Perhaps the quibble is over the definition of "limited".
Your random headset mic on skype to skype produces an exceptionally good connection, vastly superior to anything sent thru the phone system, such as when you skype to phone.
It would be kind of messy remembering to switching mics just because the next number you dial thru skype was going to be POTS.
The most prominent objections to the story on the CTV linked story were from people (claim to) who use Facebook as a means to keep up with old friends.
Fair enough. But one has to ask if this is all that healthy in and of itself. In the history of human kind, people move on in life. Old friends remain, but new friends are made.
One wonders how many of these "friendship maintainers" are really substituting old friends for new ones, clinging to some happy period in their past, and cutting themselves off from the present. Its not that normal to be involved in or even knowledgeable of the day to day lives of people you do not communicate directly with. It never has been.
Is there any gratification in Facebook? (I wouldn't know, never signed up). Is there really as much grandiosity as you suggest? Or is it more just a means of clinging?
You need to check your facts. First autorun is NOT the only vector for Agent.btz. Second they never said it was agent.btz, rather they said it was based on that.
If you think that is the likely explanation then you haven't read a single word about the extent of the damage and the amount of files stolen in this incident.
No where in any of the linked articles does it say that auto run was the source of insertion, or that auto run was on, or that the USB ports were free of epoxy.
That auto run was the source of infection is an INVENTION of this thread. There is simply no evidence of this.
The worm engine used was based on an auto run worm, but if that was all there was to it it would have been caught by virus scanners of that era.
You've hit upon a key aspect of the event here, but I'n not sure you've interpreted it correctly.
See that is the part of the story that doesn't hold water, and its why I think the military may have more knowledge of this than the naive attention seeking critics.
This worm would be a really poor way to spread an intrusion, because of the need for human assistance to get started, and because it is essentially harmless and low risk and easily detected by anti-virus software both then and now.
Further, if you were the foreign intelligence agent that deposited this on a Centcom computer, would you wait for it to activate itself? You've risked your life to get in a position to do so, why would you not click that mouse one more time and run it yourself (making the whole auto-run issue a non issue).
Further, you miss the fact that Auto-run is not its principal method of spreading. Its just a subtle method of introduction. It spreads thru the network. See this article:
That fact is not in evidence. It's not in the stories linked to this article. It's merely speculation by people here so they can thump their chests and sound like they know something.
But you are assuming facts not yet proven. 1) that it was in fact the commonly found version of this worm that was used rather than a specially crafted one 2) that it required auto-run to do what it was designed to do. 3) that auto-run was in fact still on in the subject machine
How about just getting rid of the main attack vector(Windows) altogether? The DoD "security" policies seem like they were written by Microsoft specifically to push Microsoft products. Windows is still the darling child of the DoD and anything else is considered "dangerous" and is subject to infinitely more scrutiny than Windows boxes are.
[citation needed]
Military computers, especially in theater, get a custom install of windows, that is well known, because it is a special build, well studied and vetted.
You seem to be asking that something else, linux, apple, bsd, be allowed in without that same level of scrutiny.
But because you managed to bash both the military and microsoft in a single sentence you will probably be modded up anyway.
Just because the version of this worm that is common in the wild is not particularly dangerous does not mean that the version used in the attack (or the fuckup if you will) was the same.
How you administer an injection matters a lot less than what was in the syringe.
Auto-run might have stopped this worm, but turning that off did not become standard practice till the Vista roll out, and the military may have had reason to use auto-run. To simply state that some minor setting in windows would have prevented this is naive.
The fuckup, if there was one, was allowing a foreign intelligence agency to get close to a military laptop.
But as long as programming is in the hands of those bloat-ware bone-heads at Adobe it will suck just as bad as every Adobe product you have ever seen. You really have to wonder what the serve in the cafeteria for EVERY product they make to be so universally terrible.
I think you'll find yourself in the minority opinion on that one in creative shops and homes across the world.
I'll take my chances. Your heroic defense not withstanding, their UI is universally BAD, and even professionals grouse about it. I
That this guy could find a few flash demonstrations that don't play nicely with a small device is no surprise to me. With a 10 meg pipe I often see pauses and cache filling delays on my desktop machine.
I have the same phone as this guy, and I find Flash works ok for most things, videos on web pages, ads (the few I happen to click on).
Is it great performance? No. Do I leave it on by default, No.
If they turned the code over to Google I am sure it could be fixed. But as long as programming is in the hands of those bloat-ware bone-heads at Adobe it will suck just as bad as every Adobe product you have ever seen. You really have to wonder what the serve in the cafeteria for EVERY product they make to be so universally terrible.
