hardly, I'm currently modded troll up there as it stands. there's plenty of other times I could karma whore but this isn't one of them, just me irked that people simplify the problem to "Mac suxorz" when it really isn't that simple.
So why was a unpatched security vulnerability in Safari needed if it were so simple?
which is because
There was no physical access provided.
"all that needs to be done is reset the bios and pop in a live cd and it's game over."?
try doing that when you don't have physical access to the machine in question. It seems that Safari is Mac's equivalent of Internet explorer in that it can be a major security problem. it's something Apple really needs to get under control lest they actually become as fubared as Windows often is. It's inevitable as it stands as Mac gets more popular and its users less knowledgeable about how to secure their systems.
the security flaw was in Safari- probably a buffer overflow allowing arbitrary code to be executed. had safari been on any other OS with that flaw the other OSes would be fscked as well no questions asked. something like SElinux or Apparmor on the *nixes can help defend against things like that to a point but it won't stop them all. bottom line: the OS is a big chunk of the problem but software flaws and help from PEBKAC makes things a whole lot worse.
While having physical access to a machine makes it 80% vulnerable, the rest 20% seems to be OS driven.
considering who is doing the attacking I'd bet that physical access would make these comps 100% breakable. all that needs to be done is reset the bios and pop in a live cd and it's game over.
Am surprised that Mac OS X didn't prompt the user for root password at all.
I know... it shocked me that installing software often didn't require any sort of authentication what so ever...
Bottomline: Microsoft has been slowly improving default security and is kinda crackproof.
lol... I think you know what's wrong with that. you could look at it this way: cracking anything Windows is pretty much nothing special, it's being done on a massive scale botnets and zombies considered- what is perhaps a ncier target is a 2,000 dolalr macbook that claims to have a lot higher security than windows. motivation being the biggest security danger of them all.
anyone who either has physical access to the computer being attacked or can convince the user running the machine to install/download anything is capable of breaking pretty much any OS they want. The fact that they had to relax the rules so that the Mac could be broken into illustrates this nicely.
you have a very good point and it illustrates a huge problem with the idea, well actually several: why should those who don't listen to those bands have to pay? >> which leads to the idea of an opt-in system- certain $ amount/month in exchange for exemption from any legal consequences from downloading pretty much any music you want with the earnings being distributed accordingly. but by that system there isn't a need to involve the ISPs at all in fact wtf were they thinking trying a blanket system!!? why couldn't the music companies have set up a service like this by themselves? well they could if they wanted, it's just lazier to get everyone to pay rather than going to the trouble of only charging those who use the service.
i am not inclined believe monsanto on their scientific word.
well yeah... that's why science requires that experiments be reproducible and verifiable. as for the evidence, I have yet to see anything other than anecdote demonstrating any carcinogenic/neurological effects etc. of normal use of aspartame nor any mechanism of action that isn't absolute hogwash [the methanol argument for example] something else to note is that the supposed effects of aspartame are not characteristic of any of its components. fascinating isn't it? I do think that chemicals including aspartame should be thouroghly tested before they are released upon the world but singling out aspartame because of irrational fear based on the fact it's a methyl ester is quite another can of worms.
no, neutrons i ntheir free state have a half-life of about 11 minutes. had any significant quantity of dark matter been composed of free neutrons, they would no doubt emit copious amounts of low energy gamma radiation, protons, electrons and neutrinos for all to detect. then there would need to be a constant influx of new neutrons as the ones already present would quickly decay.
it should be noted however that otherwise "organic" compounds containing boron or silicon are often not characterized as being organic, usually they are referred to as being part of organometallic chemistry. th is even though boron and silicon are not strictly metallic, they are in fact semiconductors.
traditionally organic meant that it was produced by life and not synthetic- then we figured out how to synthesize a lot of these chemicals and now it pretty much means contains carbon and usually hydrogen. carbon dioxide for example contains carbon but isn't considered organic and neither is pure carbon. water is a vital component of life as we know it and is almost always associated with organic compounds at least in vivo although it too is not considered organic because it doesn't contain carbon, it does however contain hydrogen and oxygen which are very common in organic compounds.
Just because your physics says something 'can't happen' and that the 'exact same stuff' has been going on for eons with no problem does not mean that once you start purposefully messing with it that something bad will not happen.
the same argument was used for fear of nuclear weapons... and ice-9 and h-bombs and electricity and pretty much everything else that some people didn't have any understanding of either. the argument holds true for lower energy levels as well, after all just because physics says it can not occur doesn't detract from your argument or does it? it really doesn't change the fact that there's absolutely no evidence/substance behind their arguments. their entire argument along with yours hinges on ignorance not actual evidence or sound reasoning.
