I have only a most basic grasp of cosmology but it's an interest of mine and I recall watching something on documentary heaven to the effect that black holes may well be a universe of their own
One of my most favorite books on the subject is called The Five Ages of the Universe by Adams and Laughlin. If you like reading books about the subject but don't care about or can't comprehend the math, I seriously recommend it. That said (and I think it's in the book I linked), there's an evolutionary theory about universes that contends each time a black hole is created, it splits off a unique instance of spacetime creating a "new" universe with its own laws of physics. Universes created in this manner that contain laws of physics favorable to the creation of black holes will go on to evolve new "child universes" of their own; a sort of cosmic equivalent of Darwin's natural selection.
One more thing, should you find yourself occasionally staring at the TV and wanting to feel educated and entertained, then you should, uh, "acquire" a copy of Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking. It's a very well written and well narrated version of how Hawking explains the workings of the universe, but unfortunately isn't available on DVD yet. However, the trusty folks on the web that don't make any money from TV and movie distribution should have a copy you can pick up today;)
The extremely fun thing about physics from a layman's point of view is that there are so many theories about how the same things work, and getting them presented to you in a manner you can understand without knowing the math behind it is a wonderful thing. From there, you can theorize and come to your own conclusions about which you like best, because if Planck has anything to say about it, we'll never truly know which of them is right.
It's kind of like going to a trade show, only instead of the place being full of vendors, it's full of missionaries from every major religion on the planet, and you get to objectively pick the one you like the best. I'm sure most Slashdotters would be drinking the free coffee at the Atheists' booth or ignoring everyone and speculating what the giant bundle of Cat5 on the wall goes to, but regardless of whether your God is supernatural or nonexistant, to glimpse into the very fabric and inner workings of the cosmos is the only true way to see into that mind.
Still, even if that's not the way you see it, I do feel that it's also the only way to even begin to fathom what we all really are.
As an MS fanboy, I like Windows, personally. Both the desktop and server varieties.
Internet Explorer, on the other hand, is a piece of crap. What matters to me is speed and reliability, specifically that pages are rendered fast, and that they appear as intended by the web developer.
As it stands, the competition offers better products. Should IE9 turn out to be faster than Chrome, I'd gladly start using it again. However, I highly doubt it will be that way.
Says you. I highly dislike having to fuck with stuff to make it work when I don't want to.
There's a reason Apple's products are popular, and it has nothing to do with the user's ability to customize them. Not that I condone their iron fist, but it's still the truth.
"Turn off JS these days, and practically nothing works."
Um,
Nope, that is wrong. I run both noscript and adblock plus and after giving my bank and the biggies like youtube permissions through both the only sites that don't work are the ones that are a bit dodgy in the first place.
It's much, much simpler to just install Chrome and not have to worry about javascript performance.
I do so love the stories the tells me about her company's IT dept. I have to admit that I die a little inside every time she tells me a story about their network and I recall what her company's head of IT makes.... sigh.
Sorry, i haven't been paying attention in recent years. Has the convention changed? - free as in beer, Free as in freedom...right?
Generally speaking, that is the case. However, there's nothing preventing you from writing a piece of software, licensing it under the GPL, and then charging for it.
However, there's nothing preventing any of your customers from doing the same:-P
While I don't have anything to add, do you know of any writeups that detail hardened SEP configurations like the one you describe? I am quite intrigued.
I completely agree. That and the cost of console games being $60 on the average term of forever is why I'll never own a console for the purpose of gaming (but my 360 Arcade makes one hell of an awesome Media Center Extender:D).
To be fair, however, Bioshock for Windows and Bioshock for 360 are completely different SKUs, and I'm of the opinion that when you buy that disk, you're buying a copy of the game, not a license to the content. Though I'm sure the publisher would argue otherwise. That said, I think that, so long as you're buying a license anyway, what with the cheap cost of a pressed DVD and all, if you're going to market a cross platform game for both a console and the PC then you should only sell physical disks of the console title and each and every one of those copies should have a voucher in them for the PC version that you can download from Steam or something. If a PC-only gamer wants a PC-only copy, then, hell, why not offer the PC-only version on Steam for less money? Chances are good that it could be $40 instead of $60 and the publisher would still make more money anyway.
