How is this offtopic? This is one of the aftershocks of the merger dragging all subsidiaries down FFS! I too am a Braves fan (since about 1979 or so) and understand where the parent post is coming from. Perhaps this aspect of the merger isn't the absolute *worst* part of it, but still an ontopic take nonetheless.
You mean like the WinNuke exploit? Remember when any Windows 95 box could get blue screened from someone remotely sending an out of bounds TCP/IP ping packet? I can't count how many GUI tools that were going around where folks could blue screen others until hearts' content. I must confess my IT team would bounce a PITA company enduser every now and then where I worked:-)
That would make conference calls pretty funny. Hear folks on the call curse under their breath....$%#$# Windows...grrrr....
Windows 2000 has firewall protection built-in. It's not enabled by default, which is a shame. But anyway, go into the Properties of the Local Area Network Connection. Then click on TCP/IP Properties. Then click on the Advanced button. There you will see under the Options tab a TCP/IP Filtering option. That is where you can open or close any TCP/UDP ports you want.
True that. Forgot about the Parameters button. It's been awhile since I've locked down ports at the workstation level. Hardware firewalls at the ISP demarc usually are locked down accordingly. Thanks for pointing out my mistake!
They could if effectively exploited. A root exploit could just lead to planting a zombie process that blindly scans the network with dozens of threads, replicating itself out. Wouldn't this be similar to what we are seeing with Sasser?
Any vulnerability that allows admin/root access would leave a host open for network meltdown I would think.
I myself am always wary of a mechanism that doesn't have more verbose settings or options. Just one checkbox that refers to an Internet Connection Firewall as a catch-all is a bit suspect.
It's not like you can define specific TCP/UDP ports to allow/disallow with this mechanism. Not sure what smoke and mirrors the mysterious ICF is made of, but running nmap against a host should shed some light on things. I wonder what ports it does shut off? Probably any non-Microsoft service ports. But unfortunately most of the exploits are specifically looking for MS service ports.
I saved the e-mail the Microsoft rep sent me regarding the Windows 98 SE client fix. Just in case anyone called bullshit on it. Here it is below, although the password has long since expired...
CASE_ID_NUM: SRX040219602629 MESSAGE: Hello,
The hot fix for your issue has been packaged and placed on an HTTP site for you to download.
WARNING: This fix is not publicly available through the Microsoft website as it has not gone through full Microsoft regression testing. If you would like confirmation that this fix is designed to address your specific problem, or if you would like to confirm whether there are any special compatibility or installation issues associated with this fix, you are encouraged to speak to a Support Professional in Product Support Services.
The package is password protected so be sure to enter the appropriate password for each package. To ensure the right password is provided cut and paste the password from this mail.
NOTE: Passwords expire every 7 days so download the package within that period to insure you can extract the files. If you receive two passwords it means you are receiving the fix during a password change cycle. Use the second password if you download after the indicated password change date.
Remote Desktop Connection encrypts the data transmission. Similar to using MPPE/PPTP for a VPN connection to a Windows host. VNC by itself doesn't encrypt data transmission. You can tunnel VNC through an SSH connection to do this, however. But straight out of the box I would say RDC is your more secure alternative.
Just like the ASN.1 vulnerability that is patched through one of the recent Microsoft patches. Supposedly Win98/ME PC's aren't affected by the issue. But looking at my company's Win98 PC's I saw the msasn1.dll file present. And researching things a little bit I saw that the standard implementation of the ASN.1 command parser is affected on any and all platforms. From a Nortel H.323 gateway to a Cisco router to a Windows 2003 Server to a Windows 98 PC.
This was months ago that I read this. I called into the Microsoft PCSAFETY toll free number and a tech indeed acknowledged that Windows 98 and ME PC's were vulnerable. And they e-mailed me a link to download the patch (not one of the hoax e-mails either, so no jokes!!). Since then I deployed it to all of my Windows 98 PC's and know that they are at the same standard as the Windows 2000 and XP machines.
What kind of company releases patches and leaves out some client versions that are still safe from the EOL cycle? That's what Microsoft did with the ASN.1 patch.
