Friday, May 29, 2009

Unlocking an AMD 7750

Oooooh! Now I am getting really "geeky"!

All I wanted to do was to speed up my "torrent box", now with a little more research there are those that have been unlocking the extra 2 cores on the 7750 to make it a Quad Core Phenom.

Not that this is my intention as I only went for a reasonably priced dual core AMD (I have enough Intel product already - and we own AMD stock!). Looks like my Asus m/b (M2A74-AM) doesn't support this in any case(it was an ASRock board that does the trick) - but, heh! this was not why I bought it!

Thursday, May 21, 2009

VirusTotal

VirusTotal is an on-line service that you can submit suspicious files and it will run it through all the A-V products that it knows.

File TorrentPrivacy.exe received on 05.11.2009 11:23:20 (CET)
AntivirusVersionLast UpdateResult
a-squared4.0.0.1012009.05.11Downloader.Delphi!IK
AhnLab-V35.0.0.22009.05.11-
AntiVir7.9.0.1662009.05.11DR/Delphi.Gen
Antiy-AVL2.0.3.12009.05.11-
Authentium5.1.2.42009.05.10-
Avast4.8.1335.02009.05.10-
AVG8.5.0.3272009.05.11PSW.Banker5.KDS
BitDefender7.22009.05.11-
CAT-QuickHeal10.002009.05.09Win32.TrojanSpy.Banker.aww.a
ClamAV0.94.12009.05.11-
Comodo11572009.05.08Unclassified Malware
DrWeb5.0.0.121822009.05.11-
eSafe7.0.17.02009.05.10Win32.DRDelphi
eTrust-Vet31.6.64972009.05.08-
F-Prot4.4.4.562009.05.10-
F-Secure8.0.14470.02009.05.11-
Fortinet3.117.0.02009.05.11-
GData192009.05.11-
IkarusT3.1.1.49.02009.05.11Downloader.Delphi
K7AntiVirus7.10.7292009.05.08-
Kaspersky7.0.0.1252009.05.11-
McAfee56112009.05.10-
McAfee+Artemis56112009.05.10Artemis!2E37E5F89629
McAfee-GW-Edition6.7.62009.05.11-
Microsoft1.46022009.05.11-
NOD3240642009.05.11-
Norman6.01.052009.05.08Banker.EIWW
nProtect2009.1.8.02009.05.11-
Panda10.0.0.142009.05.10Suspicious file
PCTools4.4.2.02009.05.07-
Prevx3.02009.05.11-
Rising21.29.02.002009.05.11-
Sophos4.41.02009.05.11Mal/Inet-Fam
Sunbelt3.2.1858.22009.05.09-
Symantec1.4.4.122009.05.11-
TheHacker6.3.4.1.3242009.05.09-
TrendMicro8.950.0.10922009.05.11-
VBA323.12.10.42009.05.11-
ViRobot2009.5.11.17282009.05.11-
VirusBuster4.6.5.02009.05.10-
Additional information
File size: 601088 bytes
MD5...: 2e37e5f89629be35a281802e36b967d2
SHA1..: 3efdffdf3f43f78931c19085e31fca4423798bb2
SHA256: b6a0b92fed40df5f5f80c4c7764603f916426f25d6d325b02c518e1d3eaee045
SHA512: 03f3f7bab1d2bd1860ae07493081e4f3994a27bb7645d51f9ec77c2d6d543370
ba97cb27314ff92b35f3d4c5f07f58320fd7b018161d7115337050a4186c223e
ssdeep: 12288:kAaUK050Gy2HlRscolDlXiefWF6HegnkreyLR3Lg5mZfWKGBj:sUz5U2Hl
ucUEeeybIlLR3OAu
PEiD..: PECompact 2.xx --> BitSum Technologies
TrID..: File type identification
Win32 EXE PECompact compressed (v2.x) (48.0%)
Win32 EXE PECompact compressed (generic) (33.8%)
Win32 Executable Generic (6.9%)
Win32 Dynamic Link Library (generic) (6.1%)
Win16/32 Executable Delphi generic (1.6%)
PEInfo: PE Structure information