Oh well. The advances in technology and the new distribution channels that have opened in the last decade have really changed some of my opinions on game purchasing. There's just production-based for a physical copy of a game that's pressed to a dirt-cheap DVD and packaged in an even cheaper DVD case to cost $60 anymore. We're not paying for a high-cost ROM cartridge. $30 per game, at the most, or the game publisher can go f*** themselves.
Dammit stop feeding! Why the hell didn't you ulti?
I was out of f**ing mana!
GG man, let's just freakin concede.
Hahahahahaha! Sounds like a pub:D
There was this argument I got into the other day with a pubber. I was playing Valkyrie, and Defiler had soloed mid:
"Damn it Valk, stop feeding." "I f**king told you, buy some wards and put them in the river for f**ck's sake!" "If you want wards, why don't you buy them yourself?" "I'm agility! You're intel! Buy the wards, please!" "What does that have to do with anything? I need the money." Feeling the urge to ragequit at this point, "Do you have any idea how this game works? Intel heroes with spell nukes need far fewer items and far less money to put out effective DPS than agility heroes who use their auto-attack to deal the majority of their DPS. Now for f**k's sake, buy the f**cking wards." Short silence, then, "Well what about Puppet Master?"
I think he missed the point, as he just kept arguing. I did get a laugh when I called him ignorant in a sentence with a few three-syllable words and he spoke gibberish back into his mic to make fun of me. The irony almost killed me.
I think I'm stuck playing support/tank/pusher for the rest of my days, primarily because I'm too good at it.
you can sort teams and communicate between your team easier, which I find gives a much better gaming experience. It's much more fun than sitting alone in front of your computer talking into a headset.
Amen. Gamers that don't understand this boggle my mind.
I play DotA and Heroes of Newerth with my friends, and I can't even begin to describe how much our gameplay improves when we're in the same room (sometimes arguing very fiercely) vs. only communicating via PTT VoIP. The plays are more precise, the teamwork is tighter, and the overall level of enjoyment is much higher.
Over the period of about a year, I converted the unused master bedroom in my house into my office/computer room, complete with enterprise-level computer tables (the lab-surface type made from solid wood and steel frames with built in cable management) that I acquired from the CompUSA closing and two other business-type desks and comfy desk chairs that were getting tossed when my employer moved locations. A few older Intel P4's and AMD 939 machines with $50 video cards, and a few low-pro Dell boxes with the same combined with flat panels and gaming mice all acquired on sale or just over time, and I've managed to build an 8-player LAN room which doubles as a home lab for all of my IT self-learning trickery (which, imho, is an absolutely fantastic thing to have as an IT pro) for about $2k. I was kind of amazed when I totaled everything up and realized I've spent more on a single desktop in the past.
However, my Friday nights kick ass. My friends come by, bring no equipment, and we have a blast.... that is, when my girlfriend doesn't con me into doing something else:P
Windows XP has worked around this with telephone activation.
Which, rather surprisingly, has never been cracked (at least as of the last time I heard anything about it, which admittedly was a couple years ago). Kind of odd when you consider all those application keygens that use the telephone activation system to activate the application for you.
What is the purpose of the stock markets? Are they meant to be a video game played by A.I.'s for big cash prizes, or a way of facilitating investment and trade?
Well, everybody knows that the botters and the Chinese are the richest players, next of course to the American folks that exploit them;-)
However, if you tell the powers at be how to do something right, and they tell you that's not going to happen, then it's also your job to implement the in-between, and to communicate the problems it brings and whether or not you're willing to accept the responsibility it carries. CYA and best effort are worth far more than purist ideals, unfortunately.
Sysadmins acting like they "own" the equipment, and programmers acting like they "own" the code is however, common enough. But I think that's much more universal than computing.
