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They all send clear text via a huge US backbone.
Most telcos peer with US telcos at some point or US friendly telcos with back rooms, or US bases with deep taps.
**Anyone** can run Tor and just log away at IM and mail.
Flash leaks and many strange scripts, get devs out of jail free code might be hidden in Tor.
A knock on the door, user X is evil, show him/her, next time they come on, a real IP leaks.
eg http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12691-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=31021&messageID=574848&start=-1

>Remember, MS can void its "promises" over .NET at any moment, the EEE is is progressing well.

No, they can't. If you make a "promise" that causes someone else to take an action, it's the same as having a contract and you can be sued.

Yes they can, there's a loophole, the promises only apply while they hold the patent, they don't apply if they sell them to some one else like a split company a puppet think tank or a patent troll.

And there is precedent of MS attempting to do just this. http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=4800

Did a quick google for "OS X Malware" and number 3 on the list was this. Please go do some reading little fanboy and leave us adults in peace.

Just ranked dead last in customer satisfaction by Consumer Reports, AT&T also illegally spied on American citizens and then successfully lobbied to get themselves retroactive immunity. Not only will they not be punished, but no one will ever find out the extent of their crimes. Technicians have stumbled into secret rooms used to "shunt its customers' Internet traffic to data-mining equipment" for the NSA.

And don't believe bloated Luke Wilson--many iPhone users I know tell me they have shitty GSM coverage.

Meanwhile, Time Magazine just called the Verizon Droid phone the top gadget of the year and Droid has been rooted, so you know it won't be long before a custom ROM comes our way.

And now AT&T wants to charge for usage? Well, their exclusive contract is almost over with Apple. And if you ask me, not a moment too soon.

and dont engage in illegal practices

brian reid would have a different view from you, I think.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-137384.html
http://public.getlegal.com/articles/cultural-fit
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9792046-7.html

from what I've read of the case, it sure seemed illegal to me. I've been in that situation before, myself (age discrimination) and it SUCKS. very shameful for google to do that.

google has done evil and they have lost all their 'shine' when they pull crap like this.

read that and then tell me google is 'all wonderful'.

(sigh)

> ChromeOS is a good, fairly simple example of how to do away with malware (ONCE AND FOR ALL

Hmmm. The Chrome browser already had it's share of vulnerabilities. It sounds like you are claiming that by wrapping it in a new OS this suddenly no longer can or will happen.

On top of that, no matter how good the OS might be that they started with, they are turning it upside down and inside out which I think will not improve initial quality or security either.

And think of this: If there ever will be a keylogger for ChromeOS it will be as profitable as with any other OS. Or even more profitable, because every action logged is web-related and therefore possibly exploitable, whereas on a regular OS my days worth of local Photoshop work and editing my thesis are useless crap for a logger to ignore while looking for the good stuff.


I will certainly give ChromeOS a try, but it will not be for the reasons that you mention.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-132934.html

"When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored. After "vehicle recovery mode" was disabled, the court said, passengers were notified by the radio displaying an alert and, if the radio was not on, the system beeping."

GSM phones can be turned on remotely by a probe from the network by a qualified entity[1]. Your phone isn't communicating to the cell towers when it's off, this is very much true. However, it just takes someone in the government high enough up the food chain and a judge's okay to boot up your phone.

I really wouldn't worry about it unless you're a mobster, an agent for a foreign government, or a terrorist, but they definitely have the capability to be rather scary, which is precisely why those latter entities have moved on to "burn phones" and older, more reliable methods of message passing.

Ah. But I didn't actually see a part in the article that says they can turn the phone on when it is powered off - it says they do an over-the-air firmware update that includes an ability for to remotely initiate a call on the phone without indicating that to the user.

Though they do mention that the only way to be sure is to remove the battery, so maybe the modified firmware also changes the power-off behavior to prevent the radio from fully shutting off.

Interesting though.
-Taylor

GSM phones can be turned on remotely by a probe from the network by a qualified entity[1]. Your phone isn't communicating to the cell towers when it's off, this is very much true. However, it just takes someone in the government high enough up the food chain and a judge's okay to boot up your phone.

I really wouldn't worry about it unless you're a mobster, an agent for a foreign government, or a terrorist, but they definitely have the capability to be rather scary, which is precisely why those latter entities have moved on to "burn phones" and older, more reliable methods of message passing.

