borkeded

MS is so busy putting out security patches, it looks like they've gone and broken their TCP stack once again. Earlier this year they hosed things by making a system decide to start ignoring ICMP packets after a while. Eventually, the remote end of a TCP socket would hang up, and the local system would ignore that fact. Any process which was, say, waiting for some data to come through that socket, would wait, and wait, and wait. . . until a human comes along and either restarts the process or machine, or kills the local end explicitly with something like TCPView. Anyway, I'm busy dealing with a rash of around a dozen systems in this state right now. And they all have the little "Your system was just updated. . . " message in the system tray. . .

scam

Lookout for fake EBay "second chance offer" letters from dorenlavasa@yahoo.com.

Hah!

Friday, October 13 2006
25:08

A choice can be as dangerous as a weapon. Refusing to choose is in itself a choice.

- PEARTEN, ancient Mentat philosopher

This quote begins a chapter in Hunters of Dune, page 426. Clever authors: PEARTEN = Peart, N. = Neil Peart. It's a paraphrased quote from "Freewill" by Rush!