There's no passwords on my AWS linux VM. All the accounts (root and my own) are passwordless, no password works. You have to have the ssh key to log in. So even if some joker had console on my VM, it's rather worthless. *I* can't even login if I had console.
And na, who cares about crypting the boot volume.. its just a linux distro, nothing sensitive there. Only crypt sensitive volumes. (like/home for example)
I'm not fond of any solution that is 'automatic', cuz if it's automatically set to decrypt my volumes, then its a lot easier to tinker with and eventually break in. If you only have ONE CHANCE, and if the VM reboots the keys are gone until I put them back in...yeah. Not getting in to that easily.
It may not be news to a lot of veteran computer folks like probably most of us on this site. It is news to the general public though.
It's also news in the fact, it's proof. Sure, we as computer folks may have for YEARS said, "Well, duh of course they're capturing all the packets", but now it's like.. there's evidence. Now it's a FACT instead of just a well accepted assumption.
CCP doesn't allow real-world transfers of ingame assets for non-game assets. Not everyone is caught, but its taken seriously and many are caught and removed from the game.
Such risks do not make EVE a very viable money laundering facility, sorry. I wouldn't do it there. Second Life maybe, but not EVE.
Why would the NSA *care* about cracking the encryption if they believe it's their own documents that Snowden took? Sort of silly to spend all that computing power to break the encryption when you got the originals already.
I tried AA, never worked very well for me. And yes, it was the religious aspect of it that really made it not work for me. I'm an atheist. I tried a lot of things honestly, to stop drinking. I knew very early on it was a serious issue for me.
What did it for me? I finally told myself (and still believe it) that if I drink one more time, it will kill me.
Does TOR have a facility for email? That would seem to be a good place to get away from snooping.
Yes I know TOR was attacked recently, but I think the network is still the 'best deal in town.'
All one needs to do is setup some kind of email system that works with.onion domains within the network and a high redelivery time so sites that bounce on and off line can still receive email. Could all be done with SMTP modified (and simplified for end-users to run a SMTP host within TOR) specifically to operate with.onion host names.
Maybe I'll look into putting something together, can't be too hard and in theory to me would address the need for truly private email exchanging.
Speaking as a MMO addict myself, as well as an addict of other things. I'm in recovery from my addiction to alcohol. I still play one MMO, but I moderate my time online now.
Your friend must first realize his addiction and want help. Until that's happens, the most you can do is get out of the way while his addiction drags him down.
If you're enabling him to continue his addiction, then you need to evaluate your own situation.
I've never run Vista. I have played with Windows Server 2008, and while it's performance was acceptable, the lack of anything terribly new from XP had me putting XP back. However... this is a copy-paste from my blog about Win 7 RC:
I had a quiet day, so I decided to install it on my empty 500GB SATA drive. Other than some minor problems with my blank media, the installation process was smooth, easy, and came with a VERY delightful surprise.
After installation completed, my new Windows desktop just came right up. I didn't even have to reboot, it was ready to go. That was pretty cool.
In fact, the restart demon of Windows seems to have been pummeled quite a bit. Very few restarts were needed through the process of installing things. There was only one driver I had to install manually, which was my video driver, and this installed through the upgrade driver choice in the device manager.
Later I found it was also a recommended update from Windows Update. This means the drivers for my motherboard, UPS, printer, various USB devices, CDROM drive, network adapter, etcetc were all automatic and never required my manual attention. Very cool.
As far as compatibility goes, I added 2 games and 2 major applications and a handful of minor ones. One game required I go find my DirectX 9 Redist package and install it. It now runs flawlessly, the other game ran fine out of the box.
Office 2007 installed with no noticeable problems. Though Outlook did crash once for reasons I don't know. Quickbooks 2007 also installed with no problems, it updated fine with the manual updater I have for it. I even did some transactions with it today, and added some appointments in Outlook. Everything peachy. Additionally, after getting Thunderbird installed, my GF sent me a large PowerPoint document, which I viewed. Worked no problems.
AntiVirus also works with no complaints, no problems. Using Avast Personal Edition. I expected this not to work with Windows 7, but it does. Daemon Tools virtual DVD drive also works, despite a warning from Windows 7 (several in fact) that it may not work. I only proceeded because there was a release note on the site that they corrected a known issue with Windows 7 RC.
StarDock's Fences does seem to have issues. It installs and works fine... until I changed the background of my desktop. This broke it. Rebooting seems the only cure. So the automatic slideshow of different desktop wallpapers is out. Nice feature that, I'll add.
The way folders are organized with these 'libraries' is still a bit puzzling to me. I haven't entirely gotten my head wrapped around how it's designed to work. But I'll figure it out eventually. Migrating settings from XP proved fairly simple (to me at least.) One annoying thing, was how 7 is forcing me into modifying all the permissions and occasionally even ownership on folders and files on the XP drive. I highly doubt XP will even work properly now.
