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On 8/31/2013 12:35 AM, Stephen wrote:
> On 31/08/2013 8:27 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> On 8/27/2013 6:18 PM, Stephen wrote:
>>>
>>> The 32 bit version still has edlin, though.
>>>
>> Ugh.. Yeah, and I use MS paint, instead of Photoshop like ...all the
>> time... lol They keep the useless shit, and lose all the crap that
>> actually worked.
>
>
> Yes, well. Just think of it as junk DNA or a bit of history. :-)
>
Snort.. So.. all the smart, better, tools got caught in a flash flood,
and are now, at best, fossilized, while the slow, stupid ones, which
never made it into the river bed, before the flood hit, kept breeding...
Yeah, that sounds about right. lol
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On 8/31/2013 10:50 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:19:45 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>
>> What I *do* have an issue with is MS deciding that *I* can't get stuff
>> done with my own PC because "most" end-users don't need that feature.
>
> Such as?
>
> Jim
>
Hmm. How about - "Without hunting down some third party tool to do it."?
Though, some things the OS just won't let you do at all. Like, well,
nearly any tool used to test network issues is "throttled", as in, in
this case, "strangled" by the "protections" added, to prevent certain
types of packets, which "might" be from a virus/worm/botnet. I am sure
you could, somehow, if you wanted to spend stupid amounts of time
hunting for a solution, find a way to turn that off, maybe...
Or, there is the real good one, like.. trying to install HP
multi=function printer drivers, and finding that, and MS, their scanner,
and even other virus scanners, will all argue, "Its somehow HPs fault,
not us!", the scanner software itself won't install properly, since it
uses some funcky packet talk, even over USB, which "modern" virus
scanners, and firewalls, etc. including the stuff made by MS, all
trigger on, and cause to fail. For some damn reason, apparently, not
having the virus scanner, etc. "on" at the time you install this may fix
it, maybe, if you are lucky, but.. you can't fix the existing install,
no matter what you do, short of pulling the plug on the whole printer
driver suite, and, maybe, again, reinstalling, with your PC wide open to
the very attacks that you are supposed to use the stuff to stop.
So, yeah, I do blame HP for thinking this idiocy was a good idea (I
think what they did was run the same protocol via USB as they do over
the network, somehow, so it fucks up both ways, even with a direct
connection, but still.. Why the hell should it even happen at all, never
mind be, literally, unrepairable?
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On Sat, 31 Aug 2013 19:00:22 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Hmm. How about - "Without hunting down some third party tool to do it."?
That might have been a good qualifier to add, yes.
> Though, some things the OS just won't let you do at all. Like, well,
> nearly any tool used to test network issues is "throttled", as in, in
> this case, "strangled" by the "protections" added, to prevent certain
> types of packets, which "might" be from a virus/worm/botnet. I am sure
> you could, somehow, if you wanted to spend stupid amounts of time
> hunting for a solution, find a way to turn that off, maybe...
Haven't run into that one.
> Or, there is the real good one, like.. trying to install HP
> multi=function printer drivers, and finding that, and MS, their scanner,
> and even other virus scanners, will all argue, "Its somehow HPs fault,
> not us!", the scanner software itself won't install properly, since it
> uses some funcky packet talk, even over USB, which "modern" virus
> scanners, and firewalls, etc. including the stuff made by MS, all
> trigger on, and cause to fail. For some damn reason, apparently, not
> having the virus scanner, etc. "on" at the time you install this may fix
> it, maybe, if you are lucky, but.. you can't fix the existing install,
> no matter what you do, short of pulling the plug on the whole printer
> driver suite, and, maybe, again, reinstalling, with your PC wide open to
> the very attacks that you are supposed to use the stuff to stop.
>
> So, yeah, I do blame HP for thinking this idiocy was a good idea (I
> think what they did was run the same protocol via USB as they do over
> the network, somehow, so it fucks up both ways, even with a direct
> connection, but still.. Why the hell should it even happen at all, never
> mind be, literally, unrepairable?
That's not really an OS issue, though. That's an HP issue, as
described. I don't think you can blame Microsoft for HP's bad design
decision.
Jim
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On 01/09/2013 2:51 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 8/31/2013 12:35 AM, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>
>> Yes, well. Just think of it as junk DNA or a bit of history. :-)
>>
> Snort.. So.. all the smart, better, tools got caught in a flash flood,
> and are now, at best, fossilized, while the slow, stupid ones, which
> never made it into the river bed, before the flood hit, kept breeding...
> Yeah, that sounds about right. lol
As long as you can keep your sense of humour. All is not lost.
--
Regards
Stephen
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On 8/31/2013 7:23 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sat, 31 Aug 2013 19:00:22 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Hmm. How about - "Without hunting down some third party tool to do it."?
>
> That might have been a good qualifier to add, yes.
>
>> Though, some things the OS just won't let you do at all. Like, well,
>> nearly any tool used to test network issues is "throttled", as in, in
>> this case, "strangled" by the "protections" added, to prevent certain
>> types of packets, which "might" be from a virus/worm/botnet. I am sure
>> you could, somehow, if you wanted to spend stupid amounts of time
>> hunting for a solution, find a way to turn that off, maybe...
>
> Haven't run into that one.
>
Well. It was, in my case, an attempt to get around the stupid decision
of my neighbors ISP to block control packets on their modems, so that,
when there was a problem, you couldn't use tracert, or ping, to check if
the problem was some place in their network, or if the modem needed to
be powered down, and back on, or something. So, I tried, instead, on my
own machine, to run one that generates the same thing, using regular
TCP/IP. But, since the packets where set to have odd timeouts, and
contain very little actually "data", the new safeguards flagged them as
possible DOS traffic, and simply killed them, without ever sending them.
> That's not really an OS issue, though. That's an HP issue, as
> described. I don't think you can blame Microsoft for HP's bad design
> decision.
>
> Jim
>
Its more of a "layering" issue. The firewall can block some things, the
virus scanner others, the HP software is assuming that neither of these
things are going to be in the way, and.. as near as I can tell, it works
fine, if, for example, you are running it wireless, or connected "to"
the router. But, then they got lazy and figured, "Heck, why not connect
it to the USB using the same thing." Then.. everything gets in the way,
including an OS that pretty much won't let you find/figure out/fix
problems like this, by actually knowing where the bloody
driver/settings, etc. might all be, so you can, I don't know.. manually
edit settings, if you had to? :p So, yeah. It might be an HP problem,
but its an HP problem that, if it was easy to fix, they had like 3-4
years, since they started using this method to get the things to talk to
each other, to actually put out a bug fix for, and haven't. Which,
usually, means the OS is making assumptions that are keeping them from
reliably fixing it.
Mind, I know this was a poor example. But, I also know that there are
situations that *definitely* ended up being the OS in the way, entirely,
not just some other companies buggy installer. And, again, when things
do go wrong.. Its not like you can throw tests at it, from a command
line, or from a basic script, or anything else you might do, to see what
the frak is really going on. All the OS will tell you is, "This looks
like its working, because the driver says so, I don't know why the fuck
it crashes 1/3 of the way into a scan!", or the like. I would hardly
call that "working"...
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On Sun, 01 Sep 2013 19:54:21 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Haven't run into that one.
>>
> Well. It was, in my case, an attempt to get around the stupid decision
> of my neighbors ISP to block control packets on their modems, so that,
> when there was a problem, you couldn't use tracert, or ping, to check if
> the problem was some place in their network, or if the modem needed to
> be powered down, and back on, or something. So, I tried, instead, on my
> own machine, to run one that generates the same thing, using regular
> TCP/IP. But, since the packets where set to have odd timeouts, and
> contain very little actually "data", the new safeguards flagged them as
> possible DOS traffic, and simply killed them, without ever sending them.
Sounds like ISP interference to me rather than the OS, though.
> Its more of a "layering" issue. The firewall can block some things, the
> virus scanner others, the HP software is assuming that neither of these
> things are going to be in the way, and.. as near as I can tell, it works
> fine, if, for example, you are running it wireless, or connected "to"
> the router. But, then they got lazy and figured, "Heck, why not connect
> it to the USB using the same thing." Then.. everything gets in the way,
> including an OS that pretty much won't let you find/figure out/fix
> problems like this, by actually knowing where the bloody
> driver/settings, etc. might all be, so you can, I don't know.. manually
> edit settings, if you had to? :p So, yeah. It might be an HP problem,
> but its an HP problem that, if it was easy to fix, they had like 3-4
> years, since they started using this method to get the things to talk to
> each other, to actually put out a bug fix for, and haven't. Which,
> usually, means the OS is making assumptions that are keeping them from
> reliably fixing it.
