PCWize Vol 4, Issue 27 - K.I.S.S. July 2, 2000 ______________________________________________________________________ You could win $10,000 and a Sony DVD player just by recommending PCWize to a friend! ------ The setting: A friend's unattended computer and a newsletter editor who couldn't resist. Take a look at this week's Tips and Tricks section for a great practical joke I developed back in the old Windows 3.0 days and revamped for use under Windows 98 on a friend's machine this past weekend. The practical joke is such an elegant one because it's so K.I.S.S. The fix however, turned into an all day affair while he called in three other computer geeks to help fix his machine. I finally called him the next day to offer my "expertise" after I heard from some mutual friends about his strange computer problem. This issue is dedicated to Jared (the recipient of my practical joke), and Tony, Josh, and Rich-- the three good mutual friends who couldn't help him fix it. Love you guys! Maybe next time huh!! ------ Well, it's official! The test results are in, and Leify-boy is now an official University of Maryland bachelors degree holder-- in basket weaving of course! Although I really don't want a career in Information Systems Management, the degree will go a long way in helping to secure my preferred career choice in burger flipping! ;-) ------ Thanks to all the folks who stopped by the PCWize forum! We had some good discussions. I'd like to continue with that, so please stop in at for some good stuff. ______________________________________________________________________ Table Of Contents - Voting Booth and Other PCWize Stuff - Software Review - Cool Sites - Tips, Tricks, Do's and Don't Do's - That's the news! - Security Issues, Hoaxes, Viruses and Other Urban Legends - PCWize Contests and winner announcement If the columns in the below articles appear misaligned, it's because you are using a non-fixed width font. If you would like to see them as written, please change your e-mail font to Courier New. ______________________________________________________________________ ** A word from our sponsors ** ------ http://www.creditcardanalyzer.com - find out how much your credit cards are costing you and see how much money you could save by transferring the balance to a lower interest card ------ Want to see your advertisement here? For more information, go here: ______________________________________________________________________ HackTech by The NMI Hey, you - Bad person! (No, not you with the gun. You, over there, with the laptop and the bag of Fritos...) Get this: "Repented" infamous computer hacker Kevin Mitnick gets loose from the slammer, and has to virtually beat off job offers with a stick! Of course, due to the terms of his probationary release, he can't actually USE a computer or make money doing consultation work for three years, but there are other offers in the works, like writing and talk-show jobs. Can you believe it? US officials were screwed up in the first place by not being able to catch him for THREE YEARS, mainly due to official bumbling and technological ineptitude. And let's not forget how he was kept locked up without a real sentence for five years... Again, this is pretty pathetic - they couldn't even make a determination on how to prosecute him, because lawmakers have little or no clue about technology, and since the US legal system is based on precedence, they acted like the scarecrow on the wizard of Oz - flailing around, but no brain to give them direction... Maybe if the United States legal system was based on something a little more realistic, like "Case-By-Case basis", they would have had the nerve to see this case on its merits, provide the sentence, and get it over and done with. It's almost humorous, in a "Twilight Zone" kinda way - They busted Kevin Mitnick for, among other things, theft of cellular service. Gee, I kinda remember something about drug dealers using stolen phone codes ALL THE TIME to get around law enforcement officials. Yeah, an aging out-of-shape hacker is more of a threat to society than drug dealers. But then again, silly me, I forgot: "Big Business" was involved. Drug dealers don't make such an obvious dent in profit margins, do they? But this "super-dangerous" super-geek rots in jail for FIVE YEARS while the Government paraded his behind-the-bars visage around, saying "Look what we do to the REALLY bad people!" What the heck is that? I wonder how Kevin escaped reality and landed in a parody of the Justice System (And a really crude one at that). So I'm ranting, but doesn't this sound a little odd to you? Resources spent (poorly) chasing ONE guy, instead of enlisting his knowledge (and others like him) to chase a REAL threat. He could have been contacted, talks made, skills employed, to a better end. I don't know about you, but I personally would feel safer knowing my son walks around with a potato-chip-eatin'-techno-nut, than someone who might offer him DRUGS! How the heck can we become so warped that we value a corporation's welfare over an individual's? And let's not disillusion ourselves - that WAS the reason Kevin was chased down. Certain big companies had a vested interest in making an example of him. The "damage" he did was harder to grasp than a soggy tissue: Among other things, he copied software (but didn't sell it to anyone) and used other people's phone accounts. Wrong? You bet! Worth "Millions of Dollars"? I doubt it. Sure, he messed up, he did wrong, but couldn't there have been a better solution? They let him rot instead of making him serve out his sentence using his talents to track bad types. Now that he's out, I consider him punished, let him move on. But, even now, He's got to ask permission to take jobs. And here's the clencher: The Government