THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR View 184 December 17 - 23, 2001 |
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For an index
of previous pages of view, see VIEWDEX. See also the New Order page, which tries to make order of chaos. These will be useful. For the rest, see What is this place? for some details on where you have got to.
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This week: | Monday
December 17, 2001
And it is TIME for NOMINATIONS for the annual Chaos Manor Orchids and Onions Awards. Send your nominations with a BRIEF statement on why this should be to me at jerryp@jerrypournelle.com with the word ORCHIDS or the word ONIONS (or both words but don't run them together, my rules want whole words) in the subject line). I have mailed another VIRUS WARNING to subscribers. See Mail. And I remind you, there is now a Windows version of Roberta Pournelle's reading program. For my general observations, click here. And let me add my daily -- hourly -- gripe that the World Wide Wait will drive you mad. And if you have to use DirecPC to access it, the process will be faster. Page error after page error. Why? So let this be my ritual denunciation of the Internet and especially of DirecPC.
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This week: | Tuesday, December
18, 2001
Consider my ritual groan about the World Wide Wait at least as experienced with DirectPC to have been made. I would guess that 60% of the pages I access have to be requested more than once, and it takes several seconds to determine that the request didn't work. At well. If you play Asheron's Call you need to look at: The steps in this article usually fix the problem. http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q303/1/13.asp which seems to tell how to fix sound problems. And I am finishing up more work on an essay on .NET and its promises and problems.
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This week: |
Wednesday,
Hiding out
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This week: |
Thursday,
December 20, 2001 I'm hiding out to get some writing done. I look at email infrequently. There is some mail. Roland and WinShare report an oldie but goodie virus kicking about: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2833811,00.html?chkpt=zdnnp1tp02 It's a variant of one we have seen before, and it purports to send you a Christmas card. As always, be sure your security patches are up to date, your virus scan is up to date, and never open mail attachments you don't know all about. And: Jerry, MAJOR security hole in WinXP. Kit kitcase@home.com http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7050-2001Dec20.html Sigh. If you run XP and have not fixed this, DO SO NOW. (And see Tomorrow's VIEW)
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This week: |
Friday,
December 21, 2001 Roland says the one above is new, not one of the older ones resurfacing, and the following are particularly urgent. http://www.eeye.com/html/press/PR20011220.html and http://www.microsoft.com/technet/ AND http://www.datafellows.com/v-descs/welyah.shtml
also JoAnne Dow says: http://www.incidents.org/diary/diary.php?id=129 This describes a major complete take over the machine direct Internet exploit for Windows XP. This appears to be the worst hole that any Windows OS has yet experienced. An employee of "eEye" discovered it. {^_^}
If you haven't seen this already: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7050-2001Dec20.html Hackers can assume control of your XP machine remotely. Fix available. Carey Gage
And Roland has found yet more: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/ and http://www.eeye.com/html/press/PR20011220.html and http://www.securityfocus.com/cgi-bin/vulns-item.pl?section=discussion&id=3703 And James Post says: This is worth a second look http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2001/1217excel.html thanks, James
Ye flipping gods! Beware! I think it is time to go to Linux as a primary connection to the Internet. Inside that one may be able to use Windows for applications you don't have under Linux. Of course I already do much of that. WinProxy downloads new anti-virus definitions every 4 hours or so automatically, and sent a warning (which I didn't see because I am not at home) yesterday; if you share your Internet connection in your home, you might think in terms of using WinProxy, which will be a lot better than nothing. It is, alas, my primary protection when I am using the satellite, until I get a better high speed connection and can use a Linux box. Downstream from there, Joel Rosenberg's positive experiences with Mandrake Linux have sparked others to try to become a "Microsoft free environment." I find Microsoft applications pretty good for much of what I do, and I have already described ways to use Microsoft applications in a Linux environment. I expect Microsoft to fix some of this latest spate of holes, but I can't think all this bodes well for the atmosphere of trust that .NET will need.
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This week: | Saturday,
I am working.
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This week: | Sunday,
December 23, 2001 Coming home.
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