1) The last time I looked, there was this thing called the Bill of Rights which guarenteed our right to free speech. And it also guarenteed our right to assemble (albeit peacefully). So how far do you think this proposal will go with that in mind?
2) If it is directed only towards the labor unions, good luck there too. We live in a free country, and we have the right to bitch and moan all we want. People have gone to war to protect that right.
3) The web site referred to was down when I clicked it. It may have just been slashdotted; or nuked by irate hackers.
4) I think the article was just someone putting a nasty spin on an innocent article by the NRLB. The article was meant to provoke our anger; and yeah, I bit. Stupid me.
Everyone with half a brain knows that a 1.0 version of ANYTHING from MicroSoft is full of bugs, and that they should wait AT LEAST for the 1.1 somewhat less-buggy version. (Remember, MicroSoft usually gets it right about the third time around).
So why would ANYONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND want to use a 0.x beta version of their software for production use????? That is absolutely INSANE!
Chalk another one up for the MicroSoft marketroids if they can pull this scam off!!!
So what if I skip through the commercials with my TIVO? Who is going to know? What is the difference between that and walking away from the TV to get a beer during a commercial?
So I don't watch all of the commercials. The advertisers know that. They want to grab your attention quickly to sell you their wares. If the commercial does that (grab your attention) good for it. But I sure don't want to watch that same commercial again and again and again.
What about the TV channels we are not currently tuned to? Is there some sort of 'social contract' for those commercials too?
I am sure that some advertising lobbyists would like to get legislation passed dictating we watch all of the commercials, all of the time. Of course, then we would have to read all of the spam messages that come our way too.
Here we go again. Someone (the government in this case) sees another way to seperate you from your money. And because it is the government, they can do it legally (they do issue the laws, don't they?).
Ohio isn't alone in their grab for money. In Virginia, you are supposed to report all online transactions, and pay the proper income tax (to the state) for anything you buy online. Needless to say, few Virginia citizens even know of this 'law', and fewer still honor it. That said, a friend of mine was busted by the commonwealth when he bought a large ticket item. He had to pay up bigtime.
So what are the chances of being caught (either in Ohio for not having an E-bay license, or in Virginia for buying online)? Right now, the chances of getting caught are between slim and none. Do these states have the resources to find the perpetrators of these dastardly crimes? I doubt it. They will get a few violators, but only a small minority.
So it all goes back to the pork-barrel legislatures who have huge appetites for income, but no common sense on how to procure it.
This Ohio plan will not work. I wouldn't be surprised if it shows up on CNN and Ohio becomes the laughing stock of the country.
(ap) A brief but violent incident between a new Microsoft 'nanny' robot and an Internet user was reported today.
"I had just activated the nanny robot and placed it next to my keyboard when I tried to access the Internet for further instructons" said the victim. "Suddenly the robot attacked me, biting my hands and trying to chew off my fingers. I just barely escaped. I had to beat the robot to death with my baseball bat. The only thing I can imagine why it attacked was because I was using the Firefox browser, and not Internet Explorer."
The visibly-shaken victim's injuries were treated at a local hospital, and he was released. Microsoft had no comment, other than to say there will be a patch issued soon.
OK, folks, let's step back a bit and see if we can see the forest instead of just the trees.
Spyware is something relatively new. Recently, it has become epidemic. People are screaming for relief, from both the lawmakers and the software industry.
The industry has responded, somewhat grudgingly, with limited spyware removal products. None are outstanding.
The lawmakers, as usual, are clueless. Of the hundreds of lawmakers at the state and federal level, only a small percentage are technically savvy. And those that are technically savvy are usually junior, and do not have the political equity or clout to bring about real change yet.
But the lawmakers feel like they have to do something to stem the panic on the part of the people. What are they going to do?
Enter Microsoft. Besides being a number one marketing firm (for their own products, of course) they have one of the finest set of lawyers in the business. Now who better than a small team of Microsoft lawyers could assist the lawmakers with laws concerning this brave new world of spyware?
Of course, I would not put it past Microsoft to engineer small backdoors in the law to allow them to continue doing what they do best-- attempting to take over the entire planet.
Remember, these are the people that write bulletproof EULAs-- do you want them helping to make law now?
