For a small site I helped set up, they went to complete SSL and client certificates, where users had to obtain a cert from Verisign or Comodo before they would get access. This stopped spam, and one can obtain a client cert for free or a low cost. However, this can't be done for most forums or blogs.
For larger sites, a lot have ended up moving to an approval type of system where a human approves the creation of the user, then a limit on how many posts a first time user could do, and how many features the user can access.
Finally, one site just went to a paid subscriber system where for any access at all, people had to pay $5 to $10 via PayPal. This at least forced spammers to pony up cash (or commit credit card fraud) before they would get access.
There is one point you mentioned which I should have more clarified. For a Mac, or for any computer at all, be it Ubuntu, RedHat, Windows, or whatever OS, there should be some secondary backup system because hard disks do die, and you are completely correct that a fire or thief can take both the computer and the backup drive.
This varies on the person, because senior citizens vary in mental capacity and what they are capable of. I have one relative almost 80 who doesn't need any special protection -- if she accidently deletes a document, she can fire up Retrospect or Time Machine and dig it out of a backup set, use a file from a previous snapshot (Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 have good snapshotting capabilities), or go into Mozy and pull it up from there.
Depending on the person, I might recommend Mozy or Carbinite in addition to Time Machine or Vista/Windows Server 2008's image backup utility. This provides two different layers of protection. For "oops, just made the changes to the wrong file", Time Machine is great here. For recovering files after a house burns down, Mozy is great. Its hard to beat $5 a month for unlimited storage.
This is one of the areas where steering them to purchase a Mac is a good thing. Yes, an iMac may seem pricy, but with AppleCare, the relative can get questions answered at a Genius Bar or via the Apple line and not have to keep bugging you. Linux is also good, but one advantage of Macs is that the older person can ask more than just you, as a lot more people run Macs than Linux boxes. Another factor is that the older person will be keeping the machine a lot longer than the usual 2-3 years a normal PC is used.
Another advantage is that Macs run almost all popular software. Say the relative wants to watch a Flash movie or find a podcast, Macs happily do this with few issues. For word processing, iWork is easy to install and use and does most of the basics.
Security-wise, ensuring the computer is behind a hardware firewall/router will keep the port scanners off the box, and setting OS X's firewall to "Allow only essential services" will do the rest. A basic lecture of not downloading stuff from the Web and running it should minimize the chance of Trojans, perhaps coupled with a decent A/V program. Give them an account with administrative rights so they can run Software Update and you are pretty much done.
For loss of data, backups are quite easy with OS X. Plug in an external hard disk, configure Time Machine, walk away. For further protection, there is always Mozy which can back up the entire machine with unlimited storage for around $6 a month.
This is just my personal opinion, so take for what its worth, but an iMac with an external hard disk (for Time Machine), a decent hardware firewall/router, and having all these plugged into a good UPS should get an older person up and running on the Internet and greatly decrease any chance of 2am "tech support" calls.
OS X isn't perfect, but in this case of getting a user set up and as independent as possible, it might be one of the better solutions available.
1: Make SMS messages not cost so much, or have it where they are free for the receiver. 2: For an online verification, the user gets via SMS the name and ID of the business, how much is being asked for as payment, other pertinent info (so the customer can tell if the SMS is genuine or a fake), and finally a 4-6 digit PIN that the customer types in as validation for the transaction. For someone to spoof the transaction, they would have to generate a bogus one with the amount and such, have possession of the user's cellphone and card, or forcing the user to do the transaction for them.
What would be even nicer would be a SMS-like protocol with certificate management built in. It would factor in SSL certs where purchase requests from venders are signed by their keys, and the keys are certified by a known CA. This would help people know that a purchase request for "X" is actually from the shop they were buying at, as opposed to a cheat.
I would go as far as to recommend encrypting the files before putting them on a seed node. The simplest would be to use an archiving program that offers AES encryption (7Zip, WinZip, WinRAR, StuffIt) and give all branch sites the password.
You can also use TrueCrypt volumes with a keyfile sent via E-mail and encrypted with the site admin's PGP or S/MIME key for better security.
I've refused to buy games with intrusive DRM. Now that someone is actually assuming customers are not criminals, its worth supporting the effort. Even if the boxed game just gets chucked in the back of my car and forgotten about.
