True freedom is the ability to choose whatever tool lets you get the job down without being hounded about how "free" someone thinks it truly is.
Oh that's rich, someone is hounding Bonch who spends much of his time spewing bile here on Slashdot and never contributes anything useful. I'd love to be able to read and converse about free software without people like Bonch getting in the way. You are free to use crap that has owners the can turn you off at their pleasure, but please go away from here.
Let's go back in time and look at some of the M$ love fest, apologizing and Slashdot insulting from Bonch:
Sorry, you work at a Nuclear Power Plant? Check your frelling AOL/Yahoo/Hotmail e-mail on your own damn computer, on your own damn time.
That kind of use is already forbidden, for no real benefit.
Engineers, people who order parts and everyone even remotely connected with making a decision needs internet access. Do you think you can get your work done without it?
They also need to know the state of the plant.
Yes the two sources of information are separate and should be isolated and Winblows has no place on either. Unfortunately, they are not and coporate wastes all sorts of money on the M$ upgrade train. It's really stupid.
There are two ways the the system is electrically connected to the outside world, and both of them are through high voltage power lines, which cannot really be used to send data in to break things.
You have forgotten the most critical link of all between the plant information systems and the reactor control systems: the operators. If you blind the operators bad things can happen.
You need to read the security focus article which details loss of a winblows run monitoring systems. Slammer slipped through into the plant network, found a Winblows server and DDoSed the plant network which blew out the operator's fancy monitoring systems. They had to rely on analog equipment to get the information, effectively rocketing right back to 1969 with staffing levels of and training from 2001. The information outage lasted for six hours or so. Any operator will tell you that unfamiliar situations are a hazard.
Would someone like to explain to me why the systems (assumingly CRITICAL systems) at a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT are connected to the Internet... They aren't.... I don't understand why so many people swallow the intimations of the inflamatory headlines.
But they are. You need to read the fine Security Focus article again, but I'll quote the worst parts for you.
The T1 line, investigators later found, was one of multiple ingresses into Davis-Besse's business network... From the business network, the worm [slammer] spread to the plant network, where it found purchase in at least one unpatched Windows server.... Users noticed slow performance on Davis-Besse's business network at 9:00 a.m.... At 4:50 p.m., the congestion created by the worm's scanning crashed the plant's computerized display panel, called the Safety Parameter Display System. An SPDS monitors the most crucial safety indicators at a plant, like coolant systems, core temperature sensors, and external radiation sensors. Many of those continue to require careful monitoring even while a plant is offline,... At 5:13 p.m.... the "Plant Process Computer" crashed. Both systems had redundant analog backups that were unaffected by the worm, but, "The unavailability of the SPDS and the PPC was burdensome on the operators," notes the March advisory.
That's not a headline, that's a detailed technical report.
Having worked at a plant, I can say that the picture is accurate. Winblows servers have snuck into plant networks and they are awful pieces of shit that have no place there. While they are not in direct control, they can cause trouble if you depend on them to make decisions. A box that blows your network can cause even more problems because it blinds you to what might be critical information and communications. A back up you are not staffed to use is not a backup.
It's not just power plants and operators at risk. Winblows born network congestion is also implicated in the huge 2003 power outage that killed people. When hospitals, home medical equipment, EMS, stoplights, and other things we take for granted lose power, people die.
The AC is on crack when he says it can be quite easily adapted to turn cameras off altogether, with deeply troubling implications. It isn't some magic EMP device, the camera is under no obligation to obey.
No, the spirit of the worry is right on target. The fear is that ever more concentrated power and smarter technology to enforce it will lead to massive injustice. He's right and there's plenty of evidence that justice can be bought off by the rich and powerful. He does not take it far enough, however, because it's not the toy that's important, it's the power.
We can see the pre tech tendency in several prominent cases. Will Kenedy Smith has routinely gotten away with rape because of who he is and OJ got away with murder thanks to his celebrity and money.
It would not surprise me at all if this technology were purchased and used by many. Take casino owners, as an example. Casinos have cameras EVERYWHERE and those who run them can dole out special badges as a perk.
Here's the rub: the badge will most likely uniquely identify the user! You can imagine that people with cameras everywhere will keep records of who is where and who owns what badge. Your privacy will be used as another enticement to give away your privacy. Those who own the system will be able to turn on and off any piece of it they chose and it all leads to further power for the owners.
