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Category Archives: Computer Security
Windows 7 – First Thoughts
I will try not to be too much biased against Windows. But will like to point out what is wrong.
Hearing the news of the Demo/Preview/Debut of Windows 7 at D6 conference by Microsoft VP Julie Larson-Green, my first reaction was, Oh NO not again!!!
I had my concerns. Microsoft has been stealing the show with its sleeky looks and publicity. If there is somebody at the market that can sell a rickety old-bus just by repainting it, its Microsoft.
Though all the other OS-es has evolved with age, windows simply refuses to budge more or less. The system requirements just to run a basic version of their latest OS takes more than twice the power that is required to run the latest Open Source OS. The fact remains that will less overhead the Open Source counterpart gives the looks and the WOW-ness.
How far can they drive along by just adding the new features without correcting the basic problems.
XP came and by the time people got adjusted to the response time, reaction time and usability, Vista was born. Now why the hell do i have to go for double the configuration for a new OS. Then again i will be doing the same things but that is going to add another transition phase in my life. From my own personal experience, the very simple task of setting an IP which took 4-5 clicks in XP, took me 5-10min in Vista just to figure out how to get the Properties window. Though basic functionality of an OS that the user looks for needs to be kept the same across versions, Microsoft fails to comply.
If the new version is going to be more user friendly than its previous one, why do you still need to pack the age old Win-98 looks with XP? They need to realize what the other OS-es in the market are doing different to keep things abreast with feature improvements, usability and performance.
At this point they just need to stop stuffing in features into an OS. It more or less looks like a huge american burger. A bite at one end will have half of the things falling out of the other end. By the time you get used to the new tasty burger in comes a new version double the size.
The Hacker’s Code of Ethics
This was an interesting find on the net. Steven Levy in 1984 had a code of ethics for Hackers
The ethics goes as -
- Access to Computers – and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works – should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!
- All information should be free.
- Mistrust Authority – Promote Decentralization.
- Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
- You can create art and beauty on a computer.
- Computers can change your life for the better.
Interesting … 
DOMPlayer and the Doom.
Creativity has no limits and the fact that people can go to any extend to infect you machine with malware, let me say comes as a total relief. After people has spend dollars securing their machine with the latest spyware remover, anti-virus, pop-up blocker and all the shit that you can get you hands on, there is no stopping a curious browser who downloads some thing and authorizes it to do some operation and ends ups in a deeper shit that he was before.
We all love torrent. The countless torrent files that you looked up on the net to download your favorite movie, would have at least made you thin, what you would have done with out those torrent sites. Its the same feeling you get when you thank George Bush for the oil that he is bringing in from Iraq and Kuwait.
So when some thought of the idea of infecting your machine with the help of torrent download and get paid $3 for doing so , has to be credited with the ingenuity of the idea. Here is the whole scenario.
You download a movie (most of the reports came up with the latest movies like Hitman, Beowuf, National Treasure : Book of Secrets) or an episode of your favorite series on TV. When you try to play it it says
“This video can only be played in DomPlayer, Visit Download.Domplayer.Com“
Like any other desperate downloader you visit their site :
Pretty neat site of a movie player, compared to VLC Player and Real Player. So you go and download the player, the Download button is right in front of you. So whats the big deal. Go ahead download the file… At this point i got suspicious and thought hey i never heard any of my friends talk about such a player, instead of installing it at the home PC (Windows XP), let me try to get an installer/player for Linux. That way its safe and its my Laptop, if anything gets screwd up i can just install all over again. Big Deal!!!
Web searches got me to couple of forums here and here. They talked about another player 3wPlayer by Wildman Productions(i have no idea who the hell they are).
In fact the real deal here is as reported from Best Security Tips is DOM Player says its clean but you call them up and pay them to activate the attack on your P. If that doesnt work they ask you to download 3wPlayer. Which is another piece of shit and load the malware to the PC free of charge.
Now that is a cool idea. You get paid to get infected like the way you paid to get protected. Over that you download movie files (AVI files) which might be renamed porno movies.
FTP problem in Fedora/RedHat
500 OOPS: cannot change directory:/home/xxxx
Login failed.
Then here is the solution. The problem is with SELinux. Go to System > Administration > SELinux Administration. Left side – Select : Boolean. On right side – FTP, check the box that says – Allow ftp to read/write files in the users home directory.
DONE!!! Close SELinux…