Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[Monroe]

Hey TELVM ... that's good! I like those commercials. I also wonder if JorgeA uses IE 8 that much ... there are so many other browsers available.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Rumor: Many Microsoft employees want new CEO named soon ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 )

Microsoft: CEO to be selected in early 2014 ( NeoWin 2013-12-17 )

Microsoft won't announce Ballmer's successor until early 2014 ( TechSpot 2013-12-18 )

Microsoft Will Name a New CEO By Early 2014 ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-18 )

That announcement about "early 2014" should have been made four months ago ( almost to the very day! ) when the Ballmer news came out. I can't believe how this thing is being done so publicly, it is just so unprofessional. I remember years ago some big changes at other companies too, huge blue chips like IBM and AT&T but nothing aired like this. It could be the Internet amplification I guess, but even with Yahoo and HP I don't recall the CEO search as a weekly or daily story. I bet they don't even realize that this amplification means their choice will either spike or bury the stock price when announced. So once again Redmond is failing in its fiduciary duty to stockholders by not keeping this thing under control ( e.g., none of the "candidates" should be doing interviews ). In a lot of ways Microsoft resembles the MSFT of the early years, the hectic period from IPO to about 1995, their first ten years or so on the street.

Microsoft CEO Candidate Talks Future Beyond Windows ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-19 )

Speaking of interviews, here's yet another. Are these guys seriously running for CEO in the press? :-0 Now this dude, their cloud guy, comes along and doubles down on stoopid promising to bury Microsoft in the nebulous fog of "services" and other buzz words, another Cisco, Sun/Oracle, whatever. To me there is something very dodgey about that segment of the market, companies that all yearn to drag the world back into the past of client-server feudalism, and I half expect many of them to suddenly come clean and admit their business models suck *ss and are drowning in bureaucracy and red ink. Well that's what I hope for anyway. Here's their cloud guy, a CEO candidate ...

Quartz recently interviewed Satya Nadella, the head of Microsoft's cloud and enterprise division, to discuss topics such as Microsoft's move to the cloud, what the cloud business means to the company, and if Microsoft's future is that of a services company.

[...]

"It's all going to move to the cloud in some shape or fashion," Nadella said.

~barf~ Good comments at the link though IMHO ...

The future is the cloud? Yeah why not - Lets go back to the old mainframe - terminal era with the added benefit of having the mainframes hooked up and accessible on the internet so every skilled hacker can get what they want... Its lazier to hack one place than millions so the hackers will likely send a thank you card while running off with credit cards numbers and the like - All of witch the end consumer have to pay the price for while the company responsibility of the security barely get a slap on the wrist...

Another day - Another cloud disaster - Another day, two cloud disasters...

Make this guy CEO and Microsoft will destroy itself from the inside. The cloud is a bad idea, not a good idea. Your precious files are on a remote server? What if your Internet dies? What if the server is hacked? What if the server becomes corrupt? What if Snowden #2 comes along and the server is shut down without warning?

Give end-users the power, Microsoft, or you will lose all the power you're trying so hard to cling to.

Yep.

Microsoft loses top engineer to Google ( The Verge 2013-12-16 )

Key Microsoft engineer for Bing Maps and Photosynth departs for Google ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 )

Agüera y Arcas departure will be seen as a key loss for the software company as it continues to reorganize its employees around "devices and services." A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed Agüera y Arcas' departure in a statement to the NYT, noting "he was a great colleague and we wish him the best in his future endeavors."

Its rare for senior Microsoft employees to join Google, especially distinguished engineers. Microsoft previously sued Google after the company hired former vice president Kai-Fu Lee, and court filings at the time revealed the competitiveness between the two firms. Mark Lucovsky, a former distinguished Microsoft engineer, was named in the filings and claimed that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer threw a chair across the room after Lucovsky revealed he was leaving to work for Google. Microsoft's latest battles with Google are highlighted with the company's ongoing Scroogled campaign a series of ads designed to undermine Google's policies and products.

Ouch. That's definitely gonna leave a mark ( maybe a mark on the wall as this picture from a commenter shows ). But not to worry, the fanboys are mostly saying: "it happens all the time. no big deal". Okay then, I believe you.

Senior Microsoft manager charged with insider trading ( NeoWin 2013-12-19 )

I was very hesitant to post this story. It has nothing to do with Windows and in truth really has little to do with Microsoft since so many companies have bad apples, and it is inevitable that they would also pop up there. No-one is immune to hiring greedy SOB's. My interest is in the level of detail that the regulators and Microsoft were able to muster out of the investigation. It begs the question of how so many network security failures are occurring and how they cannot track down the hackers almost instantly. Call me a cynic, but the only thing that comes to mind is that there are some things the Feds and Big Data care about, and then there's everything else.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Steve Ballmer: "Nobody ever buys Windows. They buy Windows PCs." ( NeoWin 2013-12-18 )

And the NeoKids are genuinely stumped now. It puts quite a damper on their meme last year of 100 million Windows 8 "customers", implying those poor lab rats went out and intentionally bought Microsoft Tiles on purpose. Nope. The big man says all you NeoKids were mistaken. And I say he is mistaken. They didn't all intentionally buy "Windows" computers either, or at least not as criteria number one. First and foremost it was price point, secondarily it was capacity and capability such as storage or screen size, display their photos, play their tunes. So for the fanboys their entire worldview was mistaken and this has been confirmed by SteveB. Sorry kids, Windows 8 merely came along for the ride and did a crap job at that.

