Text 13512, 113 rader
Skriven 2009-11-27 00:45:00 av WAYNE CHIRNSIDE (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av ROSS CASSELL
Ärende: Re: botched it up
=========================
-=> ROSS CASSELL wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

 RC> Hello WAYNE!

 RC> 26 Nov 09 20:23, you wrote to me:

 WC>> Accidently left it in root as I surfed and got rooted.

 RC>> Genius!

 WC> I credit you completely, thanks for the education.

 RC> Whoa nellie, you are gonna blame your mishaps on me now, well as Spock
 RC> would say "fascinating".

You are the one who recommended removing the Nvidia card.
Don't you recall?

THAT resulted in an unbootable system.

 RC>> There is something to be said for Ubuntu's sudo system. The
 RC>> privilege elevation is temporary.

 WC> Uh, Slackware has sudo as well you know.

 RC> This is the education you need.

Nope, I'm aware of the vulnerabilites that entails.

I'd rather just default to eth0 OFF and turn it on with a tiny script.

 WC> BTW I'm mentioned to Maurice Kinal quite some time ago that
 WC> I had thought to edit the init file to shutoff the network card on
 WC> boot.

 WC> Maurice didn't seem to think it's necessary so I deferred to his
 WC> judgment.

 WC> It was a likely enough error when overtired I was likely to mistype
 WC> exit and not notice.

 RC> Well if in any doubt, just unplug the ethernet cord from your cable
 RC> modem.

I did that as soon as I noticed the problem before ever entering root
or going back online and thus before any damage could be done.

I still figure to have to redo the system map and Lilo.
Nvidia's software did not see fit to backup the original
and though the splash screen is gone there's a remnent remaining where it shows
Nvidia text and resolution choices still before the BIOS  appears
thus still blocking booting from CD-ROM. 

 WC> Hey I caught it on reboot after following your advice so then undid
 WC> all the damage.

 RC> Your initial complaint was that the nvidia splash screen was preventing
 RC> you from getting at the system bios, the natural conclusion is to
 RC> troubleshoot by removing the common denominator, 50/50 chance of
 RC> success.

 WC> Some of these stinking rootkits are getting better atr social
 WC> engineering and this one gave me an alternative to entering root
 WC> password but had I bit on that it would have opened up my system for
 WC> exploit.

 RC> You sound like Linux is as big a target for malware as "that other OS".

No, it's traveling in on a known exploit of Flash which I told you about 2 /12
years ago
and you dismissed.

That exploit was just made generally known via slashdot.com a week or so back.

I've nailed it down to the Flash genrated randowmly named /tmp files.
Removing them solves the problem if you do so before a reboot,
a reboot required due to total lockup following your advice.

I'll be removing libflash.so so as to remove this threat. 

 WC> But that would have required me reboot with the cable modem powered.

 RC> How so, your computer would still function, even if you never had
 RC> internet turned on, you once had to deal with dial-up?

I believe I am aware of that.

 WC> You call it troubleshooting when a after market driver splash screen
 WC> clobbers you before you can even enter the BIOS?

 RC> Yes, by eliminating the card that produces that splash screen so that
 RC> you can enter the BIOS. Troubleshooting an issue is achieved by back
 RC> tracking through is common denominators until the cause is identified.

And only the BIOS, tomorrow when rested I tackle the rest of the remnents
of that crappy driver.

 WC> Life is good.

 WC> Hope you had a happy turkey day.

 RC> Absolutely, hope you did as well.

Well sure, I always learn more from these minor errors
and now the IBM video performance outranks what I'd achieved with a better
machine.

Then to when I could reach the BIOS again I noted this machine too can take
parity memory.

... No matter where you go, there you are.
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
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