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Last month, the U.S. District Court jurist in Washington suggested barring Microsoft from making vaporware announcements because doing so can allegedly freeze the market and discourage buyers from purchasing competing products.

OpenBSD is a vital project that is lead by an amateur. OpenBSD had a sugardaddy in Darpa, but apparently offended them with negative comments. My question, who does he think will be most interested in his super secure OS?

I learned I was fired from a press release

Dan Geer, former CTO @stake Inc. - Sep 25 2003

Anyone hacking a computer could be punished with 10 years' imprisonment under new laws.

So we are to assume that the UK will send in 007 to extract and/or annihilate the hackers from China?


P.S. That would be " years " not " years' "

...http://www.kickassgear.com/Articles/Microsoft.h tm>"limiting the scope" of a given product.

And, we know where that ended up, don't we?

Simply put, limiting the scope in this manner is highly bogus- no matter HOW you slice it. And,like you said, it's stupid and serves no purpose other than to alienate your customers, esp. in this day and age. MS got away with their little impropriety because they did it before the Internet got prevalent; nowadays, word gets around a LOT quicker.

The judge could also set aside the jury verdict, since the patents are invalid, but still award huge sums of money to NTP just to punish RIM for lying in court.

It looks to me like the judge is the main fraudster in all of this. Apparently, the judge threw a fit because somebody noticed a 1990's file date in directory where supposedly 1980 software was being run for a prior art demonstration. Wellll, this sort of thing makes great theater, but it does not make sound law when you consider that the 1980's software was in fact able to do exactly what RIM said it would, and as proof of that, the patents have in fact been invalidated via that prior art. Somehow the judge twisted that all into a travesty of due process.

RIM's appeal of the initial case argued that the judge's decision to throw out the demonstration was "an abuse of discretion" since TekNow clearly had software for SAM from the 1980s and that the post-1991 directory dates of the demonstration software "occurred merely because TekNow's license-protection software automatically updates the directory dates with each new installation of the SAM software... RIM was able to successfully run the demonstration after the trial with 1980s software and provide evidence of prior art.

Throw the idiot judge in jail and throw away the key, I say. This judge is a menace to the rule of law.

http://www.computerworld.com/mobiletopics/mobile/s tory/0,10801,108094,00.html

If you're going to enforce the law, ENFORCE THE FUCKING LAW!! Don't make exceptions for government panseys who feel their operations will be hurt (oh, like other people aren't hurt? or are you special?) if Blackberry does get shut down.

Does "a government for the people, by the people" ring any LIBERTY BELLS?

Anyone who believes that IDC isn't a Microsoft lapdog is sans clue and should be ignored. Obviously you sit in that camp. A 5 second trip to google and searching for "Microsoft funded IDC survey" yields 161,000 hits. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Microsoft+fun ded+IDC+survey History does not lie in this case. Anything from IDC which both touts Microsoft as a leader over *NIX and then espoused immediately by Microsoft has historically been funded by Microsoft. If you consider that bat guano, then so be it. Arguing against the facts is pointless and assinine. Just a sampling. http://www.daynesoftasia.com/English/NewEvents/THR EE.htm "The report has cast serious doubts on the Microsoft-funded TCO study undertaken by IDC" http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalCon tent/0,289142,sid39_gci885961,00.html "A Microsoft-funded IDC report that claims that the Linux TCO is 13% higher than an equivalent MS Windows solution" http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php?id=14493 08906&fp=16&fpid=0 "The Yankee survey is just the latest to compare the TCO (total cost of ownership) of Windows and Linux, but is the first (unlike those from Jupiter Research Inc., Forrester and IDC) that have not been requested and funded by Microsoft." http://www.wininsider.com/news/?8861 "The Microsoft Partner Program got high marks from industry analysts at IDC in a recent survey comparing the channel programs of 25 top software vendors." http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/outs ourcing/itservices/story/0,10801,85963,00.html "Last month, some IT professionals reacted angrily to a Microsoft-funded report released by Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc. that concluded that developing and deploying Web-based portal applications is substantially less expensive using Microsoft technology than it is using a Linux/J2EE combination [QuickLink 41320]."