What Ballmer is saying here is a sort of rationalization for the "devices" portion of the 'services and devices' business plan they hatched up in their Redmond bunker. Unfortunately for Microsoft, Ballmer has put a yellow highlight over the problem. People actually used to buy "Windows Computers" on purpose. It was their strength. A platform where the only difference from one generation to another was CPU speed and storage space. There was backward compatibility and new features were added ( both hardware and software ) while the previous ones survived. A Windows app was always a Windows app. But over time since Windows XP they used "Windows" as the leverage for planned obsolescence, forcing upgrades, losing features, and most of all creating uncertainty. It is no longer a platform because people now speak of Windows XP or Windows 7 or Windows 8 apps instead of "Windows apps". That's not a platform. That's a rolling average. A moving target. Great job fathead. And all this is even bad enough without bringing up the evil part of the plan involving using the OEM monopoly as leverage to push Microsoft Tiles and the captive Microsoft Store into a captive audience. There is evil, and then there is this obscene robber baron level of evil manipulation.

Microsoft: Bing is now "on course or ahead of course" to stop losing money ( NeoWin 2013-12-20 )

Microsoft's online services, which includes Bing, has been losing money for the company, but one of Microsoft's financial executives says that may no longer be true in the near future. Dave O'Hara, the Chief Financial Officer for Microsoft's Applications and Services Group, told analysts in an investor call this week that the online services group is now "on course or ahead of course" to finally break even.

Ummm, they're gonna have to do a little better than break even. Sunk costs are not last year's news and don't evaporate with time. But they've got an app for that, creative book-keeping ...

In the company's last financial quarter when it reported its online services as a separate component, that division lost $321 million. Under the company's recent reorganization, online services will no longer be reported as a separate line item.

That's the kind of thing that brings the SEC knocking on your door. Better hope that new CEO doesn't hear about this. He just might ask to see both sets of books, then he'll need to decide on whether to play along and risk a prison cell or go rogue and clean house and tank MSFT in the process. Could be why they're having such a hard time getting a CEO. Either they're all wary of the job or Microsoft insiders are wary of them.

Oh but wait. One of the MicroZealots offers us some wisdom

You don't have to make up past spending. The value of a business is how it's moving money right now. As long as they didn't create debt with the spending, it becomes unimportant after the fact.

Yeah, that's what we call the private sector genius. You have every right to go broke on your own business ( well, unless you count us taxpayers having to bail you out of bankruptcy but that's beside the point ). Perhaps his dictionary stops before the word "Fiduciary" and its related concepts. Like it or not ( and I really don't ) Microsoft answers to her stockholders and regulators first. Books have to be accurate and hiding things is, well, frowned upon. If stockholders ever got organized ( I mean moreso than the little power play that likely helped to oust Ballmer ) they could cause a huge fuss and those bleeding products like Bing and Xbox would be fast out the door.

Bill Gates helps to fund project for powering cellphones with urine ( NeoWin 2013-12-20 )

Well, I'll just leave this here as one of those headlines that you thought you would never see. Check that, actually I have to give props to a NeoKid for coining the phrase of the day ... pPhone ...

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Microsoft: We will work on fixing SVCHOST bug in Windows XP "through the holiday" ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 )

And the NeoKids once again open mouths and insert both feet. Kind of understandable though. They're children, and they need to lash out considering how everything connected with their retarded Playskool toy has been backfiring. Off to bed now, that's enough temper tantrums for today NeoKids.

Jobs: Write for Neowin! ( NeoWin 2013-12-20 )

Speaking of NeoKids, along comes this article from the NeoWin powers-that-be, a job offer for writers which offers us a precise explanation for Steven's business model of using clickbait articles ( like just above ) designed to get the NeoKids to wet their beds and cry about Windows XP and other things ...

We pay our writers per original article depending on the comments/hits.

Could you give more information? Do you pay them on comments or views?

Based on views.

Bingo. Number of hits per article as criteria for author payment. Hence the perpetual tolerance of the petulant MicroBabies. Ironic that it is Brad Sams that confirms this since he is the lead kid ( you know, the first one that starts a tantrum which spreads around the class of kids like chicken pox ). I expect that The Verge Tribe offers similar incentive. It's hard for me to remember 4th grade so long ago, but we have the equivalent of that with the exception being that instead of the adult teacher grabbing the ruler and walking menacingly towards the troublemakers, the adults this time give them lollipops as a reward for their ignorance and mouthing off. It's a Brave New World.

