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More people should just rename their files to usher.mp3.

oops...

Seems I've just entered the unintentionally-trollish-joke-taken-for-a-troll camp. The original (ok, cryptic) meaning of my post was that this exploit is lame-ass - open source should be, apparently, so we're told by some, catching up with proprietory - and yet this is the best style of exploit it can come up with? It's crap!

Oh well. Suddenly I see the thrill of trolling. The pull of the dark side is strong. [mumble mumble hot grits mumble Natelie Portman mumble mumble overlords mumble mod me down but mumble mumble]

Anyway, Windows is dead. Netcraft confirms it.

Eivind.

Am I the only person who noticed that the link goes to an article about "who really won the superbowl"?

Correct article.

And for an added bonus the link to Wal-Mart's video store within the story is broken.

Article link

Wal-Mart Video Store note: the site renders horribly in Mozilla & Firefox... at least for me.

The REAL Link

The story is here

Walmart will also be selling TV series. They have more studios signed up than Apple, mainly due, I think, to Walmart's caving in to the Studios demands (same pricing as DVDs).

It wasn't legislation it was an appellate court decision. Source: http://news.com.com/Minnesota+court+takes+dim+view +of+encryption/2100-1030_3-5718978.html

Nonsense. Linus himself switched from x86 to PowerPC two years ago, and remarked last October that he still prefers PowerPC.

Nonsense. Linus himself switched from x86 to PowerPC two years ago, and remarked last October that he still prefers PowerPC.

The NH congress voted 217 to 84 not to implement the Real ID Act here, last April. http://news.com.com/The+Real+ID+rebellion/2010-102 8_3-6061578.html

http://www.tata.com/tcs/media/20060131.htm

http://news.com.com/Indias+outsourcing+industry+fa ces+labor+shortage/2100-1022_3-6040987.html

http://news.zdnet.com/India+faces+worker+shortage/ 2100-9589_22-5730972.html

http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/off shoring/0,3800003026,39123944,00.htm

It looks like they are going through the same cycle the US and Europe has.

There are multiple parts to the deal, if you don't know what they are why even bother trying to argue with me? In one part Microsoft agreed to give Novell $108 million to release each other from past actions (as in before they owned SuSE) source.

The other portion of your post has already been covered.

you're right - let's slashdot the heck out of it so the military can't get to the website, 'cause as soon as some goofball in the military gets an idea about using "robots" as killing machines- whoa!

  Fortunately, this hasn't occurred to anyone but you.... yet.

It is really quite difficult to program a ham sandwich into MS Vista and trying to prevent it from getting rather smelly and stale. Those refresh routines must be very complex. http://news.com.com/5208-1032_3-0.html?forumID=1&t hreadID=16504&messageID=142375&start=-1.

Well
it
might
be
because
iTunes
sucks

I tried it so I could listen to some of the iTunes shares my housemates have but it kept crashing periodically and in the end I still prefer winamp's look and feel.

I've been using products from the likes of IBM, HP, Sun, Novell and Microsoft in commercial environments for the last 30 years without having any of those kinds of problems. And as an I/T professional I could give a shit about what the "community" happens to take into it's head about what's good for it, from my perspective avoiding legal problems is a Good Thing. I've never had to contend with the threat of a lawsuit invalidating my license for implementing a solution on Solaris or Windows.

MOD PARENT UP!!! Excellent links: NamePros.com provides a list of registrars and prices. CNet's article is must reading: Survey: Are domain registrars free-speech friendly?

http://www.namepros.com/registerindex.php

and

http://news.com.com/Survey+Are+domain+registrars+f ree-speech+friendly/2100-1025_3-6155614.html

ARS Technica doesn't buy it either but The New York Times cited six major issues with Vista mostly dug out by a security firm. They've since taken the reference to the article away so you'll need to dig it out if you're curious.

Newsforge has had a few links this morning; here's a decent one:

http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-6155469.html

The gist of the situation is that Blackboard is making a pledge, but (i) apparently the constraints of the pledge are incompatible with the GPL (so it does GPL'd projects little good) and (ii) they're reserving the right to revoke the "license" from anyone that sues Blackboard for patent infringement.

