Back in 2008, we wrote about how the MPAA convinced Congress to pass legislation to make colleges and universities responsible for reducing copyright infringement on campus or lose federal funding. The law was really a trial run of sorts — an attempt to see how this could work for making ISPs responsible. Of course, in order to get the law passed, the MPAA flat out lied. It made up numbers, saying that 44% of “losses” from file sharing came from college campuses. This number was so ridiculously wrong that the MPAA later claimed “human error” before saying the number was really 15%. But even that was dubious — and when the GAO asked the MPAA to support these numbers, the MPAA refused to provide the data. Pretty telling.

So, the entire law was passed under totally false pretenses. If Congress had any sense of what’s right, it would repeal the law. But, instead, the law went into effect recently, and now the MPAA is sending out letters reminding universities that they need to start acting like copyright cops. Of course, they leave out the fact that they got the law put in place by lying to Congress. Funny how they would omit that. So, kids, the lesson of the day is: it’s okay to lie to Congress to force colleges to spend money to protect your obsolete business model, but sharing a movie you really liked with a friend is evil. Makes sense.

The Constitution’s framers must be rolling in their graves in this abuse of the First Amendment, which the Obama Administration is caving on

Poor AT&T. First, we get the official word courtesy of Consumer Reports that Ma Bell is the planet’s worst major wireless carrier. Now we hear the embattled giant is worried its First Amendment rights are about to be violated by those meanies at the Federal Communications Commission.

No, I’m not making this up. AT&T and its ally/rival Verizon are claiming in legal filings with the FCC that regulation of the Internet would deprive them of the right to free speech. Other big quasi-monopolies have used that argument to get what they want; the very same claim years ago by cable TV operators succeeded in allowing Comcast, Time Warner, and all the others to keep an iron lock on programming, says Chris Witteman, a communications attorney in San Francisco.

[ Get the scoop on what today’s tech news realy means in InfoWorld’s Tech Watch blog. | And stay up on the key industry news with The Industry Standard newsletter. ]

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that corporations do indeed have First Amendment rights to donate money to political causes, the climate has never been better to extend that logic to the Internet.

“Let us be clear: If the cable or telecommunications network owners are allowed to control the entirety of what transpires on ‘their’ networks, that is the end of the Internet as we know it,” writes David C. Bergmann of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates, an advocacy group for ratepayers.

AT&T-style free speech means control over everyone else’s
What would the right to AT&T/Verizon-style free speech mean? It means the companies that provide Internet access would be free to choose what content moves on the network at what speeds and for how much money. If your company has an app or a service that competes with one of those giants — too bad. The carriers’ claim of free speech says you have no right to route that app or service through AT&T’s or Verizon’s network. (Never mind your free speech rights, of course.)

Perhaps AT&T will next follow Comcast’s lead and decide to tell you what devices your company can attach to the network. You may find your thin clients, VPN-equipped PCs, VoIP devices, or iPads one day disallowed ostensibly because they cause harm but in reality because their use isn’t to AT&T’s own financial benefit.

The FCC’s knight in shining armor has given up the fight
The federal rule maker we thought would stop this kind of nonsense — FCC chairman Julius Genachowski — is playing right into the carriers’ hands. Genachowski has surrendered to the special interests, putting forward a withered version of Net neutrality that will protect almost no one and give the big carriers nearly all of what they want. For that, he’s the Tech’s Bottom Line Bozo of the Month.

I’m not happy to do this. When Genachowski was appointed by President Barack Obama, there was hope he’d fight to rein in the huge corporations that control both the wired and the wireless Internet. He hasn’t done it. After a federal court ruled that the way the FCC was trying to regulate the Internet was out of bounds, he proposed his “third way,” a smart strategy that would have allowed the FCC to regulate the big Internet providers as telecommunications carriers, which is what they are.

But he’s backed off from the third way — way off. While paying lip service to the principle that carriers should not discriminate against different types of content moving over their networks, Genachowski’s proposal has no teeth. He gave hints of what he will propose at the FCC’s meeting on Dec. 21, but not the details.

Washington Post columnist Cecilia Kang described what’s cooking in the backroom:

A source who has seen the draft rules said the FCC would view paid prioritization of content as “a negative thing,” but the agency doesn’t put the burden on a carrier to show that the activity is reasonable. That means the FCC wouldn’t automatically presume violations of Net neutrality when a company like Verizon Communications gives better delivery of online video from partner YouTube than, say, to Netflix or Hulu. On a case-by-case basis, the agency would take up investigations of alleged discrimination and apply its rule on “unreasonable” network management.

The problem with a case-by-case approach is that it doesn’t establish a clear line and so opens the door for years of litigation about every single instance of alleged misconduct by carriers.

Genachowski knows better. In a speech earlier this month, he said, “Broadband providers have natural business incentives to leverage their position as gatekeepers to the Internet. The record in the proceeding we’ve run over the past year, as well as history, shows that there are real risks to the Internet’s continued freedom and openness.”