The only antidote is to carry your own cameras. The only way to balance the power is to show any interests the "official" camera system owner may have and to have impartial, third party witnesses with their own vids of any given situation. Collectively, people can maintain their freedom. Individually, they are easy to enslave.
Big Brother left the building. In fact, he was never here.
He's in all of us. The collective oligarchy is just a way of thinking. If you don't recognize it, you can't fight it.
Well, they made a bold push to do this by the end of 2005... so they have 1 year left to beat their own goal.
That's a good observation. Looking at the article we find bullshit and FUD feeding FUD,
According to one IBM employee, who asked not to be identified...
that none of the sources dare state their name.
Oh, there's one that talks, Nancy Kaplan, an IBM spokeswoman.
IBM's Kaplan declined to say whether that goal had been met or not. "I don't know if there was ever a goal of 40,000 users. I don't know if there are 40,000 users," she said. "There's nothing mysterious about it, we're using Linux."
What a set up and pure FUD is flowing through the M$ Astroturfers telling us how hard it is to use Linux:
Which is what the ignorant are supposed to nod sagely at and agree that this must be what's causing IBM's non existant problem. Sewer overflow, a veritable crap flood if I ever saw one. Is there better proof that M$ fanboys (or employees) waste their time manipulating Slashdot's moderation system to mislead?
Here I sit, not having used Winblows in over a year and M$ free for four years. The install problems are so over that it is now easier to install distros like Mepis than Winblows ever will be, but that's not something I do often anymore because Linux does not break. The only media problem I have is Flash Trash. Everything else, including WM works great. Open Office deals with any kind of M$ garbage. KDE 3.3 is so far superior to any Winblows environment it's not even funny.
"the linux community is providing free software for the people in deprived countries, I know which I prefer" yeah, and I'm sure they'll be gatefull for the free software when they have terminal illnesses.
Bad IT policy hurts everyone including doctors and hospitals. In the Microsoft World, the one that all large publishers want to build, you will pay and pay again for the tools and information you need. In the free software world, you own your tools and information is freely shared. As an exercise in the difference in costs between the two models, compare $750,000,000 over ten years to amount of money wasted on M$ software by schools and hospitals in any given year. Also consider the detrimental effect 100 year long copyrights are having on the spread and publication of medical information by libraries and other institutions.
The money Mr. Gates is giving today, he got yesterday by ill means. I'm glad he's giving some back, but I'd be more impressed if he would free his software and quit impeding the free flow of real information for hollywood pimps.
I would like him to pay for my Windows installation at work to be vaccinated from virus infections.... Will someone please think of the children?
Let's think directly of children and Microsoft. I'd like the same for every school that's had problems with M$ junk. How about Microsoft giving back every cent of profit it ever made selling that junk to schools to begin with? They might even give back the $250,000 settlements the BSA extorted from Philadelphia and Los Angleles school systems because a few teachers coppied M$ Word and other crap administrators demanded they have but refused to pay for.
Can Free Software match Gates in generosity? No, it will do much more. It will end his company's parasitic load on schools, hospitals, churches and other worthy organizations. The sum of that donation makes $750,000,000 look very small.
The guy is running XP, passwords are only useful against family. He's not going to get owned by a password crack, he's going to get owned by some web or email bomb. Using a password on Windoze is like putting a padlock on a house of straw. If he passwords the bios, he might have delay someone from running a boot CD.
The entertainment elite are constantly given free stuff in the hope that their wearing/using/talking about it will promote the product.
Sure but those people have made careers out of bathing in publicity. This list is composed of private people who may or may not enjoy someone claiming an endorsement from them. Don't put fake endorsements past the marketing department that gave you the Apple Switcher and is famous for name dropping whenever it can. The "creepy" reaction is right on target.
Brad Templeton, or someone claiming to be him says:
... I, nor most of the people on the list aren't bought so easily.
Indeed, the high reputations of those on the list is what makes the whole thing so nasty. Bill Gates was just bragging about this kind of cheesy scheme in a BBC interview:
...you always want to get in to avant-garde households and then start the word of mouth...they can come and say: 'Wow I really like that!' So it builds momentum...
He was talking about the media center, the one that blew up on him in public with dismal sales. News flash, Bill, it has to work for people to say they like it.
