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tansqrx

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Everything posted by tansqrx

  1. Just found this via SecurityFocus and adds a little more to my argument that this is more than just doing what is right. http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/1060 Also related is a story about the law firm, Gipson Hoffman & Pancione, representing CYBERsitter which is accusing the Chinese government of copyright infringement for the Green Dam Youth Escort monitoring program. The law firm has been the victim of several targeted attacks that appear to be from China. http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/1062
  2. I can’t much blame them. I would be distraught also if Google was banned in the states.
  3. The media reports that I have been hearing about Google and China paint a slightly different picture (https://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/01/13/1657249/Googlecn-Attack-Part-of-a-Broad-Spying-Effort and several talk radio shows). Apparently Google is getting tired of all the attacks to both the physical and intellectual aspects of their business. The physical attacks are incurring loss due to bandwidth usage, DDoS attacks, and other system gaming. The intellectual losses are due to corporate espionage and perhaps Google secrets lost to China. Google has made a business decision and decided that the losses are larger than the potential gain in China.As all good public relations firms do, Google has added a positive spin to the story by saying one of the reasons for it possibly leaving China is the censorship issue. Raising the censorship card makes everyone warm and fuzzy inside but the underlying fact is that the move is purely business driven. Google is now putting more money into China then they are getting out so this part of their business is now closing.
  4. I canât claim to have a definitive answer but all of these look harmless. The HKLM\SECURITY\Policy\Secrets area of the registry is where the Windows passwords are stored so it makes sense that this is hidden from the operating system during normal operation. Microsoft has also added some extra protection measures since XP to make the passwords harder to obtain (but still not that hard if you use a Linux boot CD).The C:\System Volume Information\_restore directory is related to the system restore function (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Restore). Since this is also a fairly low level feature of Windows (you donât want malware infecting your backup) I would say that this is also fine.
  5. I can see where your problem is coming from. When I did a search on newegg.com, I was getting all KVM results. I changed my search to âmonitor splitterâ and had much better luck. http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ A particular product that I found is the GWC VS1120 Video 2-Port Splitter (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817107511&cm_re=monitor_splitter-_-17-107-511-_-Product) which takes one computer input and has two monitor outputs and costs $24.99. There are several other results on the first page and hopefully this will get you started. As a note, no particular endorsement for this product or newegg.com. Newegg is just where I usually do my shopping for computer hardware.
  6. I will also add that the account you are accessing Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) from has to be an administrative account.
  7. I will not say that you should get a slap on the hand for every flippant post or even create a rule for original content because there are many useful posts here that would not meet that criterion. Iâm only saying that this particular trend should be deleted. As for indexing, Google does pick up all the threads, even the quoted parts. I entered the following search into Google Which is a paragraph used in http://forums.xisto.com/topic/97377-topic/?findpost=1064404938 and confined to only results at Xisto.com. Google returned three results with the second being If you perform the same search without the Xisto domain you get hundreds of identical results all on popular forums. The top result is from MSDN at https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home which looks suspiciously like the same post on Xisto, down the last comma and question mark. This is the definition of SPAM and Google index gamming.
  8. Why has there been so many "advertisements" lately for DVD/iPod/MP4 converting software? For the past few months the exact same topics such as "How To Convert Mod/tod To Avi/mpg/mpeg, Wmv/divx/swf (mac/windows)" (http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/) or "How To Convert Video To Avi/mp4/mpg/mod/mov/mkv/wmv/divx/xvid" (http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/) have been appearing. It appears that all of the posts have been under different usernames but all have the same message. Many of the posts refer to the software company 4easysoft.com (4easysoft.com index.html). All of the posts have been edited by the administrators to remove quoted sections but they still exist. I believe this is a clear cut case of SPAM and the entire post should be deleted to discourage the poster from making any more marketing campaigns on Xisto. I am all for users posting useful software or even making direct plugs for their own software (I have been guilty of this myself) but creating numerous threads for exact same software is over the top. I have dealt with SPAM problems on my own forum before and it is simply a pain in the you know where. But you have to take care of the problem and be persistent or the SPAM only gets worse. Sure the culprit may keep coming back for months but delete the posts quickly before he sees any benefit, mostly from Google indexing, and he will soon more on to an easier target. Once again, not tiring to be mean here but this has gone beyond a coincidence and deserves action.