How much clearer could it be? “He’s caving in to pressure,” says attorney Witteman. “Few people realize that AT&T and Comcast filed comments with the FCC saying they have First Amendment rights. And that means they have the right to throttle traffic. It’s similar to what the cable companies have done.”

It would be one thing to tolerate authoritarian behavior by access providers if consumers, both residential and commercial, had lots of choice — but we don’t. In most parts of the country, there are generally only two choices: a cable company and a telephone company.

The FCC also will allow companies to experiment with “special services” like medical services or home security that could be given priority over other traffic. While those exceptions might be reasonable, they could also become a foot in the door for carriers that want to favor their own content over that of the competition.

Mobile users will be completely at the carriers’ stingy mercy
I’m sorry to present a laundry list of sins, but there are so many problems with what Genachowski wants to do, and it’s even worse for mobile broadband. The big carriers don’t want the FCC to regulate wireless services, including mobile broadband, and it appears that the proposed rules are filled with loopholes favoring them.

Genachowski says he will allow for flexibility in the application of rules to wireless services but will “address anticompetitive or anticonsumer behavior as appropriate.” Baloney — addressing issues “as appropriate” isn’t close to a serious regulatory posture.

While it’s true that there is competition in the wireless market, the major players all act as if there isn’t — which is why regulation is so badly needed. For example, all the major carriers lock their phones to keep subscribers from bringing them to a new provider, something you don’t find in Europe, and nearly all charge high early termination fees to keep subscribers from jumping ship. Simply put, those are anticompetitive practices. But it looks like the FCC won’t be stopping them, much less focusing on the quality of service, or more aptly, the lack of quality we’ve all experienced.

There you have it. The Internet is in serious danger, and our supposed watchdog is looking more like a lapdog every day. Maybe Genachowski will surprise us and stand up for principle, but I’m not betting on it.

I welcome your comments, tips, and suggestions. Post them here so that all our readers can share them, or reach me at bill.snyder@sbcglobal.net. Follow me on Twitter at BSnyderSF.

This article, “AT&T’s perversion of free speech to control the Internet,” was originally published by InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bill Snyder’s Tech’s Bottom Line blog and follow the latest technology business developments at InfoWorld.com.

BitTorrent is a great technology to share files both quickly and efficiently, but like all other P2P-technologies it has an Achilles’ heel. The download process relies in part on central servers that can crash or go offline for a variety of reasons. To address this vulnerability the first truly decentralized BitTorrent/P2P client has been developed, meaning that no central trackers, or even BitTorrent search engines are required to download movies, software and music.

BitTorrent is branded as a peer-to-peer technology, but despite this label the downloading process still relies heavily on central servers. In the first place there are the BitTorrent search engines and indexes such as The Pirate Bay and isoHunt. These are needed to search for content and to grab the .torrent file one needs to download a file.

Besides these torrent sites, most BitTorrent downloads are still managed by so-called trackers. These servers coordinate the download process and make sure that people can find others who are sharing the files they want to download. To a certain degree, trackers are no longer needed with ‘trackerless’ technology such as DHT, but even DHT often uses a central server to get a torrent started.

Finally central servers are used by moderators to help hunt spam and malware. All file sharing programs without such central checking have become practically useless over time.

In the last years these ‘central server’ vulnerabilities have caused a number of minor inconveniences for torrent users. When trackers go offline, downloads usually slow down or may stop entirely, and when a torrent search engine such as The Pirate Bay has technical issues, users have to search for alternatives.

To address these issues, ideally BitTorrent downloads should no longer require a central server. P2P technology should not only facilitate the downloading and sharing process, but also the searching and storage of torrent files. This may sound like a technology that might only become available in the distant future, but in reality it already exists.

The latest version of the Tribler BitTorrent client (Win, Mac and Linux), released only a few minutes ago, is capable of all the above and many more things that could be described as quite revolutionary. The client combines a ‘zero-server’ approach with features such as instant video streaming, advanced spam control and personalized content channels, all bundled into a single application.

The Tribler team has come a long way to reach the point they’re at now. We first reported on the ‘tax-payer-funded’ BitTorrent client in 2006, and in the years that followed tens of millions of dollars have been spent on the client’s development resulting in the latest 5.3 release.

Triber: search, download and play (large).

Despite the fact that only a few thousand people are using Tribler on a monthly basis, in technological terms it is one of the most advanced clients. People who install the client will notice that there’s a search box at the top of the application, similar to that offered by other clients. However, when one does a search the results don’t come from a central index. Instead, they come from other peers.

In fact, Tribler’s search functionality even has an auto-suggest function which is also built to work based on P2P data instead of a central server. Remarkably enough the response times for the searches and the auto suggest are both pretty fast, under a second in 99% of cases.

As for the downloads themselves, if one clicks on a ‘torrent’ in the search result, the meta-data is pulled in from another peer and the download starts immediately. Tribler is based on the standard BitTorrent protocol and uses regular BitTorrent trackers to communicate with other peers. But, it can also continue downloading when a central tracker goes down.