As sysadmins, we're basically hired to be the ultimate authority on whether or not problem X can be solved with what hardware and manpower is currently under our (sometimes totalitarian) control. As the person employed to manage and/or oversee management of that hardware and software, you should act like you own it, and also inform those who you report to on whether or not the systems are adequate for the task at hand or the task upcoming. Further, if you're fired or replaced, you no longer technically have that authority, and it is most definitely your responsibility to transfer the power that it came with to whoever does at that point.
As sysadmins, we care deeply about the architecture and health of the infrastructure we manage, and especially of those we design and implement. Giving up the keys, as it were, sucks, but unless you literally own the system, it's just the thing you inevitably have to do some day. I'm pretty sure that all of us understand that though. It seems that Childs may not have.
Reading stuff like this (and understanding it so well) has often made me consider learning more and specializing in security administration, because it's just so damned intriguing. Alas, though, I find implementation to be my strongest suit (a-la infrastructure admin/management) and what I prefer to deal with that it's where I'm pointing my career. Nonetheless, I still like to have a healthy knowledge of security principles, in spite of the fact that I'm waaaay too lazy to implement them at home;-).
For what it's worth though, my own desktop has been running on the same Vista install for over two years now. No slowdown there without this guide either. I am going to bookmark it though, and, time permitting, likely implement it.
I'm not a fan of hosts file blocking though, I prefer to do things on my local DNS server.
Again, great links! Also, you seem to know a lot of blokes.
The true value of Process Explorer in these cases is to use it to find processes that hide themselves under other running processes (such as libs/dlls loaded in other apps like Explorer.exe, which taskmgr.exe will not show) or underneath services (like svchost.exe, which does not expose what its running beneath itself in taskmgr.exe in Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003 at least).
Indeed, and I used it in such fashion. I find that Process Explorer's best feature in these situations is it's signature verification. Suspending processes that don't pass signature verification, irrespective of whether or not they're malicious, is a great place to start when rooting out malware.
Bloody hell, perhaps you did not read that guide in that url above for how to secure windows after all. It covers securing the AT command
I know that the AT command grants SYSTEM by default. Funny thing is that the task scheduler in Vista and later has a little link "control usage of the AT command" or some such. It prompts for an account to use and when I first saw that I said, "Oh, that's convenient" and of course, never did anything with it. Oh well.
Thanks for the links, though, I've never read any of those guides, just had a lot of experience dealing with this kind of bullshit on behalf of others. Though I have read plenty of articles by the great Russinovich himself. Now those are some good reads.
... And you were probably running Chrome with an user that had ADMIN privileges.
Duh. I run as admin on my local desktop because I do way too many admin-level procedures to bother with RunAs every other minute. Further, I'd use UAC but quite frankly I think that for true administration it doesn't work right. For example, UAC demands elevation just to run MMC or RegEdit, irrespective of whether or not you want to perform tasks that don't need admin privileges. I shouldn't be prompted to elevate if all I want to do is edit HKCU.
As for security, being smart absent software vulnerabilities is generally enough in a home setting, which this was. I'm not getting paid to admin and harden my home machine; I just want to use the fuckin' thing.
I got hit by that myself. To date, the only virus I've ever gotten.
I went to change window focus by clicking on what I had thought was some white space in an article that I was reading, but realized it would normally be an ad spot. Another browser window opened (with the annoying OnClose warning) and I closed it. I noticed that Java loaded, and then a few minutes later Security Center lets me know my AV is turned off and all hell starts breaking loose.
Process Explorer and a few hours later I was back to normal (protip: malware "watcher" processes usually aren't smart enough to realize when they've been suspended. Comes in handy.)
The app must have exploited some Java vulnerability, but at this point I'm not really sure what one. It used the AT command to get what it wanted in terms of privileges and so on, and went to town on my local security policy.
In the end, I was a little pissed at myself, as I try to keep software updated to avoid vulnerabilities like that, but alas I finally got hit by one. Made me feel a little more capable of believing the [usually bullshit] story of "I was just using it when all of a sudden these things started popping up!"
