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Financial Institutions Balk at MS Licensing
mmol_6453 writes "Now, not only are hospitals groaning under the combination of Microsoft and the HIPAA, but banks are having issues relating to federal privacy laws. Favorite line: 'Microsoft has told...that it plans eventually to eliminate users' ability to disable Microsoft's access to their systems.'"
And in other news, Microsoft becomes the first fortune 500 company to trogan horse an operating system.
Karma: Not Particularly Funny.
"That makes Warby nervous. "Microsoft is definitely not known for their internal security," he says, citing undocumented macros in some Microsoft programs, which can be accessed by those who know the right combination of keystrokes. "The idea of Microsoft coming into a server, creates a potentially huge security risk," he says."
has anyone got any examples of this anywhere? i'd be curious to see some of these macros..
Microsoft does provide users with a high level of control over the auto update feature. Windows XP ships with the feature turned off, for example, so users must choose to activate it. And Microsoft notifies users of any updates, requiring them to agree to install them.
Microsoft: This is our highest level of control on anything we've ever included in windows! You can turn it on AND off!!!! AND you have to agree to install the updates, come on how can you hate us now, we give you so much control!
I dunno what they're going to do with 62 gigabytes of pr0n, though.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
Trusting the bank != trusting Microsoft. A bank that takes customer privacy seriously and switches away from using Microsoft products has a better chance of getting my business. Pity my account is so small... :(
Well, we'll just have to see what my Linux firewall/router box has to say about that :P
Notice that everything he's directly quoted on in the article is straightforward...and then a completely bizarre indirect quote.
Most likely he gave a bunch of examples of macro viruses or undocumented APIs and the reporter decided to "condense" things a bit.
May we never see th
that it plans eventually to eliminate users' ability to disable Microsoft's access to their systems.
Ok, this sucks to start with. Why the hell does MS need access to banking systems? Besides to rape accounts that belong to companies that cheat licensing. (sorry, conspiracy theory again) The other thing here the TOTALLY bugs me is that this effects me! I've put alot of effort into removing MS products from my life. But, if banks are running MS, and they have access to those systems, then my efforts seem to be useless. "I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't do anything bad with that kind of power". PFFT.
Here comes another conspiracy theory:
MSFT: Hrm, rmAdmin has $0.34 in his checking account, must be having money problems, lets see, we'll sell his contact info to every 'debt consolidation' service on earth.
Ring ring
rmAdmin: Hello?
StupidTelemarketter: Hello Mr AIDmen...
rmAdmin: ACK!! DIE DIE DIE
click
Ok, maybe not that bad, but who knows...
Can all fish swim?
The article says about SP1: Solely for the purpose of preventing unlicensed use of the applicable OS Software, the OS Components will include installation on your computer of technological measures that are designed to prevent unlicensed use, and Microsoft may use this technology to confirm that you have a licensed copy of the OS Software.
This is done through a product key that is sent to Microsoft over the Internet. That means Microsoft must send an authorization back to your system, says Warby, requiring it to have access to your system.
While I'm no Microsoft licensing fan, I would like to dispel some FUD presented here. The product activation has always been a part of XP, and your system sends the product key number to MS, and not MS going to your system first. After it's activated, MS is not contacted, unless your hardware changes significantly, or you use Windows Update (which does not enforce product key restructions, although the product key is being sent). But in any case, MS never initiates contact with any system.
For SP1 upgrade, the authorization merely checks to see if your product key is one of two that have been widely pirated. It doesn't contact any server at all for this step.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
what do you think the chances are of MS offering privacy raiding, you can't mod any part of the OS, you'll have to sign a EULA just to see the OS interface?
i can see it now, pay money just to look at the operating system. anyone see that crap threir throwing about with longhorn? why not just rip some more stuff off KDE and OSX.
Solely to prevent piracy?
What a joke -- Microsoft could never stop piracy, as the devilsown copy of XP was out months before the release, and service pack 1 for it, fully cracked, was out in an integrated ISO weeks before the release of SP1.
Microsoft doesn't have a chance at stopping piracy, and it's just another lame excuse for Microsoft to follow the logical course of big business and try to control everything.
If Microsoft turns a deaf ear to angry consumers on the issue of collecting data, the federal government has every right to nail them to the wall for it, especially if it interferes with our health and banking privacy.
On, off... what other options are there? Should users be able to put it into a super-position of consisting of both on and off?
Anyway, with individual updates being agreed to, I don't see what else you would want, at least with how windows update works.
Anyway, the world would probably be a better place if windows update were turned on by default, and lazy admins could be running a patched up windows, rather then the latest Cod Red variant.
Lonely?
Find love on the internet
Arguments against using Macintosh or Linux usually center on retraining issues. However, heavy retraining occurred when migrating between Win3.11, WinNT, Win2000, and - for the chumps - WinXP. So if you have to retrain anyway, then why not go with something easier to both use and maintain like Macintosh OS X or Mandrake/Redhat?
When you consider the bizarre nature of the service pack EULAs, the migration to Macintosh or Linux should be the obvious choice to anyone that can read English.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
If I were a bank and had such a thing in place and MS used that I would sue MS for breaking into the computer system and some MS guy would either end up in jail or MS would have to pay a fine.
has told...that it plans eventually to eliminate users' ability to disable Microsoft's access to their systems.'
Of course, if you are willing to pay just a little more, Microsoft will sell you security. Coincidence? I think not.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Spend some of that porn time on socializing with real live women and you may find an upgrade to porn. Yes yes, I know that sounds crazy, but there are things above and beyond porn.. try 'em out, they're way more fun.
has anyone got any examples of this anywhere? i'd be curious to see some of these macros..
Perhaps he's referring to many of Microsoft's easter eggs in the OS and apps.
Isn't there a web browsing easter egg in some program? Don't recall if that was MS or not.
Heck, EVERYONE Balks at MS Licensing.
How many people have passed on XP because of the licensing crap? I'll bet a LOT of people have.
I have, and it has nothing to do with piracy.
Haven't you seen the movie "Tomorrow never dies"? (just to make you a little bit more paranoid)
bash$
I think that MS is going to back off on a lot of this stuff, probably even Palladium in its most extreme form.
Their strategy at the highest level seems to be two pronged. On one hand they want to gather up all of the power and control of the monopolist, and on the other hand, they try to respond to customers as if they had to compete.
I know that a lot of people are skeptical about the last part of that, but I believe it. They backed off of the passport nightmare to a large extent.
There are lots of smaller things they've backed off on as well -- their first incarnation of their anti-piracy measures would have made it impossible for corporate users to roll out systems using software like ghost, but they backed down on that, and that concession has had a real effect on the ease with which one can pirate their software.
The banks have a real problem, and MS is going to have to address it or lose the business. I think they're going to address it.
The big conceptual problem, I think, is to consider MS to be a monolith. There are people who are pushing for this stuff, and there are others who are talking to the customers who are screaming bloody murder.
