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AP Story on Linux and W2k Cracking Contests
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Fri Aug 06, 1999 11:54 AM
from the stuff-to-read dept.
from the stuff-to-read dept.
StirFry writes "The AP Wire has this story about the whole crack Windows 2000/crack LinuxPPC situ. And they even use and define the term 'crackers'. Best bit:
'But a log posted on the computer showed at least nine crashes caused by problems with Microsoft software, not the weather. Questioned about that,
the spokeswoman said the computer was expected to be off line for some periods of time ``as customer feedback is assessed and integrated into the
system.'' " Apparently the Linux box is still standing.
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AP Story on Linux and W2k Cracking Contests
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Check out the site... (Score:3)
Aug 6 1999 part 4 12:38AM CDT:
At a rate of 2 million packets per hour/ someone appears to be using a brute force method to guess the passwords. Does this kind of attack count? Unfortunatly, they are trying to telnet in as root
Gotta love it...
There's another W2K challenge out there. (Score:3)
SEATTLE In a move that sent tremors of fear through the programming community, project managers across the country have begun challenging their developers to write code on Microsofts new flagship operating system, Windows 2000. The challenge has not been well publicized - most developers only find out about it after being shown a box running Windows 2000 and being encouraged to get to work. The prize for victory is continued employment. So far nobody has successfully completed the challenge, although there have been several notable failures.
"It was awful," complained unemployed programmer Greg Andrews, "I couldn't do anything. I slipped further and further behind schedule until my PM decided I wasn't up to the challenge and gave me the axe."
Several industry analysts blamed these failures on one of the ground rules laid out in the challenge - PMs refuse to allow hardware upgrades for W2K users despite the fact that it requires at least 256Mb of ram and a PIII-500 for reasonable performance. The analysts speculate that the challenge could still be completed if not for a few 'features' Microsoft included in order to make the challenge more, well, challenging. First off, is the extensive use of wizards, wizards are programs that require the user to navigate through a dozen dialog boxes in order to change even the most trivial of settings. Secondly, W2K makes extensive use of MMC a specialized tool designed to aggravate users accustomed to keyboard shortcuts.
"We aimed these inovations at administrators mainly," admitted a Microsoft spokesperson, "but we're pleased to note that all users of W2K have found their productivity reduced by these tools. Wizards and MMC are part of our Zero Administration Windows initiative whereby we make administration of windows such a nuisance that nobody tries it."
Still, many developers are hopefull that they will be able to complete the W2K challenge. Observered one developer, "I'm three weeks behind schedule right now, but I just discovered that if I disable the networking services and everything that depends on them, I free up just enough memory to allow me compile my 2500 line program in under 10 minutes. I might still have a job next week."
--Shoeboy