The innocence (ignorance) of the early Internet is long gone. The hackers and scammers and spammers and phishers and terrorists have found they can profit from the current state of the Internet. Their exploits will cost us all.
Our freedom and liberties are now fading. We will no longer be anonymous in our posts. The age-old question of liberty tempered by security concerns once again raises it's head.
The NSA may be the new sheriff in town. They will require more money and more computer power than what they have now; but given the will of a security-conscious government, it will happen. Big Brother will be born again, unless a knowledgable judiciary reigns in their power.
a) When in a public place, you cannot have any expectation of privacy. If you think this device will keep you from being recognized, I have some swamp land for sale in Florida you may be interested in.
b) How does the camera know which part is the face? What if it just blurs my hands or feet? If I believe this thing really works, perhaps I should buy some more Florida swamp land.
c) I wouldn't worry about police trying to hide their faces, as they rarely mass up an plow into crowds that often. Besides, they would wear riot masks if needed, which are much more effective. More often, it is the criminal or the terrorist who would want to have their face blurred.
d) If I were a security screener in an airport, and someones picture came back blurred, I would be over-zealous to check that person out. How does that help a persons privacy?
e) Perhaps it is a CIA thing to keep the spies from being recognized.
2) Microsoft ignores it while it is a 'fad', so the original company can more or less charge what they want.
3) The 'fad' becomes a trend, and Microsoft gets interested.
4) Using their overwhelming resources, Microsoft develops a competing product, at a much lower price. (This is in lieu of getting the technology by 'other' methods).
5) The original company laughs it off, since any Microsoft product version 1.x or 2.x is not really competitive, and sometimes horrible.
6) Over time, the Microsoft product gains technological and marketing credibility.
7) The original company tries to hold on, but the lower prices of the Microsoft product (plus the creeping featuritis of the Microsoft product) eventually lead to the companies demise.
8) The original company gives up, and releases all of their people. Naturally, Microsoft swoops in to skim off the cream of that crop.
9) Microsoft now owns 100% of the market.
10) Microsoft freezes development on the product and starts looking for another victim company to screw.
I am an instructor at a technical college; my specialties are programming, networking, and UNIX. We teach a 2-year degree.
I have found that the ratio of females/males in the UNIX class is about 40/60. In programming, about 45/55. But in networking (we teach the CCNA cirriculum) the first semester starts at about 40/60 but ends up about 10/90 by the fourth term. The women just drop out.
I believe anyone can discipline their minds to do just about anything. But I also believe females are wired differently than males. This is not to say that females are worse (or better) than males; just different. Males seem to want to tackle problems, while females watch and observe and learn. Perhaps it is the curriculum that is oriented for the male student, Idunno.
Open source Solaris won't kill Linux. Open source Solaris will kill Solaris.
Confused?
Here is how I see it:
Solaris 10 has a TON of nice features in it. When it becomes open source, you can bet your bottom dollar that most of those features will migrate their way into the Linux kernel. It may be a few years, but in that time Linux will only get better and better. Eventually, it will be a peer to Solaris.
The only way for Solaris to stay ahead is to innovate, innovate, innovate. Sounds like a Microsoft mantra to me.
Now, I really, really love Solaris. It is superior to Linux in several ways. I like Linux as an up-and-coming operating system, because it also has a lot to offer. I can just see the Linux kernel coders drooling over the Solaris source code.
Sun has done some really weird things these last few years. Either they have a long term master plan (that nobody knows about) or they are desperate as hell.
On the upside, this can only mean trouble for Microsoft and it's wacked out idea of an OS. So I am not too unhappy. And maybe THAT is SUN's master plan.
The worm (or virus) is already out in the wild. Seeing how it works won't stop it.
But seeing what it exploits might.
There is a 99 percent chance that the worm/virus will exploit a known hole in the target application/operating system. Nowadays, these exploits have come much, much quicker than in the past. It used to be a few months before a hole was exploited; now it can be just a matter of hours.
What would impress me is if they reverse-engineer a worm/virus and find that it exploits a hole that was unknown beforehand. Now THAT would show some intelligence on the part of the author (if not any ethics). The 'kiddie-scripters' that mutate the source code from a worm/virus and just hex-edit their initials into it aren't very creative at all; just adolescant vandals who want to make their mark with their brethern vermin in the dark underworld of the Internet.
