Tech

Backtrack 4

2010-07-13T17:25:24Z

If you are intersted in cybersecurity, penetration testing, ethical hacking, I highly recommend Backtrack 4 . To get started check their Downloads, How To, and Forums section.

You may have a difficult time configuring your wireless adapter to work with BT, it could not recognize wireless networks when I tried to use it on my HP Mini 110.... I bought a rtl8191su dongle, but after hours and hours of research I was unable to properly configure it. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to get an old Dell Inspiron 8600 from a friend, installed BT to its hard drive and BT internet/wifi connectivity worked.... Monitor mode and injection are fine...... at boot, once logged in type startx to pull up the BT GUI and then open a terminal and type /etc/init.d/networking start

If you have BT trouble browse BT forums, use your favorite search engine, or ask a friend in the know.

Feel free to post your Backtrack experiences on our new forums as well, see the menu to the left.

I will be writing more on Backtrack in the coming days.... I'm new to it too.

The Backtrack HCL helps too (Hardware Compatibility List).

Oh and also checkout: http://hak5.org/

Vista Internet Security Trojan...help is here

2010-04-08T19:50:53Z

I've gotten attacked by this annoying as hell vista internet security 2010 twice(second time it was with a different name) This is an annoying trojan, that simulates you having been attacked, it simulates a system scan, making you think it is actually scanning your computer and fixing trojans, but you'll quickly catch on to its charade. You'll see taskbar bubbles like "System hijack". The first attack it took me a few hrs to get rid of the damn thing.... note, it comes us with a message sayung it blocked Firefox when you try to start FF,but just "x-out"(close the message) and your FF browser will pop up.... so I quickly used google to look for a solution, but it was a long look. I found a guide that tells you to alter some Windows Registry values, I did that, but it did not work, and it took a long time, and I actually messed up how the FF icon works! .... But alas! I found the solution!

Here it is! MalawareBytes' Antimalaware!

Free version works just fine!

Start full scan, wait 45mins - 2hrs for it to finish, then finish the handling the infections/files

The second time this happened(under a different name), Norton Internet Security picked it up apparently, I noticed a dialogue box from Norton, saying it caught a trojan, this was in the middle of running a scan by MalawareBytes.

Strange thing is, both times I got this thing, I wasn't browsing strange sites.... Do you happen to know how and from where it comes?

Iphone dwindling?

2009-08-07T16:08:52Z

Some have recently have had quibbles with AT&T and Apple regarding their Iphone:

...A year and change later, Apple has exhibited a pattern of inscrutable tyranny in its numerous, poorly-explained rejections of programs (though in some cases, it's backed down after public embarrassment). Developers have had to guess what's allowed and what's not; witness, for instance, this attempt to piece together Apple's rules, based on what programs have been rejected in the past.

This isn't just a matter of inconvenience or delay for iPhone developers. An App Store rejection amounts to a death sentence--one handed down only after months of work writing code that can't readily be used on another phone platform.

Earlier this month, Apple made this situation even worse by not only rejecting one application--a program Google had written to connect to its Google Voice service--but also evicting such previously-approved, third-party Google Voice software as GV Mobile and Voice Central from the App Store.

There's evidence suggesting that AT&T leaned on Apple to get those applications yanked, but it's Apple's name on the iPhone. Whoever's at fault, people are not amused.

Longtime Mac developer Steven Frank wrote that he was "furious" with Apple and AT&T, calling the iPhone market "toxic." TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington wrote that he'd even pay a $175 early-termination fee to quit the iPhone. Telecom blogger Dave Zatz pronounced himself "about done with both Apple and AT&T if things continue like this."

The Federal Communications Commission has taken notice as well; as my colleague Cecilia Kang wrote on Friday, it's asked Apple and AT&T to explain the Google Voice rejections.....

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/04/AR2009080401576.html]

The whole "App Store" entity idea is no doubt a hassle for many developers, and seems to be a gamble, the fate of your software rests in the hands of Apple's pencil pushers(it's an expression).

Perhaps there can be, if there isn't already, a database of free, open source apps, not overseen or moderated by Apple, in addition to the regular functioning app store. This would grant developers/hobbyists free reign.... AT&T and Apple need to step it up, or Palm's new Pre may quickly dominate.

Interview with Cary Reinstein

2009-06-19T15:28:32Z

Cary Enoch Reinstein, tech enthusiast, artist and former employee of
Microsoft & Intel has agreed to an interview for scitechguru.com
5/31/09
Email interview
SG = scitechguru.com
Mr. Reinstein's answers are directly below each question.

1. SG- Cary, begin by telling us about your entrance into the
field of technology, and what sparked it?

I was originally in the graphic arts field and also worked part time as a photographer. In 1976 I became very interested in HP programmable calculators because they made darkroom work much easier. I submitted a large number of photographic calculation programs to HP and then they made me a job offer.

