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CharlotteTheHarlot

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  1. To skinpack ... As a courtesy to your fellow MSFN members you should explain in your post several things about your linked website and files ... (1) There is no need to click on the gigantic green Download Now! button on the top of the page. Because if they do they will not receive the promised skin pack, but instead they will get a stub downloader EXE and be forced to trust the programmer of that file with their system security. (2) Instead, they should scroll down to the text link that simply says "Download" that links directly to the skin pack zip file. (3) You might also point out that both the Win7 and Win8 downloads are to the same exact file called: "SkinPack_Mavericks_3.0.zip".. ... ADDED: After looking at this I see it contains a file called SkinPack Mavericks 3.0.exe that is an NSIS executable SFX that extracts to 1,379 files and 169 folders of non-english jibberish and would take quite a while to decipher if it is all kosher or not. It is possible it also contains an adware/ bloatware like the WinXP file. My question is why this mess rather than a typical simple skin pack? (4) I also see a separate different one for WinXP on this page, but hosted at DeviantArt. ... ADDED: You might also want to note that the XP file called mavericks_skin_pack_1_0_xp_by_downloadsp-d6v58np.exe from DeviantArt is not a typical friendly skin download. It is an NSIS executable SFX that contains a few executable utilities in addition to the skin files, and at least one adware/bloatware called: TopTaskbar.exe. My question is the same as above, why not a typical simple skin pack? The Skin sample screenshots do look pretty good though. EDIT: added more about the WinXP file. EDIT2: added more about the Win7/Win8 file.
  2. Just thought of something ... This is pretty big news. It is as close to an admission of failure as we're likely to ever see. Microsoft turned the computer industry upside down to sell Windows 8 and related turds and now they are trying something new yet again, copying Android! You know this means one thing - they have looked at the sales figures up and down and finally become convinced they lost big and can never catch up or even compete. The question is this: what on Earth do they do once giving it away for free still does not interest the consumers? Take a look at exactly what Microsoft has accomplished here ... - Played patent games to lock down use of file systems. - Then they use that IP to extort money from other companies, like those using Android. - Then they release an alternative OS to this market - and then make it free. - OEM decision: Android costs money but Microsoft Tiles is free! Familiar pattern? Stripped down from all the fanboy remarks it resembles EEE once again. You know this was hatched in a meeting in Redmond. Sure hope they archive their emails and memos for the Congressional investigation because Google has much deeper pockets than Netscape did. No surprise to me, nor in what I think. I have said many times before: Microsoft should be broken up, period. Should have been long ago because the OS portion needs a firewall between them and everyone else. Microsoft cannot self-regulate . They are incapable of it. Given any opportunity they will flaunt the rules and regulations and try to kill other things that live in the same space or exist in new spaces they want to invade. It started with Bill Gates and has now matriculated into the corporate DNA. Microsoft is truly like a child carrying around a toy gun who cannot help but to shoot everything he sees, but this IP gun is no toy. In this case using file systems to fleece money from OEMs. If there had been a sane patent system or some good judges this would have been tossed out long ago. One must wonder if Bill Gates really should be the richest monopolist on Earth, or should it instead have been Tim Paterson. Pretty amazing feat that was. Snaking away something he created and using it to rule the world. But that's another story.
