something on the screen, to open a new window with some additional information that they can read off to you to give you an idea of what caused it.
I don't know about windows or linux, but Mac OS X is loaded with these. Mainly undocumented plist switches, that you can turn on debug-like behavior. One causes all files normally hidden to be shown. I leave that one on all the time. Many of these easter eggs have been discovered and are incorporated into system tools you can download to tweak the behavior of the system, beyond that which its built-in preferences etc give you access to. Not sure if you'd consider those easter eggs but I would.
Second place probably goes to secret ways to pull a list of credits, where all the developers are listed, and often then also their "support group" including family, support staff, or the people that gave them the motivation to get the project done or were the inspiration for it in the first place. Best with some background music. I believe those are the purest form of the easter egg.
Guessing on 3rd place being spots where the developers see an opportunity for cheating, and are prepared for it, with either a good zing, a taunt, or a nice response in game mechanics. Those are my personal favorite. I've seen numerous examples in games where you find a way to get past a puzzle or other requirement, without solving the puzzle or meeting the requirement, and get a response like "how did you do that?" or "you may have found your way here but I'm not going to open this door for you until you've dealt with that troll back there." Those are the fun moments when you think you've outsmarted the developer, only to find you've been caught.
Stay the hell away from both my computer and my wallet. (I'm not angry, just flabbergasted that you think it's acceptable behavior to hijack other people's personal property and money.)
THIS, from a person whose computer is already hijacked and being used for illegal activities? If you hold your moral ground here, I'm doing you a favor by hijacking your already hijacked computer, and alerting you to its presence (without causing serious damage) so you can put an end to it.
Or would you prefer to continue to wallow in ignorant bliss as your computer spews forth tens of thousands of spam each day to the rest of the world? People that take THAT attitude, I have no problem with seeing them get their drives formatted.
The problem there is that unless you force them to take it in for service and get it cleaned up properly, it's still going to be infected with other nasty stuff (maybe another botnet) and it's still going to have all the holes in it that let in the bot to begin with, so it's just going to get reinfected again shortly.
I don't endorse something like formatting, but it should be sufficiently disabled to either lose networking capability, or require a windows reinstall. Maybe screw up their network stack. That pretty much always requires a reinstall. Deleting their nic drivers may not be enough, they may be able to do a "repair install" or just reinstall the driver themselves. No doubt some clown will make a "quick fix" patcher to undo the nic driver diffuse, without actually removing the bot. Thank you Geek Squad.
Speculating wildly here since I haven't read the code, but the herders probably use a technique similar to GeoHashing. GeoHashing uses the closing DOW average iirc, to generate coordinates somewhere in the world for that week. The point is you don't know where it's going to be in advance.
If the zombie can't connect to the C&C server, it looks up last night's DOW closing, generates the new domain name, and tries to connect there instead. It tries this for the last week's DOW averages, since DNS takes up to 3 days to propagate. That wouldn't even be necessary if the herder is always using the same registrar, because the zombies could just directly query a specific DNS server.
If the new C&C server isn't set up there yet, it just tries again tomorrow.
It would then become a race to see who could register the domain names the fastest each day/week, since you wouldn't know for sure what names to take until close that day. Due to the probably very odd and random nature of the domain names it would generate, (could be 32 digit hex numbers.com) it would probably be possible to get the cooperation of a registrar somewhere to dummy-register ALL the likely candidates 5 minutes before market close on each day, and leave them locked for a week. (finally a LEGITIMATE USE for domain tasting!) and that may actually immobilize the botnet.
I'd love to see that too. Spoofing traffic on IRC is easy. But the problem is the commands must be signed using the bot herder's private key. It's apparently a very large key, (1024 BYTE iirc) and no one has managed to break it yet.
I bet there are several groups working on them though. Problem is, each time the herder pushes an update, they could rekey it, placing everyone's break attempts back on square 1.
My PERSONAL preference here is that the command sent should cause the participating computers to post a notice on the user's screen telling them they've been owned, that their computers have been being used to harm the public, and that they (the computers) have been rendered inactive and they'll have to take the computer into the shop for repair. (because no doubt they're infested with more than just this botnet) Some may say that's going too far, but imho, it's completely reasonable. They should share some of the responsibility for the actions of their computer after allowing it to be hijacked and being used to abuse ME. How about it just delete their NIC drivers and post the message?
well if you want to look at it strictly from a capitalist point of view, it's costing them a small amount of money to mange their donations. They're also earning a miniscule amount off the interest on your buck until they donate it. There may also be tax writeoffs for them. And then there's the factor of a tiny improvement in market appeal.