2. SG- What was it like working for the titans of industry, Microsoft& Intel?

Intel and Microsoft are very different from each other. Intel is a cube environment whereas most people at Microsoft have private offices. However, the differences run much deeper than that. Intel has both an aggressive and an oppressive management style. You definitely know that you're working in a factory. Although they have rigidly fixed hours, like every other high-tech employer they expect you to work extra hours and on weekends. Some of my comments about the lifestyle at Intel were published in a book by Fortune magazine editor Jill Andresky Frasier a few years ago. Its title is White Collar Sweatshop. The author interviewed me by phone and quoted me in three different chapters. This review includes one of the quotes from my interview:
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2001/03/01/sweatshop/index.html

Microsoft is a very different environment and it was usually fun to work there. There was no mistaking the predatory attitude of top management. We were clearly told at company meetings who was considered the current "threat" that had to be defeated whether it was Borland, Lotus Notes, or Netscape at that moment. The company loved to hire young unattached college graduates because they would put in an enormous amount of extra time.

I was hired in 1991 and was awarded 3000 stock options which soon increased by 900 more. The stock split numerous times which enabled me to retire at the age of 56. I was not a millionaire by any means but comfortable enough to leave a high pressure environment behind and frankly I was burned out. When I was hired, I was roughly their 9,000th employee. Today there are ten times that many employees.

3. SG- What were your day to day duties at both companies, and how
long were you at each?

I was at Intel for six years and Microsoft for seven years. I began at Intel as a technical writer and was soon promoted to a senior level. I also taught extension classes for employees on various technical topics. I entered Microsoft at the senior writer pay level and worked in the Windows division which was called BackOffice during those years. I also worked for about a year as a team leader and for two years as an internal tools developer.

4. SG- I understand that you won a coveted award at Intel, can you
tell us about that?

I won the Intel Achievement Award and was the first writer to ever win one. It was usually awarded to engineers and executives. It came with a large fancy plaque, shares of stock, and a public ceremony. They make about 30 or so awards annually out of the entire company workforce.

5. SG- Can you tell us about any major tech projects you have done?

I wrote an Access front end to Word that enabled the writers who were working on an error messages book to see and import messages directly from the Windows source code. That enabled a better understanding of what they meant and when they might appear to the user. The database was capable of outputting a fully formatted and ready to publish copy of the book. I also rewrote the Windows Registry manual for the NT Resource Kit. There were over 6000 possible error messages and tens of thousands of registry keys to research and document. I never wrote anything that anyone would actually sit down and read from cover to cover. It was all for reference by engineers.

6. SG- If you could tell Steve Jobs(founder of Apple) anything What
would it be?

I would suggest that he stop presenting himself as a demigod and appealing to the totally inappropriate and quasi-religious feelings of his fan base. http://www.searchmagazine.org/Archives/full-iPope.html

7. SG- What would you tell Bill Gates(founder of Microsoft)?

I would congratulate him for following an altruistic path and trying to make the world a better place by investing his huge personal resources. I would only focus on the positive because that outweighs everything else in my view.

8. SG- Can you tell us about Enoch's Vision, Inc.?

Enoch's Vision, Inc. is incorporated in the states of Georgia and Nebraska. Basically, it consists of only two people. Having a business entity will make it easier for me to sell fine art prints of my work when I am ready. Enoch is my middle name. I adopted the name enochsvision way back in the 1970s but only recently put it through the lengthy and complex bureaucratic trademark process. Despite the superstitious views of some Christian sects about the historical figure of Enoch, he receives scant mention in the Old Testament. Enoch is known to us almost entirely through fragmentary Apocrypha and pure mythology. Allegedly he toured heaven bodily, which is physically and spiritually impossible.

9. SG- Which field is more of a passion for you, art or technology, and why?

Technology, no matter how much I enjoy or make use of it, is merely a tool for that helps me produce art insofar as I'm concerned. We should embrace digital tools with the same attitude that our paleolithic ancestors embraced ways of making better arrowheads or keeping their fires burning longer.

10. SG- What is the funniest thing that happened to you while you
worked in the tech industry, the worst?

Nothing really stands out either at Microsoft or Intel as particularly funny. I was looking for a peripheral at a Computer City store in the Seattle suburbs. I swiped my credit card at the cash register and then signed the receipt that the clerk handed me. She turned my card over to compare the signatures and noticed that I had forgotten to put my signature on it. I asked her for a pen and signed the back of my credit card. Then she spent at least two minutes comparing the two signatures very closely. I asked, "Do they match?" and she said, "I suppose they're close enough." So I said, "Then I guess this really is my credit card, isn't it?" She nodded and I thanked her and left with my purchase. And that sums up my opinion of the knowledge and ability of most people who work in retail computer stores.

