Why can't my computer...

There are a lot of things that annoy me about computers, or more usually, Windows in particular.

Why can't my computer:

1) Accurately gauge how long it will take to do something? (Prime Culprit: Windows)

File copies, program installations, downloads, no matter what it is, if it's got a progress bar it's not going to be accurate. Not only will it not be accurate, it won't even be close most of the time. Sometimes, granted, it'll be spot-on but that's just got statistical averaging written all over it. Why, in the middle of a file copy, does it suddenly decide that it's going to take 3 days, no, 10 seconds, no, wait, 18 hours, no, hold on, ... ?

Yes, not all things are predictable, but the computer could at least estimate (within a reasonable margin of error) and not blindly pick up random and wildly varying estimates without even flinching. It'd be much better if, when it gets confused or held up, it just gave up until it knew again! (KDE does do this, for instance, when copying files... it'll just say "Stalled" for a second).

2) Know where the drivers for a bit of hardware will be? (Prime Culprit: Windows)

Why do I have to point it to a driver that I've either had to insert myself or, a lot of the time, had to go to www.randommanufacturerswebsite.com/techsupport/drivers/windows/xp/driver/thingamajig/v8/revision2/setup.exe and downloaded myself before it will recognise the hardware I bought?

Why can't there be a standard for hardware so that everything USB or PCI-based contains some information that tells the computer roughly WHERE a set of drivers will be. Or, failing that, some website where it can automatically look up what drivers exist and where when given a PCI/USB id, even if it gets "Not Supported" or "Unknown" some of the time?

3) Know what I mean? (Prime Culprit: All OS)

When I type www.fredc.om into my browser, why can't it just correct it for me (maybe with a Google-style "did you mean?")? Some mistakes are hard to catch but it doesn't even catch the little ones. wwww.fred.com or www,fred,com , for instance. And when I have a file copy command, rather than just error at me because I mis-spelled or, in Linux, mis-capitalised a filename, have a small go at working out what I meant and ask me if it's right. (Yes, there are certain plugins etc. but I want it to be a standard feature. I can't be the only person who's done these silly typos!)

4) Protect me from others and myself?(Prime Culprit: Windows and Linux)

Now, I'd like to point out that this is almost exclusively a Windows problem for one part of the question (protecting me from others) and almost exclusively a Linux problem for the other (protecting me from myself). Windows just doesn't go far enough to stop other people getting into/onto/through my computer's defences. Not even after the 50th version which has promised to do so. But it has some fantastic features to protect me from myself, if they are enabled. File deletes are, on the whole, confirmed first and undoable later. Plus, it's quite hard to completely shoot yourself in the foot by, say, deleting your Windows directory accidentally. On the other hard, it's extremely easy if you are not careful to totally balls up your Windows installation just by clicking on the wrong website, the wrong email etc. or even disabling the wrong service.

Linux, though, protects you from outside elements a lot more. And even if they do get through, it is quite easy to recover from them and, additionally, their impact will be limited to the user accounts that are affected. However, even as a normal user, you can wipe out your home directory in one command without any confirmations and with little chance of getting it back unless you have specifically put into place procedures to recover it (such as replacing commands with safer versions, configuring user accounts so that they can't do that sort of thing, or just having easy-to-restore backups in place).

So it seems that Linux could benefit from a bit of Shadow Copy, a bit of System Restore or some kind of filesystem rollback and Windows could benefit from a bit more privilege seperation, a bit better programming and a focus on non-virus software rather than anti-virus software (i.e. before-the-event practices that stop the viruses getting on there so easily in the first place).

And this doesn't just apply to desktop environments. Humans make mistakes. Operating systems should be designed to take account of this fact and help where possible.

5) At least give me a clue? (Prime Culprit: All OS)

"mplayer: error while loading shared libraries: liba52.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"
(Note that this is an example only - when you compile mplayer from source, it does in fact warn you or leave out support when pre-requisites are missing).

