Hip, hip, two slow omis...

[ebonlock]

Sometimes, not very often, but once in a while, I'm awfully glad to still have Win 98 on my work machine. Today is one of those days. I hereby declare a pox on all pimply-assed, no life, don't have a girlfriend and have far too much time on my destructive little hands hackers/crackers out there. Jesus, just fucking grow up already.

On a more positive note, I finally stopped finding excuses to miss class last night and had a great time. It's not even like I usually put the two hours or so committed to getting to and from and during class to any good use when I don't go. Far from it. And Pye was being so angelic yesterday that I thought he'd be ok on his own for it. He was released into the wilds of my room, which includes a nice window view, soft comfy bed and new places to hide and explore. He seemed quite delighted to be left in there last night so today is his first full day in the room. Will he maintain his good behavior? We'll see.

Alyne asked us to show off our veil stuff last night for some new folks and it reminded me just how rusty I really am. And of course I'm performing tonight. That'll learn me to slack off. Oh and let's not even discuss the drum solo. Poor Alyne kept trying to boost our spirits, but the sour faces we were all making to one another and at ourselves in the mirror were quite telling. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy, it's the only word that really describes what we all saw last night as we ran through the moves. Right now I'm cutting myself some slack until I learn all the footwork, that's the key and if I can nail that I can let my brain focus on what's going on above the feet again. It's just so bloody fast, I still feel rushed and panicked at points. I keep reminding myself Princess of Cairo was the same way for a long time and that this will be comfortable at some point too, but I'm not sure I'm buying it any more.

So to summarize:
Pye= }:)
Dance= }:(

Comments

[mallen.livejournal.com]

awfully glad to still have Win 98 on my work machine

Everyone knows that security issues are endemic to Windows; it's not necessarily people who write these stupid worms who are the problem. It's the people who allow these worms to have widespread and devastating effect on the computers on a network.

Quite simply, it's utterly irresponsible to not patch your servers; this flaw isn't exactly new. The patch file has been out for at least a month now.

[scar-let.livejournal.com]

Isn't that kind of like saying that since you know guns are out there in the world it's irresponsible to leave your house without a kevlar jacket?

I think you're being a bit too easy on hackers.

Yes, whoever oversees a computer network should be up on the latest patches...but let's face it, running a system can be a lot of work and sometimes things fall through the cracks.

[mallen.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think that's an apt analogy.

It's pretty rare (if you're a civilian) that someone ends up shot, hence wearing a kevlar vest (if you're not a cop) around everywhere seems rather silly risk reduction technique.

Computer worms, on the other hand, are going to get written, and they're are going to go public. It's fairly inevitable in the world of computer security. So applying patches dutifully is not a silly amount of risk reduction.

Worm writers, when/if caught, ought to be punished harshly.

And yes, people have higher priorities, patching is not easy, and patching systems disconnected from the main network an enormous pain in the ass; I'm well aware of this.

But I have (very) little sympathy for companies or derelict IT techs who don't patch their systems and then (gasp!) get hit with the latest turd to crawl out of the Internet gutter, like it was a genuine surprise.

I have a lot more sympathy for computer lay-persons who get hit by a virus or worm, but I'd like to think they could be protected by some intelligent ingress/egress filtering by their ISP. Maybe that's asking too much, though.

I would disagree

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Everyone knows that security issues are endemic to Windows; it's not necessarily people who write these stupid worms who are the problem. It's the people who allow these worms to have widespread and devastating effect on the computers on a network.

I think the bulk of the blame rests firmly on the shoulders of the malicious, adolescent fuck-wits who apparently grew bored of wanking off while perusing the latest girl-farmyard animal sex sites and decided to fuck with others' computers instead. These worms and viruses don't magically appear in the world, fully formed like some mutated strain of bacteria. They come entirely from the sociopathic minds of a small minority of complete wastes of carbon who, I must assume, receive some sort of deep satisfaction from proving themselves capable of such destruction.

They destroy for the sheer joy of it, without the slightest concern for anyone they might harm in the process. Which, to my mind, makes them one of the lowest forms of life on the planet.

[mallen.livejournal.com]

They destroy for the sheer joy of it, without the slightest concern for anyone they might harm in the process

Rereading my original comment, I agree that I'm providing too much of a defense for worm creators. They're scum, often technically illiterate (most worms these days piggyback off a publically released "proof of concept" exploit) which makes creating such things relatively and unfortunately easy.

As I wrote to scar_let, worm creators ought to be punished harshly when they're caught. But (and this is probably what I should've originally written) worms are a phenominon with many enablers, and we're not going to stop people from writing them. We can only control when and how we defend our computers. That means vendors need to be more responsible about security and that users need to be more responsible for applying patches.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Rereading my original comment, I agree that I'm providing too much of a defense for worm creators. They're scum, often technically illiterate (most worms these days piggyback off a publically released "proof of concept" exploit) which makes creating such things relatively and unfortunately easy.

As I wrote to scar_let, worm creators ought to be punished harshly when they're caught. But (and this is probably what I should've originally written) worms are a phenominon with many enablers, and we're not going to stop people from writing them. We can only control when and how we defend our computers. That means vendors need to be more responsible about security and that users need to be more responsible for applying patches.

And with that I'd agree with you, however I'd still very much like to put a pox on the worm creators. It's been ever so long since I've laid a nice curse on anyone and they seem quite deserving :-)

[murdoch.livejournal.com]

I'd still very much like to put a pox on the worm creators. It's been ever so long since I've laid a nice curse on anyone and they seem quite deserving

Go right ahead. Please? They've made my life a bit *too* interesting in the last two days, not to mention the lives of so many other people... Fine targets to practice on...

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Go right ahead. Please? They've made my life a bit *too* interesting in the last two days, not to mention the lives of so many other people... Fine targets to practice on...

Just so happens I've got some time on my hands this weekend, so I'd be absolutely delighted!