"in Slashdot there is always a MS apologist willing to overlook a company with a record littered with illegal, immoral and abusive business practices."
If you think that MS are the only, or even the worst, offenders in the IT industry for illegal, immoral and abusive business practices then you are either very young or are wearing IBM tinted glasses.
Re:The best tools stay out of the way...
on
Goodbye Cruel Word
·
· Score: 1
If you have been anywhere near Windows in the last 20 years you will know that a press of the ALT key shows the shortcuts. If on the other hand you have never used Windows you will struggle with the finer points of usability; in the same way that someone who has never used Linux (either at the command line or via any of the available GUI's) or a Mac OS will also struggle with the finer points of usability.
The use of any tool of greater sophistication than a lump hammer takes time to learn and 'intuitive' interface design is always going to be a compromise that will require some degree of learning or prior exposure.
"This is corporate double-speak for "stops people from doing things"."
Exactly! Sometimes it is useful (esp. within a corporate environment) to stop people from doing things. I worked with a client who was part of the defence industry, where stopping people from doing certain things (with sensitive data) was absolutely essential.
"DRM has nothing to do with integrity (code signing does that) and has nothing to do with code leaving the corporate domain (what you meant to say is that it stops additional copies of the software being propagated outside the corporate domain)."
This isn't about software so I don't mean anything of the sort. There are both internal business rules and external legislation that require specific types of data (e.g. financial, personal and security) to be protected and controlled. An appropriate digital rights management solution can provide end to end encryption for messaging and the transfer of files/data between client and server (or business to business / business to customer). It can provide signing to ensure integrity and it can provide control over who has the right to view, modify and redistribute data and where/who that data can be redistributed to. This combined with file system encryption, firewalls, NAC and a bunch of other stuff allows appropriate assurances to be made that 'all reasonable precautions' (one of the tricky phrases we have to deal with in terms of legislation) have been taken to protect particular types of sensitive data.
While you might not like the idea sometimes data needs controlling and protecting and DRM can provide a very useful part of the solution.
When it comes to music I agree that digital rights management is largely counterproductive and causes more problems for the legitimate user than the 'pirate'. On the other hand seeing my brother struggle to make a living as a musician while being ripped off by individuals and commercial enterprises makes me realise that just because it's music doesn't mean that it should be free to everyone to use and redistribute as they see fit. Ultimately if you don't like the restrictions of use that come with a product/service then don't buy it, whether that's software, music or a rocket launcher.
Re your SIG: DRM can and does provide a useful set of tools for the protection of sensitive data that needs to be validated to ensure it's integrity and helps to reduce the likelihood of it leaving the corporate domain. DRM as in 'something that restricts my rights to copy media' is merely one of many applications for DRM. I could use AutoCAD to design a dirty bomb but does that make AutoCAD 'evil'?
a. IBM have given plenty of handouts to Novell over the years b. anyone who thinks IBM do anything for the benefit of anyone other than IBM haven't read their history books, IBM were shafting customers and competitors before Microsoft existed
A large number of Pro/Semi-Pro Audio interfaces (which the E-MU range from Creative creeps into) suffer from pops and clicks when run on nforce chipset motherboards, not actually a Creative issue. It's largely (though not always) down to prioritization of traffic on internal busses, particularly the prioritization of data on the PCI/PCI-E slots. Most motherboard chipsets are optimised for graphics IO on the 16x PCI-E slot and therefore excessive latency on the older PCI slots can cause the pops and clicks you have experienced.
Having experience in the service and solution provider market place I would suggest that the reason for a relatively narrow target for the survey is that the SME market provides the greatest scope for movement and flexibility in their adoption of technologies and products. Therefore the SME market provides the greatest scope for service and solution providers and resellers.
In my experience what most users of Windows, MacOS, OS2 etc. want is an OS 'that doesn't make them THINK', in this respect the typical Linux user is probably an exception.
I am a Windows user* and general user of PC's since the mid 80's and even I would admit that I'd like an OS that didn't require me to think, I have enough trouble with the applications!
* You just can't get decent music production tools for anything but Windows and MacOS, and I'll not touch anything from Apple with a bargepole. If you belive otherwise let me know as I'd be interested to find out. I currently use Cubase 4 as my primary music production application along with an extensive library of VST instruments, effects and mastering tools. So any Linux (either open or closed source) alternative would need to support VST 2.0 & 3.0.