Well. Lovely. Fantastic. So you know that you NEED liba52. You won't run without it. You were obviously written with it in mind. So why can't I instead get:

"Mplayer: Error: You haven't installed liba52. You can download this from http://liba52.sourceforge.net/"

Now, with modern dependency checking this sort of thing is getting rarer but even so, where's the error message that a human can parse easily? Windows does just the same with missing DLL's. And compile-time messages but not run-time messages are another bit of a bind. Fine, tell me gently at compile-time that I need libX and exit neatly. But why not do the same when I move that binary to another machine that doesn't HAVE libX, instead of erroring as above? More people RUN programs than COMPILE them. People compiling programs usually have the sense to sort such problems out for themselves (and such a trivial error is nothing compared to some of the doozies that you can get when compiling software for yourself!), ordinary users can't.

Similarly, dumbing down error messages too much is a major mistake:

"An error has occurred."

What error? Why? Whose error was it? Was it my fault? Was something wrong with the machine? Where did the error occur - in the program, in Windows, in something else? What can be done about it?

As a replacement, how about:

"An error has occurred in PartyPoker. [[Note the friendly program name]]This appears to be a problem with that program. You can try running it again, or checking for a PartyPoker update. If you still recieve errors with PartyPoker, the program gives the website address www.partypoker.com/problem as a source of help. Click below for a file which will help the program author to determine the cause of the problem."

Or:

"An out-of-disk-space error has occurred. Windows is showing you this error because it did not have enough room to create a 50Gb file on drive C: as requested by the program Nero Burning ROM. You have only 10Gb free space on drive C:. You can try:

- Clearing up 40Gb of space on drive C: and retrying the operation
- Instructing Nero Burning ROM to use a drive with more space (for example, D: currently has 100Gb free)"

6) Fix itself. (Prime Culprit: All OS)

Windows.
Windows Last Known Good Configuration.
Windows Safe Mode.
Windows Recovery Console.

Where's the "I need to get to my files" option - with a minimal desktop that uses NO programs, services or other information in common with the main Windows install and lets you copy your files off the computer before it dies completely? Where's the "Run Diagnostics" option to let Windows have a go at trying to find out what it actually wrong rather than blindly looping through a list of Windows "versions", each of which gets less and less drivers loaded? While we're at it, where's the "Check My Disks/Memory/Hardware" option in that list?

Where's the "Right, last time I crashed loading the graphics driver, according to these logs - this time I'll ignore graphics and just load a basic VESA driver and see if I can get further" logic?

And then we have the fantastic idea to include an option, which is usually the default, to automatically restart Windows on error (great, so you can't even SEE the BSOD when it whizzes past, and then Windows will blindly sit there trying to get into Windows every time it reboots until you come and fix it - it'd be better just to turn itself off!). Yeah, there sometimes a need for a watchdog on a high-availability server but on an OS designed for Home Desktop use? And what's the point of it just infinitely restarting at the same place unless it LEARNS from that mistake, especiallly if that place is before it evens gets to a desktop?

That's just the start of my list. Hopefully, I'll finish it off soon.

Laptop security

Recently, what with Christmas being seen as an ideal time for theft, I've been in meetings concerning the security of computer hardware, most notably laptops and projectors. Apparently I work in the second-worst location in the UK for thefts from schools.

As some of these meetings were sprung upon me without warning, I wasn't able to think them through as much as I'd like to have. As a result, I've been double-checking my advice to the schools to see if I can come up with any better ideas.

Current advice from the police includes chemical marking of property, securing the building, displaying signs and implementing CCTV (although the later is not really pushed as a solution, more a deterrent).

According to the second-hand feedback I've been hearing from the schools, the local police are having a tough time; schools are having lots of laptops and projectors stolen, the thieves are filing off the serial numbers and then the police are unable to confirm who the property belongs to. There are even stories of the stolen property having to be returned to the thief after a while as they are unable to prove that it's not theirs.

CCTV is proving all-but useless as the thieves are always ready and cover all identifying parts of their body or clothing. Chemical marks are easily discovered with UV lamps and removed even if it means damage to the property. There's also a growing black market in projector bulbs as these are not serialised and are therefore almost impossible to trace back to a source, as well as being an easily removeable, high-value commodity.

All this lead me to thinking about laptop security. Currently, the only physical way of securing laptops are so-called "kensington locks", small standardised holes in the chassis of laptops into which locks can be placed and also easily removed, sometimes without any damage at all to the laptop.

