The DMZ

Iszi

00:22

I'd suggest this one for migration, but it seems to have already been handled.

20

Q: Security Concern with my Windows 7 Box at Work

This question may be weird and misworded but I'm not a Windows expert by any means so feel free to correct me. The group I'm in recently got new computers at work. They gave me a new computer and hooked up my old computer to the network for a week so I could take my time transferring necessary f...

Scott Pack

Well, they explain the "why it is" but not the "why/how to fix it"

But yeah, this is a perfect example of poor role management.

Iszi

I think the generalities of why/how to fix it are there, to cover what the asker can actually do about it.

Iszi

00:46

How did we allow this one? S&A and it looks like a troll.

5

Q: Is the law the only thing stopping many sites from being hacked/cracked?

There are so many common vulnerabilities out there, so how is it that every Wordpress blog, for example, isn't hacked into often? It seems like the security community is overly paranoid, unless the law is the only thing deterring skilled hackers. Which one is it?

legal

Hendrik Brummermann

tag synonyms are broken.

It complains that I don't have a score of 5 in legal.

to make law a synonym.

It worked the other way round, but I don't have a button to delete that test suggestion.

Scott Pack

01:03

@HendrikBrummermann The entire tag synonym system is broken, in my opinion. I think you must have sufficient rep in the synonym tag

Iszi

Well, crap. This isn't going up until 3 AM...

Liquid hydrogen now flowing into Delta 4's first stage. Liquid oxygen system thermal conditioning now starting: http://t.co/AuVPMBQ

Tweeted by SpaceflightNow on July 16, 2011 at 1:01 AM

Scott Pack

@Iszi Look at the original date. It must have been one of the first questions, back when they were still trying to figure out what on earth to do.

Iszi

@ScottPack You say "they" as if we had no participation in that.

Scott Pack

Back when @AviD still thought the only worthwhile topic was programming :)

Well, it's before I was a member, so I can't really say, "we"

Rory Alsop

09:28

Morning all.

Karrax

10:11

security.stackexchange.com/questions/4390/… .. Is it really a good suggestion as step 1 to remove all communication on the box? I have always been suggested otherwise. Say you have more computers compromised then the hacker might think someone is onto him and just simply destroy as much has he can before he gets out.

morning Rory

Scott Pack

12:38

Morning gents

nealmcb

15:05

@Karrax It helps to post question links on a line by themselves so they get "oneboxed":

5

Q: How to manually check for rootkits on a server

Does anyone have a general step by step list on how to try discover rootkits on a Linux or Solaris server? I'm looking for to to manually find the rootkit, not by automated software. For example: Places to look for suspicious files? Search commands to pick up weird file behavior? Weird lookin...

operating-systems linux forensics rootkits

nealmcb

15:18

@Karrax Depends on the local context (local expertise, small vs big shop, threat model). Hmm - there was a big discussion of this months ago - let me search.

Hmm - I don't see it right now....

But that's a pretty cool answer to your original question.... And not an easy process, as others pointed out :)

nealmcb

15:38

@HendrikBrummermann Wow - a lot of edits there. Was there a theme?

E.g. this one still has both law and legal tag: security.stackexchange.com/questions/4780/…

Anna Lear

16:16

@RoryAlsop Hello from Programmers. :) This user's follow-up question got reposted on IT Security last month and did well... Do you have any objections to me migrating his first question as well?

The Evil Phoenix

@AnnaLear greetings. I'm not a mod, but what was his IT Security question?

i'd like to put my opinion on in the matter, also, if I may ;)

Anna Lear

8

Q: When using AES and CBC, can the IV be a hash of the plaintext?

