Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Schneier: The Failure of Two-Factor Authentication

The Failure of Two-Factor Authentication (March 15, 2005)

From the article:
Two-factor authentication [...] works for local login, and it works within some corporate networks. But it won't work for remote authentication over the Internet.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Software Leftovers

Don't you just hate it when, after you've uninstalled a game or application from your Windows PC, you get all kinds of leftovers? It usually is the installation directory, empty. It may also be a registry key, no longer necessary. And the question is why.

Why do these people write so lousy uninstallation routines that leave annoying garbage behind? One would think I am talking about some third-class piece of software but no. I am talking about very popular games and applications by well-known, well-respected companies.

Maybe it's the whole "Windows Attitude" to spread files here and there, register a couple of components and forget half of them behind in the end. Maybe they just think nobody will ever want to remove their program (cause it's "so cool").

Being a programmer myself, I find it really irritating when others fail to do their job. Over time you will get a PC which will be slower due to a large number of redundant file system and registry entries that still have to be parsed by the OS. And of course there is the aesthetic part which calls for a nice "clean" system.

I want to look at my hard disk and find my currently installed software and files and NOT a history of my activities over the last two years. Is that too much to ask?