Root Access

12:00 AM

... Again, I did answer - superuser.com/questions/301065/encrypted-hdd-100-safe/… - but, it is clear that the one above and below are much better (I think this is the only time I have been guilty of it)... I genuinely thought it was funny and perfect for the answer - (I would never of ONLY posted the image), but, it would have been better for me to give more information... but... again, I jointly blame the community for voting it high over the better answers

Ivo Flipse

BOOM! Answer gone :)

Simon Sheehan

@IvoFlipse And now you've got more sites to look after, with the possibility of being a mod on 3!

Ivo Flipse

I saw that question @WilliamHilsum and didn't upvote exactly because I thought the answers were crap :P

@SimonSheehan don't think I'll become one on Gaming

and while I'm still after world domination, I trust and like any of the possible winners, so I don't feel like losing

I just gain a minion ;)

Simon Sheehan

@IvoFlipse It looks like Fallen and Mana so far, but don't give up, you have a LOT of votes :)

Ivo Flipse

@SimonSheehan I'm not giving up, but I purposefully didn't give crowd pleasing answers

Simon Sheehan

12:02 AM

@IvoFlipse Ah, okay. At least you put your name forward :).

Ivo Flipse

I can't even vote to close and I miss my admin dashboard on ever site I'm not a mod

William Hilsum

@IvoFlipse ahhh poor you :P

Simon Sheehan

Haha. I'm still trying to get that handy VTC ability :P

William Hilsum

oh well, really time for bed now... falling asleep at my screen :( bye!

Ivo Flipse

@WilliamHilsum lol, first need to down my glass of Perod

Simon Sheehan

12:05 AM

@IvoFlipse I did have an issue with playing Team Fortress 2 though, I lost my admin privileges on one server, and then went to another and kept trying to execute commands, forgetting xD

Ivo Flipse

@SimonSheehan hehe

Simon Sheehan

Well, theres my two cents for tonight, on that topic. Now to edit a tag wiki, although I did earlier, no badge.

William Hilsum

@IvoFlipse Never heard of that! Had to google it

Ivo Flipse

Some anice-flavored stuff

Out of whiskey and cognac, so meeh

William Hilsum

Transferred a MVC book to my Ipad... Going to have a long lie-in and a read in the morning!

Ivo Flipse

12:08 AM

@WilliamHilsum well good luck on that one!

William Hilsum

@IvoFlipse I thought you were a health fanatic!? Not just water?

Ivo Flipse

I'm going to try and read some more

I already drank like 2+ liter today

William Hilsum

hehe, I don't want to... but... No idea what else to do

@IvoFlipse of booze!? :P

Ivo Flipse

and my GF is away, so don't feel like doing circuit training on my own

@WilliamHilsum no shakes ;P

William Hilsum

lol

ahh... been meaning to ask you about running... why do I always remember things before bed :/

Ivo Flipse

12:09 AM

Orange juice + banana + wheats + spinach + some random fruit + protein powder, in the blender!

@WilliamHilsum Just go to Fitness.SE

become active and get some free stuff to test ;-)

William Hilsum

I think I will explode if I open an account there!

Ivo Flipse

4

Q: What fitness supplies would you like to try out and ask about on this site?

As some of you know, my job as a member of team CHAOS is to promote the Fitness & Nutrition site. Part of that means rewarding our current users with awesome fitness swag! So I wanted to go straight to you guys and see what kinds of fitness supplies are on your wish list. The obvious benefit ...

You're more likely to explode from not going there ;P

William Hilsum

I am taking the dogs out a hell of a lot more than I used to - and I am just trying to get in a lot more exercise - not running, just walking (sometimes a bit fast/very light jogging), but, as a gadget freak, I was just wondering if you know if there is anything (not that expensive) that works/can keep track of stuff...

Ivo Flipse

@WilliamHilsum get a step counter and try to make yourself walk a few more every day

William Hilsum

I know you got a running thing, just wondering if they work for walking! Ideally, I just want a smarter/good pedometer

Ivo Flipse

12:11 AM

keep track of them

@WilliamHilsum asking a question about how to track walking is on-topic, as long as its meant as a form of exercise

you should try Couch 2 5K though, that's very light jogging and anyone can finish that

William Hilsum

I may open a question then at some time

Ivo Flipse

@WilliamHilsum I'll prod you next time I see you :P

Simon Sheehan

I should go running tomorrow, reminds me of it..