Fire 2

Fire 3

Pick the one you like - I've got more!

So we'll just ignore that the iPod is one of the most successful consumer products ever [...]

I agree that the iPod has been successful. However, some people seem to overestimate the number of units actually sold.

The iPod has currently sold 42 million units. For comparison, the Nokia 3310 cellphone has sold over 100 million units. The total market for cellphones in 2005 was 800 million units of which Nokia sold 265 million.

There's an old ComputerWorld story that highlights how Wal-Mart was able to revamp their supply chain by essentially opening up their inventory and sales information down to the individual item. Combine this with their RFID initiative and they've also got a better way to track back room shrinkage in addition to a much more efficient mechanism for tracking individual items than scanning pallet barcodes ..

As for delivery, take a look at this Frontline PBS special .. I think you'll find a similar model in many of the large IT houses and how they're farming out labor costs associated with various code bases (both open and closed source) .. another chapter in the hands that built america ..

http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2005/0,4814 ,98984,00.html


Lawsuit Reveals an Open BlackBerry
Canadian bank submits intercepted PIN messages as evidence against ex-execs

News Story by Jaikumar Vijayan

JANUARY 17, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Private messages exchanged using corporate BlackBerry wireless devices may not be quite so private after all. In fact, even the so-called PIN messages that many users thought were untraceable can be logged.
The lack of BlackBerry privacy became clear in a lawsuit filed in Toronto last week by Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). The bank submitted scores of BlackBerry e-mails and PIN messages as evidence that several former executives took confidential information from the company and tried to recruit others while they were still employees of the bank.

If anyone doesn't see this as a "tactic," either he/she is blinded by too much press release from RIM or public opinion. Why is not RIM's, but NTP's patents being reviewed? Where is fair comparison by USPTO?

Should Canadian patent office review RIM's patents? I highly doubt that will ever happen. Who's looking out for US companies from being sued by foreign companies with shady patents being filed in foreign soil? How about comparing the patent infringement lawsuits filed by NTP and RIM? How many lawsuits did RIM file against US companies? How many lawsuits did NTP file against ANY companies?

So who are we to say, you can't file a lawsuit while other companies like RIM with market power can? Isn't it easier for RIM to wipe out smaller competitions with multimillion dollar legal war chest and political lobbyists? So if I patented something, but with limited investment and just enough money to make few prototypes, am I not an individual with IP (intellectual property) who's willing to find bigger companies to license and/or buy out my patent? Companies like Microsoft and RIM, decides to grossly ignore my patent, copys it, implements it, and profits from it, I suddenly become someone who files "frivolous" lawsuit and stifle innovation?

Only way this can be fair, Canadian Patent Office should review all RIM's filed patents and give non-final rejection as well. If NTP's patents are so shady and obvious, what is so NOT obvious and shady about RIM's patents? What innovation did RIM stifle with its QWERTY keyboard lawsuits? How can RIM think that it can get away with infringing Eatoni Ergonomics Inc. patents? http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardwa re/story/0,10801,104664,00.html Is Eatoni Ergonomics also like NTP, a patent troll filing "frivolous" lawsuit and stifle innovation?

RIM stifles innovation by stealing and dening rightful claims of other's hard work and research. RIM is the true patent troll here. Lets get that straight.

"To keep costs down and make it more durable, the laptop will eschew a hard drive in favor of 1GB of flash memory, on which the operating system, other software and all local data must be stored.

"The laptop is also likely to sport a low-power 500-MHz processor, 128MB of DRAM, a wireless broadband chip, a two-mode display that will alternate between a color mode suitable for watching DVDs and a black-and-white reflective one that will boost resolution three times and be viewable under sunlight. Finally, the laptop will be powered by a battery and a wind-up electrical generator -- an effort to overcome the primitive infrastructure of the developing nations in which the laptops are expected to be used."

Seriously, I'd like to get one for $200US or so and let them donate the excess to the cause.

MjM

Something about how commercial software was superior to Free Software because it indemnified users against patent infringment?