Given the complexity of modern software, it's kinda difficult to predict
every contingency and plan for it.
HP isn't exactly known for being proactive in how they do things. And as
good as their printers are, their printer driver installation routines
have always been crap. It /would/ be nice if MS standardized driver
installations across different platforms (hey, remember, I used to work
for Novell and had more than a few discussions with people about iPrint-
based printer driver installation, and it was /always/ more complicated
than it needed to be because MS made it so difficult to do in a standard
way).
> Mind, I know this was a poor example. But, I also know that there are
> situations that *definitely* ended up being the OS in the way, entirely,
> not just some other companies buggy installer. And, again, when things
> do go wrong.. Its not like you can throw tests at it, from a command
> line, or from a basic script, or anything else you might do, to see what
> the frak is really going on. All the OS will tell you is, "This looks
> like its working, because the driver says so, I don't know why the fuck
> it crashes 1/3 of the way into a scan!", or the like. I would hardly
> call that "working"...
Would that all operating system software were bug- and trouble- free. :)
Jim
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On 9/1/2013 9:02 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sun, 01 Sep 2013 19:54:21 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>>> Haven't run into that one.
>>>
>> Well. It was, in my case, an attempt to get around the stupid decision
>> of my neighbors ISP to block control packets on their modems, so that,
>> when there was a problem, you couldn't use tracert, or ping, to check if
>> the problem was some place in their network, or if the modem needed to
>> be powered down, and back on, or something. So, I tried, instead, on my
>> own machine, to run one that generates the same thing, using regular
>> TCP/IP. But, since the packets where set to have odd timeouts, and
>> contain very little actually "data", the new safeguards flagged them as
>> possible DOS traffic, and simply killed them, without ever sending them.
>
> Sounds like ISP interference to me rather than the OS, though.
>
But, its not. There are a fair number of servers that, for security
reasons, may disable the control packets, including routers in the
primary backbones of the internet (or alternate paths). This means that
tracing a problem, even in your own network, never mind someone else's,
either nearly, or totally, impossible, using the normal methods. The
TCP/IP solution was specifically developed to a) do the same thing if
you can't/don't want to, disable the blocks on those functions, b) get
around issues, such as alternate routing, where you are still blocked
from access, but you can't work out why, etc. Control packets are not
"necessary" for normal operation of a network. Its not unknown, since
there are some things you can do with them, other than route tracing,
and pings, for them to be disabled, but.. its like closing a port, in a
sense, if you can't talk to past what ever is blocking it, short of
having, say, some way to proxy it, you can't use it at all, any more
than you can talk to the port that has been closed.
So, yeah, its definitely the ISP's fault, in a sense, but.. again, this
is just two commands that I am talking about. There are entirely test
tools that rely on the ability to do semi-abnormal things, to get
various kinds of information, not just from the internet in general, but
just from your own network, and literally the **entire** toolset is
broken, beyond use, because the sloppy "protection" in Windows can't
tell legit testing suites from actually invalid traffic, and just
handles them all, arbitrarily as though they are threats.
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On Mon, 02 Sep 2013 16:50:11 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Sounds like ISP interference to me rather than the OS, though.
>>
> But, its not. There are a fair number of servers that, for security
> reasons, may disable the control packets, including routers in the
> primary backbones of the internet (or alternate paths). This means that
> tracing a problem, even in your own network, never mind someone else's,
> either nearly, or totally, impossible, using the normal methods. The
> TCP/IP solution was specifically developed to a) do the same thing if
> you can't/don't want to, disable the blocks on those functions, b) get
> around issues, such as alternate routing, where you are still blocked
> from access, but you can't work out why, etc. Control packets are not
> "necessary" for normal operation of a network. Its not unknown, since
> there are some things you can do with them, other than route tracing,
> and pings, for them to be disabled, but.. its like closing a port, in a
> sense, if you can't talk to past what ever is blocking it, short of
> having, say, some way to proxy it, you can't use it at all, any more
> than you can talk to the port that has been closed.
>
> So, yeah, its definitely the ISP's fault, in a sense, but.. again, this
> is just two commands that I am talking about. There are entirely test
> tools that rely on the ability to do semi-abnormal things, to get
> various kinds of information, not just from the internet in general, but
> just from your own network, and literally the **entire** toolset is
> broken, beyond use, because the sloppy "protection" in Windows can't
> tell legit testing suites from actually invalid traffic, and just
> handles them all, arbitrarily as though they are threats.
It doesn't really seem reasonable to me to hold the OS producer
responsible for not being able to do - as you call it - "semi-abnormal
things".
If the filter is behavioural, then of course it can't tell the difference
between a diagnostic tool and actual malicious traffic. Tell me, how
would *you* code the software to tell the difference between
"legitimately" wonky behaviour, and actually malicious behaviour?
Jim
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Le 2013-08-31 03:26, Patrick Elliott a écrit :
> On 8/27/2013 3:57 PM, clipka wrote:
>> Am 27.08.2013 23:19, schrieb Patrick Elliott:
>>> On 8/27/2013 3:31 AM, Stephen wrote:
>>>> "Fractracer" <lg.### [at] gmail com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I remember win95, a good user interface with DOS - where is DOS now?
>>>>
>>>> Hidden in the command prompt box: cmd.exe
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Uh. No. That is a shell, yes, and it "sort of" works like DOS, but.. its
>>> oddly missing like.. every single added program that ever came with, it,
>>> including "basic" ones, like ways to make your "shell" wait for a
>>> keypress, or any other damn thing at all. And, of course, since they
>>> *don't* want you to actually use it, they never added in any of the
>>> features that might have gotten into it (if they had stolen them from
>>> say 4DOS, or others), before Win3.11 came around.
>>
>> Well, they /did/ add support for blanks in command parameters at least.
>> And for long filenames, thank God and all the angels! (Cursed be every
>> piece of software that still makes any use of 8.3 filenames! - They're
>> /still/ in Windows for backward compatibility.)
>>
>> As for them not wanting you to use it, what they do want you to use
>> nowadays is the PowerShell. Not that I've ever heard of anyone using it
>> to solve any scripting tasks though: They either seem to be using .bat
>> files for cmd.exe, or asking you to install python.
>>
> Except that it can't bloody make up its mind when it works, and doesn't,
> some times. You get the same problem though trying to manually edit
> links. If you don't put "" around certain things the OS, despite
> supposedly knowing about bloody spaces in file names, freaks out and
> won't save it. Because, you know, the GUI should get just as confused by
> such names as the cmd.exe program does... lol
For what it's worth, most *nix shells and comand line utilities also
have a conniption when it comes to spaces in file names.
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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Le 2013-08-31 22:00, Patrick Elliott a écrit :
> On 8/31/2013 10:50 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:19:45 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>
>>> What I *do* have an issue with is MS deciding that *I* can't get stuff
>>> done with my own PC because "most" end-users don't need that feature.
>>
>> Such as?
>>
>> Jim
>>
> Hmm. How about - "Without hunting down some third party tool to do it."?
> Though, some things the OS just won't let you do at all. Like, well,
> nearly any tool used to test network issues is "throttled", as in, in
> this case, "strangled" by the "protections" added, to prevent certain
> types of packets, which "might" be from a virus/worm/botnet.
You can't open sockets for ports below 1024 on *nix without being root
either.
It _IS_ to prevent bots from running under your user credentials
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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Le 2013-08-31 13:50, Jim Henderson a écrit :
> On Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:19:45 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>
>> What I *do* have an issue with is MS deciding that *I* can't get stuff
>> done with my own PC because "most" end-users don't need that feature.
>
> Such as?
>
> Jim
>
Format a >16GB USB drive with FAT32.
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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On Tue, 03 Sep 2013 08:39:11 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
> For what it's worth, most *nix shells and comand line utilities also
> have a conniption when it comes to spaces in file names.
Not if you properly escape them or put the filename in quotes. That's a
pretty standard practice.