Somehow I suspect we would not be discussing this if a crackpot was not involved.
The wiki article pretty much nails it down to spores of a lichen-forming alga belonging to the genus Trentepohlia, plentiful in the area where the red rain was found, as well as many other places in the world.
Yet, we are now treated to the suggestion that because the same wave lengths of light as are found in some remote part of the galaxy can be induced when samples are bombarded with some (conveniently unspecified) light source..
The clear implication being that we should all believe that some extraterrestrial life has chosen this particular part of India, (and no where else) to fall in rain for a solid month, totally ignoring high winds aloft.
I wager my rear end could be made to fluoresce certain shades of red found in other parts of the galaxy given the right form of bombardment.
Not downplaying the significance of this (what was it the energy industry said about the BP explosion being a "once-in-a-lifetime" event and so Obama's drilling ban was unwarranted?), but we don't need to worry about another spill.
Seriously, when was the last drill rig explosion, collapse and sinking prior to BP?
Small gas explosions may happen from time to time, but platform threatening events are rare.
After a BP event, EVERYBODY picks up their game and starts checking their procedures and tightening up their safety systems. Inspectors start paying attention.
For this event to happen in the wake of that fact is disturbing. Maybe its time to break out the tinfoil hats.
As explained in the first couple slides, blowing up spent vehicles in low orbit forces them to re-entry almost total within one week.
The problem is the debris fields caused by accidental collisions and large clouds of debris caused by high orbit destruction. These stay up there for a very long time.
But the article is far too heavily focused on prevention by building in de-orbit mechanisms, with too little attention paid to recovery of objects already in orbit.
Clearly we will not be able to gather every nut and bolt.
But there are a lot of objects we could perhaps catch, and attach solar sails, or small deorbiting rockets, and bring them down to lower orbits. While expensive, this sounds better to me than waiting till their orbit decays.
This would have to be done by automated means, robots, to be cost effective, and maybe some really low-tech means would serve to capture these vehicles (nets, grapples, entangling cords) long enough to slow them enough to induce re-entry.
The current practice when a satellite gets near its end of life is to push it to a higher orbit with its last little bit of fuel and hope for the best. Perhaps there should be an agreement to push these dieing vehicles lower with the intent of re-entry as soon as possible. If that re-entry looks like it will put population at risk, then the low orbit blowing up can reduce it to harmless sized.
So I look at a product, BUY it, then am constantly targeted with ads urging me to buy it.
WTF?
Bought an N900 from Amazon. For over a month now i've been slammed with ads for Nokia phones and even the marketing emails Amazon sends are telling me I may be interested in a N900...
WTF?
Similar experience.
Phones seem to be especially common in this type of ads. Maybe its because people actually do some research for this type of product, and leave piles of cookies in their browsers.
I also used Amazon, but also Google.
I bought a Nexus One, and they followed me around for two months. We then researched a Samsung/ATT Captivate, and I get those ads now still.
It has nothing to do with whether you BUY it or DON'T BUY it, because its a mindless cookie mining operation.
Somehow researching generic products doesn't trigger this stalking, but higher end gadgets, toys, and smartphones almost always does.
Too stupid to grasp the facts unless presented as bullets.
Powerpoint has the presenter making the notes (on slides) that the audience should have made. Essentially the presentation seems to go directly to notes without bothering to stop in anyone's head along the way.
'Although there have been no injuries or significant property damage caused by this issue, Garmin is taking this action out of an abundance of caution.'
Its right there in the article and the summary.
Mine was recalled. Its on its way back already. I'm hoping they just send a replacement unit, as satellite lock time was starting to increase beyond reason. Various forums indicate this is due to some small antenna connection that develops over time.
Slashdot Mirror
The course is about writing screenplays for movies.
That's putting english to work, in fields where those choosing this elective course might
actually gain employment.
The fact that they chose zombies means nothing other than
a lot of characters don't need any dialog or acting skills.
Its English. Its writing. The subject hardly matters.
They've made it fun for the students, and that can't be all bad.
Perhaps the quibble is over the definition of "limited".
Your random headset mic on skype to skype produces an exceptionally good connection, vastly superior to anything sent thru the phone system, such as when you skype to phone.
It would be kind of messy remembering to switching mics just because the next number you dial thru skype was going to be POTS.
The most prominent objections to the story on the CTV linked story were from people (claim to) who use Facebook as a means to keep up with old friends.
Fair enough. But one has to ask if this is all that healthy in and of itself. In the history of human kind, people move on in life. Old friends remain, but new friends are made.