Nokia has reportedly cancelled its 8-inch Lumia Windows tablet ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 )

Not sure what this means yet. It could be a sign that the tablet market, particularly that for Microsoft Tiles is getting soft and they are seeing inside information that we don't. Or, we can believe the spin from NeoWin that it is because of Microsoft swallowing Nokia and not wanting competition for Surface.

The "I got a Windows 8.1 machine for Christmas, now what do I do?" guide ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 )

The NeoWin approved guidebook for Metron00bs lost in those magnificent fields of Windows bliss but unable to find their own way into the nice cozy sheeple pens. A few funny comments as you can imagine, and of course some sheep bleating ( "Ugh, these poor people suggesting some awful old-fashioned start menu replacement or even worse, install windows 7... It's like the people who were wedded to the Windows 3.1 Program Manager and DOS when Windows 95 came out." ... Liar. ). Rather than going through all this trouble I would have just given a link ...

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Microsoft pulls December Surface Pro 2 firmware update ( NeoWin 2013-12-18 )

( mentioned here in this thread a few times this past month ) So Microsoft has pulled an automatic update that caused some trouble, so far so good. But talk about putting lipstick on a pig ...

Microsoft has now pulled the pulled the automatic firmware update for the Surface Pro 2 tablet that the company first released earlier in December as more and more owners of the product have reported errors in installing the upgrade.

As we reported a few days ago, there have been quite a few people who posted that they were unable to install the firmware update on the tablet. Other users that did manage to get the update installed have since reported that the tablet now has a shorter amount of battery life. Neowin contacted Microsoft to ask about the reports but received no response at that time. Today, Microsoft has finally issued an official statement on the problem on those same support forums:

To ensure the best experience for our customers during the holiday season, we have taken steps to remove the update for Surface Pro 2 that was previously published through Windows Update on December 10th, 2013. We are working to release an alternative update package after the holidays.

Umm, just problems installing, or shorter battery life? What, no mention of crypto-bricked systems because their authentication failed and they need to enter a giant passphrase? Microsoft's comment there is really quite the marvel of understatement, perhaps written by lawyers or damage control specialists. And NeoWin's spin also leaves out the nitty gritty. I guess it really is the season to be jolly.

Xbox One owners reporting audio sync issues with Blu-ray movies at 24Hz ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 )

I'm sorry, am I piling on? Too soon? These things happen I guess, but Xbox 180 sure seems cursed. Anyway, if you need some entertainment value read the comments. It's one of those where the fanboys are eating each other alive because some of the NeoKids actually have the problem or can sympathize with the issue, while the others are incensed that anyone has the temerity to even report problems with Xbox or Microsoft itself. Self-education ensues when NeoKids lecture NeoKiddieKids. A good time is had by none, except for by all of us watching the hilarity ensue.

Just for Programmers ...

Microsoft exec gives insight on 'Roslyn' compiler ( NeoWin 2013-12-17 )

Microsoft releases Project Siena' and you should probably take notice ( NeoWin 2013-12-19 )

Aviary stops image editing SDK support for Windows Phone and Windows 8 ( NeoWin 2013-12-21 )

Lots of details on the RFADK Rapid Fart App Development Kit that Microsoft has chosen for it minions to empower them to drown the world in retard apps. At the first article don't miss the poor NeoKid wondering aloud about the obscene UPPERCASE menus and then getting told to stop complaining. At the second article more kids than expected seem to grasp the magnitude of the consequences for releasing a Playskool authoring tool that will not only pollute the world, but also their precious Microsoft Store ( hehe ).

Finally, the last one isn't about Microsoft per se, but a 3rd party no longer making a drop in module for Playskool apps, one that gives photo-editing capabilities. The interesting thing is in the developer explanation ...

Now it looks like Windows 8 and Windows Phone app creators will have to look elsewhere if they want to put in photo editing in their software. WPCentral reports that one of its readers asked Aviary if some new font options for the iOS SDK would be coming to Microsoft's platforms. The response from a Aviary admin was likely not the one he wanted to read:

Due to lack of general platform traction we are discontinuing development of Aviary technology on Windows / Windows Phone. Any currently released Aviary SDK or app for Windows should therefore be considered as-is and unsupported going forwards. However, your feedback is much appreciated and will be considered should we decide to revisit developing for Windows in the future.

The phrase "lack of general platform traction" is the most interesting part of this statement, as it seems to indicate that Aviary was not happy with how its SDK and its own photo apps were performing on Microsoft's operating systems. We have emailed the company to get more information on this decision.

Well I guess that's one way of interpreting "lack of traction" Could it perhaps mean the platform itself?

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

The Competition ...

LG joins the Chrome OS party with 21"" all-in-one Chromebase ( TechSpot 2013-12-18 )

LG Plans to Unveil an All-in-One System Running Chrome OS at CES 2014 ( Maximum PC 2013-12-18 )

LG Chromebase is an All-in-One Running Chrome OS ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-18 )

Stunning eh? That product that the NeoKids insist cannot be made or sold for any money is actively being produced by Dell and LG. What are they going to do if Google ever really jumps into desktop operating systems? They have all the pieces in place now, OEMs to build them, programmers writing several OS's, and a lot of users getting familiar with Android, Chrome and other derivatives of Linux. Admittedly this current set of OS's are not my cup of tea, but it is definitely a good thing that some kind of competition has popped up to knock Microsoft off their cloud. I guess we now know why there is a Scroogle campaign in the first place and it shows that Microsoft identified Chrome/Android as a threat long before we all did.

