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Buzzfeed seems to only link their own articles in their stories, so it's not convenient to fact-check them. I would have prefered some other information on this subject and since there is none in the TFA, I will provide you with some more info on this lobbying dollout:

https://www.wired.com/2016/11/...

https://www.theguardian.com/us...

http://www.cbronline.com/news/...

From an obnoxious website that I won't link because of how totally obnoxious their javascript is; you may wish to read this anyway:

f the surprising election win by President-elect Donald Trump left you feeling dispirited, you may be looking for a way to take action.
One way you could do so is donating money or time to causes you believe stand against Trump's politics. Conversely, you could hold back your money â" by boycotting companies and/or corporate executives that stand against your beliefs.
As of mid-September, no CEO of a Fortune 100 company supported Trump by donating to his campaign.
But in other ways, and in the time since, a few big companies have shown support for the president-elect â" directly or indirectly.
Here are five examples.
New Balance
The day after the election, Matthew LeBretton, vice president of public affairs for the sneaker brand New Balance, told a Wall Street Journal reporter: "The Obama administration turned a deaf ear to us and frankly with President-elect Donald Trump, we feel things are going to move in the right direction."
After that message went out, angry people on Twitter shared photos showing them destroying or trashing their New Balance shoes.
In response, New Balance issued a statement to Sole Collector clarifying its position.
"As the only major company that still makes athletic shoes in the United States, New Balance has a unique perspective on trade and trade policy in that we want to make more shoes in the United States, not less," the statement reads. "New Balance publicly supported the trade positions of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump prior to Election Day that focused on American manufacturing job creation and we continue to support them today."
Yuengling
On a final campaign swing through Pennsylvania at the end of October, Trump's son Eric stopped by the Yuengling Brewery in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.
Richard "Dick" Yuengling Jr., who is 73 and the fifth-generation owner of the nation's oldest beer company, gave him a tour.
"Our guys are behind your father," Yuengling said, the Reading Eagle reported. "We need him in there."
Eric Trump promised a Trump presidency would help businesses like Yuengling, a $550 million company with breweries in Pottsville and East Norwegian Township in Pennsylvania and Tampa, Florida.
"Maybe your dad will build a hotel in Pottsville, or serve Yuengling in his hotels," Yuengling said, jokingly, according to the Eagle.
Following the visit, there were calls on Twitter for a consumer boycott of the beermaker.
Home Depot
Kenneth Langone, one of the co-founders of Home Depot, has been publicly supporting Trump since May.
After supporting GOP presidential candidates New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and then Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Langone settled on Trump.
"And you want to know something?" Langone said on CNBC's "Closing Bell" in May. "I think he'll do a hell of a good job. At least I'm hoping."
Langone even doubled down after Trump bragged about sexual assault in the bus video leaked in October.
When asked for comment about the Langone's support, Stephen Holmes, the director of corporate communications for Home Depot said: "The Home Depot nor our CEO endorse Presidential candidates. Ken is a co-founder, and was once on our board of direc

You are right in the lottery sense : if your particular phone or app crashes, it is very unlikely that it is due to cosmic rays. However, it might be likely that it happens fairly often around the world. This is similar to the lottery : it is unlikely that you will win, but it is likely that someone will win.

It's all a matter of cross-section of the devices actually. If we want to compare, the IPhone 4 (an old baseline, smaller than today's generation but close to most of the low-cost devices) measures 0.007 m^2, while the top 10 largest data centers (from this random link) combined measure about 1.7 x 10^6 m^2. I am going to assume only 1% of the surface is occupied by sensitive chips (?). You would need about 2.4 millions IPhone 4 to cover the same area. Thus, it is very possible that mobile hardware is victim of more high energy burps than immobile hardware.

Na, they could just fire up the Cray XMP supercomputer they bought. (Assuming they still have it.) It's not anywhere as impressive as it used to be, but it is an honest to goodness supercomputer.

APPLE USES CRAY X-MP AND UNIX TO DESIGN YOUR NEXT MACINTOSH

The funny thing is that the performance difference between that and a modern supercomputer in cracking AES probably doesn't really make a difference.

This article says that US made harder for Terrorists to use their banking systems, that forced these to search for alternatives for funding their activities .. and thus the use of Bitcoin ....

I read here that tablets are now coming in a best budget from various brands like Tesco, Aldi, Argos and others ..

