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Gates Comdex Keynote Shows Plans, Matrix Spoof
An anonymous reader writes "According to Eweek, Bill Gates' keynote speech at this year's Comdex showed Microsoft's 'focus on security, spam and [the] tablet PC', including a new version of its Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server, an extension of the SmartScreen Technology for spam prevention, and the next version of the Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system. But the showstopper was a filmed spoof of The Matrix (screencaps available here), with Gates and Steve Ballmer as Morpheus and Neo respectively, and including a jab at Linux."
How many times can Bill get on stage, claim that "Microsoft is refocusing its effors into security", and be believable? I mean, they supposedly shifted all these resources into fixing the holes in Windows, and, well, we all know how well THAT went. Now we're supposed to roll over, forget about that, and say, "Oh, okay. He means it this time. I believe him."?
It's interesting that they've positioned Linux as the Matrix (the establishment), and Microsoft as Neo/Morpheus (the underdogs/rebels). I'd have thought the reverse would be a more accurate analogy ...
Ah, kids today.
:)
Some of you may not be aware of this, but at one point (20-25 years ago) Microsoft was seen as the little guy, fighting against the big, powerful, market-dominating, innovation-stifling IBM. Remind anyone of a certain penguin?
Microsoft has turned into everything they used to be against (and sometimes worse). Kinda reminds me of what happens to revolutionaries in the political world. Let's just hope Linus' ego can be kept in check
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
If Linux is the Matrix, and Windows is the rebel humans fighting back... would Slashdot be the Merovingian, the supreme trafficker of information hoping to know all that it can and in the mean time falling short of disguising its favoring Linux?
Of all the things that money can buy, a personality isn't one of them.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
The linux pill's huge, but you can chop it up into tiny pieces and just swallow what you want. The Windows pill, however, is a suppository and makes you gain 300 lbs in a few days.
Because Debian holds itself responsible for all of the packages that comprise the distribution, which by now has already exceeded the 10000 (ten thousand) packages mark, whereas Microsoft is only responsible for the security of its own barebones operating system and whichever other products it sells, like its Office suice.
a couple of years ago... should it be a compliment to Linux or an insult to your memory that you couldn't think of anything more recent than "a couple of years ago"...
How about last week... One of our competitors that pride themselves on being the best in the industry with Security and using Linux Servers as their flagship of security had about 100 customer's web servers root hacked.
Linux can be secure, but it just isn't as easy as the Open Source world tries to create. The Myth becomes so predominate that people install Linux and just assume that their computers are more secure, and hence never take into account updates, patches, or basic security measures.
People here simply saying that Linux is more secure is doing a DIS-service to the Linux and Open Source movement, as customers that do make the leap feel too comfortable with the 'myth of security' and then let their system get hacked right and left and flee Open Source and Linux after being burned.
Tell the truth, all systems are susceptible, no matter who makes it. All it takes is time and a smart mind to virtually get into anything.
I imagined more sweat - like with all that rain coming down at the end for Ballmer....
... there is nothing more pathetic that seeing two overly rich CEO's attempt to hip themselves up to pop culture. I'll take my glasses-half-full 401K presentations, my Initech pep rallies, and all that other crap over this. Nice to know that part of the war chest is going towards craptastic special effects and parody instead of, I don't know, hiring some cheap labor to look for buffer overflows.
And the innovation pill? I have some explanations...
- It's a placebo.
- You can only take the pill after reading the EULA that's was in the package.
- The package itself is flawed and tampered with because some script kiddie got into it first.
- The pill would advertize for other pills, mostly blue and purple.
Two thumbs down. Even Keanu can act better than Gates.
This space for rent.
There's a lot of truth to this. But it misses the point that, if you try, it's much easier to make Unix/Linux systems relatively secure, whereas it's an uphill battle with Windoze. Until recently, Microsoft gave the appearance that they didn't even care very much how secure their software was, regardless of whether the customer cared or not.
You are correct in that this is almost a side issue, given that it is not easy on any system, and most people don't try hard enough on any system.
But that doesn't mean that all systems are therefore equal.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
I use a net-connected Linux machine that offers several non-trivial public services. Its uptime currently stands at a bit over 400 days.
(Yes, particular daemons have been upgraded, but using straightforward Unix techniques there was zero interruption to service.)
During the last 400 days, there have been many times when we've had to take internal NT servers down to install service packs. Probably about six times that I recall, although I may have supressed the memory of the others... And these Windows machines are not even exposed to the internet, they're just at risk from worms and similar crap on a private network.
"Would you like to restart your computer now?"
"Why yes, of course, it's not like I was actually using the machine for anything!"
There are anecdotes in favor of either system but the simple fact is there is no security-critical Windows machine with an uptime of more than a couple of months, since service packs invariably require a reboot. I think that ought to tell us something.
And this is to say nothing of the outright bastardry of making people sign a new licence agreement to get a critical security fix.