Daily Cup of Tech

A very useful trick from What’s My Pass? if you can’t access your Vista box:

Using BackTrack Live CD which can be found ::here::

For those of you who forgot your spiffy new Vista Logon password. Here’s a quick and dirty way to make a new user account. BTW, this has been around since XP but still useful.

Boot into Backtrack and open a shell prompt:

cd /mnt (change directory to mounted drives)
ls (get the list of mounted drives)
cd sda1 (sda1 is the main hard drive)
cd Windows/ (change to the windows directory)
cd System32/ (change to the system directory)
mv Utilman.exe Utilman.old (backup original file)
cp cmd.exe Utilman.exe (copy cmd.exe as utilman.exe)
reboot

once rebooted, at vista logon screen, Press Windows key + U
To invoke Utility Manager ( A.K.A. CMD.exe)
Cmd.exe will spawn with ‘System’ privileges.
c:\>net user S00perAdmin mypassword /add
c:\>net localgroup administrators S00perAdmin /add
Reboot and log in with your newly added Admin account

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2008/07/22/reset-your-vista-password/trackback/

mrc:

MANDIANT Red Curtain is software for Incident Responders that assists with the analysis of malware. MRC examines executable files (e.g., .exe, .dll, and so on) to determine how suspicious they are based on a set of criteria. It examines multiple aspects of an executable, looking at things such as the entropy (in other words, randomness), indications of packing, compiler and packing signatures, the presence of digital signatures, and other characteristics to generate a threat “score.” This score can be used to identify whether a set of files is worthy of further investigation.

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/08/09/free-malware-analysis-software/trackback/

Google as predicted in 1964:

I do enjoy looking at old predictions of the future. Eventually, the future arrives and we can compare it with the predictions. Sometimes, the predictions are better than the reality. Sometimes, reality outpaces not only the predictions but even the dreams of the past. And sometimes, the predictions end up being pretty-much spot on. That’s the case with a piece about the “answer machine” of the future, which appeared in the book Childcraft Volume 6: How Things Change, published by Field Enterprises Educational Corporation in 1964.

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/08/06/google-described-in-1964/trackback/

PROJECT OVERVIEW - CleversafeWiki:

The Dispersed Storage Project is the central point of development and idea exchange for developers around the world to contribute to innovative storage solutions leveraging dispersed storage methodology.

The project uses Information Dispersal Algorithms, IDAs, to separate data into unrecognizable DataSlices™ and distribute them, via secure Internet connections, to storage locations throughout the world, creating a storage grid. With dispersed storage, transmission and storage of data is inherently private and secure. No single entire copy of the data is in one location, and only a subset of the nodes need to be available in order to perfectly retrieve the data.

Data on the grid remains private and secure in the face of natural catastrophes, or failures of hardware, connection, facility, or IT management. Moreover, the individual data slices do not carry enough information for an unauthorized viewer to determine the original content.

The Cleversafe Dispersed Storage software includes client software with both a comprehensive command line interface (CLI) as well as a complete programming interface (DSAPI) to support any type of storage application. This software further includes grid server software for creating a dispersed storage grid. The Cleversafe software also manages metadata for file systems stored on a Dispersed Storage grid. In addition, this project includes the multi-terabyte Cleversafe Research Storage Grid at eleven separate hosting facilities.

This feels like RAID on a global scale!

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/08/01/keep-data-safe-by-storing-it-everywhere-2/trackback/

win-get Repository:

win-get is an automated install system and software repository for Microsoft Windows written in pascal (for the command line client) and php for the online repository. The ideas for its creation come from apt-get and other related tools for the *nix platforms. The system works by connecting to a link repository. Finding an application and downloading it from the stored link using wget.exe . Then performing the installation routine (silent or standard). And finnally deleting the install file.

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/07/31/apt-get-for-windows/trackback/