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Windows 8 Introduces a New Cross-App Data-Sharing System
There's been a lot of attention to the way Windows 8 looks; reader aabelro writes with an interesting look at one way it behaves. The article begins thus: "Microsoft has created a new mechanism for sharing information between applications in Windows 8 called Windows Share. Apps can share text, bitmaps, HTML, URI, files, and other type of data, and the usage scenarios are numerous. For example, the app receiving the information can post it to Tweeter or Facebook[, making] it easy to post information to a social network without actually visiting it." Here's a short (video) explanation at MSDN, too.
... except on Windows.
are obsolete now?
And what's Tweeter? Does Twitter have competition now?
Android calls them - Intent, Bundle and Extras, better than mime-type
I guess I won't watch it.
(Or you can download 312M)
When will MS work out that what we really want is a simple, stable platform, not more and more OS-integrated bells and whistles that, by the very nature of software itself, must introduce further bugs and resource consumption.
If they want to get Windows to the point where it is popular, ditch all of the ridiculous embellishments and build a core platform that just works consistently and reliably. We can look after our own bloody social networking.
Now I am a real sickie
OLE made me go insane
Brockschmidt's book emptied out my brain
Clipboard formats didn't set me free
I'm an MSDN Lobotomy
LOBOTOMY!
LOBOTOMY!
So now, trojans will have a built-in API to steal your data through.
At first, the wording "cross-app sharing system" made me think about a usual sub system for apps to share data, which about every OS already have. But RFT, ( or Viewing the F video) made it a lot less interesting. I don't need to share just about everything I do on my PC ( or any other computing device ). I am perfectly aware how facebook, twitter , G+, etc... are amazing tools. I am also aware that if it is free, I am not the consumer, but the product being sold.
And here I thought apps already had a way to share data.
My first thought as well. How much trolling will any Google app do with this? {FacePalm}
What's Tweeter?
I know what Twitter is, but I've never heard of Tweeter.
I would argue this is not a new idea. The same basic concept exists in Android as Intents.
this sounds a bit similar to dbus. just more desktop & social media oriented.
It will be revolutionary when it's released in 1991!
They've resurrected network DDE from NT 3.5 and tied it to a IP address instead of a network share.
This is one to add back to the machine lock down service disable list.
Well, this sounds almost exactly like BeOS's Negotiated Drag and Drop. I remember Leo Laporte doing an episode of (IIRC) The Screensavers where he showed the BeOS, and demonstrated this by dragging an unsaved piece of data between three or four applications and manipulating it in each. But, all I could easily find was this classic scene from a demo video demonstrating the concept between Tracker (the desktop application) and the Book application.
Even if they do not allow root access, anything windows does do for security tends to be a mere speed bump to slow you down for about 5 min.
Applescript?
Lolwut?
Cool, now I don't even have to go to face book or read face book to have my digital avatar chat with my freinds digital avatars.
It's a social network. The huge virtue of it is human communication at human speeds. not a data firehose to douse my freinds. The less often I have to visit face book to update it the less social it becomes.
brilliant!
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Great, just what I needed. Yet another article about social media.
Didn't the Amiga do something like this with ARexx? I distinctly remember someone showing me Lightwave rendering a frame then pushing it to an arbitrary image editor along with some commands to execute on it.
ARexx was primarily for commands and scripting. Maybe they copied the image to the clipboard and referred to it. But the general result was data being shared.
So now viruses can spam facebook & twitter with scam ads?
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
Every time I get close to the meaning of your post it slips away from me. Are you worried about some sort of privilege escalation attack carried out by a malicious program sharing things? A larger code base basically always exposes more attack surface, so I don't see why somebody would bring that up unless there was particularly good reason (which I don't see here). Sharing seems user-initiated in all cases, so such an attack would be awkward. Ah, perhaps shared information could be inspected by a malicious background program, sort of like a keylogger for the clipboard? That has nothing to do with admin privileges, though....