So much for that argument!

Congratulations, a company who wins millions of dollars has bought your opinion and mind and free advertising force for a CPU which costs 40 dollars to produce (give/take 10 dollars for amd). In fact they may have given you one of those CPUs that doesn't pass all the quality tests.

The point of hacking people's journals is Astroturfing and Google page rank modification. If you did it right, you could create a false sense of community trust or like of your product and the blog owner would never know. Companies that forge letters from dead people on their behalf, invent "apple switchers" and pay students to talk to strangers about product and pressure their professors are all over that kind of thing. Companies like Microsoft have long focused on pleasing "decision makers" as a means of selling more of their junk. Haven't you noticed the crapflood of M$ apologists here on Slashdot?

Deceptive techniques like this invariably backfire. A crap flood here on Slashdot filled with praise of XP was the last time I took any praise of anything Microsoft seriously. I read comment after comment of +5 informative drivel that mirrored M$ marketing I would hear elsewhere later, "It's based on the NT kernel so it's solid ..." and other better tempered bullshit. Five years later, we see that it was no more stable than any other M$ junk, has a 12 minute half life on any network, and that it did little more than force people to buy new hardware to get the same old things done. There are countless other examples of bogus praise M$ has bought here in one way or another. The net result of this kind of bullshit is for me to not trust anything positive I hear about anything M$.

I agree with this assesment. It reminds me of this basic flaw in 802.11-A wireless. It's not a buffer overflow bug or other coding problem, it's just the nature of a metafile.
But's since it's a Windows metafile, they really can't blame this one someone else.

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/holes/story/0,10801,98920,00.html

Idiot

The site used digital certs to protect authentication, so it wasn't amtter of the wrong users getting in. But once inside, clearly there's a problem with access rights (the app probably accessed all records as privleged user) and coding.

Roll your eyes all you want but not all of us forget the past and curent practices of MS.
MS restrictions did not cover every piece of software and every licensee but it was a common practice and still would be today if it had not have been specifically restricted by the DOJ. Do you really think MS would have had a change of heart on their own?

Here is a clip from Computerworld

Microsoft today said that it built a clause into the recent licensing changes that forces PC makers to include the MSN icon alongside any third-party ones. Varma said that requirement was just an extension of a 6-year-old contract Microsoft's hardware partners are required to sign.

Another link here

The MSN icon issue referenced above was one that recieved the most attention but the licenses restricted the changes and software third parties could add.
The plans of preventing unwanted third party apps and icons was going full speed ahead until this:

Here is the actual ruling sent down from the district court regarding this issue, search or go to "C. Microsoft shall not restrict by agreement any OEM licensee from exercising any of the following options or alternatives:" in that page if you do not want to read the whole thing.

I guess you have not followed the issues in Europe with the bundling of MS Media Player and lack of choice by vendors either have you? Here are some links.

In a perfect world, yes. But in this one, people even leave their Electric Bong directly connected to the internet. (So they can switch the bong off remotely while having an out-of-body experience??)

Or in Pete's office, they say 'launch' a campaign.

Good luck Pete, nobody in their right mind wants the incumbent Senator Orrin Hatch who once advocated putting malware on people's computers in order to stop them from downloading songs.
See: http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/cybercrime/story/0,10801,82317,00.html

Note to Motorola's CEO:

Maybe publicly trashing your software partner's flagship product isn't the greatest idea. (Especially when Steve Jobs is involved.)

Just a thought.

Throw in multiple reflections (the typical way your signal gets to you) and you don't have "tracking" in the sort of sense that GPS does - so stop going on about it a if it does.

Network positioning through triangulation and signal strength was good enough to locate phones to within 100 mteres using ad-hoc gear five years ago. http://www.computerworld.com/mobiletopics/mobile/s tory/0,10801,64057,00.html

With better equipment and techniques, there's no reason that couldn't be improved, and while it won't be pinpoint, it will be near enough to cause privacy concerns.

Only very recently has Apple's "resurgence" manifested itself in higher-than-market sales growth. The Ars article apparently doesn't include that data.

