OS upgrades

[Diesel]

You can do an oddball format and actually give one an MBR. It's not standard, but, you can do this. Of course, this does require modification of the code present in the boot sector to support it, but, alas, It can be done. Why you'd want to do this, realistically speaking, I've no clue. Maybe to 'hide' a section of the floppy? I've seen it used on a an ancient copy protected disc once or twice, but, it's pretty damn rare.

Aye. I don't see much point in having partitions on a usb stick myself, but.. to each his own.

[Diesel]

As with other multi tasking operating systems, it depends on what you were doing when this happened. As long as no writes were in cache and not commited to disk yet, nothing bad *should* happen.

[Diesel]

Yes, there is. It's called encryption. And not everything about you is already out there either. Many source files to various programs I've written are NOT available outside of these machines I'm sitting in front of. You've watched one too many hacker movies and/or csi shows to believe otherwise. Hollywood is NOT real life.

[Diesel]

It depends on what you mean by safe...

You can acquire the majority of the same data yourself, if you want to take the time. It may cost you a small fee, but, you can obtain it.

You don't have to visit youtube with your actual IP exposed for them to link to, though. You do have options.

I've made no such claims. Linux/Windows prior to 10 do not share every file on this machine with microsoft when they request it.

[Diesel]

[snip]

With Windows 10, it makes no difference. Windows 10 will, at MS discretion send copies of anything present on your local hard drive. Your only real defense against that is storing encrypted files on the machine that weren't encrypted using that specific machine; as thanks to keylogging, they'd have the passphrase to decrypt them, anyway.

Otherwise, I agree, using a router between your computer and the modem will keep you safer. As long as the router doesn't have vulnerable firmware AND it's configured properly. One such example is WPS. If it's on, one does NOT need your WPA key to gain access to your network. WPS can be hax0red in a few seconds using a decent machine. and, that's just one example where a router can fail you.

[Diesel]

[snip]

Does your router support WPS? Is it turned off? Are you sure it's actually off? If not, you're vulnerable to wardriving.

[Diesel]

Windows 9x was never built with security in mind. It doesn't support a file system that actually has permissions, either. Nor does it have real user account restriction options. Essentially, under win9x you're always an adminstrator with full rights to the system. As is any software that runs on it. With XP, this isn't the case.

[Diesel]

Uncle sam is more than welcome to collect meta data on what amounts to a burner phone tied to no specific individuals name. We didn't run across bin laden by accident, either. One or more individuals we captured and waterboarded ratted on him.

[Diesel]

Contrary to what you see in the movies, hacking isn't like that. Just because you're connected to the internet does not mean that you're magically hackable. It takes a bit more than that.

search engines can only share what I've typed into them and my browser id strings...though. XP doesn't share my private files with microsoft. Windows 10, will if MS determines they need something for whatever reason they deem fit.

Linux won't share my private files with anybody else, unless I take what amounts to stupid steps to force it to do so.

With windows 10, I don't have to do anything for MS to analyze what I've got on the machine and it send them whatever they want. I'm not okay with that and I don't understand why you would be.

[clare]

Correct -NAT - Network Address Translation

[clare]

Likewise

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I've used a router since about 1998. Then it was with dial-up (2400 BPS POTS).

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

Here, cable does not go out on a power outage (unless the outage also damaged a cable), but only if the outage is longer than about 4 yours (when the node battery dies).

Several times, I've been using the internet when power goes out. My UPS keeps the modem & router going for awhile, and I'm usually using a laptop PC.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I like that feature. Too many other devices have "power amnesia" (forget to be on after an outage).

BTW, Most PCs now have UEFI firmware. It's not BIOS.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

You must mean "more than one", since with no partitions a MBR drive is useless.

I've heard that Windows will not access more than one partition, but other OSes will.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I thought you were required to register those phones now, so uncle sam knows who to associate their stolen information with.

[Wayne Boatwright]

On Thu 06 Apr 2017 02:20:15p, Oren told us...

I've nver owned a sailboat, nor do I live in California, although I was born there. Must be another Wayne.

[Wayne Boatwright]

On Thu 06 Apr 2017 02:22:44p, Terry Coombs told us...

Okay, I'll give you that, and it doesn't matter how old a cas is if the new hardware fits in it. I just can't understand why anyone would buy XP or 7. I think we just have to agree to disagree.

[gfretwell]

I have a P1 166 board in an old IBM 5150 PC case, for nostalgia. When the capacitors failed I just put it away.

[Terry Coombs]

Well , I just really like XP and it does just fine for most things . I have been a little unhappy with the way my former configuration (Athlon X2

2.6 Ghz and 4 Gb of RAM) has been processing the newer web pages that are much more graphics-intense . 8 and 8.1 were total dogs and 10 is spyware ... which leaves 7 or a Linux distro for an OS . The wife's laptop runs 7 Pro and it's OK , so I'm going to be using it on my new desktop . Getting her over to anything linux is not gonna happen ...