Its not much of a carrot, but if it got around that people actually went out of their way to buy games without DRM, software publishers may just loosen their stance.
Where I live, there are two small independent arcades, mainly catering to students at a big university. Dave & Busters is around, as well as the places parents have for their kids to get lost in for a couple hours while they let the effects of a Valium take hold.
Maybe its time for a resurgence of arcades, but with a modern twist. Dave & Busters is one great idea combining the concept with a decent bar and restaurant, but there could be other ideas as well that might renew this market.
The items offered for sale are not game breakers. The XP potions are a cool thing, but each expansion, every player account is handed boxes of those.
For those not familar with EQ2, once a character reaches level 20, there are two sets of item slots. Normal armor (which gives stats), and appearance slots, which do not affect character stats in any way, but they just give a look. For example, a raid inquisitor (DPS group healer) can be wearing plate, but appear to be wearing robes and a santa cap. This allows players to not look all the same, which happens other MMOs (WoW especially), once you get people grinding the BG and the seasonal arena sets.
This, and the player/guild housing is one of the better elements of EQ2.
This is a feature I also miss. They had a PGP keyserver, and you uploaded your PGP public key you wanted associated with the account. Then, you filled out the funky form that you E-mailed in, signed it with the key, and sent it in.
I know this probably can't be done now, but instead, why not offer keyfobs similar to SecurID? PayPal, eBay, a number of banks, heck, even Blizzard offer this feature, so a compromised password isn't the end of the world.
People use hardware devices to make sure their SSL keys arn't compromised; why not have that functionality guarding an element that arguably is just as important in the security chain.
There are still holes that affect both Windows and UNIX variants.
One of the biggest culprits are Web browsers and Web browser plugins. Even if malware gets in and only runs as the user, it still can do a great deal of damage, from logging keystrokes via a transparent window, to copying and modifying files, to running its botnet code.
Even the most securely written Web browser is really not enough, due to the amount of browser plugins out there. What is needed is for the OS to step in and handle the Web browser as a special situation; a program that is in contact with untrusted sites all the time. Vista has gone one step by having it run in a low privilege mode, but even that hasn't helped in some cases.
Perhaps the best thing would be running the Web browser in a VM, with a shared directory so the user can save files. The VM would have CPU, RAM, and disk limits to help mitigate the damage malware can do. Perhaps even segment it further so an instance of the Web browser browsing evilpr0nsite.com that gets compromised won't be able to access the instance that the user is using to browse their bank's site.
Additional features can be added, such as when the Web browser is closed, the VM shuts down, preventing a process that forked off from running in the background. Perhaps functionality to roll back the filesystem of the Web browser back to its initial state before being run would be good too, so if the Web browser's VM does get breached, the changes by the malware are dumped.
A well written hypervisor has far less of an attack surface than a Web browser that could be running any types of plugins, themes, extensions, or other code.
The key would be making the VM encapsulation be as transparent to the user as possible. Of course, a chrooted jail is another solution to this, but its better to completely isolate the Web browser from the rest of the OS.
This reminds me of some of the old Apple ][ abandonware games where the only copies still in existance are cracked copies. Maybe 10-15 years down the line when PCs have long since lost DVD drives, the accepted "industry standard" copy will be one either encased in a VM with a DVD emulator a well done pirated rip, or perhaps encapsulated in an app virtualization method like Thinstall.
I know a number of retailers stop this problem by using locking DVD cases that set off the door alarms. Usually the ones that have another alarm if someone stomps the case open. Shopperinc.com, the first site I hit on Google offers plenty of low cost ways to ensure that either a would-be shoplifter is going to have to be good at sneaking in the key equipment needed, or be able to run through the exit with security guards hot on their trail (and risk robbery charges as well as larceny).
Since effective technological measures are in place for this, why bother with screwing around with CD keys?
It is a *lot* harder to shoplift successfully media in one of these cases than it is to hit the usual sites, download a patch or a torrent. This is the old security adage of why add layers of protection to a door when the burglar can just enter through the window?
What a company could do, assuming it had the cash for reasonable Internet peering, would be to make a VPN service. Give directions for novice BT users to set up and route through. It doesn't have to be an "anonymous" service, however it would be a boon for privacy if TCP/IP logs are held just long enough in case of a security issue (or to make the UK government happy), and then promptly deleted. This service would be hosted physically in the UK to ensure decently fast connections, as opposed to other services located elsewhere around the world where packets would possibly have to cross through high latency overseas lines.