  3. Well I get your frustration, all except for the most mindless of sheeple will get it, but it will take more than : "When I see the headline reads "facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, AOL, Twitter, and various land line companies, all go to court to stop invasion of privacy laws ..." in my opinion. Much more. I think if nothing else we have illustrated through this selection of security articles one thing - the infiltration is pervasive, thorough and perhaps complete. In a sense we have had a paradigm shifting revelation since the spook leaks and it will be a long time for the sheeple grazing on this round rock to realize it isn't flat or stationary at the center of the universe. That revelation has completely inverted what we thought we knew before. Previously the expectation was that people were mostly secure and private but subject to rare and specific cases of scrutiny. It is completely and truly the exact opposite and it was that way all along - we have nearly zero effective security and privacy, the rare circumstance is actually being secure and private and that is achieved only after massive amount of effort and money. These companies will never care about user privacy or concerns because the managers and directors involved are in fact safe and secure themselves in their limos and gated castles with security companies ( tech and physical ) watching over them. They are the feudal nobility and have never been known to side with the serfs over the government ( royalty, elected, totalitarian, whatever ). Sure they have been trying to announce these little baby steps to appease us but it means nothing IMHO. How do you unravel PRISM when Microsoft joined it first as the primary partner? This was back when the only products of note were Windows and Office and Server ( no mobile, no cloud ). What exactly did they need Microsoft for in 2006? You can't think of today's Microsoft when asking what the feds wanted in 2006. How do you ever get faith in Yahoo when their fashion plate CEO is cowered by the federal spooks and fears jail for not bending over whenever they ask. She's said as much. Same goes for all of them. Some bend over very easily, others needed persuasion, threats or bribes. Fighting for freedom is hard work, and it very rarely happens that high profile people with lots to lose join the peasants, lend their gravitas and do what's right ( Ben Franklin comes to mind and believe me there is no trace of him to be found in Bill Gates or Ballmer or Zuck or any of them ). The bottom line is that the spooks are on a long term plan to have multiple redundant points of instant access to any and all technology, at will. Every possible stone is being turned over. Getting whatever they got from Microsoft back during the XP to Longhorn/Vista rewrite ( source code no doubt, and the ability to slip in "enhancements" as updates ) were just the preliminaries. The goal is that if you are a spook and you are handed a task ( whether it is a computer HDD or communication to access and decrypt ) they are building the tools and infrastructure to do it, and there appears to be no line they will not cross. Suddenly Orwell looks like a generous optimist. BTW, I like to distinguish between the amazing codebreakers from the early 20th century up until World War II, and those phony codebreakers and their criminal bosses that are present ever since. The shift from math skills, logic and creative thinking that dominated the early period when this was a respectable field died when a certain agency was given big desks, big buildings and big budgets to keep themselves occupied. Inevitably they wound up doing exactly what the very enemy they fought against did, building a Gestapo/KGB clandestine service that specializes in spying on its own citizens and is effectively existing to preserve the government from being changed by those citizens. We should start by calling them what they are: Gestapo/KGB. The only real difference is that we in the modern west structure them with a division of labor rather than the more efficient German/Russian models of yore. Ours still have all the same potential, they spy at will, carry weapons, wear snazzy uniforms, jackboots, body armor, drag people off, lock them up, confiscate their possessions, shoot them, kill them, except we assign different people to different aspects of that. We are very civilized you see. So again, I say we should at least begin by calling them what they are, it is effective as ridicule and every so often you strike a nerve in a few of them. I don't care what they or anyone thinks, I'll go down with the First Amendment. When I see the part of the Constitution that says the People and the several States granted the power to the federal government to spy on its very own citizens and lock them up or execute them then I'll shut up ( or support an Amendment to remove it ). But it does not exist, it never happened, and I have read the Federalist papers many times. We're now in an extraordinary situation with a government acting far outside its parameters and defined duties. When a software program does that its a bug not a feature and gets deleted. Time to reformat.
  4. How about creating a new user account. Or, try the built-in Administrator account. But ... neither should be done yet ... nor should you try to get online or join a network until the system is *definitely* cleaned. In the interest of time it makes sense to just pull the HDD out, install it in a clean system as a slave ( a system set up with on-demand AV scanners and repair tools ), and run multiple scans against it "remotely". You will also want to manually go into all the TEMP locations and browser caches and desktops and user document folder trees and delete stuff that the automated scanners always miss. You also want to double check the boot sector and BOOT ini and traditional startup and task folders. Accessing the registry remotely and checking the startup keys for all users is also recommended. The services and tasks will also need fine tooth comb treatment. There is no way to ever be certain that a system has been cleaned when performing the operations under that same live system. Even if the malware itself has no active countermeasures, the hurdle is Windows itself especially in later versions. It will block you from repairs just as effectively as malware. To achieve high confidence of "clean" it needs to be done outside of the infected box. Most of this can also be done by using remote access from something like DaRT or other environment. FWIW, the lack of Internet or LAN is usually not a big deal, it might just be a FUBAR setting, policy or permission. If the system was new and never infected I would simply disable the NIC in the BIOS, then go to device manager in safe mode, show all devices, delete the NIC and associated networking, re-enable in the BIOS, reboot and reinstall the drivers. Or simply reinstall all the chipset drivers from scratch. Personally I wouldn't do this though, not until I pulled that disk and thoroughly "washed" it on another system ( or did it from DaRT ).