And what kind of company releases patches that obviously weren't tested on clients that were running USB storage, DLT storage, and IPSec agents? Look at the KB835732 patch. It broke all of these driver loads, leaving patched PC's running at 99% CPU utilitization after rebooting.
Nice, really nice. Risk stability and compatibility issues versus being exposed to an Internet-borne worm. I'm not blaming Microsoft for having vulnerabilities. All OS'es do to one degree or another. But I am blaming them for leaving our client versions and not thoroughly testing code they should've been working on for 5 months.
To me the more dubious part of the Sasser worm is that it can lead to other backdoor processes being planted on a host PC. That's why some sources are stating that just running a removal tool and then patching is enough. The backdoor processes would still be present on the host PC. That means the best removal tool would be the old format command. Ouch.
Starting with Code Red and Slammer I would just bash Microsoft without regard to any other factors. But now I am seeing things a bit more objectively. After all, these recent exploits weren't created until after the security bulletins and patches were released to the public. And there was about a full two weeks for the public to patch their systems.
If Linux had as broad of a home user base I'm sure some published vulnerabilities and patches would result in much the same. Joe Six Pack, whether using Windows or Linux, would be slow to patch their systems. And that would lead to some rather uninventive script kiddies writing easy exploits working off of published POC examples.
There are. Monarch Computer Systems is the name of one company that I know of. CheckerCube is another one. The systems should run between $500-$600 if I am not mistaken.
I use mine in my home entertainment center. Use the TV out and a wireless kb/trackball combo from the couch. Works fine.
As for the hard drive noise I went for a laptop HDD and use a 44-to-40 pin adapter to plug it into the mainboard. It cuts down on the noise significantly. Now the CD drive is the loudest thing. But that noise is sporadic and minimal.
Get a VIA EPIA system (see here for details). They have a fanless CPU and power supply. Plus the boards are small enough that you can build a PC that's the size of a Gamecube (or smaller). Their mainboards run as small as 12cm x 12 cm!
Good point. I do have an S-Video output on my EPIA 5000 mainboard but my Sony receiver doesn't have an S-Video input. I could go directly into the TV's S-Video input as a test but will bit the bullet for now since I want to route everything through my receiver.
I recently assembled a VIA EPIA mini-ITX box to integrate into my home theater system. The idea was having a small form factor that would fit into the entertainment center, utilize an RCA out video port for my 51" rear projection TV, and operate with a wireless keyboard/trackball device. All of that came together fine. On paper at least.
Where I was extremely let down was in the quality of the TV display. I don't have an HDTV, just an older rear projection set. I have to enable the Windows Accessibility Options in order to even come close to reading the fonts on the screen. Really ugly Windows High Contrast Black (large fonts). Yuck.
When I called VIA to get the display driver specs versus typical TV specs I was told that 800x600 was the best resolution I could hope for. And that this sort of setup is primarily intended for watching videos. Any onscreen fonts are really pushing it.
Can't complain in that the whole setup was around $600 in all, but I am still amazed at how average TV screen resolution is so much poorer than what a home PC can put out. I guess HDTV would be a good step up for me, but then again I am not relishing shelling out $1500-2000 only 5-6 years after getting my current set.
It's funny because of how clueless a decent amount of the retail department workers are about the world of computers. Even about Windows-based systems. Let alone Linux. A few years ago for the heck of it I'd walk into a place and ask a few detailed questions to see what the workers would come back with about their Windows PC's. I should have recorded some of the answers.
Can you imagine asking questions about Linux to a Wal-Mart worker? Like the elderly shoplifting bouncers that greet folks near the front doors? "Hey Hazel do you know if these boxes run KDE or Gnome? Are they patched for the latest OpenSSH and Apache 'sploits?"
I agree about the support end for handholding purposes. For my purposes this was for obtaining an RMA for a bad hardware component. That's what irked me.
Most of the bigger companies are the same in this regard. I support a lot of Dell workstations and servers and run into the same hassles every RMA attempt. You have to jump through hoops while some offshore flunky starts you at square one: "Let me confirm with you. The wireless switch is set to On, yes?"