Tribler users can choose if they want to play the downloading file directly (if it’s video) with the built in VLC player, or wait for it to finish first. In addition to searching for files, users can also create their own channels or subscribe to those of others. Again, this is all based on technology that doesn’t require a central server. Other new features are subtitle integration, support for magnet links and advanced spam controls.

Tribler Channels

Spam control in a P2P program that actually works is something not seen before. The Tribler spam mechanism revolves around user generated “channels”, which may contain several thousands of torrents.
When people like a channel they can indicate this with “mark as favorite”. When more people like a channel, the associated torrents get a boost in the search results.

The idea is that spam and malware will automatically be pushed down to non-existence in search results and the majority of users will favor the channels they love. In scientific terms, this is a classic case of survival of the fittest and group selection at work. Again, this is done without central servers.

With the combination of P2P-based search, torrent downloads and moderation, BitTorrent sites have been almost rendered obsolete. Although we don’t see torrent sites going away any time soon it’s ‘assuring’ to see that there are alternatives. Tribler’s cutting edge technology allows users to search for torrents and download files without the need for any central server. A revolution, not only for BitTorrent but for P2P in general.

As mentioned before, the Tribler project is funded by tax payers money, most of which comes from EU grants. However, according to Dr. Johan Pouwelse, leader of the Tribler project at Delft University of Technology, those who complain that spending all this money on the development of a BitTorrent client is a waste, are wrong.

“Tax payer money is going into Internet research, which happens to use a very powerful technology called BitTorrent. That’s different. On a wider scale a few hundred million euros of research money is being spent on making computer networks more robust and improving video streaming. I think that is money well spent,” Pouwelse told TorrentFreak.

Eventually, Pouwelse and his team hope to shape the future of Internet-based video delivery, and this won’t just be limited to PCs either. “Our architecture has unbounded scalability and in principle can work on all TVs, phones and other devices in the world simultaneously,” he said.

“22 scientists are working full time in the P2P research team i’m coordinating at Delft University of Technology. A lot of the algorithms and Open Source code we write ends up in Tribler. Roughly 6 other universities or organisations contribute code regularly to Tribler. It’s by far the largest science-driven P2P effort around,” Pouwelse added.

Aside from the fact that the technology itself is both exciting and fully operational in the real world, there are some issues that have to be overcome. Due to the low userbase of Tribler, the total number of torrents that are findable is relatively low. About 20,000, which is quite low compared to the millions of torrents most BitTorrent sites index.

This means that most of the popular content is available but that obscure files will be harder to find. The only way to really change this is when more people start to use the client, which might take a few more domain seizures than we’ve seen thus far.

Homeland Security Gets Walmart To Tell You To Inform On Your Neighbors

from the are-they-serious? dept

Sometimes you just wonder what folks in our government are thinking half the time. The latest is that Homeland Security, when it’s not busy seizing domains of hip hop blogs, is apparently on a campaign to enlist shoppers at Walmarts in a somewhat creepy attempt to get people to spy on their neighbors. The program is officially called “If You See Something, Say Something” which could be shortened to “Inform on Your Neighbors” if DHS is looking for efficiency.

More bizarre is the Walmart tie-in. As you check out, you’ll see a video from Homeland Security boss Janet Napolitano reminding customers to watch and report any “suspicious activity.”

Does anyone in Homeland Security actually think this sort of thing is effective? I think most people know perfectly well to report anything really suspicious that they see. But seeing Janet Napolitano’s talking head at Walmart checkouts telling people to keep an extra special eye out just feels creepy and Big Brother-ish.

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Editorial: Troops need to remember

IT ADDS new meaning to getting in touch with your inner child. Temporarily returning the brain to a child-like state could help permanently erase a specific traumatic memory. This could help people with post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias.

At the Society of Neuroscience conference in San Diego last month researchers outlined the ways in which they have managed to extinguish basic fear memories.

Most methods rely on a behavioural therapy called extinction, in which physicians repeatedly deliver threatening cues in safe environments in the hope of removing fearful associations. While this can alleviate symptoms, in adults the original fear memory still remains. This means it can potentially be revived in the future.

A clue to permanent erasure comes from research in infant mice. With them, extinction therapy completely erases the fear memory, which cannot be retrieved. Identifying the relevant brain changes in rodents between early infancy and the juvenile stage may help researchers recreate aspects of the child-like system and induce relapse-free erasure in people.

One of the most promising techniques takes advantage of a brief period in which the adult brain resembles that of an infant, in that it is malleable. The process of jogging a memory, called “reconsolidation”, seems to make it malleable for a few hours. During this time, the memory can be adapted and even potentially deleted.

Daniela Schiller at New York University and her colleagues tested this theory by presenting volunteers with a blue square at the same time as administering a small electric shock. When the volunteers were subsequently shown the blue square alone, the team measured tiny changes in sweat production, a well-documented fear response.

A day later, Schiller reminded some of the volunteers of the fear memory just once by presenting them with both square and shock, making the memory active. During this window of reconsolidation, the researchers tried to manipulate the memory by repeatedly exposing the volunteers to the blue square alone.

These volunteers produced the sweat response significantly less a day later compared with those who were given extinction therapy without any reconsolidation (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature08637).