Valve's prototype Steam Machine benchmarked with Windows 7 ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 )

First Round of GeForce Benchmarks on SteamOS Beta Pop Up Online ( Maximum PC 2013-12-16 )

Partial Steam Machine Tear Down Video Shows Off Excellent Cable Management ( Maximum PC 2013-12-16 )

Valve's Steam Machine Gets iFixit Teardown ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-19 )

Steam Machines unboxing video shows snug components, hot cable management action ( PC Gamer 2013-12-16 )

iFixit: Valve's Steam Machine prototype has high repairability rating ( NeoWin 2013-12-20 )

Hands-on with Valve's Steam machine and the Steam controller: part one ( PC Gamer 2013-12-20 )

While it's early, the preliminary results look pretty impressive. In Unigine Tropics v1.3 running at 2560x1600, the testbed benched anywhere from 32.2fps (GeForce GTX 550 Ti) to 170.55fps (GeForce GTX 780 Ti). All in all, the testbed put up some high numbers across the board, serving as an indication that SteamOS isn't gimping performance.

Some clueless commenters notwithstanding, it is kind of impressive the steady professionalism that Valve is showing here, especially with these beta units handed out for testing and feedback. An open source OS that anyone can use, including OEMs who get to pocket the previous Microsoft Tax. I would hope and expect non-gaming apps for SteamOS to arrive on the scene shortly, maybe audio/video, Facebook, Twitter, web browsing and email. All Valve has to do now is develop a true emulator for Windows binaries or maybe team up with Google and make a bulletproof version of WINE available and lots of people ( not sheeple ) will consider fleeing the mothership for good. The effect on Microsoft would be profound and beneficial to all. After CES we should have a pretty good idea of where this is all going. Regardless, the competition is critical and is clearly already having an effect.

Samsung May Reveal Tizen Devices in February ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-20 )

Tizen OS is an open-source Linux-based platform for devices like smartphones, tablets, Smart TVs and in-vehicle information devices. The project resides within the Linux Foundation, is governed by Samsung and Intel, and contains Samsung's merged Bada project and Intel's failed MeeGo platform. Tizen OS was originally released in January 2012 and is at version 2.2.1 as of November 9.

Another Linux derivative nipping at Microsoft's ( and maybe even Google's ) heels. With both Samsung and Intel onboard it cannot be dismissed too easily IMHO. I would guess that any hopes that Microsoft has of polluting the firmware world of TV and DVD player and other consumer devices with their Metro madness are pipe dreams now.

Google and HP recall all Chromebook 11 chargers after overheating reports ( NeoWin 2013-12-17 )

The commission's website has posted that 145,000 units are affected by this recall. It adds, "Google has received nine reports of chargers overheating and melting during use. There is one report of a small burn to a consumer and one report of minor property damage to a pillow from an overheating charger." HP Chromebook 11 users should contact Google, rather than HP, to received a free replacement charger for their notebook.

Seems like they handled this very well and are possibly teaching a lesson to Apple and especially Samsung about public relations in the process. This will likely put a dent into their very thin profit margins, as pointed out by the NeoKids who are trying to find something consequential to say about it ( to no avail ) and that speaks volumes about their customer service IMHO.

EDIT: added missing link ( )

Edited December 23, 2013 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Brave New World section ...

Facebook to debut auto-playing video ads in feeds later this week ( NeoWin 2013-12-17 )

Facebook will start debuting video ads in users' news feeds for both the web and mobile versions this week. The company is expected to announce the change sometime on Tuesday.

The cost of the 15-second ads will reportedly lie between $1m and $2.4m to run for a full day, depending on reach. The ads were originally scheduled to run in the summer but were postponed a number of times, with the latest pushback happening in October.

In a world full of bad ideas will anyone even notice? Surprisingly enough myself and the NeoKids are in agreement on this one, although they are are speaking of adblock as a countermeasure and I say blacklist the site in the router firmware. Unfortunately for the kids they should probably expect an Amendment to the DMCA that prohibits "circumventing" or "tampering" with website streams ( sorry, no ad or video blocking allowed, that's the law! hehehe ). The precedent already exists. You can't modify your very own DVD player to not display things read off your very own DVD disc. It's only natural that you can't modify your very own computer to not display something in a stream flowing in from some external source. Yeah, that's the ticket. Presumably Zuck has by now done enough lobbying to secure such legislation and naturally the Feds side with whoever pays I mean lobbies them the most. In truth I'm now torn on this one. There is certifiable Darwinian component to this Facebook exploitation. Watching Zuck fleece his sheeple kinda makes sense you know?