  9. Call me old fashioned but the last time I checked this was called SPAM and no one appreciates unsolicited email.
  10. If price is the deciding factor let me offer a different way of getting Windows 7 along with all the extras. This is certainly not the cheapest way but it works great for me. Microsoft offers a service called Microsoft Developer Network or MSDN (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx) which allows developers to purchase Microsoft products for a flat rate. With the top level subscription, you get every Microsoft OS ever made (Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2000, ME, 98, 95, and even 3.11 and DOS) along with all versions of Office, Visual Studio, all the servers, and anything else you can think of. Every month you get a package of DVDs with all the software and any patches. You also get paid Microsoft support. You can install each product around 10 times per year as long as it is for development purposes. The MSDN subscription has several levels but most of them will set you back between $700 and $10,000. One level below MSDN is TechNet (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx). TechNet is MSDN for technical support types and is thus more geared toward corporate installation and deployment. TechNet is split into two parts, one with monthly media (DVDs) delivery and one that is download only. The more expensive option is $599 but the download option is $349. TechNet offers most of the software that MSDN does except the software development tools. You can take a look at the offering at http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ even if you donât have a subscription. If you think about it, $349 for 10 keys of Windows 7 Ultimate and Office 2007 is well worth the money. A single copy of both of these will easily set you back $1000 ($320 for Windows 7 Ultimate and $680 for Office Ultimate 2007 according to the Microsoft store). Additionally, Microsoft always has a coupon code for TechNet which is usually 25% off. I used my own code but I saw the exact same code at http://www.retailmenot.ca/coupons/microsoftstore.ca?redirectType=auto. After the coupon and tax, I paid around $270 for all the Microsoft goodness that I can stand. If you want to go legitimate I firmly believe that TechNet is the way to go. I have been a subscriber for two years now and highly recommend it. Not everyone will be able to spend this kind of money but if you can it will save you in the long run.
  11. The theme in question can be enabled from the personalization settings in Windows 7. The Windows 7 classic theme is a GUI skin just like any other theme which is different than the way the Vista classic theme worked. When you switched to classic in Vista, some underlying GUI changes were made to make the desktop to make it behave differently. In Windows 7, the look changes but the underlying functionality does not. The specific example I am thinking about is how the task bar works. Even if you turn off auto grouping and show all icons, the taskbar will still rearrange open windows. In XP and Vista if you open Internet Explorer, calculator, and then Internet Explorer, you will have the windows arranged in the task bar as IE, Calc, IE. In Windows 7 the two IE windows will be side by side (in the front) and the calculator window will be last. As far as I know there is no way to change this behavior. The Windows 7 classic theme will make the machine look like Windows 2000/XP but it is more of eye candy and not a functional change.P.S. I am typing this up on my XP machine so I may have a few details wrong. Feel free to correct me if needed.