Jim
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On Tue, 03 Sep 2013 08:45:42 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Le 2013-08-31 13:50, Jim Henderson a écrit :
>> On Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:19:45 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>
>>> What I *do* have an issue with is MS deciding that *I* can't get stuff
>>> done with my own PC because "most" end-users don't need that feature.
>>
>> Such as?
>>
>> Jim
>>
> Format a >16GB USB drive with FAT32.
That's what exfat is for, among other things (larger file sizes, too).
Surprisingly, you also cant' format a > 16 GB USB drive with FAT16,
either.
That's not MS "deciding" what you can/can't do, that's a limitation of a
filesystem created in about 1996. You really want to complain about the
limitations in a filesystem created ~20 years ago?
Jim
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On 9/2/2013 9:44 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> It doesn't really seem reasonable to me to hold the OS producer
> responsible for not being able to do - as you call it - "semi-abnormal
> things".
>
> If the filter is behavioural, then of course it can't tell the difference
> between a diagnostic tool and actual malicious traffic. Tell me, how
> would *you* code the software to tell the difference between
> "legitimately" wonky behaviour, and actually malicious behaviour?
>
> Jim
>
The number of "botnets" around hasn't changes much, like, at all, so,
the whole entirely reason for putting such a filter in, in the first
place, is totally meaningless, which makes having it.. what? A good
idea? lol
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On Tue, 03 Sep 2013 10:06:35 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> The number of "botnets" around hasn't changes much, like, at all, so,
> the whole entirely reason for putting such a filter in, in the first
> place, is totally meaningless, which makes having it.. what? A good
> idea? lol
That's like saying that not everyone follows the law, so we should get
rid of all laws.
Jim
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> > For what it's worth, most *nix shells and comand line utilities also
> > have a conniption when it comes to spaces in file names.
> Not if you properly escape them or put the filename in quotes. That's a
> pretty standard practice.
When specifying file names on the command line using wildcards, the shell
will pass file names with spaces in them to the program appropriately.
In shell scripts, however, special care has to be taken to not make
command-line parameters (or even files retrieved using eg. file name
patterns) with spaces in them break the script.
A very common mistake is to write $* in the script to get all the command
line parameters. This will break it for parameters with spaces in them,
as the command where that expansion is used will see them as separate
parameters. The syntax for doing that properly is "$@".
You see this mistake being made all the time, even within high-profile
programs and tools that should know better.
--
- Warp
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On 9/3/2013 11:09 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 03 Sep 2013 10:06:35 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> The number of "botnets" around hasn't changes much, like, at all, so,
>> the whole entirely reason for putting such a filter in, in the first
>> place, is totally meaningless, which makes having it.. what? A good
>> idea? lol
>
> That's like saying that not everyone follows the law, so we should get
> rid of all laws.
>
> Jim
>
Its more like insisting that you build walls around the city, and place
armed guards at each entry, on the theory that it will stop you from
being invaded, while the "invaders", have.. tanks, bombers, cruise
missiles..
What is the point of a law that can't be enforced? Its different if it
can be. But, if all it does is turn your computer into the TSA...
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On Tue, 03 Sep 2013 21:49:02 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 9/3/2013 11:09 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 03 Sep 2013 10:06:35 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>>> The number of "botnets" around hasn't changes much, like, at all, so,
>>> the whole entirely reason for putting such a filter in, in the first
>>> place, is totally meaningless, which makes having it.. what? A good
>>> idea? lol
>>
>> That's like saying that not everyone follows the law, so we should get
>> rid of all laws.
>>
>> Jim
>>
> Its more like insisting that you build walls around the city, and place
> armed guards at each entry, on the theory that it will stop you from
> being invaded, while the "invaders", have.. tanks, bombers, cruise
> missiles..
Well, no, because the open ports are just another door.
> What is the point of a law that can't be enforced? Its different if it
> can be. But, if all it does is turn your computer into the TSA...
That's not what I said, though. I didn't say anything about the laws
being enforceable or not.
So let's try again:
Murder is illegal. We don't have a zero murder rate. Should we get rid
of laws that make murder illegal?
Speeding is illegal. People still speed. Should we get rid of speed
laws?
Now....
Suppose we take out the measures that prevent the non-standard behaviour
that you're trying to use. Does the number of botnets /increase/ because
there's a new option? Perhaps it does - so then it could be argued that
those limitations are helpful (just like anti-murder/speeding laws have
some utility, even if they don't prevent 100% of violations).
Jim
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Le 2013-09-03 13:03, Jim Henderson a écrit :
> On Tue, 03 Sep 2013 08:45:42 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
>
>> Le 2013-08-31 13:50, Jim Henderson a écrit :
>>> On Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:19:45 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>>
>>>> What I *do* have an issue with is MS deciding that *I* can't get stuff
>>>> done with my own PC because "most" end-users don't need that feature.
>>>
>>> Such as?
>>>
>>> Jim
>>>
>> Format a >16GB USB drive with FAT32.
>
> That's what exfat is for, among other things (larger file sizes, too).
>
> Surprisingly, you also cant' format a > 16 GB USB drive with FAT16,
> either.
>
> That's not MS "deciding" what you can/can't do, that's a limitation of a
> filesystem created in about 1996. You really want to complain about the
> limitations in a filesystem created ~20 years ago?
>
> Jim
>
FAT32 can go up to 2TB with 512b sectors and 16TB with 4k sectors.
There are lots of utilities that will allow you to format a disk >16GB
with FAT32, but Windows insists on allowing only NTFS for anything
greater than 16GB.
So it is indeed Microsoft adopting a "Father knows best" attitude.
And, yes I want to complain about it, when the only way to recover a
$150,000 network appliance is by booting a recovery utility off a USB
device to reinstall the OS on the appliance itself.
Of course, this is one of the things you find out at 2am, when the only
thing you have lying around is a 512GB external drive and 3 levels of
management are looking over your shoulder, wondering if you're serious
when you tell them you need a DOS 6.0 bootable floppy to run the
BootitNG toolkit to reformat the drive.
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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Le 2013-09-03 15:19, Warp a écrit :
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>> For what it's worth, most *nix shells and comand line utilities also
>>> have a conniption when it comes to spaces in file names.
>
>> Not if you properly escape them or put the filename in quotes. That's a
>> pretty standard practice.
>
> When specifying file names on the command line using wildcards, the shell
> will pass file names with spaces in them to the program appropriately.
>
> In shell scripts, however, special care has to be taken to not make
> command-line parameters (or even files retrieved using eg. file name
> patterns) with spaces in them break the script.
>
> A very common mistake is to write $* in the script to get all the command
> line parameters. This will break it for parameters with spaces in them,
> as the command where that expansion is used will see them as separate
> parameters. The syntax for doing that properly is "$@".
>
> You see this mistake being made all the time, even within high-profile
> programs and tools that should know better.
>
Bingo!
If you remember, a few months ago, I was ranting about a very expensive
commercial network monitoring software suite that specifically mentioned
NOT using spaces in directory names for exactly that reason.
Unfortunately the Windows port of that software suite is installed under
C:\Program files, so they require that the disk have short file names
enabled, so that they can use C:\PROGRA~1 instead.
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 09:35:45 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
> If you remember, a few months ago, I was ranting about a very expensive
> commercial network monitoring software suite that specifically mentioned
> NOT using spaces in directory names for exactly that reason.
>
> Unfortunately the Windows port of that software suite is installed under
> C:\Program files, so they require that the disk have short file names
> enabled, so that they can use C:\PROGRA~1 instead.
I don't see how that's an OS issue, though.
How's the shell supposed to know if you mean a space in a filename or a
space between parameters unless you tell it which you mean?
Jim
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On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 09:30:56 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
> FAT32 can go up to 2TB with 512b sectors and 16TB with 4k sectors. There
> are lots of utilities that will allow you to format a disk >16GB with
> FAT32, but Windows insists on allowing only NTFS for anything greater
> than 16GB.
>
> So it is indeed Microsoft adopting a "Father knows best" attitude.
FAT32 is MS' filesystem, so they get to decide what features to support.
Like many companies, they probably want the older stuff to go away, and
this is one way of making that happen.
Supporting old and outdated technology is expensive, and even a company
as large as Microsoft has to watch what their operating expenses are.
> And, yes I want to complain about it, when the only way to recover a
> $150,000 network appliance is by booting a recovery utility off a USB
> device to reinstall the OS on the appliance itself.
That sounds like the fault of the network appliance manufacturer, not the
company that makes your desktop OS.
