Just imagine how much the problem has multiplied since Schneier wrote
this article in 2006. With Win 10, and now the advent of Win 11, an
age of the total destruction of privacy has begun - and just about
every software outfit is going to jump in and help destroy it.

After reading this, XP is a simpler and safer way to stay safe - until
they totally block its usage.

schneier.com

The entire article is at the URL below.

https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2006/05/everyone_wants_to_ow.html

Essays: Everyone Wants to 'Own' Your PC Bruce Schneier

A few words from the article.
"When technology serves its owners, it is liberating. When it is
designed to serve others, over the owner’s objection, it is
oppressive. There’s a battle raging on your computer right now — one
that pits you against worms and viruses, Trojans, spyware, automatic
update features and digital rights management technologies. It’s the
battle to determine who owns your computer."

On Fri, 16 Jul 2021 09:41:41 -0500, Merle@invalid.com wrote:
>
> After reading this, XP is a simpler and safer way to stay safe - until
> they totally block its usage.

Fortunately, XP is never designed to be blockable. Meaning that, it never
has such mechanism in its design in the first place.

If Microsoft want to block XP, they would do it in a form of a hotfix which
is practically an OS killer/blocker. Seems familiar? Yep, a trojan. A
malware.

Fortunately, pre Windows 10 OSes do not have a mechanism to force an update
or hotfix. So, there no need for tricks to disable auto update.

Windows 8 and newer versions on the other hand, has a mechanism to use
online based OS user account, aka. "Microsoft Account" - which can prevent
users from logging into their own PCs. All it needs is for Microsoft to
flag/disable the online account, and the user will never be able to use
his/her account.

This is Microsoft's plan to gradually own our PCs. Currently, we can still
use built-in account such as `Administrator` - assuming that it has been
enabled before the online account is disabled, or other built-in accounts
which are not disabled by default; to log in and create a new local account.

But in the future, the built-in accounts may be made to be usable only if an
online account is logged in. After all, Microsoft's master plan is: OS as a
service. Microsoft also want to own our PCs, but in a big way. We'll no
longer have absolute control of our own PCs. Eventually, our PCs will boot
Windows through internet like how an OS boot from remote storage through
PXE. Our PCs will be nothing more than a dumb terminal machine which don't
have any (local) OS on its own.

On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 16:24:02 +0700, JJ <jj4public@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 16 Jul 2021 09:41:41 -0500, Merle@invalid.com wrote:
>>
>> After reading this, XP is a simpler and safer way to stay safe - until
>> they totally block its usage.
>
>Fortunately, XP is never designed to be blockable. Meaning that, it never
>has such mechanism in its design in the first place.
>
>If Microsoft want to block XP, they would do it in a form of a hotfix which
>is practically an OS killer/blocker. Seems familiar? Yep, a trojan. A
>malware.
>
>Fortunately, pre Windows 10 OSes do not have a mechanism to force an update
>or hotfix. So, there no need for tricks to disable auto update.
>
>Windows 8 and newer versions on the other hand, has a mechanism to use
>online based OS user account, aka. "Microsoft Account" - which can prevent
>users from logging into their own PCs. All it needs is for Microsoft to
>flag/disable the online account, and the user will never be able to use
>his/her account.
>
>This is Microsoft's plan to gradually own our PCs. Currently, we can still
>use built-in account such as `Administrator` - assuming that it has been
>enabled before the online account is disabled, or other built-in accounts
>which are not disabled by default; to log in and create a new local account.
>
>But in the future, the built-in accounts may be made to be usable only if an
>online account is logged in. After all, Microsoft's master plan is: OS as a
>service. Microsoft also want to own our PCs, but in a big way. We'll no
>longer have absolute control of our own PCs. Eventually, our PCs will boot
>Windows through internet like how an OS boot from remote storage through
>PXE. Our PCs will be nothing more than a dumb terminal machine which don't
>have any (local) OS on its own.