Manufacturers who still sell XP are also probably getting them dirt-cheap now. The blog post linked in summary is from 2006, before Vista and way before Windows 7...

Google really has thought of everything.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9937

They're building self-sustaining floating data centers. Initially they are designed to operate 7 miles off shore. However, if there is a legal problem with a country trying to assert itself over Google, Google could simply move the barge into international waters.

That's silly. ACID shows if something works or not. Benchmarks are speed tests that can be wildly inaccurate compared to real world testing. I mean it isn't like browsers are faking it (btw this is my browser: http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/acid3-465.png .. unlike most browsers its not en executable, just open it in any image viewing app) as graphics card companies have.

I don't think 100% is necessary mind you. I do think a passing grade is a good thing.

I strongly agree with what Google had to say on that at one point. A virtual browser would only be security through obscurity:

"Virtual machines are sometimes thought of as impenetrable barriers between the guest and host, but in reality they're usually just another layer of software between you and the attacker. As with any complex application, it would be naive to think such a large codebase could be written without some serious bugs creeping in. If any of those bugs are exploitable, attackers restricted to the guest could potentially break out onto the host machine." - http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro-markets/?p=1454

pretty pricey solution, buy a $1000 mac for them, when it would accomplish the same to just stick a ubuntu CD into the drive? He's not saying they need all the features of a MAC, I mean MAC's are good at many things, but as much as I hate MS, it's going to be hard to claim any new computer (say a $300 windows 7 or linux netbook) would be just as safe of a net browsing PC as a $1000 MAC ( macbook is not any more immune to stupid web browsing.)

This was a pretty stupid move on Intel's part, they didn't even need to act in this way because they seem to have really pegged the market precisely in going after the performance/efficiency angle with that last few years worth of chips. I should know, I was an AMD fan throughout the late 90s and early 00s but for my newest PC I went with an Intel Core Duo2 because they really are that great in terms of speed versus power consumption. Not to mention that during AMD's disaster with their Barcelona quad core chips, there really wasn't any choice for awhile for quad core chips except for Intel. Most of the dates in TFA are from 2003-2006, I suppose those were really sort of dark years for Intel in that it seemed like AMD was gaining ground and their chips were cheaper for the same performance, but now Intel's latest are really quite good.

Sorry, here is an example of the sort of confused logic--units is the only measure of success? really?

OK. If there's no "in the wild" viruses for OSX, then why does snow leopard have malware protection built in now?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=4767

Besides, it would hurt their virus scanner market share.

Oh, right. It'd eat into the market share of their free product. Windows Live Onecare, you say? Discontinued.

I'm not sure if this is true because I stopped using pirated copies of XP long before WGA came out, but it looks as though you can continue to receive updates via Automatic Updates even if you decline to use WGA.

True. WGA is only required to use the "windows update" activeX functionality in IE which makes it quick & easy to download patches.

You can also download the actual patches (self-extracting .exe files containing a .msi file) from Microsoft's website. Those of us who prepare slipstreamed versions of windows with all the patches integrated will download the actual patches.

I think the more likely scenario is that many people disable automatic updates because they are either oblivious to updating software, don't care about updates, or are afraid their software is going to become disabled if it tries to phone home.

Or, some of us have experienced Microsoft patches that break things. I remember the windows 2000 service pack 4 rollup that would (under rare circumstances) render a computer unbootable. Three of our servers were affected (yes, we had backups, so it wasn't that bad, but it was quite a hassle).

Always test patches before deploying to production systems! And even then, you might miss something, like VMware having a bug that would only appear after Aug 12.

According to this Article, the latest version of OSX would cost $545 American dollars based on the cost of upgrading from Jaguar to Leopard (adding the additional 29 bucks for Snow Leopard).

A fully-featured standalone OSX release should be around $300 to be competitive. That would kill Win Se7en.

I ordered a new system based on an Intel CORE i5 750 2.66GHZ CPU running on the Asus Xtreme Design P7P55D-E Premium w/8 GB DDR3 1333 Mhz ram two days ago, and have been monitoring the net for signs of this mobo to actually hit the shelves. I will be running this with an unremarkable 64 GB Patriot SDD as the boot drive, until the new SATA 6 Gbps SSDs come out - which could take a awhile I imagine. I expect blazing speed from this platform, and can hardly wait for it. The only unknown is when will the mobo arrive. If it drags on and on, at least there is the option of an add on card that will convert one of the other ASUS X58 boards to USB 3 & SATA 6. I just hope I haven't made a mistake with the decision to wait. The P7P55D-E Premium motherboard will retail for $299 while the U3S6 add-on card will be $29.

