US Government Checking Up On Vista Users? 291
Paris The Pirate writes "This article at Whitedust displays some very interesting logs from Vista showing connections to the DoD Information Networking Center, United Nations Development program and the Halliburton Company; for no reason other than the machine was running Vista. From the article 'After running Vista for only a few days — with a complete love for the new platform the first sign of trouble erupted. I began noticing latency on my home network connection — so I booted my port sniffing software and networking tools to see what was happening. What I found was foundation shaking. The two images below show graphical depictions of what has and IS trying to connect to my computer even in an idle state'."
I call bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
1.The screenshots clearly show WinXP, not Vista. In fact, this guy's ultra-leet "port sniffing software and networking tools" is PeerGuardian 2 [phoenixlabs.org]. Straight from the product's home page: Note: PeerGuardian 2 does not support Windows Vista at the moment. This is a top priority, and we hope to have a Vista download soon.
2. Lame screen shots from some Windows app isn't enough to validate a conspiracy theory. Where's the complete traffic dump? And not from some random guy and his "fanboy" friend; how about a creditable network security organization? Hell, I'd even settle for an intern with his CCNA.
3. Hard to tell because all we have are screen shots, but it looks like nothing more than port scans.
(Guess is this is what I get for spending a beautiful Sunday afternoon indoors, on my computer).
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
The screenshots also clearly show another computer is involved, since he is remoting from his Vista PC to his Windows PC. Perhaps they are both on the same network, and he has reason to believe that these connections are being caused by having Vista on the network.
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I personally would have done it with a Linux machine myself using Ethereal or something reliable. The fact is you cannot trust Vista to report the packets in an unbiased manner. It could theoretically drop these packets before they make it to your OS.
Either way if you set up a ARP spoofing attack on your own network (or have a manag
I doubt it's due to Vista... (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, hell, 38.100.26.190 (SafeNet / MediaSentry) has been DoSing me with 10 connections/second bursts for ages now because I once clicked the wrong torrent but you don't see me writing Slashdot stories over it.
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:4, Insightful)
This would make a great scary movie. (Score:4, Funny)
Now what's he doing? No, you FOOL! Don't go into the server closet!!!
No, sir, it is you who is full of shit of a bull. (Score:5, Informative)
1) Firewall defaults to ON out of the box on a default install UNLESS you're installing it into an existing domain with a DC GPO that forces it to off. (read: if so, you set it up that way, stfu)
2) Machine does not allow incoming connections until you close the Manage Your Server dialog. It brings this fact to your attention no less than 3 times during the initial setup. (read: after first boot, OS configuration, server type setup, domain creation, role assignment, windows update -- unless you close the dialog without doing that, in which case, again, your fault, stfu)
3) Machine really does not want to allow incoming connections until you complete a Windows Update and does make you click OK about 3 times to enable incoming connections.
4) Did I yet mention that you have to explicitly close a dialog that says 'No Incoming Connections are allowed until you close this dialog.' before it will allow incoming connections? I wanted to make sure I mentioned that.
So, no. I've never, ever installed Windows 2003 Server and 'accidentally' had a network cable installed, only to find that within 45 seconds it was crippled, and neither have you, because it's not possible unless you personally clicked 'yes, allow incoming connections to my unpatched, non-updated machine, and hey, while you're at it, let me open firewall.cpl (or the firewall control panel applet for you non command-line users) and disable the firewall'. See, because that's what you would have had to have done to create a situation that could exhibit those results, in case you weren't aware. I am, because I've installed Windows Server 2003, and all flavors thereof, no less than 100 times.
Thanks for playing, game over.
Re:No, sir, it is you who is full of shit of a bul (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/column
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It's nothing more than FUD.
Besides, if he wrote a paper and his professor was shocked, I'm sure it was only because of his horrible grammar (ex: countries instead of country's). Sheesh. If you're going to spread FUD, at least try to sound intelligent.
