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"Only the Paranoid Survive"! (Read 3784 times)
BATboy
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"Only the Paranoid Survive"!
Jan 7th, 2005 at 5:17pm
 
This post is primarily for my friend NightOwl from the High Rad Board, but of course, everyone is free and welcome to join in.  It's here because it's largely Off Topic for the High Rad board, and I wouldn't want to be criticised for OT discussions!

NightOwl,

I think it was you who accused (criticised?) me of (for) being a paranoid conspiracy theorist, which I accepted as a compliment.

Now I have some more weight to add to the debate.

"El Pescador" challenged me to read "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" by Thomas Friedman (revised edition 2000).  Yesterday I took up his challange and started reading.

I thought this would interest / challenge you.  According to Mr Friedman (p11), Andy Grove (the Chairman of intel), took up an insight originally offered by Joseph Schumpeter (a former Austrian Minister of Finance and Harvard Business School professor), and wrote a book by the same title:

"Only the Paranoid Survive"

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/bios/grove/paranoid.htm

Also available on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385483821

and elsewhere...

Of course I haven't had time to read that book as well, but I already understand the sentiment.  In the Brave New World of Globalization, only those who are looking over their shoulders to see what "the other guys are doing" will keep up, because, driven by the Silicon Revolution, the pace of change in the world is accelerating... New Technologies rapidly replace old, obsolete ones.  If you're selling an obsolete technology, very quickly no one will want to know.

Here's to Paranoia!

Now to conspiracy:

Every organisation (with any sense) keeps its best ideas secret until it can develop (conspiratorially, among its employees) and release, valuable products exploiting those ideas (and even then, it will do what it can to keep the best ideas secret, within the product).

The world today runs on secrets (but then, it always did...)  Why else do we spend so much time thinking and talking about security algorithms - MD5, DES, PGP, etc...

A famous? monkey / chimpanzee? experiment showed that even apes could understand and demonstrate the value of secrecy, thus:

A bunch of bananas was suspended from the ceiling of a cage.  A few crates were placed around the walls of the cage. The subject ape (a chimp?) was introduced to the cage, and spied the bananas, which s/he could not reach from the floor.  After a while looking and thinking, the chimp? figured it could stack the crates to reach the bananas, and began to do so. At that point some other chimps were released into the cage.  As soon as the chimp saw the other chimps coming, it immediately took all the crates down and pretended it was "just minding its own business", ignoring the bananas hanging from the ceiling.

I don't know what happened next (End of the Experiment?), but only a paranoid chimp would think "Huh, that chimp's up to something! What's that chimp doing with those crates?" and realise what s/he had figured out.

One way to "uncover" those ideas, so that one can trade on or leapfrog them, is to be able to interpolate, or read between the lines; another to extrapolate, imagine the logical extensions of what little you do already know...

In either case, it's about filling in what's missing, building on something you know, to uncover or discover something you can't quite be sure of.

That's what I was doing in my analysis of Norton Ghost and its crap documentation.

You see, the truth about the "fingerprint" / "DiskID" argument must be that Symantec have introduced this whole concept of fingerprinting / diskID'ing, for one fundamental purpose:

Licensing Control.

[Those interested please see the post entitled:
"Ghost 2003 build 793 Broken options (NOPtions)"
in the High Radiation board for the FULL argument.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=Full_Rad_Board;action=display;nu... ]

They have tried to make it sound like its something else, there to "Enhance" the product by giving you some (maybe useful) information about when the disk was cloned, but really, it's there to enable them to convict people for breaches of their EULA.  There is no genuine good reason to MARK a source Hard Disk before creating a Backup Image of it.  (If Ghost really needed to be able to re-identify the disk at some point, there are plenty of other ways, including the Hardware Serial Number, the Volume Serial Number, and others...)

Does PKZIP / WinZIP mark (modify) your files as its own before it archives or backs them up?  Does MS Backup?  Does any other backup program?  At best, they create separate, independent catalogs of what's to be (or been) backed up, not MARK the files or disks.  In some / many cases, (no doubt) they LOCK the disks or files, but that's entirely different.  That doesn't CHANGE the Data being backed up, just takes temporary control of it, as appropriate.

But Symantec has, for reasons of its own, tried to hide this fact behind misinformation, falsely referring to the process as "Identifying" when it's really "Marking".

In my opinion, by doing so, they seriously damaged their credibility and the value of their product, but hey, that's their business.

And, of course, it's also about paranoia.  They think (rightly) that people will breach their Licence Agreements, and they want to be able to do something about it.  Pity they don't just make that clear and state that if you need to clone to multiple machines, you need to buy a different licence.  

I say: Let the Truth Prevail.

IMO: Because it insists on WRITING to ALL your Hard Drives (even ones it's possibly never going to Image) before it does ANYTHING, Symantec Norton Ghost SUX!

But Hey, Symantec, no doubt, will survive!

And thank God that we are not all paranoid conspiracy theorists!

Bb
 
 
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Solomon
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Re: "Only the Paranoid Survive"!
Reply #1 - Jan 7th, 2005 at 8:41pm
 
Interesting.
 
