Result of no-protection XP challenge

When I installed Windows XP on a virtual machine on my laptop some time ago, it wasn't just because I want to experience nostalgia from using old OS'es, it's also to challenge my resilience on security and protection.

How does this challenge work? It's easy. I will never install any anti-malware software on my computer for some weeks or so. Additionally, since my copy of Windows is not genuine at all, it won't receive important security updates from Microsoft, so that's another layer of protection removed. Then I would do whatever I always do online. Trolling, researching, reading the news, maybe even download some pr0ns for...safekeeping. So there. I'll go out in the wild without anything watching your back for a few weeks, then I'd download Trend Micro House Call to scan for malware that came through.

Why did I use XP? Because with all the Windows versions I've used, XP was the most vulnerable, wherein I had way too many run ins with malware in the past. I believe XP is the most vulnerable operating system out there when it comes to malware. It's like a Thai prostitute - ugly and full of viruses. The only advantage XP has over its successors is that it uses way less resources than Vista and 7. So there.

Of course, I took every security precaution available. To safeguard myself against keylogging, I used LastPass to encrypt my logins and on-screen keyboards while inputting usernames and passwords. I even used Tor so that those tracking websites won't be able to remotely view my geolocation.

Results

House Call just finished scanning my computer for malware, and it found something. Great thing is, it's alone, and it's just some regular adware that I probably got from browsing pornographic websites (you know those popups of Adultfriendfinder and other sites? They give you that). The file detected was cmdow.exe, and its corresponding threat was, according to Trend Micro, ADWARE .0737EEDD. According to the data in the link, this spyware does nothing but take my browsing history and send it somewhere for marketing purposes. Well they're in for a big surprise then.

Also, cmdow.exe, according to further Googling, is not originally a fatal binary file, but a tool designed to modify commandline windows, such as not allowing the user to close the window (because some users freak out at the sight of an ugly DOS-prompt and close it immediately, hampering some installation procedures in the process). However, in this case, I don't recall having to use this, and I don't really need it, so I just removed it.

I also managed to install and run Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware (an excellent software, I might add), which managed to snag a trojan executable and a dangerous registry value. Also, it detected three potentially dangerous security settings, which was the Windows Security Center being turned off, but I intentionally set it that way for this challenge.

After a quick system reboot, I decided to run a scan again, just to be safe. I won't be posting any more details and its results, because that would be a waste of time.

Conclusion

• It is possible to be malware-free without some sort of security software


• Windows XP is very vulnerable to attacks


• Virtual machines are probably the best way to protect yourself against malware, by using a fake OS as a shield

The worst part in riding a bus

I love buses. I love them as much as I love my computer for always screwing up on me during some times when I needed it most. I am bound by forced love for buses because that’s the only mode of transportation that efficiently gets me from home to school and vice versa.

For our international readers, Philippine buses work a little differently than your bus lines. In the Philippines, we do not buy tickets before we enter the bus, we buy them once we get in. And those who sell tickets are not referred to as “ticket salesmen” but conductors, not the kind you see who waves a stick around in front of musicians but the kickass one who can withstand inertial forces in a bus while immediately computing the fare of the 40-53 sitting passengers, plus the unfortunate twenty or so who are standing on the aisle of the bus. Can you keep yourself cool and balanced while computing the fare of one passenger mentally while keeping track of the people who just walked in and are ticket-less? If you can’t, you’re not fit to be a Philippine bus conductor.

Another difference between Philippine  buses and international standards is that we rarely have bus stops. Bus stops in the Philippines are self-established by the passengers themselves. A bus stop in the Philippines is somewhere where there’s a lot of people waiting for a bus and there’s no MMDA traffic enforcers nearby who are in the mood for ticketing buses.

That’s how the system works here in the Philippines. Like most other systems, this one has its flaws. Besides having completely undocumented, clueless, and unplanned routes that could kill somebody inexperienced in Philippine commuting, there’s also another flaw: the standing room.