Apple desktop market share on the rise; will the Mac mini, iPod help?

http://www.computerworld.com/news/2000/story/0,112 80,51168,00.html

"A good idea is no match for a bad habit."

"Ninety percent of a system's cost is still training people to use it."

"Old ideas got that way because they proved useful."

"Data isn't information. Information isn't knowledge. Knowledge isn't manageable."

"Systems aren't made from metaphors, paradigms and methodologies. They're made from code, wires and hardware."

Gnome's problem is that, well, they don't have a usable interface design to stick with in the first place. This goes back as far as 2000 - "systems administrators still struggle to install applications on Linux and that antiquated versions of Gnome, a graphical-oriented user interface for the operating system, continue to ship with different distributions of Linux" "http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/st ory/0,10801,54030,00.html"

• TFA says WiMedia hope the IEEE will back off UWB standard setting
• ECMA has rubberstamped one company's technology, to the possible exclusion of other worthy efforts
• ECMA's fast track to ISO means international standards may mandate technology protected by US patent law

Meh.

The U.S. military's existing branches should stick to what they are good at. Meatspace combat. Why should their missions be diversified like that? Setup a new division, or retool an existing organization (NSA). The NSA, god knows, has quite a bit of sophistication when it comes to network security. I've read their cybersecurity articles, the stuff they release for 'civilians techies', and its good stuff.

The Airforce's track record is not good.

Hmm.. Can't figure out why the links for the words 'http://www.hackinthebox.org/modules.php?op=modloa d&name=News&file=article&sid=13255&mode=thread&ord er=0&thold=0 is' and 'http://www.g4tv.com/techtvvault/features/25532/Fi ring_and_Hiring_Hackers.html good' don't show up.

Dumped to China ?

It's not the complete take-down of the USA's electronic infrastructure that should worry you. After all, that would hurt everyone. This is what's more realistic:

Titan Rain was covered on slashdot before, but the linked Time article has since gone premium. A quick google search brings up this and this, though I'm not sure how reliable they are since they're random Google search results.

Ah, here's a ZDnet article. Might not all be FUD.

Here's a short summary without the depth of the IEEE article.

Furthermore, it is emerging that the version of Windows CE used by Diebold is both heavily customized and full of dynamically loaded libraries. As a result, there are strong grounds for the conclusion that the operating system is not unmodified commercial off the shelf software (COTS), and that with this extensive use of dynamic linkage, we cannot even tell if the system being run on a particular voting machine resembles the system that was disclosed in the configuration documents submitted with this system when it went through the FEC/NASED approval process. http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/dieboldftp.h tml

Diebold and other ATM vendors say they're "hardening" the installations of Windows they ship with their ATMs by disabling unnecessary services and ports and removing files that support peripherals http://www.computerworld.com/networkingtopics/netw orking/story/0,10801,89119,00.html

Diebold patched the Windows CE operating system in Georgia:"Williams does acknowledge, however, that a month and a half before the November election, he worked with Diebold to apply a patch to the Windows CE operating system. The voting machines run on version 3.0 of Windows CE, he said, and they patched it to correct problems they were having with the system" http://www.votescam.com/Patchelections.php More about how we beat Diebold and the fight for Verified Voting in North Carolina here at http://www.ncvoter.net/
And much thanks owed to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for representing us in this case. http://www.eff.org/

Last week's revelation by Diebold Inc. that its automated teller machines operated by two financial services customers were struck by the W32/Nachi worm raises the specter of even wider disruptions from virus and worm outbreaks and highlights a growing security concern that cash machines running Windows XP and interacting with other Windows systems are vulnerable to attack. ...
The security problems on ATM networks come as many banks worldwide are migrating off of an older generation of machines using IBM's OS/2 operating system to new systems running Windows.

I like the part where the discs are going to retail for $100 each. The 1.6TB potential might make it worth it though.

Since most of the orginal article is unintelligible, here's is ComputerWorld's look at the same report. http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardwa re/server/story/0,10801,106500,00.html

The key phrase to google is "disruptive technology". Clayton Christensen is the expert on the topic.

this isn't one of those lightning-fast internet worms; this one has been spreading since mid-2004. Because it spread through infected CDs, not through internet connections, they didn't notice?