( base data )
entrypointaddress.: 0x1000
timedatestamp.....: 0x2a425e19 (Fri Jun 19 22:22:17 1992)
machinetype.......: 0x14c (I386)

( 2 sections )
name viradd virsiz rawdsiz ntrpy md5
CODE 0x1000 0x3b0000 0x8f800 8.00 2d4a01639e877b41eed63ccc36e38a1e
.rsrc 0x3b1000 0x3000 0x3000 5.61 a4ef8e9b27138077875000f8f4c6e8ad

( 1 imports )
> kernel32.dll: LoadLibraryA, GetProcAddress, VirtualAlloc, VirtualFree

( 0 exports )
PDFiD.: -
RDS...: NSRL Reference Data Set
-
ThreatExpert info: www.threatexpert.com/report.aspx?md5= 2e37e5f89629be35a281802e36b967d2
packers (Kaspersky): PE_Patch.PECompact, PecBundle, PECompact
packers (F-Prot): PecBundle, PECompact

The link to threatexpert.com was dead

BootPRO - Win7BootPro

The boot loader for Win7 seems to be the same as Vista and VistaBootPro can be used in the same way and entries in the BCD Registry can be manipulated so that you can get a Win7, Vista and XP treble boot or just a dual boot.

Alternatively why not try Virtualization?

BootPro license for private use is $9.95 (the old VistaBootPro was free) - no doubt there will be torrent download s - see the Tempusfugit website for details.

I have configured many dual boots and Virtual Machines


  Other pages on this blog (alternates to Dual Booting):

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Rogers Throttling breaks VPN connection

I was experiencing that my connection to a UK VPN was disconnecting when I was running BitTorrent at the same time (on another computer to the VPN'd machine)

A VPN should not be used for torrrenting unless agreed to by the VPN provider


When I perform a SpeedTest (using DSLReports) the upload speed is often flagged with a message that there was upload compression detected from my ISP and that the upload figures may be inaccurate.

The theory about the VPN dropping is that the "handshake" between my computer and the VPN server cannot be maintained due to the upload compression. The download speed is still adequate for streaming of BBC iPlayer.

Plese note that this post was made May 2009 - now in April 2012 Rogers do not seem to have any of the problems I was seeing then.

Some search strings finding this page:

"vpn connection" rogers dropping
rogers "upload compression" vpn

Links related to file sharing:

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Privately Configured

I have just noticed that uTorrent 1.8.2 had the (Privately Configured) missing from its Windows title bar.

I have not subscribed or selected upgrades to uTorrent (which would indeed give me a new version of the client - one that is not set to use SSHTunel.exe to access a secured host).



As SSHTunel.exe was still running I am presuming that the connections are still secure. However, when I restart TorrentPrivacy from scratch I regain the (Privately Configured) banner at the top of the window.

Also to note, SSHTunel was running all night (it normally crashes and I have to re-start it when I get up) - the only difference is that I started up the BitTorrent client (connecting in the clear). Maybe there is an interaction between the two clients running at the same time, competing for connections and CPU time?

I realise that running 2 torrent clients at the same time is not an option for some, as their ISP will throttle them back if they see a torrent client connecting through your connection with them, but it works just fine for me. I do all my music and movies through a secure connection and TV and public domain stuff straight through BitTorrent.

I am also way over my allowance of bandwidth for the month and have been at the $25 extra useage charge for a couple of days - so my bandwidth is effectively free until the 24th! I wonder if I will break the 340G this month?

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Canon CameraWindow

The error you see: [CameraWindow] is not compatible with the detected camera - is because your version of Canon software is not up-to-date.

This is what you see when you connect an incompatible Canon camera to Windows 7 - CameraWindow for Windows 7
Links:

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Reputation Defender - Still no telephone # on website

When I did a review of the Reputation Defender website in January 2008 (on my website) there wasn't a telephone number with their "contact us" information.

May 2009 - there STILL is no telephone number.