That's what I said. :o)

On Sunday, July 18, 2021 at 5:24:07 AM UTC-4, JJ wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Jul 2021 09:41:41 -0500, Me...@invalid.com wrote:
> >
> > After reading this, XP is a simpler and safer way to stay safe - until
> > they totally block its usage.
>
> Fortunately, XP is never designed to be blockable. Meaning that, it never
> has such mechanism in its design in the first place.
>
> If Microsoft want to block XP, they would do it in a form of a hotfix which
> is practically an OS killer/blocker. Seems familiar? Yep, a trojan. A
> malware.
>
> Fortunately, pre Windows 10 OSes do not have a mechanism to force an update
> or hotfix. So, there no need for tricks to disable auto update.
>
> Windows 8 and newer versions on the other hand, has a mechanism to use
> online based OS user account, aka. "Microsoft Account" - which can prevent
> users from logging into their own PCs. All it needs is for Microsoft to
> flag/disable the online account, and the user will never be able to use
> his/her account.
>
> This is Microsoft's plan to gradually own our PCs. Currently, we can still
> use built-in account such as `Administrator` - assuming that it has been
> enabled before the online account is disabled, or other built-in accounts
> which are not disabled by default; to log in and create a new local account.
>
> But in the future, the built-in accounts may be made to be usable only if an
> online account is logged in. After all, Microsoft's master plan is: OS as a
> service. Microsoft also want to own our PCs, but in a big way. We'll no
> longer have absolute control of our own PCs. Eventually, our PCs will boot
> Windows through internet like how an OS boot from remote storage through
> PXE. Our PCs will be nothing more than a dumb terminal machine which don't
> have any (local) OS on its own.

windows updates
firstly you can disable window update with 'sc delete <servicename>
if you not sure of service use 'services.msc' in terminal, you can open by task manger , then file , you may need to click run adminsitar

xp/32bit apps
xp no issues running in vitural machine for years. find apps everywhere , chrome firefox, can use chocolat and portableapps to find software also play on windows
find apps (32) on archive.org

accounts
accounts yes i only use local so not dependent on internet connection
on first install just unplug the internet it wont find and you'll get prompted 'don' have account' , then you can just make local , thats if on you first run.
of course just use control panel to edit accounts

On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 09:31:16 -0700 (PDT), rmaniacnyc@gmail.com wrote:
>
> windows updates
> firstly you can disable window update with 'sc delete <servicename>
> if you not sure of service use 'services.msc' in terminal, you can open by task manger , then file , you may need to click run adminsitar

That's considered as a trick, since the option/command is not available on
the Windows Update setting window/screen itself. i.e. it's not directly
provided. IOTW, it requires a roundabout way to disable it. A trick.

Also, deleting something, is not same as disabling something. Deleting
something will remove the thing forever. Disabling something will still keep
the thing, but made inactive/blocked, and can still be used whenever it's
actually needed.

> xp/32bit apps
> xp no issues running in vitural machine for years. find apps everywhere ,
> chrome firefox, can use chocolat and portableapps to find software also
> play on windows
> find apps (32) on archive.org

Well, neither Windows versions has any problem running in VM. With the right
VM software, we can even run any 64-bit OS in a 32-bit PC, or even run a
PowerPC or ARM OSes in an Intel PC. I don't see why XP is special in this
case.

> accounts
> accounts yes i only use local so not dependent on internet connection
> on first install just unplug the internet it wont find and you'll get
> prompted 'don' have account' , then you can just make local , thats if on
> you first run. of course just use control panel to edit accounts

That's the current Windows 10 implementation. It may still be the same for
Windows 11. They're still hackable. But eventually, Microsoft will
disable/remove local account completely.

In article <6663fg1mag8ejvbud7guiemovqdpqpej21@4ax.com>, Merle@invalid.com wrote:
>Just imagine how much the problem has multiplied since Schneier wrote
>this article in 2006. With Win 10, and now the advent of Win 11, an
>age of the total destruction of privacy has begun - and just about
>every software outfit is going to jump in and help destroy it.
>
>After reading this, XP is a simpler and safer way to stay safe - until
>they totally block its usage.