In exchange for that assorted mess you get a very convenient way to donate a dollar of your money to a cause you support.
There's also a lot more numbers to crunch to determine who's making what out of that deal. How much is your inconvenience worth for example, or how much does it cost them in additional marketing. I think it's a fair assumption to say they get at least a slight boost from this, (or they wouldn't bother) but probably not a lot. Even factors like "in sales, all other things being equal, more volume is better" play into this. It probably all comes down to fractions of a cent.
Shouldn't we stop fund raising for prostate cancer because it only affects men! Discrimination? Someone needs their head adjusted. Maybe raising funds for condition xxx isn't a good idea, but that's a ridiculous reason to stop.
RCS exhaust is lethal to unprotected humans. At normal shuttle landing sites huge fans are used to blow gas away from the orbiter before any seals are cracked.
That's one of the big things I remember from the first space shuttle flight was seeing them put giant fans by the orbiter after it landed, for what seemed like ages, before anyone got out. I always wondered what they were so worried about needing to blow off the shuttle.
I think it's simply amazing when I see a 3 yr old that can hop up to a computer and knows how to use it. Not to get on excel or anything, but knows how to turn it on or shut it down, can click on games and use a mouse.
Don't expect the computer to be a major part of their life. Even just getting to play on the computer for 30 minutes a day would be great. You want your kid to be one of the ones at school that when the entire class is placed in a lab full of computers, that he sits down and is comfortable using it, not trying to press keys gingerly with one finger and struggling to figure out the mouse, not looking down at the keyboard and peck one key, look up at the screen, look down and peck one more key etc. You can really tell when a kid is accustomed to a computer.
You don't need a super computer for this. Heck, the k-2 I worked at last year had ancient iMacs running OS 9 and Harcourt learning games software on them, and that was an incredible experience for them. (teaching phonics mainly, all audio and video, no reading required) Those machines were in the kids' rooms, and there was a lab of 25 newer machines across the hall with Type To Learn Jr on them. 1st graders learning to type is a wonderful thing. Anything that gets them involved is more than enough.
There are web sites you can go to that host dozens of learning games for K-2 level kids, so you don't even need to buy software that they would outgrow in 2 months. (unlike their clothes!)
I've always wondered why things like this don't cause physical problems related to thermal expansion/contraction - why doesn't the processor package crack due to the temp differences? Or condensation form in bad places etc? There's gotta be a whole list of bad side effects to worry about when supercooling one part of your computer...?
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reason is, the vendors want to pay to build it once, and then sell it for the next 8 years. They're too cheap to update it.
Unfortunately sometimes the teachers don't mind. When the budget is tight and there's a whole storage room full of retired out imacs running 9.2.2, and they have boxes of old learning software, it's hard to argue with them that it's not still useful, and it's certainly cheaper than buying new computers for the classroom AND new software.. ABC is still ABC even 8 years later.
In a way that's a double edged sword with macs... they tend to have a surprisingly long useful lifespan, especially in some areas, and people start depending on that and putting off upgrades to the point of where you can't really upgrade anything anymore, you just have to pitch it all and start new. (hardware and software)
I'm finishing up upgrading a newspaper here, their entire company ran on OS 9 until last year. Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, you can just imagine their horror when they found out they could not BUY a new machine that would run ANY of their old software. And the older versions of those apps can't open the docs the newer ones make, so they had to upgrade all of them at the same time. Eight new imacs, mbp, and a mini, plus pro software all around. I bet their accounting department had a stroke.
I remember playing it on the Apple II. Was a fun game, though not a lot of variety. The only examples of it I can find on the net easily were for the commodore, but the game looked pretty much the same. Playable with keyboard, but you really needed a joystick, which weren't very common back then.
Actually, it's already overcome. The only two apps I have on my two Windows PCs that requires elevation to run is Acronis True Image - and it makes sense for it as it's a sector-level backup application - and Age of Wonders, a game released in 2000 that I still occasionally play.
There's still no reason for the former to be true. Why can't Acronis pop up a dialog and ask you to provide an administrator's user/password, and use those credentials for privileges? That's how OS X has always worked.
And you are fortunate indeed to only have ran into those two examples. The small amount of pro software I've interacted with on the PC hit pretty much 100% admin-login-required to install, and maybe 45% admin-login-required to RUN. Countless other minor titles had issues, like libraries, bundles, and various packs being inaccessible to non-admin logins. Works did that with most (but not all?!) of its clip art libraries for reasons I have yet to fathom.