It could offer the usual PPTP services. It can also offer a SSL proxy (plain or using stunnel) for Web traffic so only the Web browser would have to be configured if the user doesn't have administrative rights. For users using ssh, it can offer PPP over ssh.
Then, this company can provide some decent instructions for people to set up a VPN to its site with the usual operating systems (Linux, OS X, BSD, Windows.)
Of course, BT could try to block or throttle the packets, but that is starting a type of legal battle with another company that may not be in BT's interest.
Not just hijacking and modifying data, but an active classic man in the middle attack.
Imagine this ad server being compromised, and instead of "just" adding random ads to pages and logging customer activities for sale, picture it redirecting to phishing sites or just grabbing passwords sent to sites that are not SSL protected.
I remember Google was working on something on the app layer that would guard against this type of connection hijacking but without the setup and teardown overhead of full blown SSL.
Its probably in Google's best interest to get something like this widely deployed -- a lot of ISPs are frothing at the mouth to get Phorm/NebuAd on their networks for more revenue streams, and it won't be long before a Google query would not route to Google (even if done at www.google.com), but to wherever the ISP desires.
That might be what mitigates extreme DRM. People just ending up saying "hell with this" and finding other ways to entertain themselves, and businesses will keep up with the market. Second run movie theaters with bars or restaurants would spring up because people don't want to deal with the hassles of authorizing to play their movies, or having to pay cash for a movie they purchased because the publisher chose to add a new revenue stream, and pushed out EULA revisions adding the new fee.
If game publishers keep turning the screws by assuming their players are thieves, they can be affected too. Should people look elsewhere, a lot of alternative game companies who assume their customer is a paying customer (and not a IP infringer) will spring up and offer very playable stuff. No, it may not have the up to the second graphics that the big companies have, but will have very original and creative gameplay. Perhaps Sun could work on getting OpenGL calls into Java so Java applications have access to fast 3D drawing methods.
Companies need to remember that if they annoy their customer base past a certain threshold, their customer base will either find (or make) a suitable alternative and leave. A good example of this is Lotus in the 80s. Lotus and its copy-protection helped in part to create a wholesale movement to Word and Excel as the document standards and make Microsoft rich. People and businesses got tired of having to either find a copy program or having to buy multiple copies of the product for backups.
Maybe its me being pedantic, but I consider biometrics something that is intended to replace typing in a username, as opposed to being both pairs of the username/password combo. Ideally, one would have biometrics to ID which user is wanting access, then have a contactless smart card and/or a PIN for the "password" part that confirms the user is whom he or she said they are.
One note. Subscriptions tend to become contracts from what I see. Paying $20 for the OS, and signing an agreement to pay $15 a month for a year is not what I want to do with a computer.
I'm assuming this means that when someone sells virtual currency for real life currency, they pay 20% of the real life currency earned to the Chinese government?
If so, what will end up happening is that gold prices go up 25%, but the market essentially stays the same for the most part.
True. However, if a SSL connection is persistent over a long time (hours) to a known or suspected proxy site, to a watcher/censor that is watching the connection, it can mean that its just a PPTP connection over port 443, and perhaps can be throttled or killed and the name/IP/port blocked.
Generally, Web traffic over SSL consists of setups and teardowns unless the the client and the web server support persistent connections. Even then, the connections will be brief to grab a home page or two, and usually not more than a minute unless the connection is slow, or someone is uploading/downloading a large file. If the connection stays up for a long time like days, and there is a bunch of traffic, its likely a VPN, perhaps a VPN carrying bulk traffic.
Very good point. What might happen is that for corporate use and upper end phones, WM and Blackberry retain a large niche. As of now, even with the enhanced Exchange connectivity, iPhones do not offer encryption of their contents, nor the ability to erase themselves if someone does too many bad password attempts. These two things keep the iPhone from widespread corporate use.
I think the market will end up sort of similar to how computer operating systems are: Blackberry's OS and Windows Mobile for corporate use, similar to Solaris and AIX. Low end phones that come free with plans, which could be compared to Windows. Android based phones which are used by people to write the latest cool thing, similar to Linux or BSD. Finally, the iPhone which can be related to OS X, which is used for consumer use for people who want more in a phone than making calls.
