I used Acronis in my IT consulting business for years, but am very unhappy with their current company behavior and product. I had a client order Acronis direct from Acronis and told them to specify ship the bootable DVD product (Acronis always offered a bootable disk in the past which I preferred to I could avoid installing it and just use it to disk image backup) for another $10 or $20 (I forget). They did that after much fighting on the phone with Acronis, who did not want to ship the disk, instead offering them a download key. When the disk finally arrived it was not the bootable disk but simply the download file copied to the disk. Add Acronis to the list of companies I have stopped using in the last 5 years (Adobe--all products except for an old copy of Standard I've had for 10 years, Microsoft Office, Symantec, etc.---all trying to play cute with the delivery of the product).

No, I have not lived in India for a while. I will try to make this reply brief since I believe codeproject would prefer I just connect a blog here rather than write lengthy articles in this venue. There is an excellent article from 1982 describing the persistent paradox of psychic phenomena from an engineering perspective (Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol 70, No 2, February 1982 by Robert G Jahn). Perhaps that is incidentally relevant to my quick study on India, or I simply have an effective neural search facility in my "meat computer," grin. Regarding my reference to file entropy, I did not use the Dr. Fu article, but rather one written by Rob VandenBrink, a consultant at Compugen writing for SANS Technology Institute ("Using File Entropy to Identify Ransomwared File").

I am pleased you were impressed with my "Doxing tool," which is merely my ancient brain, grin. I'm a retired engineer (among other things) and do research in various fields as my interest leads me. I note that it is becoming more difficult to do research since some of the major search engines are using more "artificial intelligence," which is about the level of a Family Feud (a banal television show in the US that rewards people for mentally recalling phrases used in daily life) query-response engine, so effectively impairs my ability to construct and pursue relatively unique queries (except at Google Scholar, which fortunately has not been impaired yet). Thanks for the specific target in your code where I can look at your internal exe string pursuit (and the explanation of where you are currently in that regard). I forgot to add in my last communication that you might find it useful to calculate the file entropy rather than (or as an additional tactic) simply look for the upx packing signature, since malware compression may use different methods of compression but they all tend to cause a high file entropy (typically malware lacks the magic byte identifier and is high entropy as a general suspicion index). As far as extracting strings from binary, I expect looking at your own string method (which you kindly point out can be general purpose if the malware search portion is omitted) will be a nice tutorial (I did software development with assembly and C in the early 1980's so find myself having to brush up on technique when I actually jump into development or analysis again). I did look at Madurai more closely than my guess about which areas were more likely to find Karuppu Sami attractive/familiar. It indeed appears to be a local hub of activity, though there does seem to be some need for more employment to raise the standard of living for everyone there. The layout around the central temple is really cool. I am familiar with the Gita and many of the Upanishads (and enjoyed a cinematic enactment of the Mahābhārata, it being a little too lengthy to read). After I responded yesterday I decided to analyze the sourceforge binaries for the unix diction and style independently reproduced by Michael Haardt in 2007 and they had the proper dates and contents (in the zips) and the file reputation was good (you can use virustotal and general search to verify) so I went ahead and unpacked them and set up a directory on my Windows machine and tested them on some text. They worked so I am pleased not to have to compi

Nice work, particularly for an 18 year old way down there in Madurai (rural I guess from reference to Karuppu Sami in the .h headers). I just looked over your code and see that you are (1) looking for a known malware hash in your local database ksgmprh.db SQLite file (2) looking for any upx packed exe's (3) looking for any suspicious strings in the executable, but I couldn't find what database of strings you are using for that (and didn't see an obvious reference in your unit-tests.cpp (I thought maybe you had your custom strings in the SQLite database, but didn't see where else you had the known file hashes--maybe you haven't fully implemented the suspicous string database yet?). I see you are proficient in Python. I might need your help porting the old Unix diction and style c code to Python 2.7 (if I can't compile it locally with MSVC scraps).

You have very specific dreams, which I suppose could go either way as far as increasing your chances of accidentally becoming a billionaire (like Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, etc....don't think any of those on this kind of list had a particular dream other than to play with computers and somehow make money at it). I would like to see what you developed, but am scary about visiting any links that don't meet security checks, which these days amounts to a reputation check (that is a Catch-22 of course). If you put it up at github, let me know (please don't use sourceforge.net---those people still scare the hell out of me...never know if something is going to pop up from an install and scurry across the room to infect the denizens of earth). ...and that segues to to my own thoughts on anti-malware lately, which is that it would be nice to have access to a massive database of reputation scan information and code hashes. VirusTotal does make their database API available, but unless you provide information to them you are limited to 4 queries per minute (so on my machine with tens of thousands of files someone will have proven NP == P by the time the scan completes, at which time the Universe will evaporate).