CS4 last I checked, you cannot run the updater if you are not an admin user. The versioncue sys pref won't properly unlock when it opens, and unlocking the padalock doesn't help.
Trying to download and run the updates manually only works for some of the updates, others also require you to be logged in as an admin to run them without errors.
My most recent encounter was with LifeTouch. They come to your school and take pictures of all your students, and then send you a CD that lets you organize them, print class photos, print student barcodes, make IDs, etc.
When installing the software, it behaves like a good mac installer. But then the installer FAILS halfway through with an error. We assume it's trying to write to somewhere that WHEEL has write access to, without using SUDO, since it never asks for a login/password.
So we login as an admin, and the installer runs fine. It doesn't even ask for a password and finishes the install. So almost certainly somewhere WHEEL.
Relogin as the secretary and it works fine. Oh, no it doesn't. None of the PICTURES show up. Everything else works, just no PICTURES. This *IS* their product and it's the only part of it that doesn't work.
Further investigation finds that the pictures are copied into a folder on the hard drive, and the folders they are stored in are executable (directory readable) only by the user that installed them. (the admin)
I called them on this and they said "oh your secretary needs to be an ADMIN to use this software". Idiots. We have a tech-savvy superintendent, and she has wisely decreed that her and the three principals are the only admin users in the building. Just nonchalantly saying "oh just make them an admin" demonstrates a dangerous lack of understanding about computer security, particularly in a public environment like a school. If your only justification for making a user an admin is because a harmless app needs it to run, that's justification to find a different piece of software.
In retrospect, I bet we could have promoted her to an admin , ran the installer, and then demoted her, but still, no other users on the computer could use the software even then.
So after I installed it I went around and fixed all the permissions and it worked fine from there on.
Macs definitely are susceptible to malware, as the recent DNS trojan has demonstrated. Any app that asks for and gets your admin password is going to play with your computer, that's pretty hard to beat.
Viruses, and worms in particular, do covert, automated spreading. Worms are able to exploit on-by-default network services remotely in the background. (we just had a new one announced yesterday! affects xp AND vista, good lord you'd think they'd learn by now!) Viruses require the ability to circumvent LOCAL security, and get their hooks in the system and replicate locally without user interaction/permission. OS X (and unix in general) are designed from the ground up with this in mind, and have always been far less vulnerable to these two issues.
I don't see this changing anytime soon, just due to the differing design philosophies inside the two systems. From the start of OS X, apps didn't just have free access to do as they pleased, they were restricted by a security model, and learned to develop in OS X under these restrictions, being forced to learn good coding practice. Windows started in the wide open, and their devs got used to it, before they realize the scope of their mistake and tried to close the doors. The devs refused to stop writing apps that just "oh lets just assume we have full write access to the entire hard drive" etc. and so MS has had to go very slowly to avoid completely destroying their established software market. That's hard to overcome.
Even today I can count on one hand all the mac apps I've ran into that either (1) have to be installed while logged in as an admin, or (2) will only run properly (or completely) when logged in as an admin. And I count those developers as idiots for not knowing what they're doing and just assuming they have privs. Until Windows software approaches these numbers, I don't think we can call the Windows security model "fixed".
There are two things that most interest me here. First, Norton has been considered anything from "bad" to "poison" to OS X from the get-go. It's been known to create a wide variety of system problems, and in most cases, when OS X is misbehaving, and they admit they are running norton, the first advice they get is to remove it. (and "good luck removing it" to boot) Symantec has been of little help there, their first "removal tool" was 300+ lines of terminal commands, and still didn't completely uproot it. Their current removal tools are more effective and user-friendly though. So to see Apple RECOMMEND norton is something of a shock. I don't know of a single person in any of the mac support forums that recommends anything for Norton besides uninstalling it.
Second, I thought AV products don't "stack" well? Our PC tech here is constantly having problems with computers that come in and are running 2-4 AV software, and they're fighting like cats and dogs and crippling the system to where only a fresh install will fix it. From what I read on that Apple post, it sounds like Apple is encouraging you to install multiple AV software. And OS X already runs ClamAV doesn't it? Although I have yet to see such a thing get pushed out, I assume Clam can get updates via SoftwareUpdate? I seriously question where they're going by recommending you install additional (or possibly multiple) AV software.
guessing that you're already aware of the "dispute the charges" option, and were here looking to solve the problem differently. People stateside in this situation are most interested in getting their money back and ordering somewhere else etc so that's why so many answers are going that way. You being deployed are probably more interested in any other way to get the laptop you ordered.
