D
Dan
Guest
<long post and you were warned -- grin and bear it if you will>
I wanted to add this post because when the APS network was hacked in 2007
and then my home computer was hacked it was really disturbing but now in
reflecting back on the experience it was profoundly interesting as well. The
hacker(s)? stole all my personnel information and my identity and it was my
own stupidity that thought that I was so clever and I have now realized that
pride goes before the fall.
Anyway, Windows 98 Second Edition got hit with an error but apparently
because of the internal safety of the operating system via the lack of
services resulting in a smaller surface area as well as the machine not
having the potential vulnerabilities of RPC
(please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_procedure_call
for further information)
and the NT source codes lack of a maintenance operating system like DOS
(please see
http://cquirke.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!C7DAB1E724AB8C23!336.entry )
for further details about what Windows Vista is lacking and also see a book
I read about Windows History where early Microsoft Systems Engineers joked
about NT being the Not There operating system because it lacked the internal
safety structure of the underlying maintenance operating system compared to
9x operating system which was grounded on the strength of DOS.
It could be also a lack of skill on the hacker(s)? part as well but please
see the secunia website and search Windows 98 Second Edition and also search
Windows XP Professional and you will be surprised to find which operating
system has more current vulnerabilities.
I am not including extras in my argument like Internet Explorer which I feel
was sadly tied to the operating system back in 1998 and causes many of the
problems users face today.
I currently mainly use Mozilla Firefox because of the 256 bit cipher
strength it uses even in Windows 98 Second Edition if the site has that high
a cipher strength which apparently is sadly only available today with
Microsoft Operating System "Windows Vista" and perhaps other Microsoft
operating systems that are later than Windows XP Professional.
This example is sadly being copied by Apple with its tying of Itunes with
Quicktime and Itunes breaking if you remove Quicktime because of
vulnerabilities. Apple is currently guilty of other bad software practices
like pushing its weak Safari browser on users of Windows Computers as well as
having software stealthily installed without a user consent. I noticed this
on my computer with Bonjour being installed and I thought "okay what is this"
and discovered with the help of Google that it is part of Apple software.
This operating system is currently Windows XP Professional which I use as
well as Windows 98 Second Edition in a dual boot on one machine as well as an
oem copy of Windows Vista Home Premium in 32 bit on a Toshiba laptop/notebook
computer.
You can all laugh if you like but I have used computers since about 1984
when I first played King's Quest 1 by Sierra On Line on a 5.25 inch floppy
drive on the IBM PCjr which my dad, Ivan still owns and it still works and is
currently in storage and used every few years when I long for the good and
easy workings of a computer that had BASIC which you loaded via a BASIC
cartridge and from there I enjoyed simply programming and made my screen
flash different colors and play different sounds with the help of my dad and
a large book about BASIC.
Anyway, I now realize it was my own fault and stupidity for connecting to a
network that was as weak as the APS Network and the person or people broke
through the network in the summer while I was away working at another job.
The thing is that I brought that school's network from being crap to being
fully functional within one school year and then within 3 months while I was
away, some hacker(s)? took all the trouble that I had gone through with the
help of the network administrator and flushed all that work done the tubes
because of weak protocols set by the school as well as letting too many
computers have administrative accounts as well as not listening to me about
saving some Windows 98 Second Edition computers as well as my own which the
school provided me but then stupidly decided we need to phase out all the
older Windows 98 computers and I warned them but why would they want to
listen to a single user when they thought they knew it all.
Anyway, thanks for letting me explain and discuss and also to warn users to
fully read up on material before using VPN with your home pc and if you are
not required then it is just better to be safe and not accept that risk into
your home pc. I was not required but too naive and too stupid because I did
not realize that I was putting my computer at risk by asking for this
permission from Ken the Director of Technology. I did get the permission but
it was my thoughtlessness, excitement of learning new things that made me
blaze a trail ahead without fully stopping, thinking and counting the
consequences.
Anyway, the Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 which was fully patched
was hacked and information was stolen and deleted and copied before I was
fully aware of the attack. This shows us how since the external security of
Windows XP Professional failed, then the internal safety of Windows 98 Second
Edition prevailed and it only suffered from Rundll errors instead of the PC
being fully compromised. I still have the data from the Windows 98 Second
Edition PC if anyone in the newsgroup cares to analyze the data. The XP
Professional side has been fully formatted and a clean install performed so
all data there is just plain gone. Thanks for listening and I welcome all
the positive and constructive comments that I know will be forthcoming. If
you just want to be negative then don't be surprised, if I just ignore your
post and/or post back some smart alec response.
