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Windows PIO mode fallback problem
Windows (starting from Win2k I think) has an interesting feature: after a certain number of failures on a given IDE channel, it reverts that channel from DMA to PIO mode. This is perfectly reasonable for hard disks (although a user warning would still be useful), but for CD-ROMs this is deadly because a bad CD…
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To pack or not to pack?
After listening to an other great CyberSpeak podcast, I decided to line up the pros and cons of executable packing for programmers. First of all, what is executable packing? In short it is similar to self-extracting archives, where as a result of the process an executable is generated which contains some unpacking code and the…
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HIPS – just a pretty UI?
Disclaimer: the viewpoints and ideas expressed here an entirely my own and are by no means representative for any institution I am affiliated with. Also I do not want to offend anybody, since I realize that the amount of work it takes to create some of these programs and the wealth of knowledge one must…
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What to do if you have many TIME_WAIT connections owned by the system process?
If you have a Windows machine which acts as a server and it have many connections per seconds, you can get in the situation when you have a lot of half-open connections owned by the system (PID 0) process. To resolve this if the communication hosts have high speed connections with one another (like a…
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Hack the Gibson – Episode #56
Read the reason for these posts. Read Steve Gibson’s response. Here I am again, as promised. I won’t turn soft because of a nice e-mail. (Then again I hope that these posts are of technical nature, they point out objective mistakes and don’t become a personal attack. If you think that I’m sliding in that…
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Traceroute on Windows and Linux
Did you know that the Linux version of traceroute uses UDP packets with various TTLs instead of ICMP echo requests by default? I sure didn’t, but thinking about it is a very smart way to do it. My only question would be: doesn’t this interfere with the operation of a server if you happen to…
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A (non-hacking) tutorial on elevating privileges on Windows
Running as a normal user can be real pain on Windows (however it has become better with every version). This is because every program runs on the behalf of a given user and the credentials of that user determine what the program can or can not do. Usually you wish to run as user to…