EUs ruling against Microsoft negotiations as it officially releases its search engine

[alexander]

Have you been to MSN.com today? well if you havent, dont even think of visiting it because microsoft officially rolled out their search engine that replaces yahoo search engine on the msn website.
Meanwhile Gates is battleing with EU over how much strippage their version of windows is supposed to have, before it is to be rereleased to the European audiences.

"Microsoft Corp. said it will respect last March's ruling while its appeal is pending before EU courts, but the EU head office still has problems with exactly how the company's immediate compliance will work.

As part of the EU ruling, Microsoft has said it will soon send computer manufacturers a version of its Windows platform without Media Player, under an interim EU ruling in December.

But the European Commission said Monday it was still negotiating with the company over how the stripped-down version would be presented to consumers. The EU head office also has problems with the provision of information to allow third parties to ensure that group servers function properly on Windows PCs. "
from: http://www.forbes.com/associatedpres...ap1795018.html

I hope they would make them strip off the automatic update junk as well as Internet Explorer and allow updates to be installed through Firefox... Also add to that remove list the tour of Windows XP, some SP1 and 2 components, remote desktop junk, windows catalog internet games (not preinstalled anyways), Movie maker, adress book, and briefcase to start with... there's more to be optional like having to use explorer as the window manager, icon junk, toolbar and others...

[GAHD]

Yeas all those useless windows update moduales like 'Svchost'

Heay, they should just image my HDD, or follow my advice:

start > run > "msconfig"

Uncheck everything you don't like, and then

start > run > "regedit"

delete all registry keys dealing with unwanted components

start > find > "unwanted filenames"

delete it/them, so that they have to be physically reinstalled (keeps them from respawning as easilly)

see, a simple 3 step process to get rid of all of Micro$oft's unwanted junk.

[alexander]

There is a way to fix Windows and make it so clean that it can be no cleaner
to fix windows do this:

1 > throw in a knoppix cd
2 > reboot
3 > boot
4 > open a terminal window
5 > make sure you are root
6 > dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda bs=1M
7 > repeat step 6 at least a few more times

Done

(Please dont try this at home as there will be nothing of Windows or your files left on your hard drive (to the point where unless you have an electorn microscope, and a lab of equipment and people), if you do, I am not responsible for your actions...)

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by alexander

(Please dont try this at home as there will be nothing of Windows or your files left on your hard drive (to the point where unless you have an electorn microscope, and a lab of equipment and people), if you do, I am not responsible for your actions...)

Aw, the NSA would have NO trouble reading everything on your hard disk!

Hey, didja notice what that WMP-less version was going to be called until the EU complained? "Windows XP Reduced Media Edition"! Guess the Brussels-sprouts interpreted that as too big of a f&*$^k you....

Also on the msn.com change for those of you who are w3c-ophiles: its now fully CSS, although it doesn't pass the validators. As one of my waggish friends commented: "Wull, that's dumb of them, now no one with IE will be able to read it!"

Cheers,
Buffy

[alexander]

6 > dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda bs=1M

fine if you want to do it the right way do this

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda

#of times _____ approximate tools needed to restore the information
____ 1 ________ You need specialized hard drive farensic software to restore the info, not all of it, but most
____ 2 ________ You will need a graduate with a computer farensic degree with a gpa of 4.0 no less
____ 3 ________ You will need a hard drive farensc expert working in the field for 20 years to restore some info
____ 4 ________ You need a lab with a small team of farensic experts to restore some info on the hard drive
____ 5 ________ You need a big lab with a huge group of scientists to restore any info on the drive
____ 6 ________ You need a huge lab with a huge team of scientists in various areas and computer farensic specialists, as well as hard drive developers and a number of very expensive tools to restore any data from the drive
____ 7 ________ You gotta be paranoid with the security of your data, and have a week of time to go this far
____ 8 ________ You best have military secrets on your drive, if you go this far
____ 9 ________ This is where the Secret Government agencies stop, cuz by the time any data might be restored, it will not be worth it
____ 10 _______ You are a crazy person and have waay too much free time on your hands

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by alexander

fine if you want to do it the right way do this
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda
#of times _____ approximate tools needed to restore the information <snip />

All true! OTOH its easy to get paranoid on this topic: There's a pretty good reason that the hard disks at places like the NSA, NRO, CIA, DOD, DOE and other gov't agencies get physically *shredded* into little bits of metal when they're disposed of. You really don't want to know what the NSA can actually do. Its scary!

Cheers,
Buffy

[alexander]

after about 11 times, even the most professional proffesional wont be able to restore any information on that hard drive, you will be generating a random value for every sector, every kluster, every bit on that hard drive and writing it to that bit, yeah, i work in a company that shreds stuff like CDs and floppies so nobody can read anything off of them, the thing is that given a shredded hard drive, you can still restore the information on it. The shredder does not destroy the information, it distorts the form of the hard drive... Really though, it all the protectiveness depends on how much paranoid about the information on the drive you are...
I'd never need to do anything aver a dd so ...

[Tormod]

Alexander - I don't doubt for a second that your little tutorial works fine.

I know from experience that a much easier trick is just to offer to help someone format a drive by putting it into your computer, go into bios, choose "low-level format", then install your OS and applications etc, then take the harddrive out again, and reboot. And find out that you have formatted the wrong disk. Note the "from experience". Yes. Twice. I have a friend who would not let me touch his PC with a 5 foot stick...

[alexander]

Naah, tormod, you just have to know what is sees as what, your pri will be seen as the first, so do a cfdisk on it to find out whether it is hda or hdb or even an hdc, and actually could be more depending on which bus you used and what yor mobo looks like, the rest follow a similar pattern, if one is hda then 2 is hdb, three is hdc and so on. Also, dd does the same thing as the low level format does, but its a bit more flexible and versatile as it takes in values. And thirdly, i find it more convenient to boot to CD, fo all the operations and then not having to reboot or exit the environment, use cfdisk to make partitions then mk2fs to make a filesystem and install the system from there on...(that would be a manual install of linux, gentoo anyways, cuz there's no need for a cd to install the system... Gentoo rocks )
Dont get me wrong Tormod, I have screwed up before, but the one time i low leveled a wrong drive is the time when it was displayed under a different name in windows and Bios and floppy running app for Maxtor HDs, yes it got screwed up twice, but i didnt loose my system, programs, apps, files, documents, pictures and movies the second time as it got formatted after a format.

P.S. The beauty of dd is that you can do a low level format, and when they mean low level, they refer to overwriting sectors with random data, but you dont get to pick the size packets you want to overwrite, but dd just like low level, overwrites sections of the drive blindfully and resets the allocation table, and you can specify how big of a section you want it to look at...