In the end, they will have to listen to their customers.
Open Source mBanx. The Canadians will get it I hope.
.75% more interest on my savings account than I can with the best GIC locked-in account with TD CTrust.
Seriously, I don't trust the banks all the much to begin with. I mean, the "Big 5" in Canada aren't all that big in a global sense, so why not support another country's bank, like ING Direct? I have an account with them now, and earn
Why bother with banks at all I'm starting to think. I've got a perfectly good matress I sleep on every night, and then I don't have to worry about my bank making direct deposits into MS coffers.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Am I the only here who see gigantic VS.NET ad isode this story? I mean, banner on this page.
That's a good point.
Would YOU trust the average MCSE to make those decisions?
himm... there is something I can't understand here. a contract is void by default if it violates a law, so doesn't this invalidate the appropiate part of the EULA, if the purchaser makes it clear that the software will be used in an environment where privacy is mandated by the law?
i wonder if some sort of equal oppurtunity law would mandate microsoft to provide the software and updates with a licence and a method suitable for banks, hospitals etc.
ato
- pwd...container...host....logon...restart...data source
....you get the idea.If you are looking for specific troublemaking 'poison-pill' macros, I'm sorry, I don't have those handy, but if you want, I can send you a Word document you can fill out to request them
"Do something man. Right now."
<sarcasm> Isn't that why we pay MCSEs the $$big bucks$$? To make these types of decisions?</sarcasm>
"Not since Hitler..."
I know you're just trolling, but come on. That seems like something that even an anonymous coward would be embarrassed about writing. No matter how much you honestly hate Microsoft, no sane person could compare someone who started a world war with someone who runs a company with certain unpalatable business practices.
I'm not even going to comment on the attacks on his wife and kids.I don't use Windows Update, but my understanding is that the "let Microsoft dig through your system" stuff is only if you do use Windows Update. If this is correct, then there is no problem - don't use it!
Surely someone managing machines in a business critical environment would have the nous to turn off the auto-update? Don't use it. Install patches and hot-fixes manually after fully testing them to make sure they don't kill your system. Do not rely on Microsoft (or any third party vendor for that matter) to automatically update your servers without you knowing exactly what is going on!
The XP-related stuff though, is a bit of a worry. Then again, the solution is pretty straight-forward - DON'T USE XP. If you need Windows, use Windows 2000. If Microsoft bring the same checks in to 2000 via future service packs, then configure your firewall properly and stop it happening.
As a bank, what will your legal staff say when they learn your IT dept. signed off on EULA's that prohibit such action?
My mom phones me weekly yapping about some new virus that has slipped into her computer. She is 50+ and i think she is doing a nice job learning her WinXP. What she is frustrated with is the fact that she has a firewall, a antivirus program and she updates often even if she is on a modem. Still she have gotten successful attacks into her machine and even viruses has slipped past her antivirus system. She is getting real paranoid and feels that its not fun anymore when you have to be a fully fledged sysadmin to surf and write mails. She is going for linux and i will try to install it as safe as possible for her. No services open and a default drop on incoming connections should keep her safe for a while. That is what i would call proactive security.
Security must be proactive and not reactive. MS is simplifying reactive security instead of focusing on proactive security. The old vuln ??? patch treadmill is stupid. I think some dists should stop making their default installs wide open aswell. Close all ports and code a nice simple app that makes it easy to open the ones you need to be open.
HTTP/1.1 400
-- Hi! I'm the "Good Times" signature virus. Copy me into your Sig!
Your 50 year old mom can't figure out Windows XP but she's going to have no problem with Linux? Sounds like a load of FUD to me.
My sig of choice is Marlboro
Are there banks serving personal accounts that operate using Linux as the main computing platform?
that's right, what happens when M$ decides to go kazaa all over your system. there's nothing you can do about it. face it, its just your hardware, the OS (i use the term lightly for windoze) belongs to them, 100%. You're just borrowing it. That's not good enough to pass muster for private information. If M$ wasn't so large, a bill to make them post surety bond for every financial house would be an ideal restraint for the mighty beast
oh well, chances of legislation unsupportive of m$ are about as likely as me giving birth.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
MS wants to be a bank, remember? How better to throttle back competition than by tossing a smoke bomb or two into their home office...
"While other banking institutions are suffering from network slowdowns and corrupted databases, MS First Union can provide you with reliable access to your funds around the clock. Bank with MSFU....we keep an eye on your money!"
it plans eventually to eliminate users' ability to disable Microsoft's access to their systems.
Gee I wonder who said this?!? One of the MS engineers? An executive? A PR guy?
Yah right.. sounds more like idle speculation to me.
Many rely on Solaris, etc. for mission critical data. I'm sure there are related processes on Linux somewhere in every large banking system. Might be automated network performance reporting....automated backup audits....prototype network planning....human resource forecasting...project management analysis, etc. There are too many facets to modern banking to be able to state simply that one OS or another is responsible for 'handling' personal accounts.
Why am I having a hard time believing that business as we know it will come to a complete halt if MS isn't allowed in the door?
Commerce in one form or another, from bartering coconuts to brokering used RAM, will find a way to continue, regardless if the transaction is on limestone, paper or bubble-ether crystals. Unified...disparate...co-mingled...far-stepped or translucid....who cares. The point is supply and demand, not demand by MS.
about pirracy and privacy is driving me nuts, why can't people see the obvious? M$ is pissed because their products are being pirated left, right and up their asses... but they then cause difficulty to who? That's right, legit owners of the software, CUSTOMERS... that's who!
Pirates will always find ways to circumvent any protection the boys at M$ can come up with. Heck, I've seem similar web-based authentication registration being spoofed by web-proxy based crack (it was a version of zMud about two years ago)... so to the pirates, these are just old tricks implemented differently.
Why doesn't M$ realise the answers that have been looking at them straight in the corneas for ages... produce less-expansive stuff and respect the customer's privacy. That's all they're asking for... is it too much to ask?
If the price of Windows reflects on development put into it, why oh why do we still have security concerns that are similar to those of previous versions, sometimes even more critical.
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
Microsoft is in the security business now too. Making money out of solving the same problems they introduce. Kind of like the auto industry making flimsy bumpers the most expensive part of the car. Pulling profit centers out of thin air is the cutting edge of business. Reducing quality today, so you can sell replacements later.
People are slow to catch on to games like this. But eventually they will and when they do, watch out. With the economy the way it is, everyone is going to want every dime they spend count and will be far less tolerant of the elaborate ripoff schemes that are so popular these days.
Everybody's gonna be hurting for awhile but there's a bright side, maybe it will mark the end of an era where garbage was marketed as product.
oh.. another eula thing... snooze...
-
There was Corporate America. And people enjoyed to remark this. And there was a company that claimed that Linux, Open Source, GPL and Co. were a treat to Capitalism... And there was a lot of FUD, among some people, that all this was the same thing as Communism, if not worst. And they raised Corporate America in a crusade against the Spectrum. And they said: buy only true corporate software. And Corporate America felt that it would be easier to deal with a corporation, rather than risking its health and wealth with something that sounded like some old enemies calls.
