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June 29, 2006

Root Kitting Hypervisors

Sorry, but this is just KILLER:

How? Simple: by putting the root kit into the Hypervisor. This particular exploit takes advantage of AMD's virtualization technology - no mention of whether or not Intel's Virtualization Technology (VT) will be susceptible to similar attacks - though I would suppose it could be.

And what's a hypervisor for those that don't know? Simple: traditionally an OS sits 'above' your hardware - and 'below' your applications - building a 'stable' platform where you can run your software on various, different, inter-communicating pieces of hardware (quite an accomplishment when you think about it). Problem is: most OSes demand 100% control of the hardware. Hypervisors are just another abstraction between the Hardware and any OSes loaded on to the computer - and it just so happens that they're uniquely suited to allowing multiple operating systems to 'control' the hardware - making it possible for multiple OSes to run simultaneously. In fact, because the abstraction/virtualization in the Hypervisor is so spiffy, the OSes you're running can all think they've got 100% control of their underlying hardware (and they do - a specialized, virtual, set of hardware dedicated just for them).

So, as you can see - sticking a rootkit BELOW the OS is just a brilliant idea. Of course, I'd be pissed if it happened to me, but it's just a KILLER idea.

Posted on June 29, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 26, 2006

WinFS is gone. Now what?

If you haven't heard the announcement already, you likely won't care about this post.

But MS has pulled the plug on WinFS - for now they claim. As a developer I guess I can understand the idea of wanting to 'overbuild' the crap out of something and make it just perfect. (Only I've never been allowed to do that anytime I was getting paid...) As a consumer I'm totally not happy about it though.

Lots of people have said a number of things about the decision to nuke WinFS. I could sound off for a while on my own thoughts.... but instead I'll link you to a set of excellent observations made by Paul Murphy.

Read his WHOLE post. It will only take a second - and you'll find it well worth the time (I promise). I'll wait here.

Done?

I liked the following lines:

For the first time ever a company is releasing an operating system where the primary design goals benefit someone other than the computer's owner.

Vista, to be as blunt as possible, is not being built for consumers or businesses. It's being built so Microsoft and Verizon can make money selling you movies.

What Microsoft really means is Windows Vista is secure from the threats presented by the consumer to content owners and that it provides a platform for digital distribution.

So as early as a few days prior Microsoft was hyping WinFS with sessions and classes at TechEd. They were energizing a base of hard core developers about a technology they knew would never see the light of day. It’s this behavior that has pitted me against myself when it comes to Microsoft.

(If you didn't read his post - go read the whole thing , he makes some sobering points.)

I can't believe MS doesn't realize that they're hurting right now (i.e., I'm sure they know). Each missed date and pulled set of functionality at this point (not to mention the misdirection and lies Paul mentions) are pissing off their core base of geeks like me who ~~are~~ were enamoured of them.

And remember, despite my complaining I still believe that Vista is a great new OS - with lots of new functionality and features. It's just that it's terribly SHY of the revolution promised by MS.
It has been seriously over-hyped and over-promised. Surely that wasn't intentional, but it doesn't change the fact that given what Vista COULD have been, it's fallen far short of the mark. In other words, I think that the biggest software project in the world, is starting to look like a failure on some levels. And I'm not the only one saying that.

Hopefully when the Vista dust settles MS will hold the mother of all post-mortems, figure out what it needs (a drastic re-org), and get competative again. Otherwise I'm just going to start calling them Big Blue 2.0.

Posted on June 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

June 20, 2006

UMPC - People still give a crap?

I still remember how excited I was about UMPCs - spiffy LITTLE machines that would come in around $700 and work like mini-tablets.

Then reality struck:
$1200-$1400 was the entry-level price. And battery life was a whopping 2-4 hours.

Pfffffbbbbt. No longer interested. At all.

But I guess some people are actually buying them. And PC World did an article entitled: Can UMPCs Live up to the Hype?

Um... I don't see how they can. In fact, would crackpots like me take time out of their lives to flame UMPCs had the hype not been so great? Until the hardware can deliver much more, I'm soooooo not interested.

And frankly, I don't want to spend more than $1200 for a LOADED version of one of these piglets. Unrealistic you say? I say that I might agree - had MS NOT set my expectations so high - by virtue of all of their hype. (Talk about shooting themselves in the foot...)

Posted on June 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

June 16, 2006

Mind Boggling...

The RIAA never ceases to amaze.

It now appears that they've sent Cease and Desist letters to people who have video-taped themselves dancing to music, and then posted it up on internet video sites.

Seriously, I'm still waiting for the cease and desist order from the RIAA for playing ABBA's Greatest Hits in my mini-van. My wife purchased the CD... but I'm not sure the RIAA would approve of my kids and me listening to it in the car without paying for seperate licenses.

Posted on June 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 14, 2006

Silly Spammers, Email is for Humans

Honestly, what's the point of this spam?

That's the ENTIRE message. Not even something for me to click on. No executables or anything else to spread viruses. Spooky thing is that they managed to figure out a number of related accounts on the same domain. Then they went through the effort of sending an email.... with no possible way for recipients to 'bite' should they find the 'message' enticing.

Idiots.

Posted on June 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

June 13, 2006

Good news for Index Tuning Geeks with SS 2005

Index tuning with SQL Server 2005 gets a bit easier.

A re-heated repeatable read. [ read more... ]

Posted on June 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 08, 2006

Nice

NICE: www.itsournet.org

Honestly, I can't believe how unbearably greedy the telcos have gotten. They say they should be able to charge high-volume internet sites an extra 'tarrif' or fee for using their networks. Like google... the telcos KNOW google makes $$, and therefore want to 'tax' google extra for using their networks - they say they should be able to TAKE some of the profit that google is making in order to pay for their own expenses of building an creating broadband networks.

I say: people are BUYING those broadband connections for the PURPOSE of using google, and youtube, etc. In other words: "Hey you idiot Telcos: demand for these 'high-volume' sites is what's keeping your own expansion efforts GOING - it's how you're signing on EVER INCREASING numbers of broadband subscribers."

That, and I'm just unbearably sick of big corporations that think the key to success is either lawsuits or convincing enough 'representatives' to enact legislation that lets them SCREW people out of money.

Go make your voice heard - it couldn't be easier.

Posted on June 08, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 07, 2006

Hacking Remote Desktop Connections

Recently while trying to 'Remote Desktop' into a remote server on a VPN I got the dreaded "Terminal Server has exceeded the maximum number of allowed connections".

I contacted the Admin at the remote site, he poked around a bit in the Remote Desktops Management MMC - but couldn't see ANY connections.

Then I stumbled upon this great article from Scott Forsyth - showing spiffy command line options (available even in XP) that let you do some better interogation.

Querying with qwinsta /server:vpnIPAddyHere I was able to see two disconnected winstations/sessions, nuked them, and then got on.

Only, there was ONE little trick that I had to pull off. Since I was connecting via VPN, I wasn't a member of the remote domain - in fact, my login to the remote box was limited to only one machine (a SQL Server). So qwinsta wouldn't work - as I didn't have permission to access it.

The solution? Simple: open up Windows Explorer to \\remoteMachineName\c$ (or some other share). In order to connect to a share you have to pass in credentials and get a Kerberos ticket. Once that's in place, it's good for roughly 10 hours in most cases... and once you have that ticket it then gets bundled with your subsequent requests with qwinsta and rwinsta. (Okay... so maybe that's not hacking... but it does solve the issue of qwinsta and rwinsta not letting you pass in optional credentials.)

Spiffy - and thanks to Scott for the excellent overview of those tools. Total life saver.

Posted on June 07, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)