OK so some of the Dell enterprise kit isn't bad from a hardware point of view (apart from too much of it being expensive & proprietary), but we seem to be talking 'cheap consumer kit' here and I'll come back to that phrase later.
Like it or not being a Linux user makes you a specialist (or possibly just 'special') user and on the whole a more experienced user. So, the thing that is confusing me is why would you want to buy anything from Dell?
I'll grant that up until the early 90's they were OK (but back then all PCs were expensive and proprietary) since then I can't think of any reason why anyone who knows what they want would look to Dell. The quality enterprise kit is too expensive (and proprietary), the consumer kit is cheap and nasty (sometimes without the 'cheap' bit). You order a specific specification and get something else delivered or you are quoted one price and your credit card is charged a different price. Components are sourced for cost not quality, or even value for money. Support sucks and on top of that you only have to read the previous comments here to see that Dell are not great in any respect.
So given all that, if you buy cheap consumer kit, you get cheap consumer kit. Live with it, you bought it because it was cheap not because it was a quality product from a quality company.
I consider myself to be a specialist user (and not entirely fitting within the expected norms of the society in which I live), as I use a PC for music production. As a result I have very particular requirements from my PC so I save up a bit more money, go to a good system builder who uses quality components and provides the service I expect.
The result is I get what I want, I know how it will perform and I can have any combination of hardware, OS and software I believe to be necessary to meet my requirements as a specialist user.
On the other hand my partner is an average, consumer level user of technology so she buys cheap consumer notebooks that may need a bit of 'fixing up' when they arrive but hey, they are cheap.
Well I think I've made my point, buy the kit for the job and it you go for cheap consumer kit then live with the crap that makes it cheap consumer kit.
Just wanted to point out that DRM is not just about you and your media player. Most of us (including Bill Gates) recognize that current methods and models of DRM as applied to media are clumsy, unfair and ultimately futile. However DRM extends to all forms of electronic data and in a business environment is a very useful tool in making sure that sensitive data remains secure even when it leaves the business.
DRM in conjunction with a range of other technologies ensures that I have complete control over business (and personal) data which allows me to leverage that data in ways that would otherwise have been considered unsuitable for reasons of security, such as unauthorised distribution. Obviously there is nothing to stop someone from recreating data sets from hardcopy but there is no way that data could be modified to suit the purposes of any individual or business and then passed off as the real thing.
Being able to work with data that is transparently secured and has a reasonable guarantee of authenticity is a significant benefit of DRM that seems to have passed all by.
Surely the argument should be that 'DRM as currently applied to artistic media is clumsy, unfair and ultimately futile' and not that DRM is inherently 'evil'.
it's not even about Windows versus Linux (or Netware, Vines, OS2, OSX or any other OS you might care to mention) it's about people, it's about experience and about not taking anything or anyone for granted.
To put this into perspective a colleague and I once received a email from a particularly challenging group of users during an ongoing discussion which stated 'we are *** University Computer Scientists, we are the best sysadmins in the world'. Now while this may or may not be true they do have a far better grasp of the underlying technologies than I have, or am ever likely to have (apart from anything else they don't have jobs and social lives to worry about:-) However, it didn't stop their front line servers from being compromised within a couple of days of making this statement.
The point is that security is about more than which OS you run or how deep your technical understanding is. You need to understand the overall risks, which is as much about social understanding as it is technical, you need to understand the infrastructure and context in which your systems run, which means looking beyond your own technical comfort zone, you need a good dollop of common sense, a bit of good luck and plenty of experience.
If you maintain an understanding of the changing nature of the threats, keep on top of your system administration and act proactively against each potential threat as it surfaces you'll probably, remember nothing is certain, remain secure.
I have been an IT professional for twenty years now and I've been a Netware and Windows admin throughout that time, occasionally with some reasonably high profile clients, and fortunately I have never had a system compromised. That doesn't mean it won't happen tomorrow or the day after, but the fact that I acknowledge it may happen at any time and that neither myself or the technologies and products I choose are perfect is probably the most significant factor in it not having happened yet.