Now Corporate America is eating the fruits of its short vision and its lack of support to venture capitalists, small developers and a little more freedom for people. Soon, we may see that Corporate America is no more. Welcome to M$ America.
'Microsoft has told invisble pink elves that it plans eventually to eliminate users' ability to disable Microsoft's access to their systems.'
... that stament??
or
'Microsoft has told us macintosh said that it plans eventually to eliminate users' ability to disable Microsoft's access to their systems.'
or
'Microsoft has told linux MS is evil and that it plans eventually to eliminate users' ability to disable Microsoft's access to their systems.'
but its nice to see was still in correct context..
'And Warby says Microsoft has told him that it plans eventually to eliminate users' ability to disable Microsoft's access to their systems.'
so was there any need to
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
Whew, where is that moderation point when you need it for an 'Overrated' mod... ;)
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense
Where I work (big bank. Think really BIG) we are evaluating Red Hat 7.3 as a *desktop* OS.
We are running Windows NT 4.0 in our desktop machines and we use Word, Excell and PowerPoint 97. Upgrades? Perhaps, to W2K, late next year. XP? No plans as I write.
People here are dead tired of dealing with insecure software licensed under what I can only qualify as duress.
no flaming intended here... but do you really think for even one slender second that MS will listen to their customers??! Sure, they'll pretend to, and people will believe them, but when all's said and done they just have to move forward a foot - wait for complaints - and then back 11 inches; repeat as necessary.
also, MS is a monolith. You either get with the program or you get the heck out -- outsiders don't last long. Dissidents get fed to the dogs, unless they're either superior politicians or have a valid point or several that can be subverted to MS' long-term advantage.
Fighting viruses makes learning the system (1) less fun, and (2) less possible because of time lost.
My mother uses Mandrake. She isn't a sysadmin, and will never be. But once it was set up properly, she didn't need to be. I asked her what she would do if I wasn't around and Linux crashed. She said, "Same thing I did when Windows crashed, but I know it'll happen a lot less on Linux."
She got a Linux system that Christmas.
my 60 year old mom uses linux just fine!
Oh, wait...
Sadly though, this is also in windows2000 sp3. So, you'd have to move back to NT 4.0 to be completely safe.
While you may be correct in their intentions, the EULA doesn't specifically state this. Going by just the wording of the EULA, they can do whatever they want, if you have auto-update enabled or not. This is where the problem is. If they specified a clause that would state something to the effect of "unless the user turns off auto-update" or have this EULA addendum pop up when they user enables auto-update with a yes/no box, it would be much, much better. This wording of the EULA in current form of not mentioning any change based on auto-updates being enabled is what is keeping SP3 off of our rdesktop Terminal Server.
Another interesting note is that the EULA for SP3 with the bad text is only there when you install the update, the original Win2k eula.txt is still left unchanged on your hard drive. Makes it kind of confusing, if you ever want to review what you actually agreed to at a later date.
Yet, so far, the reports of them actually doing something about it and moving away from MS are very thin on the ground.
It would appear that however much MS wishes to shoot itself in the foot, or deny users specific rights, people are still unwilling to move to a different OS.
The fact Linux is free didn't compell them, the fact Linux doesn't "phone home" didn't compell them, the fact Linux is easier to maintain within an organisation didn't compell them, the fact Linux doesn't come with arcane restrictions on what you can and can't do with your PC didn't compell them, the fact Linux doesn't suffer so many virus attacks didn't compell them, the fact Linux is more secure and robust didn't compell them and the fact that Linux applications can read and write Word documents didn't compell them to move.
So the question is, what on earth will compell them to drop Windows on the desktop? Because it's sure as hell not any of the issues we've seen so far.
(and here i'm talking about the masses, not the odd special case)
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I used to work in a bar here in Sydney (thats in the .au for all you american-centric type folks) when the Gates' stopped by to have dinner in the restaurant upstairs. Now I dont like MS for much the same reason as most people who dont like MS do, but I mean - kids are kids.
However, his kids - fucking spoilt shits. I'm not exagerating (sp?) or flaming or whatever - they were little fucking shits. running around everywhere, throwing shit at the waitresses, while BillG and his missus are sitting there eating away, and the bodyguards are making sure the kids dont break shit.
BUT - kids are kids. they run around. they piss "older" people off. they are little fucking bastard children that shit me. but I was one once, and now I'm a responsible(ish) member of society. To kill his kids???! thats just fucked up.
Should Hitlers dogs have been killed, purely because they were his?
Should Stalin's kids be killed because he left the toilet seat up?
No - one's actions should only be accountable to the perpetrator - not their next of kin... for christs sake.
Not since hitler eh? heard of that guy that I think runs your country... erm... dubbya? That Cartel of family members has trashed the planet in one way or another exponentially more than the gates' have.
sort out your priorities.
New Coke.
New Coke was a means of converting the bottling plants over from powdered supplies (sugar) to liquid supplies (high fructose corn syrup).
The way it worked was to make something that tasted sufficiently bad, compared to the original, that when they "switched back" to the old formula (actually, the old formula, minus sugar, plus corn syrup), they were sufficiently close to the old formula that people didn't complain about the switch (they just got fat off the new stuff).
The best way to get something small and distasteful past someone is to try for something very large and distasteful, and when people complain, back off to the small distasteful thing you wanted in the first place.
To get unimpeded weapons inspections, ask for a "regime change" and an OK to invade. To switch over to cheaper, easier indistrial process supplies, like corn syrup instead of sugar, change everything, and then change "almost all the way back".
If you don't think Microsoft knows about this technique, you are fooling yourself. You should be much more worried about the consequences of whatever they pick as their "backed down" position.
-- Terry
yeah right ..i wanna se you running around with some cd patching a 40+ machine network by hand.
in the mean time your servers get hacked your logs fills up the disks and your boss hits on your girlfriend.
So long as they work out what my Kazaa and WinMX nicknames are of course :)
Open Office is avaliable for Windows too, so that's like saying "ford cars run on gas" as a selling point.
Slow reboot time? No slower than any linux going straight to X.
And I won't even start on the virus checker.
then hand back what the courts tell you to.
check this!
Corporate security officers really should be concerned about this. From a security and privacy point of view, Windows XP is already out of control, and it looks like it's getting worse. Even if all those connections were harmless, it's hard to even identify a real trojan horse with all that junk going on.
Software updates and contacts to other services are much more sensible under Linux: nothing happens unless you explicitly enable it, you have the option of updating via media or mirrors, and all software updates can happen through a single server.
Women scare me.
Well when my bank asks me which they seem they must do legally, I'm saying no FUCKING WAY !
Why are we still putting up with this crap? They have been already FOUND GUILTY. Lock em all up I say and throw away the key.