XP itself is no problem. The real-world problem is with browsers and the fucking
retatrds that code web sites without any backward compatibility.

At this point, there are numerous web sites that plainly won't work on any of the
browsers that can be run on XP.

I dunno, maybe it's all a conscious choice to drive everyone into the Win10/OSX
nightmare of having zero privacy in one's daily life.

DK

"DK" <dk@no.email.thankstospam.net> wrote

| I dunno, maybe it's all a conscious choice to drive everyone into the
Win10/OSX
| nightmare of having zero privacy in one's daily life.
|

I find that mysterious. My "cpanel" to manage my webhosting
is one of those sites. I load the email addresses list and it doesn't
load in either New Moon or Firefox, with script enabled. Many of
those highly interactive sites are broken. And the code is so
convoluted there's no way to tell what it's doing... or even where
it's loading from. My only guess is that jacked up javascript must
be requiring an interpreter engine that's newer than what's in those
browsers.

I think part of the problem is that people have got used to
auto-updating browsers. So a website might actually support
IE7 but nothing Firefox that's more than a few months old.

I recently had trouble with Netflix because widevine was updated.
For some reason the latest Waterfox (on win7) wouldn't update it.
Netflix wouldn't run without it. (But of course they also wouldn't
tell me that was the problem.) I finally got the latest Firefox to
update to the latest widevine... I don't know how normal people
manage. I guess they just switch to Macs.

On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 18:23:35 GMT, dk@no.email.thankstospam.net (DK)
wrote:

>In article <6663fg1mag8ejvbud7guiemovqdpqpej21@4ax.com>, Merle@invalid.com wrote:
>>Just imagine how much the problem has multiplied since Schneier wrote
>>this article in 2006. With Win 10, and now the advent of Win 11, an
>>age of the total destruction of privacy has begun - and just about
>>every software outfit is going to jump in and help destroy it.
>>
>>After reading this, XP is a simpler and safer way to stay safe - until
>>they totally block its usage.
>
>XP itself is no problem. The real-world problem is with browsers and the fucking
>retatrds that code web sites without any backward compatibility.
>
>At this point, there are numerous web sites that plainly won't work on any of the
>browsers that can be run on XP.
>
>I dunno, maybe it's all a conscious choice to drive everyone into the Win10/OSX
>nightmare of having zero privacy in one's daily life.
>
>
>DK

For cases of XP's browser like FFx 52.9 not working with a site, I use
Mypal. It's a simple, simple browser that works so simple with every
site that blocks my FFx, at least so far.

The version I'm using is 29.1.1 (32 bit)

In article <vt7hfglhtrkmfq3n62em05eg1npt2g6ipc@4ax.com>, ray@gpost.com wrote:
>On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 18:23:35 GMT, dk@no.email.thankstospam.net (DK)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <6663fg1mag8ejvbud7guiemovqdpqpej21@4ax.com>, Merle@invalid.com
> wrote:
>>>Just imagine how much the problem has multiplied since Schneier wrote
>>>this article in 2006. With Win 10, and now the advent of Win 11, an
>>>age of the total destruction of privacy has begun - and just about
>>>every software outfit is going to jump in and help destroy it.
>>>
>>>After reading this, XP is a simpler and safer way to stay safe - until
>>>they totally block its usage.
>>
>>XP itself is no problem. The real-world problem is with browsers and the
> fucking
>>retatrds that code web sites without any backward compatibility.
>>
>>At this point, there are numerous web sites that plainly won't work on any of
> the
>>browsers that can be run on XP.
>>
>>I dunno, maybe it's all a conscious choice to drive everyone into the
> Win10/OSX
>>nightmare of having zero privacy in one's daily life.
>>
>>
>>DK
>
>For cases of XP's browser like FFx 52.9 not working with a site, I use
>Mypal. It's a simple, simple browser that works so simple with every
>site that blocks my FFx, at least so far.
>
>The version I'm using is 29.1.1 (32 bit)

Mypal works in some cases but still fails in many. It was just a few weeks ago that
Linkedin does nor work in it. Basecamp is 80% broken on all and any browsers
in XP. WaPo, starting about a month ago, has ~1/3 of pages that come up blank.
Chase Online refuses to work and faking User-Agent does not help.

