James D. Stallardblog

I've had a few questions on my previous post on Re-purposing the LaCie Ethernet Disk, mostly around how I got the CMD.EXE window to appear at the beginning of the exercise.

So, to get yourself a CLI on the LaCie Ethernet Disk, you need to do the following:

Set the local admin username and password on the LaCie to the same as that on another machine on your network - or join it to an AD domain and log on to any other machine as a domain admin user.

Method 1:
Use the AT command on your other machine to create a job on the LaCie that will run in a couple of minutes time:

AT \\LACIE /interactive CMD.EXE 08:50

Where "LACIE" is the name of the LaCie server and "08:50" is some time a couple of minutes ahead of now. A command window will popup at the chosen time in the security context of LOCALSYSTEM.

Check your AT command with this command:

AT \\LACIE

If it shows as running tomorrow, pick a later time and do it again.

Method 2:
Remotely rename \\LACIE\C$\Windows\System32\logon.scr to logon.scr.old and copy cmd.exe to logon.scr.

Plug a keyboard video and mouse into the LaCie, reboot it and wait for 15 minutes, a command window will popup at the chosen time in the security context of LOCALSYSTEM.

Once you have the CLI, you can execute anything, including any .SCR, .MSC and .CPL you can find, so long as you specify the complete filename (such as COMPMGMT.MSC, or LOGON.SCR)

Either of these methods is equally suitable for gaining LOCALSYSTEM rights on any machine on your network and before RUNAS was available, it was the only realistic way of temporarily elevating your rights without logging off and back on with a privileged account.

Why are we treated to inappropriate and sometime farcical sound effects in the middle of otherwise serious shows?

The Americans have been at it for years - who doesn’t remember the sound of squealing tyres as the Dukes of Hazzard raced up gravel tracks and across grassland?

Shame then that like all bad American habits, it's creeping over here.

While lying in bed the other morning watching Bergerac (an 80s detective show based in Jersey), I was surprised to hear a fox call and loud crickets during a night scene - Jersey has no foxes or night-calling crickets. Worse still, while watching a BBC wildlife show featuring very long distance footage of a Condor in the Andes, we were treated to the classic sound of an American eagle. Now, even if the Condor made such a sound (which I doubt) at the distance from which it was being filmed there's no way we could possibly have heard it!

In fact, the night-calling crickets and American eagle cries are pretty much ubiquitous in every show featuring any kind of outdoor night scene or desert scene. So much so that if I stand in the middle of night-time London, I half expect to hear both.

I found this while filing, I thought I’d post it for the humour value, enjoy

For some reason, certain people appear to have inadvertantly associated earlier posts about a person I referred to as Bob, with a real live "person". This real "person" is not called Bob.

It would seem that simply reporting some facts, and maintaining the anonymity of the Bob character is not enough to remove the risk of said person ranting like a drunken Stalin at any poor unfortunate too slow to escape or too polite to slam the phone down. Said person has demanded "a prominent apology". As it was never explained what exactly was defamatory or libellous, I'll cover off the lot.

Here goes:

. Bob does not resemble Peeved Eve (the character from the Dilbert strip) and most certainly does not resemble the evil clown character in the (bad) movie Spawn.



. Bob cannot possibly be the person apparently identified as Bob. Bob is not necessarily a man or woman. Indeed, as Bob is a fictitious character, I am personally unsure as to the gender of Bob, or Bobette as the case may be. Bob/Bobette is clearly unaware of their own gender or sexuality and I haven’t written enough about Bob/Bobette for the reader to determine for sure.

. Bob is not a hardline lefty, is not aggressive in his/her socialist stance to the point of religious mania and furthermore, it is perfectly possible to contradict Bob without fear of sustained personal attack in previously reported drunken Stalin stylee. It is entirely possible that Bob is a liberal conservative, mild in his or her capitalist views and open to criticism from anyone without adverse reaction.

. To my knowledge, Bob is not a leading contender for this years Redneck Olympics and is not an overweight incompetent with a penchant for bullying colleagues from other ethnic groups.

. Bob does not live in a cage. I don't know where Bob lives, please don’t ask me, or tell me. I don’t want to know.

. Bob is not a pig. Bob was never referred to as a pig, but the metaphor of poking a pig with a stick, could be interpreted by some as referring to Bob as a pig. Never mind that any actual stick would have to be at least 55 miles long and therefore too heavy to wield accurately - even if the target is quite large and vocal enough to be easily identifyable all the way from Reading.