Unfortunately you may be downhill of someone that makes a business of lifting computers from the delivery chain there. It won't matter how many times they send it, you won't get it. One poster recommended seeing if you can get special instructions to plain-mark your box. A better option is to get it delivered back home, and have someone ship it to you. Then you are not dealing with Dell as the shipper that has to go after the shipping company. Right now as the receiver you're pretty powerless to get involved. Should save on shipping costs from your friend's stateside base to you of course too as another option.
well one would hope that, at least after a few years, that would become true. Problem for some people is, they achieved that goal, and then lost it. That's a bit depressing.
I know two people that lost new cars in the floods here, that didn't have insurance to cover flood damage. So they got another new car, and rolled their old car payments into the new. So they're driving around cars that are worth significantly less than their loan.
That reminds me of a certain book, with the Department of Defense being in charge of waging war...
Wow that is quite a lot. I wonder seriously how much of that is being wasted or mis-spent. You think it's a matter of like the $800 toilet seats? or more for the $80,000 missiles?
I realize that we can't have it all. That's part of the reason we're in the mess we are now, we're overspending pretty much across the board. I'd be a hypocrite if I said we need to cut spending on ABC but don't touch my XYZ. Here's hoping he has a sensible, balanced plan.
I'd like to know how he plans to combat pork though. I get the impression that's the biggest budget bleeder.
I expect the majority of easter eggs in software today are debug type commands. When a customer calls you with a freaky error message that's produced by a failed sanity check for something that should never happen, you can tell them to hold a few keys and click your logo or something on the screen, to open a new window with some additional information that they can read off to you to give you an idea of what caused it.
I don't know about windows or linux, but Mac OS X is loaded with these. Mainly undocumented plist switches, that you can turn on debug-like behavior. One causes all files normally hidden to be shown. I leave that one on all the time. Many of these easter eggs have been discovered and are incorporated into system tools you can download to tweak the behavior of the system, beyond that which its built-in preferences etc give you access to. Not sure if you'd consider those easter eggs but I would.
Second place probably goes to secret ways to pull a list of credits, where all the developers are listed, and often then also their "support group" including family, support staff, or the people that gave them the motivation to get the project done or were the inspiration for it in the first place. Best with some background music. I believe those are the purest form of the easter egg.
Guessing on 3rd place being spots where the developers see an opportunity for cheating, and are prepared for it, with either a good zing, a taunt, or a nice response in game mechanics. Those are my personal favorite. I've seen numerous examples in games where you find a way to get past a puzzle or other requirement, without solving the puzzle or meeting the requirement, and get a response like "how did you do that?" or "you may have found your way here but I'm not going to open this door for you until you've dealt with that troll back there." Those are the fun moments when you think you've outsmarted the developer, only to find you've been caught.
Stay the hell away from both my computer and my wallet. (I'm not angry, just flabbergasted that you think it's acceptable behavior to hijack other people's personal property and money.)
THIS, from a person whose computer is already hijacked and being used for illegal activities? If you hold your moral ground here, I'm doing you a favor by hijacking your already hijacked computer, and alerting you to its presence (without causing serious damage) so you can put an end to it.
Or would you prefer to continue to wallow in ignorant bliss as your computer spews forth tens of thousands of spam each day to the rest of the world? People that take THAT attitude, I have no problem with seeing them get their drives formatted.
The problem there is that unless you force them to take it in for service and get it cleaned up properly, it's still going to be infected with other nasty stuff (maybe another botnet) and it's still going to have all the holes in it that let in the bot to begin with, so it's just going to get reinfected again shortly.
I don't endorse something like formatting, but it should be sufficiently disabled to either lose networking capability, or require a windows reinstall. Maybe screw up their network stack. That pretty much always requires a reinstall. Deleting their nic drivers may not be enough, they may be able to do a "repair install" or just reinstall the driver themselves. No doubt some clown will make a "quick fix" patcher to undo the nic driver diffuse, without actually removing the bot. Thank you Geek Squad.
Speculating wildly here since I haven't read the code, but the herders probably use a technique similar to GeoHashing. GeoHashing uses the closing DOW average iirc, to generate coordinates somewhere in the world for that week. The point is you don't know where it's going to be in advance.
If the zombie can't connect to the C&C server, it looks up last night's DOW closing, generates the new domain name, and tries to connect there instead. It tries this for the last week's DOW averages, since DNS takes up to 3 days to propagate. That wouldn't even be necessary if the herder is always using the same registrar, because the zombies could just directly query a specific DNS server.
If the new C&C server isn't set up there yet, it just tries again tomorrow.