> Of course, this is one of the things you find out at 2am, when the only
> thing you have lying around is a 512GB external drive and 3 levels of
> management are looking over your shoulder, wondering if you're serious
> when you tell them you need a DOS 6.0 bootable floppy to run the
> BootitNG toolkit to reformat the drive.
I don't see how that's MS' fault, either, though. Sure, it's
inconvenient to learn this when you're in a crisis, but you can't blame
them for the time it became apparent to you, whether it was at 2AM in a
DR situation or in the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday when you had
nothing going on.
Jim
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On 9/4/2013 11:28 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Now....
>
> Suppose we take out the measures that prevent the non-standard behaviour
> that you're trying to use. Does the number of botnets /increase/ because
> there's a new option? Perhaps it does - so then it could be argued that
> those limitations are helpful (just like anti-murder/speeding laws have
> some utility, even if they don't prevent 100% of violations).
>
> Jim
>
Bad examples, all of them. This is more like the "drug war" or the
constant attempts to curtail "theft of music", which leads to totally
useless bs, no actual progress on the real problem, or idiotic rules,
like the recent, "It should be illegal to stream music you own.", never
mind things like some ISPs blocking bittorrent traffic. The solution to
the problem isn't to prevent supposedly "unusual" usages, its to do
something about the actual illegal ones. And, if your blocking
completely **fails** to do the later, then, you know.. its just possible
that the law is just adding to the problems, not correcting the problem.
It was a really poor, stopgap, solution, put in place because they
couldn't fix their own security. They, in effect, built a wall around
the city, because they couldn't figure out how to keep the thieves out
in the first place. That isn't law, its paranoia, and behind bars is
still "jail", even if the bars are, supposedly, keeping things out.
Only, they don't even do that, laughably, the whole point is, "If the
thief gets in, lets trap them inside the walls, with us, so they can't
terrorize any other towns." Kind of insane, if you think about it...
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On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 15:56:42 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Bad examples, all of them.
I'm not surprised you think so, because they undercut your assertion. I
happen to think they're pretty good examples because they reflect the
reality of the computing environments I've had to deal with in my life.
But what do I know - I only started as a systems admin about 20 years ago
and worked with technology for most of my life.
But I'll indulge in further discussion.
> This is more like the "drug war" or the
> constant attempts to curtail "theft of music", which leads to totally
> useless bs, no actual progress on the real problem, or idiotic rules,
> like the recent, "It should be illegal to stream music you own.", never
> mind things like some ISPs blocking bittorrent traffic. The solution to
> the problem isn't to prevent supposedly "unusual" usages, its to do
> something about the actual illegal ones.
Such as what, exactly? Got a better idea? Because I'm sure those who
work on operating systems would love to hear your wisdom on this, since
you clearly have superior knowledge to those who, you know, /actually/
work on this stuff for a living.
> And, if your blocking
> completely **fails** to do the later, then, you know.. its just possible
> that the law is just adding to the problems, not correcting the problem.
So how would you correct the problem?
> It was a really poor, stopgap, solution, put in place because they
> couldn't fix their own security. They, in effect, built a wall around
> the city, because they couldn't figure out how to keep the thieves out
> in the first place.
So what are your ideas for keeping the thieves out in the first place?
> That isn't law, its paranoia, and behind bars is
> still "jail", even if the bars are, supposedly, keeping things out.
> Only, they don't even do that, laughably, the whole point is, "If the
> thief gets in, lets trap them inside the walls, with us, so they can't
> terrorize any other towns." Kind of insane, if you think about it...
Maybe it is, but I'm not hearing any actual ideas of how to accomplish
the goal. If you're going to say that the way anyone's doing the job is
inadequate or unworkable, you must have a better idea. So share it.
Maybe you could make a fortune productizing it and selling it.
Jim
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Le 2013-09-05 12:36, Jim Henderson a écrit :
> On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 09:35:45 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
>
>> If you remember, a few months ago, I was ranting about a very expensive
>> commercial network monitoring software suite that specifically mentioned
>> NOT using spaces in directory names for exactly that reason.
>>
>> Unfortunately the Windows port of that software suite is installed under
>> C:\Program files, so they require that the disk have short file names
>> enabled, so that they can use C:\PROGRA~1 instead.
>
> I don't see how that's an OS issue, though.
>
Never said it was an os issue.
> How's the shell supposed to know if you mean a space in a filename or a
> space between parameters unless you tell it which you mean?
>
100% Agreed. It's Patrick who was complaining that CMD.EXE still had
problems with that and I simply said that *nix shells weren't any better.
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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Le 2013-09-05 12:41, Jim Henderson a écrit :
> On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 09:30:56 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
>
>> FAT32 can go up to 2TB with 512b sectors and 16TB with 4k sectors. There
>> are lots of utilities that will allow you to format a disk >16GB with
>> FAT32, but Windows insists on allowing only NTFS for anything greater
>> than 16GB.
>>
>> So it is indeed Microsoft adopting a "Father knows best" attitude.
>
> FAT32 is MS' filesystem, so they get to decide what features to support.
> Like many companies, they probably want the older stuff to go away, and
> this is one way of making that happen.
>
> Supporting old and outdated technology is expensive, and even a company
> as large as Microsoft has to watch what their operating expenses are.
>
Where are they saving money? The code to fdisk a drive with FAT32 is
still there in the code. In fact, they had to write even more code to
check the size of the disk before deciding if they would make FAT32 one
of the available formats.
>> And, yes I want to complain about it, when the only way to recover a
>> $150,000 network appliance is by booting a recovery utility off a USB
>> device to reinstall the OS on the appliance itself.
>
> That sounds like the fault of the network appliance manufacturer, not the
> company that makes your desktop OS.
>
Not just this network appliance vendor. for example, every camera maker
uses high capacity SD and XD cards that are formatted with FAT32, and
most of the newer ones are 16GB or more. There will be a lot of pissed
off users when they realize that the card they formatted in their laptop
is unreadable in their camera because Windows said, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm
afraid I can't do that."
All I'm saying is that for various reasons, people MAY need to use
FAT32, despite the fact that Daddy Microsoft doesn't like it. And as I
said, the code is already there in windows, why not let the user use it?
Which was the original topic: Microsoft not letting users do things
they should be able to do.
As for this particular instance, it's no longer an issue. My employer
has forced all of us off Windows and onto OSX or Linux, for security
reasons, and I have no problem formatting disks there.
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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On Fri, 06 Sep 2013 08:48:07 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Le 2013-09-05 12:41, Jim Henderson a écrit :
>> On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 09:30:56 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
>>
>>> FAT32 can go up to 2TB with 512b sectors and 16TB with 4k sectors.
>>> There are lots of utilities that will allow you to format a disk >16GB
>>> with FAT32, but Windows insists on allowing only NTFS for anything
>>> greater than 16GB.
>>>
>>> So it is indeed Microsoft adopting a "Father knows best" attitude.
>>
>> FAT32 is MS' filesystem, so they get to decide what features to
>> support. Like many companies, they probably want the older stuff to go
>> away, and this is one way of making that happen.
>>
>> Supporting old and outdated technology is expensive, and even a company
>> as large as Microsoft has to watch what their operating expenses are.
>>
>>
> Where are they saving money? The code to fdisk a drive with FAT32 is
> still there in the code. In fact, they had to write even more code to
> check the size of the disk before deciding if they would make FAT32 one
> of the available formats.
I would guess that they need fewer staff to support fat32, fewer
developers to maintain it, fewer testers to test it, etc. It all adds up.
>>> And, yes I want to complain about it, when the only way to recover a
>>> $150,000 network appliance is by booting a recovery utility off a USB
>>> device to reinstall the OS on the appliance itself.
>>
>> That sounds like the fault of the network appliance manufacturer, not
>> the company that makes your desktop OS.
>>
>>
> Not just this network appliance vendor. for example, every camera maker
> uses high capacity SD and XD cards that are formatted with FAT32, and
> most of the newer ones are 16GB or more. There will be a lot of pissed
> off users when they realize that the card they formatted in their laptop
> is unreadable in their camera because Windows said, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm
> afraid I can't do that."
"will be"? High capacity SD cards have been around for a while.
> All I'm saying is that for various reasons, people MAY need to use
> FAT32, despite the fact that Daddy Microsoft doesn't like it. And as I
> said, the code is already there in windows, why not let the user use it?
