Freezing memory reveals passwords
Published on Tuesday 4th March, 2008 (AEST)
Researchers at Princeton University recently published research (complete with YouTube video) into a little known fact of RAM—data in memory is not immediately lost when a computer is turned off. Rather, the contents of memory is lost over a period of a few seconds, or even several minutes if the memory is frozen. The researchers demonstrate this by spraying memory chips with canned air, dropping the temperature to well below zero and preserving the memory contents with minimal loss for over five minutes. (More)
Vista Service Pack 1
Published on Monday 18th February, 2008 (AEST)
Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista was released to MSDN/TechNet subscribers last week, and so far the final release is looking good. Microsoft have planned a staggered release of the SP, in order to minimise update headaches. So, for now, it has been made available to manufacturers and technical-type people, and won't be released to the public until mid-March. At that point, it will be available on the Windows Update site for customers who choose to install it. Later, in mid-April, it will start to be automatically installed on PCs where there are no known driver conflicts (more information on the staged release can be found on the Windows Vista Team Blog). (More)
Setting compatibility mode for all users
Published on Tuesday 22nd January, 2008 (AEST)
When setting up a new Citrix server recently, I had to set the compatibility mode to 'Windows XP' for several legacy applications, in order for them to work correctly on Windows Server 2003. However, setting the compatibility mode on a shortcut does not apply to all users, even if the shortcut is in the All Users folder. (More)
Security Camera Security
Published on Monday 14th January, 2008 (AEST)
It's been a while since my last post. In recent months, my wife and I have moved from Hong Kong back to Australia, we've welcomed our daughter Leora into the world, and I've resumed work as a Systems Engineer with a past employer. So, in all the busyness, I haven't had much time to write, and now my backlog of ideas is getting a little too much to contain. (More)
Virus Scanners - Prevention or Detection?
Published on Thursday 1st November, 2007 (AEST)
Of the three classes of security mechanisms—prevention, detection, and reaction—virus scanners are generally designed, developed, and implemented as tools of prevention. In many environments, they are the only defence from viruses, worms, and other malicious programs; software vetted by a virus scanner is naively considered safe, so few other preventative measures may be in place. This is a black-list approach to security, whereby any software may run unless it is recognised as a known baddie. (More)