One wonders how many of these "friendship maintainers" are really substituting old friends for new ones, clinging to some happy period in their past, and cutting themselves off from the present. Its not that normal to be involved in or even knowledgeable of the day to day lives of people you do not communicate directly with. It never has been.
Is there any gratification in Facebook? (I wouldn't know, never signed up). Is there really as much grandiosity as you suggest? Or is it more just a means of clinging?
What's crazy to me is the summary goes from 3.3khz to Skype in the quoted portion and somehow jumps to Ventrillo with nary a through of a segue.
You need to check your facts.
First autorun is NOT the only vector for Agent.btz.
Second they never said it was agent.btz, rather they said it was based on that.
If you think that is the likely explanation then you haven't read a single word about the extent of the damage and the amount of files stolen in this incident.
So you are saying that my private encryption key on my blackberry has been turned over to the US government?
You do know how it works do you not?
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/ataglance/security/features.jsp
Its my security key. Not Rims.
Wait, you are still on this Auto-run thing?
No where in any of the linked articles does it say that auto run was the source of insertion, or that auto run was on, or that the USB ports were free of epoxy.
That auto run was the source of infection is an INVENTION of this thread. There is simply no evidence of this.
The worm engine used was based on an auto run worm, but if that was all there was to it it would have been caught by virus scanners of that era.
Seriously? Is that all you got?
No one even knows if auto-run was involved, any you have convinced them in the court of ignorance without even a glance at the facts.
You've hit upon a key aspect of the event here, but I'n not sure you've interpreted it correctly.
See that is the part of the story that doesn't hold water, and its why I think the military may have more knowledge of this than the naive attention seeking critics.
This worm would be a really poor way to spread an intrusion, because of the need for human assistance to get started, and because it is essentially harmless and low risk and easily detected by anti-virus software both then and now.
Further, if you were the foreign intelligence agent that deposited this on a Centcom computer, would you wait for it to activate itself? You've risked your life to get in a position to do so, why would you not click that mouse one more time and run it yourself (making the whole auto-run issue a non issue).
Further, you miss the fact that Auto-run is not its principal method of spreading. Its just a subtle method of introduction. It spreads thru the network. See this article:
http://blog.threatexpert.com/2008/11/agentbtz-threat-that-hit-pentagon.html
Its not like this thing is dependent on someone slipping thumb drives into computers all the way all the way from Iraq to the Pentagon.
It may have been a ruse, or it was a heavily modified form carrying a far more sophisticated (Translation: Chinese) payload.
In any event it is simply impossible to be the standard Agent.btz that everyone here heaps derision upon.
And Auto-Run being ON or OFF would not have made one iota of difference once its on the net.
You made that up.
That fact is not in evidence. It's not in the stories linked to this article. It's merely speculation by people here so they can thump their chests and sound like they know something.
This story deals with computers in a war zone during 2008.
We are not talking about some receptionist in a recruiting office in Kansas.
But you are assuming facts not yet proven.
1) that it was in fact the commonly found version of this worm that was used rather than a specially crafted one
2) that it required auto-run to do what it was designed to do.
3) that auto-run was in fact still on in the subject machine
How about just getting rid of the main attack vector(Windows) altogether? The DoD "security" policies seem like they were written by Microsoft specifically to push Microsoft products. Windows is still the darling child of the DoD and anything else is considered "dangerous" and is subject to infinitely more scrutiny than Windows boxes are.
[citation needed]
Military computers, especially in theater, get a custom install of windows, that is well known, because it is a special build, well studied and vetted.
You seem to be asking that something else, linux, apple, bsd, be allowed in without that same level of scrutiny.
But because you managed to bash both the military and microsoft in a single sentence you will probably be modded up anyway.
You assume the fucked up.
Just because the version of this worm that is common in the wild is not particularly dangerous does not mean that the version used in the attack (or the fuckup if you will) was the same.
How you administer an injection matters a lot less than what was in the syringe.
Auto-run might have stopped this worm, but turning that off did not become standard practice till the Vista roll out, and the military may have had reason to use auto-run. To simply state that some minor setting in windows would have prevented this is naive.
The fuckup, if there was one, was allowing a foreign intelligence agency to get close to a military laptop.
But as long as programming is in the hands of those bloat-ware bone-heads at Adobe it will suck just as bad as every Adobe product you have ever seen. You really have to wonder what the serve in the cafeteria for EVERY product they make to be so universally terrible.
I think you'll find yourself in the minority opinion on that one in creative shops and homes across the world.