I agree with most of what you say. I also own a 3D printer (Solidoodle 3)

I see two main things that are keeping 3d printing from really taking off in the home. Once they solve these two issues it should really take off. There are other minor issues that need to be addressed as well, but the two issues that need to be fixed are : Speed and Reliability. I've designed up a product that I would like to print, but it takes 1.5 hours to print, and that is if it makes it fully through the print. Issues with warping, clogging, overheating, etc... are the main concerns about reliability.

I would be happy if they could cut my print time in half, but it's the current limitation of the technology being used in the home market. Some other technology is going to have to be used in order to overcome both issues, but those technologies are currently out of the budget for home users.

Unlike the post above, I do think it will happen in my lifetime though.

I'm somewhat reminded of early '90s CD-R burning. Rigs like this: http://www.cbronline.com/news/... were $32500 1991 dollars ($55,000 2014 dollars) if you breathed on them you would lose your $100+ CD-R. Mid '90s saw $1000 CD-R drives. Come the late 1990s CD-RW drives were $300 with buffers, but still the occasional buffer-underrun. Now a DVD burner is $20 and comes with BURN-Proof underrun tech.

TFA states nothing about him giving MS 4 weeks. AFAIK that was the previous time he went public on MS's ass; this time he just went out guns blazing as soon as he discovered the issue.

In terms of obligations (to release secure software), I disagree. You don't even need to look at EULAs (for Windows or for commercial Linux distros). There is no such thing as "absolutely secure" software. You simply cannot release X software and make the statement "X is secure -- I guarantee it". What you can do (and what Microsoft does better than most -- this is documented -- here's a random citation in support of that) is you can follow secure development practices, use defense in depth, and have a good patching mechanism.

I'm not going to bash Ormandy for publicizing the bug anymore than I would bash somebody for publicizing a bug in the Linux kernel. Come to think of it, aren't all the bugs for linux (and other opensource projects) public on a bug site?

This is plain incorrect. You have a responsible disclosure mechanism for Linux just as much as you do for MS/Windows (or any other product/entity/whatever). Disclosing an exploit on Linux without first giving the maintainers a chance to patch, is fucking them over just the same as this is fucking MS over. The fact that's he's done this twice now just shows that he's doing it out of spite.

Samsung Galaxy S4s will ship with Computrace theft-recovery software built-in -

http://security.cbronline.com/news/samsung-to-use-absolute-software-anti-theft-technology-in-galaxy-devices-040413

Please note, mainframes and most mini computers went 64 bit in the 1990s. x86 and ARM are the last to do so.

IBM mainframes went 64-bit in 2000. Opteron came out in 2003, so, yes, x86 went 64-bit after System/3x0 did (by 3 years). However, System/3x0 (feel free to set x = 10 for z/Architecture :-)) went 64-bit long after, for example, MIPS did.

But, yes, at least for non-embedded computing, we probably won't have a lot of 32-bit machines, and most if not all 64-bit software platforms that have time_t have a 64-bit time_t.

Wow the case and its verdict really talks a load about the FTC initiative to drive transparency and equal access to new technology. BTW Google is fighting a similar case in EU. Details Here

You *believe* incorrectly.

http://security.cbronline.com/news/modern-cars-vulnerable-to-remote-malicious-attacks-mcafee-090911

http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-oakland2010.pdf

Got to love the way there is nothing keeping the cellphone chip from talking to the rest of the car and no way of turning it off.... Mailing USB sticks with a ford sticker on them is just creating another attack vector.

Really?

http://mobility.cbronline.com/news/global-handset-shipments-up-17-to-350-million-units-in-q1-2011-strategy-analytics-020511

And that is for a single quarter. If you want to take historical data into the calculation, it's nowhere close.

XBox Live (more generally a console w/ services and playability across the Internet)

We are talking about computing, not playing games. I don't know or care if your claim is true; it has nothing to do with the subject matter (though I'm pretty sure XBox was an acquisition.)

OLE

What did they invent? The acronym? You obviously never heard of CORBA. Surprise!

Tabbed Spreadsheet

I might give you that one though I am almost certain they stole it from Lotus 1,2,3. I seem to recall that tabbed browsing took years to make it into IE. They still don't have virtual desktops out of the box. My point is that if they were first, it was more likely an accident than an innovation.