Maybe I'm looking too hard. Perhaps your post is just what it looks like: "[words that say Microsoft is evil and will give me a metaphoric high-5 with some social acceptance]". If not, what precisely did you mean?
Seriously, it looks like the "Share with" feature in the Android browser as well(which leverages the Intent system).
Not saying it's a bad thing(I love the idea)...I just fail to see how this is a "New Cross-App Data-Sharing System"....heck, if Google tended to play this game as dirty as Apple and MS do, they'd probably be doing a software patent suit by now O_o
Better then another article about obscurix alpha 3 including some package that isn't GPL. And then the 3 follow ups about RMS whining and responses to why he's wrong and no one cares.
Great, just what I needed. Yet another news article for nerds, about stuff that matters.
(Actually, /.'s article quality has gone up a bit this year. I've been back more times these last few months than in the prior 2-3 years)
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Doesn't Google implement something similar in Android? There was an article on slashdot awhile ago about a web version being developed....
The "short (video) explanation" is an hour long. If you just want some demos, they start at about 10:33, 12:19, 14:14, and 17:44.
And this is significantly different than DDE how exactly?
I've already got this in my CLI... it's called a pipe.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Welcome to 1992. ... What's the codename for Windows 8? Pink?
The revenge of Taligent.
What's next? Microsoft CyberDog?
Most FOSS fanatics know that they've lost the war (note: created by themselves) and now move on to the Mac - which is much more proprietary than MS. Just 'cos they hate to admit they were wrong and backed the wrong horse.
If your browser doesn't support HTLM5, then it uses Silverlight as a fallback.
And if your browser supports neither, then you can download the video using the provided links.
its almost like its the next version of the most commonly used consumer operating system! I mean, the gall, amirite? Where's the 'year of the linux desktop' articles when you need them?
He's not watched the video, and has no idea how Windows handles security in general. It is just generic Microsoft hate. You see it all too often on Slashdot.
One of my favourite was someone hating on Windows for not offering a way for a browser to run at a lower privilege level... When in fact it DOES offer that and IE does it by default. The poster had, of course, not looked in to it and was just hating on MS.
It's a variant of the MPP attack you can do now, basically, find something shared by system, and append bad stuff to it. Nontrivial in theory, not so much in practice, because of the inordinate amount of things that are running as system that really shouldn't.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
THANK YOU!
I mean, not that it was necessary, but this sure makes the life of a keylogging, password stealing crook easier. Hope you don't forget to add an API-call to tweet something. Oh, and if you don't mind... don't make it require admin privs... but you won't, right? After all, what bad could happen from using something like twitter from an application?
Do they EVER think of security before SP1, when everyone and their dog figured the glaringly obvious security problems out?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Taking data from one program to another? Resharing text, images, that kind of thing? Isn't that copy and paste?
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
You just.. Please just stop using the $ in the Microsoft abbreviation.. I'm asking nicely. It makes it really hard to take your point seriously. I know it was all cool and shit a decade ago, but come on.
Thank you.
'innovation'
- undoware.ca
Sounds a lot like Apple's proposed and failed feature called OpenDoc. Or is it more like Metro, and this is like Objective-C?
Pretty much don't care about the technology, do you? Just repeat your mantras over and over and never learn about anything.
BTW, don't ever learn functional programming, Microsoft employs a lot of the leading folks in that field. Wouldn't want your beautiful mind tainted with unorthodox thought.
Captcha is "crusade". Indeed.
Must be a new site, gotta check it out.
Isn't this what ODE and MDAC and all that stuff was back in 95?
So that you could copy/paste from Access to Outlook and so on?
And part of why those viruses were able to raid your contact list by clicking a link in IE?
Can you name any single ASCII character, or indeed any word in the English language, that sums up Microsoft, its motivations and its actions over the past quarter century better than '$'?
If the $hoe fits, wear it.
You just.. Please just stop using the $ in the Microsoft abbreviation.. I'm asking nicely. It makes it really hard to take your point seriously. I know it was all cool and shit a decade ago, but come on.
Thank you.
Pansy.