Of course, the real question here is whether they have a legitimate patent in the first place; if they don't, then the issues above go away.

[Note: I'm not a legal expert, I'm not privvy to the relevant docs, and I've not been consulted by any parties involved. As a result, I'm not saying that the allegations are correct; I'm just telling the author of the parent post what has been alleged.]

On hearing Michael was returning to Dell, a reporter asked Steve Jobs what he would do if given the opportunity to run Dell.

His reply: "What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders,"

Joking aside, how things have turned around hey? Although to be fair to Dell, prior to getting his CEO role back, Jobs also said about Apple "If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth -- and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.")

We're using different definitions of Monopoly. Your definition is across operating systems. Mine is the workstations market. Your definition has only one provider. Mine allows others that aren't viable. Is Apple viable with a 3% share? Debatable. You'll never get a company with 100% domination, because there'll always be one guy in a garage somewhere 'completing'. If the breaks were with 50%/50% or 40%/40%/30% that'd seem an even market. Googling around I found estimates which said Microsoft 95%, Apple 3%, Linux That's the long, rational answer. The short, realistic answer is, of course,
> "It costs too much to change our setup because we're locked into a Windows setup"
Yep. And these days I just go with the flow. It's much easier.

> apathy and risk does NOT make the product a monopoly
You're right. That's just a side benefit :-)

> it just makes the company short-sighted (assuming there are enought long-term financial benefits
> to outweigh the cost/effort of redeployment).
When it's government, those factors are inconsequential. Sloppy and wasteful they may be, but you still your taxes every year so they needn't worry about going out of business.

> Me? I choose to believe that as Linux is a viable alternative to Windows for certain uses, ...
> but not suitable for others (such as gamers; or Average Joe Desktop User,
I agree, and probably many other Slashdotters do too. But I did think this guys story was interesting:
http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html?tag=l h

> Is it any wonder that I called you a Linux fanboi? Was I wrong?
Well, yeah. When I wrote that stuff about Microsoft, I wasn't ranting and shaking my fists behind my Linux workstation. Situation isn't going to change, so why get upset about it? In other words, moralizing aside, I don't give a damn. I'm a Windows programmer. Windows sucks (its convoluted mess, they rearrange it in dumb and stupid ways, the API is a dog's breakfast, and what Windows does is defined by what it does rather than what is written down). Despite that, you can still turn out decent apps with, and people buy them. I'm typing this in a room with Windows PCs. My nearest Linux server is five hundred miles away.

My point was, don't confuse technology with religion and don't mistake an opinion for zealotry. I admire the Linux crowd for trying. An open source OS for the world would be a great thing. I hope they succeed.

What this means is that there are circumstances when ISPs cannot isolate IP addys or individuals, then it's ok to sniff the whole pipe. Why not?

Why should the cops have to pussyfoot around BS red tape just to do their jobs?

You know, not to be a troll, but I really don't see what the big deal is.

How about when the BSA enters your property with armed marshals and shuts down your business while you're doing everything you can to be compliant with licenses? At least it converts some to open source.

Not sure if it's who you were thinking of, but this happened to Ernie Ball, the largest maker of guitar strings. http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

Here is part of the text of a story posted on CNET today:

By Michael Kanellos
About South Korea's 'dependency' on Microsoft

Story last modified Mon Jan 29 07:28:02 PST 2007

A couple of people recently have alleged that South Korea is being pushed around by Microsoft. It's not nearly as bad as it sounds.

"This nation is also a unique monoculture where 99.9% of all the computer users are on Microsoft Windows. This nation is a place where Apple Macintosh users cannot bank online, make any purchases online, or interact with any of the nation's e-government sites online," wrote South Korean blogger Gen Kanai. Commentators on technology news site Slashdot have also tsk-tsk-ed the situation.

The pending release of Vista has prompted many to speculate that it could increase security risks.

To some, this looks like the ugly face of monopolism and bad decisions by government leaders and large corporations. But there is actually a much simpler reason why people in South Korea have so much Microsoft software.

They steal it.