Don't be fooled by the 60 Minutes report on the NSA ( The Verge 2013-12-15 )

Good article from last week picking apart one of the face-saving publicity stunts by our friendly neighborhood spooks. Just ignore ( most of ) the children in the comments.

Microsoft claims ZeroAccess botnet has been abandoned ( NeoWin 2013-12-20 )

All well and good, right? They rolled up a mysterious botnet and have successfully defended the indefensible sheeple from evil advertisers that game the system rather than pay money right to Microsoft or Google. Got it. But then they say this ...

Microsoft said that the PCs infected by the ZeroAccess code were then sent one final update by their makers which had the message "WHITE FLAG". The company believes that means the criminals behind the botnet have signaled they are giving up on their attempts to revive their activities. Microsoft said that because of this digital surrender, it has now closed the civil case against the ZeroAccess botnet so that law enforcement authorities can continue their investigations.

Wait, what? All it takes is an official surrender message to call off the dogs? Wow. I sure hope the black hats aren't thinking what I think they're thinking.

Report claims Microsoft's 'Surface Mini' to get Kinect-like features ( NeoWin 2013-12-17 )

Specifically, its unnamed sources claim that it will have a way to recognize the face of its owner, which in theory could be used as an alternative to a password. In addition, the Surface Mini could allow touch-free hand gestures to control certain features on the tablet.

Oh come on now. Aren't they just making it official what we all are suspecting anyway? Oh, nevermind, they're saying that the spying capabilities can now be put to some positive use by the actual owner of the device, rather than only by spooks and hackers and law enforcement and Microsoft and ...

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Brave New World section ... continued ...

UPDATED: Target Customers Targeted in Massive Data Breach ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-18 )

Target falls victim to massive Black Friday hack, up to 40 million credit cards at risk ( TechSpot 2013-12-19 )

40 million credit card numbers stolen from Target ( NeoWin 2013-12-19 )

Target: PINs not part of stolen credit card info ( USA Today 2013-12-20 )

Target says the stolen account information consists of the customer's name and credit or debit card number, as well as the card's expiration date and CVV (three-digit security code).

According to Krebs' sources, the stolen account information comes from the so-called "track data" stored on a credit or debit card's magnetic stripe. The CVV stored on a card's magnetic stripe is different than the one printed on the card itself, however. So in this case the thieves wouldn't be able to use a stolen account to make online purchases (which require the printed CVV) but they could use the stolen data to forge new credit cards by encoding the track data on a new magnetic stripe, Krebs speculates.

Stolen information from some 40 million credit and debit cards used in its stores from Black Friday through Dec. 15 included names, credit or debit card numbers, card expiration dates and the CVV data on the magnetic stripe on cards, the retailer said.

Target spokesman Eric Hausman confirmed, however, it has "no indication that debit card PINs were impacted."

Don't you just love that response: '40 million credit cards snatched but "no indication that debit card PINs were impacted"' I'm sure our government protectors are on the case though. With all their hooks into the system and our private lives it should be just a matter of tick tocks before they ID the perps and send in the SWAT teams. Oh wait, that would expose methods. Never mind.

Washington Post Hacked A Third Time; Damage Unclear ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-19 )

The Washington Post is reporting that their own servers were hacked for the third time in three years. The intruders seem to have only accessed Post employee names and passwords, though the full extent of the damage is not yet clear. According to the story, "officials said they saw no evidence that subscriber information, such as credit cards or home addresses, was accessed by the hackers."

And it continues. And as usual the details on the backend are missing. Who is the hosting company or network/cloud provider? Who does security? We want names dammit. Same goes for each and every one of these stories.

Botnet Discovered by CERT Polska Invades Linux, Windows ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-20 )

Polish Computer Emergency Response Team, CERT Polska, has discovered a new botnet that's spreading on both Linux and Windows machines. On Linux, the bot is installed through an SSH (Secure Shell) dictionary attack, whereas on Windows the infection installs a service. The Windows version is detected by antivirus software 34 out of 48 times. For Linux, antivirus protection detects the infection 3 out of 47 times.

[...]

As for the Windows version, the same bot is used for infection, but in this case there are two stages. First the malware drops the file svhost.exe into the system and runs it, which registers as a new Windows service called DBProtectSupport that starts automatically at the system startup.

~sigh~ Experienced Windows veterans know enough to use ProcExp as their task manager and to customize it to add extra fields to the display ( 'Select Columns' ), most importantly the full path of the images. If you see SVHOST.EXE or some other variation instead of SVCHOST.EXE then you have a problem. If you see any permutation of that name running from \Windows or from \System or from \Documents and Settings or from \Users or anywhere except \System32 you have a problem. Blame Microsoft for the confusion though. They created task manager as a dumb toy purposefully hiding critical information. They designed Windows itself to have a service container show up in multiple instances in whatever task manager the latest dumbed down version of Windows contains. They designed Windows to inexplicably allow this service container to be replaceable by malware rather than making it a core kernel file with code to ensure it cannot be compromised. They even obfuscated it further with similar permutations of that name such as SMSVCHOST.EXE in the .NET folder structure. They were just asking for it to be exploited by the black hats. And they happily obliged.

