Vista, Vista, Vista, Vista, Vista and Vista

Una said:
No but for the business users it will be. Thats where it realy matters not to the normal user.
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Yes exactly, and really that applies to 90% of the DRM issue too.

Businesses and governments have been asking for this type of security for yonks, so Microsoft are letting them have it. If one of their employees loses a laptop (like government members seem to do on a monthly basis...) they don't have to worry anymore about the lost data.
 
Una said:
Your wrong about that imo. Most crypto is broken from weaknesses in the algorithm not by brute force. If you do the maths some crypto would take a stupidly long time to bruteforce even with all the computer power in the world.
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But you don't do brute force :)

You use social engineering. You find out everything you can about the suspect. Everything. You find other passwords, hints, keys and from this you construct a set of likely passwords which you then use to brute force. So still a lot of passwords to try, but at least a manegable amount with a supercomputer's worth of power.

And then there's the algorithmic weaknesses of course - MD5 and SHA1 have both had weaknesses found - really the encryption is only safe so long as computing power is insufficient to find weaknesses in the algo :)
 
Beansprout said:
But you don't do brute force :)

You use social engineering. You find out everything you can about the suspect. Everything. You find other passwords, hints, keys and from this you construct a set of likely passwords which you then use to brute force. So still a lot of passwords to try, but at least a manegable amount with a supercomputer's worth of power.

And then there's the algorithmic weaknesses of course - MD5 and SHA1 have both had weaknesses found - really the encryption is only safe so long as computing power is insufficient to find weaknesses in the algo :)
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Yes I know. I was replying to nathane's post about using supercomputers to brute force :)

md5 and sha1 are just for hashing, collissions are bound to be possible.
 
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Una said:
Yeah im not saying its a bad thing. If your worried about security you dont run windows period.
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What would you run instead then? :p An operating system with its source code available on the web? ;)

Windows NT is a very secure server platform. I've heard seasoned administrators actually describe it as more secure than the equivilent *nix distributions. However, flaws in its user interface/Explorer shell design during the Windows 9x to XP switchover left it wide open to attack over the past few years. Luckily Vista will completely fix that for good.

Normally the saying goes "If you're worried about security then turn off your computer" or "... then disconnect it from any network."
 
NathanE said:
MD5 and SHA1 aren't encryption ;):o
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And then there's the algorithmic weaknesses of course - [hyphen for separate point] MD5 and SHA1 have both had weaknesses found - really the encryption

Should probably have used brackets really. Thou art pedant supreme:p :D

Yes I know. I was replying to nathane's post about using supercomputers to brute force
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Ah but I was saying that you don't brute force as such, you just brute force a selection, which is probably implicit when GCHQ (lots of clever spy-types) is mentioned, so I was backing up NathanE :D
 
Depends how critical the system is. OpenBSD is a good choice.. Likewise with SElinux..

I would rarther have the source code available so you can audit your self. Saves reverse engineering m$ apps :-)
 
Did I say the whole thing? What I ment to write is the community can audit the code. The more people that read the code makes it more likely for faults to be picked up on. Unlike in closed souce software where you only have the company working on it.
 
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