  5. Yahoo Makes HTTPS Default on Most Company Sites ( Tom's Hardware 2014-04-03 ) Yahoo strengthens encryption between data centers, says encrypted Yahoo messenger coming soon ( TechSpot 2014-04-03 ) Do they seriously believe that these baby steps will impress anyone other than the most complacent and ignorant sheeple? Facebook Could Go Anonymous (Report) ( Tom's Hardware 2014-04-04 ) Wow, that'll totally convince everyone it's safe, secure and private. You're really good at this Zuck! U.S. knocks plans for European communication network ( Yahoo! News 2014-04-04 ) No word on whether the USTR spokesmouth made this statement with a straight face!
  6. Microsoft's new Xbox leader admits team made some early "wrong decisions" for Xbox One ( NeoWin 2014-04-06 ) These guys are terrible at mea culpas and apologies. Terrible. It's like everything they say comes directly out of a sterile human resources textbook written by a committee of eggheads that never even saw a customer in real life. Unreal Engine creator: 'I genuinely worry about the future of Microsoft' ( NeoWin 2014-04-01 ) In the comments the slow cooking frogs have no idea the water is heating up and their ultimate fate. But at least there are a few there that seem to understand what the guy is trying to say. Unreal Engine 4.1 update includes support for Linux and SteamOS ( TechSpot 2014-04-04 ) Well it's safe to say the 'Tards are going to have to begin hating Epic and Unreal. This is a really great thing for Linux/Valve though. Microsoft's anti-malware team to have new adware rules July 1 ( NeoWin 2014-04-05 ) Okay then, someone has got to ask: if this is their NEW rule, does that really mean that the current rule ALLOWS fake dialogs without X buttons and no uninstall entries? Who allowed this stuff to be considered legitimate software for all this time? Someone did. Actually I knew this for a long time as I see MANY computers with MSSE happily running ( green icon ) while spyware and/or viruses run in plain sight. It has been perfectly obvious to me they do block very little if anything at all.
  7. Touch-friendly Office coming to Windows, demoed at BUILD ( NeoWin 2014-04-02 ) Must be wonderfully painful for the MetroTards to watch Microsoft roll out a native build for iStuff *before* making versions for their beloved Microsoft Tile Toys. Anyway, Microsoft has now promised them the check in is the mail. Please begin holding your breath now. Microsoft: Office for iPad surpasses 12 million downloads ( NeoWin 2014-04-03 ) If you're a MetroTard, how do you even process this news? 7 days and 12 million downloads. There is no easy way to swallow this unless you now only care about number of devices out there potentially using the Microsoft store. You certainly no longer have any hope that the iSheep will drop Apple stuff and switch to Windows. No chance of that whatsoever now. In fact this could actually do the opposite and add some switchers to Apple from those disillusioned Windows users who are still hesitant to pull the trigger on an iPad or iPhone because of the missing Office that they are familiar with. Hehehe Microsoft Store site selling Surface Pro 2 with free Xbox controller and two games ( NeoWin 2014-04-03 ) Another firesale for MicroStuff that the MicroTards keep insisting are selling fine and in no trouble at all. Microsoft officially makes Windows free for devices under 9 inches ( NeoWin 2014-04-02 ) This is pretty big news. It is as close to an admission of failure as we're likely to ever see. Microsoft turned the computer industry upside down to sell Windows 8 and related turds and now they are trying something new yet again, copying Android! You know this means one thing - they have looked at the sales figures up and down and finally become convinced they lost big and can never catch up or even compete. The question is this: what on Earth do they do once giving it away for free still does not interest the consumers? Naturally the NuMensa members at NeoWin ( requires an IQ below 100 ) have cheered themselves up with daydreams and fantasies ... Nothing can penetrate their madness. Nothing.