So if you can't prevent them being stolen, is there something else you could do? Each computer processor has a unique serial number burned into the silicon of the chip itself. However, there is usually no way to read this number from the chip as most manufacturers disable the option by default and also the thief can easily disbale the same option. This means that not only is it time-consuming to actually read this number from a laptop on purchase, it's easily disabled too. Although if the laptop is physically recovered the number could be checked, there's no way to read this number remotely.

Lots of software packages exist to "phone home". That is, every time the machine is connected to the internet, the software sends a small packet describing it's location/phone number/other identifying pieces of information to a central server. If the laptop is ever reported stolen, this information is passed to police so the thief is "caught" as soon as they go online.

The major flaw here is that a thief is going to be aware of such tricks and any professional would probably blank the hard drive upon receipt or even replace the entire drive unit and then install a clean version of the operating system. Software piracy would not be a big deal to a laptop thief.

Additionally, any hardware means of doing the same would also be detected and removed/circumvented. Or would it?

Why doesn't someone add to standard laptop chipsets a "call-home" modem/network card? Most laptops have built in modems/network cards nowadays and they would be the devices that actually physically connect to the Internet eventually (I'm assuming that any stolen laptop in use today would most probably go on the Internet at some time in it's life, which is not an unreasonable assumption).

Obviously, the modem/network card would have to call-home without the thief knowing. Let's assume, therefore, that the software driver for the modem/network card comes in two types - on the one hand, it will identify itself as a standard modem/network card, as supported by internal Windows drivers or the same drivers as a non-call-home device. In doing so, it will not give away it's purpose. However, the driver originally supplied with the hardware would also include an option to send a series of innocent-looking AT commands or even packets to localhost. This packets would set a hardware password, and maybe other information such as an IP address or email address, which would be stored inside the chipset firmware itself.

Once the password is set, every time the device connects to the Internet (which is fairly easy for the hardware itself to detect and intervene without software assistance), the device is "activated". From then on, if the device driver does not send the password by the series of special packets/AT commands, the hardware itself would inject packets with the intent on sending a call-home packet/email to a central server.

This central server would most probably be setup by the hardware manufacturer, but it could also be set by the customer themselves to be an email address of their own. Whenever a standard non-password driver is used for the device (such as you would get by a reinstallation of the operating system), it would attempt to send this packet/email, which would include such details as the phone number called or the external IP address or even a short history of phone numbers dialled.

However, even with the "correct" password-driven drivers installed you would HAVE to know the password in order for the device to activate normally (or even activate at all) without sending such call-home information. If the thief was wise enough to know that this laptop contained such hardware, they might try to install the specialised drivers. However, without the password that is etched into the chipset firmware by the manufacturer/owner there is no way the thief could disable the call-home functionality or change the password. This won't have stopped him stealing the laptop but it will seriously limit it's resale value, a laptop without Internet access is severely limited in it's capabilities.

You could even add functionality to the "secure" drivers (the ones that ordinary customers will have pre-installed for them) that the device won't initialise the modem/network unless it receives the correct password from the user. This would prevent the thief from just using the pre-installed drivers, effectively forcing you to "log on" to the modem/network card before you can use it.

With such controls in untouchable silicon on the device that controls the modem, network card, wireless card, etc. a thief would be left with a crippled laptop, unable to go online for fear of being caught.

Even wiping the entire disk would do nothing, the specialised drivers would be gone so the chipset would "know" that it was being used on a machine that may have been stolen and wiped. If the device runs on a standardised driver (e.g. a plain 56k AT command set or an NE2000-compatible network card), then a thief reinstalling the system would be unaware that by using the standard Windows driver they are advertising to the chipset that the system has been stolen. Only the NE2000 driver which also sends the correct password (most probably obtained from the user at boot-time) would be able to circumvent the call-home functionality.

The original owner would, of course, be perfectly capable of reinstalling their operating system as they know the password to the device and be in possession of the drivers to send the password to the device. Even if the original owner sold the laptop, the person they legitimately pass the laptop onto could still use non-secure drivers. The laptop could handshake with the central server to see if it has been reported stolen before sending such a packet or, at worst, send an email to an address whenever it connects. This might even be a good audit tool for companies to see just how much the laptops gets used.