Here are a host of links I collected on it this morning...

Asus Unveils USB 3.0 Motherboard
Asus Xtreme Design P7P55D-E Premium
The motherboard, unveiled Wednesday [October 28 2009], is 4.8 inches by 3 inches and is scheduled to be available next month for $299.

October 30th, 2009
USB 3.0 and SATA 6G Performance Preview - ASUS brings the goods
the P55-Express based P7P55D-E Premium is very close to hitting the market.

October 29th, 2009
USB 3.0 and SATA 6G Performance Preview

October 29th, 2009
This Is The First USB 3.0 Motherboard

October 28th, 2009
ASUS debuts USB 3.0 motherboard and add-on card
The P7P55D-E Premium motherboard will retail for $299 while the U3S6 add-on card will be $29. Both will be available November.

October 28th, 2009
ASUS brings the first mobo with SATA 3 and USB 3

October 28th, 2009
ASUS P7P55D-E Motherboard Offers USB 3.0 and SATA-III 6G Performance
North American Availability
The P7P55D-E Premium and U3S6 expansion cards will be available at ASUS authorized retailers early November at $299 and $29 respectively.

Considering how trivial it is to open a letter, I would think that the only really analagous situation would be if you ROT-13'ed (or some other trivial cipher) your email.

Remember that for the purposes of DMCA, ROT13 is "effective" encryption.

So, if you sent all your emails in ROT-13, would that be private?

And even on ordinary DSL modems and routers

Joanna Rutkowska is semi-hot!

There, fixed that for you.

Joanna Rutkowska is hot!

This is a bit OT (as it has nothing to do with Monty), but I just read this:

Software freedom activist Richard Stallman and others are trying to block Oracle’s acquisition of MySQL. Why? Because MySQL is covered by the GNU Public License (GPL), and the purchase has exposed a flaw in the GPL that Stallman says will cause a “major setback” to the development of the free database if the acquisition is allowed to go through.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=1426&tag=content;col1

Will this impact the 'Yes' camp in any way?

Continuing with more evidence that all this and more has "come to pass":
Vonage and other VoIP providers had more than one ISP prevent customers from receiving the services they were paying for until the government stepped in.
BT replacing charities' web advertisements with their own. Charities! Why don't they just eat warm puppies fresh from the oven while they're at it? The least they could have done was replace those "punch the monkey" ads or seizure inducing "you've won!" ads.

Microsoft have been working with the Samba folks for some time. I suspect this is more to shut the EU up than because they really want to, but if that's their purpose then starting to enforce patents against the Samba team would almost certainly be a most efficient foot-shooting exercise.

If I am being perfectly honest, the only frustration (and I'm sure it's got more to do with a lack of resources than a lack of talent - Samba probably needs about four times as many developers who know the protocol backwards and inside out, problem is most of them probably work for Microsoft) is the glacial speed this is all moving at. AD was introduced with Windows 2000, the Samba team have been working on getting Samba 4 out for years and it's still only alpha code. Frankly, only being able to provide something equivalent to an NT4 domain looked quaint four years ago. Today it's downright embarrassing for anyone claiming that F/OSS is functionally equivalent to Active Directory.

(note to F/OSS advocacy trolls: I am well aware that AD is little more than LDAP/Kerberos under the hood. When you compose your flames, perhaps you would be so good as to explain exactly how one can manage a network full of Windows workstations with the level of control AD policies offer using nothing but F/OSS software which has reached a reasonable level of stability. NT4 policies are a pretty lousy substitute.)

http://government.zdnet.com/?p=5547

"A large scale trading system like this one is one of those circumstances."

No, the circumstances which I refer are very specific, and are not circumstances that can be easily determined and made use of for a whole system, particularly of this size. An example of the circumstances to which I refer are extremely small programs, where the JVM/CLR startup time will lose the fight for Java/.NET, however this has no bearing on performance once they have started up, and for a system like this that runs continuously that is far, far more important than a few milliseconds of additional startup time.