It was almost exactly one year ago that I followed and posted in a discussion here concerned (well, more outraged by some, dismissed by others) about the unprecedented collection of personal data by Microsoft with their Windows 10 service (I won't call it an operating system): [Does the world realize Windows...] Well, I am surprised to see that the French government have donned their tinfoil hats and have insisted Microsoft make changes to Win10 to conform to their privacy laws. Microsoft, responding with their usual Orwellian flair, has now announced new tools to help users clear information such as browsing and search history, location activity and Cortana Notebook. MS has also made privacy settings a clear part of the initial setup process for 10 and eliminated their "Enhanced" data collection level. They add further that they will not use the contents of your email, chat, files and pictures to target ads to you (admitting implicitly that they still collect all of that data).

Very cool, but the splash page entry at North Polar Gypsum Dunes in Olympia Undae looks like bariatric surgery gone wrong or the ultimate fate of my most valued member.

On my Windows 8 64 bit Movie Maker is in: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Photo Gallery\MovieMaker.exe" I note that I had to look for a MovieMaker project on my computer and open it, then search for the executing MovieMaker file in task manager and ask it to open the containing directory in order to find it. If you don't mind attempting simultaneous interface deciphering and mental health analysis, you can attempt to use MS Expression Encoder: [^] I installed Encoder in July 2015 and somehow made it work as a step recorder. I can't guarantee MS will not now attempt to install Windows 10 on your system if you visit the above link, or that it is the same version I obtained last year: file version 4.0.4276.0 (the installer) Microsoft Expression Encoder 4. Have you heard of the top secret testing of the Microsoft Self-Driving Car? Reportedly they are having trouble hiring test drivers after several drivers were hit in the groin by the door when they approached the car and put a hand out towards the door handle, then they found themselves inside and unable to get out again (everytime they reached for the "open door" tile on the dash screen the tile disappeared)...when they finally were removed from the car, they found their credit cards had been taken from their wallets somehow. :laugh:

Are you disrespecting The Profit? "Jamie" Dimon

A quick look through the many replies below seems to indicate most people have an immediate feeling that we want to be protected from terrorists so it is petty of Apple to "refuse to unlock this one phone" simply because they believe in privacy rights. I would suggest you know what is actually being required of Apple: The government has invoked a centuries old writ requiring the general cooperation of third parties in excecuting writs or orders of the court/government. It has invoked that general writ in this case to insist that Apple engineers write a new operating system for the iPhone that will remove the multiple password submit protection (i.e., remove the increasing delay of response and ultimate locking of the device on repeated password errors) so the government can try brute force cracking the password for the terrorist's phone (by running millions of attempts at the password in automatically until one works). To paraphrase a federal judge who refused to allow the use of th All Writs Act in that way in 2005, the government need only run this Hail Mary play if its arguments under the relevant laws fail to allow it to do what it wants to do (US Magistrate Judge Orenstein). This controversy will surely take years to resolve, since it will likely proceed to the US Supreme Court (which may not be fully staffed since the Congress apparently views the President's power to appoint justices as optional and politically inconvenient). Aside from the implications of demanding a business abandon a marketing feature or do slave labor for the government (and these do involve constitutional questions re 2nd and 5th amendments among other issues), you really need to slow down on this reaction that we want to be protected and what does it matter if the government can look at any and all of my communications (which they do anyway for the most part). There is a difference from being protected by law and being protected by the good will of a particular official of the government. We've come a long way from Patrick Henry's "give me liberty or give me death," the attitude of those who risked their lives that we might have a country like America. Now it seems to be, "to hell with liberty---I want to live at any cost." If you look at history you will see populations that made that decision always suffered severe consequences.

I would only reply, as did Bill (Gates) when challenged about appropriating product ideas, "you shouldn't show them to me." Those London facades are a spot-on metaphor for Microsoft Windows, grin. Using Microsoft products is like having a well-loved dog that unfortunately keeps biting you when you least expect it.

I guess it's a question of whether you'd prefer the option of possibly shooting yourself in the foot (Linux, which I just installed yesterday, dual booting with Win 8 on an HP 2000 notebook) or surely being shot in the ass (Microsoft 10-10, listenin' in---as for proof, I suggest you go with the preponderance of the evidence).