I'd love to stick to XP because it does everything I need but the browser issue is
becoming a serious problem. Probanly the only solution is to run some OS in VM
just to run a god damn modern browser.

Question is, what that OS should be? One of the micro Linux distros? Plain
Android? ChromeOS?

DK

DK wrote:
> In article <vt7hfglhtrkmfq3n62em05eg1npt2g6ipc@4ax.com>, ray@gpost.com wrote:
>> On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 18:23:35 GMT, dk@no.email.thankstospam.net (DK)
>> wrote:
>>
>>> In article <6663fg1mag8ejvbud7guiemovqdpqpej21@4ax.com>, Merle@invalid.com
>> wrote:
>>>> Just imagine how much the problem has multiplied since Schneier wrote
>>>> this article in 2006. With Win 10, and now the advent of Win 11, an
>>>> age of the total destruction of privacy has begun - and just about
>>>> every software outfit is going to jump in and help destroy it.
>>>>
>>>> After reading this, XP is a simpler and safer way to stay safe - until
>>>> they totally block its usage.
>>> XP itself is no problem. The real-world problem is with browsers and the
>> fucking
>>> retatrds that code web sites without any backward compatibility.
>>>
>>> At this point, there are numerous web sites that plainly won't work on any of
>> the
>>> browsers that can be run on XP.
>>>
>>> I dunno, maybe it's all a conscious choice to drive everyone into the
>> Win10/OSX
>>> nightmare of having zero privacy in one's daily life.
>>>
>>>
>>> DK
>> For cases of XP's browser like FFx 52.9 not working with a site, I use
>> Mypal. It's a simple, simple browser that works so simple with every
>> site that blocks my FFx, at least so far.
>>
>> The version I'm using is 29.1.1 (32 bit)
>
> Mypal works in some cases but still fails in many. It was just a few weeks ago that
> Linkedin does nor work in it. Basecamp is 80% broken on all and any browsers
> in XP. WaPo, starting about a month ago, has ~1/3 of pages that come up blank.
> Chase Online refuses to work and faking User-Agent does not help.
>
> I'd love to stick to XP because it does everything I need but the browser issue is
> becoming a serious problem. Probanly the only solution is to run some OS in VM
> just to run a god damn modern browser.
>
> Question is, what that OS should be? One of the micro Linux distros? Plain
> Android? ChromeOS?
>
> DK

One of the differences between platforms, is what
subsystems the browser uses.

On Windows, the browser selects "SChannel" for some purposes.
On Linux, it would carry its own onboard equivalent of the
SChannel, which means as time passes and all sites use
TLS1.3 and CHACHA20, the browser carries its own version of
those. On Linux, as the browser is updated, it stays up to
date on the "latest fashions".

The Windows philosophy, was only suited to a point. For trivial
support issues, perhaps occasionally the OS would receive a
"certificate update". But on the SChannel, if the OS was released
supporting a certain version of SSL, the developers at Microsoft
would be adamant they would not install TLS on the platform. The
idea being at the time, that the OS was not a rolling release,
and would not get "features for free" as time passes. Windows 10
changed that a bit. And some (very select) things on Windows 10
were back-ported to W7/W8, as part of some Microsoft "strategy".
It wasn't because they were, necessarily, nice guys.

Then, when you "bought a new Windows OS", you might receive
TLS 1.3 pre-release.