(was: Can you encrypt with AES+CBC and search the encrypted data?) Basically, I'm going to go with Advanced Encryption Standard with either Cipher-Block Chaining mode or Cipher Feedback mode or Output Feedback mode (I haven't decided yet). Each mode requires an initialization vector. The thing i...

appsec cryptography encryption databases

@TheEvilPhoenix Any and all opinions welcome. :)

The Evil Phoenix

i see the IT Security core of course

in his question

if i were mod, i'd accept the migration to here (ITsec)

and you'll forgive me, i tend to abbreviate SE site names ;) (AU = Ask Ubuntu, SO = StackOverflow, ITsec = security.se, etc.)

Anna Lear

Thanks. :) I don't mind abbreviations. I'm actually a bit disappointed that "my" site doesn't lend itself well to being abbreviated.

P.SE is just a bit "meh"

The Evil Phoenix

prog is how i abbreviate it

kinda hard to abbreviate "Programmers"

although...

after typing "program" into the documentation for a program/script I wrote for Ubuntu a thousand times...

Anna Lear

16:26

:)

The Evil Phoenix

i can type "programmer" extremely fast :P

Hendrik Brummermann

17:00

@nealmcb I readded "law" to that one because I got an error saying that I need a score of 5 when i tried to propose the tag synonym.

0

Q: Tag synonym law -> legal but is the other way round

I tried to make law -> legal a tag synonym. But I got the error message that I need a score of 5, although I have that in both tags. Then I tested it the other way round, but there is no way to delete that test. And now the error message on law -> legal is that there is a proposal for the other ...

bug tags tag-synonyms

Scott Pack

17:11

@HendrikBrummermann Sneaky.... Did it work?

@AnnaLear I think that one may be a good fit. @ThomasPornin would know better, but I don't know if he'll be around this weekend.

Stack Exchange

Stack Overflow Blog: Mobile Stack Exchange

Posted by Jeff Atwood on July 16th, 2011

Another long-standing request, dating all the way back to 2009, is for a mobile optimized view of Stack Overflow.

Since …

the existing HTML and CSS was (and still is) rather light the original iPhone did a great job rendering Stack Overflow mobile traffic on Stack Overflow is only about 1% of traffic

the original iPhone did a great job rendering Stack Overflow mobile traffic on Stack Overflow is only about 1% of traffic

mobile traffic on Stack Overflow is only about 1% of traffic

… we didn’t feel this was urgent back in 2009. Or 2010. …

nealmcb

@HendrikBrummermann I guess my first question is which do we want - law or legal. It seems like we'd want a discussion before a huge amount of retagging....

What were the stats on them before you started retagging?

What do other SE's use?

Hendrik Brummermann

the other sides i am active on all use legal except stackoverflow which has in addition to legal a small number of law.

Scott Pack

I wonder if there are any fancy mod tools to determine if one is better from an SEO standpoint

Hendrik Brummermann

less than 25 questions is not exactly a huge amount.

legal is better from a stackexchange.com point of view because it exists across sides.

Scott Pack

17:26

That would be my choice as well. Even without that, it sounds better to me.

nealmcb

I tend to agree. But massive retagging is a hassle since it bumps dozens of questions. Is there any way to avoid that? E.g. if we just establish the tag synonym, can we avoid the retagging? What does it look like then?

If a synonym causes the tags to appear to be changed on the old questions that would seem pretty ideal.

Scott Pack

The SEI guys, or maybe even mods, can do batch retags such that they don't get bumped.

nealmcb

Since the process would involve getting agreement ahead of time, as I just noted in that meta question: http://security.stackexchange.com/tags/legal/synonyms currently says:

Users with more than 2500 reputation and a total answer score of 5 or more on the tag, can suggest tag synonyms. Users with a total answer score (total upvotes minus total downvotes) of 5 or more, can vote for tag synonyms. Suggestions will be automatically approved when they reach a score of 4, and automatically deleted when they reach a score of -2.

Scott Pack

The other option is to do a small number (2,3,4?) at a time, and wait in between your work

Hendrik Brummermann

That broken.

I dod have 2500 rep and a score of 5 on both and were not able to suggest law->legal.

Scott Pack

17:30

The synonyms are nice, but creating them is a nightmare.