RE MSFT product shoving, I am reminded of Cube Drone's great cartoon the other day on "Agile Software Systems:" Cube Drone comic with diagram of customer and b.u.t.t. graph, AKA Windy Pillows

Cortana is going to be the primary interface to the Windows operating system. It assumes that role now in a development stage, which goes to the question of why Microsoft insists that any interaction with Cortana is subject to their remote transmission and analysis (this whole speech to text problem is a very difficult nut to crack and initially is requiring remote massive processing power and analysis). To assert that this is a minor problem since an IP address might be scrubbed is foolishness (you can hardly remove your name and other identifying data from an all-inclusive stream of anything you may say in interating with your personal computer, not to mention the data stored on the computer, which is also subject to use by MS). I realize you find this horrifying and don't want to believe it is happening (I'm with you in that reaction). Now as to installation of Windows 10 on most PC's in the future being an independent decision of OEM's (and chipmakers) and Microsoft having earned its place as a monopoly by offering a superior product in a free market, I'm not going to rehash decades of public record in the law. I'll just point you at one relevant court decision: 253 F. 3d 34 - Court of Appeals, Dist. of Columbia Circuit, 2001. This was the court favorable to Microsoft, the one that reversed Judge Jackson's order to break up Microsoft. However, they did not deny that Microsoft was a monopoly in the operating system market for Intel-compatible computers and maintained that position via illegal activity (e.g., polluting the Java code base, forcing Apple to use IE, forcing Intel to stop supporting Java, etc. etc.). If you will spend the time to read the entire court opinion, it is an astounding detailed factual account of the thuggish (I cannot avoid the use of that term) illegal conduct by Microsoft. There apparently was some kind of understanding reached with Bill Gates, since he withdrew from an active role in the company after that and only returned in 2014 (hence the frightening recent developments, grin). For earlier judicial comment on what Microsoft was doing to offer "the most sought after product," see Judge Stanley Sporkin's opinion 1995 in refusing to sign the consent decree to resolve US v Microsoft: http://www.justice.gov/atr/memorandum-opinion-us-v-microsoft-corp It does appear that Microsoft is trying to help Enterprise level customers turn off all of the remote telemetry in Windows 10: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208(v=vs.85).aspx I had wondered abou

I didn't intend to insult anyone who has chosen to use Windows 10. I was simply noting, as did Forbes in their November 10, 2015 article "Microsoft Admits Windows 10 Secretly Installed On Windows 7, Windows 8", that there was not a lot of interest in Windows 10, or outright negative feelings about it, such that Microsoft began surreptitiously installing Win 10 on Win 7 and Win 8 customer computers in November without their permission after the initial 5.38% market share obtained in August 2015 slipped to about 1.4% increases in Sept and Oct 2015. So, many of the 200 million devices Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President, Windows and Devices Group at Microsoft, now using Windows 10 may not have made that choice voluntarily. In addition, since the IT world is just now beginning to realize what Windows 10 actually is, i.e., a SaaS platform with all user data on a PC now subject to transmission back to Microsoft, I intended to imply that many of the people who did actually voluntarily accept the free install of Windows 10 probably did so without realizing how great the change was from previous operating systems provided by Microsoft. I know it took me about a month of reading reports from IT folks before it began to sink in that this was unprecedented. It is amusing that Microsoft has been parrying the concerns about the invasion of privacy with Windows 10 and then Mehdi (introduced above) makes a crowing announcement recently highlighting statistics of exactly what Windows 10 users have been doing on their computers! Mehdi gives the minutes spent using the Edge browser, questions asked with Cortana, number of photos viewed with the Win 10 photo app, number of hours spent playing games on Windows 10, number of hours streaming xbox to Win 10 pc's, number of Bing queries made from Win 10 devices...Forbes asks, is Microsoft recording the actual Cortana queries? The answer according to the Micorosft privacy statements I have read, and their analysis by reputable tech industry analysts, is yes. Let me state again that I am not challenging Microsoft's right to do anything they like in a product or service they offer in the market, as long as that is a free market (not the monopoly on Intel compatible PCs that they have enjoyed since MSDOS) and the buyers voluntarily, knowing what they are purchasing, choose to use the product. When Windows 10 is to be preinstalled on all new PC's, that is monopoly behavior that really needs to be re-examined in light of the actual characteristics of this new product. I am surprised t

I don't think I'm making any assumptions, I'm simply reading what Microsoft and some who have looked ath their statements and examined the operating system environment of Windows 10 have said. In particular: "We will acess, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to protect our customers or enforce the terms governing the use of our services." That quote was from a Computerworld Aug, 4, 2015 article "Microsoft responds to Windows 10 privacy policy concerns." Microsoft added (in direct communication with the author of that article) "...we store the personal information you provide on computer systems that have limited access and are in controlled facilities." These statements harmonize well with what I just read online as the latest edition of Microsoft official Windows 10 privacy statements ("Windows 10 and your online services"): "This data, collectively called 'telemetry', can also help us understand gaps in our services so we can help people use Windows more effectively...We use tiny samples of your typing and handwriting info to improve our dictionaries and handwriting recognition...when you turn on typing, inking and speech data.." It appears to me (from their own statements in the context of the continuing discussion of the matter) that Microsoft is not denying that they have access to any and all data on any device, including a personal computer, that is running Windows 10 (noted that they are assuring us that they won't misuse that access). I do see reports online (for example InfoWorld Aug 13, 2015, quoting Peter Bright from Ars Technica) that, for example, even with OneDrive disabled and use of a local account login the telemetry is still making requrests to a content delivery network that bypasses proxies. I am saying that Microsoft should make all this clear, i.e., that it has moved on from the local private OS PC market so people who don't want that kind of environment can make an informed market choice, not have the thing inserted on their computer or forced on them through the cooperation of PC OEM's. Microsoft enjoyed monopoly power over the years because they convinced the government that they would self-restrain themselves and were providing a stable platform for a very large and important business sector. If they have moved to a new model, the software as a service and the same expectation of privacy as a

