Securitron Doom/Linux Blog.

Here is a funny SPAM message I got. It is actually quite well done. He wants to give me the money and then give me 5%. When if I got that much money I could just take it all and then he could be put in jail owing to a tip-off from an anomymous tipster and then I would have all the money and he would be rotting in a African Jail. So funny. He is actually trusting me with 10.5 million dollars and trusting me to actually give it back afterwards?

FROM: MR.RAYNOLD BENJAMIN OLDS',
36b Attha Benious Aures,
Cotonu-Republic Of
Benin.

Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for giving me your time; please be patient
and read my email,I sincerely hope that after you
read this mail you will act fast and respond to my
call. May I first introduce my self:I am Mr.Reynolds
Olds',the eldest son of Late ENG. MARTIN OLDS',a
farmer from Zimbabwe.

I know this email will reach you as a surprise, or
probably you may even think it is a joke, because of
lots of funny mails circulating over the internet.
Well if you do, I really understand, but honestly,
I need your assistance to help me receive the sum of
$10.5m(Ten Million Five Hundred Thousand United States
Dollars) kept in a Security Company in Amsterdam
Holland by my late father. My father was one of the
biggest farmers in our country and because he strongly
opposed Mugabe's ideas, he has to be killed.

During the current war against the farmers in Zimbabwe
from the supporters of our President Robert Mugabe to
claim all the white-owned farms for his party members
and his followers, he ordered all white farmers to
surrender their farms to his party members and his
followers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2678557.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2414713.stm

Mugabe's supporters invaded my father's farm and
burnt everything in the farm, killing my father and
made away with a lot of items in my father's farm.
Before his death,my father had deposited with one
Security Company in Holand, the sum of $10.5m
(Ten Million Five Hundred Thousand United States
Dollars). This was money he planned to use in buying
new machinery and to set up a new farm in Swaziland.
After the death of my father,l decided to escape on
asylum to BENIN Republic because of continued
harassment from Mugabe and his supporters.

I got your reference from the Benin Exports Promotion
Council (BEPC)Having noted the confidence reposed on
your person I became convinced of your capability and
goodwill to asist in securing this money for an
investment in your country and to help my entire
family. The money has been in the security company in
holand just for safe keeping although the courier
company were not aware of the content in the case
because it was convey as personal valuable goods, I
have all documents with me as of when it was deposited
in a Security Vault for safe keeping.Our country has
been frustrating us since the death of my father, hence
i have lost confidence with anybody within the country.

And if you agree to help, we will compensate you
sincerely for your candid effort in this regard with
10% of the total amount of $10.5 Million US Dollars.

Also, when the money ($10.5 Million) is moved into
your discrete account, you will be allowed to withdraw
35% in your favour while 5% would be for expenses, tax
as your government may require. The remaining 60%
will be invested meaningfully for us(me and my family)
in your country. I have perfected arrangements with
the Trust Company concerned and has been assured 100%
risk free and safe operation.

What I demand from you now is to arrange to visit the
Finance Company where this money is being deposited
and claim it as the bona-fide owner. And in due
course,all contacts must be made through my private
E-mail:mrrayben@walla.com,Tel:+229 95713752

You will be Godly rewarded for your candid effort.
Please do call me immediately you get this message
and send forth your private Phone/Fax number(s)
and E-mail address(s)for easier communication.
Awaiting your response. Thanks and God bless.

"With Regards, From"
The Entire Family,
Best Wishes.
Reynold Olds'

Close but no cigar, MR Olds.

Here is a snippet from the Aaron Margosis weblog. Concerning the date and time applet in Windows XP. Only the Administrators can change the settings. Which of course is correct, on Linux you need to be the 'root' user to change the date & time. You can switch to the root account in an xterm and type date -s "" and type the new date value in between commas. Then just hit ENTER and the new date will be updated instantly.

Aaron Margosis' WebLog : Changing the system date, time and/or time zone:
By default, only Administrators and Power Users can use the “Date and Time” applet to change the computer’s date, time, or time zone. A regular User double-clicking on the clock in the notification area of the taskbar gets only an error message that says, “You do not have the proper privilege level to change the System Time.” This is probably the #1 annoyance for people who have tried running as non-admin.



KB article 300022 describes how to allow non-admins to change the date, time or time zone. The KB’s first suggestion is that you ask to be made an admin or Power User. Please don’t do that. That’s kind of like saying, “I occasionally need change for a dollar, so please grant me unfettered access to the US Mint.” Fortunately, the KB also describes more granular modifications.



First, you need to have the “Change the system time” privilege. Run “Local Security Settings” (as admin), navigate in the left pane to Security Settings \ Local Policies \ User Rights Assignment. Double-click on “Change the system time” and add users or groups. You can also specify “INTERACTIVE”, which will allow whoever is logged on to the computer to change the date and time. You need to log off and back on for the change to take effect.



That gets you past the error message, and lets you change the date and the time. However, attempts to change the time zone will fail silently, with no error message. To change the time zone, you need to change the permissions on this registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation

According to my testing, here are the permissions you need: Query Value, Set Value, Create Subkey, Enumerate Subkeys, Notify, Read Control. KB 300022 says to grant “Delete” also, but as far as I can tell, that does not appear to be necessary. This change doesn’t require logoff/logon to take effect.



[Update March 1 2005: KB 300022 has now been updated. It no longer recommends that the user be added to Administrators or Power Users, and it removed its requirement for "Delete" permission on the TimeZoneInformation

Of course if you set open the date time properties and use the Internet time server to update the time this is the best way to do this. And it can be scheduled regularly. But Window's permissions handling still sucks, for example there are many programs that will not work properly if you install them as Administrator and try to run them as a restricted account. Which sucks, Linux and FreeBSD do not have this problem. On BSD I installed a program as root and I could still easily run it as a normal user. Windows has many problems with this type of thing and it would only be solved with a new filesystem and removing the registry based OS components and having a C:\System directory that contains all configuration options for the OS, and is only accessible by the Adminstrator.

This would result in greater security as shown by Linux and BSD variants, which of course are super secure and way above any Microsoft software.