By requiring a key to activate XP, Microsoft has the ability to force an OS upgrade simply by no longer issuing them. Therefore if (say) Windows YP is released and sells abysmally, MS can announce the withdrawal of keys for XP, forcing users to get YP should they need to reactivate. Instant sales boost, instant share price surge.
Nobody is going to switch until Linux is better - specifically more useable for the Desktop user. And at the moment it's not. It's also going to have to be quite a bit better, otherwise people won't view it as being worth the hassle to switch.
...and every one of them has a clause that basicly says "if any part of this agreement is illegal, that part is void, and everything else is in full effect."
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Women are good for sex, but if you marry them, you've got to put up with so much prattle and annoyance that at the end of your life, you may have been better not getting laid.
Getting laid is for now. A pain in the ass is forever.
Signed,
Married 20 years
and Linux is knocking at the door of the MIS. That would mean rooms full of servers and thousands of NT desktops.
Tellers and staff run custom apps, don't have multi-media or ever web browsers on their machines and definitely aren't playing with their machines so M$ latest geegaws are of absolutely no interest.
A usage study has shown that only a small percentage of the features of the Office Suite are actually used and a great deal of the features that M$ wants to reverse engineer into their products (in direct violation of the DMCA they pushed for, which will come back and bite them some day) are already available in other products from vendors with better market focus.
In the second-rate, also-ran, pursuit of Apple's flash and style, M$ has lost focus of their customers, the same boring old desktops that didn't want a computer with a funny name back in 1980.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
An obvious solution - suggested in other comments - is to configure your firewall to prevent your computer from connecting to Microsoft. But Microsoft have a plan for that: UPnP. Universal Plug'n'Play is a protocol supported by an increasing number of "broadband routers" that allows applications to punch holes in your firewall by installing NAT rules. This is attractive for things like chat and video conferencing programs, but it will also allow Microsoft to override any rules you have to prevent unauthorized connections.
Though UPnP works by sending SOAP messages to a small web-server in the router (also used for user configuration), on my router (Alcatel ST510 v4) it bypasses the password protection that you can set for user access to the web server.
that before-hand. Linking your professional interests with a single entity is a dangerous move.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
Being French, living in France, I use the US Win2k Pro.
..
=>
1 / French law says that every document, howto, command, etc, has to be available in french
It sort of IS possible for my 2kpro to change from English to French, but not that easy for all software
2 / The EULA is in English... In France, that would mean I don't have to follow it, as I don't have to be fluent in english to use any software package and have a right for a localized version
+ The EULA, as presented in my box, is illegal in France, being coercitive, non negotiable and imposed by one side without any means to rfuse even if you paid for it (Leonine conditions) => the Eula is crap in any french juridiction
3 / French law says that only the Police, or a judge , can allow access to my data. The day Microsoft uses any trick to check my computer, I have a right to sue them
=> Stop using the US verion of Windows, get a version from a place where the law will be on your side, buy it there, accept this localized EULA, then change the language pack of your win box and there you go
Global Market can also have some advantages for users....
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Sun Rays are not workstations. Sun Rays are terminals that need to be hung off of a main server. Applications do not reside on the Sun Ray...they sit on the server, and the Sun Ray is otherwise OS agnostic.
My mom phones me weekly yapping about some new virus that has slipped into her computer.
... in fact she loves the fact that it is quick and stable, unlike the much more expensive machine she uses at work, which is down for software repairs quite frequently.
... unlike Windows, it does not change its behavior for no apparent reason, nor does it break mysteriously simply because you've added a new piece of software.
My mom has been running Debian for almost two years, and aside from a few calls early on of the "how do I do X under Linux" type, I haven't had to field any calls at all (none within the last year. None). Indeed, I havent had to fix her computer once since I installed it nearly two years ago.
Not once.
Now that Applix has grown a little staid, I'm probably going to upgrade her to Gentoo 1.4 when it is released, with Open Office.
She works with Microsoft every day at work, and has been agitating her employer to let her use GNU/Linux instead. My mom, who, like yours, is 50+.
However, even if her employer doesn't let her switch, she has no trouble importing and exporting to Microsoft Word and Excel formats using her GNU/Linux box
Most especially, she likes not having to worry about the latest Klez worm or misc. virus, something that is steadilly stressing out all her friends.
My mother, who is computer competent but certainly not computer savvy, has become a stronger propoent of Linux and free software than I have. All the Microsoft-funded astroturfers keep harping about how the consumers wants this or that slick or shiny feature, when in truth all of the computer illiterate and computer competent (but not necessarilly savvy) people I've exposed to GNU/Linux haven't ever wanted to go back. Why?
Because in truth people don't care all that much about shiny feature X or slick feature Y, they care far more about stability, predictability, and the ability to simply get their work done. And that is where GNU/Linux truly excells
What is interesting is how few people realize they have a viable choice, and once they do realize it, how many (of the people I know, at least, of various walks of life) end up dumping Windows like a bad habit.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Email 'em and refer them to the article, ask what their take on it is.
And if your bank is a big coorporation that doesn't care about one email from one customer, find a new bank. Or better, a credit union.
--Sean
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,13987, 00.html
Well, they don't read the bible either, being muslims...
Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot.
The climate that created microsoft was one of ignorance about computers among the various business managers. The cry was "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." Microsoft built on IBM's reputation.
Going to the much more technically knowledgable business people today and opening them up to vast leagal liabilities for using MS software is going to force these businesses to do something drastic. That something drastic is to find another OS.
Legal liability in this lawsuit crazy era is something that CEO's and management understands because they pay a lot of money to their lawyers to make them understand. And if Jack Lawyer says if you buy MS you could go to jail or be sued out of business for violating the law; Joe CEO is gonna tell the boys and girls to FIND ANOTHER SOLUTION.
The lack of security and MS's complete evasion of responsiblity for the functioning of the updates (or even the OS) is less of a worry, but there are many who look at the security of the data that runs the business who are not going to allow Automatic updates from MS or some unknown "Agent." Businessess have lawyers to help them protect their IP and if that IP is going out the gates of the Automatic Update, then guess what is going to happen.
Most business types are risk averse and a little bit of FUD will get MS out of the important areas. (Sure we can use MS, but then we'll have to let them look at our data. Nope, they don't sign secrecy agreements to protect our data from this process. Oh yeah, we have to let any "agent" that they hire into our computers as well.)
Hospitals and the medical field goes first, then banks.
If there was ever a clear, concise, demonstration that MS is still acting like an unrepentant monopoly, then this is it. No serious business in a competitive market would require its current customers to chose between violating Federal Laws and Regulations or violating a software liscence. The fact that this choice is being forced upon those customers to PROTECT Microsoft's interest in preventing piracy of its software is a crystal clear indication of Microsoft's nature.
Microsoft NEEDS to be busted into a billion little companies. But, I guess that they'll have to do that to themselves.
No, I don't hate Microsoft, I happen to like Office. I just don't like the monopoly: bad service, poor quality, and god only knows how many lost manhours arguing with windows.