finally gets a clue, and wants to use his knowledge to do some good. He was asked to advise the US Commission on National Security, where he would be able to tell US senators about various computer security issues that could adversely affect the United States... but he can't, because going there would violate the no-travel terms of his parole. American tax dollars hard at work, folks. Send your rants and raves to TheNMI@PCWize.com ______________________________________________________________________ Voting Booth and Other PCWize Stuff ------ Click here to vote for PCWize as one of the best newsletters in the "E-zines Top Ten Poll"! It's just a click, no need to fill anything out. ------ Come visit the PCWize forum and live chat. You can discuss anything computer related and it's a good place to get help with any computer questions you may have. ______________________________________________________________________ Software Review ------ Name: Xdrive v 2.10 by X:drive Inc. Genre: On-line Storage Platform: PC Win9x/00/NT Type/Cost: Freeware Size: 1.31MB Homepage: Download: Xdrive isn't the biggest (in terms of MBs given for free), but it does have something very suave that gives it mondo cool points in my book. In addition to the standard web page access to your on-line storage, you can download their very cool program that maps your Xdrive account out to a drive under Windows! If I'm not being clear, let me put it this way. When you click on My Computer, you will see a new drive icon that acts like a networked drive (which is basically what it is.) You can drag and drop, edit, copy, rename, etc. files just like you would on your C drive. It's free, and they start you off with only 25MB, but you can up that to 100MB by recommending Xdrive to your friends, or by revisiting your Xdrive account ten times. So what's the downside to Xdrive? It's the same downside that plagues all on-line storage solutions; Speed! Those of you with Cable Modems or DSL are sitting pretty, but those unfortunate souls like myself who are relegated to 56K land are hurting. Remember, 56K is only during downloads, you can only upload at 33.6K, so that even makes it worse! :-( Even still, it's a handy thing to have for those "Just in case" type situations. For example, Xdrive is now holding a copy of the PCWize subscriber list-- Don't worry, it's heavily encrypted! ______________________________________________________________________ Cool Sites ------ Gray's Anatomy Just start a human anatomy class? Maybe you're just interested in seeing all the guts without the goo. Take a look at Bartleby's on-line edition of Gray's Anatomy. ------ The Netiquette Homepage Netiquette are the table manners of the Internet, and we've all see something of them during our time on-line. Things such as not typing in all caps-- BECAUSE IT'S CONSIDERED YELLING!, and not using a 75 line ASCII art in your e-mail signatures. Well, get ready for 155 pages of nothing but netiquette. Nothing wrong with being polite, but reading that many pages to learn it would drive me to netrage! ______________________________________________________________________ Tips, Tricks, Do's and Don't Do's ------ Do you use a 50 gallon drum for your kitchen trashcan? No? Then why is your Recycle Bin set up to use 10% of available hard drive space? Unlike the Windows swap file, the Recycle Bin isn't actually holding 10% of your hard drive space hostage, but the Windows default settings will let the Recycle Bin use up to 10% if you forget to empty it. Nowadays, with multi-gigabyte hard drives the norm, and not the exception, this could be a considerable chunk of hard drive real-estate. For example, let's take a 12GB hard drive. Even if we tell Windows to use *only* two percent, that's still about 240MB. I've got my 12GB set up for one percent which is still a huge 120MB. Since I clean out my Recycle Bin at least once a day anyway, this isn't such a big deal. However, if you're one of those people who cleans it out once a month, this tip might help curb those trashy habits. To fix this pig of a garbage disposal, right-click on the Recycle Bin, select properties and drop that slider bar down to something more reasonable. ------ This section has been called "Tips, Tricks, Do's and Don't Do's" for a very, very long time, but in all this time, there has never been a "Trick" per se. Well, here's one I developed that's so K.I.S.S. it'll even stump some of the best geeks. For those not familiar with the term, K.I.S.S. stands for Keep It Simple Stupid, and means that most times the best solution is often the simplest one. *Disclaimer - When I say I developed this trick, I mean it was an original idea for me. However, it very much appears that it was an original idea with others as well. Boneheads think alike I suppose! Back in the days of Windows 3.0, this was a slightly different but equally simple practical joke to pull off. Now, with the integration of so much web and Internet stuff into Windows 9x, it has never been simpler. The trick: What happens is that the recipient of your "humorous" joke will come in to see their machine as it always is. However, upon trying to run software from desktop icons and the toolbar, nothing works. No errors, no funny messages, just a resounding deadness to their attempts at launching programs. The set-up: 1. If any applications are open, save anything they are working on and then close the applications-- nothing will make a good practical joke go bad as fast as someone losing data. However, don't close anything that they always keep on-screen such as 3rd party toolbars, maybe ICQ, or whatever else-- if you do, it'll tip them off to something not being right. 2. If the toolbar is hidden, move the mouse over the toolbar so that it appears. This is important, even if the taskbar's normal state is hidden. 