The cosmic-ray argument has been applied to the black-hole and strangelet scenarios as well. If such dangerous things can be created, why haven't they already eaten up Earth, along with other planets, stars or whole galaxies in the billions of years since the universe arose? To answer that question, Sancho and Wagner pose a counterargument: Perhaps cosmic-ray collisions really are creating tiny black holes or strangelets, but those little bits of doomsday zip by too fast to cause any trouble. In the LHC, they say, the bad stuff could hang around long enough to be captured by Earth's gravity and set off a catastrophe.
I've got a counter-counter argument for you: consider the number of cosmic ray hits over billions of years. it would stand to reason that some of them would be in the range of the LHC and would not in fact zip right on by- they would in fact be just as likely to be "captured" as anything produced in the LHC. then there's the fact that a lot of the cosmic ray particles can't zip right on through even at higher energies- there's 8,000 miles of rock and metal between them and the other side if they hit right. if blackholes, monopoles and strangelets are producable and dangerous at these energies, they would have done us in a long time ago because there would be at least a few that wouldn't escape over such a long time span.
there's never any attempt at understanding the physics of any of this, it's just a nice way to scare people who don't know any better. never mind the fact that cosmic rays hit the atmosphere all the time with at least the amount of energy the LHC is going for- you'd think that over billions of years if there was ever a time for strangelets and blackholes to kill us all it would have happened by now.
will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser.
what does this have to do with not using linux? it was my understanding that one of the major reasons [read excuses] people used for not moving away from windows to linux was that their apps from windows would only work in windows, removing that obstacle for certain adobe software would seem to make it one less reason *not* to use linux [damn double negatives]
knowing that there is a near infinite amount of information in the universe that makes your own knowledge pale in comparison is different than not knowing anything at all. we know *a lot* more than you realize. we do however know that we don't know everything and that is what experiments are for. that is what the scientific method is for, that is what science is for. if you're going to claim something is true, you are going to have to put up the evidence, you don't get a free ride just because you say so. if you do not have any evidence that supports your claims then they are irrelevant until proven otherwise.
They measured how many times over the past six years the two vendors were able to have a patch available on the day a vulnerability became publicly known, which they call the 0-day patch rate
yaah and how many security flaws have been sitting un-patched for months, years even at microsoft? let us take a look at how many security holes remain un-patched shall we?
When there's a rash of mass-murders on campuses using an ice-pick,
it'll happen some day. The only reason it hasn't happened already is that melee weapons require the attacker to be up close and personal with whoever they're after. It's not an option for them yet as it increases the risk of them being injured before too many people get hurt and secondly I doubt they want to see their work up close, they require some level of detachment that distance provides.
The students were issued citations for disorderly conduct, according to Chief Jim Wiegand of the University police. Weigand said the students created a panic situation by carrying what appeared to be firearms on campus.
"We do not allow weapons or facsimiles of weapons on campus," he said.
then I suppose they don't allow pencils or pens on campus because they resemble dangerous things like ice picks and no silverware of any kind because they resemble pitchforks and gutting knives. there's trying to prevent confusion of whether something is a deadly weapon or not and then there's bureaucratic stupidity. guess which this one is.
no you get *your* facts straight: aspartame is a methyl ester of a phenylalanine-aspartic acid dipeptide. it is metabolized to phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol and hydrolyzes at high temp forming methanol as well. the thing is that although this is the case, the amount of aspartame in soda is very small. fruit juices typically contain the same if not higher levels of methanol, particularly tomato juice which can have up to 5-6 times as high a methanol concentration. there is however one health issue with aspartame but it has nothing to do with methanol. it is due to the fact that those with phenylketonuris [PKU] can not properly deal with phenylalanine. If you're going to make a claim you must back it up with actual scientific evidence, you must show evidence of something's existence as well as a mechanism. In this case you must also show that it is solely due to aspartame and not just mitigating factors eg. the aspartame causes the problem not the fact that those who use it are predominately those who diet and diabetics.
The New York Times explores why old technology is still around
simple, because it still works. Using radio as an example, it works just fine for what we need it for and we really haven't found a suitable replacement [light based communication for example] same for mainframes, there are niches that still must be filled with "older" technologies until we find something that makes the older tech not worth using.
There continue to be links between cell phone use and brain tumors
that's BS. ther needs to be a mechanism by which it would cause cancer, like ionizing radiation for one- causing strand breaks in DNA increasing the incidence of harmful mutations. what precisely is the property of microwaves/radio that make it dangerous in this regard? where are the double blind studies showing a causal link between exposure to radio/micowaves and cancer? where is the evidence for your assertion?