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Informative)
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If this guy is doing this internally, why is the remote desktop session showing 192.168.0.1, and the PeerGuardian logs showing a destination of 24.
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You weren't talking to me, but I have read up on NAT.
Since the other reply didn't say it, I will: If the XP machine was behind a NAT, the destination address would have been rewritten by the NAT. In other words, the IP would have been in one of the RFC1918 [faqs.org] address ranges:
10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix)
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix)
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
PeerGuardian is for blocking *incoming* connections, this has nothing to do with Vista *AT ALL*.
The names that show up against the IP are taken from user submitted rule files(In case you didn't know this is so that IP's from RIAA/MPAA employed companies can be blocked-who log all ip's connected to any torrent as seeds/leeches). There is no validation on the name corresponding to the IP. Complete and utter FUD.
Even the IPs DID correspond to DoD etc.. there is a completely plausible reason for that.
Bit torrent clients cache IP addresses so that they can connect to all the seeds/leeches in case the torrent managing host goes down. All this has proven is that the US Government uses Bit torrent.
Re:think again (Score:5, Insightful)
Kuwait Ministry of Communications
AAFES/Barracks
Military Medical Academy
And a host of other weird entries. I know I've seen DoD on there before... let's check my older logs:
Federal Electric and Water Authority (WTF?)
Saudi ARAMCO (oil company)
OK, no DoD now, but the point is that weird crap shows up in Peerguardian all the time. DoD entries appear fairly frequently. If this guy's run any P2P software in the last, oh, week or two, that'll cause this to happen.
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1) The attempted connection is actually a P2P monitoring or spyware thing coming from a DoD machine, and is legitimately blocked and correctly labeled
2) Someone's running P2P software on a DoD machine (or their own machine on a DoD network).
3) Someone's running P2P software on a NON-government machine that is unlucky enough to be on the same IP bl
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe he's got multiple machines hooked up to a hub, with the XP machine sniffing in promiscuous mode. Maybe he's tunneling the connection through the XP machine. Who knows. While I too am inclined to call BS, the XP argument doesn't fly.
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Informative)
Or P2P. But, the important part is that he is showing nothing more than incoming frames, and conveniently obscures the destination port(s).
And to even get to the point where PeerGuardian (or whatever) can see the frame, it has to pass through his firewall -- presuming that he has one. And that means he either is explicitly allowing that port through or he made the connection himself.
I wonder what Task Manager would show running?
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at the screenshots, you can see he's connecting RDP to 192.168.0.1, which is the typical gateway address on most NATs. I think he might actually be running a WinXP box as a firewall. This would explain how he is seeing all of the packets, with the external destination IP. Therefore I wonder if his XP box has just been rooted.
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And that is the place to stop reading this discussion thread.
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Blah how does this make the front page? There are million of reasons for these connections.
Maybe he is using a dynamic ip based isp and he just got a new ip? Maybe the last person who used that ip was using bittorrent? Botnets trying to reconnect to this ip?
Aside from those "Remote Desktop" xp screenshots, I noticed there are Hei Long Jiang education committee, UN Development program, China Edu and Research Network, and whatever.
I guess the DoD and the "Chinese intelligence agency" are both attacking his computer.
UN probably sent some people to infiltrate his computer as well.
Wait, Hei Long Jiang is right next to Russia? Maybe the KGB is using China's network to go after him as well!*roll eyes*
Even if they are not bt, they might just as well be port scans.
News for nerds, indeed.
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Even if they are not bt, they might just as well be port scans.
Port scans from GOVERNMENT computers? Oh, okay, nothing to see here...
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Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
P2P and fast-flux networks is the current cutting edge of botnets, and that fits with all the inbound connections he's seeing.
The explanation that fits best with his experience is that his Vista box has already been owned and has become part of a botnet.
