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Slashback: Mutuality, Transport, Spyware
Well, while we were switching things around here at the ad agency ... An anonymous reader writes "While looking around on Microsoft's site checking out the new Tablet PCs I noticed something very out of Place. In one of their Flash Demos for the Tablet PC there is an Apple Powerbook 1400! To see it for yourself, the flash is located here (then "Tablet PC Overview Demo," then "Tablet PC," then "Powerful") The first computer is really that Powerbook! Pic here."
What about to the legal brothels? Sacarino writes "Back in April, Slashdot ran a story about the Monorail project Las Vegas was embarking upon. It would appear that things are progressing nicely. "It's ugly" critics will be put to shame, the designers did a great job of making it non-obtrusive. (if that's possible in Vegas) Soon you too will pile off the airplane, trudge onto the monorail, then run into the casino to spend that money....ahh, Vegas."
Out of court, out of mind. Enry writes "SONICblue and TiVo have dropped the patent infringement lawsuits they filed against each other. The press release reads: "We believe our energies are better spent expanding the market for Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) rather than fighting each other. Both sides believe in the merits of their respective positions, but the overall success of the DVR category is what is most important to the companies at this time." Take that, AdAge!"
Sounds like a nice way to watch movies. For those intrigued by a 640x480, QWERTY-keyboard color, clamshell-case PDA as embodied by the Zaurus 5600, patrickoehlinger writes "Just found news and pictures about the new Sharp Zaurus SL-C700 released in Japan. With a 640 x 480 pixel display, a small design and a great keyboard! Golem.de has a article with pictures, but it's in German."
Would the BBC spy on you? An anonymous reader writes "The previous discussion on RedSheriff on slashdot was extremely confusing as well as mostly off-topic. The fact is, the BBC is downloading spyware to your machine when you surf their site. Very disappointing and surprising. I suggest e-mailing them to let them know what you think. The problem and remedies are covered in Google groups: "
Well, it's unfortunate but a lot more sites are doing that, as far as I can see. I always get gator popups here at sparknotes for example and it's a pain to click no all the time.
Well, I guess my 2 cents wont get very far =/
Lyle Lanley: Well, sir, there's nothing on earth Like a genuine, Bona fide, Electrified, Six-car Monorail!
What'd I say?
Ned Flanders: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: What's it called?
Patty+Selma: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: That's right! Monorail!
Miss Hoover: I hear those things are awfully loud...
Lyle Lanley: It glides as softly as a cloud.
Apu: Is there a chance the track could bend?
Lyle Lanley: Not on your life, my Hindu friend.
Barney: What about us brain-dead slobs?
Lyle Lanley: You'll be given cushy jobs.
Abe: Were you sent here by the devil?
Lyle Lanley: No, good sir, I'm on the level.
Wiggum: The ring came off my pudding can.
Lyle Lanley: Take my pen knife, my good man.
I swear it's Springfield's only choice...
Throw up your hands and raise your voice!
All: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: What's it called?
All: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: Once again...
All: Monorail!
Marge: But Main Street's still all cracked and broken...
Bart: Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken!
All: Monorail!
Monorail!
Monorail!
----------
"Duffman says a lot of things, OH YEAH!" - Duffman
Not to sound like too much of an idiot but the newspost didn't have much in the way of detecting the spyware on my box. I suppose it is safe to assume if I have hit the BBC site lately I am "infected" but I would like to be able to remove it manually not just disable it in the firewall. Anybody willing to offer some insight on this on both win2k(work) and linux boxes?
It is not enough to succeed, others must fail. - Gore Vidal
I'm all for that thing - Actually I think EVERY CITY IN THE WORLD should have a monorail and then we should have monorails connected by super fast trains - then I won;t have to fly anymore. I HATE flying, not because of terrorists - I just don't have wings and don;t like being flung around in a giant metal bird.
Ave Molech Setting
Here is a link to Redsheriff's privacy policy, cached on google (just in case).
Hello, Vegas? Give me 100 bucks on red... D'oh! All right, I'll send you a check.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Not quite.