No matter if I have customer-level support or if I have purchased higher-level support I have certain expectations. Companies have to triage bullshit RMA claims. Understood. That saves them money to improve their bottom line. But if I am logically stepping through things I don't want to be cut off with a scripted systems administrator line. Especially if I am spending the money for what I would expect to be better customer support. After all a Sony is a premium choice and isn't like I'm contacting Taiwan for support about some generic Pentium 75 MHz system board.
I read another article somewhere about a new type of bendable LCD material that will allow a rolled-up digital newspaper to exist. Like on the "Minority Report" movie. To me I still prefer hardcopy that I know is mine and would only lose the media through a major housefire.
As for Sony, don't get me started. I still think most of their products are overpriced and proprietary, and come with poor tech support. The last support call I had to make about a brand new Vaio laptop with a bad wi-fi adapter ended with the support guy telling me that the hardware was fine, it was the WLAN, and I needed to contact my systems administrator. All along I told him I was the systems administrator and could vouch for the health of the WLAN. He just repeated the same scripted conclusion about contacting my systems administrator and refused to escalate my concern. Nice outsourced script-reading I tell ya. For a $3,000 price tag (including all of the accessories) I hoped for Lexus service staff.
After my most recent experiences supporting Vaio equipment I wouldn't buy Sony unless I was being physically threatened...
First of all, how do you know which CA products/services suck and which don't if you don't use them? That makes absolutely no sense.
And second of all, RTFA does work here. I was able to view it about 2 minutes ago. It duplicates similar content to what Slashdot posted less than a week ago regarding a CA court case settlement that was bundled with Linux licensing.
And if you weren't able to RTFA because of the HTTP request traffic hitting their resources perhaps it might be a lesson to not believe everything you read on/. as being 100% fact.
Slashdot Mirror
How is this offtopic? This is one of the aftershocks of the merger dragging all subsidiaries down FFS! I too am a Braves fan (since about 1979 or so) and understand where the parent post is coming from. Perhaps this aspect of the merger isn't the absolute *worst* part of it, but still an ontopic take nonetheless.
I think they meant to say "Huxleyan" as in Brave New World.
You sure are on the ball. I heartily concur.
Sincerely,
Mark Cuban
You mean like the WinNuke exploit? Remember when any Windows 95 box could get blue screened from someone remotely sending an out of bounds TCP/IP ping packet? I can't count how many GUI tools that were going around where folks could blue screen others until hearts' content. I must confess my IT team would bounce a PITA company enduser every now and then where I worked :-)
That would make conference calls pretty funny. Hear folks on the call curse under their breath....$%#$# Windows...grrrr....
Windows 2000 has firewall protection built-in. It's not enabled by default, which is a shame. But anyway, go into the Properties of the Local Area Network Connection. Then click on TCP/IP Properties. Then click on the Advanced button. There you will see under the Options tab a TCP/IP Filtering option. That is where you can open or close any TCP/UDP ports you want.
True that. Forgot about the Parameters button. It's been awhile since I've locked down ports at the workstation level. Hardware firewalls at the ISP demarc usually are locked down accordingly. Thanks for pointing out my mistake!
They could if effectively exploited. A root exploit could just lead to planting a zombie process that blindly scans the network with dozens of threads, replicating itself out. Wouldn't this be similar to what we are seeing with Sasser?
Any vulnerability that allows admin/root access would leave a host open for network meltdown I would think.
I myself am always wary of a mechanism that doesn't have more verbose settings or options. Just one checkbox that refers to an Internet Connection Firewall as a catch-all is a bit suspect.
It's not like you can define specific TCP/UDP ports to allow/disallow with this mechanism. Not sure what smoke and mirrors the mysterious ICF is made of, but running nmap against a host should shed some light on things. I wonder what ports it does shut off? Probably any non-Microsoft service ports. But unfortunately most of the exploits are specifically looking for MS service ports.