I don't know if this M$NBC article is tied to that effort, but it is the lowest form of "influence" purchase I've seen yet. Microsoft has always pursued this strategy to one extent or another, giving product to people who they think will be influential. In the past, they pushed product onto business schools and other places that might not know better. That was low but fair enough. This effort, where the recipients are identified before receiving anything combines that game with another one, falsely attributing approval or endorsements. It takes the "smart people use M$" lie to a personal level and that's reprehensible.
It's not a spiff to a salesman or product to a writer, they are trying to hijack other people's reputations in an effort to push buggy crap. The company that gave us the "Apple Switcher" and forged letters to representatives is not above such things. If there's anything Microsoft is an innovator with, it's astroturf. We shall see where this goes, but where it comes from is clear.
It's easy to be confused by what he wrote.
on
Is IRC All Bad?
·
· Score: 0, Troll
He's updated his page with a nasty little insult to those who he should be thanking if he cares about reasonable representation of IRC:
In response to those Slashdot readers who obviously didn't bother to read this article properly:... It seems reasonable to assume that a journalist researching IRC for the first time would be more inclined to visit one of the larger channels, and thus be more likely to conclude that it is all about illegal file sharing. This is one of the reasons why IRC gets an unfair bad press. That's what this article was trying to show, in a roundabout way. There are no "lies" or "bullshit" in this article, just people who can't read and interpret things sensibly for themselves.
Nice of him to be direct but we can be sure that journalists, who thrive on controversy, will be fed the following quote from him 99.9% of the time:
[IRC] is a haven for warez and trojans.... 99.9% of IRC traffic to the top 60 channels is "illegal".
That's out of context, but the important contexts are missing from his article too. While the update bemoans the fact that "Slashdot readers" are apt to be confused and enraged by what he says, he does not include these important facts and explanations:
An automated advertisement of cracked software is not equivalent to a download of the software.
Bots are minority usage. There are many orders of magnitude more smaller channels than there are large channels.
The only reason to visit a larger channel would be to find warez because it's impossible to have a conversation with 100 people, let alone 1000.
Bots are a serious problem and are used to disrupt legitimate conversation.
In short, IRC usage is much like the rest of the world. The vast majority of activity is legitimate but a minority are making it difficult for everyone.
It's silly to characterize things the way he did. Unless the author notes and includes some of the better judgment exhibited by the people he's insulting, he's not doing IRC any favor.
What color is the sky in your world? MS Exchange is growing in popularity and has no serious competition.
When, sometimes your sky is Red. and often it's Blue, but mostly it's expensive, polouted and full of hotair, you need to find another sky. The air is free.
I got an error message in Outlook identifying Hotmail download as a premium subscription service; the message lasted a coupla days, and then it went away. (I'm a M$ beta tester! woot!)
I hope this does not break Hotway. Which also worked with Lycos and Spray and even worked within Cygwin.
To me, this is more evidence that the less you have to do with non-free jerks like M$, the less pain you will suffer. It's not enough that they loaded Hotmail with four or six frames of blinking adverts. It's not enough that they put tagline adverts into your mail. Confronted with superior competition from Google, M$ responds by removing features.
In the late '90s, the FBI was relying upon commercially available packet sniffers (dubbed Omnivore by the Bureau) for electronic surveillance. They found the products available at the time insufficient for the job...they didn't allow fine enough filtration to protect privacy...so the Bureau created their own system called Carnivore. But that was over half a decade ago, and the publically available programs have finally caught up to FBI specs.
You have to be shitting me. Do you really believe the US Government would spend money because it was getting TOO MUCH information?
The truth is, you can probably download a packet sniffer off Sourceforge that's more powerful than the dread Carnivore. And that's probably what the FBI's doing now.
If my Government wants to respect my privacy, they can stop their own and other's snooping. What happened to the principle of an inviolable post? My communications, snail, phone, email and others should be private, damn it. I resent my government spending my money to tap into it and I resent the collection of such information by fools who think it's worth money. Such efforts, like ticket sorting are a waste of everyone's time and money. When it's collected, it's done at your cost and you only pay it only when there's no reasonable alternative to the service you need and the cost can be pushed onto you. That, or you're dealing with the wrong people.