Combine this with the fact that the concept is cross-platform and operating system independent (so long as two drivers exist: a standard one that can use the hardware normally and a specialised driver to send the special commands to the device upon initialisation) and you have a pretty foolproof system. You could ask for the password on boot (most corporate laptops have boot-time passwords anyway and the functionality could be implemented in the BIOS rather than the OS drivers), on login or on use of the device. Inexperienced theives would be caught the second they used the laptop online, experienced ones would be deterred or at least know that the value of a laptop with such a system would be severely limited.

Just an idea I had ticking away in the back of my mind.

Trust 445a Router Recovery

A few years back, when I first went to ADSL from 56k, I bought a router from my favourite company, Trust. The router was a Trust 445A Speedlink xDSL Web Station, a bog-standard Conexant-based router pretty much indistinguishable from a technical point of view from my previous AMX-CA64E router.

After about 6 or 8 months, however, I tried to change a setting in the router's config without thinking about it (I made the router switch to PPP Half-bridge mode as I was pretty much using it in a Half-Bridge configuration anyway) and managed to make the admin interface inaccessible. At the same time, it stopped giving out DHCP, connecting via ADSL or working at all.

I couldn't find any firmware to restore it from (the one time Trust has let me down by not having the correct drivers) and it seemed beyond repair. I threw it into a back cupboard to use as an emergency four-port Ethernet switch in case I ever needed one. At the time I was a bit short of money but still went out and bought a replacement so that must have really meant that back then there was no way to recover this particular router; I never consign anything to the bin if there's the slightest chance I can recover it.

Digging it up a few weeks ago when clearing out some of my older computer cables, I thought that it was worth another shot. ADSL doesn't seem to be going anywhere any time soon so it was worth getting a backup router or using it if I have to fix someone's computer.

Details were sketchy to say the least. Google only turned up Origo Repair as a likely candidate (which would probably work if you knew how to fiddle it and probably works wonders for people whose routers can take most firmwares and who are willing to try any number of firmwares first.

Instructions for the 445A were much harder to track down until I spotted an old forum entry, hidden away in the depths of a long conversation:

"I have Trust 445a too, and it seems it uses the same chipset CX82310-14 ARM940T Processor as Billion BIPAC-711CE and others. Italians secceded flashing Trust 445a to Billion BIPAC-711CE."

The website linked to contained an instructive PDF, a driver set and a firmware image of a Billion router. The PDF itself was in Italian but with that, the firmware and an online translation service, I was able to get the approximate gist of the plan.

1) Open up the router and short jumper JP1.
2) Turn on router.
3) Connect via USB between the router and a computer with an Intel chipset motherboard (the flashing utility requires certain chipsets, otherwise it can't recognise the USB ports). I found this out on the Origo Repair page which seems to use similar flash utilities: "The only limitation is the Flash program that is used. This seems to be very fussy about the chipset in your machine. It is known to work with VIA & Intel but not with SIS, nForce2 & KT266."
4) Boot DOS (I used the Ultimate Boot CD's version of Freedos)
5) Run the flash utility with the /e switch to erase the current firmware.
6) Run the flash utility again, this time supplying the firmware on that website.
7) Wait until it's uploaded and the modem settles (quite worrying that for several tens of minutes it just looks completely inert but eventually it all completes successfully)
7) Remove the jumper, reboot and test the router.

Additionally, there's a further step to then go on to upgrade the onboard files on the router to support UPnP and various other minor fixes, but that's just the easy part.

After a few false starts (a laptop and a desktop with only SiS chipsets that the DOS utility couldn't use the USB ports on, having it plugged into a USB port which the DOS flash utility did not see as the FIRST USB port, etc.) I managed to flash the firmware perfectly.

A quick reboot of the router showed it working just as it should, albeit with another company's branded version of the admin interface. Basically, from a blank EEPROM, it had restored the 445A to perfect working health and even added UPnP support as a bonus (the 445A didn't support UPnP with it's original settings).

I stood little chance of finding this stuff out on my own and am eternally grateful to the forum poster, the Italian website authors and Google for restoring a dead router back to full health, thereby saving me about £50 in the future.

Now to go and burn that firmware, driver and my own instructions onto a million and half CD's, tapes, DVD's, floppies, USB disks and hard drives just in case the website goes down and I need it again!