There is No Password

Do not try to guess the root password, that is impossible. Instead, realise the truth... there is no root password. Then you will see that it is 'sudo' that grants you access and not the root password.

sudo -V | -h | -l | -L | -v | -k | -K | -s | [ -H ] [ -P ] [ -S ] [ -b ] | [ -p prompt ] [ -c class|- ] [ -a auth_type ] [ -u username|#uid ] command

sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or another user, as specified in the sudoers file. The real and effective uid and gid are set to match those of the target user as specified in the passwd file (the group vector is also initialized when the target user is not root). By default, sudo requires that users authenticate themselves with a password (NOTE: by default this is the user's password, not the root password). Once a user has been authenticated, a timestamp is updated and the user may then use sudo without a password for a short period of time (5 minutes unless overridden in sudoers).

I Can Haz Beer Cat?

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Just How Bad Was Windows Vista?

Just how bad was Windows Vista?
Apparently, it's bad enough that 3/4 of Microsoft's business customers didn't upgrade, according to Microsoft. And the customer aversion to Vista is so strong, that Dell is charging customers $150 extra to downgrade and stay with XP! That's right! The retailer is now charging a whopping $150 for what Microsoft says is outdated software.

I get accused of bashing Microsoft from time to time, and I admit that I do take some pleasure in it. But, seriously! How can I be accused of bashing?
People already know that I'm right. According the statistics above, about 74% of Microsoft customers know I'm right. Microsoft has admitted that I'm right in their own press releases. So why am I accused of bashing when it's apparently common knowledge?

Oh well, for all you die-hard Windows fans out there... here's some YouTube videos you probably won't like.


There were an estimated 30 million Linux users back in 2005. The number is closer to 70 million now.


Linux always keeps up with the latest trends.


Linux can run on just about anything. And it can run just about anything, both Windows and Mac software.

At Least I Didn't Die

So I've been playing an RPG with some friends for the last couple months.
The game is Star Wars: Saga Edition. When we first began the game, the one thing I knew was that I didn't know much. Various things were later uncovered that proved this; we initially rolled the stats for our characters wrong which made them much weaker than they should have been; not even our GM fully understood how to use Destiny Points; we accidentally played the first game with unlimited force powers, and after we had gotten ourselves into a serious situation switched to the correct rules which severely handicapped us.
Still, I enjoyed playing. Despite our mistakes, we kept it fun. There were no rule Nazis among us. We just played and had fun and if we made mistakes we learned as we went.
I maximized the learning part for myself. I downloaded the Saga Edition rulebook and read the huge manual 4 times between our games. I immediately discovered a few glitches in my character which immensely helped my gameplay. I was still having troubles in my play though. I went back home and scoured the rulebook for character-specific traits and discovered I had forgotten to write any of those class traits down - did I mention we were all a bunch of n00bs at the beginning?
Anyway, long story short... I was a perfect light-side Jedi until the last game. I ended up dying and had to use Darkside Heal to get back up and continue fighting. I got back up to help save my friends, but I still ended up shifting towards the dark side, a shift I couldn't correct even though I tried repeatedly to get rid of the dark points. This only equated to a slight shift towards the dark side, but I was still essentially neutral. Our GM told us that there is a penalty in going dark side (even slightly) and that is that the Jedi will begin trying to hunt us down.
During the last couple play sessions, other characters lost their lives and got to make new characters. Some of our other players died in absolutely gruesome ways! One of our Jedi was ripped into an indeterminable number of pieces by a VERY LARGE carnivore. Another took a Mandalorian missile at point blank range right in the chest.
I was really happy with my last character, despite his flaws. I turned my character into a battle-tank character by level 4, with over 100HP. I really wanted to make a new character (using all my knowledge I had now to make a better character), but I didn't want to die.
I'm happy to say... I didn't die. I ended up needing to make a new character after my last (slightly darkside) character was captured by the Jedi on Coruscant. My last character is in jail, basically, awaiting re-education that will shift him back to the light. Maybe my character will come back later... I don't know.
I have two things to gloat about. I didn't die! And, having applied all the knowledge I gained previously, my current level-1 character is amazing!

Microsoft Has Set Us Back a Decade

Image via Wikipedia

While looking at my geek code the other day, I realized that in my latest copy of the code I used "w---" for my Windows geekiness. The expanded entry for "w---" is "Windows has set back the computing industry by at least 10 years. Bill Gates should be drawn, quartered, hung, shot, poisoned, disembowelled, and then REALLY hurt."

Why did I choose "w---"? I started thinking about this. And then I realized that it was true!
Windows has set back the computing in the world by over a decade!

While the computing market is driven by multiple forces, gaming is primarily a force that makes people upgrade. Think about it; have you ever heard someone say, "I need to upgrade my computer so I can run the latest version of PowerPoint!", or was it usually they wanted to upgrade so they could run a new game?

Gaming as a force has driven computing for a long time. However, not so much recently. Here's why... Microsoft happened; specifically, XBox happened. Gaming used to be the sole providence of the PC market. There were a few consoles available, but few offered a gaming experience that could rival PC. Knowing that gaming was driving the market, Microsoft wanted a piece of the pie and stepped in with a console called XBox. They were expensive too (you could sink as much into a new XBox which only ran games as you could into a new PC which had no limits as to what you could run), but since Microsoft started massively producing new video games, they released them initially ONLY for their system. PC gamers had to wait, and this draw slowly pulled them to using consoles as well for gaming.