When you step in the bus and all the seats are taken, would you [A] Get out and wait for another bus, preferably one with seats or [B] Stay? If you chose the latter, you’re gonna have to stand, sucker. Move over to the back so we can try to squeeze others in this standing room orgy.

So I made a comic depicting what I feel when I’m that unlucky person who gets to stand first.

Screw you, Philippine buses.

Nostalgia is a pain in the ass

After successfully installing Windows XP on a virtual machine, I was immediately amazed at my recently-earned power of installing multiple operating systems on my notebook without having to buy another system or use multi-booting. I’ve decided to amp up my virtual machine craze and install one of Windows’ infamous builds: Windows 98.

Apparently I have downloaded not only an image of Windows 98 SE but also Windows 95. I don’t plan to install Win95 right now since I’d like to try out the operating system I’m more familiar with. The first build of Windows (and first operating system) I’ve ever touched was Windows 95, and that was like twelve years ago. But I’ve been with Windows 98 for a long time, before I made the jump to XP in 2002.

I used VirtualBox for virtualization, because I love open-source applications and I dislike the corporate feel of VMWare. The virtual machine for Windows 98 isn’t really that taxing for my laptop. I think Firefox would grab more system resources than Windows 98 inside a virtual machine. I just needed 64MB of RAM, which is really a lot for Windows 98, and a 4GB virtual hard drive. I took the specifications off my old Compaq notebook which is retired and resting in my closet. It ran Windows 98, and was one of the most powerful notebooks during its time. A Pentium II 366Mhz, 128MB of RAM, 4GB of HDD, what more could you want in 1998?

Installation

Windows 98 takes longer to install than Windows XP, because 98 has all that 16-bit crap that happens to slow down its processes on my virtual machine. I laughed at the fact that the boot setup installer mentioned that a HDD larger than 512MB is considered “huge”. I should probably go back in time and show them a 32GB SD card.

The installation process of Windows 98 was flawed and boring. Sure, it only has 8-bit colors during installation, and while I’m installing a new OS I don’t really need Aero effects. I think Windows 98 should have just used a text-based installer, because it does its job of looking pretty very badly. Also, the processes are not streamlined to a “set it and go outside” layout, unlike its older successors. After one hour of waiting, you are expected to input some information, wait for another twenty minutes, input more information, etc.

It even took ten minutes to set up “Plug-and-Play”, one of Microsoft’s failed attempts to monopolize by “supporting” numerous devices through easy installation. It was developed before the days of USB, wherein buying a mouse will most likely include a floppy disk inside for drivers.

Trying it out

After a few more setting changes by Windows 98, I was greeted by the familiar 16-bit interface, the gritty colors, the 640x480 resolution. The interface was very slow, probably slower than the average Filipino’s computer riddled with all sorts of crap. This was due to the fact that Windows 98 and its predecessors schedules (or prioritizes) its tasks poorly.

So, despite Virtualbox having the ability to run Windows 98, it does work, but it’s so slow it’s not really that useful. I can’t even connect to the Internet because this “MSN Internet Access” program thinks I’m some guy stuck in the late 90’s by trying to convince me that I’m using a dial-up modem to connect to the Internet.

Conclusion

While currently Windows 98 on my system is highly uncomfortable and slow, it works. Maybe the basics, but at least it boots up despite crashing and BSOD’ing itself a couple of minutes later. I’m yet to try out Windows 95 though, and maybe installing a couple of other operating systems such as Arch Linux and Chrome OS.

Virtualed XP

Recently I have successfully finished the task of virtualizing Windows XP under my Windows 7 OS in my Thinkpad X60s. Since I'm fond of installing XP stuff for the sake of nostalgia (after a failed attempt to make Ubuntu look like XP), I knew adding Windows XP to my boot configuration would be unnecessary, so I turned to virtual machines.

What are virtual machines?