EDIT: removed misplaced link

Edited December 23, 2013 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Brave New World section ... continued ... again ...

Computer Sounds Give Up Secret Information ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-19 )

Once again proving that real life is stranger than fiction, a group of Israeli security researchers have figured out how to pull off possibly the coolest hack in the past several years: extracting complex encryption keys via sound waves.

When computers are at work, the vibrations in their various components create noise, though usually that noise is too quiet or too high-pitched for the human ear to distinguish.

These sounds can be recorded with the microphone of an average cellphone placed near a computer, and they can reveal extraordinary amounts of information about what the computer is doing when it makes them.

( mentioned previously by bpalone ). This is proof of concept of an old avenue of spying. It is a variation on capturing EMR from CRT displays which allowed spooks to read what was currently displayed on a screen if they happened to be located nearby, parked in a van full of sensitive spying equipment. It lead to some software that worked to counter the surveillance ( so-called "zero-emission" text editors and other things ), which themselves were probably quickly countered. I'm pretty sure sound and all emissions from a device have been fully explored by the spooks at great expense to taxpayers and I wouldn't doubt that they can be captured and interpreted in some circumstances. Now we await the inevitable home security white noise and EMR generator with a smart randomizing algorithm that shoots out all manner of signals to thwart the government protectors. Such is the arms race.

But the real interesting angle to this story is this ...

However, the researchers who include Adi Shamir, the "S" in RSA say in their paper that an attacker could easily craft unsuspicious-looking text that follows those mathematical patterns.

... which leads directly to something which is a burning issue in the crypto community ( and mentioned above by Jorge ) ...

$10m NSA contract with security firm RSA led to encryption 'back door' ( UK Guardian 2013-12-20 )

NSA Paid RSA $10 Million to Use Flawed Security Standard ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-21 )

RSA Security was paid $10 million by the National Security Agency (NSA) to fold a deliberately flawed encryption standard into its software, a Reuters report says.

The company, whose SecurID tokens and software are used by millions of smartphone users and corporate employees worldwide, made a pseudo-random number generator called Dual_EC_DRBG the default selection in its BSAFE encryption software toolkit in 2006.

In summary, there is some evidence that RSA, the company, may have been bribed willingly or duped unwittingly to become a tool of No Such Agency. Both angles are highlighted in the article. First is the "willingly" ...

"Now we know that RSA was bribed," security expert Bruce Schneier told CNET following the publication of the Reuters story. "I sure as hell wouldn't trust them."

Some current and former RSA Security employees told Menn the company was duped into trusting the NSA, which sets security standards for companies seeking government contracts.

"They did not show their true hand," one source told Menn.

And also the "unwittingly" ...

Other blamed a changing corporate culture. The company, which during the 1990s led the successful fight against the NSA's proposed mandatory Clipper Chip, which would have decrypted cellphone conversations, was by the mid-2000s a much larger corporation, and many key employees had moved on.

"When I joined there were 10 people in the labs, and we were fighting the NSA," an employee who left in 2005 told Menn. "It became a very different company later on."

Either way, RSA has some explainin' to do, considering the extraordinary position of trust and reputation these three, Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman enjoy. Most importantly is the one ( of perhaps many ) known backdoors that made its way into Vista among other products ...

Dual_EC_DRBG had been regarded with suspicion by cryptography experts ever since a 2007 paper, written by two Microsoft researchers, showed that it contained hidden mathematical relationships that made presumably random numbers not random at all.

The flaw could be exploited by the holder of a certain number, unknown to the researchers, and amounted to a "backdoor," a secret way to decrypt any information that had been encrypted using Dual_EC_DRBG.

Following the Snowden revelation,RSA Security advised its customers who used BSAFE to switch to another PRNG.

These guys would do well to start talking straight about all these issues, although I can't imagine anyone taking their word for it at face value. We've seen the pressure put on other less prominent names, such as the Lavabit company owner who has the stones to fight back. Whether the RSA principals have similar inclinations remains to be seen. Read the Wikipedia page for a synopsis of the issues and links outside to other stories. This is quite important IMHO, and could ultimately lead to vital information we need such as what other backdoors are in place in Windows and other products.

Microsoft: Skype now runs on Windows Azure; SkyDrive moving to Azure soon ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 )

In a new interview, Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's vice president for Windows Azure, confirms that Skype operations are now based on Azure servers.

In a chat with The Register, Guthrie states, "Skype, a lot of which is built here in our London developer centre, is also now running on Azure." Office 365 authentication and security goes through Azure servers, and the back end for Xbox Live and the new Xbox One console is "heavily" based on Azure as well, according to Guthrie.

And what about SkyDrive, Microsoft's consumer cloud data storage service? As it turns out, it is in the middle of a transition to Azure. Guthrie states, "SkyDrive, they are in the process of decommissioning their old servers and moving everything onto Azure. All new storage on SkyDrive now goes to Azure."