 
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NightOwl-
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Re: "Only the Paranoid Survive"!
Reply #2 - Jan 11th, 2005 at 12:26am
 
BATboy

And now for the next episode of 'As the conspiracy turns':

Quote:
I think it was you who accused (criticised?) me of (for) being a paranoid conspiracy theorist


Here's what I really said:  'You keep turning down the path of heavy into conspiracy theory... and maybe a little paranoia.... '

Not quite the same, but....

Quote:
and even then, it will do what it can to keep the best ideas secret, within the product


Really!  Just how does that support all the stuff you just said before the above quote--if it's secret, nobody knows about it, you can't use it to promote your product, and if you don't put it out there, just how does that keep you ahead of the competition?

Quote:
That's what I was doing in my analysis of Norton Ghost and its crap documentation.


But that's where we disagree--your analysis was plain wrong.  (By the way--I think your bias got in the way.)

Quote:
But Symantec has, for reasons of its own, tried to hide this fact behind misinformation, falsely referring to the process as "Identifying" when it's really "Marking".

In my opinion, by doing so, they seriously damaged their credibility and the value of their product, but hey, that's their business.


HDD ID'ing = Marking!  But hey--they got you to buy their product twice according to your posts!

Quote:
And, of course, it's also about paranoia.  They think (rightly) that people will breach their Licence Agreements, and they want to be able to do something about it.  Pity they don't just make that clear and state that if you need to clone to multiple machines, you need to buy a different licence.    


You have to look for it, but on the Norton SystemWorks intallation CD, in the root directory, inside the NSW1.cab, is the EULA.txt file which seems to be pretty clear:

Quote:
1. License.
The software which accompanies this license (collectively the "Software") is the property of Symantec or its licensors and is protected by copyright law.  While Symantec continues to own the Software, you will have certain rights to use the Software after your acceptance of this license.  This license governs any releases, revisions, or enhancements to the Software that Symantec may furnish to you.  Except as may be modified by a Symantec license certificate, license coupon, or license key (each a "License Module")  which accompanies, precedes, or follows this license, your rights and obligations with respect to the use of this Software are as follows:

You may:
A. use one copy of the Software on a single computer.  If a License Module accompanies, precedes, or follows this license, you may make that number of copies of the Software licensed to you by Symantec as provided in your License Module. Your License Module shall constitute proof of your right to make such copies.
B. make one copy of the Software for archival purposes, or copy the Software onto the hard disk of your computer and retain the original for archival purposes;
C. use the Software on a network, provided that you have a licensed copy of the Software for each computer that can access the Software over that network; and
D. after written notice to Symantec, transfer the Software on a permanent basis to another person or entity, provided that you retain no copies of the Software and the transferee agrees to the terms of this license.


And the above EULA.txt is installed in your Norton SystemWorks directory if you install it in Windows.

Now, my computer's motherboard natively can operate 8 HDD's, and I could add another PCI card with between 4 and 8 more IDE channels--it's just one computer--how many HDD ID's will I have?  How's my licensing agreement doing so far?

Quote:
You see, the truth about the "fingerprint" / "DiskID" argument must be that Symantec have introduced this whole concept of fingerprinting / diskID'ing, for one fundamental purpose:

Licensing Control.


There's that 'truth' word again, but whose 'truth'?  Your arguement just does not hold much water.  In their DOS version of Ghost, you can simply refuse to have Ghost ID your HDDs, you can use the '-fnf' switch to prevent the 'fingerprint', and you can use a disk editor to blank Sector 62.  Symantec has given you control (but you have to put up with the 'Nag screen'  Grin --something I know you're loathe to do--right?

Now I'm whispering real softly here--you know you have been showing a lot of concern about breach of licensing agreements, you know they're monitoring, and they know you are worried excessively about being detected for licensing breaches, they're starting to wonder what you are actually up to, and how you are using that software.

Talking in a normal voice now--do you want to know what the HDD ID'ing is really about?  It's a back door program, so Symantec can access your HDD from it's secret cloaked Zulu satellite network, so they can ..... (I'm working up a SciFi novel and I haven't filled in all the plot yet--have to keep it secret!  But if I never post here again, you will know that I stumbled onto their real motives and they had to silence me before I revealed even more.....)

Hey--here's an Easter Egg!:  I actually read through the EULA.txt and found this:

Quote:
3. Sixty Day Money Back Guarantee:
If you are the original licensee of this copy of the Software and are dissatisfied with it for any reason, you may return the complete product, together with your receipt, to Symantec or an authorized dealer, postage prepaid, for a full refund at any time during the sixty (60) day period following the delivery to you of the Software.


You seem so unhappy with Symantec's products--you should really take advantage of their offer.

Quote:
And thank God that we are not all paranoid conspiracy theorists!


Amen to that.  I sleep well at night.

(Still 'interesting' Solomon?  Solomon?  SOLOMON?!--he's asleep too.)

 

No question is stupid...but, possibly the answers are  Wink !
(This is an old *NightOwl* user account--not in current use.  Current account is NightOwl without a dash at the end.)
 
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