What’s more, their memory loss really was permanent. Schiller later recalled a third of the volunteers from her original experiment. “A year after fear conditioning, those that had [only] extinction showed an elevated response to the square, but those with extinction during reconsolidation showed no fear response,” she says.

The loss in infant mice of the ability to erase a fearful memory coincides with the appearance in the brain of the perineuronal net (PNN). This is a highly organised glycoprotein structure that surrounds small, connecting neurons in areas of the brain such as the amygdala, the area responsible for processing fear.

This points to a possible role for the PNN in protecting fear memories from erasure in the adult brain. Cyril Herry at the Magendie Neurocentre in Bordeaux, France, and colleagues reasoned that by destroying the PNN you might be able to return the system to an infant-like state. They gave both infant and juvenile rats fear conditioning followed by extinction therapy, then tested whether the fear could be retrieved at a later date. Like infant rats, juvenile rats with a destroyed PNN were not able to retrieve the memory.

Since the PNN can grow back, Herry suggests that in theory you could temporarily degrade the PNN in humans to permanently erase a specific traumatic memory without causing any long-term damage to memory.

“You would have to identify a potential source of trauma, like in the case of soldiers going to war,” he says. “These results suggest that if you inject an enzyme to degrade the PNN before a traumatic event you would facilitate the erasure of the memory of that event afterwards using extinction therapy.”

For those who already suffer from fear memories, Roger Clem at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Maryland suggests focusing instead on the removal of calcium-permeable AMPA receptors from neurons in the amygdala - a key component of infant memory erasure. Encouraging their removal in adults may increase our ability to erase memories, he says.

“There is a group who do not respond [to traditional trauma therapy],” says Piers Bishop at the charity PTSD Resolution. “A drug approach to memory modification could be considered the humane thing to do sometimes.”

The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better

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We’re big fans of hacking the Windows Registry around here, and we’ve got one of the biggest collections of registry hacks you’ll find. Don’t believe us? Here’s a list of the top 50 registry hacks that we’ve covered.

It’s important to note that you should never hack the registry if you don’t know what you’re doing, because your computer will light on fire and some squirrels may be injured. Also, you should create a System Restore point before doing so. Otherwise, keep reading.

Prevent Windows Update from Forcibly Rebooting Your Computer

We’ve all been at our computer when the Windows Update dialog pops up and tells us to reboot our computer. I’ve become convinced that this dialog has been designed to detect when we are most busy and only prompt us at that moment.

There’s a couple of ways that we can disable this behavior, however. You’ll still get the prompt, but it won’t force you to shut down. Here’s how to do it.

Prevent Windows Update from Forcibly Rebooting Your Computer

How to Clean Up Your Messy Windows Context Menu

One of the most irritating things about Windows is the context menu clutter that you have to deal with once you install a bunch of applications. It seems like every application is fighting for a piece of your context menu, and it’s not like you even use half of them.

Today we’ll explain where these menu items are hiding in your registry, how to disable them the geeky way, and an easier cleanup method for non-geeks as well.

How to Clean Up Your Messy Windows Context Menu

Stop Windows Update from Hijacking the Sleep/Shutdown Button

As an avid user of the Sleep function on my laptop, I’ve been more than irritated with Windows 7 or Vista’s habit of changing the Sleep/Shutdown button into an “Install Updates and Shut Down” button whenever there are updates from Windows Update.

After the last time I accidentally clicked this stupid button when I just wanted to enter sleep mode, I decided to look for a solution.

Stop Windows Update from Hijacking the Sleep/Shutdown Button

Add “Take Ownership” to Explorer Right-Click Menu in Win 7 or Vista

Taking ownership of system files or folders in Windows 7 or Vista is not a simple task. Whether you use the GUI or the command line, it takes far too many steps.

Here’s a registry hack that adds an item to the menu that will let you take ownership of the files in a single step, so you can delete, move, or otherwise modify the file.

Add “Take Ownership” to Explorer Right-Click Menu in Win 7 or Vista

Disable Aero Shake in Windows 7

One of the interesting new features in Windows 7 is the way you can grab a window by the title bar and “shake” it back and forth to minimize everything else. It’s a fun feature, but just in case you want to disable it we’ve got the solution for you.

All you’ll have to do is apply a simple registry hack, and that

Disable Aero Shake in Windows 7

Add “Open with Notepad” to the Context Menu for All Files

The default method of opening unknown files forces you to go through a list of known applications and is generally a pain to deal with.

That’s why I like to have a context menu option for “Open with Notepad” so that I can quickly open up files without having to go through a lot of trouble.

Add “Open with Notepad” to the Context Menu for All Files

Disable All Notification Balloons in Windows 7 or Vista

If you find the popup notification balloons in the Windows system tray to be too annoying, you might be interested to know that you can completely disable them. This would be an extreme option, of course… typically you can just turn them off in any offending applications, but if you want to disable them across the board, this is the solution.

Disable All Notification Balloons in Windows 7 or Vista

Change the Registered Owner in Windows

If you’ve ever wondered how to change the name of the person that Windows is registered to, this is the quick tip for you. It’s not all that useful for most people, but it might come in handy if you got a computer from somebody else.