I'll take my chances. Your heroic defense not withstanding, their UI is universally BAD, and even professionals grouse about it. I
That this guy could find a few flash demonstrations that don't play nicely with a small device is no surprise to me. With a 10 meg pipe I often see pauses and cache filling delays on my desktop machine.
I have the same phone as this guy, and I find Flash works ok for most things, videos on web pages, ads (the few I happen to click on).
Is it great performance? No. Do I leave it on by default, No.
If they turned the code over to Google I am sure it could be fixed. But as long as programming is in the hands of those bloat-ware bone-heads at Adobe it will suck just as bad as every Adobe product you have ever seen. You really have to wonder what the serve in the cafeteria for EVERY product they make to be so universally terrible.
Somehow I suspect we would not be discussing this if a crackpot was not involved.
The wiki article pretty much nails it down to spores of a lichen-forming alga belonging to the genus Trentepohlia, plentiful in the area where the red rain was found, as well as many other places in the world.
Yet, we are now treated to the suggestion that because the same wave lengths of light as are found in some remote part of the galaxy can be induced when samples are bombarded with some (conveniently unspecified) light source..
The clear implication being that we should all believe that some extraterrestrial life has chosen this particular part of India, (and no where else) to fall in rain for a solid month, totally ignoring high winds aloft.
I wager my rear end could be made to fluoresce certain shades of red found in other parts of the galaxy given the right form of bombardment.
Thank you sir, Mr Louis needs another.
Not downplaying the significance of this (what was it the energy industry said about the BP explosion being a "once-in-a-lifetime" event and so Obama's drilling ban was unwarranted?), but we don't need to worry about another spill.
Seriously, when was the last drill rig explosion, collapse and sinking prior to BP?
Small gas explosions may happen from time to time, but platform threatening events are rare.
After a BP event, EVERYBODY picks up their game and starts checking their procedures and tightening up their safety systems. Inspectors start paying attention.
For this event to happen in the wake of that fact is disturbing. Maybe its time to break out the tinfoil hats.
Why are we talking about caps when there isn't any evidence of leaks and the platform has not collapsed into the sea?
As explained in the first couple slides, blowing up spent vehicles in low orbit forces them to re-entry almost total within one week.
The problem is the debris fields caused by accidental collisions and large clouds of debris caused by high orbit destruction. These stay up there for a very long time.
But the article is far too heavily focused on prevention by building in de-orbit mechanisms, with too little attention paid to recovery of objects already in orbit.
Clearly we will not be able to gather every nut and bolt.
But there are a lot of objects we could perhaps catch, and attach solar sails, or small deorbiting rockets, and bring them down to lower orbits. While expensive, this sounds better to me than waiting till their orbit decays.
This would have to be done by automated means, robots, to be cost effective, and maybe some really low-tech means would serve to capture these vehicles (nets, grapples, entangling cords) long enough to slow them enough to induce re-entry.
The current practice when a satellite gets near its end of life is to push it to a higher orbit with its last little bit of fuel and hope for the best. Perhaps there should be an agreement to push these dieing vehicles lower with the intent of re-entry as soon as possible. If that re-entry looks like it will put population at risk, then the low orbit blowing up can reduce it to harmless sized.
So I look at a product, BUY it, then am constantly targeted with ads urging me to buy it.
WTF?
Bought an N900 from Amazon. For over a month now i've been slammed with ads for Nokia phones and even the marketing emails Amazon sends are telling me I may be interested in a N900...
WTF?
Similar experience.
Phones seem to be especially common in this type of ads. Maybe its because people actually do some research for this type of product, and leave piles of cookies in their browsers.
I also used Amazon, but also Google.
I bought a Nexus One, and they followed me around for two months. We then researched a Samsung/ATT Captivate, and I get those ads now still.
It has nothing to do with whether you BUY it or DON'T BUY it, because its a mindless cookie mining operation.
Somehow researching generic products doesn't trigger this stalking, but higher end gadgets, toys, and smartphones almost always does.
There is a certain amount of that in the military.
The more the better I guess.
Powerpoint also ASSUMES your audience is stupid.
Too stupid to grasp the facts unless presented as bullets.
Powerpoint has the presenter making the notes (on slides) that the audience should have made. Essentially the presentation seems to go directly to notes without bothering to stop in anyone's head along the way.
Cliff notes minus the student.
'Although there have been no injuries or significant property damage caused by this issue, Garmin is taking this action out of an abundance of caution.'
Its right there in the article and the summary.
Mine was recalled. Its on its way back already. I'm hoping they just send a replacement unit, as satellite lock time was starting to increase beyond reason. Various forums indicate this is due to some small antenna connection that develops over time.