Pivot Tables in Spreadsheets

I've never heard of them, nor met anyone who uses them, so you are probably correct ;-)

On-the-fly spell checking in word processor

Trivial leveraging of improved processor speeds does not equal innovation, but nice try ;-)

I think it was IBM that broke the 1Ghz CPU barrier.

It's not really a huge feat to break the 1Ghz "barrier" for a GPU anyway. And since it's AMD product, it'll run hot as hell and require a massive heatsink. You'll be able to barbecue a steak on your CrossFire enabled rig with two of these installed. Since it's also ATi, the card itself will be really awesome but the drivers released will be buggy and unstable, turning the card into little more than a giant red paperweight.

Most supercomputers these days aren't single machines, they're clusters. Google "beowulf" for examples. See http://www.cbronline.com/news/linux_x86_clusters_take_over_top_500_supercomputer_ranking, they noticed the trend back in 2004.

BAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAA*choke*

operagost, what have you been smoking?
Microsoft won't fix week-old vulnerability already being exploited
Microsoft prepares an emergency fix for a months-old data-stealing hole in IE
Microsoft launched Vista with 30 unpatched vulnerabilities

And those are just the RECENT ones. The only way your statement holds water is if you say "well, Vista had 130 security patches in the first month, missing 20 more exploits is almost nothing!"

Well, kiddo, most of us geeks grew up using DOS

Well, sorry kiddo, DOS is an IBM O/S from the early 60's that ran on mainframes. Or did you mean something else? http://www.cbronline.com/news/ibm_dosvse_announcements

Now, get off my lawn!

You didn't work for Concurrent Computer, did you? I remember the same sort of beastly power supplies - I still have a couple of them. The rumor (possibly fact) was that Concurrent (which was Perkin Elmer Data Systems) had some of the first patents on switching supplies.

Those were the days - a 32 bit Floating Point Unit made out of _discrete_ 74xx series chips, mainly 74181's. It took a full 17" x 17" board. Youch! Their flagship system, a 3280 clocked a whole 6 MIPS for a uniprocessor system. I think at one point they actually burned the whole 3280 system that used to take up at least one full 6 foot cabinet into a single FPGA. That's progress!

Obviously questions about spying and surveillance have arisen ...

Um, it uses RPM as a package manager so as long as the government isn't forcing Cafes to use a certain package repository or use certain packages, where does the danger of surveillance lie? I mean, I wouldn't trust the Chinese government either but I am confused why a mandate of Red Flag Linux upsets people in this case ... and a recommendation from the DoD is probably heralded?

Yeah, they're running an industry's tech core, yeah they're stating exactly what OSS to use but where is the danger?

HP has supported Linux on its laptops for a long time. I have a NC6400 laptop which came with SLED10 installed on it, even has a nice green and silver SUSE logo badge.

What we're seeing here isn't just one hardware maker toying Linux, there are dozens of them - Nokia was an early adopter with Maemo/OS200x, but Asus, Everex/Wallmart, Dell, etc, etc are all jumping on the bandwagon. Even Intel, Microsoft's long-term partner in crime, has it's own Linux plans. And the important point these early adopters have demonstrated is that it isn't hard.

Microsoft's monopoly has been an immense roadblock for computing progress for decades now, but Vista's failure means there are cracks appearing in their Windows, and both competitors and partners have a scent of the fresh air on the other side. That's why the commentators are all calling HP's efforts an end-run around MS.

It's not a fait accompli yet, but with Adobe reinventing Flash as an application platform, Google poising Chrome/Gears in a similar role and Linux being adopted by most major hardware makers, Microsoft is looking more and more like losing control of the computing world.
And not before time.

...it does all of that, plus ripping CDs to a better file format (FLAC or Ogg Vorbis) at full speed, without paying for any upgrade.

No it does not, XMMS does not have a media library and i clearly mentioned it. Its the Closest looking/feeling application to WinAmp on linux in terms of features and controls. In fact it is advertised as "Winamp like media player" when you install it using 'Synaptec Packet Manager'.

1. I said "Rhythmbox" not XMMS, I don't use that piece of garbage.
2. You mean 'Synaptic Package Manager' and that is not an "advertisement" because you aren't required to pay. If you don't like a Linux app as-is you can re-write or edit it until it's perfect for you, provided you make your improvements available to the public. Is that so onerous?