It's often cited that there's little point hand optimising nowadays because compilers do a better job of it than 99% of programmers could anyway. This is a fair point, but it's even more relevant with interpreted/JIT compiled languages like Java and the .NET family. Why? Because a VM can perform this kind of optimisation at runtime where relevant and required, it can do it based on the data the system has to handle in the real world. You cannot do that with a compiled language when you do not know the data conditions you will have to handle at the time, but again, if you really, really can be sure you can do it better, just implement that section in unmanaged assembly. If you're interested in reading more about Java in particular in high performance computing, there's a decent paper here if you can be bothered to register an account:

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=391266

There is really nothing about Java or .NET that prevents them from solving this particular application, again, the only barrier is developer competence. It is of course worth noting that developer competence is very much a concern with C++ too because there is more room for error, and more scope for damage when you put a bad programmer in front of C++.

Of course, I am not arguing that C++ no longer has a place, it certainly does- the additional memory footprint of Java/.NET is a concern for high performance embedded devices for example. Consoles are also a good example because it's really the only language available that is common to multiple platforms such as the PS2, PS3, 360 and Wii and also these platforms still rely more heavily on manual optimization due to their unique architectures. I'm still very fond of C++, but what I'm not fond of are people who have a fixed outdated view on languages and their usefulness in particular settings. Like it or not, in the last 10 years, the areas where C++ is the best tool for the job have rapidly diminished. Enterprise applications and HPC is one area where C++ no longer holds any real discernible advantage.

"Clearly in this case the optimizations weren't sufficient."

For what it's worth, the speed issue does not seem to have been the reason for the switch, although the new system is faster they cite costs and control as the key reasons for the change and do not suggest that performance was a reason for change, only a benefit of change. Your assertion that the optimisations weren't sufficient, assuming much optmimisation was even done isn't true.

People are asking, "How could Microsoft, with all its wealth and power, produce such a stupid series of ads?"

Because they're smarter than you?

--Because they have enough wealth and power to hire one of the smartest public relations firms on the planet. Waggener Edstrom is the same firm in charge of the Fox Channels. If there's any one thing they know how to do, it's identify a market and then lock down that market forever and ever and sell them whatever the hell 'truth' they feel like selling.

Here's a small clip from a page I found after about 10 seconds of Google searching. . .

"Microsoft's primary public-relations firm, Waggener Edstrom.

Like many tech PR firms, WaggEd also monitors religiously Twitter trends involving its biggest client. On March 11, WaggEd went beyond simply monitoring tweets: It introduced a beta version of a software tool for monitoring and analyzing them.

Do they sound stupid now?

My guess is that they're doing three things with this ad. . .

1. They're trying to tap into a universal feeling of awkwardness that everybody feels when recalling a "PCP" party. (Parents, Chips and Pop). They're doing this because awkward, painful feelings open up memory centers. Information given during a period of high anxiety gets locked into place in the human mind. This is a well-known and often-used ploy in mind control. The information being served up in these ads is NOT how to run your software or all the features offered by their OS, but that "WINDOWS 7 EXISTS AND IT IS UBIQUITOUS AND YOU, AS A PACK ANIMAL HAD BETTER GET WITH THE PROGRAM OR RISK EXPULSION FROM THE HERD!!!!"

2. Trying to tap into the feeling of safety and love which people also feel when they think of their parents and the silly birthday parties thrown for them when they were little. Why? Because an OS is the bedrock upon which you ground your entire computer existence, --the same way your parents provided the bedrock for your adult behavior sets. You might think your parents were stupid and annoying, and you probably want to deny it, but the truth of the matter is that most people grow up to become their parents.

3. Go viral. --Using such deliberate tactics designed to rope in the lower echelon of geeks, such as stove clocks which are obviously bouncing around 'wrong' in exactly the kind of way geeks like to point out and be "Right" about. Fuck, fuck, FUCK! There's a whole sick cultural system through which people who like computer technology were warped into that "Look! I'm RIGHT!" head-space, and you had better believe that clock "error" was on purpose so as to lock them in. Low-hanging fruit.

So, please, for goodness sake, try to think outside of the bloody box when approaching the toxic waste which is advertising! If you fall for this kind of stupid shit, then you're nothing but slaves who deserve to be used and abused, and you WILL be.

Sorry for the harsh language, but this is important.