Piracy is rampant in the nation. During my visit to the country two and a half years ago, one of the most entertaining topics was how businesses dodged police raids for pirated software. They sounded like tales from Prohibition.
Do people want to steal software? No, but they worry about costs and staying competitive, and right now many believe the risk of piracy is worth it.

In the city Incheon, near Seoul, police investigators who were empowered to audit software on PCs snuck in through an office building's back exit, according to a source who worked for an Internet service provider inside the facility at the time. A receptionist immediately began to call all the businesses in the building.

"Everyone closed their doors," the former ISP employee said at the time. The ISP wasn't so lucky. Its employees didn't get out in time, and the company had to pay $42,000 (50 million won) in software licenses and fines.

At another building, someone held the door closed while other people shoved laptops out the window, I was told. Two other people I spoke to--the president and the chief technology officer of a growing company--went out for lunch one day, but then had to hide in the next-door parking lot for two hours until a surprise raid ended at their building.

People laughed when they told me these stories, and not just because it was 2 a.m. One of the more popular methods of avoid ing the law apparently is to befriend someone in the government who can divulge the timing of a pending raid. A companywide holiday is then declared.

Do people want to steal software? No, but they worry about costs and staying competitive, and right now many believe the risk of piracy is worth it. Intellectual property rights are also a little tough to enforce sometimes. In Seoul, there is a Samsung Wedding Chapel, but it's not owned by the Samsung Electronics conglomerate. The country sometimes feels like the wild west with big-screen TVs.

"They just close the door, because they know it is the fastest way to get away," said a Microsoft representative at the time.

The government and Microsoft work together closely because piracy creates trade headaches for South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication. The country depends on exports, and the last thing its government and business leaders want is to have to deal with questions that put them on the defensive. Piracy also hurts the local software market..."

Here's a direct link to the interview. It's a great read: http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html?tag=l h

this will get really interesting, really fast

Oh, things already have: http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

BTW, why is it that software is the only product where supply and demand and mass production rules don't apply? Everything else that is mass produced comes down in price, software stays the same or gets more expensive.

http://dailytech.com/Life+With+Penryn/article5869. htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16839253/
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/27/technology/bc.micr ochips.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/technology/27chi p.html?em&ex=1170046800&en=59a4d10473c4a8c8&ei=508 7%0A
http://news.com.com/Chip+companies+entering+their+ metal+period/2100-1006_3-6153962.html
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=29 15

Or perhaps none of the above? Wasnt Microsoft one of the organisations that fairly recently called for patent reform? Maybe this patent application has something to do with that?

Like the ramen worm that effected most Redhat systems and then disabled the exploits it used? http://news.com.com/2009-1001-251311.html

Riddled with errors? http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html no. However, your main point is correct. Wikipedia is not a reliable source, and should not be used as a main source. Or a secondary source.

Doesn't anyone else remember the CNET article from '05 citing that Wikipedia was más o menos as accurate as Britannica?? http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

To bad, cause a Canadian Judge ruled that file sharing isn't illegal in Canada. See http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5182641.html for more information. The greed induced coma that record and movie studio's are in now will successfully ruin (read: has ruined) the industry. I personally don't go to the movie theaters anymore because of the following reasons:

1) I don't enjoy paying more than $10 so see a movie, and lets face it, i am too lazy to go out and get a movie rental card :-P
2) I get a far better movie experience at home anyways, i have better sound/images and no jack ass sitting in front of me talking about what he thinks is going to happen in the movie next.
3) Most of the movies that come out today are crap. Also a great deal of them are ether remakes of old movies, or sequels. I would rather watch the original version of the movie an certainly not the 3rd,4th or 5th sequels of the movie.

Maybe if the industry would actually create something good, instead of shoving more of the same tired crap down peoples necks. I am so tired of seeing some pop culture icon (like jessica simpson, etc..) get a movie part. They aren't real actors. I don't find their lack of intellgence funny or cute. All they do is re-enforce the image that women should act stupid because it's cute.

It's the same with the music industry. They have new bands every few months now, and rarely are they any good....just more of the same pop culture or indy music.