If the browsers could be convinced to use their own crypto
resources, I have a suspicion fewer of your symptoms would be
present. You need certificates to establish authenticity,
OCSP to cover revoked certificates, and TLS 1.3 to handle
the obfuscation of downloaded files from the web site
(so the NSA cannot capture copies of the porn you paid for :-) ).

https with your bank, only makes sense.

"https everywhere" with the site having the days weather forecast,
is pretty silly. But Bluffdale started this, so onward we go...

I'm surprised at least some of the browser forks, don't
have the private subsystems onboard for this.

One other shortcoming of WinXP, is DXVA and not DXVA2.
You can take the same browser on WinXP (DXVA) that won't play
a video, boot Win8.1 (DXVA2) on the same hardware as your
dual boot OS, and the same browser release... plays video.
If WinXP had DXVA2 backported, the video situation would be
"a bit better". DXVA2 is the part that connects the NVidia
video decoder block on the video card, so applications can
use it.

Paul

On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 17:33:36 -0500, ray@gpost.com wrote:

>For cases of XP's browser like FFx 52.9 not working with a site, I use
>Mypal. It's a simple, simple browser that works so simple with every
>site that blocks my FFx, at least so far.
>
>The version I'm using is 29.1.1 (32 bit)

So where does one get that?

I'vw been using Maxthon, but made the mistake of updating it, and now
it takes forever to load web sites. As a result I'm drinking too much
coffee, because I'm always going for coffee while waiting for web
sites to load.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

"Paul" <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote

| Then, when you "bought a new Windows OS", you might receive
| TLS 1.3 pre-release.
| | If the browsers could be convinced to use their own crypto
| resources, I have a suspicion fewer of your symptoms would be
| present. You need certificates to establish authenticity,
| OCSP to cover revoked certificates, and TLS 1.3 to handle
| the obfuscation of downloaded files from the web site
| (so the NSA cannot capture copies of the porn you paid for :-) ).
|

XP doesn't handle TLS1.2 by default, but it can be patched.
I'm not aware of any requirement for 1.3.

For TLS 1.2 on XP run this reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\TLS
1.1\Client]
"DisabledByDefault"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\TLS
1.1\Server]
"DisabledByDefault"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\TLS
1.2\Client]
"DisabledByDefault"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\TLS
1.2\Server]
"DisabledByDefault"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\PosReady]
"Installed"=dword:00000001

Then install this update:
http://download.windowsupdate.com/c/msdownload/update/software/updt/2017/10/windowsxp-kb4019276-x86-embedded-enu_3822fc1692076429a7dc051b00213d5e1240ce3d.exe

Then reboot.

However, I wouldn't expect that to be a problem in
browsers. I know about it only because I'm using winhttp
DLL in my software and wanted to use up-to-date
protocols.

"DK" <dk@no.email.thankstospam.net> wrote

| WaPo, starting about a month ago, has ~1/3 of pages that come up blank.

If you look at the code there I think you'll find it's actually
a login redirect. WashPo has been doing that to me for a long
time. Same with NPR.org. (Nonprofit my eye. :) They let me
see news sometimes and other times throw up a page that I see
as blank but it's actually a request to log in or join up.

A lot of problems are similar, especially if you block script.
For example, Forbes was blank for awhile. They were putting
the entire website code inside JSON, so that the page would
be blank without script. A lot of other sites have big opaque
covers over most of the page, which gets removed if you
enable script. For that kind of thing I have a CSS toggle button
on the toolbar. I use that button a lot, anyway, because so
many pages now are optimized for phones, with 24px fonts,
triple spaced. They're too big to read. So I toggle CSS off and
see my default of 10px verdana.

So it's really 3 issues. 1) XP can't run the latest browsers.
2) Web design has become monstrously bad, done by people
who have no idea what they're doing, typically using wordpress
templates and testing the site on their phone. 3) Many commercial
sites have become pushy about trying to force script for tracking
and ad placement.