Sprint needs to turn themselves around. First, they need to get G4 service or WiMax out there nationwide, as perhaps an alternative for home Internet service other than DSL or cable. Second, they need to make people want to buy their stuff. There are a couple cool Sprint phones, but most people tend to either buy a free (with plan) handset, or an iPhone. The low end handset does what most people want... take/receive calls, some text messaging, basic addressbook. The iPhone has pretty much locked up the smartphone department, except for corporations, where Blackberries and Windows Mobile devices are used (because both offer very good security... Blackberries allow remote erasure, duress codes, remote locking, and the ability to use a CAC card reader. Windows Mobile devices allow for remote erasure. Both can encrypt their memory cards.)
What Sprint has is a lot of bandwidth. The iDEN network for example. They need to leverage this and try to get WiMax out. Then, they will have an alternative revenue stream and not have to worry as much about the whims of cellphone fashion.
I have had a WinMo device which people cleverly made a custom ROM for WM6 (it was a WM5 device). This allowed encryption of the MiniSD memory card, as well as the ability to have the phone erase itself on command from an Exchange server.
Its worked well for me for daily use, but I don't see many new apps coming out for WM, nor much interest in new stuff, other than minor software updates.
It seems like everyone and their dog has seemed to have dumped Symbian, Blackberry, and WM for iPhone SDKs and placement on Apple's store. Because of this (since I was working on a cellphone RPG), I probably will end up moving to an iPhone sooner or later to not get left behind in the market, should I actually write something that is publishable.
Actually no. The ISP isn't saying the second party is the first, just refusing connections to the first party and redirecting to another site.
OBCar analogy: Say, all the roads are privately owned. This is as if owner of the roads decided to barricate the exit off a highway to someone because their competitor paid the road owner to do so, as well as build an exit ramp to the guy who paid the extra cash.
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There are a number of things you can try:
For a small site I helped set up, they went to complete SSL and client certificates, where users had to obtain a cert from Verisign or Comodo before they would get access. This stopped spam, and one can obtain a client cert for free or a low cost. However, this can't be done for most forums or blogs.
For larger sites, a lot have ended up moving to an approval type of system where a human approves the creation of the user, then a limit on how many posts a first time user could do, and how many features the user can access.
Finally, one site just went to a paid subscriber system where for any access at all, people had to pay $5 to $10 via PayPal. This at least forced spammers to pony up cash (or commit credit card fraud) before they would get access.
There is one point you mentioned which I should have more clarified. For a Mac, or for any computer at all, be it Ubuntu, RedHat, Windows, or whatever OS, there should be some secondary backup system because hard disks do die, and you are completely correct that a fire or thief can take both the computer and the backup drive.
This varies on the person, because senior citizens vary in mental capacity and what they are capable of. I have one relative almost 80 who doesn't need any special protection -- if she accidently deletes a document, she can fire up Retrospect or Time Machine and dig it out of a backup set, use a file from a previous snapshot (Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 have good snapshotting capabilities), or go into Mozy and pull it up from there.
Depending on the person, I might recommend Mozy or Carbinite in addition to Time Machine or Vista/Windows Server 2008's image backup utility. This provides two different layers of protection. For "oops, just made the changes to the wrong file", Time Machine is great here. For recovering files after a house burns down, Mozy is great. Its hard to beat $5 a month for unlimited storage.
This is one of the areas where steering them to purchase a Mac is a good thing. Yes, an iMac may seem pricy, but with AppleCare, the relative can get questions answered at a Genius Bar or via the Apple line and not have to keep bugging you. Linux is also good, but one advantage of Macs is that the older person can ask more than just you, as a lot more people run Macs than Linux boxes. Another factor is that the older person will be keeping the machine a lot longer than the usual 2-3 years a normal PC is used.
Another advantage is that Macs run almost all popular software. Say the relative wants to watch a Flash movie or find a podcast, Macs happily do this with few issues. For word processing, iWork is easy to install and use and does most of the basics.