It's such a bullshit comparison. Windows XP gets owned in 3 minutes after starting up. Linux takes 3 weeks. Wooo! Linux must be harder to own! No, there's just more losers out there trying to break into random Windows XP boxes than there are losers out there trying to break into random Linux boxes.
So, is this a good reason to use Windoze or something? What's your point? Most of us here are running "random" machines and would rather not be owned before we can update our way out of harm's way. Even if you were right in your reasoning, the result is still in favor of using Linux over the alternatives, Windoze and Solaris.
Do you have a better method to determine system performance than the one used? All your theorizing is so much BS when actual computers are put onto the web in normal configurations. Put it up.
If anything, the Windoze boxes had it easy. I doubt they configured the thing to surf with IE or read email with OE, which are both filled with holes. Surfing with Konqueror/Mozilla/Dillo/Galeon/whatever is a world safer as is reading your email with Evolution/Kmail/MozillaMail/Balsa/mutt/whatever. We can be sure the results would be worse for Windoze if all the machines were set to get mail every 5 minutes. Many would not survive the first shot.
As for the rest of that large amount of energy directed at defaming me, really, what did I do to you to deserve that?
You said a lot of nasty things about Brian Hook and Slashdot without offering anything better. It, like most of your Microsoft apologies, waste time and prevent useful conversation.
Your also called me a zealot about a month ago for wanting an ogg only music player and thinking it would be cheaper for not having to pay MP3 licensing fees. I wondered what kind of person would act this way so I looked into your posting history and found consistent behavior.
Solutions talk and bushit walks. Mindlessly promoting Microsoft solutions is bullshit.
First off, none of the issues he cites are in any way new, these problems are old hat.... The guys just now digging into ActiveX and has decided flat out that MFC is the way to do it? Strike 1, and strike 2. Not immediately dropping it and moving on to something more suitable, you're out man.
Great apology, GeckoX. Would you mind telling us how using ATL would help and why those mechanisms have not been put back into MFC? The problem is seven years old because Microsoft did a bad job seven years ago and has not fixed it yet.
It's all too obvious that this article was posted because it fits the anti-MS slant quite well.... this article brings absolutely NOTHING to the table except another excuse to bash MS and an OLD MS technology.
Once again, enlighten us, GeckoX. What nasty piece of crap does Microsoft have to replace this old nasty? Tell us the wonders of.NET single sign on or something.
The author has done a service to people contemplating this kind of work. The neophyte designer should know the general reputation of the players involved and that comes from looking at old stuff too, especially if it's currently used. People in the past have been suckered by M$'s huge PR budget, which includes astroturfing of discussion forums.
Gecko, the name rings a bell. Let's look at what we find in your posting history. Oh yes, lots of M$ apologizing and insult for Slashdot readers:
Here you are telling me I'm stupid for not wanting to pay MP3 fees. Must be why your name rings a bell.
Here he acts as if you can audit DiBold's paperless and hoplessly insecure M$ based voting machines. This kind of undermines trust in GeckoX security advice if telling us that ActiveX could be used was not bad enough.
Having to bookmark all the pages I have open every night so I can close down FF is a real pain (if I didn't, it would truely eat all my vm space). They really need to work on that...
And why would I object to it? It's a pretty well known fact that there are pages that just won't work with anything else than IE.... according to the people who maintain the admin software, there is no support for "non-compliant" software such as Firefox and never will be.
Got a study to back that up? I doubt it.
I have not used IE at home for more than three years and have not had any problems. Sure, I've got an old version that came with Winblows 98, but I removed the network drivers from it ages ago and I doubt it would do me any good anyway. Under Linus I've have a few problems with streaming media on a few sites, but Mepis comes with Real Player and Xine. Between those two, I've got all normal formats and abnormal ones like Windoze Media, without having to worry about the trojans. Over the last three years, I've seen fewer and fewer sites requiring IE, and none of them that I actually need to use. I imagine that a site that really requires me to use IE would require me to load a steaming pile of DRM crap to work and that pile would break the scanner drivers and other stuff that I keep 98 for in the first place.
Keeping IE on the shelf is an instructive waste of time. The upgrade train never ends so when you think you need it, it's not going to work.
At work, for instance, I can't use Firefox for certain tasks because the Java-based admin pages (finances and grading) at our University won't work with it.
Too bad but don't worry. Your employer made a mistake. Most people are figuring that out by now. My University is quickly wiping out such junk. It cost a little money to get data out of the Microsoft Roach Motel, but it saves much more in the long run.