To show off the new changes, just type winver.exe into the start menu search box to see the About Windows box.

Quick Tip: Change the Registered Owner in Windows

Kill Windows with the Blue Screen of Death in 3 Keystrokes

Have you ever wanted to show off your keyboard ninja skills by taking down Windows with just a couple of keystrokes? All you have to do is add one registry key, and then you can impress your friends… or use it to convince people to switch to Linux.

This isn’t a bug, it’s a “feature” in Windows that is designed to let users trigger a crash dump for testing purposes. Note: this one doesn’t work in Windows 7 anymore. Also, it clearly doesn’t make Windows better, but we included it because it’s lots of fun.

Keyboard Ninja: Kill Windows with the Blue Screen of Death in 3 Keystrokes

How to Add Any Application to the Windows Desktop Right-Click Menu

If you want really quick access to launch a frequently used application without putting extra icons on your desktop, you can add that application to the context menu for the desktop with a simple registry hack. Here’s how to do it.

For today’s lesson we’ll show you how to add Notepad to the menu, but you could add any applications you want instead.

How to Add Any Application to the Windows Desktop Right-Click Menu

How to Add Google Documents to the Windows Explorer “New” Menu

We’ve already shown you how to create shortcuts to create new Google Docs easily, but what if you want total Windows integration? Here’s how to add them to the Windows Explorer “New” menu for easier access.

This should work for all versions of Windows, and you can modify it to work with Google Apps for your Domain as well. Keep reading for the full instructions.

How to Add Google Documents to the Windows Explorer “New” Menu

How to Add Registry Editor to Control Panel

It’s always struck me as odd that system tweakers use the registry editor all the time to fix annoyances in Windows, but nobody has created a tweak to add the registry editor to the control panel… until now.

I’ve created a registry hack to add the registry editor as another option in the Control Panel in any version of Windows.

How to Add Registry Editor to Control Panel

Remove “Shortcut” Text From New Shortcuts in Windows 7 or Vista

A source of annoyance for many Windows users is the ” – Shortcut” text that is added to the name of newly created shortcuts, and every time you have to manually edit the shortcut and remove that text. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a registry hack for this?

Most long-time geeks will remember that there was a hack for Windows XP, and probably already know that the same hack works in Windows 7 or Vista as well.

Remove “Shortcut” Text From New Shortcuts in Windows 7 or Vista

Disable Win+X Shortcut Keys on Windows 7 or Vista

Windows 7 and Vista have all the same Windows+X shortcut keys as other versions of Windows, such as Win+E for explorer and Win+D for the desktop, but adds in all of the Win+<num> keys to launch the shortcuts in the Vista Quick Launch menu (or switch to apps in Windows 7), as well as Win+X for mobility center, etc.

But what if you want to disable all these extra keys?

Disable Win+X Shortcut Keys on Windows 7 or Vista

Stupid Geek Tricks: Enable the Secret “How-To Geek” Mode in Windows 7

We haven’t told anybody before, but Windows has a hidden “How-To Geek Mode” that you can enable which gives you access to every Control Panel tool on a single page—and we’ve documented the secret method for you here.

NOTE: Do not use this on Vista or XP: things will break.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Enable the Secret “How-To Geek” Mode in Windows 7

Disable Windows Mobility Center in Windows 7 or Vista

Windows Mobility Center is a fairly useful tool for those of us using Windows 7 or Vista on a laptop computer, but might not be for everybody, especially since it takes over the Win+X keyboard shortcut.

If you would rather disable Windows Mobility Center, all it takes is a single registry tweak.

Disable Windows Mobility Center in Windows 7 or Vista

Hide Drives from Your Computer in Windows 7 or Vista

If you’ve got drives in My Computer that you never access, such as a USB Flash drive that you are using solely for ReadyBoost, a floppy drive, or a network drive only used for a particular piece of software, then you might want to simply hide the drive from your computer.

This tip will only hide the drive from being displayed, applications and the command prompt will still have access to it, and you can still manually browse to the folder if you type in the path.

Hide Drives from Your Computer in Windows 7 or Vista

How to Put a Real Libraries Icon On Your Windows 7 Desktop

We’re big fans of hidden registry hacks around here, so when our friend Justin showed how to put a real, working Libraries icon on the desktop, we figured it would make a perfect article for for a few extra geek points.

Yeah, you can always create a shortcut icon for anything on the desktop, but this one is the actual icon without the shortcut overlay. Plus it’s a geeky hidden trick—what’s not to like?

How to Put a Real Libraries Icon On Your Windows 7 Desktop

How to Restore Previous Versions of the Registry in Windows 7

If you want to manually restore a specific section of the registry from a previous System Restore snapshot, or access some specific keys from an older version of the registry, you can do so by getting access to those files and then exporting sections from them. Here’s how to do it in Windows 7 or Vista.

How to Restore Previous Versions of the Registry in Windows 7

Remove or Hide Unwanted Items From the Control Panel in Windows 7

Have you ever opened the Control Panel in Windows 7 and thought there is no reason to have some of the icons listed? Today we take a look at how to remove unwanted or unneeded items from Control Panel in Windows 7.