However it does NOT have a media library. If it does its so damn hidden it needs Christopher Columbus to set an expedition to discover. Not simple like right click on the app and choose what you want to see. It cannot organize music based on its own database. NO, it cant! As for Rhythmbox, i'm yet to see a more ugly looking media player application than this. I will post you if i find anything more uglier.

'Christopher Columbus!' That is very funny, good one. However, I just found two things "more uglier:" you're splelign et tu grammar. Rhythmbox's interface is pretty plain, but it does everything you requested, meaning that it meets the standard you set, as you originally set it. Adjusting "standards" after the fact makes you a liar because to do so is inconsistent with the meaning of the word "standards;" if they are not constant, they are not "standards" at all, and you're just dodging the fact that you lost one point by presenting a new one, related only by the name of program, but with completely different thesis. First, you said it should merely "rip Music" but now you want to move the goalposts! Move them by yourself, you haven't paid me to help you tell lies.
I don't care what Rhythmbox looks like myself because I take a couple seconds to set it to start playing then get to work, looking at something else. Like the authors of Rhythmbox, I wouldn't waste my time writing "skins" for it. It's an audio program, not a video program, so it may as well be uncluttered by useless, superfluous ornament.

Or for ~$40, you can buy the "$distro Bible"

Pardon me but did not i already bring in the discussion that im a dumb computer user.

No, I noticed that without your admission of ignorance. These books I cited do not require front-to-back reading. They are references, not novels. Or, if your objection is to the use of the $ symbol to denote a variable tough luck, I like to emphasize how simple BASH is. If you don't like seeing that fact emphasized you may take your argument to the illiterates who can't see through your sophistry, though you might need to reduce your fees.

Maybe you did not understand, when i said "I" i did not mean personally me but i meant the average computer user (windows/mac) who knows how to turn it on, print, email and chat.

So, you're not speaking for yourself, or if you are you won't admit it. That's no surprise. Would you like to refer me to the person who will put its own name to this argument of yours, that it's too stupid to use anything more complicated than the Windows GUI?

Now why would i of all the other things in the world waste my time on a big ass book

I suppose you might have an interest in proctology which you hadn't mentioned previously, but that is not the topic.

...and study weird computer stuff that im least interested in? All i wanna do is basic stuff, why do i have to train myself for that?

Too stupid to use

Didn't they disclose some of this info? Although a lay person may not put 2 and 2 together to grasp what they are saying, I thought every upgrade I've done of Quicktime's readme says PRO USERS can not upgrade to the latest Quicktime player without breaking PRO.

I've located the QuickTime Read Me.htm on my hard drive and it does say this. If an app calls for Quicktime 6.x and you install 7.x, realize your not in a supported config. Websites written for Java 2.0 (Cisco switches) don't work with Java 5.0 or 6.0. Some Citrix apps requires 4.0, lower builds and doesn't work with newer ones. Some older .NET 1x apps don't work once .NET 2.0 is installed without forcing the app to use 1.1.

Microsoft has a product called Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization, formally Softricity, which is aimed at fixing issues like this. http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=14C2BEC4-2146-4E4E-96FA-535223730713 You can run multiple versions of the same application, or even run it on OSes that the application doesn't natively support. Though I'm not positive it is capable of solving CODEC problems.

> Let's suppose that ODF is indirectly controlled by Sun, and OOXML is directly controlled by msft. Why is it that the indirect control by Sun is cause for alarm, but the direct contol by msft is not cause for alarm?
>
> Why is it relevant that Burton never disputed msft's direct control? Does that make msft's direct control of a supposed open standard all right?

Absurd strawman. Nobody said that. What he's suggesting Burton was saying is the exact opposite. Why is MS's control cause for alarm but Sun's control is not? That is why it's relevant.

> And if msft chose to do so, msft could support ODF just as much as Sun.

They do support it (though "just as much as Sun" is subjective...and probably not quite true): http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=5F3A7CD5-6E9E-4439-B375-4391ADFD2BBD, and the actual open source project: http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/.

Also, just because MSFT can conceivably contribute to the standard does not mean that Sun does not have competitive advantage because of the standard. I'm not saying they absolutely do, but your syllogism does not follow logically.