The phrase "MPP attack" appears non-standard (0 Google hits, for instance). As near as I can tell MPP stands for Massively Parallel Processing and a few other esoteric things. What precisely did you mean? And what does appending bad stuff to something shared by the system have to do with admin privileges?
It's yet another publish/subscribe system, of course. The new thing will be that it's "social" or tied to every social network and advertising system within reach.
Hopefully it does not continue the Microsoft tradition of executing anything executable that appears in any data stream or comes in any data port. Microsoft has had trouble with that on everything from Word documents to USB devices.
I can only suppose you're trolling. How could some random (and poorly articulated) complaint about DRM have anything to do with malware and privilege exploits?
Ooh lookie at this new thingamajig by Micreesoft, it lets you post things to the Google and the Facebooks and them Tweeter! It's a wonder what technology can do now! I remember back in the day when all you had was a 10 baud connection and you had to post to BBS by putting the bits on the wire yourself. Kids these days with their Facebooks and their Tweeter, I tell ya!
So they wrapped the clipboard in a fancy API?
Whinges about character abominations from someone whose nick starts with a lower case i? Really?
I am reminded of the how open source community dedicated to taking existing successful proprietary designs and making crappy clones of them.. starting with Linux. Its hilarous !
I agree. "M$" just seems juvenile and petty to me. Moreover it's non-standard, which is more than a little ironic. When is any other greedy entity with S's in the name or abbreviation spelled with $? $CO anyone?
...Microsoft still can't come up with usable interprocess communications mechanism.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I have been a slashdot slacker lately. Wow. Some things never change. I guess, to fit in, I have to hate all things DRM and all things Microsoft. While both may have a history of abuse and causing hardship, neither is inherently evil or bad or even without good qualities.
I am not a fan of either but I am a fan of reality. It is along those same lines that caused me to be a slashdot slacker. Mouth-breathing parrots who cluelessly bash what they can't understand simply to fit in do not make for a good exchange of ideas.
You are more likely to get a better answser and have a higher quality debate on Yahoo! Answers than you are from those types of people. Blind hate is like being a hard assed strict partisan Republican and even this subject requires one to maintain a level of disconnect that actually astonishes me. Otherwise intelligent people devolve into gibbering morons.
I made it this far into the thread...
Use what you like. Learn what you need. If you don't know, don't pretend to. Part of being a member of society means letting people make choices you don't like. Ranting and spreading FUD hinders that and the only reason I can think of to do so would be fear. They don't have aspergers, they're not just assholes, they are just dumb. Think of them like the Tea Party, it helps.
Ah well... I tried to figure out what they meant. I even went digging to see if anyone smart had anything to say on the subject. I think that if they actually had a point then it must mean that I am not smart enough to get it. Boy that sure is some egg on my face.
I am not going to bother to post as an AC. I said it. I own it. I get the goals but, at some point, reality has to play a role. I will even check back to see if they answer you. Who knows? Perhaps a spirited and healthy/logical debate is in the cards.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
So ms reinvented share memory. Omg omg frikkin amazing!
Oh, I would love it if computer nerd culture included mechanisms for admitting ignorance. No; ignorance is to be hidden where nobody can see it, where it can quietly mangle your view of reality and the quality of your work. In computer nerd culture, you can make mistakes--how couldn't you when even the best have (by default public) bugs?--but you can never admit a lack of understanding or ask for clarification without sounding too stupid to be listened to. GRARGH, I get so tired of the huge egos that being good at coding can create. It makes me glad I'm a mathematician. That culture suffers less from the huge egos that being good at your work can create, in part because it's so polite.
Still, the guy I responded to up there was polite and I think was just trying to be helpful. They were vague to the point of uselessness, but that's a less annoying culture thing. (If you give too many details away, you're not smarter than your reader, since your reader can then follow you without difficulty. No, it looks much better for you if you record your line of reasoning with large gaps. Perhaps you'll even get to fill them in and look all the smarter! Pair that attitude with a general lack of human communication skills and the above traits to get, rather unsurprisingly, lots of strongly opinionated people who gladly share their opinions and get followers who didn't question enough. Throw in something to hate, like Microsoft, and we get strongly worded, incomprehensible, and probably flat-out wrong comments that get lauded.)