So, all in all, Windows 7 seems like a winner. There are some popups about programs changing stuff that grow old after a while. But I imagine once I get my system all ship shape and just go about my daily use, they'll no longer be noticed much. The new Media Player 12 is so minimalistic (at least when I double clicked a movie on my XP drive) that I've not bothered to install VLC just yet. I like a minimalistic player. A slider to fast forward and rewind. A play, stop and pause button and a volume control. It has this and not a lot more. At least by default.
I really don't like the start menu. In XP I always tweaked my start menu to be basically the same as the Windows 2000 start menu. Doesn't seem to be a way to do that with Windows 7. But I can live with this start menu. It's not horrid, it's just not what I'm used to.
Many of the UI's effects and "bells and whistles" are neat. Not necessary, but they're neat. Performance is fantastic despite all these fancy "bells and whistles" so I'm not going to complain.
Oh yes, last part, networking. This required the most effort. My ma
What puzzles me is these odd 'spam' emails I get which have nothing in them. What's up with that? Just a blank email from some strange address. What's the point? Anyone else get these?
If you really want to be safe on the internet, why not use a Commodore 64, or a TRS-80 computer to connect? Sure, neither of these systesm probably have a TCP/IP stack in them, but heck, yer even more SAFE that way!
And there's surely no viruses for either of these systems, besides, if there is, just make a backup of your boot floppy before you connect and if you get hit, just erase the disk and make a new backup! Hehe.
I didn't have time to read through 3 pages of comments to see if someone asked this one:
Has there been a myth you guys considered too dangerous to attempt to confirm or bust, if so, what was it?
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In the obligatory manner of a MMO, I mean, since you're quitting post-1986 tech... can I have your stuff?
If it were a real bridge of a real starship, they could leave.. and leave us ALONE!
There's no passwords on my AWS linux VM. All the accounts (root and my own) are passwordless, no password works. You have to have the ssh key to log in. So even if some joker had console on my VM, it's rather worthless. *I* can't even login if I had console.
And na, who cares about crypting the boot volume.. its just a linux distro, nothing sensitive there. Only crypt sensitive volumes. (like /home for example)
I'm not fond of any solution that is 'automatic', cuz if it's automatically set to decrypt my volumes, then its a lot easier to tinker with and eventually break in. If you only have ONE CHANCE, and if the VM reboots the keys are gone until I put them back in...yeah. Not getting in to that easily.
Going to need a copy of the VM's memory and some skill at finding the crypto keys in there in addition to the volume if you use TrueCrypt.
I use AWS and I truecrypt my source code database that I store there.
I lose automatic full reboot (I have to log in and manually mount that volume), but that's worth the additional privacy/security.
Is this a new tag? I've never seen before, but I definitely approve.
I've been using popfile for years. Works great! Try it.
Sort of like 640KB will be enough for anyone?
It may not be news to a lot of veteran computer folks like probably most of us on this site. It is news to the general public though.
It's also news in the fact, it's proof. Sure, we as computer folks may have for YEARS said, "Well, duh of course they're capturing all the packets", but now it's like.. there's evidence. Now it's a FACT instead of just a well accepted assumption.
Seems a dubious method to laundry money, at best.
CCP doesn't allow real-world transfers of ingame assets for non-game assets. Not everyone is caught, but its taken seriously and many are caught and removed from the game.
Such risks do not make EVE a very viable money laundering facility, sorry. I wouldn't do it there. Second Life maybe, but not EVE.
Why stop there? Giving birth is a death sentence. We should put a stop to it!
You forgot to capitalize His.
Why would the NSA *care* about cracking the encryption if they believe it's their own documents that Snowden took? Sort of silly to spend all that computing power to break the encryption when you got the originals already.
Actually, I personally believe they're Bush/Cheney thugs that Obama can't get rid of.
I'm glad the Lavabit thing is getting a fair bit of attention. The more publicity it gets, the better outcome, we as people of the USA, will get.
I tried AA, never worked very well for me. And yes, it was the religious aspect of it that really made it not work for me. I'm an atheist. I tried a lot of things honestly, to stop drinking. I knew very early on it was a serious issue for me.
What did it for me? I finally told myself (and still believe it) that if I drink one more time, it will kill me.
Haven't touched the stuff since.
Does TOR have a facility for email? That would seem to be a good place to get away from snooping.
Yes I know TOR was attacked recently, but I think the network is still the 'best deal in town.'
All one needs to do is setup some kind of email system that works with .onion domains within the network and a high redelivery time so sites that bounce on and off line can still receive email. Could all be done with SMTP modified (and simplified for end-users to run a SMTP host within TOR) specifically to operate with .onion host names.