  12. I installed Windows 7 three days ago and I have to say that I am very happy with it so far. If you are coming from Vista then you will appreciate how well it just works. If you are coming from XP then expect some getting used to because a lot of things are different. Personally, I installed Vista several years ago so I already have the learning curve down and there are not that many differences between Vista and Windows 7 on the GUI level. The biggest difference that I see is the system performance. A boot in Vista was well over 30 seconds and in Windows 7 it is about 13 seconds. The overall computing experience feels snapper and more responsive. If you are looking for a system upgrade, for now skip the hardware and install Windows 7. Here are a few more of my thoughts.• The install only gives you three basic options: repair, upgrade, and clean install. I was surprised at how the new hard drive utility suspiciously looks like the Linux hard drive install utility.• As the desktop was reviled for the first time, I noticed again how the desktop reminded me of a Linux install. The icons are bigger and the taskbar has been redesigned. Most of this was short lived for my installation because I quickly shrank the desktop icons and changed how the taskbar worked.• The !@#$%’s took away my classic start menu. Don’t’ even bother trying to find an obscure registry setting to re-enable it; it’s really gone for good. I personally am a very location oriented person so I loved the classic menu because I could start a program from the start menu without even looking at the start menu. My hand knew exactly how far to move for each stage of the opening process and opening a program several folders deep was second hand. In the end I decided to stay with the new start menu because it looks like I will have to learn it eventually. Microsoft has made up their minds and the classic start menu is not in the future.• UAC is now useable. The new UAC has been modified in a subtle yet efficient way. There is now a distinction (in the default mode) between if a program is asking for permission or if the local user is asking for permission. A setup program will still trigger the protected secure desktop (grey screen) with the extra step of approving the request but local tasks such as deleting the garbage the last program installed in your start menu only shows a shield icon next to the continue button. I have read several security experts advise moving the UAC control up once notch but I am happy with the default setting. If a program wants to do something, it gets the smack down. If want to do something, I don’t.As I stated before, if you are coming from Vista, you should have little to no pain in upgrading to Windows 7. I would highly recommend the upgrade if anything but based on the improved performance.
  13. I stayed up and cleaned my shotgun on my front porch.Actually I tried to knock out a few more Hollow’s Eve achievements in WoW in between handing out candy.
  14. I have to jump in on abhiramâs side here and point out that what you are proposing is a perpetual motion machine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion) which does not exist.
  15. One of the main parts to Tor are exit nodes. This is the point at which your data is decrypted to a useable form and the request is made to the Internet. This is also the point that the content server (web server for example) sees the IP address the request is coming from. Since the exit node can see all of your information (but still not the original sender), they can filter what they want. The exit node may run its own surfing filter to get rid of p0rn or filter flash to keep the bandwidth down.Running an exit node is tricky business because you get blamed for all the content coming from your IP and the bandwidth is huge. I hear news stories all the time about an exit node owner getting raided for any number of illegal activities. This is why many exit nodes are run by universities and large organizations. It has been speculated that almost half of tor exit nodes are actually run by governments (NSA, former KGB) for intelligence gathering.In short, it may just be the exit node filtering flash. To make sure, switch to a different exit node. In the Vidalia bundle, open the user panel and click switch identity.
  16. I am going to look into Hidemyass once I get home. Iâm not very certain of the VPN aspect of the service because I am used to using a SSH connection. From my understanding, a VPN is all or nothing. You canât surf in Internet Explorer on your ISP connection and surf in Firefox with the VPN at the same time. This may be a problem as I would like to only use the proxy for certain applications (P2P) and then leave everything else, such as web browsing and IM, open to my regular connection. I already use Tor but it has very limited bandwidth and is completely useless with P2P. I would like to make a correction to yordan. The whole purpose of Tor is to make the connections between the Tor nodes anonymous. Running straight HTTP will not show any personally identifiable information except for perhaps a few HTTP headers. In most cases, the Tor software will actually chance the HTTP headers to a standard format such as IE version 6. The danger with Tor is JavaScript, DNS and perhaps Flash. JavaScript is a problem because it can run arbitrary code on your computer which can sidestep any Tor protection. As an example, a website can embed JavaScript which makes its own connection or sends the real IP back to the server. This is fixed by turning off all scripting in your browser. I recommend No Script (https://noscript.net/) for Firefox which you should use even if you donât use Tor. The second problem is DNS because the DNS request usually goes to your ISPâs DNS servers. If an attacker is listening to your traffic at the ISP level, they cannot see the traffic but they can see the DNS request. This is fixed by using Torbutton for Firefox (http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/) which is included in the Vidalia bundle. If you really lock down your browser and take the appropriate precautions, Tor is completely anonymous. The downside is that you shouldnât expect to get anywhere fast and any site that has scripting and Flash may not work.