And how many of that "majority" were only there to vote in support of the open XML proprietary format but in reality have no interest what so ever in standards? Some honesty here would be refreshing considering the suspicion of corruption.

http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.17/iso-procedures
"a leaked memo showed that Microsoft asked partners to influence the vote but had also offered to pay them to do so"

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/05/133219&from=rss
"It turns out there's an interesting correlation between Transparency International's 'corruption perceptions index' and voting behavior in ISO's OOXML decision. Countries with a lower score (more corruption) on the 2006 CPI were more likely to vote in favor of OOXML"

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=7E36CE19-D223-45C2-9704-A2F4B116AA26
"the publication of the voting results brings to a close a hard-fought and often bitter battle to win the approval of national voting bodies that has been tarnished by allegations of corruption, bribery vote stuffing"

*sigh* pathetic

As pointed out by Computer Business review earlier this month, Novell had already collected about 44% of its total $240 million in MSFT vouchers ... (maybe) not coincidentally, that adds up to about $105 million. Not to shamelessly plug here, but this reads as a stark contrast to what's happening in Europe over the same "inter-operability" issue.

You just need to google for :WiMAX unlicensed spectrum

These guys back in late 2005 were quoting me a fixed Wireless solution that goes up to 40+ KM for T1+ performance, and it was based on fixed WiMAX technology operating in public spectrum. Price was aprox $5K per side. In retrospect, this may have been some propriatary Pre-WiMAX falvor of the technology, but still, for just point to point, who cares.
http://www.rad-direct.com/ProdFam-Fixed-Wireless.htm

These guys in Oct 2006 announced WiMAX products that work in both 2.4Ghz & 5.8Ghz public Spectrum, the cost I do not know.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pwwi/is_200610/ai_n16767942
+
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=EC58D998-F4FD-40D6-840F-BB89D102A59E

In short, WiMAX comes in various flavours. Fixed & Mobile, which we can already see operating in private spectrum. Rogers (large CLEC) in Canada has just completed a 1 year beta testing of these products and is ready to roll out; and the other flavour will be public spectrum versions of the same Fixed and possibly Mobile, though I would venture to say that Fixed will be more popular.

Cheers,
Adeptus

It fits the pattern we've been seeing from them. Remember, this is the company that pillaged South Africa's economy, rewrote its privacy policy to give itself more leniency, lobbies against net neutrality, and fights open-access wireless.

And don't forget, they shut down the time service too. Bastards.

"Microsoft has no financial relationship with BayStar and never agreed to guarantee any of BayStar's $50 million investment in SCO," it stated.

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=EA4 A3F1E-C7CC-42F1-9927-24227A1EEFD0

Buried in IBM's recent motion for summary judgment against SCO is a Declaration from BayStar general partner Larry Goldfarb. Near the beginning of the long-running legal soap opera, BayStar invested $50 million in SCO. In exchange for their investment, BayStar received 20,000 shares of preferred stock in SCO.

In his declaration, Goldfarb testifies that former Microsoft senior VP for corporate development and strategy Richard Emerson discussed "a variety of investment structures wherein Microsoft would 'backstop,' or guarantee in some way, BayStar's investment." Goldfarb then said that after BayStar committed the $50 million to SCO's cause, Microsoft "stopped returning my phone calls and e-mails, and to the best of my knowledge, Mr. Emerson was fired from Microsoft."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061008-7932 .html

Sound Familiar?

It's not OSI-approved yet.

"Judge Kimball's decision not only undermines SCO's claims against IBM but also suggests that the company was aware that it did not own the Unix copyrights on which it based its litigation even before it launched its SCOsource intellectual property licensing business"

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=981 E3D15-5DC6-4D48-8BA4-8DA6D8AA9BC7

Comments by AMD's Hector Ruiz really struck a cord with me:

www.cbronline.com

In the case of HP, he said, AMD could not even give away a million processors for free, due to the fear of the potential of Intel punishing the PC maker.

If you trust Ruiz, this comment should be all you need to know. If Intel is being such a monopolistic bitch that AMD can't even give away chips to HP, I wonder what other cases are going undocumented. I really hope AMD gets the monetary compensation they deserver, as I promise you that Intel's anti-competitive tactics aren't helping the consumer any.

I honestly wonder if they will eventually "get" that releasing MS Office code to the open source community is their only option

If the figures in the linked article http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=096 AC51E-EE83-413C-B32A-A4FFDE598E9F are close to being accurate then MS are losing $18.5 on each sale (this is without the addition of the cost of development & manufacture). Selling into markets at below cost is called "dumping" and is usually sanctioned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_poli cy)
What makes MS a special case? Nothing.