Slashdot Mirror
it was all due to a flaw in safari. if anything safari sucks.
try doing that when you don't have physical access to the machine in question. It seems that Safari is Mac's equivalent of Internet explorer in that it can be a major security problem. it's something Apple really needs to get under control lest they actually become as fubared as Windows often is. It's inevitable as it stands as Mac gets more popular and its users less knowledgeable about how to secure their systems.
the security flaw was in Safari- probably a buffer overflow allowing arbitrary code to be executed. had safari been on any other OS with that flaw the other OSes would be fscked as well no questions asked. something like SElinux or Apparmor on the *nixes can help defend against things like that to a point but it won't stop them all. bottom line: the OS is a big chunk of the problem but software flaws and help from PEBKAC makes things a whole lot worse.
I know... it shocked me that installing software often didn't require any sort of authentication what so ever...
lol... I think you know what's wrong with that.
you could look at it this way: cracking anything Windows is pretty much nothing special, it's being done on a massive scale botnets and zombies considered- what is perhaps a ncier target is a 2,000 dolalr macbook that claims to have a lot higher security than windows. motivation being the biggest security danger of them all.
anyone who either has physical access to the computer being attacked or can convince the user running the machine to install/download anything is capable of breaking pretty much any OS they want. The fact that they had to relax the rules so that the Mac could be broken into illustrates this nicely.
you have a very good point and it illustrates a huge problem with the idea, well actually several: why should those who don't listen to those bands have to pay? >> which leads to the idea of an opt-in system- certain $ amount/month in exchange for exemption from any legal consequences from downloading pretty much any music you want with the earnings being distributed accordingly. but by that system there isn't a need to involve the ISPs at all in fact wtf were they thinking trying a blanket system!!? why couldn't the music companies have set up a service like this by themselves? well they could if they wanted, it's just lazier to get everyone to pay rather than going to the trouble of only charging those who use the service.
no, neutrons i ntheir free state have a half-life of about 11 minutes. had any significant quantity of dark matter been composed of free neutrons, they would no doubt emit copious amounts of low energy gamma radiation, protons, electrons and neutrinos for all to detect. then there would need to be a constant influx of new neutrons as the ones already present would quickly decay.
it should be noted however that otherwise "organic" compounds containing boron or silicon are often not characterized as being organic, usually they are referred to as being part of organometallic chemistry. th is even though boron and silicon are not strictly metallic, they are in fact semiconductors.
traditionally organic meant that it was produced by life and not synthetic- then we figured out how to synthesize a lot of these chemicals and now it pretty much means contains carbon and usually hydrogen. carbon dioxide for example contains carbon but isn't considered organic and neither is pure carbon. water is a vital component of life as we know it and is almost always associated with organic compounds at least in vivo although it too is not considered organic because it doesn't contain carbon, it does however contain hydrogen and oxygen which are very common in organic compounds.
there's never any attempt at understanding the physics of any of this, it's just a nice way to scare people who don't know any better. never mind the fact that cosmic rays hit the atmosphere all the time with at least the amount of energy the LHC is going for- you'd think that over billions of years if there was ever a time for strangelets and blackholes to kill us all it would have happened by now.
knowing that there is a near infinite amount of information in the universe that makes your own knowledge pale in comparison is different than not knowing anything at all. we know *a lot* more than you realize. we do however know that we don't know everything and that is what experiments are for. that is what the scientific method is for, that is what science is for. if you're going to claim something is true, you are going to have to put up the evidence, you don't get a free ride just because you say so. if you do not have any evidence that supports your claims then they are irrelevant until proven otherwise.
no you get *your* facts straight: aspartame is a methyl ester of a phenylalanine-aspartic acid dipeptide. it is metabolized to phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol and hydrolyzes at high temp forming methanol as well. the thing is that although this is the case, the amount of aspartame in soda is very small. fruit juices typically contain the same if not higher levels of methanol, particularly tomato juice which can have up to 5-6 times as high a methanol concentration. there is however one health issue with aspartame but it has nothing to do with methanol. it is due to the fact that those with phenylketonuris [PKU] can not properly deal with phenylalanine. If you're going to make a claim you must back it up with actual scientific evidence, you must show evidence of something's existence as well as a mechanism. In this case you must also show that it is solely due to aspartame and not just mitigating factors eg. the aspartame causes the problem not the fact that those who use it are predominately those who diet and diabetics.