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Gates and Security
An anonymous reader writes "Orwell was wrong about Big Brother! Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates told a homeland-security conference on Wednesday afternoon that Orwell's dystopian vision of the future, in which Big Brother used technology as a form of social control, 'didn't come true, and I don't believe it will.'" Other tidbits about this security conference: Gates had his own troubles with security (Drudge is copy-and-pasting from a subscriber-only Roll Call story). Gates is apparently trying to sell interoperability to HomeSec. Meanwhile, Microsoft viruses continue unchecked.
Gates are definitely a good first step for security, if additional security is required, I would also recommend a pirhana infested moat and barbed wire fences.
Slashdot, the site where everything's made up and the points don't matter
I thought Bill Gates got voted off the planet, is he still here?
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
Put bars on Windows and locks on Gates.
Then I'll feel secure.
Best Windows Freeware
Additionally, Mr. Gates is also expected to call upon renowned informaticist Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf to support his arguments.
Windows IS the virus!
MS Windows is a virus:
...
Here's what viruses do:
1. They replicate quickly - okay, Windows does that.
2. Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as they do so - okay, Windows does that.
3. Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk - okay, Windows does that too.
4. Viruses are usually carried, unknown to the user, along with valuable programs and systems. Sigh... Windows does that, too.
5. Viruses will occasionally make the user suspect their system is too slow (see 2) and the user will buy new hardware. Yup, that's with Windows, too.
Until now it seems Windows is a virus...but there are fundamental differences:
Viruses are well supported by their authors, are running on most systems, their program code is fast, compact and efficient and they tend to become more sophisticated as they mature.
So Windows is not a virus.
It's a bug.
From someone else
Gates told the Homeland Security folks all about how Palladium and other 'secure computing' initiatives will actually prevent the kind of scenario presented in Orwell's classic.
When asked by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge exactly how Palladium "relates to that one really neat Super Bowl commercial, the one with the running and throwing the hammer at the tv", Gates got a little red in the face and mumbled something about how that was the "wrong company."
Then why did he timestamp it?
What was that program that Will Smith uploaded to the alien mothership to put the system on it's knees?
you're right, it was an image of windows 98.
16,777,216 comments ought to be enough for any forum!
"The present reality is a middle-aged man with a worried expression and a big butt."
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Some people do yoga, some people take prozac... slashdoters flame microsoft.
Diferent people deal with stress in diferent ways.
16,777,216 comments ought to be enough for any forum!
Don't forget the freakin' sharks with freakin' laser beams attached to their freakin' heads. They've killed many an un-named henchmen.
Developers: We can use your help.
A picture of an all seeing eye, with the caption "1984, we're behind schedule. National Security Agency"
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
...you just have to fill that backdoor, then, don't you? I hear that's Gates' specialty.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
The gov asks Billy what is best for their PC's and Billy advises a substantial deposit into his bank account.
While I would hope that anyone advising the government would have our best interests at heart, I have to admit, if they were to ask me what was best, I would say that a substantial deposit into MY account would ensure national safety... hey, I'm only human!Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
Gates told a homeland-security conference on Wednesday afternoon that Orwell's dystopian vision of the future, in which Big Brother used technology as a form of social control, "didn't come true, and I don't believe it will."
"The Greatest Trick the Devil Ever Pulled Was Convincing The World He Didn't Exist"
"Ignorance is Strength" has already been adopted by the American people.
I'll trade you a pack of victory cigarettes for some of your freedom fries :)
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I once went to the white house with my wife and mother-in-law. My mother-in-law used her Citibank Visa with her photo on it as her picture ID. We got in. This is pre-911, of course, but still makes me laugh.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Those victimized by Statin and his ilk suffered under the yolk of oppression imposed by a militarisitic police state.
I believe you have egg on your face.
I don't know what you're talking about ....
but I thought you said
That's right, everybody needs to be as smart as you right?
I think you'd be interested in an active government if somebody was trying to rob your house.
Or blow up your office building.
Or hack your bank account.
Or if you didn't have any freeways to drive on to get to work.
Or if your house was flooded.
Or if you lost your job and for some reason nobody seemed to realize how smart you were and give you a new one.
Or if you were a scientist and wanted to research something completely impractical.
Or if you had a smart child but couldn't afford to send them to college (where maybe they could become as smart as you).
By trivializing what the government is responsible for, you show your own ignorance (despite the fact that you are clearly smarter than "the masses.") I'm not defending any characteristic of the American government, but before you propose a solution, make sure you understand the problem.