Creatively spelled words are copyrighted (2002) May be used without persimmons.
Creative Spelling Copyright (2002). May use without Persimmons
New coke was a result of the then current presidential administration's desire to switch cocaine from schedule IV to schedule I on penalties. Believe it or not, marijuana is schedule I (toughest, no legitimate possession) and cocaine is still schedule IV (OK for some research, very limited medical under very strict controlled circumstances if memory servers correct).
The noticeable flavor difference between new coke and old coke is what killed it. The president wasn't going to be responsible for killing Coca Cola to switch the ranking of cocaine on the schedules. Coca Cola took a huge beating in sales trying to push New Coke. No one on Wall Street or main street could understand why they were sticking with it, and why for so long.
Classic coke went back to using coca leaf extract (without the cocaine portion) for taste purposes. Don't believe Coke still has coca leaf extract in it? Do a search in Wall Street Journal archives, around mid 1980's, for an article that details the one factory in the US that receives the coca leaf extract, and processes it, for distribution of the syrup (or syrup ingredients) to the bottling plants. They mentioned the security arrangements, how tight lipped Coke was about it, the threats they received for running the article, where the coca leaf extract came from, etc.
It's a Wall Street Journal article, check archives, if I remember correctly, the article started on the first or last page, or the first or last page of one of the sections.
The Wall Street Journal article ran sometime after the coke debacle began, and confirmed the use of coca leaf extract by coca cola. The schedule IV to schedule I issue (without coca cola) was widely reported in the press, as a desire of the president to get more strict on drugs. At that time, importation of tea from coca leaf extract (without cocaine) was an issue, and was being stopped once discovered, but was legal because of the ranking.
The original article that outlined the schedule IV to schedule I switch attempt was in an alternative magazine that deals with the type of issues that are normally deal with when discussing this topic. Figure it out.
This is like the spoon telling you to bend (over).
Just curious.
Now that's scary. I always wondered about that. many US Ships use Microcrap.
Oh your link is dead. What's with this stupid small window here. Think maybe we could make it a tiny bit BIGGER!!!!!
There is a extra space cause of the stupid window size just delete it and it will work.
it's probably checking to verify that your copy of XP is still activated. Activation is an ongoing process for most copies of XP. If you have a product key that allows for a single install, then your computer will check periodically to verify that only 1 copy is currently running that key. Say you install XP on a machine, then install the same copy on another machine. Then you try to activate the second copy, it'll fail because your key has already been used. Then you call and explain that your other PC caught on fire and you're not using it anymore, so they allow the second copy to work. Now, if you were lying about the first PC and tried to continue using it, it would call that activation IP a couple weeks later, find out that it was no longer the authorized copy and would stop working.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
Well there are several ways to get this fixed.
1: Have the business sector start up a class action suit due to the "BAIT and Switch" nature of Win2k SP3 and WinXP SP1. By having the whole business sector sue Microsoft for this anti-privacy issue, the business sectors will have the right to get some money back from M$ (whis is due big time for all the security issues and hacks that allow others to get in to the OS.)
2: Apple should get into high gear, buy back Bill Gates' stock, and finally release OSX to work on the x86 platform! This alone will boost the switchover to MAC. I have been a Windows user for a good part of my life because there really is NO other OS out there compatible on x86 that can compete with Windows by offering the same amount of software support and ease of use. With Mac OSX, this reality is almost there. You know that Gates bought shares in Apple just to make sure that he has the right to veto OSX's release on the X86 platform.
3: EVERYONE and their Mother should send APPLE feedback on MAC OSX and say "MY COPY OF MAC OSX DOES NOT WORK ON MY INTEL/AMD MOTHERBOARD. PLEASE FIX THIS ASAP SO I CAN START USING MAC OSX." Here is the URL for the feedback form.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/
Here is what I wrote to the feedback form.
MY COPY OF MAC OSX DOES NOT WORK ON MY X86/AMD MOTHERBOARD. PLEASE FIX THIS ASAP SO I CAN START USING MAC OSX. MAKE OSX COMPATIBLE WITH X86 PLATFORMS SO THAT APPLE CAN FINALLY GRAB BETTER MARKET SHARE WITH THE EXISTING HARDWARE. IF YOU CONTINUE TO IGNORE THE X86 COMMUNITY, THEN BY ALL MEANS, APPLE WILL FINALLY BE DOOMED YET AGAIN.
APPLE PLEASE BUYBACK ALL OF BILL GATES' SHARES IN APPLE AND RELEASE OSX TO THE X86 PLATFORM. YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT. I BET YOU CAN GET 20-25% MARKET SHARE WITHIN THE FIRST YEAR OF RELEASING OSX FOR X86 PLATFORMS.
PEOPLE WANT CHOICE. IF YOU ARE TRYING TO ELIMINATE CHOICES, THEN PEOPLE ARE NOT GOING TO BUY YOUR PRODUCT. PERIOD. JUST LOOK AT YOUR TRACK RECORD. APPLE HAS NEVER BROKEN THE 10% MARKET SHARE BARRIER WITH YOUR PROPRIETARY SYSTEM. YOUR OSX PLATFORM HAS THE POTENTIAL TO GO FURTHER THAN LINUX EVER CAN. MAKE MICROSOFT FEEL THREATENED BY ANOTHER OS.
*Headline News* censorship shuts down the Internet! More at 6PM!
When it comes to $$$, Msft will be the first to change the licensing to meet whatever the big buyers want. Getting their lawyers to change the license language is not a problem. But it is a double bind for a company / industry that historically relies on release now / patch later, if customers don't do their part and check for, get, and apply updates (as with 'code red'). If anything, the license language can easily be narrowed to specify that Msft will collect information about, say, 'versions of Msft products only', altho some might not like the idea of a remote entity unilaterially accessing it's own property in a private institution. It always comes back to Msft saying, 'Trust us! Leave the deatils to us and we'll do the right thing'. Certainly, Msft knows that, with such a sensitive issue, getting caught with private information they shouldn't have would be disasterous public relations wise, however they've consistently shown the attitude that 'anything is legal as long as you don't get caught'. Usually, the point to start worrying is when Msft decides to enter a market, leverage their desktop os monopoly*, and compete with those who are now customers. At that point, the customers who made the mistake of trusting Msft are raped and assimilated or otherwise unethically delt with, rode over roughshod, all in the name of free market unfettererd business competition, which will always get them a bye in politics and the courts, profits and jobs trump rules and regulations every time.
* if you don't like the term 'monopoly', think 'customers so locked into Msft technology that conversion to anything else is prohibitively and runiously expensive'.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Who said anything about muslims? Christians have killed more people throughout history than any other religion.
...MS Goof-up to add to my list.