Nice post you old troll. It's designed to insult, infuriate and waste time. No problem, I have a little time to waste picking you apart.
You do what you complain about:
Instead of discussing the technology... I have a feeling this will be a bunch of +5 Funny Microsoft-bash posts.
Notice any technical details after that? I did not. The post is completely uninformative. Of course, there can be no techincal details other than what M$ provides at this point because they just released it.
Without reading further into posts, he then bashes every Slashdot reader. So he's come here, to a free software discussion forum, to tell us how much he hates everyone else but loves Microsoft:
they do have smart engineers at Microsoft... it looks like interesting stuff, and I can't wait to not only develop with it, but develop with the competing technologies that will also spring up as a result.
Great, Bonch, you can wipe the drool of your shirt. Let's go back in time and look at some of the M$ love fest, apologizing and Slashdot insulting from Bonch:
All of the above was found by looking at two pages of google results for bonch slashdot. More than half of the results were like those.
Well, that's enough fun for me for now. I hope your account is deleted soon. Until then, I think I'll save this post and put it wherever you show up. Thanks for playing, Bonch.
..and one idiot who thinks he can stave off all that by posting his insanely smart prediction about it.
Nah, just another troll. It's designed to insult, infuriate and waste time. No problem, I have a little time to waste picking him apart.
Notice he does what he complains about:
Instead of discussing the technology... I have a feeling this will be a bunch of +5 Funny Microsoft-bash posts.
Notice any technical details after that? I did not. The post is completely uninformative.
Without reading further, he then bashes every Slashdot reader.
So he's come here, to a free software discussion forum, to tell us how much he hates everyone else but loves Microsoft:
they do have smart engineers at Microsoft... it looks like interesting stuff, and I can't wait to not only develop with it, but develop with the competing technologies that will also spring up as a result.
Great, Bonch, you can wipe the drool of your shirt. Yeah, that name is familiar from older trollish stuff. Let's go back in time and look at some of the M$ apologizing and Slashdot insulting Bonch has done:
Bill Gates appears to be championing for user choice and competition between vendors.
His argument is the same as it always is: If you don't give me your money, you won't be able to do what you want. It's hard to pull that out of that rambling BS piece, but the argument is there. In a nutshell it is, you must accept my DRM or "authors" (I think he really means big media publishers) won't let you have their content. In this case he further's his argument by telling you that you never had the rights you thought you did if the "author" decides you don't have it. Once again, he pretends he wishes to reward others for their work. As usual, he tries to shore it all up with insults, "communist" this time but he's always called his customers "theives". You can see the same arguments from him all the way back in 1976
The key quotes are:
What we want is to have as much content as possible available.... an envelope... in order to get authors to be willing to put an ever broader range of content on our platform... there's content that can only be there if it's rights protected...
DRM is just like a speed bump that reminds you whether you're staying within the scope of rights that you have or you don't.
This is an astoundingly dishonest position at every level. The fact of the mater is that authors ARE putting their work up on the Creative Commons for everyone to use without restrictions. They don't want Mr. Gate's "protection". They want to compete on their merits and publish in a normal, and easy to use way. Surely, authors have enough sense to know that the control they pass onto big publishers through DRM will be lost to them forever. Right now the RIAA can threaten to keep your work off air and out of stores. Can you imagine the power music publisher would have if they could throw a few bits in their database and prevent your music from working anywhere? Not even the big publisher's believe that they will remain in control of their rights if they lend Microsoft their trust.
Mr. Gates and his DRM scheme are not "enablers" of any sort. His and big media's expansion of copyright and other forms of government granted exclusive franchises are the reason we have more consolidated and stagnant media than ever. When you give your money to this man, you hurt your rights in every way. If you use his software, he owns your system. Now he wants to own your media too. No thanks, I do just fine without him or his software.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh that's rich, someone is hounding Bonch who spends much of his time spewing bile here on Slashdot and never contributes anything useful. I'd love to be able to read and converse about free software without people like Bonch getting in the way. You are free to use crap that has owners the can turn you off at their pleasure, but please go away from here.
Let's go back in time and look at some of the M$ love fest, apologizing and Slashdot insulting from Bonch:
All of the above was found by looking at two pages of google results for bonch slashdot. More than half of the results were like those.