Security-wise, ensuring the computer is behind a hardware firewall/router will keep the port scanners off the box, and setting OS X's firewall to "Allow only essential services" will do the rest. A basic lecture of not downloading stuff from the Web and running it should minimize the chance of Trojans, perhaps coupled with a decent A/V program. Give them an account with administrative rights so they can run Software Update and you are pretty much done.
For loss of data, backups are quite easy with OS X. Plug in an external hard disk, configure Time Machine, walk away. For further protection, there is always Mozy which can back up the entire machine with unlimited storage for around $6 a month.
This is just my personal opinion, so take for what its worth, but an iMac with an external hard disk (for Time Machine), a decent hardware firewall/router, and having all these plugged into a good UPS should get an older person up and running on the Internet and greatly decrease any chance of 2am "tech support" calls.
OS X isn't perfect, but in this case of getting a user set up and as independent as possible, it might be one of the better solutions available.
Even better would be a two-fold solution:
1: Make SMS messages not cost so much, or have it where they are free for the receiver.
2: For an online verification, the user gets via SMS the name and ID of the business, how much is being asked for as payment, other pertinent info (so the customer can tell if the SMS is genuine or a fake), and finally a 4-6 digit PIN that the customer types in as validation for the transaction. For someone to spoof the transaction, they would have to generate a bogus one with the amount and such, have possession of the user's cellphone and card, or forcing the user to do the transaction for them.
What would be even nicer would be a SMS-like protocol with certificate management built in. It would factor in SSL certs where purchase requests from venders are signed by their keys, and the keys are certified by a known CA. This would help people know that a purchase request for "X" is actually from the shop they were buying at, as opposed to a cheat.
I would go as far as to recommend encrypting the files before putting them on a seed node. The simplest would be to use an archiving program that offers AES encryption (7Zip, WinZip, WinRAR, StuffIt) and give all branch sites the password.
You can also use TrueCrypt volumes with a keyfile sent via E-mail and encrypted with the site admin's PGP or S/MIME key for better security.
I've refused to buy games with intrusive DRM. Now that someone is actually assuming customers are not criminals, its worth supporting the effort. Even if the boxed game just gets chucked in the back of my car and forgotten about.
Its not much of a carrot, but if it got around that people actually went out of their way to buy games without DRM, software publishers may just loosen their stance.
Where I live, there are two small independent arcades, mainly catering to students at a big university. Dave & Busters is around, as well as the places parents have for their kids to get lost in for a couple hours while they let the effects of a Valium take hold.
Maybe its time for a resurgence of arcades, but with a modern twist. Dave & Busters is one great idea combining the concept with a decent bar and restaurant, but there could be other ideas as well that might renew this market.
The items offered for sale are not game breakers. The XP potions are a cool thing, but each expansion, every player account is handed boxes of those.
For those not familar with EQ2, once a character reaches level 20, there are two sets of item slots. Normal armor (which gives stats), and appearance slots, which do not affect character stats in any way, but they just give a look. For example, a raid inquisitor (DPS group healer) can be wearing plate, but appear to be wearing robes and a santa cap. This allows players to not look all the same, which happens other MMOs (WoW especially), once you get people grinding the BG and the seasonal arena sets.
This, and the player/guild housing is one of the better elements of EQ2.
This is a feature I also miss. They had a PGP keyserver, and you uploaded your PGP public key you wanted associated with the account. Then, you filled out the funky form that you E-mailed in, signed it with the key, and sent it in.
I know this probably can't be done now, but instead, why not offer keyfobs similar to SecurID? PayPal, eBay, a number of banks, heck, even Blizzard offer this feature, so a compromised password isn't the end of the world.
People use hardware devices to make sure their SSL keys arn't compromised; why not have that functionality guarding an element that arguably is just as important in the security chain.
There are still holes that affect both Windows and UNIX variants.
One of the biggest culprits are Web browsers and Web browser plugins. Even if malware gets in and only runs as the user, it still can do a great deal of damage, from logging keystrokes via a transparent window, to copying and modifying files, to running its botnet code.
Even the most securely written Web browser is really not enough, due to the amount of browser plugins out there. What is needed is for the OS to step in and handle the Web browser as a special situation; a program that is in contact with untrusted sites all the time. Vista has gone one step by having it run in a low privilege mode, but even that hasn't helped in some cases.