I saved the e-mail the Microsoft rep sent me regarding the Windows 98 SE client fix. Just in case anyone called bullshit on it. Here it is below, although the password has long since expired...
o nd%20Edition/nosp/29224/1/free/167199_ENU_i386_zip .exe)
CASE_ID_NUM: SRX040219602629
MESSAGE:
Hello,
The hot fix for your issue has been packaged and placed on an HTTP site for you to download.
WARNING: This fix is not publicly available through the Microsoft website as it has not gone through full Microsoft regression testing. If you would like confirmation that this fix is designed to address your specific problem, or if you would like to confirm whether there are any special compatibility or installation issues associated with this fix, you are encouraged to speak to a Support Professional in Product Support Services.
The package is password protected so be sure to enter the appropriate password for each package. To ensure the right password is provided cut and paste the password from this mail.
NOTE: Passwords expire every 7 days so download the package within that period to insure you can extract the files. If you receive two passwords it means you are receiving the fix during a password change cycle. Use the second password if you download after the indicated password change date.
Package:
KB Article Number(s): 828028
Language: English
Platform: i386
Location: (http://hotfixv4.microsoft.com/Windows%2098%20Sec
Password: {wY7cF7
NOTE: Be sure to include all text between '(' and ')' when navigating to this hot fix location!
Thanks!
Remote Desktop Connection encrypts the data transmission. Similar to using MPPE/PPTP for a VPN connection to a Windows host. VNC by itself doesn't encrypt data transmission. You can tunnel VNC through an SSH connection to do this, however. But straight out of the box I would say RDC is your more secure alternative.
Just like the ASN.1 vulnerability that is patched through one of the recent Microsoft patches. Supposedly Win98/ME PC's aren't affected by the issue. But looking at my company's Win98 PC's I saw the msasn1.dll file present. And researching things a little bit I saw that the standard implementation of the ASN.1 command parser is affected on any and all platforms. From a Nortel H.323 gateway to a Cisco router to a Windows 2003 Server to a Windows 98 PC.
This was months ago that I read this. I called into the Microsoft PCSAFETY toll free number and a tech indeed acknowledged that Windows 98 and ME PC's were vulnerable. And they e-mailed me a link to download the patch (not one of the hoax e-mails either, so no jokes!!). Since then I deployed it to all of my Windows 98 PC's and know that they are at the same standard as the Windows 2000 and XP machines.
What kind of company releases patches and leaves out some client versions that are still safe from the EOL cycle? That's what Microsoft did with the ASN.1 patch.
And what kind of company releases patches that obviously weren't tested on clients that were running USB storage, DLT storage, and IPSec agents? Look at the KB835732 patch. It broke all of these driver loads, leaving patched PC's running at 99% CPU utilitization after rebooting.
Nice, really nice. Risk stability and compatibility issues versus being exposed to an Internet-borne worm. I'm not blaming Microsoft for having vulnerabilities. All OS'es do to one degree or another. But I am blaming them for leaving our client versions and not thoroughly testing code they should've been working on for 5 months.
Did you install the NT 4.0 TS service pack that was required to be performed before patching? I think I read something to that effect.
To me the more dubious part of the Sasser worm is that it can lead to other backdoor processes being planted on a host PC. That's why some sources are stating that just running a removal tool and then patching is enough. The backdoor processes would still be present on the host PC. That means the best removal tool would be the old format command. Ouch.
Starting with Code Red and Slammer I would just bash Microsoft without regard to any other factors. But now I am seeing things a bit more objectively. After all, these recent exploits weren't created until after the security bulletins and patches were released to the public. And there was about a full two weeks for the public to patch their systems.
If Linux had as broad of a home user base I'm sure some published vulnerabilities and patches would result in much the same. Joe Six Pack, whether using Windows or Linux, would be slow to patch their systems. And that would lead to some rather uninventive script kiddies writing easy exploits working off of published POC examples.
There are. Monarch Computer Systems is the name of one company that I know of. CheckerCube is another one. The systems should run between $500-$600 if I am not mistaken.
As for the hard drive noise I went for a laptop HDD and use a 44-to-40 pin adapter to plug it into the mainboard. It cuts down on the noise significantly. Now the CD drive is the loudest thing. But that noise is sporadic and minimal.