[Sorry for latching on to only one of your points. For the rest, I basically agree. Also, sorry for ranting.]
Rant away... Rant away... It is unique to the group. The only other "group" I see that behave similarly are the politically active or political debaters. The thing is that there are some of us that don't want the echo chamber. Sure it feels good but, really, instead of using what is popular among peers or the vocal why not find what works for your style and needs? Why not allow other people the freedom to pick without feeling a need to opine?
I could throw comments (I see some digression coming) out like, "Linux is a failure because of a lack of an acceptable level of consistency in user experience." It may be right - it IS right to some people. As bland and inarticulate as that statement is, however, it remains meaningless no matter how true. (Please, obviously I'm a lover of Linux. I'm a geek. Heck, I even prefer the Mandriva distro.) If I throw in a TLA, a comment about elevated permissions, and generalize about bad security practices then I'm now bashing Windows but still have no point.
They seem more desperate. More full of fear. I'm not sure why? Sometimes I wish I had spent more time paying attention to the soft sciences. I have to wonder if it is because the computer has become more ubiquitous and the level of knowledge has increased in the average user that they fear their once elevated status is in danger? Are they afraid they're no longer kings of their domain as they're no longer required?
I'd love to know. I was there when AOL unleashed the unwashed onto usenet. It will be okay... They (we?) aren't going to lose our mysticism. Instead of going crazy over trivial details that are not the monsters they are creating in their heads - what is it that prevents them from learning, trying, and remaining open-minded?
"Microsoft releases a new mouse/keyboard combination."
"The AGRP interface with the GUI probably requires administration privileges. Yet another malware vector!"
*thread devolves into gibberish*
We get it, we know... We're going to wait until SP1 to deploy it. Broad generalizations concerning fictional problems aren't the solution. The solution is to buckle down, learn it, and slog on. Spreading FUD (unfounded and non-specific are seemingly worse) simply isn't helping.
Is it fear? Is the goal to keep them locked into something that breaks? Something that still means that we're needed? Something that still gives us a reminder of the days when we were gods? Is it just confirmation from like-minded people that is craved? Is it something else? I have had a seething hatred for Microsoft in the past and it was deserved. They got better, I got over it and grew up. It still can't be hip and trendy, can it?
I probably should not have dragged DRM into it. That one irks me and the zealots tend to overlap quite a bit. DRM... You know, CHMOD... You know... The chip in your car key that means only that key works. A few weasel words, some disconnect, and some intellectual dishonesty and we (I am reluctant to include myself in this group but I am a member by default) will justify those things and will find a handy way to ignore the definitions so that we can say that those are okay. We will scream about how it is bad and then yell at people for not requiring a password or some form of authentication!
I guess the point is that I am using those as examples of things that aren't horrific in and of themselves. Throwing blind hate (and unspecific hate which seems was more your angle) at them doesn't help and I don't know why people bother. I had thought you had a deeper insight or goal (perhaps) in mind when I read your questions. I see now you actually either expected an answer or you maybe expected my rant to be a known factor. The two have vast overlaps and, I suspect though I am no expert, a lot of the same reasons. I don't want to know what answer they'll give (unless it is actually an answer based on facts in evidence) so much as I've given up hope for that and simply want to know why they bother posting that screed to begin with.
Make sense? Not so much of a rant really as just a bit of mental bubble gum that I seem to have gotten stuck chewing. Perhaps there is more merit to the term "coward" in their posting than expected? A little bonus, so to speak.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I rendered predictions on Windows Vista and 7 in the past. I predicted Vista to be the next Windows ME largely because of all the features which were removed, the steep hardware requirements and the ridiculous DRM support. Despite the logical reasons, quite a few people modded my comments to that effect as troll -1. Okay. Who's troll now? I also predicted 7 as a "return to Windows XP but with a Vista look and feel." Not too far off. 7 is still different enough that you can't call it a return to XP exactly, but it will "stay" as long as XP has, I believe.