The Soviet system wasn't really centrally-administered either. The economy was controlled by the haggling and political struggles of the party bosses.
Soviet propaganda: to each according to their needs.
Capitalist propaganda: to each according to their ability.
Reality: it's who you know.
See: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/23/ 224254 and http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=1B5 9C157-136A-4C1F-8F96-67847B42932E

As we move away from an economy based on commodities towards one dominated by the service industries, market forces will mean less and less. Where's Patrick Swayze when you need him? http://imdb.com/title/tt0087985/
What's this have to do with using two monitors?

Where did you read this in the article? The article has no details.

Are we reading the same article? It lists vulnerable Ajax libraries. It uses GMail and webmail in general as examples of potentially vulnerable web applications. GMail and typical webmail applications aren't designed to be called from other domains in mashups.

Or do you have another source?

Here's the advisory (PDF). They override the Object() constructor before calling the JSON so they can capture the data without worrying about scope.

"There is little, if any, benefit to dual-licensing OpenSolaris with CDDL and the yet to be approved/upcoming GPLv3 license - aside from possible short term good press for the project," it continued. "There are significant downsides to dual licensing, including, but not limited to, license complexity, confusion and the possibility of long term bad press from any exception language that such a license would inevitably require."

Hope this proves to other companies that being Open Source and giving away your software for
free can in the long run actually be profitable and make you many lovers along the
way. Been using mySQL for years and love it. It set the way for free databases for using
for projects on webhosts world wide.

ozgur uksal
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=26F 5F8B6-8CC6-4529-8DE7-65732FA84347/

I wrote a short paper concerning RFID technology about a year ago, it mostly concerned the hardware and systems architecture. There was no shortage of reports and studies of RFID keys being cracked like the mobile speedpass http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home05/jan05/rfi d.html.

http://www.ti.com/rfid/shtml/news-releases-rel02-1 0-05.shtml. Some of these passive rfid tags have no access control whatsoever. Meaning one take a small RFID programmer into their favorite store and start changing prices, or worse, write a virus to the RFID tag so the next time it's polled it'll get injected into their SQL DB. Possibly compromising their entire POS system. Ironically, this sort of stunt if done well enough could result in a jackpot of creditcard numbers so it wouldn't matter if you used an RFID enabled card or not at that point :).

Some random RFID links.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/03/rfid _security_a.html
http://www.rfidgazette.org/2004/06/rfid_101.html
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/133 9/2/129/
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Technology-Article.a sp?ArtNum=20
http://www.enigmatic-consulting.com/Communications _articles/RFID/Link_budgets.html

A nice article on RFID virus attack
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=B96 0208D-9ECF-4F0B-B964-4DD779BFF905

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/story/0,10801,100459p2,00.html

From which comes a nice quote, this is from 2005.
"The TI technology is vulnerable to attack because it uses a decade-old, 40-bit cryptographic key to encrypt communications between the RFID DST tags and readers, the researchers found. TI also used an unknown and proprietary encryption algorithm on its DST devices. But Rubin's team reverse-engineered the secret algorithm by observing how DST tags responded to specially crafted challenges. Once they guessed the algorithm, researchers created a software program that could be used in so-called brute-force attacks on DST devices to recover the secret cryptographic keys, Rubin said."

The site, http://rfidanalysis.org/ that hosted these findings no longer exists but you could probably find it cached on the net somewhere, wayback machine maybe.

Remember that RFID represents a system and not one piece of technology. The implementation of the system is dependent on the deployment plan. I could make an "RFID system" with 2 933Mhz radios and a pair of 8-bit microcontrollers from digikey for around $150. Sure, you could pull my data out of the air, but technically speaking I'm using RFID. I could also build my own RFID key system with 2048-bit encryption to act as the keys to my car. It's not that difficult to develop, really just assembling existing technologies. RFID can be done "right" and it is a promising technology. I wouldn't shun it for alot of commercial applications but for personal applications, well ask yourself the question. Is this thing a necessary part of your life?

Peter

I just popped over to google finance and saw that this had come in today, not mentioned in TFA: http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=2BF 9274C-A4EF-4A3F-8E14-ABFBA2178EF8 Can somebody who has been following this a bit closer explain this? It's getting quite hard to tell who is friend or foe any more... And in any case, why bother... their stock is toast, so couldn't IBM just buy a controlling interest for $11.2M and wind it down?