Now let's take a look at the XBox itself. The latest version of the XBox, 360, has massive problems. Massive? 54% failure rate massive! Compare that to the 10.6% failure rate on the PS3 and a 6.8% failure rate on the Wii, and already Microsoft's gaming console starts sounding like a bad idea.
Okay, so maybe you've never had any problems. I have occasionally met people who say that to me. I can almost guarantee you though, that if you've never had any problems, then the people who were directly in front and behind you in the electronics checkout line have had problems. My brother is a die-hard XBox gamer. He's been through 7 XBox 360 warranty returns in the past 2 years!!

Now, let's take a look inside the XBox. The XBox360 uses a Xenon processor to power its gaming. This is triple-core processor, designed in the year 2002, capable of speeds up totalling 3Ghz.

When the XBox 360's 90nm "Waternoose" Xenon processor was released in 2005, it was already 3 years out of date. Just a year later, processors in PC's had already shifted to smaller and faster technology, like Pentium 4, Pentium D, and AMD's Phenom processor. These new PC chipsets were more than capable of running anything XBox could throw at them.

So, if these amazing technologies were released so many years ago, why haven't we seen another radical shift in the computer market to even faster processors? Simply put, demand. There is no demand. The International Roadmap for Technology Semiconductors shows that there is a trend of 70% scaling every 2–3 years. We've seen this trend played out over and over again. But everyone is busy playing on the nearly decade old architecture of the XBox. The new games on the market are being designed for the XBox. Why upgrade your PC to the newest thing if the older thing satisfies you?

So, even though PC's are far superior to XBox, Microsoft is stagnating computer advancement by holding the market forces behind with it's out-of-date technology. So, yes... I'm sticking with my "w---".
"Windows has set back the computing industry by at least 10 years. Bill Gates should be drawn, quartered, hung, shot, poisoned, disembowelled, and then REALLY hurt."

Why You Need A Grimoire

This article was published in Volume Twenty-Seven, Number Two, Summer 2010 article of 2600 The Hacker Quarterly. I wanted to share it, since it offered much good advice.

Why You Need a Grimoire
by Leviathan

No matter how long you have been hacking, surfing, or working in IT, and especially in these uncertain times when your activity can be sniffed, parsed, logged, and archived, you need a grimoire.
Dictionary.com defines a grimiore as "a manual of black magic (for invoking spirits and demons)." Those of us who have been pushing bits around for some time know that the things we routinely accomplish can sometimes appear to be black magic to the less technically adept among us. The sheer volume of information we have stuck in our craniums and bookmarks, and our ability to Google with precision, gives us an edge in finding and implementing all sorts of technology magic. This is all good.
But it's not perfect, you know. We forget things. A website that we KNOW contained the answer last week, is suddenly gone. The transient nature of that big beast we call the Internet means that all content is in flux. And by the way, are you tired of the many tech support sites, powered by ad after ad, where you have to register before they'll let you click on the answer to your question?
To paraphrase Dennis Hopper: "You, my friend, you need a grimoire."
To the uninitiated, it looks just like a plain, bound notebook. But to you, and to the minions who watch in awe as you use it, it is truly a book of spells. You have the answers, because everything of value you've come across in your technology dealings, you've recorded faithfully in your grimoire.
A grimoire is not pretty. It's not always well-organized. But the answers are there, because you put them there. It's your insurance policy, your journal, your database. In time you will come to know exactly where everything is.
Best of all, it's private. No amount of ISP chicanery, keystroke logging, or site monitoring will ever create another copy of your grimoire. It will never slip a cookie or prompt you to install another damned plug-in.
That, ummm, marginal URL that you really don't want in your bookmarks? Into the grimoire it goes. Default (factory) passwords? Never know when you'll need those. Write 'em down.
That UNIX command with the mile-long unreadable man(1) page? Write down exactly how you use the command in real life, using only the options that are most useful to you. That unsupported hack that made your video card come alive... what happens if you have you have to reload the OS? Catalog it with care.
Account names and passwords: be careful here. Most of us have a handfull of good, strong passwords we use all the time. Write down only the first two or three characters, and fill in the rest with random letters. Same with user IDs. No unintended reader will ever determine your complete password from w9xxxxxxxx. But knowing the starting letters will allow you to remember it.
Now this part should be obvious: my grimoire goes everywhere I go, no exceptions. It's always available to me regardless of where I am or what other resources there are.
If you accumulate as much information as I have (my grimoire is about 12 years old, with new entries written in the margins now), you and your book will become the stuff of legends. When I walk into a meeting and put it down on the table, I inevitably get the question, along with a stare of admiration: "Is that the book?" I smile in reply.
And if, saints forbid, you should ever be in an embaressing legal situation and you have to get rid of its evidence quickly, tear out the offending pages, shed a few tears, then flick your Bic. Let's see you clean up a hard drive that cleanly. Privacy, my friends; it is priceless. If your dealing are not quite that dramatic, your grimiore is a good reference at review time or when preparing your resume.
So spend a few wise dollars and obtain a good quality, bound notebook with lined archive paper, and start filling it with your accumulated IT wisdom. You and your grimoire will make history.