  17. The scary part is that I don’t think this was meant as a joke. The Chuck Norris thread can go under the stupid jokes thread though.
  18. Simple, government subsidized park swing installation. I hate to sound too nasty but this is almost just as bad as the static electricity proposal (http://forums.xisto.com/topic/97243-topic/?findpost=1064403539).
  19. Itâs 60 Hz in North America and 50 Hz in Europe. Another big problem is that static electricity is hard to control because it is essentially a cloud of electrons (or lack of electrons) on your body just waiting for a path to ground. If you built a machine that discharged the static electrons from your finger but on your way to the machine you hit your leg against grounded metal, the electrons would be discharged and you would have to start over. The only consistent way to create enough static electricity would be to use a device such as a Van de Graaff generator (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_de_Graaff_generator). The Van de Graaff generator requires motion (energy) to work as you need to move a belt from the bottom to the top of the sphere. Since you have to have energy to move the belt, why not just attach your energy source directly to an AC or DC generator which would be much more efficient? The underlying problem is that you still do not have enough current in a static electricity discharge to do much useful work. Perhaps enough to power a solar calculator for a few seconds.
  20. You have two problems here.1. Wall outlets are AC (alternating current) and static electricity is DC (direct current).2. Static electricity is very high voltage (several thousand volts) but almost no current.There is much more to it than this but I don’t want to crack open my EE books at the moment.
  21. From my understanding, this is implemented only in hardware and there is no software that can do this for you. I have a high-end Asus motherboard that has an automatic wake feature called âAlarm Clock.â All of the settings are in the BIOS so if the BIOS does not support it, you may be out of luck.Something else to look into is Wake on LAN (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake-on-LAN) which is supported by just about all motherboards and has been around for at least 20 years. This requires a specific set of packets to be received by the NIC of the sleeping computer. The protocol assumes that you have two computers, one sleeping and one sending the packets. The Wikipedia article points out that there are several websites that will send the packets for you at a specified time free of charge (http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/)(http://wakeonlan.me/) along with several other Wake on LAN utilities (https://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/).
  22. I really like the SIGOPS link. I particularly find one prerequisite in the introduction section to be very telling.
  23. I don’t know if getting two Ethernet cards and a cable would be cheaper than a bridged USB cable but I get the feeling it might be close. The ones that I saw were bundled in a package called a Windows XP or Windows Vista Transfer Kit. I had to do a double take because they wanted around $30 for the whole package. I believe Ethernet would be a better long term investment but if you know you are only going to do this once then USB might be OK.A second option might be to get two regular Ethernet cables and a networking hub. Most computers that have been manufactured within the past 5 years usually have the Ethernet card built in. Create a small network and then you will have a permanent communication channel between the two computers. If you want to add a third, fourth. or fifth computer to the mix, all you have to do is buy more Ethernet cables.
  24. If you are really serious then I would recommend starting out with a book like the following: ⢠Modern Operating Systems (3rd Edition) - https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Operating-Sysm/dp/0136006639 ⢠Operating System Concepts - https://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Conz/dp/0470128720 ⢠Operating Systems: A Systematic View (6th Edition) - https://www.amazon.com/Operating-Systems-Syh/dp/0321267516 I remember taking my operating systems class in college and I had no idea an operating system was so complicated. First you will have to have an intimate relationship with the hardware so most of your programming should be in assembly. Next you will have to create routines to handle the handoff between the BIOS (assuming an Intel architecture) and the OS. Next you need to create drivers for at least the keyboard and monitor. After that you will need some APIs to make the OS useable to other programs. Thatâs about as much advice I can give you because I have never had the need ro ambition to create my own OS.
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