Of course. I probably should have been clearer, but I was specifically referring to cases where AP's are open not by the owner's desire but rather his negligence.
Interesting analogy, but to address the situation you propose, the homeowner's worry in that case would be that their house would be burgled using that information.
In the WiFi case, someone could enter range of your router without your knowledge (trivial whether or not the owner is near the device or not), attempt to gain unauthorized entry, and, if successful.... leech your internet?
There's a lot more at stake in the burgled home example. Granted, said network infiltrator could be attempting to gain access to your HTTP data or file shares, but I fail to see how this kind of database facilitates this process to a degree so much higher than methods that would be used without access to it, especially considering the ease with which this information is gathered by just about anyone on a local scale, that I can't justifiably say it merits concern that it will be used for criminal enterprise rather than the legal kind.
Granted, that's my logical opinion. I don't have any statistics to wave at you.
Therefore, a DSi that plays DS Internet games must connect to a WEP wireless network. Whoops.
I'm not sure what point you're making.
WEP is woefully insecure, but my point is that breaking it to gain access to a network shows (in my opinion) clear criminal intent, regardless of whether or not it's being done to break into a LAN or just to leech internet access.
However, were I in your shoes with the DS WEP only thing, I'd set up either a second router or a virtual SSID using DD-WRT or some such and route it outside of my firewall. Personally speaking, at home, I keep things secure mostly at the border. I won't admin local machine firewalls if I'm not getting paid to do it:P
Slashdot Mirror
What, exactly, in a black hole carries the charge.
I think it's related to the charge of the matter that's inside of it. Black hole eats 100 neutrons, 100 protons, and 99 electrons: positive charge.
It may not be that simple though, and I could be wrong. It's been a while.
I have only a most basic grasp of cosmology but it's an interest of mine and I recall watching something on documentary heaven to the effect that black holes may well be a universe of their own
One of my most favorite books on the subject is called The Five Ages of the Universe by Adams and Laughlin. If you like reading books about the subject but don't care about or can't comprehend the math, I seriously recommend it. That said (and I think it's in the book I linked), there's an evolutionary theory about universes that contends each time a black hole is created, it splits off a unique instance of spacetime creating a "new" universe with its own laws of physics. Universes created in this manner that contain laws of physics favorable to the creation of black holes will go on to evolve new "child universes" of their own; a sort of cosmic equivalent of Darwin's natural selection.
;)
One more thing, should you find yourself occasionally staring at the TV and wanting to feel educated and entertained, then you should, uh, "acquire" a copy of Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking. It's a very well written and well narrated version of how Hawking explains the workings of the universe, but unfortunately isn't available on DVD yet. However, the trusty folks on the web that don't make any money from TV and movie distribution should have a copy you can pick up today
The extremely fun thing about physics from a layman's point of view is that there are so many theories about how the same things work, and getting them presented to you in a manner you can understand without knowing the math behind it is a wonderful thing. From there, you can theorize and come to your own conclusions about which you like best, because if Planck has anything to say about it, we'll never truly know which of them is right.
It's kind of like going to a trade show, only instead of the place being full of vendors, it's full of missionaries from every major religion on the planet, and you get to objectively pick the one you like the best. I'm sure most Slashdotters would be drinking the free coffee at the Atheists' booth or ignoring everyone and speculating what the giant bundle of Cat5 on the wall goes to, but regardless of whether your God is supernatural or nonexistant, to glimpse into the very fabric and inner workings of the cosmos is the only true way to see into that mind.
Still, even if that's not the way you see it, I do feel that it's also the only way to even begin to fathom what we all really are.
I'm actually performing an ongoing study of that topic, and I'll give you a link in a bit. BRB Fapping.
As an MS fanboy, I like Windows, personally. Both the desktop and server varieties.
Internet Explorer, on the other hand, is a piece of crap. What matters to me is speed and reliability, specifically that pages are rendered fast, and that they appear as intended by the web developer.
As it stands, the competition offers better products. Should IE9 turn out to be faster than Chrome, I'd gladly start using it again. However, I highly doubt it will be that way.