3. Press the PrtSc button-- Usually on the top row of keys next to the Numlock and ScrlLk keys. You probably won't get any indication, but you've just taken a snapshot of their desktop. 4. Open up MS Paint by either going to Start/Programs/Accessories, or by typing "pbrush" after going to Start/Run. Without the quotes of course. 5. When MS Paint opens, click on Edit from the menu, and select Paste. If you get a message saying "The image in the clipboard is larger than the bitmap. Would you like the bitmap enlarged?", say Yes. You should now see a copy of their desktop appear in MS Paint. Click on File from the menu, select Save, and call it something like "haha". Make sure you take note of where you saved it to. Close MS Paint. 6. Right-click on a blank area of the desktop and select Properties. Select the Web tab and put a check in the "View my Active Desktop as a web page." 7. Click on the Folder Options button, answer Yes to the question about saving and closing the display properties and opening the folder options. Click the View tab and scroll down until you see the "Hide icons when desktop is viewed as a Web page", which you'll put a check in. Click OK. All the icons should be missing now. 8. Again, right click on the desktop, select properties, and on the Background tab, click the Browse button and find the "haha" snapshot of their desktop. Select it, click Open, click OK. Would you look at that! Their desktop looks like normal. 9. For the finishing touches, you need to fix their toolbar so it won't pop up over the false one when they move their mouse down there. The easiest way is to hold your mouse over the real toolbar and move up until you see the cursor change to a double-headed arrow. Click, hold, and then drag towards the bottom of the screen. This will resize the toolbar into a small line. If you want to be even more devious, click and hold on this little line and drag it to a different side of the screen. And if you are completely wicked , you can play with their monitor settings to expand the screen until the little line doesn't show up anymore-- Just be careful that this doesn't clip any parts of the fake desktop, or it might look suspicious. Congratulations, you have now set the stage to a very frustrating evening for your "friend". So, you got any favorite computer practical jokes? Bring them to the PCWize forum to share with your fellow readers and your favorite newsletter crewdogs! ______________________________________________________________________ That's the news! ------ IBM 1GB drives for handheld devices. ------ British Telecomm wants royalties for the use of URLs! ------ No line between signing on the digital line and the dotted line. ------ Prospective suer gets kicked to the curb. ______________________________________________________________________ Security Issues, Hoaxes, Viruses and Other Urban Legends ------ Please visit http://www.pcwize.com/tech/computer/secdef.shtml if you would like to know the definitions for hoaxes, viruses, worms and urban legends. ------ Network Associates has listed the IRC/St*ges worm on the High Risk Assessment list due to it's particular insidiousness. This is due in part to its attempts to change its identifying features when being sent to people in your address book, but in particular to an exploit of the Shell Scrap Object. Some of you all may remember me telling you about this in the Tips and Tricks section of issue 19 (February 1999), but at that time, I didn't know this would later be used as an exploit to circumvent what little security Windows 9x has. Instead of me writing up explanations of how this exploit works, I'll just point you to a well written article I ran across which also explains how to protect yourself. If you are interested in seeing how the IRC/St*ges worm exploits this otherwise useful function, please visit NAI's virus library at: ______________________________________________________________________ PCWize Contests and Winner Announcement ------ Each week PCWize holds a random drawing contest and gives away free stuff (usually software) to its subscribers. We will continue to do this as long as there are advertisers who are willing to provide the prizes. If you are such an individual/company, then please contact me at editor@pcwize.com so that we can work a deal. ------ The winner of this week's random drawing contest is: Jerry Klemet ______________________________________________________________________ Well, that's it for this issue! Have a good week and I'll see you in seven days. Leif Gregory Copyright © 1997-00 by Leif Gregory. All rights reserved. You may share this copy of the PCWize newsletter with others as long as it is reprinted in it's entirety to include the copyright notice and subscription directions. If you've received this edition of the PCWize newsletter from a friend or colleague and wish to start receiving your own copy, then click the below link and send the generated e-mail message. I have made every attempt to ensure that all information contained in this newsletter is accurate to the best of my ability. Due to the myriad of possible configurations in the PC platform, information and software discussed here may not always work with your particular configuration. That being said, Leif Gregory and the PCWize newsletter can not be held liable for any damages you may incur either directly or indirectly from the use of anything contained in this newsletter. PCWize does not endorse any of the products or services provided by advertisers in this newsletter. As with anything in life, please check the credibility of the advertiser as well as to use common sense. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. PCWize Editor PCWize Homepage Unsubscribe