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| Who is Tracking Your Laptop? Who Controls It? An Update: |
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A quick update on the article on LoJack for Laptops. First of all, I have determined that LoJack does indeed phone home. I used WireShark to monitor the network activity and have recorded sessions where IP addresses registered to Absolute Software (namequery.com) are communicated with by LoJack. Remember, this is on a laptop that has never had their software "installed" (by me) on it, so what business does their software have using my Internet connection? Good question? I thought so.
Secondly, I wrote before that the jury was out on whether removing LoJack fixes the problems with TrueCrypt. Well it did. I've removed and re-infected my computer several times now, and each time the removal fixes the issue with TrueCrypt's boot loader becoming corrupted. Ironic, don't you think, that LoJack hammers the very software designed to protect your laptop against data theft? They don't have any ulterior motived - say like getting you to pay protection money to them if your laptop is stolen, rather than protecting your data from the outset?
My next article will be step-by-step instructions on how to remove the virus from laptops with Phoenix Bios.
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| Article: Who is Tracking Your Laptop? Who Controls It? |
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I recently purchased a Toshiba Satellite (A210-MS6) laptop. This is the first
laptop I've ever owned - I usually eschewed them for desktop systems I build myself. Being concerned about data loss in case of theft, I installed TrueCrypt,
a nice disk encryption package that now allows your boot drive to be
fully encrypted.
After installation, I began to have problems where my laptop failed to
start properly. Not every time, but every few restarts something was corrupting the area on my hard drive where
TrueCrypt's boot loader and header key resided. The so-called boot sector and cylinder zero. TrueCrypt's
installation process had forced me to burn a rescue disc (something that
annoyed me at the time but which I became profoundly grateful for) and
this disc can be used as a bandaid, allowing me to fix the corruption
any time it happens. This is obviously not an ideal solution - really,
I needed to find out what was messing with my hard drive's boot sector
on a regular basis, or give up on TrueCrypt.
The jury is still out on
whether I have found the hard drive corruption problem, but I certainly
found something fishy. Fishy not only with respects to what it is doing to my laptop, but also what it is doing to my privacy. The "product" I am referring to is Absolute Software's Computrace LoJack for Laptops.
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| New Beta Release of GPGee |
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As I've been promising (or threatening, depending on your perspective) for quite some time, I've finally freed up some time to get back to work on my open source projects. As GPGee was the dustier of the two, that's where I've started my work. It's been almost two years since GPGee has seen any serious work. It's hard to believe it has been that long.
The new beta is in the GPGee download section. Read on for a description of the changes.
UPDATE: The download link is now fixed.
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| Freelancer Import Plugin Updated |
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Back when Freelancer was new and exciting, I was fairly heavily involved in the game community. I wrote a plugin for the MilkShape modeling program to allow Freelancer models to be imported into it. Time passed, I drifted out of the Freelancer crowd, and MilkShape evolved. Bit rot reared its ugly head, and around version 1.7.something the plugin stopped working. Every now and again someone in the Freelancer community would ask me to update it. So I finally did.
The updated version is available in the download section. There haven't been any significant changes in this release other than updating it for the new MilkShake SDK. The plugin is now aware of MilkShape's improved maximums for vertices and triangles, so larger (capital ship) models can be imported.
Enjoy.
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Posted by Kurt on Saturday, January 26 @ 20:54:13 MST (359 reads)
(comments? | Score: 0)
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I'm back from basic training - actually, I have been for the last few weeks. I graduated and received my commission on December 12th and flew home on the 15th. I have three weeks at home before I head off to Victoria for three more phases of MARS officer training. As you might guess, life has been pretty hectic. One of those weeks has been spent visiting my parents over Christmas, and most of the rest of the time has been spent with my wife and children. You'd be surprised how many things there are to fix around a house after being away for 16 weeks. :)
A lot of people e-mailed me with questions and comments on the various projects I run. As of right now my intention is to write back to everyone, poke my nose in the forums, and get the projects back on track with some of the features I've been hoping to incorporate. It looks like I'll have enough free time to do this, but I still don't know for sure. If any of this changes, I will post about it. So, be patient for just a little while longer while I catch up and get things sorted out.
Cheers!
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Posted by Kurt on Friday, January 04 @ 12:52:37 MST (365 reads)
(comments? | Score: 0)
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| Don't have an account yet? You can create one. As a registered user you have some advantages like theme manager, comments configuration and post comments with your name. |
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| There isn't a Biggest Story for Today, yet. |
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| Thursday, August 23 | | · | Preparing for Basic Training in the Canadian Forces - UPDATED |
| Friday, July 13 | | · | Selling domain names |
| Friday, June 08 | | · | Fair Winds and Following Seas |
| Thursday, April 12 | | · | Site Back - Welcome to my Japanese Friends |
| Wednesday, April 04 | | · | Download Site Awards - An Author's Quest for Glory |
| Sunday, April 01 | | · | Whoops, I Did It Again - SelfImage 1.2.1 |
| Saturday, March 31 | | · | Thanks a million |
| Friday, March 30 | | · | SelfImage 1.2.0 - Better Linux Support |
| Thursday, March 29 | | · | Welcome to my home |
| Monday, February 12 | | · | Whoops - SelfImage 1.1.3 to the Rescue |
| Wednesday, February 07 | | · | SelfImage version 1.1.2 (built 65) Released |
| Friday, February 02 | | · | An Open Letter to Site Hackers |
| Tuesday, January 30 | | · | VirtualDub vs. Avidemux - Comparison and Review |
| · | On Hold |
| Saturday, December 16 | | · | New Login CAPTCHA |
| Wednesday, November 08 | | · | Warship Day Sail Photo Album |
| Friday, November 03 | | · | NOAB - Naval Officer Assessment Board |
| Wednesday, October 25 | | · | Comments Working Again |
| · | Career Change |
| Thursday, April 20 | | · | GPGee 1.3.1 Released |
| Tuesday, March 28 | | · | C++ Builder 2006 |
| Friday, March 03 | | · | New Web Server Hardware - UPDATED |
| Tuesday, January 17 | | · | GPL v3 |
| Friday, January 13 | | · | GPGee 1.3.0 is out - SmartCard support |
| Tuesday, December 27 | | · | SelfImage 1.1.1 Released |
| Monday, December 12 | | · | Bug in GPGee 1.2.2 - version 1.2.3 released |
| · | 100,000 hits! |
| Sunday, December 11 | | · | GPGee version 1.2.2 released! |
| Saturday, December 10 | | · | SelfImage 1.1 Released |
| Friday, December 02 | | · | SelfImage 1.0 - and 1.0.1 too! |
Older News Items
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