Adam Leinss’ Tech Tips

I was bored one day, so I decided to watch videos on Microsoft’s Technet site.  I came across Marcus Murray’s videos and they are very entertaining to watch!  Murray is a “White Hat” hacker.  In this first video, A Hackers Diary, Murray hacks into a FTP server running on a Windows 2000 server using a buffer overflow exploit.

In last video, Knowing Your Enemy, Murray uses Hash injection attacks…basically, he uses SAM hashes to impersonate other accounts….very cool!  He also has a blog posting on using gsecdump here.

- Soli Deo Gloria

Windows 7 will RTM in mid to end of July, then RTW on October 22nd.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10253924-56.html

- Soli Deo Gloria

Looks like Microsoft removed the beta version of the RSAT tools for Windows 7 RC from their web site for some reason.  Thankfully, I grabbed them before they were taken down.  You can download them here from my web site.

Note that after you run the hotfix, you need to go into the Windows components and add them from there.

- Soli Deo Gloria

Well, it is if you have Technet.  The RC was released April 30th and will be given to masses on May 5th.  I wiped Vista off my work PC and installed the RC right away.   They finally integrated the Windows Recovery environment right into the installation…so now you can hit F8 and get into it without having to hack it in.  Startup is faster and yes, they finally put back a decent logo during the boot process!  You can now change the background of the login screen with this utility.

UAC is more subdued.  This version of Windows seems what Vista was supposed to be.  The previewing technology in the quick launch is pretty cool and hovering over the start menu “circle” causes it to “light up”.  They added a date to the clock in the bottom right and now a permanently integrated “Show Desktop” feature to the right of the clock.  I do notice some graphical distortions from time to time.  Windows 7 picked a WDDM 1.0 driver for the Q965 video driver in this Optiplex 745.  It’s a beta: what do you expect?

I played a little bit with XPM: basically a copy of Virtual PC running XP that runs under Windows 7.  This feature might be more confusing than helpful.   I was able to run Internet Explorer 6 “desktopless” which is pretty cool (see auto-publishing here)…but how will you keep this VM patched?  Do you really want a bunch of rogue VMs joined to your domain?

Overall, I’m pretty impressed by Windows Vista R2, I mean Windows 7.  A Microsoft Springboard session on Windows 7 can be found @ http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd459187.aspx?ITPID=istream

- Soli Deo Gloria

Update (4/16/09): Looks like TWC is shelving the tiered pricing!  Check it out:

http://stopthecap.com/2009/04/16/victory-breaking-news/

You probably have heard of the ridiculous bandwidth caps that Time Warner is testing.  Their plan: $54.95/month for 40GB of data per month!  This seems to be both upstream and downstream data combined.  Why might they be doing this?

From their financial statement:

http://ir.timewarner.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=950144-09-1481

“Technological advancements, such as video on demand, new video formats and Internet streaming and downloading, have increased the number of media and entertainment choices available to consumers and intensified the challenges posed by audience fragmentation. The increasing number of choices available to audiences could negatively impact not only consumer demand for the Company’s products and services, but also advertisers’ willingness to purchase advertising from the Company’s businesses. If the Company does not respond appropriately to further increases in the leisure and entertainment choices available to consumers, the Company’s competitive position could deteriorate, and its financial results could suffer.”

Hulu.com, a web site that allows you to watch TV programs online, is also specifically mentioned:

TWC’s video services face competition from a number of different sources, including companies that deliver movies, television shows and other video programming over broadband Internet connections, such as Hulu.com, as well as online order services with mail delivery, and video stores and home video services. Increasingly, content owners are using Internet-based delivery of content directly to consumers, often without charging a fee for access to the content. Furthermore, due to consumer electronics innovations, consumers will over time be more readily able to watch such Internet-delivered content on television sets.

So basically to drown out the competition to your video services:  just make it really expense to use them!

Brilliant!

Keep tabs on the ordeal at:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r22161366-Look-outtiered-pricing-and-monthly-caps-coming-

P.S. Verzion FIOS not coming to Wisconsin anytime soon

P.S.S.  Time Warner rep did not get back to me on what, if any changes, there will be for Business Class RoadRunner which I use.

- Soli Deo Gloria

…for the next 12 hours….go grab it!  Normally $39.95

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/paragon-drive-backup-9-personal/

Oh, the link points to DriveBackup9Pers.zip.

- Soli Deo Gloria

So tonight I come home to no Internet.  I do the power cycle the RoadRunner cable modem, then power cycle the router routine.  Then I notice I cannot ping the router.  Plug my computer directly into the cable modem and it works just fine. Plug my PC back into the router and the Ethernet link keeps going up and down like a bouncing ball.  Interestingly enough, the wireless part of the router works perfectly fine.  The router was 5 years old and it gave me plenty of use.

I’ve ordered the Linksys WRT54GL from Newegg.com: hopefully it lives up the same standard of craftsmanship.

- Soli Deo Gloria

Had some people infected with Conficker, so I put the Microsoft patch for MS08-067 and the NOD32 removal tool out at http://www.leinss.com/files/vanity/conflicker/

You might need to rename the removal program to get it to run.

-Soli Deo Gloria

Found this video the other day on Technet of an updated video of Mark Russinovich teaching techies how to clean malware: http://www.microsoft.com/emea/spotlight/sessionh.aspx?videoid=359

NOTE: If you want an offline copy, use URLSnopper to get the hidden URL, then use a trial version of  Hidownload to download it.  I’ve provided a local copy on my web site here.  Make sure to right-click the file, do a target save-as to save it to your PC instead of streaming it.

- Soli Deo Gloria

So today I was hunting around the Internet trying to find a viewer that would open a file with a HWP extension (don’t ask).  Anyways, I happened to come across this blog….

and saw this guy blowing his nose with a sock.

Found @ http://hunjang.blogspot.com/2006/05/hangul-viewer-2002-2005.html

- Soli Deo Gloria