It would then become a race to see who could register the domain names the fastest each day/week, since you wouldn't know for sure what names to take until close that day. Due to the probably very odd and random nature of the domain names it would generate, (could be 32 digit hex numbers.com) it would probably be possible to get the cooperation of a registrar somewhere to dummy-register ALL the likely candidates 5 minutes before market close on each day, and leave them locked for a week. (finally a LEGITIMATE USE for domain tasting!) and that may actually immobilize the botnet.
I'd love to see that too. Spoofing traffic on IRC is easy. But the problem is the commands must be signed using the bot herder's private key. It's apparently a very large key, (1024 BYTE iirc) and no one has managed to break it yet.
I bet there are several groups working on them though. Problem is, each time the herder pushes an update, they could rekey it, placing everyone's break attempts back on square 1.
My PERSONAL preference here is that the command sent should cause the participating computers to post a notice on the user's screen telling them they've been owned, that their computers have been being used to harm the public, and that they (the computers) have been rendered inactive and they'll have to take the computer into the shop for repair. (because no doubt they're infested with more than just this botnet) Some may say that's going too far, but imho, it's completely reasonable. They should share some of the responsibility for the actions of their computer after allowing it to be hijacked and being used to abuse ME. How about it just delete their NIC drivers and post the message?
well if you want to look at it strictly from a capitalist point of view, it's costing them a small amount of money to mange their donations. They're also earning a miniscule amount off the interest on your buck until they donate it. There may also be tax writeoffs for them. And then there's the factor of a tiny improvement in market appeal.
In exchange for that assorted mess you get a very convenient way to donate a dollar of your money to a cause you support.
There's also a lot more numbers to crunch to determine who's making what out of that deal. How much is your inconvenience worth for example, or how much does it cost them in additional marketing. I think it's a fair assumption to say they get at least a slight boost from this, (or they wouldn't bother) but probably not a lot. Even factors like "in sales, all other things being equal, more volume is better" play into this. It probably all comes down to fractions of a cent.
That they did it, or that anyone cares?
Shouldn't we stop fund raising for prostate cancer because it only affects men!
Discrimination? Someone needs their head adjusted. Maybe raising funds for condition xxx isn't a good idea, but that's a ridiculous reason to stop.
RCS exhaust is lethal to unprotected humans. At normal shuttle landing sites huge fans are used to blow gas away from the orbiter before any seals are cracked.
That's one of the big things I remember from the first space shuttle flight was seeing them put giant fans by the orbiter after it landed, for what seemed like ages, before anyone got out. I always wondered what they were so worried about needing to blow off the shuttle.
The helmet is probably mainly for insurance purposes.
I'd imagine it's already pretty difficult getting insurance to fly over a gorge with a rocketpack.
I think it's simply amazing when I see a 3 yr old that can hop up to a computer and knows how to use it. Not to get on excel or anything, but knows how to turn it on or shut it down, can click on games and use a mouse.
Don't expect the computer to be a major part of their life. Even just getting to play on the computer for 30 minutes a day would be great. You want your kid to be one of the ones at school that when the entire class is placed in a lab full of computers, that he sits down and is comfortable using it, not trying to press keys gingerly with one finger and struggling to figure out the mouse, not looking down at the keyboard and peck one key, look up at the screen, look down and peck one more key etc. You can really tell when a kid is accustomed to a computer.
You don't need a super computer for this. Heck, the k-2 I worked at last year had ancient iMacs running OS 9 and Harcourt learning games software on them, and that was an incredible experience for them. (teaching phonics mainly, all audio and video, no reading required) Those machines were in the kids' rooms, and there was a lab of 25 newer machines across the hall with Type To Learn Jr on them. 1st graders learning to type is a wonderful thing. Anything that gets them involved is more than enough.
There are web sites you can go to that host dozens of learning games for K-2 level kids, so you don't even need to buy software that they would outgrow in 2 months. (unlike their clothes!)
We already know where to find the chicks - easy mob on level 3, behind Castle Darkwood, just West of the barn.
you think that's bad? just try getting ahold of blank punchcards sometime!
But you never see these modding setups in a vacuum. I wonder how they cope with condensation say, shorting out the pins on the cpu package/socket?
I've always wondered why things like this don't cause physical problems related to thermal expansion/contraction - why doesn't the processor package crack due to the temp differences? Or condensation form in bad places etc? There's gotta be a whole list of bad side effects to worry about when supercooling one part of your computer...?
My left nut is an unreasonable price.
"don't worry, son, that's why God gave you two."