For some items you won’t be able to easily delete the CPL file if it’s a Windows system file or in use. You could use a program like Unlocker, but we can tweak the Registry to hide items in Control Panel.

Remove or Hide Unwanted Items From the Control Panel in Windows 7

Make the Taskbar Buttons Switch to the Last Active Window in Windows 7

The new Windows 7 taskbar’s Aero Peek feature, with the live thumbnails of every window, is awesome… but sometimes you just want to be able to click the taskbar button and have the last open window show up instead. Here’s a quick hack to make it work better.

Make the Taskbar Buttons Switch to the Last Active Window in Windows 7

Make Aero Peek Display Instantly (or Disable it) in Windows 7

Aero Peek is one of the more useful new features in Windows 7… just move your mouse to the taskbar for half a second, and everything else hides so you can see the desktop or application window. But why does it take half a second?

There’s a simple little registry hack that will change the amount of time between hovering your mouse over the show desktop button in the lower right-hand corner, and the Aero Peek display showing up. The same thing should work for when you hover over an application window on the taskbar.

Make Aero Peek Display Instantly (or Disable it) in Windows 7

Why Doesn’t Disk Cleanup Delete Everything from the Temp Folder?

After you’ve used Disk Cleanup, you probably expect every temporary file to be completely deleted, but that’s not actually the case. Files are only deleted if they are older than 7 days old, but you can tweak that number to something else.

Why Doesn’t Disk Cleanup Delete Everything from the Temp Folder?

Remove “Troubleshoot Compatibility” from the Windows Context Menu

Reader Jeevus wrote in asking how to remove the “Troubleshoot Compatibility” item from the Windows context menu whenever you right-click on an application—naturally, we were happy to explain how to do it, and share with the rest of you.

You’ll want to note that we’re not necessarily recommending that you remove this item, since it could be useful if you’re having compatibility issues with an application, but we’re fans of showing how to do something—also, we just like tinkering in the registry.

Remove “Troubleshoot Compatibility” from the Windows Context Menu

Show the Classic “All Programs” Menu in the Start Menu in Windows 7

There are a lot of new users to Windows 7 who are not happy with the new Start Menu and wish they could revert to the Classic menu. Here is how to at least get back the Classic “All Programs” Menu.

While it’s not quite the same as the good old XP days, if you’re looking to get the All Programs Menu back, this Registry hack will do the trick without installing 3rd party software.

Show the Classic “All Programs” Menu in the Start Menu in Windows 7

How To Add Recycle Bin to “My Computer” in Windows 7 or Vista

Have you ever wanted to add the Recycle Bin to your My Computer screen? Yeah, it’s probably not the most common request, but here’s how to do it anyway with a simple registry hack.

To make this tweak, we’ll be doing a quick registry hack, but there’s a downloadable version provided as well.

How To Add Recycle Bin to “My Computer” in Windows 7 or Vista

Remove Gadgets and Screen Resolution on Windows 7 Desktop Context Menu

One of the first things you might notice in Windows 7 is the addition of the new Gadgets and Screen Resolution items to the context menu. The only problem is that you might not really want them there—so we’ll explain how to get rid of them.

No clue what we’re talking about? If you are using Windows 7 and you right-click on the desktop, you’ll see a bunch of new items at the bottom:

Remove Gadgets and Screen Resolution on Windows 7 Desktop Context Menu

Stupid Geek Tricks: Enable More Fonts for the Windows Command Prompt

Have you ever noticed that there are only two fonts to choose from in the Command prompt properties window? What you might not know is that you can use a simple registry hack to enable alternate fonts, including a very readable font that comes with Windows 7, Vista, or Office 2007.

But that’s not all… you can enable a number of fixed width fonts if you really want to. We’ll cover how this works, as well as one of my favorite “interesting” fonts for the command prompt.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Enable More Fonts for the Windows Command Prompt

Remove ATI Catalyst Control Center from the Desktop Right-Click Menu

Have you ever wondered how to remove the “Catalyst(TM) Control Center” item from the desktop context menu? Here’s the simple registry hack to remove it.

Remove ATI Catalyst Control Center from the Desktop Right-Click Menu

Remove NVIDIA Control Panel from Desktop Right-Click Menu

Have you ever wondered how to remove the “NVIDIA Control Panel” item from the desktop context menu? If so, you probably didn’t realize that it’s trivially easy to remove.

Remove NVIDIA Control Panel from Desktop Right-Click Menu

Make “Command Prompt Here” Always Display for Folders in Windows

We’ve previously explained how you can open a command prompt by holding down the Shift key and right-clicking on a folder or the desktop… but how do you make that item show up without having to hold down the shift key?

There’s a simple registry hack you can do that will enable “Open Command Window Here” item without holding down the shift key:

Make “Command Prompt Here” Always Display for Folders in Windows

Add Encrypt / Decrypt Options to Windows 7 / Vista Right-Click Menu

If you use the built-in file encryption in Windows 7 or Vista, you might be interested in adding an option to the right-click menu to more easily encrypt and decrypt your files, rather than having to use the file properties dialog.