Says you. I highly dislike having to fuck with stuff to make it work when I don't want to.
There's a reason Apple's products are popular, and it has nothing to do with the user's ability to customize them. Not that I condone their iron fist, but it's still the truth.
"Turn off JS these days, and practically nothing works."
Um, Nope, that is wrong. I run both noscript and adblock plus and after giving my bank and the biggies like youtube permissions through both the only sites that don't work are the ones that are a bit dodgy in the first place.
It's much, much simpler to just install Chrome and not have to worry about javascript performance.
Hey now, my girlfriend is in HR.
I do so love the stories the tells me about her company's IT dept. I have to admit that I die a little inside every time she tells me a story about their network and I recall what her company's head of IT makes.... sigh.
Sorry, i haven't been paying attention in recent years. Has the convention changed? - free as in beer, Free as in freedom...right?
Generally speaking, that is the case. However, there's nothing preventing you from writing a piece of software, licensing it under the GPL, and then charging for it.
:-P
However, there's nothing preventing any of your customers from doing the same
While I don't have anything to add, do you know of any writeups that detail hardened SEP configurations like the one you describe? I am quite intrigued.
Android = Linux.
And if I could, I'd install Windows on my phone without a second thought.
I know that makes me an idiot, especially around these parts, but it's just too awesome of a concept to pass up.
Of course, the one time I'd dial 911 for a real emergency I'm sure the modem/GPS drivers would cause a BSOD, but that's a different story =)
I completely agree. That and the cost of console games being $60 on the average term of forever is why I'll never own a console for the purpose of gaming (but my 360 Arcade makes one hell of an awesome Media Center Extender :D).
To be fair, however, Bioshock for Windows and Bioshock for 360 are completely different SKUs, and I'm of the opinion that when you buy that disk, you're buying a copy of the game, not a license to the content. Though I'm sure the publisher would argue otherwise. That said, I think that, so long as you're buying a license anyway, what with the cheap cost of a pressed DVD and all, if you're going to market a cross platform game for both a console and the PC then you should only sell physical disks of the console title and each and every one of those copies should have a voucher in them for the PC version that you can download from Steam or something. If a PC-only gamer wants a PC-only copy, then, hell, why not offer the PC-only version on Steam for less money? Chances are good that it could be $40 instead of $60 and the publisher would still make more money anyway.
Oh well. The advances in technology and the new distribution channels that have opened in the last decade have really changed some of my opinions on game purchasing. There's just production-based for a physical copy of a game that's pressed to a dirt-cheap DVD and packaged in an even cheaper DVD case to cost $60 anymore. We're not paying for a high-cost ROM cartridge. $30 per game, at the most, or the game publisher can go f*** themselves.
Dammit stop feeding! Why the hell didn't you ulti? I was out of f**ing mana! GG man, let's just freakin concede.
Hahahahahaha! Sounds like a pub :D
There was this argument I got into the other day with a pubber. I was playing Valkyrie, and Defiler had soloed mid:
"Damn it Valk, stop feeding."
"I f**king told you, buy some wards and put them in the river for f**ck's sake!"
"If you want wards, why don't you buy them yourself?"
"I'm agility! You're intel! Buy the wards, please!"
"What does that have to do with anything? I need the money."
Feeling the urge to ragequit at this point, "Do you have any idea how this game works? Intel heroes with spell nukes need far fewer items and far less money to put out effective DPS than agility heroes who use their auto-attack to deal the majority of their DPS. Now for f**k's sake, buy the f**cking wards."
Short silence, then, "Well what about Puppet Master?"
I think he missed the point, as he just kept arguing. I did get a laugh when I called him ignorant in a sentence with a few three-syllable words and he spoke gibberish back into his mic to make fun of me. The irony almost killed me.
I think I'm stuck playing support/tank/pusher for the rest of my days, primarily because I'm too good at it.
Also, [/offtopic].
you can sort teams and communicate between your team easier, which I find gives a much better gaming experience. It's much more fun than sitting alone in front of your computer talking into a headset.