-FL

What, the web server with virtually no security vulnerabilities in the last 4 years in the two most recent iterations?

Yeah, demon forbid that get installed.

The last time I checked, IIS 6.0 is considered "in the two most recent iterations".. From earlier this month: http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=4170

Most, yes, but there were a couple leaks (I believe with docs?) that didn't revolve around this.

Anyway, since I've actually been encouraged to do the research, my point can stand without relying on comparison to their security in more long-running products...

flaw flaw flaw. flaw.

Actually, looking over the articles, I believe there are only three distinct flaws reported in this set, but my google search seemed to indicate there are more.

Just considering the companies track record since it seems to apply well with cross-product security. But if you want chrome security flaws. Ok.

As if it weren't muddy enough, apparently Intel is porting Silverlight (not Moonlight, Silverlight) to Moblin.

Every time I think Intel has got it all figured out they pull something like this to remind me that they don't really understand. They're like the 7 year old kid that steals his parents car and drives it 40 miles down the road to buy ice cream, and then tries to pay with lego blocks and a wilted Yugi-oh card. Genius, but misguided genius. They're the RainMan of IT.

Intel, one more time: IT'S A TRAP!. It's always a trap. What are you going to do if this thing is really popular and causes an huge swell of support for your product and puts Silverlight over the adoption knee where it's taking over the world? Do you really think Microsoft won't come out with a Silverlight 6 - Now with No Moblin but enhanced Windows 8 Mobile? Then what? Your name is then mud in consumer electronics - again - because you can't maintain a consistent experience. You guys have been here the whole time. You should know better. Is there no institutional memory in that place? Alzheimer's setting in? What?

Oh, and Miguel de Icaza: Congratulations. You've been had. Again. But then you knew that.

For a while...
Get the Facts: LSE and Microsoft
Unfortunately, I can't find the proud LSE case study on Microsoft's Get the Facts webpage anymore :-(
Strange ;-)

Apache was a stable solution for much longer than IIS - IIS5 was bad in terms of security, among other things

IIS5 and IIS6 still is bad in terms of security. As an aside - Secunia explicitly warns that comparing vulnerability counts will lead to misrepresentation. As I am sure you are aware of.

"Name a current Windows exploit"

The vast majority of CURRENT Windows users are on XP. If you can't find an exploit all on your own, you most likely don't know how to turn your machine off and on. No, you DO NOT get to pick your favorite flavor of Windows, and hold that up for a "standard". You certainly don't pick the OS that almost no one is adopting - huge numbers of people waited for 7 to avoid Vista! (Especially since MS isn't all that concerned about "standards")

As for today's most up-to-date version of Windows - Win7 will most likely be broken real soon. Personally, I'm waiting for the timebomb crack. (What, you didn't think I was going to PAY for it, did you?)

What goes through my head when I write stuff like this? http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=3207 Sometimes I think about other things: http://windows7center.com/news/prepared-for-conficker/
Have they fixed this one yet? http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/04/24/unfixable-windows-7-exploit-created-by-security-experts

What goes through YOUR head when YOU make posts like that?

Oh, how 'bout that IIS? Is Win 7 / Vista secure from IIS?

Don't worry, we'll be seeing more exploits in coming months. ;^)

The whole reason d'atre of The CodePlex Foundation is that it isn't the Free Software Foundation or the Open Inventions Network. Microsoft could have just have easily one of these or similar organizations. But then again they wouldn't be so easy to control - which is the whole point of the exercise. Pollute, extend and embrace Microsoft control of 'open source', and by extension Open Standards. And here's what one of the current members of the board of TCF has to say about his time at the FSF.

"I hope that I can last more on this foundation than I lasted at the FSF, where I was removed by RMS after refusing to be an active part of the campaign to rename Linux as GNU/Linux", Miguel de Icaza

Lets see who else is on the 'open source' CodePlex board: Sam Ramji (Microsoft), Bill Staples (Microsoft), Stephanie Davies Boesch (Microsoft), Miguel de Icaza (Novell), D. Britton Johnston (Microsoft), Shaun Bruce Walker (DotNetNuke) ..

This blog sure has it figured out already .. "There's an old game in politics. If some group is giving you trouble, launch a competing group under your control"

So there you have it, what could be more 'open' than that ... :)

Yes, that's pretty much it. BUT... It's not an entire drive failing that causes the problem, it's a read of a single sector of a drive. Here's a pretty good explanation: http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=162

Are you saying that this Ubuntu can run on a computer without Linux underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ?

