ivucica blog

Kylie has found a lot of happy words on her dad’s computer. And it just so happens that they’re all about Windows 7.

“Come here, Kylie, let me tell you a story about how grandpa was making daddy very happy…”

Today I found these happy words on Microsoft’s site. And it just so happens that someone at Microsoft is a very special boy whose dad must have made many children very happy.

I’ve just had a run-in with deactivation of Windows XP due to “significant hardware changes since the copy was last activated”. But, since I installed XP, the only thing I did was remove 512MB of RAM in the laptop, and install 1GB of RAM. I also plugged in the USB mouse during the bootup.

(By the way, unusually for tech-savvy Croats, this is a legit copy. From MSDNAA and FER, of course

If you have problems with Windows XP logging off — that is, the system inexplicably decides to wait for about a minute before it proceeds with log off or shutdown — you may want to give Microsoft’s UPHclean – User Profile Hive Service a spin. It just helped me with this problem that was harassing me for the past full calendar year.

And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You have to read between the lines letters. Each simple Latin letter, each simple glyph in fact consists of such fractal-like complexity that each one can stand for itself and tell the world a story of biblical proportions.

Behold:

test

So I was happily reading Slashdot, and there came up an interesting-looking ad. One of those annoying video ads that eat up your bandwidth. I looked at it, and it interested me. I’m talking about Stop H*Commerce campaign from McAfee.

So, the McAfee guys came up with this buzzword, H*Commerce. Basically they mean “hacker business”, or “hacking for living”: malware writers, botnet owners, spammers, scammers, etc. And they want to stop it. Naturally, they only claim so, since were it stopped, they’d be out of business; still, you know, you have to instigate people’s fears and confidence in your ability to solve them. Read on.

So far, I’ve watched their intro, and the episode 1.

I believe myself to be well-informed about computer security. I’m not an expert, and my software is surely full of holes (luckily it’s not very popular so nobody is interested in abusing the holes). However, there’s a completely different perspective that someone well-informed will have as opposed to those who are … not so well-informed. McAfee is obviously counting on those “other” millions of people, the uninformed, unwashed masses. Their intro (or you may also call it a trailer, since the content appears in the episodes as well) contains a Bush-type fear campaign.

I’d outline it as follows:

• Uninformed person clicks on an ad
• Instead of being bombarded with neutral piece of information, McAfee serves them with fearsome presentation of type “THERE BE TERRORISTS”
• Who can protect the America people better than McAfee? This is just implied, but person gets the impression and closes the window
• Those who want to know more look at the remaining videos that create a mythology from hacking

The videos present some quite famous and professional people such as Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, as well as Captain Crunch. Those parts are made in classical documentary manner.

I find it problematic, however, that a video is displayed of a hacker going around wardriving with a laptop and cracking into people’s WLANs and into their computers. They make it sound like such tools are readily available everywhere, and that there’s hundreds of thousands of hackers crackers just waiting to get you.

Hacker portrayed in the video stops in front of an idyllic suburban house, with a kid playing in it. Then he miraculously clicks the Magic(tm) button “DHCP”. No, Windows couldn’t get the IP address by itself, he had to use a different tool to get an IP address. Then he’s driving around and accessing some guy’s Bluetooth-enabled LG phone, grabbing the voicemail. This is either sheer stupidity on that other guy’s part, or this hacker found some interesting tool. I tried googling for such a tool once, and gave up: such things don’t interest me.

But let’s face it: insecure WLANs, insecure Bluetooth is a problem, but McAfee is clearly not in a charity. Instead of providing a solution, they are instigating fear in their potential customers. Just like the fear of Dabya-Em-Dees, and terrorism, that propelled Bush’s war efforts.

Because they don’t even mention WPA2 and turning off Bluetooth or at least Bluetooth visibility when you’re not using the Bluetooth capabilities.

Still, you may want to go on a journey of learning about the dangers of computing. Since now you’re aware of the attempt to scare you and brainwash you, here’s the link to their site, because it at least warns people of the dangers: Stop H*Commerce.

McAfee, you owe me one.

Apparently, that’s what Windows Explorer thinks. Ain’t Windows awesome?