Well, that's enough fun for me for now. Thanks for playing, Bonch. I hope your account is deleted soon.
That kind of use is already forbidden, for no real benefit.
Engineers, people who order parts and everyone even remotely connected with making a decision needs internet access. Do you think you can get your work done without it?
They also need to know the state of the plant.
Yes the two sources of information are separate and should be isolated and Winblows has no place on either. Unfortunately, they are not and coporate wastes all sorts of money on the M$ upgrade train. It's really stupid.
You have forgotten the most critical link of all between the plant information systems and the reactor control systems: the operators. If you blind the operators bad things can happen.
You need to read the security focus article which details loss of a winblows run monitoring systems. Slammer slipped through into the plant network, found a Winblows server and DDoSed the plant network which blew out the operator's fancy monitoring systems. They had to rely on analog equipment to get the information, effectively rocketing right back to 1969 with staffing levels of and training from 2001. The information outage lasted for six hours or so. Any operator will tell you that unfamiliar situations are a hazard.
This is a big deal.
But they are. You need to read the fine Security Focus article again, but I'll quote the worst parts for you.
The T1 line, investigators later found, was one of multiple ingresses into Davis-Besse's business network ... From the business network, the worm [slammer] spread to the plant network, where it found purchase in at least one unpatched Windows server. ... Users noticed slow performance on Davis-Besse's business network at 9:00 a.m. ... At 4:50 p.m., the congestion created by the worm's scanning crashed the plant's computerized display panel, called the Safety Parameter Display System. An SPDS monitors the most crucial safety indicators at a plant, like coolant systems, core temperature sensors, and external radiation sensors. Many of those continue to require careful monitoring even while a plant is offline, ... At 5:13 p.m. ... the "Plant Process Computer" crashed. Both systems had redundant analog backups that were unaffected by the worm, but, "The unavailability of the SPDS and the PPC was burdensome on the operators," notes the March advisory.
That's not a headline, that's a detailed technical report.
Having worked at a plant, I can say that the picture is accurate. Winblows servers have snuck into plant networks and they are awful pieces of shit that have no place there. While they are not in direct control, they can cause trouble if you depend on them to make decisions. A box that blows your network can cause even more problems because it blinds you to what might be critical information and communications. A back up you are not staffed to use is not a backup.
It's not just power plants and operators at risk. Winblows born network congestion is also implicated in the huge 2003 power outage that killed people. When hospitals, home medical equipment, EMS, stoplights, and other things we take for granted lose power, people die.
No, the spirit of the worry is right on target. The fear is that ever more concentrated power and smarter technology to enforce it will lead to massive injustice. He's right and there's plenty of evidence that justice can be bought off by the rich and powerful. He does not take it far enough, however, because it's not the toy that's important, it's the power.
We can see the pre tech tendency in several prominent cases. Will Kenedy Smith has routinely gotten away with rape because of who he is and OJ got away with murder thanks to his celebrity and money.
It would not surprise me at all if this technology were purchased and used by many. Take casino owners, as an example. Casinos have cameras EVERYWHERE and those who run them can dole out special badges as a perk.
Here's the rub: the badge will most likely uniquely identify the user! You can imagine that people with cameras everywhere will keep records of who is where and who owns what badge. Your privacy will be used as another enticement to give away your privacy. Those who own the system will be able to turn on and off any piece of it they chose and it all leads to further power for the owners.
The only antidote is to carry your own cameras. The only way to balance the power is to show any interests the "official" camera system owner may have and to have impartial, third party witnesses with their own vids of any given situation. Collectively, people can maintain their freedom. Individually, they are easy to enslave.
Big Brother left the building. In fact, he was never here.
He's in all of us. The collective oligarchy is just a way of thinking. If you don't recognize it, you can't fight it.
That's a good observation. Looking at the article we find bullshit and FUD feeding FUD,
According to one IBM employee, who asked not to be identified ...
that none of the sources dare state their name.
Oh, there's one that talks, Nancy Kaplan, an IBM spokeswoman.
IBM's Kaplan declined to say whether that goal had been met or not. "I don't know if there was ever a goal of 40,000 users. I don't know if there are 40,000 users," she said. "There's nothing mysterious about it, we're using Linux."