It's not that virus/worm authors are anything to be emulated. But you have to respect them. Like you have to respect terrorists. You may lothe them, but you have to respect them.
However, reverse-engineering IS useful. It is forensics. Someday, maybe soon, the forensics team will be able to catagorize and maybe even identify the author of a virus by the way it is written. Currently, it is helpful in finding those security holes, so they can notify the authors of the program being attacked.
Let's face it folks. Programming is still more of an art than a science. We imperfect human beings are trying to write perfect code, because the computer does exactly what it is told to do. We humans don't operate at that level very well. So we write imperfect code; something that can be eventually exploited given time and resources of anyone willing. It's gonna happen, whether your code comes from American, Indian, or Ukranian programmers. There are evil people out there, and they are going to check the doorknobs of every program to see if they can get it and cause trouble. Until someone comes up with a source-file hole checker, be prepared for more worms and virii.
Slashdot Mirror
http://maps.google.com/moon
and
http://maps.google.com/mars
Don't worry-- he'll be out in 320 years, with good behaviour.
This is so wrong, on so many levels.
1) The last time I looked, there was this thing called the Bill of Rights which guarenteed our right to free speech. And it also guarenteed our right to assemble (albeit peacefully). So how far do you think this proposal will go with that in mind?
2) If it is directed only towards the labor unions, good luck there too. We live in a free country, and we have the right to bitch and moan all we want. People have gone to war to protect that right.
3) The web site referred to was down when I clicked it. It may have just been slashdotted; or nuked by irate hackers.
4) I think the article was just someone putting a nasty spin on an innocent article by the NRLB. The article was meant to provoke our anger; and yeah, I bit. Stupid me.
Everyone with half a brain knows that a 1.0 version of ANYTHING from MicroSoft is full of bugs, and that they should wait AT LEAST for the 1.1 somewhat less-buggy version. (Remember, MicroSoft usually gets it right about the third time around).
So why would ANYONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND want to use a 0.x beta version of their software for production use????? That is absolutely INSANE!
Chalk another one up for the MicroSoft marketroids if they can pull this scam off!!!
What a load of crap.
So what if I skip through the commercials with my TIVO? Who is going to know? What is the difference between that and walking away from the TV to get a beer during a commercial?
So I don't watch all of the commercials. The advertisers know that. They want to grab your attention quickly to sell you their wares. If the commercial does that (grab your attention) good for it. But I sure don't want to watch that same commercial again and again and again.
What about the TV channels we are not currently tuned to? Is there some sort of 'social contract' for those commercials too?
I am sure that some advertising lobbyists would like to get legislation passed dictating we watch all of the commercials, all of the time. Of course, then we would have to read all of the spam messages that come our way too.
A social contract. Duh.
If I were the judge, I would get a bit creative and sentence the spammer to one second in jail for each generated spam e-mail.
Let them think on that for a while.... Heh.
(For those of you who are mathematically challenged, that would be approximately 11.5 days per 1 million email spam messages).
... there will be collateral damage. Be glad you are only wounded and survive to play again.
And yeah, it sucks to be the little guy caught up in all of this.
Here we go again. Someone (the government in this case) sees another way to seperate you from your money. And because it is the government, they can do it legally (they do issue the laws, don't they?).
Ohio isn't alone in their grab for money. In Virginia, you are supposed to report all online transactions, and pay the proper income tax (to the state) for anything you buy online. Needless to say, few Virginia citizens even know of this 'law', and fewer still honor it. That said, a friend of mine was busted by the commonwealth when he bought a large ticket item. He had to pay up bigtime.
So what are the chances of being caught (either in Ohio for not having an E-bay license, or in Virginia for buying online)? Right now, the chances of getting caught are between slim and none. Do these states have the resources to find the perpetrators of these dastardly crimes? I doubt it. They will get a few violators, but only a small minority.
So it all goes back to the pork-barrel legislatures who have huge appetites for income, but no common sense on how to procure it.
This Ohio plan will not work. I wouldn't be surprised if it shows up on CNN and Ohio becomes the laughing stock of the country.
'nuff said.