On Friday, the Milan-based (Association for Freedom in Electronic Interactive Communications - Electronic Frontiers Italy) filed a complaint about Sony's software with the head of Italy's cybercrime investigation unit...

The complaint alleges that XCP violates a number of Italy's computer security laws by causing damage to users' systems and by acting in the same way as malicious software, according to Andrea Monti, chairman of the ALCEI-EFI. "What Sony did qualifies as a criminal offense under Italian law,"

It's widely published that legal actions have begun in California, New York, and Italy. The Italian situation is not just some class-action lawsuit. A complaint was filed with a criminal investigation unit last Friday.

"The complaint alleges that XCP violates a number of Italy's computer security laws by causing damage to users' systems and by acting in the same way as malicious software, according to Andrea Monti, chairman of the ALCEI-EFI. "What Sony did qualifies as a criminal offense under Italian law," he said in an e-mail interview.

Should police determine that a crime has been committed, prosecutors will be required to begin criminal proceedings against Sony, Monti said."

Sony has declined to comment.

From:
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/story/0,10801,106064,00.html?source=NLT_PM&nid= 106064

So is SHA1 the recommended alternative?

No, see:

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/story/0,10801,99852,00.html

and

http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/softwa re/story/0,10801,105875,00.html

I like this quote:

"SHA-1 is a wounded fish in shark-infested waters, but I'm more worried about MD5 because it's used everywhere," said Niels Ferguson, a cryptographer at Microsoft Corp. "Try to switch away from SHA-1 as quickly as you can, but switch away from MD5 first," he said when asked what recommendations he has regarding the algorithms during a panel discussion at the conference.

So is SHA1 the recommended alternative?

No, see:

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/story/0,10801,99852,00.html

and

http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/softwa re/story/0,10801,105875,00.html

I like this quote:

"SHA-1 is a wounded fish in shark-infested waters, but I'm more worried about MD5 because it's used everywhere," said Niels Ferguson, a cryptographer at Microsoft Corp. "Try to switch away from SHA-1 as quickly as you can, but switch away from MD5 first," he said when asked what recommendations he has regarding the algorithms during a panel discussion at the conference.

Saying "I can provide real and reliable sources" without actually doing so is just as dodgy, maybe even more so, than not talking about reliable sources at all.

Well... this was in Computerworld today:

GAO: Navy sinks $1B into failed ERP pilot projects

Guess who is their supplier? :-D

My company is due to migrate to SAP in two years. Should I look for another job?

Arkansas set to pull the plug on ERP-driven budgeting approach State moves to scrap 'performance-based' methodology; lawsuit continues against SAP over initial software rollout http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/erp/st ory/0,10801,99578,00.html/

I thought i was going crazy and had mad psychic powers of precognition...

But really i had just read this last week.

[...] it could just be they have reached some kind of tipping point where they believe that Linux now is a viable alternative to MS where they didn't previously.

Maybe after seeing that Linux can scale to 1024 processors that it can scale to 32 processors on their systems. I'd like to see Windows "Enterprise" Foo do that.

History would prove you wrong. People were choosing Win3x and Win95 over Apple from the late 80's to the mid 90's. Apple still had all the features you mention while Windows just plain sucked. Why did they choose Windows?

Because of cost. I can go out and buy a decent Naked PC http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/win dows/story/0,10801,60253,00.html for two hundred dollars, slap Linux on it and have a boatload of applications. You can't do that with Apple (or Microsoft).

Note that I own three Apple Macs and still prefer Linux.
Just my opinion, enjoy.

Hardly - you've mixed them up with Arthur Andersen.

PwC actually benefited from the Enron scandle, in that it picked up some of the now defunct Andersen's practice. Furthur, PwC split off their consulting biz and sold it to IBM. http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/outs ourcing/story/0,10801,70769,00.html

http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/ labor/story/0,10801,105645,00.html

Your government at work... for Microsoft.