>
> Which was the original topic: Microsoft not letting users do things
> they should be able to do.
It's not a question of "letting" users do things, it's a question of
making a financial decision to go a particular way. They must not see a
lot of profit in "fixing" this, because if they did, you can be sure that
as a business that wants to make money, they'd be on it if there was
money to be made in it.
> As for this particular instance, it's no longer an issue. My employer
> has forced all of us off Windows and onto OSX or Linux, for security
> reasons, and I have no problem formatting disks there.
See? Problem solved. :)
Jim
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Le 2013-09-06 11:50, Jim Henderson a écrit :
> On Fri, 06 Sep 2013 08:48:07 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
>
>> Le 2013-09-05 12:41, Jim Henderson a écrit :
>>> On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 09:30:56 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
>>>
>>>> FAT32 can go up to 2TB with 512b sectors and 16TB with 4k sectors.
>>>> There are lots of utilities that will allow you to format a disk >16GB
>>>> with FAT32, but Windows insists on allowing only NTFS for anything
>>>> greater than 16GB.
>>>>
>>>> So it is indeed Microsoft adopting a "Father knows best" attitude.
>>>
>>> FAT32 is MS' filesystem, so they get to decide what features to
>>> support. Like many companies, they probably want the older stuff to go
>>> away, and this is one way of making that happen.
>>>
>>> Supporting old and outdated technology is expensive, and even a company
>>> as large as Microsoft has to watch what their operating expenses are.
>>>
>>>
>> Where are they saving money? The code to fdisk a drive with FAT32 is
>> still there in the code. In fact, they had to write even more code to
>> check the size of the disk before deciding if they would make FAT32 one
>> of the available formats.
>
> I would guess that they need fewer staff to support fat32, fewer
> developers to maintain it, fewer testers to test it, etc. It all adds up.
>
Why would they need fewer people to support FAT32 by arbitrarily
limiting the size of the drives you can use it on to 1/1000th of its
full potential?
> It's not a question of "letting" users do things, it's a question of
> making a financial decision to go a particular way. They must not see a
> lot of profit in "fixing" this, because if they did, you can be sure that
> as a business that wants to make money, they'd be on it if there was
> money to be made in it.
>
>> As for this particular instance, it's no longer an issue. My employer
>> has forced all of us off Windows and onto OSX or Linux, for security
>> reasons, and I have no problem formatting disks there.
>
> See? Problem solved. :)
>
Probably not in the way MS expected, though.
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
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/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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On 9/5/2013 4:20 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 15:56:42 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Bad examples, all of them.
>
> I'm not surprised you think so, because they undercut your assertion. I
> happen to think they're pretty good examples because they reflect the
> reality of the computing environments I've had to deal with in my life.
> But what do I know - I only started as a systems admin about 20 years ago
> and worked with technology for most of my life.
>
> But I'll indulge in further discussion.
>
I consider them all bad examples because, in terms of computing, they
imply that a penny jar is "illegal", on the grounds that taking penny
from it is theft, since taking it from the cash register drawer is. This
is a complete absurdity, from the first word.
>> This is more like the "drug war" or the
>> constant attempts to curtail "theft of music", which leads to totally
>> useless bs, no actual progress on the real problem, or idiotic rules,
>> like the recent, "It should be illegal to stream music you own.", never
>> mind things like some ISPs blocking bittorrent traffic. The solution to
>> the problem isn't to prevent supposedly "unusual" usages, its to do
>> something about the actual illegal ones.
>
> Such as what, exactly? Got a better idea? Because I'm sure those who
> work on operating systems would love to hear your wisdom on this, since
> you clearly have superior knowledge to those who, you know, /actually/
> work on this stuff for a living.
>
Ur.. I would presume "security". See, the way I see it, this measure
they took wasn't to improve security at all, it was to damn up gaps in a
wall, so they thieves couldn't get out, while still letting them in
through the front gate.
Personally, with computers as they are now, I don't see a reasonable
argument why "small" programs, of the size that you get botnets out of,
couldn't run in a VM, by default, and have to be "allowed" into the
wider system, if you actually need them to do something. It minimum, it
would curtail most of the problem, since the only reason these things
get installed in the first place is because they "install" as part of an
non-legit process, from some fool running things they shouldn't. They
don't generally a) do anything else, or b) do what they claim to, in
some cases, or c) get attached to anything more complex than, say, a
flash video. They don't general have an impact no *nix systems, due to
the simple fact that you can't even run something like that on them,
even if they where an executable, without knowing how to enable them to
run in the first place.
That would, imho, be a damn good start on it. MS didn't want to fix
their core problem, so they came up with one that "broke" existing
functionality, probably even for more than just that class of
applications, then, 10+ years later they "finally" fixed some of the
actual security.
That said, security, it seems, is a total joke anyway. Read the latest
Snowden leaks? Seems, as usually, the NSA has been pressuring congress
to basically "legalize" what they have already been doing all along:
publishing encryption, custom built, with "master keys", which can be
used to decrypt ANYTHING that uses US government approved encryption,
which means, just to make things even funnier, *everyone*, world wide,
is compromised, including pretty much anything China uses (never mind
pretty much the entire western world, and anyone, at all, without their
own IT, who buys their stuff from the US, or anyone else using the same
'US Federal government approved' encryption systems. Most, including
just about everyone writing about how to use them, has no idea they
where compromised, from day one, in the papers describing them.
So, I would say another good argument might be, "Why the F do I care if
someone 'might' install a botnet on the machine, due to the vast lack of
security to stop someone accidentally doing so, if all someone that
wants to frack me over has to do is figure out what the magic numbers
are, which the NSA keeps hidden? Sigh...
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Francois Labreque <fla### [at] videotronca> wrote:
> >> Where are they saving money? The code to fdisk a drive with FAT32 is
> >> still there in the code. In fact, they had to write even more code to
> >> check the size of the disk before deciding if they would make FAT32 one
> >> of the available formats.
> >
> > I would guess that they need fewer staff to support fat32, fewer
> > developers to maintain it, fewer testers to test it, etc. It all adds up.
> >
> Why would they need fewer people to support FAT32 by arbitrarily
> limiting the size of the drives you can use it on to 1/1000th of its
> full potential?
Is there a reason why someone would want to use FAT32 instead of eg. NTFS?
FAT32 is significantly slower than NTFS with some operations. (For example,
defragmenting a large FAT32 partition can take over 24 hours, while the
exact same partition with the exact same data as NTFS takes something
like 15 minutes to defragment.)
--
- Warp
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On Fri, 06 Sep 2013 20:35:10 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 9/5/2013 4:20 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 15:56:42 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>>> Bad examples, all of them.
>>
>> I'm not surprised you think so, because they undercut your assertion.
>> I happen to think they're pretty good examples because they reflect the
>> reality of the computing environments I've had to deal with in my life.
>> But what do I know - I only started as a systems admin about 20 years
>> ago and worked with technology for most of my life.
>>
>> But I'll indulge in further discussion.
>>
> I consider them all bad examples because, in terms of computing, they
> imply that a penny jar is "illegal", on the grounds that taking penny
> from it is theft, since taking it from the cash register drawer is. This
> is a complete absurdity, from the first word.
So again, how would you distinguish - technologically - between a "valid"
odd request and a malicious one?
>> Such as what, exactly? Got a better idea? Because I'm sure those who
>> work on operating systems would love to hear your wisdom on this, since
>> you clearly have superior knowledge to those who, you know, /actually/
>> work on this stuff for a living.
>>
> Ur.. I would presume "security". See, the way I see it, this measure
> they took wasn't to improve security at all, it was to damn up gaps in a
> wall, so they thieves couldn't get out, while still letting them in
> through the front gate.
That's not a specific implementation, Patrick. Try again. You want to
say that the current system sucks, fine - but propose something better.
Dont' just say "security" as if that's a magic bullet. That's not
something specific to be implemented, it's a concept. You're smarter
than that.
> Personally, with computers as they are now, I don't see a reasonable
> argument why "small" programs, of the size that you get botnets out of,
> couldn't run in a VM, by default, and have to be "allowed" into the
> wider system, if you actually need them to do something. It minimum, it
> would curtail most of the problem, since the only reason these things
> get installed in the first place is because they "install" as part of an
> non-legit process, from some fool running things they shouldn't. They
> don't generally a) do anything else, or b) do what they claim to, in
> some cases, or c) get attached to anything more complex than, say, a
> flash video. They don't general have an impact no *nix systems, due to
> the simple fact that you can't even run something like that on them,
> even if they where an executable, without knowing how to enable them to
> run in the first place.