  8. Windows 8.1 Update 1 launches April 8, Start Menu returns in later update ( TechSpot 2014-04-02 ) Microsoft bringing Start menu back in future Windows 8.1 update ( NeoWin 2014-04-02 ) Microsoft is Bringing Back the Start Menu and Catering to Mouse and Keyboard Users ( Maximum PC 2014-04-03 ) And as Formfiller suggested, most of the 'Tards are turning right around and agreeing with the decision. There are a few who are angry, and of course Dot MetroTard is busy posting fantasies to erase the "it will never happen" predictions he has spouted for about two years now. Mentioned above by Jorge ... Microsoft: Start button was 'warm blanket' taken from Windows 8 ( NeoWin 2014-04-03 ) Kinda funny to hear this half-hearted mea culpa ( still not doing it right though ) from Chaitanya Sareen. We here in this very thread have discussed him several times when he was featured defending this abomination. See Post #575, and Post #3443. In the comments as usual we get a glimpse into the minds of the short bus riders, this one lecturing on why the Start Menu is bad ( so many clicks! ) ... Ignoring the fact that "productivity" means checking Twitter and Facebook and Xbox game stuff. What I'd really like to know is where on Earth did this lie about clicks come from! Seriously, I count NOT multiple clicks, NOT even one click, I count 1/2-click to anywhere into any and all flyout submenus. Can someone else verify this please, do the following: Click on the Start Button and keep holding it down, now you can move straight into and out of any submenus ( including Control Panel or even All Programs ) to anywhere, and then you finally release the button to execute or open your choice! One half-click to anywhere, one click in total to do anything ... The only thing that I can think of is that what we have here is the 3rd "big lie" perpetrated by these GUI propagandists. ( The 1st was the Win95 "resistance" to change, the 2nd is the WinXP "Playskool GUI vs Theme" nonsense ). What we also have here are liars who not only weren't around during the Win95 or WinXP transitions, but they haven't really even used WinXP or else they couldn't possibly believe there are multiple clicks to navigate through the Start Menu. Just how n00bish can these sheeple'tards be to be this mistaken after all this time! From The Forums: The Start menu's return ( NeoWin 2014-04-06 ) Poor Dot MetroTard making a fool out of herself throught the thread and in the forum. Thing is, this Playskool toy operating system is now getting a little long in the tooth. It was first shown to the press THREE years ago in early 2011 ( see Post #3248.) Ironically that exactly matches the three years that Windows 7 existed before being dumped for Windows 8. It's time for a change Dot MetroTard! Stop resisting you Luddite.
  9. Last call at the Windows XP FUDpocalypse ... Windows 7 is Growing Too Fast for Windows 8 to Catch Up ( Maximum PC 2014-04-02 ) One week before supports ends, Windows XP still installed on 27.69 percent of PCs ( NeoWin 2014-04-01 ) I stopped believing these numbers at the red line. Microsoft has many times paid companies to spread propaganda, I think they are doing it again. Great comment at NeoWin by someone that has verified what I myself also have done for several years ... Naturally the NeoKids can't process this outside-the-MicroBox thinking and panic like a herd of birds ... There's a good little sheep. Disconnect from the Internet, oh my! Baaaaahhhhhhhh! Stupidity? He ( and I ) are busy documenting that you and your FUD are wrong, have been all along. You are full of robotic responses, you have nothing to back up your fear with, you are actually trying hard to yell 'fire' in a crowded theater, and help sell more copies of Windows while you're at it. That's a good little MicroBoy. Now off to bed so mommy can tuck you in and keep you safe from all the monsters under your bed. Dropping Support for Windows XP Could Drive Users to Chromebooks ( NeoWin 2014-04-02 ) So just now they're catching on? Hmmmm, I wonder why ... London Borough ditches Windows XP in favor of Google Chromebooks ( TechSpot 2014-04-02 ) The photo Microsoft used for the Windows XP default wallpaper is (mostly) untouched ( NeoWin 2014-04-01 ) Not a FUD piece, just a trip down memory lane with the old Bliss wallpaper. Funny thing is one of the chief MicroTards can't help but to open mouth and spew nonsense ... The first whopper there is intentionally confusing the Windows XP theme with the Windows 8 Playskool GUI. I repeat, theme versus GUI. Windows XP could be only called 'Fisher Price' by the most unintelligent of users, the proto-sheeple that ironically