While his conspiracy theory that Microsoft is in bed with DoD, DOHS, and Haliburton (gimme a break!) is clearly anti-MS FUD, there is good reason to draw a bad conclusion about Vista from this. One of Vista's big selling points was better security, yet here we have somebody stepping up front and center with an apparently freshly installed and freshly owned Vista box.
The article doesn't speak well of Vista, but not for the tinfoil hat theory advanced by its author.
The other leading theory, which has been advanced by a number of others, is that he's running bit torrent or another P2P app. This is also plausible, and if the zombie theory is wrong, then the P2P app theory still holds. Bhy far the least likely explanation is the conspiracy theory advanced by the author.
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Incoming P2P connections are proof of ownage? Really? How exactly is showing Peer Guardian *snicker* as a "packet sniffer" on his gateway, which apparently is XP (err, uber 3l1t3 points there) showing incoming traffic from a range of IPs to a Vista machine running P2P software ownage? Heck you can't even tell if it's Vista making the connections, or if they are inbound as normal P2P traf
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However, we don't know how much user error was involved.There's always the chance that he was running admin and clicked yes when it asked him whether vista_activation_keygen.exe should be allowed to run with full admin rights...
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm afraid I have to agree. The misleading article summaries are bad enough, ranging from being irrelevant to actually implying the opposite of what the articles in question say, but I find it hard to believe the Slashdot editors would really believe the sort of claptrap written in this article. I think the sad reality is that they know it's drivel, but also that it will generate traffic, especially from the nutter contingent, and this, in my view, reflects poorly on their integrity.
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, my first reaction to this article was "What! The US doesn't need to make connections to spy on me!" With AT&T's big fat pipe to the NSA, the government get's all the data it wants about me, even though I run Ubuntu.
I'm confused (Score:4, Informative)
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2. There is a version that is working on Vista [winmatrix.com]. However it is command line only right now, the GUI is not done.
3. I am sure a lot of people will be monitoring now. This guy just noticed increased traffic from suspicious organizations AFTER he installed Vista. Did you see all of the Vista code? Do you know what info Vista sends and to whom?
It sounds like you are trying to apologize for MS. This sounds just like the crap MS would do. All these connection att
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If there's no outgoing requests, but just incoming, this is more likely to be cached P2P entries, where the outside hosts are trying to reach a (now gone) peer, be it bittorrent, edonkey, kademlia or whatever.
It would have been very interesting to see
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Nah, MS is a typical corporate whore that gives bribe money where ever they can to maximize profits. If you look at their SOFT MONEY DONATIONS [opensecrets.org] from 1998, 81% went to the Republicans.
With the current Democrat control, MS will obviously send more bribe money their way.
I was going to mod you down... (Score:5, Insightful)
As you'll see in one of the follow-up posts to this parent the software is being run on a second systems (since as you point out Vista isn't supported the listener is XP).
As to the credibility of the rest of the story I suppose that's up for grabs. Or rather reproducibility. Sniffing software is easy enough to install/use. Maybe the poster of the original story is being watched via a government trojan. Maybe there is a backdoor for the government to use to monitor potential criminal. I imagine if ALL Vista systems phoned home like this they'd be drown in data so it's either addition software, activated existing feature or hoax/fluke.
Re:I call bullshit. - About Lame Screen Shots (Score:2)
They're certainly enough to get you sued, and thereafter spending upwards of $100K in legal defense against the RIAA.
Re:I call bullshit. - About Lame Screen Shots (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:4, Funny)
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I do think it's worth posting about on Slashdot since it'll get a better quality debunking here than on Digg.
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I can show you screenshots of a windows XP PC that is made to look like windows NT. Many people I knew when XP came out installed it but chose to make it look like the interface they were used to. I have an XP installation on my PC that looks like Unix.
Also, if I wanted to see what traffic an OS was sending to and from the internet, I would not use an app running under that OS. I would telnet to my router and run a traffic monitor on that PC. In my case that would be an old version of Liu
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The screenshots clearly show WinXP, not Vista.