Hendrik Brummermann

and because I was stupid, i did a test the other way round and cannot delete that.

nealmcb

But you could suggest the other way around - very odd...

Hendrik Brummermann

I think that is a bug.

nealmcb

I was confused because your question said you tried to "make" law=> legal. But you can only "suggest" it, as that text said.

But sounds like that is also not working

Scott Pack

I think our best bet, at least for now, is for one of our lazy mods (@RoryAlsop, @AviD) to take care of it the legal <- law issue

nealmcb

17:31

@ScottPack Hey - there is a lazier mod than those two :)

Scott Pack

@nealmcb He's not been on chat recently enough to tab complete his name, and I can't remember anything but Graham :)

nealmcb

QED

Scott Pack

Have you ever dealt with the synonym system before, @nealmcb?

nealmcb

Only enough to get frustrated....

Anna Lear

@ScottPack @TheEvilPhoenix Thanks for the feedback, guys.

nealmcb

17:36

@HendrikBrummermann Yup - I get the same error when proposing law as a synonym for legal. Why would they refuse to allow a vote in the other direction? Without allowing folks to retract the other one??

Scott Pack

@nealmcb I've always found the language to be frustrating as well. It feels like a trick question, trying to determine if I am suggesting that this tag be a synonym or another, or suggesting another tag be a synonym of this one.

I think one can retract votes once made, but not suggestions.

nealmcb

Huh - tags really are messed up. So https (x3) is a synonym for ssl (x lots). But what good does it do? I can still tag a question "https", when I search for it I just see the three https questions.....

Help @RebeccaChernoff! See discussion above about meta.security.stackexchange.com/questions/402/…

Scott Pack

@nealmcb I was thinking that it should have performed an inline replace when you tried to put the synonym in.

nealmcb

Me too....

I think it is a plot to test how much time we're willing to waste on tag management....

Scott Pack

Maybe we should request more burnination

nealmcb

17:45

"If you know of common, alternate spellings or phrasings for this tag, add them here so we can automatically correct them in the future." Hmmm - who is "we" and how would that happen?

Scott Pack

Where do you find that?

nealmcb

Same link as above - the synonym link for a tag - security.stackexchange.com/tags/legal/synonyms

Scott Pack

Ah, I missed that.

It seems to imply that some dev looks at site-wide synonyms and might do some "magic" to "fix it"

Rebecca Chernoff

18:47

synonyms are only automatically created when a mod does it

otherwise they are simply proposed and need to be voted on

until it is approved, there's no substitution, since...it isn't real yet

Rory Alsop

@ScottPack Hey - I resemble that remark!

@ScottPack Burninating all the peasants! In their thatch roof cottages!

@RebeccaChernoff Hmm - from an SE perspective what would be the best way for us to sort this out then?

Rebecca Chernoff

how do you mean?

Rory Alsop

the synonyms bit - is there a recommended SE way to do it, does a mod need to do it or does it just work with the normal propose+vote method

Rebecca Chernoff

users can vote and do it without a mod, or a mod can intervene, just like other mod actions.

Rory Alsop

19:11

thanks @Rebecca

nealmcb

19:55

@RebeccaChernoff Howdy! I'm still confused. The tag synonym I talked about above ([https]) seems like it is approved (at least there is no "pending" next to it in the synonym list). But as I noted it didn't get substituted for me while I was editing a test question, and still shows up as a regular tag.

Rebecca Chernoff

oh, I was looking at law and legal. sec.

nealmcb

test tag markup: https

Ahh open bracket, tag: <tag> close bracket... :)

[ tag: https ] without the spaces

Rebecca Chernoff

I don't see a new question tagged https

nealmcb

2 hours ago, by nealmcb

Huh - tags really are messed up. So https (x3) is a synonym for ssl (x lots). But what good does it do? I can still tag a question "https", when I search for it I just see the three https questions.....