Microsoft admitting that it's going to disable a user's option to turn off their "hey, we're coming in, making changes, and not telling you" function? They should have just plead Guilty in the first few days of the Antitrust Trial. This is just going to get them into more trouble, and assist the competition. It may not happen right away, but MS is slowly digging their own grave. If Medical and Financial institutions can't use MS products because of the information security issue, then they won't buy MS products and be forced to find an alternative.
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
No I'm not a mac user at the moment so this is not a shameless plug but I do know that the Mac has a hell of a lot of decent software commericial(sp?) and non-commerical(sp?). And for a big PLUS the software is usually just a straight port and so little or no retraining is required. Why do you think graphics departments have been using it for ages. Photoshop - Yes the mac has it MS Office - Eww but yes the mac has it. Music Editing/Sound - Available if you know where to look (my guitar teacher runs her recording studio on a MACOS X). While the Mac is still a mainly a close sourced OS (some of it is open but the important bits are still closed) it's a prime example of the fact that *NIX is usable as a desktop.
"The idea of Microsoft coming into a server, creates a potentially huge security risk," he says.
"Coming into a server"?! Come on, who did these people interview? I expected some INTELLIGENT commentary, not some corporate drivel from a PHB that has no idea what's involved.
I'm a 2000 man.
in theory you can download all the patches that make up windows 2000 sp3 and apply them individually and be safe while still using service pack 2 - this is what I had to do since I have to comply with HIPAA where I work. It would be easier and less time consuming to patch the workstations with another service pack if they would just fix the EULA, but who knows if that will ever happen.
I don't see how this is a failure of Windows NT. It seems like a failure of the crap custom software they were writing. You'd get a buffer overflow anywhere - be it Microsoft or Unix.
An OS can't save you from your own crap software, and if your own crap software is inter-related whose fault is that?
If we assume that some users what to have this autoupdate feature available, and there are a lot of them out there unfortunatly, doesn't MS have to include this verbage in their license? I mentioned the new language to my Uncle and I said how frightening it was. He replied that MS probably had to do it in order to run the autoupdates at all to avoid being sued by someone who turned auto update on and then got mad when a patch broke his box. While I don't like it, it does seem to be something neccesary to provide the auto update functionality.
Thoughts?
Nate Baxley
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Given that Microsoft has a fair amount of cash on hand, I think the banks could do well to change their EULA for money that Microsoft thinks they have on deposit at the bank.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
From the article...
Warby is considering shifting his servers to another operating system like Novell or Linux, if Microsoft doesn't change its policy.
Servers are one thing desktops are another matter entirely. I wonder what OS is running on their desktops? In Canada, we have many financial institutions still running on OS/2 (I shit you not!).
Now I know that they won't be running Novell on their desktops and if their apps are Win32 then they better hope that WINE supports their apps if they are going to switch horses to Linux - otherwise it will be a big rewrite and a significant expense. But then again they certainly have the money...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
The bank doesn't care about your privacy, if they could sell your account balances to a telemarketer for a buck they would. It's the LAWS that scare them that they abide by.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
My g.f. just went back to school, and she got a new computer; two years ago it would have been a Microsoft box, but with the licensing of XP she chose to go with Apple instead.
Just seems rather odd, doesn't it?
/. would never do something that hypocritical, right? I mean promoting FUD about Windows to further some weird Linux agenda.
All these articles from journalists complaining about Windows EULA, and quoting people at hospitals, financial institutions and so forth and asking them if they are afraid. But not once do they ever actually quote a lawyer who can interpret the real legal language.
I work for a Fortune 30 company, we're moving to XP. We're also a financial institution. Our lawyers looked over the licensing and saw nothing to be concerned with.
I've spoken to other people in this industry who are in the same situation.
It almost seems like the media is trying to promote FUD concerning Windows. Of course we all know that
Yeah, way to go on that. "Hey, let's help Microsoft build their market share!"
Ok, now hear me out on this one.
Maybe, just maybe... the EULA doesn't violate the banking laws.
WHAT!? Shocking, I know, that's not what you've been told by the anti-MS hoards on slashdot. But reading through the EULA it doesn't appear to give Microsoft any rights to transmit private information. All it talks about is the versioning of the OS and components.
That's what I don't understand about these articles. Not once do they quote a lawyer to support their suppositions. Doesn't that make this article FUD? I can see no other definition for it.
Actually a better translation is usually "Thou shalt not murder", the difference between kill and murder is quite wide.
We appreciate your input. How else to know the official line from Redmond?
Automatic updates will likely stay optional in the professional version. Corporate administrator won't like it when the OS upgrades without their knowledge, and all the legacy programs stop working. Home edition has had a stricter anti-piracy setup, and will likely continue to.
As it turns out, I *am* computer savvy, and my first install of RedHat as a desktop machine lasted all of 2 hours. Some checkbox I unchecked (Nautilus?) left my system without a window manager. Goodbye, desktop! Everything's in the corner now, boy, and god help you figuring out what went wrong. Cue the reinstall!
I love Linux, and am very happy with it as my firewall/webserver/devbox, but my god, the desktop experience needs some work.
Looking for a Rails developer in Chapel Hill?
What surprises me is that no one seems to think it's odd that it seems to be OK (ie legal) for Microsoft to change the EULA from what you originally agreed to in order for you to install security patches.
There has got to be something wrong with extracting a payment (ie agreement to a new license) in order to get a needed fix to an already paid for product.
I have no intention of installing sp3 for Win2k unless they change that EULA, no way am I agreeing that MS can have access to my system.
Now perhaps, if due to this fact hackers gain access to my system through a security hole that sp3 would have patched, I can sue MS for charging for a fix to a broken product. You don't see the car companies charging for the fixes when there is a problem that requires a recall, and that costs them a lot more than the service pack costs MS.
OK, I'm not sure how much of a case there really is here, but I'd sure like to see someone try!
Mike
People don't care all that much, eh? Tell that to the gaming and entertainment industry, which is more or less the only thing still -selling- new PC hardware (no point upgrading if there's no games coming out that need it, after all). And tell that to the people that are forced to keep Windows XP because they've bought a few hundred dollars of games that they still like to play, but can't under Linux, I'm sure that they'd appreciate it too.
What is interesting is how few Linux users don't realize that Linux is a viable choice for many people, simply due to the fact that a lot of the software they're accustomed to, and -enjoy- using, is a complete writeoff once they try moving over to Linux. Not to mention a lot of their hardware (most USB video, full feature sets of various cards, etc) as well, all of which can add up to more than a few digits worth of investment. I'm sure there's many people that would love to dump Windows for something better but, realistically, there isn't a "something better" to replace it with yet. I personally Like a lot of the Linux distributions that I've tried, but I'm fully aware that for home use (business use is an entirely different matter), Linux simply wouldn't appeal or work for most people.
"Microsoft has told...that it plans eventually to eliminate users' ability to disable Microsoft's access to their systems."
Time to buy some shares of RedHat and Mandrake, eh?
If there is any question that Code is Law, MS_n_US_government_internet_lockdown_plan is a twisted and SICK version of 1984 in 2002.