William Hilsum

I tried to look/work out what I do on Google Maps, and I was shocked to see it was about a mile (which I do twice a day)... and, just think it would be cool if I could log it/see it on a map.... I do have an Ipod Touch, and wondering about getting one of those Nike sensor things

I'l try to open a question if I remember tomorrow. Goodnight (for real!)

Ivo Flipse

sleep well

Simon Sheehan

12:22 AM

hmm, i wonder if i should be loading all my music off my externel drive instead of wasting 30GB of space on my OS drive

Journeyman Geek

@WilliamHilsum: my brother has a gamin watch that works pretty well for that

@SimonSheehan: I do that ;p

Simon Sheehan

@JourneymanGeek They are small files, I think i wouldnt notice a difference :P

Journeyman Geek

@SimonSheehan: well, that also means i can move music between systems quickly.

Simon Sheehan

Very good point. Plus I can point winamp too it easily

@JourneymanGeek I store it all on my laptop though, since iTunes needs it.

Journeyman Geek

ewww

Simon Sheehan

12:26 AM

I have an iPod touch :P

Journeyman Geek

;p

true

Simon Sheehan

and it's hard to get it going on any other media player, they seem to muck it up. Foobar messed it up badly.

Desktop though...Winamp since 01'

Journeyman Geek

if you're running win7, symlinks!

Simon Sheehan

Yep.

Journeyman Geek

I've got a seperate copy of my music for my ipod, since i use a mix of lossless and lossy files for regular listening

since the ipod sucks compared to even a lowish budget setup

Simon Sheehan

12:28 AM

Neat. I use mostly MP3, very little lossless.

I'm on my 3rd iPod, i really like it

Journeyman Geek

eh, second, tho this is a refurb, and the battery sucks. If i could find a decent, not too expensive HDD player, i might upgrade ;p

Simon Sheehan

Had a 2GB iPod nano (square one, 4th gen?), then an 8GB 2G Touch. I used it constantly for over two years, and it couldnt hold all my music, and was getting old. Passed it along to my dad, got a 32GB 4G

Journeyman Geek

ipod classic (firsthand) ipod classic (second hand)

tempted to get a new one once the second hand one dies

Simon Sheehan

Time to put my processor to work.

Video compression ^^

Journeyman Geek

forums.audioholics.com/forums/… this makes me go o0, its an amazing bit of electronics, and there's a video on the second page showing the internals

superuser.com/questions/208587/remove-drm-from-epub-files/… spam spam spam glorious spaaaaaam!

Pearsonartphoto

12:41 AM

What do you do when you know you have some kind of malware on your system, but every anti-virus program you can find doesn't detect it?

Including, I might add, using a CD virus scanner...

Simon Sheehan

@Pearsonartphoto Well what makes you think you have malware?

Pearsonartphoto

I'm getting a pop up periodically from a "Media Codec Center" warning that my codecs might be out of date, asking me to update.

Simon Sheehan

Do you have a Media Codec Center?

Pearsonartphoto

I've been able to figure out from online research that it's basically a scam, designed to get you to pay to get your codecs back.

Simon Sheehan

@Pearsonartphoto Do you know where this program is launching from?

Journeyman Geek

12:44 AM

@Pearsonartphoto: what have you run so far?

Pearsonartphoto

Not that I'm aware of... This also happened after my wife fell for one of those fake AV (Luckily she didn't execute anything, but... I'm still not tacking any chances...)

Simon Sheehan

Its not necessarily malware, just a spam thing.

Journeyman Geek

also, have you checked autoruns and services?

Pearsonartphoto

Malware bytes, Microsoft Security Essentials, and a CD boot one called Kaspersky

Journeyman Geek

technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902 look for phishy things with this

Pearsonartphoto

12:46 AM

I've looked at the services, but I can't figure out which are useful and which aren't...

Journeyman Geek

hm

look for ones with no publisher

also ss64.com/nt/syntax-services.html this is useful - these are 'essential' services.

Pearsonartphoto

How do you look for services with no publisher? I'm using win 7.

Journeyman Geek

one moment, let me fire up services

Windos

G'day chaps

Journeyman Geek

my bad, no description

publishers are for autoruns

Pearsonartphoto

12:54 AM

Ahh, never mind, the linked microsoft tool works great.