Perhaps the best thing would be running the Web browser in a VM, with a shared directory so the user can save files. The VM would have CPU, RAM, and disk limits to help mitigate the damage malware can do. Perhaps even segment it further so an instance of the Web browser browsing evilpr0nsite.com that gets compromised won't be able to access the instance that the user is using to browse their bank's site.
Additional features can be added, such as when the Web browser is closed, the VM shuts down, preventing a process that forked off from running in the background. Perhaps functionality to roll back the filesystem of the Web browser back to its initial state before being run would be good too, so if the Web browser's VM does get breached, the changes by the malware are dumped.
A well written hypervisor has far less of an attack surface than a Web browser that could be running any types of plugins, themes, extensions, or other code.
The key would be making the VM encapsulation be as transparent to the user as possible. Of course, a chrooted jail is another solution to this, but its better to completely isolate the Web browser from the rest of the OS.
This reminds me of some of the old Apple ][ abandonware games where the only copies still in existance are cracked copies. Maybe 10-15 years down the line when PCs have long since lost DVD drives, the accepted "industry standard" copy will be one either encased in a VM with a DVD emulator a well done pirated rip, or perhaps encapsulated in an app virtualization method like Thinstall.
I know a number of retailers stop this problem by using locking DVD cases that set off the door alarms. Usually the ones that have another alarm if someone stomps the case open. Shopperinc.com, the first site I hit on Google offers plenty of low cost ways to ensure that either a would-be shoplifter is going to have to be good at sneaking in the key equipment needed, or be able to run through the exit with security guards hot on their trail (and risk robbery charges as well as larceny).
Since effective technological measures are in place for this, why bother with screwing around with CD keys?
It is a *lot* harder to shoplift successfully media in one of these cases than it is to hit the usual sites, download a patch or a torrent. This is the old security adage of why add layers of protection to a door when the burglar can just enter through the window?
What a company could do, assuming it had the cash for reasonable Internet peering, would be to make a VPN service. Give directions for novice BT users to set up and route through. It doesn't have to be an "anonymous" service, however it would be a boon for privacy if TCP/IP logs are held just long enough in case of a security issue (or to make the UK government happy), and then promptly deleted. This service would be hosted physically in the UK to ensure decently fast connections, as opposed to other services located elsewhere around the world where packets would possibly have to cross through high latency overseas lines.
It could offer the usual PPTP services. It can also offer a SSL proxy (plain or using stunnel) for Web traffic so only the Web browser would have to be configured if the user doesn't have administrative rights. For users using ssh, it can offer PPP over ssh.
Then, this company can provide some decent instructions for people to set up a VPN to its site with the usual operating systems (Linux, OS X, BSD, Windows.)
Of course, BT could try to block or throttle the packets, but that is starting a type of legal battle with another company that may not be in BT's interest.
Not just hijacking and modifying data, but an active classic man in the middle attack.
Imagine this ad server being compromised, and instead of "just" adding random ads to pages and logging customer activities for sale, picture it redirecting to phishing sites or just grabbing passwords sent to sites that are not SSL protected.
I remember Google was working on something on the app layer that would guard against this type of connection hijacking but without the setup and teardown overhead of full blown SSL.
Its probably in Google's best interest to get something like this widely deployed -- a lot of ISPs are frothing at the mouth to get Phorm/NebuAd on their networks for more revenue streams, and it won't be long before a Google query would not route to Google (even if done at www.google.com), but to wherever the ISP desires.
That might be what mitigates extreme DRM. People just ending up saying "hell with this" and finding other ways to entertain themselves, and businesses will keep up with the market. Second run movie theaters with bars or restaurants would spring up because people don't want to deal with the hassles of authorizing to play their movies, or having to pay cash for a movie they purchased because the publisher chose to add a new revenue stream, and pushed out EULA revisions adding the new fee.
If game publishers keep turning the screws by assuming their players are thieves, they can be affected too. Should people look elsewhere, a lot of alternative game companies who assume their customer is a paying customer (and not a IP infringer) will spring up and offer very playable stuff. No, it may not have the up to the second graphics that the big companies have, but will have very original and creative gameplay. Perhaps Sun could work on getting OpenGL calls into Java so Java applications have access to fast 3D drawing methods.