Maybe I'll look into putting something together, can't be too hard and in theory to me would address the need for truly private email exchanging.
Speaking as a MMO addict myself, as well as an addict of other things. I'm in recovery from my addiction to alcohol. I still play one MMO, but I moderate my time online now.
Your friend must first realize his addiction and want help. Until that's happens, the most you can do is get out of the way while his addiction drags him down.
If you're enabling him to continue his addiction, then you need to evaluate your own situation.
I think we need a new word computer users aren't desensitized to.
Maybe... FIRE!!!!!!!!!!! That's always an attention getter, especially if the user thinks his computer is actually on fire.
I've never run Vista. I have played with Windows Server 2008, and while it's performance was acceptable, the lack of anything terribly new from XP had me putting XP back. However... this is a copy-paste from my blog about Win 7 RC:
I had a quiet day, so I decided to install it on my empty 500GB SATA drive. Other than some minor problems with my blank media, the installation process was smooth, easy, and came with a VERY delightful surprise.
After installation completed, my new Windows desktop just came right up. I didn't even have to reboot, it was ready to go. That was pretty cool.
In fact, the restart demon of Windows seems to have been pummeled quite a bit. Very few restarts were needed through the process of installing things. There was only one driver I had to install manually, which was my video driver, and this installed through the upgrade driver choice in the device manager.
Later I found it was also a recommended update from Windows Update. This means the drivers for my motherboard, UPS, printer, various USB devices, CDROM drive, network adapter, etcetc were all automatic and never required my manual attention. Very cool.
As far as compatibility goes, I added 2 games and 2 major applications and a handful of minor ones. One game required I go find my DirectX 9 Redist package and install it. It now runs flawlessly, the other game ran fine out of the box.
Office 2007 installed with no noticeable problems. Though Outlook did crash once for reasons I don't know. Quickbooks 2007 also installed with no problems, it updated fine with the manual updater I have for it. I even did some transactions with it today, and added some appointments in Outlook. Everything peachy. Additionally, after getting Thunderbird installed, my GF sent me a large PowerPoint document, which I viewed. Worked no problems.
AntiVirus also works with no complaints, no problems. Using Avast Personal Edition. I expected this not to work with Windows 7, but it does. Daemon Tools virtual DVD drive also works, despite a warning from Windows 7 (several in fact) that it may not work. I only proceeded because there was a release note on the site that they corrected a known issue with Windows 7 RC.
StarDock's Fences does seem to have issues. It installs and works fine... until I changed the background of my desktop. This broke it. Rebooting seems the only cure. So the automatic slideshow of different desktop wallpapers is out. Nice feature that, I'll add.
The way folders are organized with these 'libraries' is still a bit puzzling to me. I haven't entirely gotten my head wrapped around how it's designed to work. But I'll figure it out eventually. Migrating settings from XP proved fairly simple (to me at least.) One annoying thing, was how 7 is forcing me into modifying all the permissions and occasionally even ownership on folders and files on the XP drive. I highly doubt XP will even work properly now.
So, all in all, Windows 7 seems like a winner. There are some popups about programs changing stuff that grow old after a while. But I imagine once I get my system all ship shape and just go about my daily use, they'll no longer be noticed much. The new Media Player 12 is so minimalistic (at least when I double clicked a movie on my XP drive) that I've not bothered to install VLC just yet. I like a minimalistic player. A slider to fast forward and rewind. A play, stop and pause button and a volume control. It has this and not a lot more. At least by default.
I really don't like the start menu. In XP I always tweaked my start menu to be basically the same as the Windows 2000 start menu. Doesn't seem to be a way to do that with Windows 7. But I can live with this start menu. It's not horrid, it's just not what I'm used to.
Many of the UI's effects and "bells and whistles" are neat. Not necessary, but they're neat. Performance is fantastic despite all these fancy "bells and whistles" so I'm not going to complain.
Oh yes, last part, networking. This required the most effort. My ma
I still use my CAPS LOCK, just not very often.
What puzzles me is these odd 'spam' emails I get which have nothing in them. What's up with that? Just a blank email from some strange address. What's the point? Anyone else get these?
If you really want to be safe on the internet, why not use a Commodore 64, or a TRS-80 computer to connect? Sure, neither of these systesm probably have a TCP/IP stack in them, but heck, yer even more SAFE that way! And there's surely no viruses for either of these systems, besides, if there is, just make a backup of your boot floppy before you connect and if you get hit, just erase the disk and make a new backup! Hehe.
I didn't have time to read through 3 pages of comments to see if someone asked this one: Has there been a myth you guys considered too dangerous to attempt to confirm or bust, if so, what was it?