The Apple PowerBook 1400 ships with a 133MHz proc., 16MB of DRAM, and a 750MB hard disk drive.
In the Flash movie on Microsoft's site, it's shown running Windows XP, which simply wouldn't happen on a box with such meager specs.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
If you can sit through the whole demo, there's a second mac. About two thirds of the way through is a PowerMac Desktop I'm gussing circa 1996. I'm no mac expert. Maybe someone else can identify the model?
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
"The fact is, the BBC is downloading spyware to your machine when you surf their site."
Last I checked, the BBC would be UPLOADING software to your machine. You would be the one downloading it. God I'm sick of people misusing that word.
Well, while we were switching things around here at the ad agency
And in doing so, it got a front-page link on Slashdot, direct to the Microsoft Tablet PC demo / info page. Thanks, Slashdot!
The previous discussion on RedSheriff on slashdot was extremely confusing as well as mostly off-topic. The fact is, the BBC is downloading spyware to your machine when you surf their site. Very disappointing and surprising. I suggest e-mailing them to let them know what you think.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't trust technical "facts" from people that don't know the difference between downloading and uploading. That's like hiring a plumber that asks you what room the bathroom sink is in.
They should have used the money to repair the potholes on Main Street.
Don't want the prostitutes tripping and falling into holes, now do ya?
seems like someone over at MS just lost his job. maybe some MS employee secretely rooting for the Apple Switch campaign.
If Steve Balmer needs a reason to jump up and down like a crazy monkey again, here is it!
keep it simple.
What bothers me most about spyware and insecure windooze programs(outlook etc) is that you can secure your PC by tweaking the right knobs, but then the time comes for that 1/2 year re-install and you have to start all over and remember what to turn off where etc.
:)
Installing a Windooze pc and connecting it to the internet requires so much work before you can say it's secure. And then there is all the spyware that comes with "great" shareware programs, so you really need a seperate partition to test the programs on first before installing them on your primary installation. Then you need programs like Ad-Aware and a personal firewall to keep track of programs that likes to phone home(have even seen programs with no network functionality all of the sudden wants to contact a server on the net).
Oh, and let's not forget antivirus software etc etc.
So I installed a Linux dist, not because I think that it's impossible to infiltrate it, but because the focus on all that Crap-ware has not yet turned too bad there and I feel more in control over what's going on under the hood. Now if only they would make the fonts look right, they are getting better, but not 100% yet.
I thinking about those 90% of the people with a connection to the internet, who does not have any clue to what's going on. And the great concept with Windooze was that they shouldn't need to know everything about computers to use them. These days they don't, but they do get their pc 0wned in a mild way.
We are beginning to see ISPs offer secure/firewalled connections to the internet. So that might be a new feature(income) for them, firewalling,spam blocking, blocking "bad" ip's. I have seen advertising for it, but I haven't looked into it.
my sig
Thanks. The spyware is called RedSheriff. It's a Java applet and its the first spyware that I've identified as running as Java.
Step one: Unclick "Java" in Preferences
Step two: There is no step two! There is no step two!
sulli
RTFJ.
Try Babelfish for translation so you can read about PDAs. I don't use PDAs with built in keyboards, but someone else might find the article interesting.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The BBC mentions their use of RedSheriff in their privacy policy. RedSheriff have their own privacy policy.
Monorail from the Airport? Man, that would ROCK HARD. No having to take the shuttles with endless stops or taxis with 20 years of grime built up.
I do feel a bit sorry for the taxi drivers: this is going to kill 80% of them. Apparently the union is not that powerful in Vegas. :) [which is yet another lesson why union's suck and why they tend to retard progress, but that's a rant for another day]
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Since I moved to Opera I've not had to deal with any Gators or other crap like that. Opera Beta 7.0 is really nice (once you get used to it) and is worth the money, IMHO.
With IE you really get what you pay for. Nothing.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Ok, I guess I'll probably lose a load of karma for this cos it sounds like I'm sticking up for spyware but what the hell... having looked at RedSherriff's website all this java applet really does is allow them to get around the problems that proxies and caches cause for people that want to find out how many page hits they got - is that really spyware?