In January 2008 there was a disclaimer that the reason that there was no number was that the site was in "beta" and there would be a number in due course. I think that 16 months is long enough for a beta program.

Reputation Defender were mentioned in todays newspaper - this is likely to have been syndicated across North America.

Michael Grey at wolf-howl.com seems to think that there may be "strong arm" tactics being proposed - in which case he would blog about it - so will I. If Jarret Cohen's account of the goings on with autoadmit are anything to go by then he may have a point.

Additional Tags: Michael Fertik and Ross Chanin

Monday, May 4, 2009

Western Digital Corp - warranty and repair service

WDC - Warranty & RMA Services - End User Customers.

I have made a choice when I purchase hard drives to favor Western Digital over Seagate. The main reason for this is that I have had excellent service from Western Digital and I have had few failures, and those that I have were largely due to an error on my part (dropped or shaking a drive when it was active),
these drives when in warranty were replaced by WDC with minimum hassle.

This is in part one of the reasons that I have a rebuild rather than a "recover" strategy when it comes to hard drives and the back-up and recovery of data and the restoration of computer systems. I originanly had a stratergy of making an image backup of a newly configured and cleaned system. I now favour the
complete rebuild of a system from scratch. This is due to a number of factors, the ease in which replacement WDC drives are obtained, the fact that I can re-install operating systems at will (by-passing Windows activation etc) and also that drivers are usually easy to locate on the Internet. There have been a few exceptions to the driver problem, but again, nothing that I have not been able to overcome.

In fact, the only HDD failure the involved a WDC drive was with an Acer AO722 that lastest of less than a month from purchase. The unit was an "open box" so I do not know whether the unit had been previously dropped by its original owner. I suspect that it may have been.

Links:

SSHTunnel Stability

It has been observed that SSHTunel.exe is more stable on Windows XP Home than on XP Pro.

The title of this post is SSHTunnel as that seems to be the most popular spelling of the SSHTunel process. SSHTunnel is a product from RS4U dot com - SSHTunel shows as $h@d0W's Software (when the process is viewed with MS Sysinternals)

SSH is NOT as protocol. SSH is a Secure Host that is configured using SSL protocol

SSL protocol and "Tunneling" are aspects of TCP/IP security - above the heads of most users of TorrentPrivacy.

The stability of a process wrt the operating system is often a "hit and miss" endeavor. To expect SSHTunel to be stable on a computer running a Beta release of an operating system (Windows 7) is very optimistic! Expecting a process to be stable when it was developed for the expressed purpose of downloading in an anonymous manner is also.

SSHTunel and TP has not been tried on Vista, as, like most torrenters, the computer used for torrenting is likely to be an 'old' pc that has been dedicated to the torrenting activity. It is also likely to be a computer where the beta version of Windows 7 is evaluated.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Mirror copies using Robocopy

When you perform a "mirror" copy (using the /MIR switch) on external drives that contain data that originates on two or move Vista computers you need to open a Command Prompt window as an Administrator.

If you don't, you will get access denied error messages - changing attributes of directories etc.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

SSHTunel.exe crashes in TorrentPrivacy


I have seen an increase in the SSHTunel process stopping for no apparent reason over the last few days.

I have not upgraded my TP software and as far as I know nothing else has changed on the computer that is exclusively dedicated to torrenting. Maybe TP are having some difficulties at the server end? This post is to put an observation out there in case others are seeing this. I have not checked on the TP forum as yet.

When the process stops, although there is an automatic re-start (so TP tell us) that does not occur until the MS dialog that warns you that a process has terminated, and do you want to send a report to MS, has been cleared.
Therefore all downloads seem to stall and a manual reset is necessary.

The SSHTunel process does indeed restart as it can be monitored under Windows Task Manager. What I do is to go to the "Processes" tab and highlight the SSHTunel.exe process and then click on the column header for the CPU. The SSHTunel process, if running, will appear near or at the top of the list. The amount of CPU time that it is consuming will depend on the number of connections (active upload/downloads) that you have at any given time.

SSHTunnel crash