Perhaps MS should change their logo to "What Control and Power would you like to lose today"{in the name of terrorism, aka.. government's ability to tax and control you with hidden code}, eh?
I'm no MS flag waver by any means, but I do think there is a way around these concerns by using MS' windows update server and client:d owsupdate /sus/default.aspr ec ommended/susclient/default.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/win
and
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/
If you block access from your servers to MS and use this system, I believe you'll probably able to get away from MS probing your computer.
As an OpenStep developer who now depends on Apple's continued viability for his living, I would like to remind you to actually purchase your copy of MacOS X before sending the above message to Apple, just so you can say in good conscience that "MY COPY OF MAC OSX DOES NOT WORK ON MY X86/AMD MOTHERBOARD." We wouldn't want to be dishonest around here, after all.
So why would you want to mod it "+1 overrated?" Surely you don't think that "overrated" contributes -1 on slashdot!
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
Muslims are in second place and working hard to catch up, though.
---
Goddamnit, I'm not a cowboy, and quit telling me to slow down!
Don't label yourself as being "computer savvy" if you:
(a) did not bother to locate the exact cause of
your lack of a Window manager
(b) did not look into installing whatever was missing
(c) shuffled everything into a corner.
I tell you what, I dare to think I am "savvy" enough to fix the problem in less than 15 minutes. Why don't you send this unused computer in a corner to me, so I can install a Window manager (obviously more than Nautilus is missing if you have no WM...so a good KDE or GNOME install should take care of this, or you are somehow either booting into init3 or there is a problem with your XConfig...in any case this is something a "computer savvy" person should be able to fix with no problem) and you can continue to live in a dreasm world where using the Control Panel in Windows makes you a guru.
And if you look at the last 50 years, Muslims have definitely killed more people in the "name of Islam" than Christians in the name of Christianity. Funny how those hell-bent on slinging mud at Christians always have to come back with "Remember the Crusades!" Yeah... how many centuries ago was that? Do you think anyone will really pay much attention to what happened on 9/11 in, say, 300 or 400 years??
Ctrl+Alt+Del
--Forest C. Adcock--
I advise keeping your original pr0n even after that particular upgrade. It's generally the case that the RealLiveWomen product can be more satisfying, but that it doesn't always let you do what you went, when you want it, nor exactly the way you want to do it.
:-P
There are various editions of this product, but all of them are tempremental to some extent, and generally not quite as nice looking as HotCollegeGirls!!! (exclamation marks part of name).
Actually, this is a sh!t analogy, and I can't figure out which one is meant to be Linux and which is Windows. You continue it, I can't be arsed...
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Tell her to RTFM.
- You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!
If your bank is using MS - Sue Them! It's *your* data that's at risk.
I think the only way to get the point across is to go out and file proactive lawsuits. If enough people start suing banks/financial institutions/medical institutions over MS privacy issues, then it will become too expensive to continue to use(or, more likely, MS will change the EULA. Perhaps it is this sort of issue that would make EULA's illegal...)
An ounce of perception is worth a pound of obscure
> No, the bible says "thou shalt not kill." It does not say murder.
No, your translation of the Bible says "...kill." The original Hebrew text used "murder". There are several occaisions when God commands the Hebrews (and later Israelites) to kill others in His name, so the distinction between kill and murder *is* significant.
> I just wish people would at least get the bible correct when they try to represent it.
I agree; start reading.
> Microsoft has told...that it plans eventually
:oD
> to eliminate users' ability to disable
> Microsoft's access to their systems.'"
So, There will be a free MS Access license with each OS? Now, why would i ever want to disable that?
The trouble is that it's been translated so many times that the origional wording has been pretty much lost. The general meaning is still there but not the origional wording per say.
We're going to make information free Mr. Anderson, whether you like it, or not.
So, let me get this straight. Easter eggs are now security threats? Whats next, a law to protect us from the evils of hidden credits or secret photos of the programmers?
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
God commanded others to kill in his name. Was that one of the commandments; to kill in his name? No, therefore it is a sin. Believe me, I know the bible fairly well. I was raised in the Methodist church in the deep south, where EVERYONE is a christian. I know the bible. I also know that there is a difference in old testiment laws, and the laws set forth for all to follow, for all time. I am confronted almost weekly by someone telling me that I will burn in hell because my arms are covered in tattoos, which they believe to be a sin. The bible never says not to tattoo yourself. I believe the exact words are something very close to "put no markings of other gods on your body". I do not have tattoos of any religous dieity, or imblem anywhere on my body. I just laugh and remind them that that was Moses's Law while he wandered in the desert for 40 years, and that the very next law was not to eat red meat. Is eating a stake a sin? no! There is a difference in the laws of then, and the laws set forth then, for now. We are told to follow only two sets of laws. We are not to break the 10 commandments given to Moses, nor are we to give in to the 7 deadly sins. All other laws were used to govern and populate the earth, not to rule it forever. So God telling people to kill at one point has no bearing on our lives now.
--Forest C. Adcock--
At the last place I worked, upper managment was well duped. First they were convinced to use M$ because it was cheaper and they could develop in house software for much less. Then M$ sank their claws in and started charging much more for SDKs and finally the software underneath itself. With escalating costs, upper management fired all their IT people to, "Focus on core business. We're a widget company not a software company." They were convicned that they could get all the software they needed off the shelf cheaper than they could develop it. Now they are rolling out a system that costs twice what the custom software did but will not be, well, custom.
If it were up to me, I'd have never fired the IT folks and I'd have moved onto free software. It's better to spend every penny of the original money in house for custom software than to simply give it away to another firm partnered with the bastards that screwed you so hard the last time. The custom software, while crippled by M$ inadequacies, did what they company needed it to do. The new crap, which will set the company back $10,000,000 may or may not, but the company won't be able to change a thing. Why people keep throwing good money after bad is indeed hard to fathom.
The pieces needed to replace every piece of comercial software are waiting to be used. The more common tasks, browsing, word processing, email, are already here so the vast majority of corporate desktops could be switched overnight for the cost of set up. As for 3D rendering and other less demanded stuff, did you not see that LOTR's animation code was being opened up? If the Quage engine is not good enough for you, just wait a while and you will have all you need made by your competitors. Then again, you might be out of business or working for them when you see the light.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I think eating a stake could be quite painful.
Regardless, the Bible was not written in modern English, and there have been translations. Where do you actually refute the poster that you are replying to?
financial institution, but as a large one, we have an INTERNAL microsoft update server, with ONLY CORPORATE approved updates. If you take a corporate installed OS to the windows update site it will inform you that you are an enterprise customer, please contact your system admin for 'approved' updates. But just for Sh*ts and Giggles I forwarded the gist of this document to
one of the numerous lawyers hanging about...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Regardless, we Gentiles live under the new covenant, the two greatest commandments being "Love God" and "Love others, as yourself".
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The nazis were a national socialist group, not a christian group, in case it wasn't already blindingly obvious, but then again, that's /. for you.