PS - sorry for not jumping on the bandwagon.
They seem to work for a lot of people...
Founded in 1996, RedSheriff is an industry leader in interactive measurement technologies and market research. We provide specialized products and services that enable you to accurately assess your company's performance in the constantly evolving digital environment.
RedSheriff measures in 37 countries through regional offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, Brisbane, Singapore, Tokyo, London, Copenhagen, Milan, Los Angeles, San Francisco and headquarters in New York. We also have strategic partnerships with several major industry players including the AGB Group, Taylor Nelson Sofres Gallup, and Video Research.
Our client base includes key global players such as BT LookSmart, Excite, Excite@Home, News Interactive, F2 Interactive, Scandinavia Online, Monster.com, MTV, NineMSN.com, Virgin Direct, Virgin, Genie Internet, Asia World Online, Charles Schwab and Telstra.
Our strategic investment partners include Deutsche European Partners, Ericsson-Deutsche Technology Fund, WPP, Australasian Media and Communication Fund, and Equity Partners.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
Here's the home page of the new Zaurus model (Japanese only)
m l
http://www.sharp.co.jp/products/slc700/index.ht
I surfed around, looks like this unit has cool GPS maps available, that's the most interesting app I found.
You'll have to click the Translate button, but hey, deal with it.
that that is is that that is not is not
try http://dynamism.com. Not a plug! I haven't ordered from them, just browsed. Lik-Sang (http://lik-sang.com) has some other things, but tends to focus on Video Games.
Slash dot had an article on how to reverse the screen on your apple powerbook duo. The guy used a glue gun and gave step by step instructions on turning your apple into a picture frame.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Okay.. if this spyware is a java applet.... can someone explain what the problem is? It's an applet; it should be gone when you close your browser, and not come back until you visit a site that uses it.
The java security model should prevent an applet from spying on you.. or am I mistaken?
But, per the google group discussion, is used my firewall software to block a couple of IP addresses that the java program is based off of. I just visited the BBC news site, and I'm not getting record of a block to those IPs in my firewall logs. It is possible that they already took this stuff down?
Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
Or am I missing somthing or is that exactly what is going on?
my experience and understanding with java is that insecure applets cant access URLS outside their source URL, they cant access other open windows (or atleast not anything that javascript cant access), and they cant access any system level communications or your files on disk. Thus they cant be spying on you. And if you leave the site they go poof. I suppose they could be playing frame games making you think you left the site.
can anyone tell me how they are getting around these restrictions?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I pretty much skipped Comdex throughout the 90s (hotels too expensive, not enough interesting stuff, big rip-offs all around), but it was bad in the late 80s. I never took a Taxi anywhere; it was just a huge waste of time. I can only imagine that it got worse.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
From reading the USENET commentary on Google Groups, it seems like RedSheriff only works on Microsoft's broken virtual machine that ships with Windows. It appears that, if you install Sun's JVM, the problem doesn't arise (or at least alerts the user). This would also seem to suggest that Mozilla is immune, since they have their own JVM, yes?
Yet another reason to avoid IE, I suppose.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
"While looking around on Microsoft's site checking out the new Tablet PCs I noticed something very out of Place. In one of their Flash Demos for the Tablet PC there is an Apple Powerbook 1400! To see it for yourself, the flash is located here (then "Tablet PC Overview Demo," then "Tablet PC," then "Powerful") The first computer is really that Powerbook! Pic here."
OH MY GOD
This is the biggest news of the century!!!! FACINATING!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
everytime I install an RPM I feel like someone is saying to me "close your eyes and open your mouth and you will get a big surprise". Then with root access the RPM sprays files in all sorts of directories, overwites system /bin files like "make" and inserts various conficuration scripts in dark places I've never visted in my unix life. Geeze its totally out of control.
mandrake and a few others give you a gui package view that sort of says what's oging to be affected but it's not like you can remeber what happened a week or a year later.
for my money the only system I am remotely at ease with is FINK for mac ( and linux). which rarely goes outside of its own directory to mess with basic system stuff.
but you are right in wishing there was some sort of keystroke file for anytime you did an install or a tweak so you could re-do it later after a re-install or an upgrade.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
If I walk into someone's store, the store is permitted to have someone follow me -- either in person, or by video camera. I'm on private property, and the property owner is entitled to watch what I am doing.