That sounds preposterous to me.

If it were true (and I doubt it), then companies would be selling computers with a Ubuntu. This clearly is not happening, so there must be some error in your calculations. I hope you realise that Linux is more than just the kernel ? Its a whole system that runs the computer from start to finish, and that is a very difficult thing to acheive. A lot of people dont realise this.

Linus just spent $9 billion and many years to create Linux, so it does not sound reasonable that some new alternative could just snap into existence overnight like that. It would take billions of dollars and a massive effort to achieve. IBM tried, and spent a huge amount of money developing OS/2 but could never keep up with Linux. Apple tried to create their own system for years, but finally gave up recently and moved to Intel and Linux.

Its just not possible that a freeware like the Ubuntu could be extended to the point where it runs the entire computer fron start to finish, without using some of the more critical parts of Linux. Not possible.

I think you need to re-examine your assumptions.

(This is an adaptation of an original work of art which can be located at http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12355-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=31199&messageID=579806&start=43)

Noscript will not be helpful against malware exploiting bugs in displaying code (png library, video codec, ...). And don't say that won't ever happen. And yes, in principle you can block that, but I guess if you block all videos and images, you might as well just not surf the porn site anyway (or maybe there are ASCII porn pages somewhere?).

You've got to be joking. That article was thoroughly discredited a long time ago.

Read.

This idiocy seems to trace back to a woman who once worked for the Treasury Department and made this claim to a Reuters correspondent at a conference in Riyadh in 2005.

http://threatchaos.com/2009/03/evolution-of-the-cyber-crime-exceeds-drug-trade-meme/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=480

In its PR release, Symantec justifies this claim with a footnote to "Source: US Department of Treasury."

Dr DOS had a genuine incompatibility with Windows 3.1, and, moreover, was a configuration not supported by Microsoft, so the warning was entirely appropriate.

This one, I can prove. Not only that it was not a "genuine" incompatibility -- rather, a manufactured one -- but that management was well aware of what they were doing:

What the [user] is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has bugs, suspect that the problem is DR-DOS and then go out to buy MS-DOS.

So, what's the rationalization for that?

all of them have an alternate interpretation where Microsoft's absolutely worst act is to protect themselves from lawsuits by people using an unsupported configuration of Windows 3.1.

If that was truly the intent, why obfuscate the code in question, and why not actually report the problem outright -- that it was explicitly checking for MS-DOS?

Ballmer? Or your crazy exaggerated caricature of Ballmer?

Ballmer is enough of a caricature onstage, without any help from me, but that's beside the point.

I said, specifically, that he "wouldn't be the first" -- that is, whether he's doing this or not, it's not as if no one else has ever fit that profile in history.

And it's actually run by Illuminati lizardmen who have tunnels from DC all the way to Area 51 in Nevada

You have a serious problem with critical thinking if you can't see why an entirely different species which has never been seen isn't even in the same category as a corporation acting in its own self-interest.

Indeed, we have seen corporations do evil things in their own self-interest before. (Citation needed? Enron. Need more? Tobacco marketing to children.) So suspecting Microsoft of the same thing wouldn't be entirely unexpected.

You really don't see the difference?

this is the same Microsoft who continues to fund SCO.

[Citation needed]

Reasonably unbiased citation:

Has Microsoft's money been a significant resource for the financially ailing SCO?
Without a doubt. In early 2003, Microsoft started paying SCO what eventually grew to $16.6 million for a Unix license, according to regulatory filings. Only longtime Unix fan Sun Microsystems previously paid close to that, with a $9.3 million license deal.

In particular, I think this is reasonable:

Although Linux threatens Microsoft, SCO was a convenient ally rather than a Microsoft puppet in the Linux fight...

Now, granted, you've also got this:

doesn't that represent a smoking gun that the Justice Department should at least be interested in?
No, at least not yet.

Indeed, they tend not to do things blatantly illegal, and I don't believe I've suggested that.

Regardless of motive, however, they are still funding SCO, quite literally.

you've yet to PROVE that Microsoft has been underhanded and subtle.

If the AARD code isn't sufficient proof, you have a very high standard for proof.