love the retarded Metro. There were no GUI changes from Win9x to WinXP, the theme just decorated the GUI and that was a click away to change. The whole theme was just settings in single visual style file with that green and blue color scheme and the separate bliss wallpaper. The GUI did change however in Vista+ and it was substantially mangled in Microsoft Tiles. Yet this MetroTard intentionally confuses the two completely different cases, probably in an effort to rationalize away the fact that so many can see the nonsense in Windows 8 that he cannot see. This is one of those classic lies used by MetroTards, it is as big a whopper as the lie about resistance to the new Win95 GUI. What do yo expect I guess. Liars lie. That second part about IRQ's does not ring any bells with me, so I suspect this 'Tard is actually one who was too young to be a foot soldier in those days and just makes up past memories to fill the gaps in his obviously Vista+ era CV. What I do remember was people wanting to use the same exact *differing* IRQ's in WinXP when the OS would combine them on its own, sometimes piling four devices onto the same IRQ whereas in Win9x they could be forced onto separate ones after much fiddling. In effect here the 'Tard has it totally backwards as no-one wanted to pile them together on purpose. Why would they? Like I said, a fake Windows veteran who is busy impressing his easily impressed fellow MetroTards with his fake memories. EDIT: typo
  10. Important find, and detailed article. Let's put the title on the record here ... Exclusive: NSA infiltrated RSA security more deeply than thought - study ( Reuters 2014-03-31 ) And someone involved with Firefox won't like this ... I'll bet Rescorla is not a big fan of Snowden or Bruce Schneier or any other of the critics. I have my own theory often stated here that these types of government sponsored backdoors were intended for general consumption, to be picked up by many or most software developers. However it would be beyond stupid for us to now believe this is the only egg in their basket. I am starting to wonder if these are part of an elaborate plan to be the mostly visible portion, their thinking being 'hey, if we get this in, then great, but let's work real hard on the deep stuff'. So these are expendable things, they can be written off and discarded. So why would they really want backdoors in Windows ( and all software, but in this specific case Windows ) in the first place? The answer to that means we must first dodge all the strawmen distractions of spying on users. They already had that ability as the CALEA stuff showed long before 9/11, and even before that they have routinely used the courts and sympathetic judges and grand juries to revoke those pesky Fourth and Fifth Amendments at will. And they always have the local cops available to knock down doors and confiscate anything they want, they can even trump up popularly approved charges of drug running or child porn or whatever suits them. No, I believe this is really about getting access to NTFS encryption ( and other OS flavors ). This connection has yet to be made in all the security revelations. Wikipedia: NTFS encryption ... I do not believe that statement any longer: "Accessing encrypted files from outside Windows with other operating systems (Linux, for example) is not possible",. I believe that it has all been about this very thing since the beginning. The timeline suggests to me that in the 1990's they got most of what they wanted as mentioned above, but probably hit the roadblock of encrypted private computers taken from suspects and terrorists ( in fact one of the 9/11 almost hijackers had an encrypted disk IIRC ). I think it all will become clear if we ever find out the post-9/11 post-WinXP to Vista+ transition story. PRISM falls right into this calendar, as well as ballooning defense and black budgets, numerous legislation, and exposed black-bag jobs. The absence of speculation about this is starting to look suspicious IMHO. Sure, the RSA guys are catching some flak, and some little amount of criticism has been directed at Microsoft and others, but still not enough to overcome the chorus of enablers out there. I'm looking forward to this specific area being exposed. Of course there will be nothing to celebrate aside from the fact that journalists and sycophants are proved wrong again and are so easily misled and distracted. It will mean ( and already does IMHO ) that there is absolutely no privacy or security to be found anywhere. It will mean that Orwell was thinking small and his fictitious Little Brother can't hold a candle to our very real Big Brother.