...move right along, please.
When you surf on a site, you are accessing someone elses server. They are the property owner, and they have the right to a report to see what you are doing.
There is nothing that I can see that RedSherriff becomes resident on your machine and watches you elsewhere. It just uses cookies to provide enhanced site stats to, in this case, the beeb.
Nothing to see here...
I would rather have wanted the IBM Transnote
If the tablet PC should work, it should be cheap since I never really think it would be the only PC you would have. it would need to be thinner than it is. It wouldn't need a lot of fancy features. You could have a dockingstation that would give it more features, option for other graphiccard etc. It would have some very for some things, but bad for others.
my sig
Sorry, you'll just have to drive out to the ole ranch there ya city slicker!
It's a private project. If you read around about it, you'll find that the city isn't paying for it, at all. It's financed by a whackload of bonds, that will be paid off the revenues generated by fares.
SO they didn't have to dip into the road repair funds at all. That's all still in the city coffers.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
First of all, why are people saying this Red Sherriff stuff is Java-based? Am I missing something here? I can see some JavaScript stuff on the BBC site - is there a Java component too perhaps?
... well ... let's see:
/snip/
u nt?ref='+
/snip/
m en t.write(imgN);" '+'w idth=1 height=2}'+/ applet}')
/snip/
... in this case either a 1x1 or 1x2 pixel image. The information is passed in the request for that image. From what I see above, aside from the colateral stuff like your IP address, a "Customer ID" string of "uk_bbc_0" is passed, along with the "Document Referrer". That is, if you clicked a link on another website somewhere in order to get to news.bbc.co.uk, the URL of that referring website is sent to Red Sherriff.
As for what it's reporting
Excerpt from the source of http://news.bbc.co.uk/:
{!-- START RedMeasure V4 - Java v1.1 $Revision: 1.9 $ --}
{!-- COPYRIGHT 2000 Red Sheriff Limited --}
{script language="JavaScript"}
{!--
var pCid="uk_bbc_0";
var w0=1;
var refR=escape(document.referrer);
if (refR.length>=252) refR=refR.substring(0,252)+"..."
{img src="http://server-uk.imrworldwide.com/cgi-bin/co
refR+'&cid='+pCid+'" width=1 height=1}'
if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Mac')!=-1){docu
}else{
document.write('{applet code="Measure.class" '+
'codebase="http://server-uk.imrworldwide.com/
'{param name="ref" value="'+refR+'"}'+'{param name="cid" value="'+pCid+
'"}{textflow}'+imgN+'{/textflow}{
{/noscript}
{/COMMENT}
{!-- END RedMeasure V4 --}
I'm not a JavaScript expert, but this says to me that the information is passed back to the Red Sherriff company by requesting a "web bug"
Ah, you must be talking about that toy monorail that goes between, what is it, caesars and bellagio? It actually is more like a cable car, gets pulled back and forth on a fixed cable....
Maaaayyyyybe, they're just running an old version of this with this.
Well, you never know...
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
It wasn't meant to come across like that, it was trying for a (+1) Funny, is what it was trying to do.
FYI, NineMSN (Australia's own big brother presence on the web, and the default exit page for Hotmail from Aus) also uses Redsheriff.
So does Suncorp Metway a BANK!!!
As such, microsoft now knows where I bank. Scary.
/* affect != effect */ void affect(int *thing,int effect) { *thing += effect; }
No. Remember, professionals design that advertising.
Step 2: Insert random Apple Powerbook 1400
Step 3: Report "slip up" to Mac centered websites
Step 4: Report that "over 20% of page views on the new tablet PC pages are from Macintosh computers." to interested third party vendors.
So now they've got ammo for a real switch campain...
The Zaurus 5600 is 320x240 (1/4vga), not 640x480 as
stated in the slashback.