Rebecca Chernoff

oh, while you were editing? you didn't submit?

nealmcb

19:59

Correct. And there are still questions tagged with https

Rebecca Chernoff

yeah, a merge was never done

nealmcb

So what is the process for merging?

Rebecca Chernoff

a synonym only affects future questions

a merge only affects past questions

nealmcb

And who can do merges, and when do they do so? Why separate the two?

Rebecca Chernoff

because they aren't the same thing (:

a mod can do merges

nealmcb

20:03

When they do a merge, are the questions bumped? If not, is there any notification that the general public can see?

(I prefer not to see the bump)

(But some visibility would help educate people about the process itself)

Rebecca Chernoff

When a mod does a merge, there's no bump

I just did https

nealmcb

Thanks!

Great. So the final problem is that we can't propose "law" as a syn for "legal" since there is one the other way around. And don't know why the original proposal the other way around was refused.

Rebecca Chernoff

(which will also make searching with https just return ssl since there are no questions with https anymore)

nealmcb

:)

Rebecca Chernoff

Mods can also swap synonyms around.

Or people could downvote it so the proposal is rejected and then create it properly

nealmcb

20:08

Ahh - right :) Any tools for finding which of two tags is most popular on SE or other tagging systems?

Rebecca Chernoff

you could use tag filters on stackexchange.com to look

nealmcb

I can't easily tell if I can vote on legal as a synonym or not. Will it tell me I can't, or just not tell me unless I can?

Rebecca Chernoff

do you see voting controls?

nealmcb

I don't know which pages to expect them on

The tag? the synonym? Nothing at security.stackexchange.com/tags/legal/synonyms

Rebecca Chernoff

security.stackexchange.com/tags/law/synonyms

nealmcb

20:13

Ahh - I see vote options there :) Now to decide what to do.

But I expected it on the other page...

Having a link to topusers security.stackexchange.com/tags/legal/topusers from the synonym page would help, or even better putting my score up ther

Rebecca Chernoff

should also see it security.stackexchange.com/tags/…

nealmcb

I don't see it there.

Rebecca Chernoff

ah, must just be approval for mods there then shrugs

nealmcb

@RebeccaChernoff Thanks for all your help!

Rebecca Chernoff

post a meta question or search on MSO. I need to run some code over the weekend with the lower traffic, which means I need to make sure it's good to go. q: around but not readily paying attention. (;

nealmcb

20:59

OK, according to the popups I get while choosing a tag at stackexchange.com/filters/17212/my-filter, legal has 1258 hits on SE, while law has 176.

nealmcb

21:10

Well I spent another eternity trying to get the synonym proposal worked out, and ran into a few more glass walls that I don't want to subvert my way around. Sigh. I documented my results at the meta question:

1

Q: Tag synonym law -> legal but is the other way round

I tried to make law -> legal a tag synonym. But I got the error message that I need a score of 5, although I have that in both tags. Then I tested it the other way round, but there is no way to delete that test. And now the error message on law -> legal is that there is a proposal for the other ...

bug tags tag-synonyms

AviD

22:05

heya all....

busy weekend

@nealmcb @HendrikBrummermann @ScottPack methinks the issue with the law/legal synonyms, is that it wont let you propose a synonym, when the synonomized tag has fewer questions on it than the target tag.

law originally had many more questions than legal, till the recent round of tag updates.

FTR, irregardless of general SE taggage, I believe law to be the better tag, as I mentioned in comment to @nealmcb's answer...

nealmcb

@AviD Ugh!

AviD

since the question would be a question about law, not about legal

@nealmcb heya

@nealmcb well, it does make some sorta sense...

nealmcb

I think the questions are about legal issues, not about law. Law is a profession, field of study. Laws are of more interest, but people talk of legal issues.

And "legal" is shorthand for that

AviD

@nealmcb hmm... lemme look a second.

i think most of the q's currently tagged with either one, are about laws.

not "legal issues"

"international laws", "export laws", "financial laws", etc...

regardless, once it's agreed which is the syn and which is the master, quickest and easiest way would indeed to have one us lazy mods take care of it. Or @RoryAlsop.

