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Your day wouldn't be complete without Microsoft news. Ralph Nader has written an open letter to Judge Kollar-Kotelly. Seems he has a few bones to pick with the settlement. MSNBC is running a WSJ article detailing how Microsoft beat down the DOJ in settlement negotiations. Even Israel knows Microsoft is a monopoly. Microsoft reveals its keep-them-in-the-dark plan for Microsoft security vulnerabilities. Amazingly, some security firms seem to be willing to go along with it. I guess they figure setting up a sort of cartel for security flaws is in their best financial interest. SANS is keeping their list of top security vulnerabilities up to date with the latest IIS exploits. And finally, MS wishes their new disclosure rules were used for yet another huge hole in Windows. Microsoft says it's "irresponsible" to expect them to get a patch out for a critical flaw within "a few days". As usual, switch off active scripting, even though that will make essentially every webpage that's designed for IE not work.
Your day wouldn't be complete without Microsoft news.
/. and reading my daily dose of Microsoft bashing.
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Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX
"California deserves special credit for its stance. Bill Lockyer, the state attorney general, has emerged as the most important public official in America when it comes to holding back the Microsoft tide."
sulli
RTFJ.
Ralph Nader has long campaigned for the government to have monopoly control on all economic activity, and somehow he gets mad at Microsoft for being a monopoly. If he were consistent, he would be angry that Microsoft did not have MORE monopoly power.
The comment was sarcastic.
Except that your vote for him helped to effectively put Dubya in the White House... and by extension, Ashcroft as the head of the DOJ.
Whereas, if you'd voted for Gore (along with just a few hundred Nader-ite dimwits in Florida or New Hampshire), the DOJ would not be caving to Microsoft, and Nader would have had no need to type an open letter to the judge in the first place!
See? Your vote for Nader helped make the situation possible in which Nader now needs to lobby on your behalf against Microsoft.
You had as much to do with Ashcroft being the Attorney General as the most strident, right-wing, religious, gun-nut, reactionary conservative.
People like you are one of the reasons that Microsoft is getting off the hook.
Ironically, Nader and his supporters are the best thing that ever happened to Microsoft.
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
Fer cryin' out loud...
It's pretty obvious that Microsoft has control of the industry primarily because people *buy* their products. Whether or not buying Microsoft is the smartest thing is an argument we all know the answer to. We also know it's the pointy-haired bosses that are buying quite a bit of it.
But there's also the home user... I don't think I would ever allow my parents to use Linux... not even Mandrake. They'd force me to move back in with them just to provide tech support. At least with Macintosh & Windows they can figure out how do do the things they want to do without needing a CS degree or years of hacking experience. And if all else fails, they can call trained, paid tech support. (Not that they're often very helpful)
About all the bug stuff... Of course Microsoft wants to keep their bugs under wraps... bugs hurt business... but we should have 100% freedom to flout every bug with enthusiasm! Only one thing will steal away the attention of the pointy-haired managers and that is our ability to prove again and again that Microsoft products are the *wrong* choice!
I know I'm risking some big-time flaming, but I don't believe Microsoft has a monopoly. Give me a quantifiable set of criterion for a company to hold a monopoly and let me see if they fit the requirement.
If you can prove to me that there is an existing product that large numbers of computer users really want to use but it is *unavailable* because Microsoft has squashed it, then I'll believe there is a monopoly.
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
Why did you USAnians not vote this guy in as president? Nader has consistently shown himself to be perhaps the only American politician with any clue, ever.
Instead you lot went to a two party choice between Mr Personality and The Chimp. And the Chimp won!
The world weeps.
You can't go to Windows Update to download patches any more after you've turned Active Scripting off. Microsoft sends you to a page telling you to turn Active Scripting and all sorts of other dangerous things back on.
Oh dear Lord, whatever shall I do?!
What? Set active scripting to 'prompt' mode, so that I can decide when I want it used? What? Turn it on momentarily while I access Windows Update? What? Add Microsoft.com to my trusted sites list momentarily?
No... instead I will point out how ironic this is on the Microsoft-friendly site, Slashdot.
I'm sure in Linux-world you never have to make compromises in functionality, right?
"And like that
Apple released iTunes 2.0 on a Saturday night. When a major bug was found, not only did they pull the installer *immediately*, but they fixed the bug and had a new one up in its place (properly labelled 2.0.1) within 24 hours. Not only that, but they have also said that they will pay for DriveSavers recovery for anyone who lost data to the bug. Can anyone imagine MS responding that quickly? On a *weekend* even! (Or accepting responsibility for its bugs like that?)
So what you're saying is that Apple put even less testing into their bugfix than they did with the original product... which is what let the product ship with the bug in the first place
Now THAT is what I call lack of quality control.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
You are correct Mr. Total Shit WinZig! Linux distros use standard communications protocalls to get updates to you, MD5 sums to check the package and well defined, open source, free methods to upgrade.
Why would anyone in a free world try to invent some stupid buggy propriatory closed up methods to replace accpeted practice? To fuck you, that's why. Give me all your money, says Mr. Gates. TCP/M$ at work for you.
Supprise, other people will find the hole and abuse it. I seem to recall a few "spam mails" opening up on my machine behind the company firewall a few weeks ago. It would be OK, because MSIE is so slow I could kill it before it finished reading the proxy script. But then I reported it and some dumb ass at the exchange group remoted into my machine and activated the stupid thing while I was not there. Great. I wonder what it did to me and what it will do to the "enterprise". Oh yes, I tried to turn off scripting by changing the association types to NotePad, but I see there is a new Leet trick with the left hand for protection these days. Thank you SOOOO much for the belated and usless tip about "prompt" mode. The black hats have struck again, weeks before notification, and more weeks before correction.
Why, oh why, does my company use this shit?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.