The C700 *is* 640x480.
http://www.smh.com.au/
http://www.theage.com.au/
http://www.cricket.org
http://www.plannedchildhood.com
Bastards!
Got Code?
My favourite Troy episode is where he does the musical version of The Planet of the Apes
OLPC Australia
I can't believe I made a post about Troy Maclure and I didn't link to here.
OLPC Australia
I just noticed today that there are ads with Tony Hawk and Yo Yo Ma.
(not together)
I'm hoping that they'll make some with Gates/Ballmer lookalikes...
.sig last updated Jan. 14, 2000
...if they've been able to solve their NASDAQ problems. Their stock has been under a dollar for a long time now (I bought some at .23 and sold at .47). The NASDAQ sent them formal notice several months ago that if they could not maintain a stock price above a dollar for three consecutive weeks by November, they'd be dropped from the exchange. That hasn't happened. The closest they've come is almost .75 cents for a few minutes. I'm not sure the company can survive long enough to make a run of it. I think they were just a touch ahead of their time. They're very probably going to be dropped from the NASDAQ, but more importantly, they're in debt and operating at a loss.
Has no one gone to redsheriff.com? They're a site visitor logging company. I use them at work instead of writing my own huge log files, which were upwards of 2GB/day. Instead, I just log a few things and let the Red Sheriff applet/Javascript combo do the visitor logging.
...parent organization. I have never reviewed their terms of service, since we are not technically their customer, our "parent organization" is. I'll be sure to check this out and maybe submit it if I find any interesting info.
Red Sherrif got the contract through our... *thinking of how I can make this anonymous*
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
- PROPOSED MONORAIL AUTHORITY
That will be a 14-mile system, biggest in North America.Precincts Counted: 100.00%
YES: 82256
NO: 81674
add a 1.8" hd, 802.11b, and an extended-life battery,
and that sharp device would conquer the u.s. ultra-
portable market.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
The fact is, the BBC is downloading spyware to your machine when you surf their site.
What browser allows BBC to send them spyware without the user's permission? If that really happens, it's a browser security bug. I'm surprised the spammers haven't leveraged this bug with their html mail efforts (if it's really that easy to install spyware on a user's system). I find it hard to believe this claim. Anyone have an explanation?
The monorail will not go to the airport in the initial building. The taxicab authority is too damn powerful to let the monorail go to the airport, they'd lose too much money. The money talks and the people walk... or hail a cab...
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
I was in Las Vegas this past summer. Whoever designed that monorail was completely incompetent! The doors and cars were too small, so when a handicapped person (and there's a lot of those in Las Vegas) got on, attendants had to go in and move seats around. This took about 20 minutes, which is ridiculous. And then the thing starts moving, and I keep waiting for it to speed up, but it keeps plodding along at snail pace. I could have walked to the one destination stop in less time. Thanks for wasting my time, monorail designers.
The Disney World monorail is so much better.
Hmmm...then you weren't on the actual monorail, but the crappy shuttle. The current monorail uses Bombardier Mark IV monorail cars that were actually acquired from Disney World.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
My question: is RedSheriff running when you are NOT viewing a page at BBC, or is it only actively collecting data on viewing habits at BBC?
If it's the former, HOW IS THIS TECHNICALLY POSSIBLE? It is running in the Java sandbox. If Java is not running or loaded, how can this thing run?
If it's the latter, WHY IS THIS A BIG DEAL? It is just another method of gathering statistics on your own site; scripts and applications to do this that run in the web client have been around for years and relatively few people have been complaining.
-Lx?
The SonicBlue/Tivo dropped-lawsuit story is a duplicate.
3 0&mode=thread&tid=129
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/11/17352
As with the sun's light
My mom was magnificent
Unquestionable
PROPOSED MONORAIL AUTHORITY:
YES: 89899 50.09%
NO: 89570 49.91%
As of Monday evening, it's losing by 3 votes! PROPOSED MONORAIL AUTHORITY YES: 92435 50.00% NO: 92438 50.00% Final figures tomorrow, after the last of the absentee ballots comes in.