MICROSOFT ROBOT ATTACKS FIREFOX USER
(ap) A brief but violent incident between a new Microsoft 'nanny' robot and an Internet user was reported today.
"I had just activated the nanny robot and placed it next to my keyboard when I tried to access the Internet for further instructons" said the victim. "Suddenly the robot attacked me, biting my hands and trying to chew off my fingers. I just barely escaped. I had to beat the robot to death with my baseball bat. The only thing I can imagine why it attacked was because I was using the Firefox browser, and not Internet Explorer."
The visibly-shaken victim's injuries were treated at a local hospital, and he was released. Microsoft had no comment, other than to say there will be a patch issued soon.
--30--
... is TivoToGo on a bigger scale.
OK, folks, let's step back a bit and see if we can see the forest instead of just the trees.
Spyware is something relatively new. Recently, it has become epidemic. People are screaming for relief, from both the lawmakers and the software industry.
The industry has responded, somewhat grudgingly, with limited spyware removal products. None are outstanding.
The lawmakers, as usual, are clueless. Of the hundreds of lawmakers at the state and federal level, only a small percentage are technically savvy. And those that are technically savvy are usually junior, and do not have the political equity or clout to bring about real change yet.
But the lawmakers feel like they have to do something to stem the panic on the part of the people. What are they going to do?
Enter Microsoft. Besides being a number one marketing firm (for their own products, of course) they have one of the finest set of lawyers in the business. Now who better than a small team of Microsoft lawyers could assist the lawmakers with laws concerning this brave new world of spyware?
Of course, I would not put it past Microsoft to engineer small backdoors in the law to allow them to continue doing what they do best-- attempting to take over the entire planet.
Remember, these are the people that write bulletproof EULAs-- do you want them helping to make law now?
The innocence (ignorance) of the early Internet is long gone. The hackers and scammers and spammers and phishers and terrorists have found they can profit from the current state of the Internet. Their exploits will cost us all.
Our freedom and liberties are now fading. We will no longer be anonymous in our posts. The age-old question of liberty tempered by security concerns once again raises it's head.
The NSA may be the new sheriff in town. They will require more money and more computer power than what they have now; but given the will of a security-conscious government, it will happen. Big Brother will be born again, unless a knowledgable judiciary reigns in their power.
It was fun while it lasted. Everything changes.
I was merrily following the link to the slideshow, when I discovered that I needed to install the RealPlayer plugin. That ended that quest.
Realplayer is known for it's spyware and other system pollution. I will never put Realplayer product on a system ever again.
a) When in a public place, you cannot have any expectation of privacy. If you think this device will keep you from being recognized, I have some swamp land for sale in Florida you may be interested in.
b) How does the camera know which part is the face? What if it just blurs my hands or feet? If I believe this thing really works, perhaps I should buy some more Florida swamp land.
c) I wouldn't worry about police trying to hide their faces, as they rarely mass up an plow into crowds that often. Besides, they would wear riot masks if needed, which are much more effective. More often, it is the criminal or the terrorist who would want to have their face blurred.
d) If I were a security screener in an airport, and someones picture came back blurred, I would be over-zealous to check that person out. How does that help a persons privacy?
e) Perhaps it is a CIA thing to keep the spies from being recognized.
end of thoughts
The first incidence of a drive-by virus!
1) A company comes up with a novel computer idea.
2) Microsoft ignores it while it is a 'fad', so the original company can more or less charge what they want.
3) The 'fad' becomes a trend, and Microsoft gets interested.
4) Using their overwhelming resources, Microsoft develops a competing product, at a much lower price. (This is in lieu of getting the technology by 'other' methods).
5) The original company laughs it off, since any Microsoft product version 1.x or 2.x is not really competitive, and sometimes horrible.
6) Over time, the Microsoft product gains technological and marketing credibility.
7) The original company tries to hold on, but the lower prices of the Microsoft product (plus the creeping featuritis of the Microsoft product) eventually lead to the companies demise.
8) The original company gives up, and releases all of their people. Naturally, Microsoft swoops in to skim off the cream of that crop.
9) Microsoft now owns 100% of the market.
10) Microsoft freezes development on the product and starts looking for another victim company to screw.