@Iszi that NASA urine vid me larf so hard... :D

"quick, get me a glass of urine so we can celebrate!" lol

Iszi

@AviD You're welcome. :-D

AviD

22:19

@Iszi btw @Iszi the more common form is NSFK - not safe for kiddies....

Iszi

@AviD Hadn't heard of that one yet.

AviD

easier/simpler than NSFLE...

welcome @Kim!

@ThomasPornin re Cryptography - on the original proposal on area51, there was some discussion there, about overlap between here and cstheory... my original comment was that the mathy parts of it should go over there, the practical implementation, risk profiles, etc should be here.

then, i had the discussion with you - where you agreed that it is all a subset of cstheory....

oh and btw @ThomasPornin @RoryAlsop - re names being blocked by badword filters... Back in my stint at big evil MS, I had a situation go by me: before releasing any product, the source code is run through textual filters, to make sure there is nothing "politically incorrect" going out to customers.

big long list.... one section, "bad words", really made me laugh. e.g. a programmer named Tom van Dyke left a comment with his name in it... that got blocked.

some of the other rules make you think: whoever wrote this rule, is a very sick person. Or a lot of fun to party with.

@ScottPack ftr, I didnt think programming was the only worthwhile topic at all, I just thought it made sense to keep them seperate. and also FTR, I changed my mind by the end of the private beta. so there :P.

Scott Pack

22:41

@AviD I was more being a bit of an ass than anything else :)

It's all about "living things down" something which I try to playfully not allow if possible.

AviD

@ScottPack oh, i know. Thats what I expect from you ;)

I was just calling you on it :D

Scott Pack

@AviD Yay!

AviD

@ScottPack I deserve it.

Scott Pack

So long as my playful nature is understood, I don't mind something like that being expected of me :)

AviD

its actually refreshing, not being the biggest ass in the room.

Scott Pack

22:43

Oh shush

/me is too drunk to disagree

AviD

hehe

me, i feel more hungover, but without the joy of the alcohol. allergy attack. :S

Scott Pack

I had intended to twat a bit more about it, but I had some really yummy beers at the street party. I know I succeeded when I had to tell the wife, 'Here are the keys, you should take care of this.'

@AviD Ugh. I hear allergies are a bitch.

AviD

@ScottPack hehe, excellent.

Scott Pack

And now it's dinner time

AviD

enjoy

Scott Pack

22:47

ta

nealmcb

23:01

@AviD Right - note "laws" not "law". My order of preference is "legal", then "laws". Reserve "law" for the lawyers who debate the theory (like crypto)

AviD

23:24

@nealmcb heh. urm...

well, we do have a [crypto...] tag...

its not like if we had a law tag it would confuse all the lawyers who hang out here....

and laws is just the pluralization of law, which i dont much like for tags.

nealmcb

No. That's just my impression. I'm happy with however the vote comes out.

AviD

as for legal - well, i see why you say it, but it doesnt feel right...

nealmcb

But I guess if you or another mod votes it will end up being decisive. So mods don't get a vote (!) :/

AviD

@nealmcb right, so lets see how it plays out... my vote is on law, but i can sleep well with legal too...

@nealmcb heh, thats why im wanting to see how it goes here, first...

not much of a fan of abuse of power ;)

nealmcb

@AviD But it will have to play out at the meta discussion, not via votes the way that SE is currently designed, since no one but mods can vote....

AviD

23:38

@nealmcb and, for that matter, we cant really vote either...

nealmcb

Right

Thank goodness for our highly principled mods!! :)

AviD

@nealmcb and @RoryAlsop ;)

(hehe - that's just to even out my previous comment... )

nealmcb

@AviD Oops - thank goodness for @Rory, our modest, active and highly principled mod :P

Scott Pack

23:58

@nealmcb Well, you're at least half right....

AviD

@ScottPack he means, on the site. I dont think he was commenting on his private life :D

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