Virtual machines are non-physical computers running instructions inside a host computer, similar to a real, physical machine. In layman terms, it's like Inception: a computer within a computer. This is very useful for testing compatibility issues, like testing if your Windows 7 program could work on earlier versions of Windows without using another computer or installing the OS on a separate partition. You can go as many virtual computers as you like, so long as your hardware capabilities can permit. You can have like a computer within a computer within a computer within a computer, and so on.

Disadvantages of virtual machines

Virtual machines will always grab a chunk of the host OS's resources. This means your host OS (the real computer) should have some spare resources to give to the guest OS. Processing power isn't really that much of a requirement, unless you're installing a modern operating system like Vista, 7, or OSX. But memory is a must, and for virtual PCs, 2GBs of RAM or more is recommended.

Also, it can't run as fast as a real operating system can. But it can do whatever a real OS could do.

Cool stuff about virtual machines

One of the most important traits a virtual machine possesses, is that, it is not directly linked to your host OS. It only runs inside the host OS, but it rarely directly communicates or shares files with the host OS unless you set it to. This means that whatever happens in your virtual machine stays in your virtual machine. This is great, because if your guest OS catches a virus, it stays there and it will never infect the host OS unless the guest has privileges to write to a shared folder on the host OS.

You can use the guest OS as a sandbox, go to sites you never dare to visit lest your computer gets messed up, and see what happens. If the guest OS gets nuked by malware and whatnot, don't panic. You can always just remove it and install another one, provided you don't have much sensitive data on your guest OS.

On a side note, virtual machines could be excellent for trolling, as it adds an extra layer of anonymity and protection. Combine that with a good relaying service, some proxies, and good privacy ethics, and you're good to go as a faceless person on the Internet, e.g. a complete Anon. Just don't troll too much, ok?

What you'll need for a virtual machine

- Some spare RAM (256MB+ recommended)
- At least 8GB of HDD space
- A (hopefully genuine and legal) copy of your preferred guest OS
- Time

I used some Windows XP disc I found lurking in my disc archives, it was marked as "Service Pack 3" for the lulz, as I recall I have bought it sometime around 2006. Now remember that the SP3 for Windows XP didn't come until recently in 2009 or so. But this copy was good - uxtheme.dll was already patched, so it had custom themes of its own, it included a basic suite of Microsoft Office 2003, and 2005 versions of Adobe Reader, Mozilla Firefox and Winrar. At least there aren't any bloatware.

What not to do in the vicinity of a computer: Eating

You probably must have heard this quite a million times. You have heard in it television, you have read it one of your computers manuals (you did, right?), and maybe countless other people on the Internet have told you so. Maybe you stopped eating after hearing them, or maybe you just let your inner glutton out and just gorged away in front of your keyboard.

And what would happen next? Most likely you’ll attract the nearest ant horde, or maybe even have roaches gnawing under your keyboard. Hell, there are even stories of worms and even baby mice found in all sorts of places in a computer.

And guess what? This happened to me, quite a number of numerous times. Thankfully, the enemy are just some regular fire ants.

These guys, although they appear much smaller. 

First wave: Desktop keyboard

So I’ve been shitty in keeping my keyboard from being shitty. I became fond of eating all forms of breads and pastries in front of my desktop, usually while playing GTAIV or Left 4 Dead. The bread crumbs, which naturally fall down from the bread, also naturally attracts the local ant empire who illegally set base in my house long ago.

They immediately formed ranks and began scavenging my keyboard, making typing a thing for nightmares to come since every time you hit a key, there’s a high chance that a squad of ants will rush out from under that key and try to climb up your arm.

Thankfully the ants are no match for an air compressor. You don’t really have to kill them with fire, just a little blowing of wind would sort them out.

Second wave: Power supply

This was the costliest but least annoying of the ant attacks. Supposedly, a couple of ants made the weirdest and most retarded mistake of thinking that the best place to get their ant grub is the insides of my power supply. Of all places, my fucking PSU. So one night while I was probably sleeping or challenging sleep, they decided to raid my computer (which was on at the time) and committed mass suicide on my PSU.