Please see for securing your older Windows 98 and NT computers from Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/msim_win98
I wanted to add this post because when the APS network was hacked in 2007
and then my home computer was hacked it was really disturbing but now in
reflecting back on the experience it was profoundly interesting as well. The
hacker(s)? stole all my personnel information and my identity and it was my
own stupidity that thought that I was so clever and I have now realized that
pride goes before the fall.
Anyway, Windows 98 Second Edition got hit with an error but apparently
because of the internal safety of the operating system via the lack of
services resulting in a smaller surface area as well as the machine not
having the potential vulnerabilities of RPC
(please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_procedure_call
for further information)
and the NT source codes lack of a maintenance operating system like DOS
(please see
http://cquirke.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!C7DAB1E724AB8C23!336.entry )
for further details about what Windows Vista is lacking and also see a book
I read about Windows History where early Microsoft Systems Engineers joked
about NT being the Not There operating system because it lacked the internal
safety structure of the underlying maintenance operating system compared to
9x operating system which was grounded on the strength of DOS.
It could be also a lack of skill on the hacker(s)? part as well but please
see the secunia website and search Windows 98 Second Edition and also search
Windows XP Professional and you will be surprised to find which operating
system has more current vulnerabilities.
I am not including extras in my argument like Internet Explorer which I feel
was sadly tied to the operating system back in 1998 and causes many of the
problems users face today.
I currently mainly use Mozilla Firefox because of the 256 bit cipher
strength it uses even in Windows 98 Second Edition if the site has that high
a cipher strength which apparently is sadly only available today with
Microsoft Operating System "Windows Vista" and perhaps other Microsoft
operating systems that are later than Windows XP Professional.
This example is sadly being copied by Apple with its tying of Itunes with
Quicktime and Itunes breaking if you remove Quicktime because of
vulnerabilities. Apple is currently guilty of other bad software practices
like pushing its weak Safari browser on users of Windows Computers as well as
having software stealthily installed without a user consent. I noticed this
on my computer with Bonjour being installed and I thought "okay what is this"
and discovered with the help of Google that it is part of Apple software.
This operating system is currently Windows XP Professional which I use as
well as Windows 98 Second Edition in a dual boot on one machine as well as an
oem copy of Windows Vista Home Premium in 32 bit on a Toshiba laptop/notebook
computer.
You can all laugh if you like but I have used computers since about 1984
when I first played King's Quest 1 by Sierra On Line on a 5.25 inch floppy
drive on the IBM PCjr which my dad, Ivan still owns and it still works and is
currently in storage and used every few years when I long for the good and
easy workings of a computer that had BASIC which you loaded via a BASIC
cartridge and from there I enjoyed simply programming and made my screen
flash different colors and play different sounds with the help of my dad and
a large book about BASIC.
Anyway, I now realize it was my own fault and stupidity for connecting to a
network that was as weak as the APS Network and the person or people broke
through the network in the summer while I was away working at another job.
The thing is that I brought that school's network from being crap to being
fully functional within one school year and then within 3 months while I was
away, some hacker(s)? took all the trouble that I had gone through with the
help of the network administrator and flushed all that work done the tubes
because of weak protocols set by the school as well as letting too many
computers have administrative accounts as well as not listening to me about
saving some Windows 98 Second Edition computers as well as my own which the
school provided me but then stupidly decided we need to phase out all the
older Windows 98 computers and I warned them but why would they want to
listen to a single user when they thought they knew it all.
Anyway, thanks for letting me explain and discuss and also to warn users to
fully read up on material before using VPN with your home pc and if you are
not required then it is just better to be safe and not accept that risk into
your home pc. I was not required but too naive and too stupid because I did
not realize that I was putting my computer at risk by asking for this
permission from Ken the Director of Technology. I did get the permission but
it was my thoughtlessness, excitement of learning new things that made me
blaze a trail ahead without fully stopping, thinking and counting the
consequences.
Anyway, the Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 which was fully patched
was hacked and information was stolen and deleted and copied before I was
fully aware of the attack. This shows us how since the external security of
Windows XP Professional failed, then the internal safety of Windows 98 Second
Edition prevailed and it only suffered from Rundll errors instead of the PC
being fully compromised. I still have the data from the Windows 98 Second
Edition PC if anyone in the newsgroup cares to analyze the data. The XP
Professional side has been fully formatted and a clean install performed so
all data there is just plain gone. Thanks for listening and I welcome all
the positive and constructive comments that I know will be forthcoming. If
you just want to be negative then don't be surprised, if I just ignore your
post and/or post back some smart alec response.
Please see for securing your older Windows 98 and NT computers from Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/msim_win98