11. SG- What keeps you busy these days, hobbies, pets?

I'm migrating and relaunching my former blog and hosting it myself this time. Some of my old entries attracted between 600 and 1100 readers. I'd like to increase that now that I know a lot more about how to do it. I'm also working on restoring a large set of almost 40-year-old filmstrips which document the early history of the Baha'i Faith in Iran. It is technically very difficult because the film has degraded and lost most of its original color. With the right equipment and Photoshop technique, it's possible to restore and even improve them over the originals so people can enjoy and learn from them again.

Finally, I'm raising two very energetic German Shepherd puppies named Magic and Jewel. Purely for fun, I write a Twitter feed for them @magicandjewel. I also gave them their own website and blogs but those are strictly spare time projects and I don't have a lot of that. I'm also learning my way around a new city and a new religious community consisting of the local members of the Baha'i Faith.

12. SG- What is good on TV?

Primeval on BBC America, which is about to be canceled. Doctor Who is and always has been good. NCIS is exciting and amusing thanks to well developed and very quirky characters. I'm a fan of Meerkat Manor and It's Me or the Dog on Animal Planet and the Dog Whisperer on National Geographic. I watch a lot of TV but mostly stick to science and science fiction. I don't watch any sitcoms or any of the news channels except for MSNBC on occasion. I probably wouldn't have done that but I discovered how interesting Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow are. They are the best counterpoint to the extremest flunkies on Fox News. That name, by the way, is a classic example of an oxymoron.

SG. Well Cary, it was a pleasure talking with you, thank you
very much. To learn more about Cary, please go to
http://www.enochsvision.com/ . Cary is also a part of the
scitechguru.com creative team. Any closing remarks?

It is quite ready yet but I really need feedback on my new blog at http://www.enochsvision.net

Palm Pre = demise of Iphone?

2009-05-27T21:16:00Z

The highly anticipated, much under-publicized Sprint Palm Pre is coming June 6th. It has quite a few features which may give it a long-term leg-up over Iphone. One of these features is multi-tasking, which allows you to run more than one application. The crux of the phone is its Operating System, "WebOS". Read: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/technology/052709_palm_pre.html

You can also find a demonstration video or two on youtube, or elsewhere.

What Do you Think?

Does Palm Pre have a chance to beat the over-glorified Iphone?

I think it does, if they make it available to different carriers.

Let us know what you think.

Comment.

Tech ego

2009-05-12T23:21:49Z

Have you ever realized how us more technology saavy people tend to laugh or sneer, or unintentionally think we are better than those who may not know how do things on a computer we'd define as "simple"? Come on, you know you have, even my friendly Mac bashing squabbles are somewhat of an example(of course we all know PC is better).

Something about being a techie(especially if you have a nice resume) feels great. I'll be in that direction soon.... sometimes I love spewing tech babble and watch people go "huh?"

Tech ego is definitely a complex phenomenon, Freud, do you have answers?

FREUD: have intercourse

WHAT??

SecuROM is evil

2009-03-12T12:21:53Z

I haven't played PC games in quite sometime (my system sucks), but I'm getting a hot one, at my door, in the next few days... so yesterday I found out about this SecuRom. It is a "Digital Rights Management" system. It is on many media types, especially PC games. Apparently it asks you for an activation (online/manual) and you only have three activation. If your PC undergoes another hardware change, I guess it'll think you've pirated the game and will ask you for an activation. In a lot of cases you are only allowed three activations, after that you can't play, but to their credit if you send SecuRom an email, they should be able to help (they'll send you a file). I have heard they have good support. support@securom.com

BioShock

Consumers have accused BioShock of installing a rootkit. An official announcement was made denying the use of any type of rootkit.^[6]^[7]

The game required consumers to activate the game online and originally set a maximum of two activations before they would have to call to get more activations. This was raised to five activations because an incorrect phone number had been printed on the manual and call centers were only in the United States. Users also found that the game had to be activated for each user on the same machine.^[8]^[9]

In 2008, 2K Games removed the activation limit, although users are still required to activate it online.^[10]

Mass Effect

In May 2008 EA announced that Mass Effect for the PC would be using SecuROM 7.x requiring a reactivation of the software every 10 days.^[11] Due to complaints, EA removed the 10-day activation while keeping SecuROM tied to the installation. SecuROM's product activation facility was still used to impose a limit of three times that a customer is allowed to activate the copy of Mass Effect they purchased. The game becomes unplayable "as is" after the activations are used up, until EA's customer support is contacted to reset the activation limit, or until activation is bypassed using one of a number of available tools. Unlike BioShock, uninstalling the game does not refund a previously used activation.^[12]