>
> That would, imho, be a damn good start on it. MS didn't want to fix
> their core problem, so they came up with one that "broke" existing
> functionality, probably even for more than just that class of
> applications, then, 10+ years later they "finally" fixed some of the
> actual security.
Technological implementation details, Patrick. Those are important. Not
general "just do it" type BS language. How do you tell if a "small"
program is a botnet or just a simple CLI utility (as is typical in the
*nix world) that does a specific task?
What is the specific threshold for a "small" program? Again, you're not
talking in specific technological steps that can be implemented, you're
talking in broad generalities, which are actually not implementation
plans or things that can be coded.
Show me the language that lets you code up:
if (program is not valid)
reject program's request to open a port (or whatever)
else
let program run without a problem
> So, I would say another good argument might be, "Why the F do I care if
> someone 'might' install a botnet on the machine, due to the vast lack of
> security to stop someone accidentally doing so, if all someone that
> wants to frack me over has to do is figure out what the magic numbers
> are, which the NSA keeps hidden? Sigh...
You might not care, but I can tell you that people who run a 'net
connection that has a monthly usage cap would certainly give a damn if
their computer started chatting with a bot network without their
knowledge. People understand when they have to pay penalties because
their ISP has decided they're only allowed, say, 300 MB per month on
their plan (I know someone in Spain with that limitation).
You're not making any practical suggestions at all, which just suggests
to me that you don't understand what you're talking about when it comes
to technology.
Because yeah, "security" - that's the specific and detailed answer you've
provided. Except it's not specific, and it certainly isn't detailed.
Jim
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On Fri, 06 Sep 2013 17:01:44 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Why would they need fewer people to support FAT32 by arbitrarily
> limiting the size of the drives you can use it on to 1/1000th of its
> full potential?
Because when the code was written, it was written. To extend the
limitation requires more code be written. To support that extra space in
other applications requires testing and QA.
Have you worked in a software company? Do you know how software
development and QA is done?
Even a /minor/ change to the code (say to make disk space reports not
turn up negative numbers) requires regression testing to make sure it
doesn't break anything else. *Trivial* stuff being fixed, done by large
software companies, certainly, is not actually a trivial thing.
>>> As for this particular instance, it's no longer an issue. My employer
>>> has forced all of us off Windows and onto OSX or Linux, for security
>>> reasons, and I have no problem formatting disks there.
>>
>> See? Problem solved. :)
>>
>>
> Probably not in the way MS expected, though.
Well, MS doesn't always get to win. In the end, in spite of the
limitations and problems (and I'm speaking as a user of Linux on the
desktop since the late 90's), Microsoft ain't going anywhere, and people
are going to just continue to use it, warts and all.
Jim
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On Sat, 07 Sep 2013 03:32:11 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Francois Labreque <fla### [at] videotronca> wrote:
>> >> Where are they saving money? The code to fdisk a drive with FAT32
>> >> is still there in the code. In fact, they had to write even more
>> >> code to check the size of the disk before deciding if they would
>> >> make FAT32 one of the available formats.
>> >
>> > I would guess that they need fewer staff to support fat32, fewer
>> > developers to maintain it, fewer testers to test it, etc. It all
>> > adds up.
>> >
>> >
>> Why would they need fewer people to support FAT32 by arbitrarily
>> limiting the size of the drives you can use it on to 1/1000th of its
>> full potential?
>
> Is there a reason why someone would want to use FAT32 instead of eg.
> NTFS?
>
> FAT32 is significantly slower than NTFS with some operations. (For
> example,
> defragmenting a large FAT32 partition can take over 24 hours, while the
> exact same partition with the exact same data as NTFS takes something
> like 15 minutes to defragment.)
Arguably, NTFS is a journaled filesystem, and journaled filesystems on
flash media generally burn them out faster. Wear leveling helps with it,
but the journal really isn't desirable on that type of media because it
shortens the media's life.
FAT32 (or vfat) is also desirable for lots of mobile devices (for that
very reason) and for portability between different operating systems.
While NTFS-3G provides pretty decent NTFS support in Linux, it's still
not as mature as the vfat/fat32 support in the kernel (of course, it
never really will be).
Jim
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Warp wrote:
>
> Is there a reason why someone would want to use FAT32 instead of eg. NTFS?
>
Yes, there is - it's pretty universally supported.
For example my camera doesn't support NTFS on the memory cards. It does
support FAT32, though. And with FAT32 the memory card is fully usable on
my work machines (WinXP, Win2003 and Win7) and my own machine (usually
Linux) without any hassling or problems.
-Aero
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On 9/7/2013 1:46 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Ur.. I would presume "security". See, the way I see it, this measure
>> they took wasn't to improve security at all, it was to damn up gaps in a
>> wall, so they thieves couldn't get out, while still letting them in
>> through the front gate.
>
> That's not a specific implementation, Patrick. Try again. You want to
> say that the current system sucks, fine - but propose something better.
> Dont' just say "security" as if that's a magic bullet. That's not
> something specific to be implemented, it's a concept. You're smarter
> than that.
>
Sigh.. You do realize that when they came up with this absurd solution
it was back with like 98/XP, where half the security they added since
didn't exist at all? So, sorry, but its not nonsensical to suggest
adding things that don't bloody exist *at all* in the OS in the first
place. As I pointed out, a big solution would be, "don't let people run
things without explicitly saying its OK to do so." We can argue whether
the current MS method of just asking, or the *nix version of having to
know what the F you are doing, in order to explicitly set run
permissions is better, and for whom, but the problem, for years, with
windows, and still is, in some cases, that things can either install
without asking, or circumvent safeguards, or, and this is the stupidest
one - nearly every installer under windows triggers the, "Are you sure
you want this thing to alter your machine?", question, which means
people will ignore the safeguard anyway. At best.. some of them might
question why a flash animation needs to, "change you machine
configuration", but seriously...
>> That would, imho, be a damn good start on it. MS didn't want to fix
>> their core problem, so they came up with one that "broke" existing
>> functionality, probably even for more than just that class of
>> applications, then, 10+ years later they "finally" fixed some of the
>> actual security.
>
> Technological implementation details, Patrick. Those are important. Not
> general "just do it" type BS language. How do you tell if a "small"
> program is a botnet or just a simple CLI utility (as is typical in the
> *nix world) that does a specific task?
>
I would say, not even a CLI, if it doesn't come with the OS, should be
allowed to do anything, unless you damn well know what it does, and
explicitly allow it. Or, more to the point, **especially** if its
something that small. But, heh, what the F do I know... And, its always
better to make everything "convenient", than make it safe, unless you
plan to make it a) convenient enough, and b) safe to the point where
doing what you want with it will brick the machine - i.e., most Apple
products.
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On Sun, 08 Sep 2013 10:24:20 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 9/7/2013 1:46 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>
>>> Ur.. I would presume "security". See, the way I see it, this measure
>>> they took wasn't to improve security at all, it was to damn up gaps in
>>> a wall, so they thieves couldn't get out, while still letting them in
>>> through the front gate.
>>
>> That's not a specific implementation, Patrick. Try again. You want to
>> say that the current system sucks, fine - but propose something better.
>> Dont' just say "security" as if that's a magic bullet. That's not
>> something specific to be implemented, it's a concept. You're smarter
>> than that.
>>
> Sigh.. You do realize that when they came up with this absurd solution
> it was back with like 98/XP, where half the security they added since
> didn't exist at all? So, sorry, but its not nonsensical to suggest
> adding things that don't bloody exist *at all* in the OS in the first
> place.
Explain how saying "security" is a *specific* solution, Patrick. Provide
some details as to what you mean - what would you /specifically/ add to
provide "security"?
> As I pointed out, a big solution would be, "don't let people run
> things without explicitly saying its OK to do so."
UAC. Already implemented. Or do you mean every time you launch an
application, you want something to pop-up to say (clippy-style, perhaps)
"I notice that you want to start Microsoft Word. Are you sure?"