You can identify his OS from a screenshot? If you saw a screenshot of my system you'd swear I run Win2k. I don't.
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Though what I can't figure out is why he didn't use actual port sniffing software like WireShark. I call bullshit on this lame post.
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PeerGurdian is not a legitimate investigative tool (Score:5, Informative)
Re:PeerGurdian is not a legitimate investigative t (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:PeerGurdian is not a legitimate investigative t (Score:5, Informative)
Re:PeerGurdian is not a legitimate investigative t (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PeerGurdian is not a legitimate investigative t (Score:3, Insightful)
If this guy wants to actually prove anything ro s
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Ba-dump!
Um... (Score:2)
Highly Suspicious to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, "Halliburton"? Give me a break.... First, what type of tool is going to return a text output so blunt... Not is not "HA-39214", but instead is just "Haliburton" the evil company.... Also, I am certainly not a fan of the company and its former involvement with the vice president which just smells bad to begin with, but what in the world would a military contracting company that fufills soft drinks, food, oil, and other supplies to military groups want to monitor computers... This is just unrealistic...
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[Querying whois.arin.net]
[whois.arin.net]
OrgName: Halliburton Company
OrgID: HALLIB-1
Address: 10200 Bellaire Blvd
City: Houston
StateProv: TX
PostalCode: 77072-5299
Country: US
NetRange: 34.0.0.0 - 34.255.255.255
CIDR: 34.0.0.0/8
NetName: HALLIBURTON
NetHandle: NET-34-0-0-0-1
and so on. So, yes, it's in Halliburton's IP range. That still does not mean anything, though. PG as a traffic analysis tool is a joke, as others pointed out already. At least he could have dis
Simple solution (Score:2)
I'd do it myself, but I don't have Vista.
Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Never trust a compromised box. (Score:2)
Never trust a compromised box to tell the truth. Wake me when he has router logs instead of Vista logs or worse XP logs of a Vista monitor. Many routers will send connection logs to a 3rd machine. This way you don't have to trust the machine under test. Simply log it's traffic as it passes an external router. Now you have evidence of real traffic.
I was skeptical of the original setup. Was it Vista. The author claimed "idle" while runn
FUD (Score:2, Insightful)
nothing to see here.. move along now (Score:2, Informative)
Just Vista? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd like to see a bare install of Vista (legit), with no other programs running, and connection monitoring being done on a router in between the Vista box and the internet, before I will believe this. And I say this as a die-hard Linux user who has barely touched XP.
Connection to or from? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because those are trying to connect TO his computer from the outside, not the other way around.
What a load of bullcrap. Where does
Statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
As I see it, there are two possibilities:
The first is that the story actually had credibility with Zonk and he was more than happy to put it up. Put Halliburton in a story and the truthers soil themselves. The second; Zonk saw through it like any other technically savy grownup and knew it would be ridiculed. In that case it is a sort of April Fools joke.
Anyhow, there are plenty of reasonable explanations already posted for the 'evidence' provided. Here is one I didn't notice; why would 'they' use easily identified domains to spy on people? 'They' run the world so clearly 'they' could arrange for something less obvious, no?
Finally, is there any recourse for a business that has had it's products publicly slandered? I'd hate to see Microsoft get a piece of
Ceiling Cat Is Watching You Masturbate (Score:2)
Set up a pristine Vista machine. Put a box inline with it and run Snort. Post the logs in some sort of reasonable format. Then we might have something to talk about. But this? What can I say, besides "bullshit"? The origin of this may as well be ranting about Ceiling Cat.
--
BMO
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Maybe what I said was a bit over the top, but he got exactly what he deserved. He was p2p'ing warez on Windows. That's the _only_ reason to run PeerGuardian, and you _don't_ need PeerGuardian if you're doing something legal like torrenting Linux distros. I don't know about you, but running p2p on Windows and bitching about weird connections is like, oh I dunno, deliberately peeing on an electric fence and then complaining that it hurts.