My predictions on Windows 8 are that the industry is pretty annoyed with Microsoft and it will not matter how awesome the new things Windows 8 will have are. Developers will be reluctant to use them with their updates of the current software as they will want to keep doing things the way they did in the past and whether or not it is completely true, they will claim the need for backward compatibility as the cause. IT shops are stuck and entrenched with Windows XP as many have still not migrated to Windows 7 and 64 bit is still a bit of a dream for them. IT shops are simply too occupied with establishing a stable and reliable environment with what was new a few years ago to risk destabilizing things further with what's new tomorrow.
Microsoft's days of "innovating" are pretty much over. The people DON'T WANT IT. What's more, people have long since gotten over the idea that "newer is better" and are more interested in actually getting work or play done than using the newest methods of doing it.
Why did I post? Two reasons. First, in both cases I wanted the truth--I wanted to see if there was any merit to the vague claims made that I had missed. If so, great; I wouldn't miss similar ideas in the future. If not, their posts would at least be flagged with an element of doubt, and perhaps they would even be flagged as nonsense through some more discussion. For instance, this thread's first comment, which I initially responded to, currently has a rating of 1, and that only because of "Funny" ratings. Originally it was "Insightful", IIRC; now it's at best a joke.
Second, and more unconsciously, it's part of an informal social experiment of mine. Over several stories I've asked similar questions of similar comments. I almost never get a response from the original poster. I'd like to know why. Do they know something I don't know? Doubtful; they would simply have responded with clarification. Do they just not take the time to respond to comments? Also doubtful, due to the number of different users involved. Are they all trolls, and I'm just bad at spotting such posts? Perhaps, though at some point it's almost impossible to distinguish trolling from zealotry, so this is very hard to test. I imagine a troll would also want to induce me to continue the conversation with further outrageous claims, rather than giving no response. Do they realize they have no content, so to save face they simply don't respond? Maybe; I can hope. It's my best answer so far, at least.
I Loved arexx on the Amiga, it's a feature every program should have, big hopes for windows 8 then...
It's more stable anyhow.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
they invented pipes?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Do they realize they have no content, so to save face they simply don't respond? Maybe; I can hope. It's my best answer so far, at least.
That is my guess. I think it may be said in hopes that nobody calls them on it. If they throw enough proverbial poop...
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
This is just the clipboard, for a ummmm.... long time, we have been able to send data to the clipboard and a program can watch it, and request the data type they want from it.
OSX has been doing this for multiple releases.
And I'm sure the malware authors are studying them intently.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
*sigh* See, that's what you are missing with DRM: It's not inherently bad, so long as you, the owner of the machine in question, have complete control over it. If I chmod something on my machine, it may be drm, but it's DRM *I* control. However, have you *ever* seen a DRM system that put the *user* in control? No. Using the car analogy, it would be like having a black-box in your car that would only allow it to drive a certain number of miles, or only start at certain hours of the day... That being said, you might even be happy with the restrictions... Until you *have* to get somewhere and the car says "It's 2am. Sorry, this car won't start until 6 AM"... at which point you'd be screaming bloody murder about it.
Try to find out something useful about it by typing "Windows Share" into google (or bing).
Microsoft has a long history of this, as well. Let's call our groups of computers "domains," and our top programming language...let's give it the same name as a top level domain on the Net. That way, our developers will have to weed through a crap load of bad results to find what they are looking for. Developers, developers, developers (throws chair).
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Wait! so I haven't viewed the video but this looks like the clipboard to me. I cut and paste between applications regularly. In fact it is when I get to a Windows PC where this doesn't always work that I get mad and go back to my Mac or Haiku machines. Where the clipboard just works.
Heck & per my subject-line above? Even CLIPBOARD in a way really (though that's local like COM/OLE are).
