Gmail and GTray

August 31, 2004

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Gmail and GTray - here's a neat little program that sits in your system tray and notifies you of new messages in your Gmail account. It uses https for authentication (which Google's own program doesn't).

On another note, I have several invites laying around. If you want an invite shoot me an email systemgod[at]gmail[dot]com.

Favorite Freeware by James A. Eshelman

August 25, 2004

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Favorite Freeware - This guy has a great little collection of freeware utils..

Windows XP Services Removal Guide

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Windows XP Services Removal Guide

Gmail Notifier

August 20, 2004

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Gmail Notifier: "The Gmail Notifier is a downloadable Windows application that alerts you when you have new Gmail messages. It displays an icon in your system tray to let you know if you have unread Gmail messages, and shows you their subjects, senders and snippets, all without your having to open a web browser. "

Group Policy Settings Reference for .adm files

August 19, 2004

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Group Policy Settings Reference for .adm files included with Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2: "This spreadsheet lists the full set of Group Policy settings described in Administrative Template (.adm) files shipped with Windows Professional Service Pack 2. This includes all policy settings supported on Windows 2000 (to Service Pack 4), Windows XP Professional (to Service Pack 2) and Windows Server 2003. The spreadsheet includes separate worksheets for each of the .adm files shipped, as well as a consolidated worksheet for easy searching. Additionally, an "Update History" worksheet has been added to list those policy settings added since Windows Server 2003 was released. Using column filters, the spreadsheet allows simple filtering by operating system, component and machine/user configuration, as well as regular text search of keywords through Excel."

Researchers find holes in XP SP2

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Researchers find holes in XP SP2: "Security researchers inspecting an update to Microsoft%27s Windows XP found two software flaws that could allow virus writers and malicious hackers to sidestep new security features in the operating system."

Ok this is just plain stupid. The actual advisory (posted here: http://www.heise.de/security/artikel/50051) states that some user interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability, such as having the user type cmd exploitname.exe (or whatever file extension). They also say that this method bypasses some antivirus software. HOW IS THIS AN EXPLOIT!!?!? If I talked someone into opening Windows Firewall and opening up port 145 to the outside world, is that a vulnerability in the Operating System? What if I tricked someone into giving me thier password, is that a vulnerability of that system's authentication mechanisms? NO. At the most this is an exploit of the user's intelligence, if that.

Changing Recovery/Restore Passwords on MS Servers

August 17, 2004

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239803 - How to Change the Recovery Console Administrator Password on a Domain Controller

322672 - How To Reset the Directory Services Restore Mode Administrator Account Password in Windows Server 2003

Some programs seem to stop working after you install Windows XP Service Pack 2

August 16, 2004

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842242 - Some programs seem to stop working after you install Windows XP Service Pack 2 - informative article on how to set up the windows firewall to get your programs to work.

Windows XP GP in W2K Domains

August 13, 2004

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307900 - Upgrading Windows 2000 Group Policy for Windows XP

322176 - HOW TO: Administer GPO Properties in Windows 2000

Applying Windows XP Group Policy in a Windows 2000 Domain (Part 1)

Windows Server 2003 and RAM in excess of 4GB

August 12, 2004

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283037 - Large memory support is available in Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003

Google Groups: View Thread "W2k3 32-bit - more than 4GB RAM useful?" - 1. (modified) Physical Address Extensions (PAE) mode is automatically set on
if a) you are running WS2003 Enterprise or Datacenter Edition and b) your
machine has more than 4Gb of physical RAM and c) your BIOS indicates that
your machine supports hot pluggable memory. If your machine meets a) and b),
but not c), you can add the /PAE switch in boot.ini to enable access to more
than 4Gb of physical RAM. In all other cases the OS will not use more than
4Gb of physical RAM.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 Released.

August 09, 2004

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Download details: Windows XP Service Pack 2 for IT Professionals and Developers - "Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) provides new proactive security technologies for Windows XP to better defend against viruses, worms, and hackers. In addition to a more robust security infrastructure, SP2 improves the security configuration options of Windows XP and provides better security information to help users faced with security decisions."

It's finally here!!

A White Hat s Penetration Test

August 06, 2004

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A White Hat s Penetration Test: "By Mati Aharoni
Contributing Writer
Article Date: 2003-12-15
This tutorial is more of a 'case study', in which I describe a recent penetration test I performed. Due to the success of the penetration test (in a relatively very short time) I decided to share this experience with you."

This is a great walk through of the Chain of Events that lead a guy armed only with a domain name to gain admin control over a companie's mail server and network. Great read. {note: If anyone has any more "hack stories" like this, please send me an email (systemgod@gmail.com). I love reading this type of thing.}

Symantec and XP SP2: Relevant Links

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Symantec Enterprise Support: "This page provides you with links to the most relevant knowledge base documents for SP2 and your Symantec antivirus and desktop firewall products."

Defcon 12's Fear and Hacking in Vegas

August 05, 2004

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Tom's Hardware Guide Business Reports: Defcon 12's Fear and Hacking in Vegas - Introduction: Another sweet article about the last Defcon that ended at the beginning of this month. As you can tell, I really miss going. The last Defcon I attended was Defcon 6, and I've been trying to go back ever since. Hopefully, there's always next year.

PDAs under attack

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PDAs under attack: "Kaspersky Labs has detected Backdoor.WinCE.Brador.a, the first backdoor for PDAs running under PocketPC (based on Windows CE).
Brador is a classic Trojan backdoor program: it opens the infected machine for remote administration. Brador is 5632 bytes in size and it infects handhelds running Pocket PC."

Blackhat/Defcon: The final report

August 03, 2004

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NewsForge | Blackhat/Defcon: The final report: "The week-long Defcon 12 and Blackhat Briefings ended Sunday. Taking center stage in our final report are Google, a video history of bulletin board systems, a healthy dose of 'lessons not learned' by our federal bureaucracy, anarchy, and the threat of physical violence." - This is a great article by someone who was actually in attendance of both events. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend Defcon due to family situation (kid) and financial restraints. There's always next year!

Wired News: Wi-Fi Shootout in the Desert

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Wired News: Wi-Fi Shootout in the Desert: "The teens from Cincinnati got an ovation at the DefCon hacker conference here Sunday when organizers announced at the Alexis Park Resort that the winners of this year's Wi-Fi shootout might have broken a world record for ground distance in establishing a 55.1-mile Wi-Fi connection. "

This is a great article..