P.S. please accept my apologies for the calm and rational nature of my response, this is my first post on Slashdot and I'm not quite up to speed yet:-)
Slashdot Mirror
"in Slashdot there is always a MS apologist willing to overlook a company with a record littered with illegal, immoral and abusive business practices." If you think that MS are the only, or even the worst, offenders in the IT industry for illegal, immoral and abusive business practices then you are either very young or are wearing IBM tinted glasses.
If you have been anywhere near Windows in the last 20 years you will know that a press of the ALT key shows the shortcuts. If on the other hand you have never used Windows you will struggle with the finer points of usability; in the same way that someone who has never used Linux (either at the command line or via any of the available GUI's) or a Mac OS will also struggle with the finer points of usability.
The use of any tool of greater sophistication than a lump hammer takes time to learn and 'intuitive' interface design is always going to be a compromise that will require some degree of learning or prior exposure.
"This is corporate double-speak for "stops people from doing things"."
Exactly! Sometimes it is useful (esp. within a corporate environment) to stop people from doing things. I worked with a client who was part of the defence industry, where stopping people from doing certain things (with sensitive data) was absolutely essential.
"DRM has nothing to do with integrity (code signing does that) and has nothing to do with code leaving the corporate domain (what you meant to say is that it stops additional copies of the software being propagated outside the corporate domain)."
This isn't about software so I don't mean anything of the sort. There are both internal business rules and external legislation that require specific types of data (e.g. financial, personal and security) to be protected and controlled. An appropriate digital rights management solution can provide end to end encryption for messaging and the transfer of files/data between client and server (or business to business / business to customer). It can provide signing to ensure integrity and it can provide control over who has the right to view, modify and redistribute data and where/who that data can be redistributed to. This combined with file system encryption, firewalls, NAC and a bunch of other stuff allows appropriate assurances to be made that 'all reasonable precautions' (one of the tricky phrases we have to deal with in terms of legislation) have been taken to protect particular types of sensitive data.
While you might not like the idea sometimes data needs controlling and protecting and DRM can provide a very useful part of the solution.
When it comes to music I agree that digital rights management is largely counterproductive and causes more problems for the legitimate user than the 'pirate'. On the other hand seeing my brother struggle to make a living as a musician while being ripped off by individuals and commercial enterprises makes me realise that just because it's music doesn't mean that it should be free to everyone to use and redistribute as they see fit. Ultimately if you don't like the restrictions of use that come with a product/service then don't buy it, whether that's software, music or a rocket launcher.
Re your SIG:
DRM can and does provide a useful set of tools for the protection of sensitive data that needs to be validated to ensure it's integrity and helps to reduce the likelihood of it leaving the corporate domain. DRM as in 'something that restricts my rights to copy media' is merely one of many applications for DRM. I could use AutoCAD to design a dirty bomb but does that make AutoCAD 'evil'?
a. IBM have given plenty of handouts to Novell over the years
b. anyone who thinks IBM do anything for the benefit of anyone other than IBM haven't read their history books, IBM were shafting customers and competitors before Microsoft existed
From the article: "This is not a philanthropic effort, this is a business," Orlando Ayala of Microsoft told the Reuter's news agency.
A large number of Pro/Semi-Pro Audio interfaces (which the E-MU range from Creative creeps into) suffer from pops and clicks when run on nforce chipset motherboards, not actually a Creative issue. It's largely (though not always) down to prioritization of traffic on internal busses, particularly the prioritization of data on the PCI/PCI-E slots. Most motherboard chipsets are optimised for graphics IO on the 16x PCI-E slot and therefore excessive latency on the older PCI slots can cause the pops and clicks you have experienced.
Having experience in the service and solution provider market place I would suggest that the reason for a relatively narrow target for the survey is that the SME market provides the greatest scope for movement and flexibility in their adoption of technologies and products. Therefore the SME market provides the greatest scope for service and solution providers and resellers.
In my experience what most users of Windows, MacOS, OS2 etc. want is an OS 'that doesn't make them THINK', in this respect the typical Linux user is probably an exception.
I am a Windows user* and general user of PC's since the mid 80's and even I would admit that I'd like an OS that didn't require me to think, I have enough trouble with the applications!
* You just can't get decent music production tools for anything but Windows and MacOS, and I'll not touch anything from Apple with a bargepole. If you belive otherwise let me know as I'd be interested to find out. I currently use Cubase 4 as my primary music production application along with an extensive library of VST instruments, effects and mastering tools. So any Linux (either open or closed source) alternative would need to support VST 2.0 & 3.0.