If you ignore the past 1500 years of islam (i.e. all of it), then yes, you're correct.
Or are you buying into the usual pop-culture christianity-is-bad claptrap?
I haven't worked in the medical industry, but I have worked in the banking industry. They are in a very similar situation regarding software. There is no window shopping. You don't get to decide what platform these programs run on. You get what your vendor makes.
These programs must often follow stringent federal guidelines and the vendors often offer 24/7 live support (and I've called my vendor at 11:30pm on Christmas Eve and there was a knowledgable tech there to help me out).
Idealsim is a fine thing, but don't let it get in the way of getting your actual work done.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Windows emulation even better than Windows: http://www.winehq.com/ .
Oh yeah, and if you've got a Mac, it's called VirtualPC: http://www.connectix.com/
So, this is not something to "wine" about!
I'm thinking that the SP3 EULA makes a wonderful industrial espionage channel; Could you imagine Bill Gates NOT perusing the contents of Sam Palmisano's thinkpad? Or McNealy's? Or (pick a competitor)?
Of course it won't be long before each of our systems will become a file server for M$ (all of us with wee little pieces...) as their effort to deploy a "grid".
-soup (GNUrd, Speaker to Machines) "Laugh at yourself- Why should everyone else have all the fun?" -Romanchek's 6th Ru
Most banks and other large corporations buy MS support contracts which work OUTSIDE Windows Update and other online software download mechanisms. So, I don't see how this issue really applies to banks and other large corporations. As far as I know these different licensing agreements are wholly different. In other words, to get an online update one transfers rights to access their systems online. Whereas using MS's support contract CD updates there is no such proviso. Let me put it another way, MS has made different classes of software for the public and for private enterprise. Yes, there is a MS corporate version of XP that does not phone home -- where do you think Devil's Own came from???? This whole story is a ruse of FUD!
They should. The number of atrocities committed in the name of god is directly proportional to the level of influence that religion has over politics. Merely handwaving away Christian atrocities conveniently ignores this.
The important part is the fact that both religions generate the same end result in similar circumstances. This is quite relevant to very broad public policy issues (IOW, church-state separation).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If you are a Methodist, that it is highly unlikely that you know squat about the bible. Being familiar with a self-serving Xian translation is not knowing the Bible.
Unless you can comment on the original Hebrew, in it's historical and cultural context, you are doing nothing more than engaging in trickery.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
NUFF SAID!!!!!
God commanded others to kill in his name. Was that one of the commandments; to kill in his name? No, therefore it is a sin.
The Commandment given to Moses was "thou shalt not murder." There are, however, many instances when God told His people to kill; for example, someone who committed adultry. Also, it is written that the blood of a murderer shall be spilled by human hands.
Another responder was correct when he said that as gentiles, we live under a new covenant. Jesus, however, reiterated 9 of the ten commandments; all except the keeping of the Sabath. He also gave a new commandment, "love one another as I have loved you." Finally, He said that the greates commandment was tolove the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
Thomas Galvin
Hrm, my Windows experience lasted a little longer than 2 hours, but still not very long (especially given how little I used it). I started out dual-booting (keeping Windows for games), but within a year, I'd had to reinstall Windows twice, and when it completely fell apart for the third time, I gave up on it, and reformatted the Windows partition to /usr/local. OTOH, my Linux desktop has been running flawlessly since 1997. I use Debian, and the only time I've ever reinstalled was when I replaced the entire computer! :)
:)
I don't love Windows, I wouldn't use it on a bet as a firewall/webserver/devbox, and my god, the desktop experience stinks!
Honestly, we couldn't do it without Redmond trolls like you. Thanks alot.
The banking regulations wrt privacy are the LAW. The Eula is only a private civil contract. In case you were aspleep thru all of your hight school civics class, whenever the terms of a private civil contract are in conflict with the law, then the law reigns supreme automatically over the terms of the civil contract. Far too many people and companies refuse to accept the law however and always push the issue to a court case.
How about this scenario:
Instead of teaching their operatives to fly planes, al Qaeda teaches them to write code. A few get jobs as contract workers for MS. They then insert a nifty little Trojan Horse into a Windows update, which gets promptly uploaded to millions of PCs worldwide.
And on a target date, the hard drives of every Windows computer in the world get wiped simultaneously.
Not all that farfetched, really - so how much DO you trust MicroSoft, anyway? This would certainly be possible with many other vendors, as well. Windows Update, however, gives the chance to bypass anitvirus software and many other protections, as well as automatic distribution to millions of computers that otherwise would be unreachable. And like 9/11, no one would suspect a thing until it was all over.
is found in Word. open a new blank document and type in =rand(20,200) and this will be replaced with 20 lines of text, each line containing 200 repeats of the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Obviously this feature is a necessary part of the overall word experience. I'm using word2000, but I have also seen this in word97. I haven't tested it in XP tho
Don't forget the New Testament was written in Greek, not Hebrew...
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
"Solely for the purpose of preventing unlicensed use of the applicable OS Software, the OS Components will include installation on your computer of technological measures that are designed to prevent unlicensed use, and Microsoft may use this technology to confirm that you have a licensed copy of the OS Software." This is the type of information they are talking about getting from your computer. They aren't downloading personal data, so there is no issue with HIPAA, etc. Get a clue.
Vote for Pedro
Okay, +1 point for a lucid argument, minus 4.7 x 10^24 for off-topic, yeah?
Karma
"Microsoft does provide users with a high level of control over the auto update feature. Windows XP ships with the feature turned off, for example, so users must choose to activate it. And Microsoft notifies users of any updates, requiring them to agree to install them."
The information MS wants from your computer when auto installing patches etc. is information about the current OS build, patches, hardware, etc. The information hospitals and banks want to protect is customer data. Since these are mutually exclusive, simply have the lawyers rewrite the EULA to specify OS and computer hardware related information only will be sent to MS. This should fix this bureaucratic nonsense.
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I believe that is the Windows Update Status site.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
That's all fine for Mac Users, but while I really don't have anything personally against the Mac, the hardware diversity is close to nill. This is good in a way, but bad in more ways...
The problem is where you have truly customer software, like a Calltracking System meant to track and store a database of Tech support calls that is tailored to what the company needs, or the software that reads sensors on Boilers, Generators, and Turbines at a power plant. These things are obviously going to be Specific to the facility and/or company, and are impossible to replace with "free" software that is readily available.
What nonsense! The building blocks for making any free program are available, but that's beside the point when the company already has the program made and could free it. Well designed software, free or comercial, can be tailored to any facility. The time spent fitting a generic piece of comercial software is wasted when you already have your own inhouse program or a piece of free software you know you can always get back. Industry people trust industry people before they trust some silly software comapny that lacks a working clue. The benifits to opening that code far outweigh the costs.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe?
Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business signs
to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a word, as in:
WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ITEM'S.
Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand- lettered
small-business signs is that you should put quotation marks around random
words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S.
-- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"
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