Get a VIA EPIA system (see here for details). They have a fanless CPU and power supply. Plus the boards are small enough that you can build a PC that's the size of a Gamecube (or smaller). Their mainboards run as small as 12cm x 12 cm!
The least likely to apps/options to reinstall:
1) Gator.
2) Bonzi Buddy.
3) Microsoft Bob.
4) Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6 (the one that broke TCP/IP and led to the rush release of SP6a).
5) Any recent RealPlayer release chock full of adware/spyware.
6) Any release of Microsoft Outlook Express.
7) Microsoft KB835742 Security Update (the recent one that causes random Win2K boxes to reboot to a BSOD or have 99% CPU utilization).
8) The Microsoft Office "Clippy" option.
9) Microsoft Outlook Preview Pane.
10) Universal Plug n Play.
Good point. I do have an S-Video output on my EPIA 5000 mainboard but my Sony receiver doesn't have an S-Video input. I could go directly into the TV's S-Video input as a test but will bit the bullet for now since I want to route everything through my receiver.
What about the Greek sorority that has this as their letters? Maybe they should step up to the plate as well.
I recently assembled a VIA EPIA mini-ITX box to integrate into my home theater system. The idea was having a small form factor that would fit into the entertainment center, utilize an RCA out video port for my 51" rear projection TV, and operate with a wireless keyboard/trackball device. All of that came together fine. On paper at least.
Where I was extremely let down was in the quality of the TV display. I don't have an HDTV, just an older rear projection set. I have to enable the Windows Accessibility Options in order to even come close to reading the fonts on the screen. Really ugly Windows High Contrast Black (large fonts). Yuck.
When I called VIA to get the display driver specs versus typical TV specs I was told that 800x600 was the best resolution I could hope for. And that this sort of setup is primarily intended for watching videos. Any onscreen fonts are really pushing it.
Can't complain in that the whole setup was around $600 in all, but I am still amazed at how average TV screen resolution is so much poorer than what a home PC can put out. I guess HDTV would be a good step up for me, but then again I am not relishing shelling out $1500-2000 only 5-6 years after getting my current set.
[/rant]
Can you imagine asking questions about Linux to a Wal-Mart worker? Like the elderly shoplifting bouncers that greet folks near the front doors? "Hey Hazel do you know if these boxes run KDE or Gnome? Are they patched for the latest OpenSSH and Apache 'sploits?"
It's already here. Read the Slashdot article regarding this.
Most of the bigger companies are the same in this regard. I support a lot of Dell workstations and servers and run into the same hassles every RMA attempt. You have to jump through hoops while some offshore flunky starts you at square one: "Let me confirm with you. The wireless switch is set to On, yes?"
No matter if I have customer-level support or if I have purchased higher-level support I have certain expectations. Companies have to triage bullshit RMA claims. Understood. That saves them money to improve their bottom line. But if I am logically stepping through things I don't want to be cut off with a scripted systems administrator line. Especially if I am spending the money for what I would expect to be better customer support. After all a Sony is a premium choice and isn't like I'm contacting Taiwan for support about some generic Pentium 75 MHz system board.
As for Sony, don't get me started. I still think most of their products are overpriced and proprietary, and come with poor tech support. The last support call I had to make about a brand new Vaio laptop with a bad wi-fi adapter ended with the support guy telling me that the hardware was fine, it was the WLAN, and I needed to contact my systems administrator. All along I told him I was the systems administrator and could vouch for the health of the WLAN. He just repeated the same scripted conclusion about contacting my systems administrator and refused to escalate my concern. Nice outsourced script-reading I tell ya. For a $3,000 price tag (including all of the accessories) I hoped for Lexus service staff.
After my most recent experiences supporting Vaio equipment I wouldn't buy Sony unless I was being physically threatened...
And second of all, RTFA does work here. I was able to view it about 2 minutes ago. It duplicates similar content to what Slashdot posted less than a week ago regarding a CA court case settlement that was bundled with Linux licensing.
And if you weren't able to RTFA because of the HTTP request traffic hitting their resources perhaps it might be a lesson to not believe everything you read on /. as being 100% fact.