Adding this to the menu couldn’t be simpler – there’s only a single registry key to add.

Add Encrypt / Decrypt Options to Windows 7 / Vista Right-Click Menu

Customize the Default Screensavers in Windows 7 and Vista

Windows 7 and Vista include a nice set of backgrounds, but unfortunately most of them aren’t configurable by default.  Thanks to a free app and some registry changes, however, you can make the default screensavers uniquely yours!

You can customize the Bubbles, Ribbons, and Mystify screensaver to enable hidden options with this registry hack.

Customize the Default Screensavers in Windows 7 and Vista

Skip the Annoying “Use the Web service to find the correct program” Dialog

If you’ve used Windows for any length of time, you’ve likely tried to open a file with an unknown extension. Instead of getting a list of programs to open the file with, you get an annoying dialog asking you to use a web service to find a program. So how do we change this?

You can use a registry hack to force Windows to skip this dialog altogether, and give you a list of applications to use to open the file instead, just as if you had selected the second option.

Skip the Annoying “Use the Web service to find the correct program” Dialog

Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista

The caps lock key is one of those remnants of another age of computers, back when people used to shout at each other more often. Since it’s not entirely useful anymore we’ll learn how to disable it. If you aren’t interested in the explanation you can skip to the bottom for the registry files.

Windows doesn’t have a default setting to allow for disabling the key, so what we have to do is re-map the key to something non-existent so as to completely disable it.

Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista

Add Defragment to the Right-Click Menu for a Drive

We’ve received lots of requests to add Defrag to the right-click menu for a drive, so we created a simple registry hack that can be easily added that does just that.

After manually applying or downloading the hack, you’ll have a new item on the right-click menu for your drives…

Add Defragment to the Right-Click Menu for a Drive

Add Control Panel to the Desktop Right-Click Menu in Vista

A couple of days ago I noticed a thread on our forum asking how to add Control Panel to the desktop context menu, so I decided to write up the solution for everybody, since it seems like a really useful hack.

There’s a manual registry hack that you can apply if you’d like, or you can download the reghack version and apply it easily.

Add Control Panel to the Desktop Right-Click Menu in Vista

Use Verbose Boot Messages to Troubleshoot Windows Startup Problems

If you’ve ever had problems with your PC starting up or shutting down slowly, there’s lots of different troubleshooting techniques that you can use—today we’ll talk about how to enable verbose messages.

Enabling these verbose messages is not going to magically solve your problems, of course—the point is to use this to identify a problem, which you can then solve through other means, generally by uninstalling a problem application or upgrading a faulty driver.

Use Verbose Boot Messages to Troubleshoot Windows Startup Problems

How to Enable or Disable TortoiseSVN Menus Easily

If you’re a programmer that uses TortoiseSVN to manage your Subversion source control project, you might wonder how to easily disable the menu items without completely uninstalling. Here’s a quick way to do it.

The general idea is that we’ll remove the Windows Explorer context menu items from the registry with one script, and then add the registry entries back with another script.

How to Enable or Disable TortoiseSVN Menus Easily

How to Add Control Panel to “My Computer” in Windows 7 or Vista

Back in the Windows XP days, you could easily add Control Panel to My Computer with a simple checkbox in the folder view settings. Windows 7 and Vista don’t make this quite as easy, but there’s still a way to get it back.

To make this tweak, we’ll be doing a quick registry hack, but there’s a downloadable version provided as well.

How to Add Control Panel to “My Computer” in Windows 7 or Vista

Increase the Speed of the Aero Taskbar Thumbnails in Windows 7

By default you may notice that there is a slight delay when hovering your mouse over a Taskbar Thumbnail. Here is a neat registry hack that will allow you to speed it up.

Once you apply the hack, you’ll notice when you hover your mouse over a thumbnail of an open app on the Taskbar the preview pops up instantly with no delay.

Increase the Speed of the Aero Taskbar Thumbnails in Windows 7

Remove Programs from the Open With Menu in Explorer

Would you like to clean up the Open with menu in Windows Explorer?  Here’s how you can remove program entries you don’t want in this menu on any version of Windows.

This simple trick can help you keep your Open with menu tidy, and only show the programs you want in the list. 

Remove Programs from the Open With Menu in Explorer

Add “Run as Administrator” to Any File Type in Windows 7 or Vista

Have you ever tried to unzip a file to the Program Files directory in Windows 7 or Vista? You’ll get all sorts of permission denied errors, and generally be unsuccessful. So how do we open up the zipfile as an administrator? For that matter, how do you open any file as administrator?

There’s a simple registry tweak that will let us specify the action to run as administrator for a file type. Unfortunately you’ll have to make the tweak manually, but we’ll walk you through it.

Add “Run as Administrator” to Any File Type in Windows 7 or Vista

Create a Context Menu Item to Copy a Text File To the Clipboard in Windows 7 / Vista / XP

If you are the type of person that likes to keep a lot of information stored in text-format files on your drive, you’ve probably encountered a scenario where you want to copy that information to the clipboard… so you open the file in notepad, select all, then copy to the clipboard. What if you could do it with a simple context menu item instead?