"The Spider stack wasn't very good. It relied upon STREAMS, which was kludgey and ugly and a heavyweight. The only version of NT to use it was NT 3. By NT 3.5 (the second version of NT, as it happened), it had been replaced by a Microsoft-written one. I'm not saying that the TCP/IP stack in modern Windows OSes, such as XP, is completely, 100% free of all BSD code. I mean, hell, some things are just stupid to do twice (the checksum calculation, for example), and if you did rewrite it it'd look almost exactly the same. Identical. "

I still have some NT 3.51 and NT 4.0 systems ...
Microsoft 's post NT3.1 TCP/IP software stack Sucked Big Time.

Netbios under TCP/IP was 10x less efficient(per CPU MHZ) than native Netbieu. (Same system, CPU MHZ the limiting factor).
A straight on FTP transfer was 4x less efficient than Netbieu.

Meanwhile, Linux TCP/IP protocol stack on similar MHZ system ran CIRCLES around M$ implementation.
With TCP/IP operations surpassing NT's Raw Netbieu performance levels without any special optimizations.

==========

As for Linux et. al. patent Liability to Microsoft.. For all practical purposes it's a NON-ISSUE.

M$ employees acting with authorization have been and continue to distribute Linux to the tune of ~300 servers from ~50 distros within their "Linux" lab.. They did it for purposes of profit, and improving windows capability and performance.

As a result, M$ has agreed to accept GPL license and waived any rights to assert ANY of their Patents against fellow Linux developers/distributes/users. Note: A corporation can't act a single entity with respect to 3rd party copyrights, which includes Linux & rights granter by GPL license, however they're 100% liable for official acts of their employees (Doctrine of Respondeat superior).

If M$ violates the agreed upon GPL terms by suing other Linux users.
The GPL license by which they distributed Linux (internally) becomes null and void.
Which leaves Microsoft with a HUGE liability for extensive Copyright Violation(s).
Copyright Violation for Profit has NO damage limits..
The damages would be computed on a basis of Microsoft WINDOWS revenues.

Ergo... I don't think M$ will be suing any Linux participants for Patent anything in the near future.

Aside from a 2400 node cluster for the department of defense and university research, or a living room media center, I guess not much other than its cool?

"now only Novell's SUSE Linux customers are the only Linux vendors that have any assurance that Microsoft won't sue for patent infringement", Steve Ballmer

"this whole "Microsoft is the next SCO" is bullshit. The only possible patent infringement going on is in the Microsoft compatibility stack of Mono", Stalyn

"We won't be licensing patents at all but what we will do is grant a covenant to them. There is no language where a license is given", Bill Hilf

But in some sence you are claiming IP rights to Open Source and GPL code.

"It does separate the open source developer who's doing it for a love of technology from those who are getting paid for it .. admitting he did not know the implications for Linus Torvalds,", Bill Hilf

So when are you going to sue Linus Torvalds for violating MS IP rights. Since when did you get to define what are or are not legitimate Open Source developers. And what has the Novell/MS deal got to do with any third party developers who never signed up to it.

was Re:FUD

While most of your post is right on, the last sentence is inaccurate. 75nm and 65nm fabs are already in operation. I know; I design for one :)

That would be the same PowerPC architecture that the PS3 uses then. The OS runs on the PowerPC derived PPE, the SPE are no use to an OS. All the OS can do is expose them is some useful way to userspace.

Sony are sinking some serious PR money into Terra Soft (the makers of Yellow Dog Linux) to develop some "PS3 based supercomputers":

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=773 06D92-BC68-4133-B226-23636E116221

- Unreleased gaming console
The CELL was never going to be only for gaming consoles. YDL will be used on several of the biggest supercomputers in the world in a couple of years, not to mention a bucket load of IBM blade servers.

- which has been much-maligned for its excessively high price
No one ever said hi-end computing would be cheap.

- and huge production delays
Yes, but they are backed by Sony, they will already have their shipments earmarked.

- on a new processor architecture
Which is a derivative of the one they are the leading Linux experts on, and is likely to be a very major market in the coming years.

- using a WM that's not even out of CVS
Their core market is servers so this is totally irrelevant. I suppose they just wanted something flashy for the expos. (you don't get more flashy then a WM that can bring a 2Gb dual core gaming rig to its knees running xterm!)