Spore

On September 7, 2008 EA released Spore, which uses SecuROM. Despite EA's efforts, Spore has seen relatively substantial rates of illegal piracy among peer-to-peer groups, and with a reported 1.7 million downloads over BitTorrent networks, it was the most-pirated game of 2008.^[13]^[14] EA requires the player to authenticate the game online upon installation.^[15] This system was announced after the originally planned system met some opposition from the public, as it would have required authentication every ten days.^[16] The product key of an individual copy of the game would only be authenticated on up to three computers.^[17] In response to customer complaints, this limit was raised to five computers.^[18]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuROM

I have heard that Spore has released a fix/removal tool in their update, hopefully BioShock and ME have released fixes (I know Bioware [ ME developer] hasn't yet)

SecuRom TRIES to prevent piracy, but as we saw with Spore, it may be causing the opposite......

There are ways to remove SecuROM stuff from your registry, but then you'd have to download the game from somewhere like Steam, because the Original discs have SecuROM. **STEAM IS NOT A PIRATING UTILITY**

How SecuROM Damages Your PC

In closing, I hope that SecuROM is improved OR otherwise dropped by devs/publishers. Part of the probkem is that there are so many people pirating. I wish people would realize that by LAW creators that distribute their work,(especially software/music) HAVE A RIGHT TO COMPENSATION.

What do you think?

emaiil us at ni_owner@scitechguru.com

Let us know if we can publish your comment .

Resources/Help:

Removal, etc.

http://reclaimyourgame.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=68&Itemid=40

http://reclaimyourgame.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=225:securom-isnt-the-bad-guy&catid=12:securom-news&Itemid=20

http://reclaimyourgame.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=77&Itemid=46

A message board thread I started

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=17898

"Retro" Windows

2009-03-02T20:49:54Z

Here is a fun Windows 95 user guide with Jennifer Aniston & Matthew Perry.

Privacy-email

2009-02-27T17:12:43Z

Here is the question I asked Brian Krebs, at "Security Fix Live chat"

Northern VA: What are your thoughts on privacy in regard to Google
services(Gmail, Google Docs, etc.), should we really be worried that
our stuff are being read? Gmail probably does scan the contents,
because they display relevant ads.

[answer]:
Brian Krebs: "As I wrote in a story earlier this year, there is no
such thing as "free" online. To quote someone smarter than me, the
things we think are free we actually pay for in micropayments of
personal information over time, micropayments that translate in
marketers building pretty large databases about each of us, our
preferences, where we like to go online, etc. Some people don't really
care if marketers have this information. Others find it very
unsettling. In the end, it doesn't matter where I come down on this
really: The question is whether the trade-off is worth it to you?

Gmail's services are free, right? Well, that depends on how YOU look
at it. Of course they are mining keywords in your emails and documents
to serve you more targeted ads -- they state that up front in their
terms of service. Does some at Google go through hundreds and millions
of peoples' billions of gmails a day and start reading messages? Not
likely.

Free or no, I'd encourage people to be aware that e-mail is not a
secure form of communication. Yes, Gmail and some other providers
allow you to tweak their settings so that every email you send is
encrypted and cannot be intercepted, but if you're truly worried about
privacy in the traditional sense -- that someone isn't reading your
e-mail, that's a different question altogether."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/02/25/DI2009022500962.html

since chat is over link may not work, but Krebs' blog is:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/

How do you look at privacy as Krebs asked? Personally, I don't mind if the Gmail bots, scanners, whatever they be called, scan my messages to display relevant ads. The point is as long as it is not scanned by a human, I have no problem with mechanical methods. Even if you use non-web based email, it is quite possible that your Internet Service Provider can scan/read your messages.... I've played around with text encryption here's one of many tools that do as such: http://www.linkedresources.com/tools/encrypter/encrypter_v0.2b1.html

No Thanks "ViddyHo"

2009-02-25T20:57:30Z

I was reading Brian Krebs' "Security Fix" blog at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/ and his article about a Gmail chat "invitation" [ http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/02/just_say_no_to_gmail_viddyho_v.html ] caught my eye(I am an avid Gmail user). Krebs writes:

"A crazy number of readers have written in asking what they should do about unsolicited instant messages coming in from their Gmail accounts. The messages are from a site called ViddyHo urging them to "check out this video." I hope most readers will recognize the link provided in this chat invite for what it is: An invitation to give your Gmail credentials over to criminals......" [ http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/02/just_say_no_to_gmail_viddyho_v.html ]

I checked out the Google Trends page for"ViddyHo" and sure enough Google has issued a warning, and it has gotten Blogger/media attention.

Today's Tech Tip: Do not pay attention to unsolicited, strange looking communications(Emails, IM's, etc.).