I'm sorry if my lack of empathy strikes you as callous, b
Halliburton? (Score:3, Insightful)
He's really grasping, isn't he.
LOL Cat! (Score:2)
I might've read the article (Score:2, Insightful)
The worst part about stories like these is that it obscures what the government is really doing to invade our privacy.
How about some editorial control, Slashdot?
Digg story down. (Score:2)
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You call that a conspiracy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, though. Worms and botnets are endemic and every organization has boxes probing the internet without their knowledge. Doesn't mean they're out to get you.
I always hated people who would whine about Slashdot story selection, but come on, editors, use a little discretion. You're just helping spread paranoid stupidity.
Highly plausible... (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, I'm not agreeing that the proof is 100% credible, and I'm not completely disregarding the fact that this might really be a sham, but the previous experiences the US has had with any sort of monitoring on the peoples should be enough to regard this with high suspicion.
Monitoring through the internet isn't diff
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Except, perhaps, your credibility?
Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to zombies.
Mods on crack again. (Score:3, Insightful)
Who modded this dweeb insightful.
Metamoderators please spank these mods.
Your partisan nature colors your experiance! (Score:2)
You ever hear of echelon? It started under FDR or Truman depending on who you believe.
The only difference is that Bush thought he could get away with admitting to doing what the last 10 or so presidents have been up to (tapping overseas calls without warrant).
The fact that this whole story has been shown to be the hyperbole up thread didn't stop you from posting a 'Blame Bush' screed. Which the moderators, being on crack, called insightful. Dweeb!
Not plausible at all (Score:3, Insightful)
Should you trust Vista crypto totally, if you really have something to hide? Probably not.
Would they be as stupid as to let every computer send traffic to DOD computers? Obviously not. Even if most don't know how to monitor traffic, enough do that there would be an immediate uproar.
Possible "hidden features" would either need the system in question (secret keys....) or would be dormant. If turned on by some events, I'
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You see, your logic suggests that because the Bush administration is capable of nefarious deeds, any nefarious deed is by default plausibly a result of their actions.
Your tires are slashed? Must be the Bush administration! After all, they are capable of it!
You need more than the belief they are capable of the act; you need a) a reason and b) an explanation of the action that shows the action is the most logical path to justify the reason
Hacker took over the box perhaps? (Score:2, Interesting)
No Destination Ports (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is that he's running some P2P software. Guess what? The U.S. Government does get 0w3nD and does have problems with viruses, trojans, and P2P software.
Nothing to see here. Move along....
Worst /. Story Ever? (Score:3, Insightful)
One, he is sniffing with a crappy piece of software that is barely a sniffer. Secondly, unless he has that XP system he claims is a Vista system, monitoring a HUB, not a switch, that the Vista machine's traffic has to go thru, he isn't sniffing anything relevant. Last, this is pointless paranoia.
You want to see more of your "government conspiracy traffic?" Find someone at an ISP to help you, as you will need a piece of public IP address space. Route it to someplace where you can monitor all the traffic destined to it, and plug nothing into that segment of your network. It just has to exist, and be publicly accessible. It goes nowhere, has no devices in it, it just exists. Then turn your sniffer on, and watch the botnet traffic fly by. Yeah, you will see attacks coming from everywhere, nowhere to go, and still they scan like crazy. And yes, you will see it come from DoD address space too, heaven for-fucking-bid.
Oh, and when do your sniffing, use a real sniffing tool. Then you can tell us what kind attacks the scary US government is mounting against its most paranoid citizens.
Linux and Amiga users can be safe... (Score:3, Interesting)
A better question is (Score:2)
gotta be careful about rev. lookups on port scans (Score:2)
Compromised machine (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia ... (Score:2)
First thing I thought when I saw this... (Score:2)
As it turns out, I was wrong - it's even more innocuous than that.