Companies need to remember that if they annoy their customer base past a certain threshold, their customer base will either find (or make) a suitable alternative and leave. A good example of this is Lotus in the 80s. Lotus and its copy-protection helped in part to create a wholesale movement to Word and Excel as the document standards and make Microsoft rich. People and businesses got tired of having to either find a copy program or having to buy multiple copies of the product for backups.
Maybe its me being pedantic, but I consider biometrics something that is intended to replace typing in a username, as opposed to being both pairs of the username/password combo. Ideally, one would have biometrics to ID which user is wanting access, then have a contactless smart card and/or a PIN for the "password" part that confirms the user is whom he or she said they are.
One note. Subscriptions tend to become contracts from what I see. Paying $20 for the OS, and signing an agreement to pay $15 a month for a year is not what I want to do with a computer.
I'm assuming this means that when someone sells virtual currency for real life currency, they pay 20% of the real life currency earned to the Chinese government?
If so, what will end up happening is that gold prices go up 25%, but the market essentially stays the same for the most part.
True. However, if a SSL connection is persistent over a long time (hours) to a known or suspected proxy site, to a watcher/censor that is watching the connection, it can mean that its just a PPTP connection over port 443, and perhaps can be throttled or killed and the name/IP/port blocked.
Generally, Web traffic over SSL consists of setups and teardowns unless the the client and the web server support persistent connections. Even then, the connections will be brief to grab a home page or two, and usually not more than a minute unless the connection is slow, or someone is uploading/downloading a large file. If the connection stays up for a long time like days, and there is a bunch of traffic, its likely a VPN, perhaps a VPN carrying bulk traffic.
Very good point. What might happen is that for corporate use and upper end phones, WM and Blackberry retain a large niche. As of now, even with the enhanced Exchange connectivity, iPhones do not offer encryption of their contents, nor the ability to erase themselves if someone does too many bad password attempts. These two things keep the iPhone from widespread corporate use.
I think the market will end up sort of similar to how computer operating systems are: Blackberry's OS and Windows Mobile for corporate use, similar to Solaris and AIX. Low end phones that come free with plans, which could be compared to Windows. Android based phones which are used by people to write the latest cool thing, similar to Linux or BSD. Finally, the iPhone which can be related to OS X, which is used for consumer use for people who want more in a phone than making calls.
Just like DRM, all this filtering will do is cause trouble with the honest users.
The real criminals will just use a VPN, perhaps a VPN over port 80 so it can't be distinguished from SSL traffic without deep packet inspection.
Does the Aussie government want to try to play this arms race? There is little to be gained, assuming they want to remain an open society.
Sprint needs to turn themselves around. First, they need to get G4 service or WiMax out there nationwide, as perhaps an alternative for home Internet service other than DSL or cable. Second, they need to make people want to buy their stuff. There are a couple cool Sprint phones, but most people tend to either buy a free (with plan) handset, or an iPhone. The low end handset does what most people want... take/receive calls, some text messaging, basic addressbook. The iPhone has pretty much locked up the smartphone department, except for corporations, where Blackberries and Windows Mobile devices are used (because both offer very good security... Blackberries allow remote erasure, duress codes, remote locking, and the ability to use a CAC card reader. Windows Mobile devices allow for remote erasure. Both can encrypt their memory cards.)
What Sprint has is a lot of bandwidth. The iDEN network for example. They need to leverage this and try to get WiMax out. Then, they will have an alternative revenue stream and not have to worry as much about the whims of cellphone fashion.
I have had a WinMo device which people cleverly made a custom ROM for WM6 (it was a WM5 device). This allowed encryption of the MiniSD memory card, as well as the ability to have the phone erase itself on command from an Exchange server.
Its worked well for me for daily use, but I don't see many new apps coming out for WM, nor much interest in new stuff, other than minor software updates.
It seems like everyone and their dog has seemed to have dumped Symbian, Blackberry, and WM for iPhone SDKs and placement on Apple's store. Because of this (since I was working on a cellphone RPG), I probably will end up moving to an iPhone sooner or later to not get left behind in the market, should I actually write something that is publishable.
Actually no. The ISP isn't saying the second party is the first, just refusing connections to the first party and redirecting to another site.
OBCar analogy: Say, all the roads are privately owned. This is as if owner of the roads decided to barricate the exit off a highway to someone because their competitor paid the road owner to do so, as well as build an exit ramp to the guy who paid the extra cash.