OK so some of the Dell enterprise kit isn't bad from a hardware point of view (apart from too much of it being expensive & proprietary), but we seem to be talking 'cheap consumer kit' here and I'll come back to that phrase later.
Like it or not being a Linux user makes you a specialist (or possibly just 'special') user and on the whole a more experienced user. So, the thing that is confusing me is why would you want to buy anything from Dell?
I'll grant that up until the early 90's they were OK (but back then all PCs were expensive and proprietary) since then I can't think of any reason why anyone who knows what they want would look to Dell. The quality enterprise kit is too expensive (and proprietary), the consumer kit is cheap and nasty (sometimes without the 'cheap' bit). You order a specific specification and get something else delivered or you are quoted one price and your credit card is charged a different price. Components are sourced for cost not quality, or even value for money. Support sucks and on top of that you only have to read the previous comments here to see that Dell are not great in any respect.
So given all that, if you buy cheap consumer kit, you get cheap consumer kit. Live with it, you bought it because it was cheap not because it was a quality product from a quality company.
I consider myself to be a specialist user (and not entirely fitting within the expected norms of the society in which I live), as I use a PC for music production. As a result I have very particular requirements from my PC so I save up a bit more money, go to a good system builder who uses quality components and provides the service I expect.
The result is I get what I want, I know how it will perform and I can have any combination of hardware, OS and software I believe to be necessary to meet my requirements as a specialist user.
On the other hand my partner is an average, consumer level user of technology so she buys cheap consumer notebooks that may need a bit of 'fixing up' when they arrive but hey, they are cheap.
Well I think I've made my point, buy the kit for the job and it you go for cheap consumer kit then live with the crap that makes it cheap consumer kit.
Just wanted to point out that DRM is not just about you and your media player. Most of us (including Bill Gates) recognize that current methods and models of DRM as applied to media are clumsy, unfair and ultimately futile. However DRM extends to all forms of electronic data and in a business environment is a very useful tool in making sure that sensitive data remains secure even when it leaves the business. DRM in conjunction with a range of other technologies ensures that I have complete control over business (and personal) data which allows me to leverage that data in ways that would otherwise have been considered unsuitable for reasons of security, such as unauthorised distribution. Obviously there is nothing to stop someone from recreating data sets from hardcopy but there is no way that data could be modified to suit the purposes of any individual or business and then passed off as the real thing. Being able to work with data that is transparently secured and has a reasonable guarantee of authenticity is a significant benefit of DRM that seems to have passed all by. Surely the argument should be that 'DRM as currently applied to artistic media is clumsy, unfair and ultimately futile' and not that DRM is inherently 'evil'.
it's not even about Windows versus Linux (or Netware, Vines, OS2, OSX or any other OS you might care to mention) it's about people, it's about experience and about not taking anything or anyone for granted.
:-) However, it didn't stop their front line servers from being compromised within a couple of days of making this statement.
:-)
To put this into perspective a colleague and I once received a email from a particularly challenging group of users during an ongoing discussion which stated 'we are *** University Computer Scientists, we are the best sysadmins in the world'. Now while this may or may not be true they do have a far better grasp of the underlying technologies than I have, or am ever likely to have (apart from anything else they don't have jobs and social lives to worry about
The point is that security is about more than which OS you run or how deep your technical understanding is. You need to understand the overall risks, which is as much about social understanding as it is technical, you need to understand the infrastructure and context in which your systems run, which means looking beyond your own technical comfort zone, you need a good dollop of common sense, a bit of good luck and plenty of experience.
If you maintain an understanding of the changing nature of the threats, keep on top of your system administration and act proactively against each potential threat as it surfaces you'll probably, remember nothing is certain, remain secure.
I have been an IT professional for twenty years now and I've been a Netware and Windows admin throughout that time, occasionally with some reasonably high profile clients, and fortunately I have never had a system compromised. That doesn't mean it won't happen tomorrow or the day after, but the fact that I acknowledge it may happen at any time and that neither myself or the technologies and products I choose are perfect is probably the most significant factor in it not having happened yet.
P.S. please accept my apologies for the calm and rational nature of my response, this is my first post on Slashdot and I'm not quite up to speed yet