Windows Vista Capable and Premium Ready PCs
While Microsoft may believe it’s minimum requirements, I tend to agree more with Ken Fisher’s take on the subject over at Ars Technica. Based on my experience installing the last few betas on a 1.9Ghz P4 with 512M, I can tell you, you’re gonna need a lot more than that.
All x86 CPUs in modern systems (Intel, AMD, etc.) have a feature that could be exploited on some operating systems to take total control of that system. Interestingly, modern versions of Windows actually aren’t vulnerable to this type of attack because of their implementation of a hardware abstraction layer or HAL. There are also ways to harden other OSs against this sort of attack, but it’s more a matter of mitigation than prevention.
CNN.com – Telecoms named in NSA story say they guard privacy – May 12, 2006
After it’s attempts to kill the lawsuit against AT&T, the Bush administration now has to deal with a full assault from the mainstream media. Now that the bright light of public scrutiny has been fixed again on the administration, they’re all scrambling to deny any wrongdoing. I’m interested to see where this is going, but I’m not going to hold my breath on any meaningful consequences.