I like the idea of the Chromebook. It makes it clear what it is. I certainly would not choose to make it my primary computing device, for the reasons I have already given. I am not opposed to multiple computing/Internet venues/environments, but I think we should be clear about which one we are in---and let the market provide a new one if the previous owner (of the market) decides to move on.

Well, that is actually my point, i.e., I'm of the school that views a computer as a different environment than a smartphone. It is in fact an Earth-shaking paradigm shift to quietly turn every Windows OS user into a smartphone equivalent paradigm. Again, that's ok to offer the product and ok if you like it, I just think it needs to be made very clear to the public what is happening (which will be difficult apparently). As for this behavior being invoked only following MS account sign in, I believe Microsoft intends that the Windows 10 user account is in fact a Microsoft account in that respect, whether linked to a previous MS online account or not. If you wade through the circular sequence of privacy statements you can reach from one of the earlier replies above you can pretty much gather that the intent is for you to logon to a cloud based service in Windows 10, an array of services really. I assume the next objection (other than, "so what") will be why don't you just disable the services that are more invasive. I don't believe that is possible. MS has taken the design view that the OS is everything, as contrasted with a Linux/Unix view that an OS is a core of functionality between you and the machine and you run well-behaved modules on it, separately developed and maintained, etc. I know MS has been talking about needing to be intimately connected with the silicon, but I don't think that is a good idea for an OS generally, much less for a cloud service OS.

Sorry about the lack of paragraph breaks. I'm a touch typist and tend to stream thought. As for questioning whether MS actually is saying they will access personal documents on your computer etc., they are not trying to say that so clearly, but that seems to be the gist of it at: Hmmm...I'm having trouble getting the link in. [^] I won't be tedious and go through a detailed semantic analysis of that page, but do advise if you think it is not saying that any content on any device you sign on to using Windows 10 will be subject to use (and that certainly means remote transmission since they are explicitly telling you that Windows 10 is no longer simply a device operating system but a cloud service in many respects). That is certainly their right to decide they don't want to sell an operating system for your device under the old paradigm (and I'm reasonably certain that was Bill's idea, since he came back in 2014 to help MS and only he would have the power to do something like that). I just think the public should know that in plain language so they can look at alternatives if they really would prefer to run an old-fashioned private computer (with tin foil hat supplied, grin).

I know there has been plenty of griping about Microsoft's Windows 10, but it finally sunk in to me the other day that there is a real departure here: Windows 10 privacy statement clearly states (or so I've read, not wanting to install that software on anything I own) that Microsoft will have access to all of a user's data on the host computer, e.g., folders, documents, etc., and will use it more or less as they see fit (to "help" the customer, to help MS tune their speech to text, to help law enforcement or friendly governments---all too friendly governments). I don't think this has been past practice for Microsoft or any operating system provider. Yes, Google, for example, routinely uses data that passes through its various services, but I for one have always made a distinction between what I choose to do in a cloud environment (email, cloud store) vs. my own private computer. I suspect most computer users, technical or otherwise, have had a similar paradigm, i.e., my computer is relatively private and the operating system which is necessary to use the computer (and in Microsoft's case has been granted a monopoly literally by government acquiescence to it constructing illegal barriers to entry in that market, e.g., poisoning the Java code base back when) has not been accessing my data and sending it to other places for agendas not my own (yes, I know malware and government surveillance software may do that, but the idea is that this is the exception, not the rule, or was). I personally am going to stick with earlier Windows versions to the bitter end and begin using Linux in parallel now, but I wonder if the public generally should be clearly informed that there has been a paradigm shift at Microsoft, who now view their OS as a service more or less free as Google services and with the same open door to their use of any and all user data associated with that service. I should add that I don't believe the future will be all cloud serviced devices. The whole point of the personal computer revolution (where I began) was to empower the individual and decentralize computing, not to set up a massive client server model. To begin such a massive centralizing effort in today's world is foolhardy when our infrastructure is incredibly fragile, the preference for individual and private computing aside.