• Windows product key
• PC manufacturer
• Operating System version
• PID/SID
• BIOS information (make, version, date)
• BIOS MD5 Checksum
• User locale (language setting for displaying Windows)
• System locale (language version of the operating system)
• Office product key (if validating Office)
• Hard drive serial number

It may be a tad bit disturbing to have all that information being broadcast, but some of it makes sense. Windows Activation is tied to a computer and its hardware, and what WGA is supposed to do is verify that the activation is legit, they'd (presumably) need to broadcast the same information to the WGA servers to verify that activation (since we all know activation can be faked/bypassed).

Microsoft also needs to create a disincentive for people who pirate their software. WGA, besides nagging the user that they have an illegal copy, also prevents optional and recommended updates from being installed, prevents Office users from downloading templates, and prevents the download of certain products/services that would be free to paying customers.

So why is "phoning home" okay? Why not do it once and be done with it? Every day crackers find ways to get around Windows' copy protection. As a developer, Microsoft needs to stay ahead of that and tailor their systems to counter-act innovation on the crackers' part. The opposite is also true: falsely-flagged copies need to be unflagged, or customers will suffer due to them being marked as a false positive. Either way, Microsoft has not kept this a secret, and even promised to reduce checking to once every two weeks (and that was way back in 2006).

I know a lot (probably most) of you guys on here will disagree with me, but I see this as a necessary evil that Microsoft has to perform, and if I were in their shoes, I'd go about it similarly (perhaps be a bit less intrusive). The fact of the matter is, WGA only negatively affects people who either pirated software, or were the victims of software piracy. The privacy argument, in my opinion, is a strawman. If you buy a PC from Dell, it's most likely they already have all that information (save for BIOS MD5 checksum, probably) linked to your customer account. If you buy a PC from Best Buy with a credit card, that purchase information is already linked with the product serial number, which is probably linked with all the serial numbers of the hardware that went into the thing. I don't see how this can be any different than that, other than the fact that Microsoft has it instead of Dell or Best Buy.

Sounds a lot like the image linked to in the summary.

What the fuck is that chart trying to communicate?

This is only a fraction of their egregious behavior. I am sure you know how to use Google. Try it some time. You will find a lot more eye opening info on the ruthless, vicious, unethical mobsters that are Microsoft executives.

I used to defend them back when I was young and ignorant to their marketplace behavior. I have learned a lot over the years. These people are slime.

As far as i4i goes. I think all sofware patents are bad. What makes software so special that it needs the protections of copyright and the patent system? Should music be patented too? How about story concepts in books? The i4i patent on using a standard is ridiculous. Even though they have an actual product based on this patent. I hope i4i loses this suit because they are patenting sofware and methods of using a standard. It still does not take away from the fact that Microsoft reaps what they sow.

Yep, Windows OS is quite open (not meaning the OSS way now) compared to Apple's stuff and even Windows Mobile is a lot more open than iPhone, you can install any software on it like on Windows. Hell, you can even get Linux and Android running on it without hacks or jailbreaking.

Leigh stated that it isn't a ROM hack or anything, but a Linux image running within Windows Mobile. Hmm, a dual boot device could be very enticing for the mobile gadget geek.

You probably have no idea how much of a fanboi you are..

Keeping up with security vulnerabilities is step #1 in maintaining a secure system. Apple always trails the pack there. And were you trying pass the buck for their vulnerabilities onto the open source software that they chose to incorporate into their proprietary operating system?

All modern OSes have features that make them less vulnerable to exploitation. If you haven't heard of them on other platforms, then you just haven't been paying attention. In case you didn't notice, the "Do you want to proceed" UAC warning in Vista is exactly analogous to OSX's "Enter your password to continue." It's the same thing on every platform: you are either exploited and don't get a warning, or you're dumb enough to allow the malware to run. To reiterate: when your Mac is exploited because Apple didn't keep up with the latest vulnerabilities, you don't get asked to type a password.

From http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941

Safari on the Mac is easier to exploit. The things that Windows do to make it harder (for an exploit to work), Macs don't do. Hacking into Macs is so much easier. You don't have to jump through hoops and deal with all the anti-exploit mitigations you'd find in Windows.
It's more about the operating system than the (target) program. Firefox on Mac is pretty easy too. The underlying OS doesn't have anti-exploit stuff built into it.