Amen. Gamers that don't understand this boggle my mind.
:P
I play DotA and Heroes of Newerth with my friends, and I can't even begin to describe how much our gameplay improves when we're in the same room (sometimes arguing very fiercely) vs. only communicating via PTT VoIP. The plays are more precise, the teamwork is tighter, and the overall level of enjoyment is much higher.
Over the period of about a year, I converted the unused master bedroom in my house into my office/computer room, complete with enterprise-level computer tables (the lab-surface type made from solid wood and steel frames with built in cable management) that I acquired from the CompUSA closing and two other business-type desks and comfy desk chairs that were getting tossed when my employer moved locations. A few older Intel P4's and AMD 939 machines with $50 video cards, and a few low-pro Dell boxes with the same combined with flat panels and gaming mice all acquired on sale or just over time, and I've managed to build an 8-player LAN room which doubles as a home lab for all of my IT self-learning trickery (which, imho, is an absolutely fantastic thing to have as an IT pro) for about $2k. I was kind of amazed when I totaled everything up and realized I've spent more on a single desktop in the past.
However, my Friday nights kick ass. My friends come by, bring no equipment, and we have a blast.... that is, when my girlfriend doesn't con me into doing something else
Windows XP has worked around this with telephone activation.
Which, rather surprisingly, has never been cracked (at least as of the last time I heard anything about it, which admittedly was a couple years ago). Kind of odd when you consider all those application keygens that use the telephone activation system to activate the application for you.
What is the purpose of the stock markets? Are they meant to be a video game played by A.I.'s for big cash prizes, or a way of facilitating investment and trade?
Well, everybody knows that the botters and the Chinese are the richest players, next of course to the American folks that exploit them ;-)
I care about doing things "right" as well.
However, if you tell the powers at be how to do something right, and they tell you that's not going to happen, then it's also your job to implement the in-between, and to communicate the problems it brings and whether or not you're willing to accept the responsibility it carries. CYA and best effort are worth far more than purist ideals, unfortunately.
Sysadmins acting like they "own" the equipment, and programmers acting like they "own" the code is however, common enough. But I think that's much more universal than computing.
As sysadmins, we're basically hired to be the ultimate authority on whether or not problem X can be solved with what hardware and manpower is currently under our (sometimes totalitarian) control. As the person employed to manage and/or oversee management of that hardware and software, you should act like you own it, and also inform those who you report to on whether or not the systems are adequate for the task at hand or the task upcoming. Further, if you're fired or replaced, you no longer technically have that authority, and it is most definitely your responsibility to transfer the power that it came with to whoever does at that point.
As sysadmins, we care deeply about the architecture and health of the infrastructure we manage, and especially of those we design and implement. Giving up the keys, as it were, sucks, but unless you literally own the system, it's just the thing you inevitably have to do some day. I'm pretty sure that all of us understand that though. It seems that Childs may not have.
Very neat stuff.
;-).
Reading stuff like this (and understanding it so well) has often made me consider learning more and specializing in security administration, because it's just so damned intriguing. Alas, though, I find implementation to be my strongest suit (a-la infrastructure admin/management) and what I prefer to deal with that it's where I'm pointing my career. Nonetheless, I still like to have a healthy knowledge of security principles, in spite of the fact that I'm waaaay too lazy to implement them at home
For what it's worth though, my own desktop has been running on the same Vista install for over two years now. No slowdown there without this guide either. I am going to bookmark it though, and, time permitting, likely implement it.
I'm not a fan of hosts file blocking though, I prefer to do things on my local DNS server.
Again, great links! Also, you seem to know a lot of blokes.
The true value of Process Explorer in these cases is to use it to find processes that hide themselves under other running processes (such as libs/dlls loaded in other apps like Explorer.exe, which taskmgr.exe will not show) or underneath services (like svchost.exe, which does not expose what its running beneath itself in taskmgr.exe in Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003 at least).
Indeed, and I used it in such fashion.