The next morning I was surprised to see that my computer has mysteriously turned off, and believing ghosts are just pussies who believe in afterlife rather than zombification, I did what a good computer user would do. Turn the computer on again.

But it did not budge. I tried to turn it on again, but then again it didn’t. I checked the power lines for any loose or removed sockets, then traced the wires back to my power supply, where I noticed one little ant coming out of the PSU like a wounded soldier from Vietnam. I ignored him, but a few seconds later one of his comrades followed, and then another, and soon after you’ll discover a group of ants emerging from the PSU, battered and wounded, enough to inspire someone to create a Call of Duty game featuring ants.

I took the PSU out of the case and examined it. I lit up the inside and was slightly appalled at what I saw – a mass grave of dead ants, some dismembered, some clinging on the PSU cooling fans. Not that I’m appalled from what I’ve seen, as I enjoy witnessing corpses of all kinds, especially when they come in bunches, but I’m disgusted because I have to shell out a hundred and fifty dollars again to get the same exact PSU unit again.

Third Wave: My laptop, fuck

As much as I love or hate ants, I don’t really mind them running around in my house. I mean, they’re part of this weird thing environmentalists (read: hippies) call an ecosystem right? They’re just little fools whose main purpose is to clean up the little bits of food and help bacteria in eating off rotting carcasses. However, they appear to have looked for food in the wrong place.

Returning home after my finals, I received news that the ants have assaulted my laptop and is now making a forward hive inside. And I don’t mean that they’re just hiding underneath its keyboard or anything. I meant that they were inside, gnawing on the motherboard, riding the heatsink, etc.

My first idea was to blow the shit out of the ants using explosives TNT nuclear bombs compressed air, however it didn’t do much since I can’t blow much of the inside of my laptop with it being tightly closed. I tried the belief that ants hate heat, so I tried to keep my computer on for three days and two nights, but to no avail. They just get out of the laptop while it’s hot, then come back in when it begins to cool.

I opened up the laptop to peer at its internal organs and see that it’s currently infected with ant shit. Seeing that I don’t want to intentionally fry the components with vacuum or air static, I sent it to a nearby laptop technician, who accepted to clean up my system despite him insisting me to get an insect exterminator instead.

Currently I do not have my laptop with me, and I’m afraid it will stay that way for three or five days or maybe even a whole week if the technician decides to just procrastinate and wank off. Fortunately I won’t be needing my laptop at the moment, because I needed some time with my desktop, the whole week’s my semestral break and I don’t really need it that much.

Lesson

So, lesson learned. Don’t eat nowhere near your computer. If you are feeling the urge to gobble something up, make sure you stay out within a six foot radius from your computer. I’m sure you enjoy sitting outside, eating a pasty and drinking a cappuccino, while watching people get kicked in the nuts on Failblog, but don’t do it, for your computer’s sake. Otherwise, the situation with pests invading your computer could escalate to this:

Oh shit.

Cherry Mobile Q5i: A review

I forgot to tell everybody about my new phone, the Cherry Mobile Q5i. I just bought it a week and a half ago and forgot to write a review for it because I lost track of time and I was having too much fun (aka procrastinating). Read long and find out why I prefer to call this phone the “poor man’s smartphone”.

The Phone

Overview

The Cherry Mobile Q5i is a Philippine phone with Filipinos in mind, but apparently has borrowed ideas from the big mobile phone players in the world. To keep up with today’s trends, it is equipped with a smooth physical QWERTY keyboard, similar to those of a Blackberry’s. It comes in four colors: Solid yellow w/black back, solid red w/black back, black w/blue back and trim (this is what I got) and black w/white back and trim.

Model

The Q5i is part of the Q series, which is, a bunch of phones who share a common trait – QWERTY keyboards. The Q5i is not really one of the newest and state of the art releases in its family, but it is one of the most reliable. Its successors include the Trident (triple SIM capability), and various other Q series phones.