I think I found it, thanks!

Journeyman Geek

autoruns would be the first thing i try ;p

totally loves sysinternals tools

Pearsonartphoto

It still has me worried exactly what it is... I'm going to send a copy of the file to every virus scanner that I can think of.

Windos

@JourneymanGeek I've only just jumped on the sysinternals bandwagon :P got work to order in the book for me

Journeyman Geek

lol

@Pearsonartphoto: virustotal would probably be be enough

also, it might not necessary be a 'classic' virus

Tom Wijsman

Woops, @JourneymanGeek covered that already, was behind on reading.

What's the particular file called?

Journeyman Geek

1:02 AM

sad thing is, there's a built in equivilent of autoruns.. and i don't remember the name

msconfig?

Tom Wijsman

You need to turn on in the options that it verifies signatures, and then there is a column which you can get to check the company names and see the unverified ones.

@Windos I found the Administrator Reference book not to provide any extras over what I've read online.

@JourneymanGeek: The difference is that built-in things are more safe to users, where as Autoruns can harm you if you don't know what you are doing.

Journeyman Geek

grouches about not having enough practice with malware removal

@TomWijsman: true, but, i can't remember what it was called offhand ;p

Windos

yeah it was msconfig

Tom Wijsman

Options -> Verify Image Signatures

Then, you need to have the Verified Signer column.

Firefox is a custom-build, so it makes sense that it doesn't verify.

7zFM.exe is also a beta version, so again makes sense.

But known, trusted applications are usually verified.

Journeyman Geek

hmm, thats process explorer isn't it?

Tom Wijsman

1:09 AM

Yes

Journeyman Geek

which @Pearsonartphoto should prolly also give a poke with ;p

Tom Wijsman

In a column like this, it's easy to pick up the process rows you would need to inspect:

Windos

@TomWijsman yeah, but I'm not paying for it and it'll be nice to have something on the shelf that isn't "Windows 7 inside & out" lol

Tom Wijsman

@Windos: I was like so interested till I got a look through it...

Should still read Windows internals though.

Journeyman Geek

@TomWijsman: hm.. x64? none of the processes on my win7 x86 seem signed

Tom Wijsman

1:11 AM

@JourneymanGeek: Did you enable the option? (Options -> Verify Image Signatures)

Journeyman Geek

ahh, no

Tom Wijsman

Because on x86 they should verify just fine too...

Journeyman Geek

my bad

Tom Wijsman

That option is like the very first thing to do, but people that just download the tool don't know about it.

Journeyman Geek

lol

hell, i didn't ;p

Tom Wijsman

1:12 AM

They don't enable it by default because it makes internet requests, I think...

Journeyman Geek

i generally use image path + spidersense to look for nasty things

Pearsonartphoto

Wow. I'm able to verify that something's on my computer, but not able to access the sites that can remove it... Sigh.

Tom Wijsman

@JourneymanGeek DLL injection bypasses that...

@Pearsonartphoto No need to access the sites, what did you found?

Pearsonartphoto

I know for certain of 2 files that are bad, I can't remove them because they are currently running. I can't figure out how they are running, however...

Journeyman Geek

@TomWijsman: eh, its worked for me to some extent, and a lot of virus hunting for me has been "it smells fishy" and following it through. I did once spend 3 days hunting down a rootkit with a dos livefloppy after all.

Pearsonartphoto

1:17 AM

I've decided I'm going to put a password on the admin account, so that other family member's can't fall for fake AV tricks or related again...

Tom Wijsman

@Pearsonartphoto Do you have file names, or are they randomized? Have you tried uploading them to VirusTotal to get the virus name? Can you give us details on that so we can provide you with instructions?

@Pearsonartphoto In Process Explorer, hit CTRL+F and search for the file name.

Journeyman Geek

@Pearsonartphoto: eh, LUA is probably THE best thing you can do.

Pearsonartphoto

virustotal.com/file-scan/…

Tom Wijsman

@Pearsonartphoto: According to Norton, you should be able to remove the file in question in Safe Mode.

Pearsonartphoto

I'm just starting to worry what else might be on my machine...

Tom Wijsman

1:21 AM

Along doing that, you should also remove the check mark on the same line in a program like Autoruns on the next boot.

