Insecurity | was: Re: T40 Battery

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Robert Holmgren wrote:

> Burn compressed image to DVD periodically.

I always did that for the desktop, using Drive Image. (Not to DVD, but to cd, h/d,
or DAT.) The rare restore worked pretty reliably for me up through NT-4. But it
doesn't work anymore. The image goes back on, the atrocious NT Boot Loader can be
reset, but then I'm consistently locked out at the freakin' Password Logon. (Yeah,
I know, you told me: I'll never enable a Password again, on any fresh install. But
it's a little too late for that now.) Recovering to the way it *was* is looking
less and less possible.  I've already given up on the Offline NT Password Recovery
CD, and may work my way through EBCD and the l0pht cracker. I think that either the
SAM component somehow does not survive the image restore procedure intact, or
perhaps there is some encrypted key stored somewhere in the boot loader -- the files
parked early on C:, which allow you to boot distant W2K partitions -- that has to
match a key inside the restored image . . . and it never does. Anyway, this is
such a hassle, I hope that no one you know runs afoul of it. It really makes me
hope for a good and affordable emulator, so I can toss WIN in the garbage where it
belongs.

> Plus, I was stunned when I took my daughter to
> college as a freshman, and had to configure it with mandatory software before
> they would even let her join the campus network. Unbelievable amount of stuff.
> First it did a 30 minute scan of all her disks, looking for viruses and the
> like (none, of course -- fresh off my LAN!). Then it installed every
> conceivable kind of encryption, protection, virus traps, complex logon scripts,
> proprietary Email program, whatever.

I just have to think all this is further complicating and destabilizing what is
already a huge honking House of Cards !


Jordan