> We can argue whether
> the current MS method of just asking, or the *nix version of having to
> know what the F you are doing, in order to explicitly set run
> permissions is better, and for whom, but the problem, for years, with
> windows, and still is, in some cases, that things can either install
> without asking, or circumvent safeguards, or, and this is the stupidest
> one - nearly every installer under windows triggers the, "Are you sure
> you want this thing to alter your machine?", question, which means
> people will ignore the safeguard anyway. At best.. some of them might
> question why a flash animation needs to, "change you machine
> configuration", but seriously...
Oh, you want users to actually be required to understand computers before
they use them?
Good luck with that.
>>> That would, imho, be a damn good start on it. MS didn't want to fix
>>> their core problem, so they came up with one that "broke" existing
>>> functionality, probably even for more than just that class of
>>> applications, then, 10+ years later they "finally" fixed some of the
>>> actual security.
>>
>> Technological implementation details, Patrick. Those are important.
>> Not general "just do it" type BS language. How do you tell if a
>> "small" program is a botnet or just a simple CLI utility (as is typical
>> in the *nix world) that does a specific task?
>>
> I would say, not even a CLI, if it doesn't come with the OS, should be
> allowed to do anything, unless you damn well know what it does, and
> explicitly allow it. Or, more to the point, **especially** if its
> something that small. But, heh, what the F do I know... And, its always
> better to make everything "convenient", than make it safe, unless you
> plan to make it a) convenient enough, and b) safe to the point where
> doing what you want with it will brick the machine - i.e., most Apple
> products.
Oh, so you want a completely locked down system that can only do things
that the OS vendor allows. Again, no specifics, and in that particular
case, the "abnormal" things you'd want to do would be explicitly
prohibited because they're not allowed.
You're nto making any sense here at all.
Jim
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> UAC. Already implemented. Or do you mean every time you launch an
> application, you want something to pop-up to say (clippy-style, perhaps)
> "I notice that you want to start Microsoft Word. Are you sure?"
Like this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Security_Essentials
--
- Warp
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On Sun, 08 Sep 2013 15:36:28 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> UAC. Already implemented. Or do you mean every time you launch an
>> application, you want something to pop-up to say (clippy-style,
>> perhaps)
>> "I notice that you want to start Microsoft Word. Are you sure?"
>
> Like this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Security_Essentials
Basically reactive virus scanning. Nothing really new there.
Jim
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On 9/8/2013 11:47 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Sigh.. You do realize that when they came up with this absurd solution
>> it was back with like 98/XP, where half the security they added since
>> didn't exist at all? So, sorry, but its not nonsensical to suggest
>> adding things that don't bloody exist *at all* in the OS in the first
>> place.
>
> Explain how saying "security" is a *specific* solution, Patrick. Provide
> some details as to what you mean - what would you /specifically/ add to
> provide "security"?
>
Explain how "add a lock" to a door that doesn't have one is a "specific
solution". I mean, your not specifying what sort of lock, right? Sigh...
Enough.
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Oh, and.. more to the point, now that they have something semi-decent,
they still block networking tools why? Its not like the botnet code is
going to, unless there is something fatally wrong with their "solution",
install itself any more, if the OS warns you now, when an application
tries to make the changes need for it to work, right? So, they are still
blocking the road why?
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On Mon, 09 Sep 2013 19:06:53 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 9/8/2013 11:47 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Sigh.. You do realize that when they came up with this absurd solution
>>> it was back with like 98/XP, where half the security they added since
>>> didn't exist at all? So, sorry, but its not nonsensical to suggest
>>> adding things that don't bloody exist *at all* in the OS in the first
>>> place.
>>
>> Explain how saying "security" is a *specific* solution, Patrick.
>> Provide some details as to what you mean - what would you
>> /specifically/ add to provide "security"?
>>
> Explain how "add a lock" to a door that doesn't have one is a "specific
> solution". I mean, your not specifying what sort of lock, right? Sigh...
> Enough.
You're not talking about something as simple as a door lock. You're
talking about computer security, so you have to be specific.
You want a lock that can distinguish between two identical keys, one used
for "legitimate" uses, and one that isn't.
That sort of lock doesn't exist.
Jim
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On Mon, 09 Sep 2013 19:14:46 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Oh, and.. more to the point, now that they have something semi-decent,
What, you mean MS Security Essentials? You think a /reactive/ tool is
semi-decent? One that isn't based on behaviour, but based on pattern
matching?
> they still block networking tools why? Its not like the botnet code is
> going to, unless there is something fatally wrong with their "solution",
Which there is - it's REACTIVE, not PROACTIVE or BEHAVIOURAL in nature.
The best types of behavioural technology are things like AppArmor and
SELinux, but those actually require a fair amount of expertise and skill
to set up - there isn't an "out of the box" configuration that works for
everyone, and it's not something your grandmother is going to be able to
set up reasonably.
Jim
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Le 2013-09-07 16:49, Jim Henderson a écrit :
> On Fri, 06 Sep 2013 17:01:44 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
>
>> Why would they need fewer people to support FAT32 by arbitrarily
>> limiting the size of the drives you can use it on to 1/1000th of its
>> full potential?
>
> Because when the code was written, it was written. To extend the
> limitation requires more code be written.
What do you mean by extend the limitation? When a programmer was
assigned the task of writing support for FAT32, why would he (or she) be
told to only support 1/1000th of the specifications full potential?"
(Apart from an oops where the programmer checked for a 16 gigabytes
limit instead of the 16 terabytes supported by the spec)
The 16 GB does not fall on any "natural" limit of the specification.
Even if the programmer decided to only write support for 512 byte
sectors, it could still format a drive as big as 2TB.
> To support that extra space in other applications requires testing and QA.
I know that. I still don't see why this is an issue here. When the
programmers were asked to implement the FAT32 system, why would they
only cripple the implementation? No sane manager would purposefully ask
his employees to half ass the job, because he should know that it will
only lead to more work down the road when his team has to finish the
work, unless there was a direction from upper management to prevent
users from using FAT32 and force them into a proprietary format.
I usually refrain from conspiracy theories about Microsoft's decisions,
but those two are the only two possible reasons here:
1. Upper management prevented large disks from using the FAT32
filesystem on purpose.
2. An incompetent programmer can't differentiate between gigabytes and
terabytes.
> Have you worked in a software company?
Only for the last 18 years, yes. (albeit, not in the software division,
but I interact with developpers on a daily basis)
> Do you know how software development and QA is done?
Yes. That's why I'm saying it doesn't make sense to say that, when the
specification says you can 2^32 sectors on the disk, the programmers
would arbitrarily set an upper limit or 2^26 sectors with 512b sectors
or 2^22 sectors with 4096b sectors. It creates a lot more scenarios to
validate.
>
> Even a /minor/ change to the code (say to make disk space reports not
> turn up negative numbers) requires regression testing to make sure it
> doesn't break anything else. *Trivial* stuff being fixed, done by large
> software companies, certainly, is not actually a trivial thing.
>
That's why I'm saying it would have made more sense to implement the
full specification the first time, instead of arbitrarily setting a
limit way below the actual limit.
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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Le 2013-09-10 10:07, Francois Labreque a écrit :
> Le 2013-09-07 16:49, Jim Henderson a écrit :
>> On Fri, 06 Sep 2013 17:01:44 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
>>
>>> Why would they need fewer people to support FAT32 by arbitrarily
>>> limiting the size of the drives you can use it on to 1/1000th of its
>>> full potential?
>>
>> Because when the code was written, it was written. To extend the
>> limitation requires more code be written.
>
> What do you mean by extend the limitation? When a programmer was
> assigned the task of writing support for FAT32, why would he (or she) be
> told to only support 1/1000th of the specifications full potential?"
> (Apart from an oops where the programmer checked for a 16 gigabytes
> limit instead of the 16 terabytes supported by the spec)
>
Correction to my prior post.
When the programmer was assigned the task of writing support for FAT32,
why would he or she be told to support the full specification for
reading and writing, but only allow formatting drives that are 1/1000th
or less of the size allowed infull specification? Apart from an oops
where the programmer checked for a 16 gigabytes limit instead of the 16
terabytes supported by the spec)
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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On 9/9/2013 9:50 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 09 Sep 2013 19:14:46 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Oh, and.. more to the point, now that they have something semi-decent,
>
> What, you mean MS Security Essentials? You think a /reactive/ tool is
> semi-decent? One that isn't based on behaviour, but based on pattern
> matching?