@Pearsonartphoto: If you want, I can take a look over desktop sharing.

@JourneymanGeek I'm actually running MUA with UAC auto-elevation, no virus scanner / firewall. ^^

Should look into LUA when I ever decide to reinstall or ugrade.

But when I do that I'll do it properly and go sandbox all the way...

Because really, a download can wipe your documents folder. :(

Pearsonartphoto

There, got the program removed! Whew!

Hopefully the pop-ups will go away. The question now becomes, what else should I do...

Tom Wijsman

@JourneymanGeek: It makes me wonder, why aren't there enough viruses that do a system call like cd %USERPROFILE%; del /F /S /Q * :P

Hmm, I hope this was not too harsh...

0

A: My software rec question got closed as a duplicate, while it is not

Okay, I agree that they kind of mismatch. Seems the moderator didn't read your full question... But, reconsider your question first before asking for it to be reopened, because it's too localized: Why won't you find any answers? Process Explorer is a highly specialized tool written by Sysinter...

Pearsonartphoto

It's a pity. I had free Sophos, but I'm no longer a student, so...

Isn't the windows 7 default config with a LUA?

The problem is, there is no default password, so anyone who doesn't know what they are doing can defeat it.

Tom Wijsman

Yeah, it's kind of.

I would actually make it so that I need to type a password on every elevation and that software I download needs permissions to do something to my personal files.

But currently, I'm administrator without needing to click or type anything.

And yet, have seen no viruses for the last years... :/

Pearsonartphoto

Or, maybe it's time to look into Sandboxie...

I haven't, but I'm usually smart enough to recognize one when I come across it. Can't say the same thing about everyone in my house, however... Sigh.

Tom Wijsman

1:36 AM

Comodo does a good job, but I kicked it once it started to make my debugging fail.

Looking into the call stacks of the debugger itself is no fun... xD

Hey, what does this non-Microsoft file suddenly do here. Oh, that looks like Comodo... Looks for the uninstall button.

Well, there are sometimes those files which you don't really trust and still download and run.

To give a random example, is SpaceSniffer safe or not?

Perhaps I could set it so that stuff has read permissions by default, but no write permissions or network permissions.

Pearsonartphoto

sandboxie.com/index.php?DownloadSandboxie

Tom Wijsman

But well, securing my environment is for a reinstall, would be to much bothering to get it properly working.

@Pearsonartphoto: Yeah, I know. But I like how Comodo allows you to customize everything...

Pearsonartphoto

Might have to look into that as well.. Hmmm.

It scares me a bit that I was able to find something in 10 minutes with some SU help that 3 virus scanners couldn't find in 2 days...

Tom Wijsman

And that's the reason why I ditched virus scanners. :)

Or at least get to Safe Mode to run one...

Pearsonartphoto

At least the should help to keep people from doing something dumb... At least Microsoft recognized that the file was suspicious as well... Sigh.

Well, I've now given Microsoft a copy of the file, hopefully they'll be able to detect it next time...

Tom Wijsman

1:45 AM

Yeah, rather than looking for the bad things, the verification looks for the good things and ditches all others...

Ah, good thing, I usually never do that.

Hmm, perhaps I could secure my computer such that if you are logged in you still can't do anything unless you enter a password first. :P

Pearsonartphoto

Yuck...

Tom Wijsman

There are those occasions where you forget to lock...

(Although I trust the people around me)

But really, what scares me is that any program/service you have on your computer can access your personal files without your consent.

Pearsonartphoto

Just put an auto lock after 2 minutes, so...

Tom Wijsman

I've got a sleep after X minutes set, I think.

Pearsonartphoto

That's what I do with my work computer.

Journeyman Geek

1:54 AM

@Pearsonartphoto: superuser.com/questions/128648/… best sandboxing software there is

Pearsonartphoto

Hmmm...

Any idea if it's a good thing that Sophos can't access the MBR?

Tom Wijsman

Windows 7 probably blocks it from doing so.

Unless you expect a rootkit to be housed there, you shouldn't care.

You could try Safe Mode; if that doesn't work, you would need to run it from CD/DVD/USB or something if possible...

(Or connect the drive to another computer, sometimes easier to do)

Anyhow, time to catch some sleep, see you later...

Pearsonartphoto

2:58 AM

Well, it's been fun, thanks everyone for your help!

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