As a consumer i have a choice. I choose to not spend money on crap. If i can get free crap and have a better experience in my own home, why wouldn't i take advantage of it? Maybe it's time to change the way you do business and actually create a model that inpires trust from the customer, in a way that will make them feel comfortable about buying something of yours and make them feel like they are getting something for that money.

this is something within his power to do.

This fix is in line with the typical timing and attention given Apple security updates - relatively quick and competent.

Not sure I'd agree with that, actually. Apple is generally regarded as being slower than Microsoft at patching problems. According to the MOAB folks the QuickTime HREF universal XSS was patched slowly and then only for MySpace (huh?). Plugin XSS is pretty serious! It's possible they got better, but according to this study from 2006 it took them 91 days on average to fix known exploits.

IIRC nearly a third of their "Apple Bugs" are 3rd party problems to begin with.

Yes, of course, it's silly to call it the "Month of Apple Bugs" when they are also reporting exploits in third party software. Unfortunately, it's also understandable - the fact that many security problems in Windows are caused by third party software does not stop people blaming Microsoft for the insecurity of the Windows platform. Given that quite a few of these third party exploits are privilege escalation (eg instant root), it is Apples problem. If third party devs cannot write secure code then they'll end up in the same situation as Windows - and it seems they can't write secure code (no surprises here). Apple are already being targetted by attackers.

MOAB are still flaming Apple Inc., Apple users, and anyone else who critiques their methods, and it's gotten personal and insulting. They come out swinging their fists at the Apple community, then cry foul because someone hits back.

I quite agree that these "Month of X bugs" things seem to be quite irresponsible and even immature. I'm not sure what the point of them is, except to make a bad situation worse.

I figure I could get say, $100,000 consulting fee out of it, right? And it'd be well worth it to any company planning to introduce a really retarded DRM scheme.

Remember SunComm, which saw its stock price fall by $10million when someone figured out they could bypass its DRM by holding down the shift key? http://news.com.com/2100-1025-5089168.html If only they'd hired a geek to give it the idiot test...

Intel is years behind in this market. And they tried this once before, with dismal results: http://news.com.com/Intel+retreats+from+graphics+c hips/2100-1001_3-230019.html

If anything the graphics market has gotten even more specialized since then. I don't know why they think they can succeed this time.

It's not Applae's fault the the PC world decided to spite them by twisting USB into a system it was never designed to do.

Yeah - it's not like Apple tried to licence the firewire port at $1 a port or anything like that: http://news.com.com/Apple+licensing+FireWire+for+a +fee/2100-1040_3-220209.html

Oh, wait...

You won't get one because such a thing does not exist, unless you're an enterprise user prone to heavy data processing (only a certain type of which benefits from the increased word size).

As we've seen in the past with "the world's fastest, most powerful personal computer", when apple promises you performance increases, get wary.

Pixar doesn't render their movies on Macs or Windows PCs. Wanna take a wild guess what they use? Same goes for ILM. Linkie. So yeah, take your uninformed opinions and shove them.

Actually, the state of Indiana has already begun a plan to revamp its 911 networks and allow citizens to transmit images wirelessly to emergency responders.

Actually, the state of Indiana has already begun a plan to revamp its 911 networks and allow citizens to transmit images wirelessly to emergency responders.

In reference to your assertion of cranial-rectal immersion, the Republicants (spelling error mine) happened to have the power, and thus the ability to be ruthless with it, which they undeniably did. As for the Democrats, it's difficult to abuse power that you don't have. But now that the Democrats have the power, they are already moving to abuse it.

In other words, don't be a shill for a particular party. They both suck and neither cares about your rights.

"It would be like the Beatles who simply refuse to permit distribution in any format except physical albums in either LP or Compact Cassette."
I have seen and heard Beatles Compact Discs. (And I have heard of Beatles quasi-CDs.)
I have seen and heard Beatles music on DVD. I believe that's another format.
There are now hot rumors that Apple Records will finally release Beatles music in digital form.
http://news.com.com/2061-10793_3-6150862.html?part =rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subject=news
http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/01/applebeatles_d e.html
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/200 7/01/15/daily57.html
The digital Beatles tracks will be sold at the iTunes Store. That will hurt Microsoft further.