Using a little registry hacking and the clip.exe utility built into Windows 7 and Vista, we can do just that, and we can even hide it behind the Shift + Right-Click menu so that it won’t waste space on the menu unless you hold down the shift key.

Create a Context Menu Item to Copy a Text File To the Clipboard in Windows 7 / Vista / XP

Disable the “Send To” Folder on the Windows Explorer Context Menu

After writing the article about adding Notepad to the context menu I noticed all the comments from users that prefer to use a shortcut in the Send To menu, which got me thinking… I wonder if you can disable the Send To folder?

Of course you can easily disable it… naturally it’s a registry hack, so standard disclaimers apply.

Disable the “Send To” Folder on the Windows Explorer Context Menu

Remove “Map Network Drive” Menu Item from Windows Vista or XP

If you have never used the “Map Network Drive” dialog box, do you ever wonder how to get rid of it? Personally I only map drives from the command line so I never use it either… so I’m thankful there’s a registry hack that can remove the menu items.

If you are unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, just right-click on the Computer icon and you’ll see it.

Remove “Map Network Drive” Menu Item from Windows Vista or XP

Enable or Disable Task Manager

Some time ago I received an email from a reader curious why their Task Manager option was grayed out on the taskbar right-click menu. After a bit of research his problem was solved, and now I’m sharing the solution with everybody.

There is a registry key that will disable Task Manager, although it’s not always clear how or why it was set to disable. In many cases the problem is related to spyware, so you should also scan your computer. Here’s how to enable or disable it.

Why is Task Manager Disabled?

How to Clean Up Your Messy Internet Explorer Context Menu

Is your Internet Explorer context menu completely out of control? Is it so long that it actually runs off the screen? Here’s how to quickly take a few steps to get rid of all that ridiculous clutter without installing Google Chrome instead.

Sometimes you can remove the items just by using the Manage Add-ons screen, but other add-ons embed themselves a lot deeper, and you’ll need to use a registry hack to get rid of them. Here’s how to do that.

How to Clean Up Your Messy Internet Explorer Context Menu

How to Restore the Real Internet Explorer Desktop Icon in Windows 7

Remember how previous versions of Windows had an Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, and you could right-click it to quickly access the Internet Options screen? It’s completely gone in Windows 7, but a geeky hack can bring it back.

Microsoft removed this feature to comply with all those murky legal battles they’ve had, and their alternate suggestion is to create a standard shortcut to iexplore.exe on the Desktop, but it’s not the same thing. We’ve got a registry hack to bring it back.

How to Restore the Real Internet Explorer Desktop Icon in Windows 7

Enable or Disable Displaying a Message During the Boot Process

If you’ve ever had a corporate laptop, there’s a good chance that you’ve seen a message before you login that talks about the corporate policies and all of that stuff.

Here’s how to enable or disable that login message using a registry hack.

Display a Text Message During Bootup of Windows 7

That was a lot of registry hacks… guessing nobody will even read far enough to see this line.

This article was originally written on 12/9/10

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ProFTPD backdoored for 3 days

By Dan Goodin in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Security, 2nd December 2010 19:37 GMT

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Updated Hackers breached the main server hosting ProFTPD and remained undetected for three days, causing anyone who downloaded the popular open-source file transfer application during that time to be infected with a backdoor that grants unauthorized access to their systems.

The unknown attackers gained entry to ProFTPD’s main distribution server by exploiting an unpatched vulnerability in the FTP application itself, project managers said late Wednesday night. The attackers then replaced the source files for the most recent version, ProFTPD 1.3.3c, with a backdoor. The compromise affected downloads from secondary mirror sites as well.

“The backdoor introduced by the attackers allows unauthenticated users remote root access to systems which run the maliciously modified version of the ProFTPD daemon,” project managers wrote. “Users are strongly advised to check systems running the affected code for security compromises and compile/run a known good version of the code.”

It’s the latest hack attack to hit a popular open-source distribution system. On Tuesday, the Free Software Foundation said its massive repository of free software was compromised by hackers who exploited holes in Savane, a widely used software hosting application. Project managers for GNU Savannah said they couldn’t rule out the possibility that the attackers gained root access to their system.

ProFTPD is file transfer protocol software whose source code is freely available by anyone to review or modify. It runs on Linux and Unix and is used by a long roster of organizations, including Harvard Law School, Virginia Tech Computer Science Lab, and Cisco Systems’ Linksys division.

John Morrissey, a member of the ProFTPD core team, said in an email sent Thursday afternoon that members “currently believe the vulnerability used to gain access to ftp.proftpd.org was previously announced and fixed in ProFTPD, but was unpatched on the system in question.” If correct, that means there’s no evidence there’s a critical vulnerability in the most recent version of the program.

The advisory and Morrissey’s email have yet to say how many downloads of the infected software were logged from November 28 to December 1. ®

This article was updated to report details included in Morrissey’s email.