Well now, Skype, Office 364, Xbox Live and SpyDrive ( what, no Outlook? ) are all plugged into the Blue Cloud I mean Azure. Strangely enough two of those four, Skype and Xbox Live are already implicated in Snowden leaks and a third, SpyDrive gets spied on by Microsoft at the minimum. What's the possible common denominator here? Jeez, I don't know yet. Perhaps after the inevitable future Snowden leak about Office we'll be able to connect the dots. Unrelated but related is the fact that all four have been reported to have outages over the past year and mentioned here in this thread. Again, what's the common denominator here? I just don't know. Probably nothing. Move along now, nothing to see here.

By the way, if anyone eats something bad or drinks too much over the holidays and finds themselves needing to stick your fingers down your throat, it's easier if you just skim through the comments on this one. It is yet another bonafide pukeworthy thread populated by those cheering the p2p-less NuSkype and Microsoft for their wonderful cloud consolidation. No really, they are. I swear.

EDIT: added Guardian link which is the source of the article concerning RSA and the backdoor obviously

Edited December 24, 2013 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Brave New World section ... continued ...

Verizon Will Publish Transparency Report Next Quarter ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-19 )

Verizon Communications said on Thursday that it will publish an online report that will provide data on the number of law enforcement requests for customer information that the company received in 2013 in the United States and other countries. This transparency report will arrive in early 2014, and updated on a semi-annual basis.

And it will be as transparent as mud. If there ever was an example of going through the motions just for show, this one is it.

How the BitTorrent Chat Client Works ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-20 )

BitTorrent's Abe Goldoor explains that there are no usernames as seen with other chat clients, and you aren't required to log in because there's no central server. Instead, a user's identity is a cryptographic key pair. To everyone on the BitTorrent Chat network at large, you ARE your public key. That means anyone can use BitTorrent chat anonymously: users aren't required to give their personal information. The only way to communicate is to exchange public keys.

[...]

"With other chat tools, messages are sent through a central server, unencrypted as it passes through and stored before being re-encrypted and sent to its final destination," a BitTorrent rep said. "Our key innovation is to build a tool for communications that does not need servers. A way for two people to connect directly with the threat of their privacy being violated."

http://media.bestofmicro.com/F/8/415268/original/121713-bt-chat-blog-2.png

Interesting and detailed article about a new, secure, communication software. How would you like to be in these guys shoes? You know they are all soon going to experience the warm hand of Big Brother when he comes to deliver their Colonoscopy.

Dish mulling buyout bid for T-Mobile to become fourth major wireless carrier ( TechSpot 2013-12-19 ) :

T-Mobile to unveil Uncarrier 4.0 strategy at CES, could pay your early termination fee to switch ( TechSpot 2013-12-21 ) :

How much you wanna bet that our government protectors would allow them to be gobbled up? After all, it would be much better for the spooks to have only a couple of companies to penetrate. These two competing stories which are truly mutually exclusive really put the spotlight on the big issue. T-Mobile is right on the verge of really shaking up this sheeple Ponzi scheme of subsidizing overpriced gadgets in exchange for two years of indentured servitude and metering out bits and bytes while pushing out advertising and spam for good measure. Naturally Dish ( and previously Sprint and others ) want to swallow them up and have them evaporate before our eyes. Let's hope this plan of theirs isn't just an elaborate pump and dump and they are serious about breaking the stranglehold by those four Telecomms, and that they resist rather than accept a merger.

More details revealed on how Microsoft's services will improve their encryption ( NeoWin 2013-12-18 )

... the new plan is to use the thousands of servers inside Microsoft's data center to encrypt the information, via spare CPU resources, before it is sent to another center, or even if it is not transmitted. Mark Russinovich, one of the lead architects for Windows Azure at Microsoft, says, "You need a more distributed way of handling the problem: Every individual service whenever it talks to another service should encrypt that channel. Then the price for the encryption is paid for with the resources of the individual data centers."

Even with the improvements Microsoft is putting in place, that still doesn't make their data 100 percent hack proof. Indeed, the article bring up the possibly that the NSA or similar groups could plant a person inside Microsoft's data centers or turn a current employee to work for the group. Russinovich says, An inside threat? Thats the scariest one. They could spear-phish him or blackmail him or maybe hes just sympathetic to their cause.

Well I'm gonna bite my lip since Mark is one of the few left up there who I admire and respect greatly ( hey, make him the CEO you nitwits ). And even though he is now involved in Azure ( what a waste of talent ) those decisions that cause Microsoft to drop trow and bend over for Big Brother obviously come from above him. I can easily envision Mark designing a foolproof system that thwarts even federal spooks, but then it is all undone by a single high ranking bureaucrat who hands over the master keys anyway. Therefore this article and the Wired source story is window dressing and damage control. At this point in time from what we have been allowed to know there is no evidence that there are high ranking Softies with the same integrity and stones that the Lavabit founder has. In fact I see no evidence they are even trying to make believe they have that level of courage.