I find that Process Explorer's best feature in these situations is it's signature verification. Suspending processes that don't pass signature verification, irrespective of whether or not they're malicious, is a great place to start when rooting out malware.
Bloody hell, perhaps you did not read that guide in that url above for how to secure windows after all. It covers securing the AT command
I know that the AT command grants SYSTEM by default. Funny thing is that the task scheduler in Vista and later has a little link "control usage of the AT command" or some such. It prompts for an account to use and when I first saw that I said, "Oh, that's convenient" and of course, never did anything with it. Oh well.
Thanks for the links, though, I've never read any of those guides, just had a lot of experience dealing with this kind of bullshit on behalf of others. Though I have read plenty of articles by the great Russinovich himself. Now those are some good reads.
... And you were probably running Chrome with an user that had ADMIN privileges.
Duh. I run as admin on my local desktop because I do way too many admin-level procedures to bother with RunAs every other minute. Further, I'd use UAC but quite frankly I think that for true administration it doesn't work right. For example, UAC demands elevation just to run MMC or RegEdit, irrespective of whether or not you want to perform tasks that don't need admin privileges. I shouldn't be prompted to elevate if all I want to do is edit HKCU.
As for security, being smart absent software vulnerabilities is generally enough in a home setting, which this was. I'm not getting paid to admin and harden my home machine; I just want to use the fuckin' thing.
I got hit by that myself. To date, the only virus I've ever gotten.
I went to change window focus by clicking on what I had thought was some white space in an article that I was reading, but realized it would normally be an ad spot. Another browser window opened (with the annoying OnClose warning) and I closed it. I noticed that Java loaded, and then a few minutes later Security Center lets me know my AV is turned off and all hell starts breaking loose.
Process Explorer and a few hours later I was back to normal (protip: malware "watcher" processes usually aren't smart enough to realize when they've been suspended. Comes in handy.)
The app must have exploited some Java vulnerability, but at this point I'm not really sure what one. It used the AT command to get what it wanted in terms of privileges and so on, and went to town on my local security policy.
In the end, I was a little pissed at myself, as I try to keep software updated to avoid vulnerabilities like that, but alas I finally got hit by one. Made me feel a little more capable of believing the [usually bullshit] story of "I was just using it when all of a sudden these things started popping up!"
Fun fact: I was browsing with Chrome.
In other words, the router "authorizes" you by default. Therefore, "unauthorized" access to an unsecured AP is impossible.
Technologically authorized, yes. Authorized with the consent of the device's owner, no... but not explicitly disallowed either.
So yes, hence the quotes.
Of course. I probably should have been clearer, but I was specifically referring to cases where AP's are open not by the owner's desire but rather his negligence.
Interesting analogy, but to address the situation you propose, the homeowner's worry in that case would be that their house would be burgled using that information.
In the WiFi case, someone could enter range of your router without your knowledge (trivial whether or not the owner is near the device or not), attempt to gain unauthorized entry, and, if successful.... leech your internet?
There's a lot more at stake in the burgled home example. Granted, said network infiltrator could be attempting to gain access to your HTTP data or file shares, but I fail to see how this kind of database facilitates this process to a degree so much higher than methods that would be used without access to it, especially considering the ease with which this information is gathered by just about anyone on a local scale, that I can't justifiably say it merits concern that it will be used for criminal enterprise rather than the legal kind.
Granted, that's my logical opinion. I don't have any statistics to wave at you.
Therefore, a DSi that plays DS Internet games must connect to a WEP wireless network. Whoops.
I'm not sure what point you're making.
:P
WEP is woefully insecure, but my point is that breaking it to gain access to a network shows (in my opinion) clear criminal intent, regardless of whether or not it's being done to break into a LAN or just to leech internet access.
However, were I in your shoes with the DS WEP only thing, I'd set up either a second router or a virtual SSID using DD-WRT or some such and route it outside of my firewall. Personally speaking, at home, I keep things secure mostly at the border. I won't admin local machine firewalls if I'm not getting paid to do it