  11. Actually I wasn't clear. I knew about 2K/XP on FAT32, but just never felt like trying because of the inevitable disk limitations, and the lesser integrity from non-journaling and other safety valves. What I meant was some way to create an NTFS system without $Secure, and to further the daydreaming - some way to eliminate streams also ( streams I am just biased against because of the concept of hiding stuff from the computer owner. ) The thing about ACL's is they are implemented in all-or-none fashion. I think a better idea would have been starting with a fresh naked NTFS space, no ACL's on any object, and only then adding them in for specific objects when wanted. Windows API should have used functions that first test for presence of ACL on an object and then efficiently fall through when absent, and only cycling through security procedures when they do exist. Unfortunate design choices in the early NT era I guess, because if in Windows functions ACL's are assumed to exist everywhere there is little to be gained by removing $secure from NTFS because Windows itself will still be doing the work as if they were there. Presently we have the worst possible implementation IMHO, access control lists for every object ( file/folder/key ) and they must be consulted for every transaction, and of course are available to be tampered with by everyone at will, and there is no comprehensive tool to manage the chaos. However, ACL's created à la carte ( i.e., objects are clean by default, permissions only exist when intentionally specified ) would mean you could pull up a list of all ACL's ( maybe only existing for 1% of all objects ) and the entire thing would be manageable, and changes such as modifications or new or deleted permissions could be identified easily. The event log could perhaps be used to show the history of such creations/deletions/changes as well. It's just such a mess now. Bonus philosophical question of the day: was SETACL a godsend or a thorn in our side. ( NB: it came along in the WinXP transition era, but in the years since most of the same functionality has been added to setup applications like INNO etc. When you create a setup.exe these days it's as simple as a checkbox or added parameter to specify permissions on not only the distribution files, but anything on the target system. In fact it's really a simple matter to whip up a "permissions fixer" standalone EXE that corrects/creates problems on a system. )
  12. A great experiment which I never did was to install Windows XP on FAT instead of NTFS. ( never wanted to deal with potential structural problems or huge disk limits ). But it would be nice to test Windows XP without any ACL's mucking up the mix, not to mention hidden streams. I doubt it is possible but I figured you would know if there was a way to format NTFS without those particular metadata. Of course, there may be some dependencies in Windows XP that crap out when that metadata does not exist. But if it were possible, I believe every transaction would see an immediate boost in speed due to absent permission checking on every read/write, not to mention non-file-I/O logic not wasting time with admin/standard permissions. That is the theory of course. No guarantee the good guys in Redmond considered writing dual-use code ( that is, dual file system compatibility ) it might run through the permissions functions anyway and return "not-NTFS" and save no time whatsoever.
  13. Suspicion is growing that something similar may have been done with Apple OS's: Looking back, we lose even when we win these big issues. Clipper-Chip, Carnivore, SOPA, whatever. They never stop. I recall the argument in the 1990's to be either we quadruple the spook budget to let them make massive supercomputers to brute force decrypt on demand, or, we bend over and accept backdoors on everything and taps placed on every single segment of communication pipe. Instead, after 9/11, they just did both, and everything in between. Wikipedia: Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) That began in 1994 and naturally was greatly enhanced since 9/11. Why on Earth would anyone even pretend to doubt that all the software companies ( PRISM! ) have done the same thing? The operating systems are compromised people! I'm keeping some Win9x and older systems mothballed, and won't decommission any WinXP computer ever again. EDIT: "Clipper" not V-Chip. Doh! old brain indeed.
  14. Yes exactly. Go to the original source! Unless he was looking for archived versions that is. To the OP, you do realize this does NOT prove that file seen in that folder came from MBAM install process. Why don't you post the link of the MBAM setup and I'll check it out.
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