EDIT: typo

Edited December 23, 2013 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[JorgeA]

@TELVM and @duffy98,

Thanks for the info on user agents. It looks like the technique applies to Firefox/Pale Moon but not to IE8; typing "about:config" in a new tab gives me a "Navigation Canceled" result.

I found some pages on the Web that give instructions on how to change the user agent in IE by going into "Developer Tools" (F12), but they work only in IE9 and not 8 which doesn't have a "change user agent" choice in that Tools submenu.

Am I out of luck?

--JorgeA

Are you really using IE Jorge?

Yup.

Probably the main reason is that, after I got back into tech (almost exactly five years ago now), the thick Windows manuals that I'd bought offered tons of tips for tweaking Internet Explorer -- whereas I don't know where to look for these settings (or even if the same ones are available) in other browsers. There IS something to be said for a "one-stop shopping" manual as opposed to having to hunt all over the Web for things that you may not even know to ask about.

I'm also familiar and comfortable with IE's UI: I know where everything is, and although I've tried Firefox and Chrome (plus a couple of minor browsers), I haven't felt any compelling reason to switch. Plus, it's annoying that FF (and Chrome, if I ever used it again) keep pushing new versions on me -- some of which, moreover, remove functionality. To these browsers' developers, I would say, Leave it alone already; stop trying constantly to justify your existence, and get a life.

--JorgeA

EDIT: typo

Edited December 27, 2013 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Hey TELVM ... that's good! I like those commercials. I also wonder if JorgeA uses IE 8 that much ... there are so many other browsers available.

IE8 is the main browser on my Vista work machine. I like all the little informational notifications that pop up on the status bar, which were removed from IE9 and only a couple of which could be brought back by Classic Shell.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

[re: Bing's red-ink operations]

Oh but wait. One of the MicroZealots offers us some wisdom

You don't have to make up past spending. The value of a business is how it's moving money right now. As long as they didn't create debt with the spending, it becomes unimportant after the fact.

Yeah, that's what we call the private sector genius. You have every right to go broke on your own business ( well, unless you count us taxpayers having to bail you out of bankruptcy but that's beside the point ). Perhaps his dictionary stops before the word "Fiduciary" and its related concepts. Like it or not ( and I really don't ) Microsoft answers to her stockholders and regulators first. Books have to be accurate and hiding things is, well, frowned upon. If stockholders ever got organized ( I mean moreso than the little power play that likely helped to oust Ballmer ) they could cause a huge fuss and those bleeding products like Bing and Xbox would be fast out the door.


Bill Gates helps to fund project for powering cellphones with urine ( NeoWin 2013-12-20 )

Well, I'll just leave this here as one of those headlines that you thought you would never see. Check that, actually I have to give props to a NeoKid for coining the phrase of the day ... pPhone ...

I could say something about p*ssing money away, but I won't...

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

The "I got a Windows 8.1 machine for Christmas, now what do I do?" guide ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 )

The NeoWin approved guidebook for Metron00bs lost in those magnificent fields of Windows bliss but unable to find their own way into the nice cozy sheeple pens. A few funny comments as you can imagine, and of course some sheep bleating ( "Ugh, these poor people suggesting some awful old-fashioned start menu replacement or even worse, install windows 7... It's like the people who were wedded to the Windows 3.1 Program Manager and DOS when Windows 95 came out." ... Liar. ). Rather than going through all this trouble I would have just given a link ...

LOVED those shutdown/disconnection/error sound effects they added in there!!

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Either way, RSA has some explainin' to do, considering the extraordinary position of trust and reputation these three, Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman enjoy. Most importantly is the one ( of perhaps many ) known backdoors that made its way into Vista among other products ...

Dual_EC_DRBG had been regarded with suspicion by cryptography experts ever since a 2007 paper, written by two Microsoft researchers, showed that it contained hidden mathematical relationships that made presumably random numbers not random at all.

The flaw could be exploited by the holder of a certain number, unknown to the researchers, and amounted to a "backdoor," a secret way to decrypt any information that had been encrypted using Dual_EC_DRBG.

Following the Snowden revelation,RSA Security advised its customers who used BSAFE to switch to another PRNG.

These guys would do well to start talking straight about all these issues, although I can't imagine anyone taking their word for it at face value. We've seen the pressure put on other less prominent names, such as the Lavabit company owner who has the stones to fight back. Whether the RSA principals have similar inclinations remains to be seen. Read the Wikipedia page for a synopsis of the issues and links outside to other stories. This is quite important IMHO, and could ultimately lead to vital information we need such as what other backdoors are in place in Windows and other products.

[emphasis added]

About the owner of Lavabit, here's an interview Ladar Levison gave to TWIT's Leo Laporte. The sound quality isn't the best, but Levison talks about the tricks the cops used to make things as difficult and costly for him as possible (and some counter-measures that he took along the same lines ). My favorite quote from him: "I'm not anti-government, I'm pro-freedom."

He sounds like a guy who's willing to stand up for his principles and take the heat for it.

--JorgeA