>
No, I meant the just adding in the "basic" functionality, without even
the extra, "You need to pay us more money to fix the gaping hole, which
it still won't fix.", that got added. The one that says, "This thing
needs to alter your machine, are you sure you want that?" In a sense, I
was semi-joking. But, only just. They are putting locks, and alarms,
etc. on the doors, and bars that come down, so if something gets in, it
can't get out (presumably, only.. not really), and leaving an unlocked
pet door, a shitty email client, default functionality, etc. all in
place, and their "solution" is, as you say, to make you pay more money
for something that only reacts "after" the fact... Hell, I can download
and install free tools to do that, and many of them watch the system for
changes, and specifically tell me which key changes, and whether or not
I want the damn thing to auto-run, or roll back the changes. So much for
"reactive" tools.
My point though is.. they can't even get the basics right, and, as a
result, basic shit that you can do safely in *nix, is locked, in case
your stupid enough to click something in an unprotected email, which
redirects you to a bad site, using "by default" 1005 active scripting,
to download a program, with no run restrictions, which will then, if the
writer has the slightest clue what they are doing, or buys the right
tool kit, will just disable everything it sees that might find it,
and/or alters the "whitelists" for those things, to include itself, or
any number of other things it **shouldn't have permission to do in the
first place**. Yet, they can't even do something as simple as adding a
NoScript like feature, into their web browser, which runs "everything"
on the machine, including their shitty email client... But, they block
security tools. You know.. the things you need to figure out why the
frak your network is going spastic, or even just your machine, due to
all the crap they let in the front door, but them Hotel California-d -
anything can check in, but its not allowed to leave. lol
You can argue all you want about my not having "solutions". The issue
here is just how bloody stupid the one things they added, and never
removed, 3-4 OS versions ago, actually is.
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On Tue, 10 Sep 2013 10:07:48 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
>> Even a /minor/ change to the code (say to make disk space reports not
>> turn up negative numbers) requires regression testing to make sure it
>> doesn't break anything else. *Trivial* stuff being fixed, done by
>> large software companies, certainly, is not actually a trivial thing.
>>
>>
> That's why I'm saying it would have made more sense to implement the
> full specification the first time, instead of arbitrarily setting a
> limit way below the actual limit.
Yeah, I'm not arguing that point. Fixing it, though, is another matter
altogether.
The limitation /is/ stupid, especially since it's so easily worked around.
Jim
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On Tue, 10 Sep 2013 19:13:32 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 9/9/2013 9:50 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 09 Sep 2013 19:14:46 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>>> Oh, and.. more to the point, now that they have something semi-decent,
>>
>> What, you mean MS Security Essentials? You think a /reactive/ tool is
>> semi-decent? One that isn't based on behaviour, but based on pattern
>> matching?
>>
> No, I meant the just adding in the "basic" functionality, without even
> the extra, "You need to pay us more money to fix the gaping hole, which
> it still won't fix.", that got added. The one that says, "This thing
> needs to alter your machine, are you sure you want that?" In a sense, I
> was semi-joking. But, only just. They are putting locks, and alarms,
> etc. on the doors, and bars that come down, so if something gets in, it
> can't get out (presumably, only.. not really), and leaving an unlocked
> pet door, a shitty email client, default functionality, etc. all in
> place, and their "solution" is, as you say, to make you pay more money
> for something that only reacts "after" the fact... Hell, I can download
> and install free tools to do that, and many of them watch the system for
> changes, and specifically tell me which key changes, and whether or not
> I want the damn thing to auto-run, or roll back the changes. So much for
> "reactive" tools.
MSE isn't an additional cost, it's just a download you can get. I use it
in my Windows VMs. But I'm under no misapprehensions as to what it
actually does or how useful it is. It's like the chain you put across
the door in a cheap motel room. It's something, but it's not much.
> My point though is.. they can't even get the basics right, and, as a
> result, basic shit that you can do safely in *nix, is locked, in case
> your stupid enough to click something in an unprotected email, which
> redirects you to a bad site, using "by default" 1005 active scripting,
> to download a program, with no run restrictions, which will then, if the
> writer has the slightest clue what they are doing, or buys the right
> tool kit, will just disable everything it sees that might find it,
> and/or alters the "whitelists" for those things, to include itself, or
> any number of other things it **shouldn't have permission to do in the
> first place**.
And yet *nix is not very popular on desktops. Hmm, I wonder why (and I'm
a Linux user).
> Yet, they can't even do something as simple as adding a
> NoScript like feature, into their web browser, which runs "everything"
> on the machine, including their shitty email client... But, they block
> security tools. You know.. the things you need to figure out why the
> frak your network is going spastic, or even just your machine, due to
> all the crap they let in the front door, but them Hotel California-d -
> anything can check in, but its not allowed to leave. lol
Well, finally, you've got some actually technological suggestions for
things they can do. Well done. LOL
> You can argue all you want about my not having "solutions". The issue
> here is just how bloody stupid the one things they added, and never
> removed, 3-4 OS versions ago, actually is.
You really overestimate the abilities of the average PC user. Most users
don't want to be bothered with whitelisting or other stuff like that -
they just want to use the damn thing. Most users don't have the need you
apparently do to do "approved unorthodox diagnostic work". They just
reboot and get back to their Word doc.
Jim
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On 9/10/2013 8:16 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> You can argue all you want about my not having "solutions". The issue
>> here is just how bloody stupid the one things they added, and never
>> removed, 3-4 OS versions ago, actually is.
>
> You really overestimate the abilities of the average PC user. Most users
> don't want to be bothered with whitelisting or other stuff like that -
> they just want to use the damn thing. Most users don't have the need you
> apparently do to do "approved unorthodox diagnostic work". They just
> reboot and get back to their Word doc.
>
> Jim
>
True enough.. and, this is a perfect example imo of why, after the Apple
II line, the whole thing went to shit - you no longer had to know how
any of it worked, or, even on a hardware level, could find out (where
Apple gave you a built in language, which you could boot to even without
an OS, and a complete circuit diagram). The whole, "It will work if I
reboot." thing is just.. gah! But, yeah, most people won't even try to
comprehend the basics, and treat a PC likes is a big cell phone (and
have done so since before cell phones).
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On Wed, 11 Sep 2013 10:14:24 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> True enough.. and, this is a perfect example imo of why, after the Apple
> II line, the whole thing went to shit - you no longer had to know how
> any of it worked, or, even on a hardware level, could find out (where
> Apple gave you a built in language, which you could boot to even without
> an OS, and a complete circuit diagram). The whole, "It will work if I
> reboot." thing is just.. gah! But, yeah, most people won't even try to
> comprehend the basics, and treat a PC likes is a big cell phone (and
> have done so since before cell phones).
Well, for most people, PCs are tools. It's like driving a car - most
people don't know how to fix them, but most people also know how to drive
them (allegedly).
There are always those of us who want to see what's "under the hood", but
most people don't really give a shit - they just want to do their job,
and the tool they use helps them do it.
That's a lot of why Windows works the way it does.
Jim
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Le 2013-09-11 13:14, Patrick Elliott a écrit :
> On 9/10/2013 8:16 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>
>>> You can argue all you want about my not having "solutions". The issue
>>> here is just how bloody stupid the one things they added, and never
>>> removed, 3-4 OS versions ago, actually is.
>>
>> You really overestimate the abilities of the average PC user. Most users
>> don't want to be bothered with whitelisting or other stuff like that -
>> they just want to use the damn thing. Most users don't have the need you
>> apparently do to do "approved unorthodox diagnostic work". They just
>> reboot and get back to their Word doc.
>>
>> Jim
>>
> True enough.. and, this is a perfect example imo of why, after the Apple
> II line, the whole thing went to shit - you no longer had to know how
> any of it worked, or, even on a hardware level, could find out (where
> Apple gave you a built in language, which you could boot to even without
> an OS, and a complete circuit diagram). The whole, "It will work if I
> reboot." thing is just.. gah! But, yeah, most people won't even try to
> comprehend the basics, and treat a PC likes is a big cell phone (and
> have done so since before cell phones).
Most users use their PC they would any other office equipment, and
expect them to be as easy to use and as reliable as a stapler.
Expecting them to be able to understand how everything works in their PC
is akin to asking the average driver to be able to tweak the valve
timing on their car.
--
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/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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