I can't believe these obituaries for Ray Noorda highlight his supposed business skill, when he rode Novell straight into the ground and singlehandedly destroyed both Digital Research and WordPerfect. Noorda's Novell bought WordPerfect for $855 million in June 1994, when its word processor, formerly the industry standard, was struggling and needed smart management. After Noorda left the company, Novell promptly sold WordPerfect to Corel in January 1996 for 10 million shares of Corel stock and $11 million in cash -- that's right, an $800 million loss in 18 months. Meanwhile, WordPerfect's market share had totally collapsed.

An October 2000 article in Computer Business Review Online, "Why Companies Fail", discusses Noorda's reign:

"[M]anagement monomania is perhaps the most insidious and avoidable trap. The company that has shown damagingly obsessive behaviour has been network operating system company, Novell. CEO and founder Ray Noorda, after failed takeover talks with Microsoft, became obsessed with the fact that Microsoft was trying to destroy his company - a focus that became so intense, ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myrvold dubbed him 'Captain Ahab' in 1993.
"Even though Novell had successfully fought off Microsoft in its core network operating system business for five years, Noorda decided that he had to take direct aim at the industry's Moby Dick. He bought 20 companies, including Digital Research (an operating systems company), Unix System Laboratories and office suite developer WordPerfect (subsequently sold to equally mismanaged Corel) over a three-year period. Even after Noorda retired in 1994, and his successor had divested most of his acquisitions, Novell was damaged beyond repair. [...] Novell fatally lost direction under Noorda, let its core products lapse and ceded market dominance. Since then it has suffered a steady decline."

Of course, Noorda also found the Canopy Group, of which the less said the better.

Noorda achieved some great things, but for much of his latter career he was a force for chaos and destruction.

Saying that they're promoting it now will not make it the next big thing either. They'd have to open up some information about how to write apps on top of their OS or at least design some API's with the open source developer in mind. You know, if they made their platform a little less proprietary and gave the OSS developers a little more freedom, that would be a sign of OSS support.

I don't know how MS can say they are open with their APIs and open source developers can use the APIs. That's the big thing with the EC, European Commission, and the fines the EC placed on MS. The EC and developers in Europe say MS isn't being open with the APIs, that MS is requiring developers who want to see the documentation of them to sign ndas and such. Even Microsoft's twelve commandments avoid EU concerns. MS doesn't walk it's talk.

Simon argues that we need to shift away from a "right to use" model in software, and toward a value model - targeted "bundles of value" to specific vertical market segments.

What on Earth does that mean? Another Matt you point to, says a little more, but I'm still confused by the concept and how you can make it practical. It looks like you don't get free software at all. Indeed, there seems to be little difference between your "bundles of value" and the way Sun has always done things. Perhaps you can enlighten me.

The "right to use" is freedom zero for me. Who on earth are you to tell me how I'm going to use "your" software on my computer? It seems like a given. Of course, it's not really a given if I can't modify your software to suit my needs. Once it suits my own needs, I might want to share that with my friends. What good is something I can't use to help others? Being able to share my improvements without your permission is also part of doing what I want with the software. Without these other three freedoms, I might as well be stuck with a binary file which I can only use as you intended. Getting people to pay you for development of code that suits your customers is all fine and good, but using that service to put restrictions on the user is not. How restrictive are your bundles really?

Now for practicality. How are you going to sell restrictive software when people are making less restrictive software for every purpose? Sun is famous for quality, I won't knock that. The problem for you is that free software is getting better all the time and for good reason. If I write a piece of software, I have little to gain by keeping it to myself and everything to gain by using publically available gpl'ed code as a base. Once I've made it work, I really don't mind posting it up and the copyleft is that little bit richer. After six years of free software restrictions as insignificant as an "I agree" button are odious,

Not to sound arrogant, but we know how to deal with the Linux community.

Now that Intel has it's first non-technical CEO, all they can talk about is vaporware of furture unreleased chips, while Shares of Intel have fallen 33 percent since Otellini succeeded Craig Barrett in May last year. Should the board/shareholders really allow someone with a background like Otellini's to run a company like Intel? You see how well medieval studies people worked out at HP. IMHO they need to get the tech people back in charge at Intel if they want it to compete in a tech market. At least in the past they succesfully defended their market share with their *existing* products even when they were inferior. This new strategy of basically saying "don't by our current stuff because our roadmap is even nicer" could only come from a MBA.