11) Rinse, lather, repeat.
I am an instructor at a technical college; my specialties are programming, networking, and UNIX. We teach a 2-year degree.
I have found that the ratio of females/males in the UNIX class is about 40/60. In programming, about 45/55. But in networking (we teach the CCNA cirriculum) the first semester starts at about 40/60 but ends up about 10/90 by the fourth term. The women just drop out.
I believe anyone can discipline their minds to do just about anything. But I also believe females are wired differently than males. This is not to say that females are worse (or better) than males; just different. Males seem to want to tackle problems, while females watch and observe and learn. Perhaps it is the curriculum that is oriented for the male student, Idunno.
But what happens when the world runs out of flies?
Duh!
All we have to do to get the Chinese government involved:
Get ahold of a few SPAM friendly Chinese ISP's.
Send a few million SPAM messages advocating the violent overthrow of the Chinese government.
Sit back and watch the s**t hit the fan.
Voila! No more Chinese spam hosting problems.
Heres hoping that spammers will get on this bandwagon, and they will all start tossing lawsuits at each other!!
Bliss!!
Open source Solaris won't kill Linux. Open source Solaris will kill Solaris.
Confused?
Here is how I see it:
Solaris 10 has a TON of nice features in it. When it becomes open source, you can bet your bottom dollar that most of those features will migrate their way into the Linux kernel. It may be a few years, but in that time Linux will only get better and better. Eventually, it will be a peer to Solaris.
The only way for Solaris to stay ahead is to innovate, innovate, innovate. Sounds like a Microsoft mantra to me.
Now, I really, really love Solaris. It is superior to Linux in several ways. I like Linux as an up-and-coming operating system, because it also has a lot to offer. I can just see the Linux kernel coders drooling over the Solaris source code.
Sun has done some really weird things these last few years. Either they have a long term master plan (that nobody knows about) or they are desperate as hell.
On the upside, this can only mean trouble for Microsoft and it's wacked out idea of an OS. So I am not too unhappy. And maybe THAT is SUN's master plan.
Hmmm.... Tough choice....
Use passwords?
or
Sell your soul to Microsoft and let them proxy your most trusted information for you?
Hmmm....
Yes, this is a REALLY tough choice...
Simple answer: No.
The worm (or virus) is already out in the wild. Seeing how it works won't stop it.
But seeing what it exploits might.
There is a 99 percent chance that the worm/virus will exploit a known hole in the target application/operating system. Nowadays, these exploits have come much, much quicker than in the past. It used to be a few months before a hole was exploited; now it can be just a matter of hours.
What would impress me is if they reverse-engineer a worm/virus and find that it exploits a hole that was unknown beforehand. Now THAT would show some intelligence on the part of the author (if not any ethics). The 'kiddie-scripters' that mutate the source code from a worm/virus and just hex-edit their initials into it aren't very creative at all; just adolescant vandals who want to make their mark with their brethern vermin in the dark underworld of the Internet.
It's not that virus/worm authors are anything to be emulated. But you have to respect them. Like you have to respect terrorists. You may lothe them, but you have to respect them.
However, reverse-engineering IS useful. It is forensics. Someday, maybe soon, the forensics team will be able to catagorize and maybe even identify the author of a virus by the way it is written. Currently, it is helpful in finding those security holes, so they can notify the authors of the program being attacked.
Let's face it folks. Programming is still more of an art than a science. We imperfect human beings are trying to write perfect code, because the computer does exactly what it is told to do. We humans don't operate at that level very well. So we write imperfect code; something that can be eventually exploited given time and resources of anyone willing. It's gonna happen, whether your code comes from American, Indian, or Ukranian programmers. There are evil people out there, and they are going to check the doorknobs of every program to see if they can get it and cause trouble. Until someone comes up with a source-file hole checker, be prepared for more worms and virii.
OK, I'm done ranting.
1) Numbness
2) Denial
3) Anger
4) Depression
5) Acceptance
Looks like Microsoft is in Phase Two in regards to Firefox.
The People have spoken!
Mr. Bush won. Mr. Kerry lost, and was man enough to realize and admit it.
So to all you whiners, piss and moan all you want. Get it out of your systems. Eventually you will have to deal with the reality of it.