Features

The phone itself is very feature packed. Here are some of them:

• Dual SIM capabilities. Every local phone has to have this, since most Filipinos are part of at least two cellular networks.
• Mobile Web Browsing. The Q5i handles true websites very poorly, because it can only use a GPRS connection and it has a very basic browser built mainly for mobile websites. However, it does its job pretty well.
• Touchpad control. The phone uses a touchpad instead of buttons to navigate through the interface. Touchpads are similar to those used in iPods other than the iPod touch.
• Java support. Not all local phones are capable of basic Java programs, but the Q5i is different. There are three Java applications installed by default – a mobile browser, a Yahoo! Messenger app, a MSN Messenger app, plus a couple of games.
• Improved audio. The Wolfson audio chipset used in the Q5i is similar to those found in the previous generation of iPods. It allows for clearer audio and support for a 3.5mm audio jack, instead of some proprietary jack.
• Dual MicroSD slots. The phone has two slots for MicroSD flash memory cards. Currently I’m using two 2GB MicroSD cards, however, I have no idea if the phone supports MicroSDHC (MSD High Capacity) cards (4GB and higher).
• Other features such as FM radio, a 2MP camera, a video camera, video playback support, image viewing, and no TV (whew).

Interface

The interface is speedier and prettier than my previous Cherry Mobile D15. It has simple transitions that makes you feel that the phone isn’t slowing down on you. Also, the colors are smooth and easy to the eyes.

Portability

The phone is wider than my previous D15, due to the fact that it possesses a QWERTY keybaord, but the Q5i is very lightweight for its size. It fits in most pockets, and can be easily fished out if needed.

Its battery capacity is quite high, a natural trait for local phones. The battery stays alive for at least five days with constant audio playback using headphones. I’m guessing it should last a week if its just on standby and you’re using it just for texting and calling.

Durability

The phone’s exterior is very durable, as, contrary to popular belief, it can resist falls and shock without much permanent damage. The pins and sockets of the phone however, are susceptible to damage under pressure, I’ll explain more of that later.

My phone (no, I meant the Q5i I have, not the other Pinoy phone brand)

My Q5i has been in my possession and care for about one and a half weeks, and so far the only problem I had with it is that the 3.5mm jack socket got busted, and all the time the phone thinks that a headset is connected to my phone.

This problem is not a nuisance. It has very huge implications on the phone’s capablities. Since it thinks that there is a headset attached to the phone even though there wasn’t, it will always rely on its imaginary headset to transmit audio from the handset whenever you make or receive calls, which sucks, since you won’t hear the other person on the line unless you have earphones connected and using the loudspeaker is just too awkward in public.

How I fixed the problem

I would have sent my phone to a Cherry Mobile technician, but the place is too far away and I’m too lazy to go there. So, I sent it to the numerous cellphone repair “technicians” (read: people who think they can fix things because they can handle opening up stuff and soldering shit) who refuses to touch my phone because all they touch are Nokias, Sony-Ericssons, Motorolas, etc. Thankfully there’s a guy who managed to man up and tried to fix my problem, but to no avail. So we simply just cut off the connection between the port and the system board of the phone. Sometimes amputation of a certain part is just the only way to cure another.

So my Q5i has lost its main feature that’s very rare among China and local phones. I guess I’m going back to my shitty iPod.

Conclusion

Pros

• Dual SIM capability
• QWERTYY keyboard
• You can attach any standard pair of head/ear phones to it
• Mobile web browsing
• Facebook capabilities

Cons

• Ports can break if you’re not careful
• Touchpad can be a pain in the ass to use for maneuvering the interface
• QWERTY keyboard has a slightly steep learning curve for those who are not familiar with them.

Overall, the Q5i is a great phone, hands down. For Php3,499.00 (US$79.00), you can get a sweet QWERTY phone that can fit any lifestyle. Just please don’t mess up its audio port, as it’s quite fragile.