The Peregrin Falcon

Occassionally, I find a technical vent to write about.

Before I begin, I want to state clearly that I hold no ill will towards Microsoft in general. I have grown up with the PC and bought one of the first copies of “The Road Ahead” by Bill Gates. I am a degreed professional in the I.T. industry and use Microsoft products every day. I have defended Microsoft time and time and time again to the usual crowd of detractors, both informed and ignorant. I even go so far as to say I would work for Microsoft as I know it today in a second and am envious of those who do. So, the following I report with no joy.

Everyone’s covered the “I Hate Vista” angle. I get it. I also do not like Vista. I think someone who has been using Microsoft products since 3rd grade should be able to say he or she is familiar with the software. However, with Vista for the first time in decades I had to look up how to start a macro in Excel; that’s right, I had to go to Microsoft.com and look up how to start a macro! So now it appears we may have at least some salvation. From time to time I will post another person’s article whole cloth because it needs no addition or subtraction. Here is one for all the other Vista Haters in the world who are wondering if it is time, finally time to switch to another software. After all if we must relearn the basics, why not choose something new altogether. -

Tool shoves ‘annoying’ Vista security feature aside
Tom Espiner, ZDNet UK

29 April 2008 04:50 PM

Tags: microsoft, uac, developers, isv, vista, impression, annoy

Software developers claim they have created a tool to bypass User Account Control — an “annoying” security feature in Windows Vista, according to Microsoft executives.

The developers from NeoSmart said on their Web site that the UAC feature was “only there to give the impression of security”.

UAC is a controversial feature of Vista designed to stop users from installing or executing arbitrary code. Many see it as a hindrance to performing everyday tasks, as it requests confirmation from users without administrator rights for many actions where no user confirmation was needed in Vista’s predecessor, XP — in Vista, administrator is not the default setting.

iReboot, the tool developed by NeoSmart, helps users choose which operating system to reboot into. UAC had stopped the application from running at start-up, but the developers now claim to have bypassed UAC by splitting iReboot into two. One of the parts, running in the background, has privileged access to the operating system without requiring administrator approval each time the machine boots; the other part, running as a client program, interacts with this back-end service.

As the developers were able to grant the back-end part of the program privileges to run without express user approval every time the machine starts up, they claimed that Windows Vista’s security limitations are “artificial at best, easy to code around, and only there to give the impression of security”.

“Any program that UAC blocks from starting up ‘for good security reasons’ can be coded to work around these limitations with (relative) ease,” wrote the developers in a blog post. “The ‘architectural redesign’ of Vista’s security framework isn’t so much a rebuilt system as much as it is a makeover, intended to give the false impression of a more secure operating system.”

Earlier this month Microsoft product unit manager David Cross, said that UAC was deliberately designed to “annoy users”, in order to put pressure on third-party software makers to make their applications more secure.

Microsoft had not responded to a request for comment at the time of writing.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Tool-shoves-annoying-Vista-security-feature-aside/0,130061744,339288486,00.htm

Continued from Part I:

Bill Maher is only one example of the growing cacophony of elite[/tag[ intellectuals who use the excuses of bashing religions for past or current offences to imply that anyone who has faith in some deity is somehow less than intelligent or rational.

From his own Wikipedia:
In 2002 he told the Onion AV Club, “I’m not an atheist. There’s a really big difference between an atheist and someone who just doesn’t believe in religion. Religion to me is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don’t need. But I’m not an atheist, no. I believe there’s some force. If you want to call it God… I don’t believe God is a single parent who writes books”.

Looking that the quote above, it would seem Mr. Maher says it is possible to believe in a higher power, at least in 2002. Now, on his April 2008 Real Time with Bill Maher show; he equates believing in a man who “can fly to heaven” as the same as being a crazy person. Some where along the way, he seems to have become atheistic. Further evidence of his switch is his support of The Reason Project. The title and only page of The Reason Project reads:

The Reason Project is a charitable foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The Reason Project will draw on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers in a wide range of disciplines — science, law, literature, entertainment, information technology, etc. — to encourage critical thinking and wise public policy. It will convene conferences, produce films, sponsor scientific research and opinion polls, award grants to other non-profit organizations, and offer material support to religious dissidents and public intellectuals
— all with the purpose of eroding the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world.

While there may not be explicit language saying belief or faith is stupidity, the promotion of secular values in society definitely works with the title of the project to make the implication.

Mr. Maher, we are not fooled by your guises. You may include a token Christian in your debates who also happens to be a professor, but everyone watching saw your disdain for his faith. I don’t know where we as a society lost the ability to be both intelligent and faithful. We have experienced many betrayals by those in religious authority, but that does not cancel out the good experienced by all. We have had people who are public figures profess religion and act opposite to the faith they hold, but that does not erase the charity, compassion, and life changing love given by countless others in the same name of those faiths.

For those who have forgotten that faith does not equal idiocy, here is a short list of Christians of Reason, that have since been called founders of modern science and thought. I included quotes from those that might be called agnostic or atheist, and since the quotes are well-known I did not include the source. I also included brief descriptions for those less publicly known.

In no particular order—–

JRR Tolkien
C.S. Lewis
Sir George Williams (YMCA Founder)
Abraham Lincoln
George Washington
John Adams
Patrick Henry
Christopher Columbus
Samuel Morse
Isaac Newton (father of modern physics)
Orville Wright
Wilbur Wright
Henry F. Schaefer”Fritz” - Current Leading theoretical physicist
Rustum Roy - Current Leading Materials Scientist
Nicolaus Copernicus
Galileo Galilei
“Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.”
Johannes Kepler - astronomer
“Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature, it befits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God.”
Blaise Pascal
“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creater, made known through Jesus Christ.” (Pensees)
Lord Kelvin (as is degrees Kelvin aka- the scientific standard of temperature measurement)