APK
P.S.=> 1 of the signs of a declining civilization IS constant imitations, or reinventions of the wheel (& Microsoft had that type of tech in DCOM & OLE far before GOOGLE even existed)...
... apk
Didn't we already have DDE since Windows 2.0?
> I have been a slashdot slacker lately. Wow. Some things never change. I guess, to fit in, I have to hate all things DRM and all things Microsoft.
Or you can repeat past gen's mistakes with microsoft.
But people wise up, and will instead repeat past gen's mistakes with apple or google.
As for whatever TFA says, data exchange is a problem already solved by "standards", that worked already in the time when tablets were made of clay. MS is going the "new standard controlled by us as soon as we have enough share" route, have a fun ride.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Right: NewtonOS 2.0, ca. 1995:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Manuals/newton/NewtonProgrammerRef20.PDF
Chapters 18 and 19, routing and transports.
Funny enough, Penny Arcade already commented on this... nine years ago.
Nobody cares what the CAPTCHA for your post was.
..and make a silly, HILARIOUS comment about how 'Twitter' was spelled 'Tweeter' in the summary? Maybe somehow making it seem like you had no idea what the summary was talking about despite knowing full god damn well? Now, while I do think people should proofread things before they post them on the internet (you DO have all the time in the world,) I think it's equally as stupid to repeat the same joke everybody else has been making.
Nobody cares what the CAPTCHA for your post was.
it was late, it's actually MPI, message passing interface. For some reason, I always call it message passing protocol
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
Viruses and Trojans have been doing this in Windows for years.
Waiting for them . . .
Because discussion - or "opining" - is the whole point of Slashdot?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
CHMOD. A password. Those are examples of DRM. They aren't inherently evil. Corporations run by ignorant puss nuggets are potentially inherently evil. You could even say compiling and encrypting apps and not giving the source is a form of DRM. That's all well and good - unless one is an OSS zealot who thinks that all companies must adhere to their view. A topic for another day...
And to use your car analogy? I wouldn't buy it. I'd research it before making that choice. It isn't I who is missing that it isn't inherently bad - it is I who is saying that it is not inherently bad. Perhaps I was not clear enough? I'm not sure. It was early in the morning. The smoke might have been in my eye so to speak.
In this case I was using it as another example of a subject that people go bonkers about. A parallel with Microsoft's security, if you will. In this case we had someone making vague, unsubstantiated, claims about how this was a great thing for malware authors while not actually bringing anything to the table other than vague, unsubstantiated, claims that make no sense with even a cursory look.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Is that discussion? What we have here, now, seems to be though. ;)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I made this account when I was 12... Slashdot doesn't allow me to change it. If anything, that's just more evidence on the fact that using the $ is stupid.
"MPI attack" is also non-standard (20 Google hits, only one source apparently referring to your use of the phrase). Could you simply give an example of what you mean in the context of this particular, new system?
I think he's referring to "Shatter attacks", which is standard terminology. But shatter attacks only work when window messages are passed between a user mode process and a system process. And ever since Windows Vista, they've been completely neutered (desktop apps can't interact with service processes).
The sharing stuff looks to be very similar to the clipboard - you select some stuff in one app, select the "share" system control, it presents a list of apps which can share the thing you selected and you pick the one you want to share with. All of these interactions are user initiated, so I don't see how malware gets involved.
Thanks for the link and discussion. I agree; I have yet to see a credible, clear exploit.
This is a bit creepy: notice that on the Agenda slide, the first letters of the lines spell ODBC QC. Does MS have any hidden agenda?
sigo ergo sum
if you want this feature NOW...
Click.to Website (freeware)
ITYM Pan$y.
Microsoft’s drive forwards with a "business" centric OS, with each version moving towards a "cleaner" desktop, had just been undermined with the new version slated for release.
It's a busy, cluttered, streaming, moving pile of links and bits, guaranteed to keep the autistic child or adult grinning, but will server to undermine the idea of an organized workspace.
It’s pretty sad that Microsoft is banking on the interactive social networking design and plans to try and make business want it for a working platform.