As I've Said Repeatedly in the last couple weeks (Score:2)
However, this story makes little sense as it stands. Until somebody sets up a proper test, there's nothing to see here.
And if people like the NSA, Halliburton and DOHS were scanning everybody's PC, they damn sure wouldn't be allowing a traceback to their own IP addresses assigned to the
Yawn! (Score:3, Insightful)
Since Windows XP, info from your XP computer is sent out to Microsoft.com - I don't have it, so I can't report much about it, but with a decent firewall installed, many software packages "call home", repeatedly and totally without justification. One does not need to check daily for updates! Adobe on my top list.
And - with the recent court approved installing of a sniffer on a potential suspect's computer - doing non-approved sniffer installs is probably more frequent, not even considering botnets.
It furthers an atmosphere of fear, is not empowering and in short - sucks!
Paranoids (Score:2)
Everyone has infected PCs (Score:2)
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If the user can authorize the installation of WeatherBug any other form of security is pointless. The first step is to disable the installation of unauthorized software.
In a company the IT department may be able to decide what is authorized and what is not. For a home computer the only security can come from disallowing anything - it is all unauthorized. Nothing that can be executed can be added to the computer and not
Great response in his site's comment section (Score:2)
"So the gov't and Haliburton have bot infected computers just like everyone else. What else is new?"
Hah! Awesome.
Laughable. (Score:3, Informative)
So I ran its networking through a seperate machine that ran ethereal, and studied the logs in great detail. I also watched for any 'privacy issues'. Basically, anytime Vista 'phones home' it's required to be by the user Opt-In, and never as a default. If you didn't read the EULA/Privacy Policy, etc. and just kept hitting 'I Agree', 'Accept' and 'Next' every dialog... you might get some things you didn't expect
say you visit a HTTPS url... aside from what actually appears on the page (content + ads) you may need: the digital certificates for the signing authority, revocation lists, accurate time, to check for expiration, DNS, Sytle Sheets, DTDs... a lot of that can be cached, but at some point they may be automatically downloaded.
Playing a (non-DRM) song?, you may get the album information automatically.
Plus all the non-MS software 'phoning home', Adobe Acrobat reader, Quicktime Updater, HP printer drivers, anti-virus updates, *Peer Guardian blocklist updates*
As for the incoming connections mentioned in the article, it seems well within Homeland Securities domain to scan for botnet and such infected machines, in order to defend against DOS attacks on critical infrastructure (like root DNS servers).
I once did a Google search for 'attrs' using Firefox on a Linux box. What popped up was a box asking me to accept a Department of Defense digital signature, served from a DOD server.
why? Google had suggested I was looking for 'atrrs' which was a DOD term, and Firefox tried to pre-load the first result, which was a DOD run website, which popped up the certificate from a site I did not intend to visit! If there is a conspiracy, then Google, Mozilla, and Slackware are in on it.
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Quality research... (Score:4, Funny)
I'm from a similar underground organization, and have been monitoring Vista for some time. Notable connections we have so far made are:
Dinosauroid-like Alien Reptiles using Vista UMPCs are dominating the World
Apollo 11 Moon Landings were faked by Vista
September 11 was orchestrated by the U. S. government using Vista and Workflow Foundation
etc.
It's pretty conclusive stuff, people.
(Conspiracies kindly provided by http://www.2spare.com/item_43133.aspx [2spare.com] - note it's on an IIS server - don't trust it. The truth is out there!)
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That's because the FBI installed XP in the middle of the night.
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Re:I can confirm this (Score:5, Funny)
I work in one of the extraterrestial government agencies not in question, and I can confirm that we have been doing this. To be fair to United States government, they had no choice to let us in. It's been going on for years now. Right here, directly out of our own network, so that any retard with a freeware tcpdump/traceroute frontend can see exactly what they're up to.
PS: this isn't real.
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