What a set up and pure FUD is flowing through the M$ Astroturfers telling us how hard it is to use Linux:
Which is what the ignorant are supposed to nod sagely at and agree that this must be what's causing IBM's non existant problem. Sewer overflow, a veritable crap flood if I ever saw one. Is there better proof that M$ fanboys (or employees) waste their time manipulating Slashdot's moderation system to mislead?
Here I sit, not having used Winblows in over a year and M$ free for four years. The install problems are so over that it is now easier to install distros like Mepis than Winblows ever will be, but that's not something I do often anymore because Linux does not break. The only media problem I have is Flash Trash. Everything else, including WM works great. Open Office deals with any kind of M$ garbage. KDE 3.3 is so far superior to any Winblows environment it's not even funny.
Bad IT policy hurts everyone including doctors and hospitals. In the Microsoft World, the one that all large publishers want to build, you will pay and pay again for the tools and information you need. In the free software world, you own your tools and information is freely shared. As an exercise in the difference in costs between the two models, compare $750,000,000 over ten years to amount of money wasted on M$ software by schools and hospitals in any given year. Also consider the detrimental effect 100 year long copyrights are having on the spread and publication of medical information by libraries and other institutions.
The money Mr. Gates is giving today, he got yesterday by ill means. I'm glad he's giving some back, but I'd be more impressed if he would free his software and quit impeding the free flow of real information for hollywood pimps.
some people really need to grow up.
Indeed they do. Examine your priorties.
Let's think directly of children and Microsoft. I'd like the same for every school that's had problems with M$ junk. How about Microsoft giving back every cent of profit it ever made selling that junk to schools to begin with? They might even give back the $250,000 settlements the BSA extorted from Philadelphia and Los Angleles school systems because a few teachers coppied M$ Word and other crap administrators demanded they have but refused to pay for.
Can Free Software match Gates in generosity? No, it will do much more. It will end his company's parasitic load on schools, hospitals, churches and other worthy organizations. The sum of that donation makes $750,000,000 look very small.
Sure but those people have made careers out of bathing in publicity. This list is composed of private people who may or may not enjoy someone claiming an endorsement from them. Don't put fake endorsements past the marketing department that gave you the Apple Switcher and is famous for name dropping whenever it can. The "creepy" reaction is right on target.
Indeed, the high reputations of those on the list is what makes the whole thing so nasty. Bill Gates was just bragging about this kind of cheesy scheme in a BBC interview:
He was talking about the media center, the one that blew up on him in public with dismal sales. News flash, Bill, it has to work for people to say they like it.
I don't know if this M$NBC article is tied to that effort, but it is the lowest form of "influence" purchase I've seen yet. Microsoft has always pursued this strategy to one extent or another, giving product to people who they think will be influential. In the past, they pushed product onto business schools and other places that might not know better. That was low but fair enough. This effort, where the recipients are identified before receiving anything combines that game with another one, falsely attributing approval or endorsements. It takes the "smart people use M$" lie to a personal level and that's reprehensible.
It's not a spiff to a salesman or product to a writer, they are trying to hijack other people's reputations in an effort to push buggy crap. The company that gave us the "Apple Switcher" and forged letters to representatives is not above such things. If there's anything Microsoft is an innovator with, it's astroturf. We shall see where this goes, but where it comes from is clear.
In response to those Slashdot readers who obviously didn't bother to read this article properly: ... It seems reasonable to assume that a journalist researching IRC for the first time would be more inclined to visit one of the larger channels, and thus be more likely to conclude that it is all about illegal file sharing. This is one of the reasons why IRC gets an unfair bad press. That's what this article was trying to show, in a roundabout way. There are no "lies" or "bullshit" in this article, just people who can't read and interpret things sensibly for themselves.
Nice of him to be direct but we can be sure that journalists, who thrive on controversy, will be fed the following quote from him 99.9% of the time:
[IRC] is a haven for warez and trojans. ... 99.9% of IRC traffic to the top 60 channels is "illegal".
That's out of context, but the important contexts are missing from his article too. While the update bemoans the fact that "Slashdot readers" are apt to be confused and enraged by what he says, he does not include these important facts and explanations:
In short, IRC usage is much like the rest of the world. The vast majority of activity is legitimate but a minority are making it difficult for everyone.
It's silly to characterize things the way he did. Unless the author notes and includes some of the better judgment exhibited by the people he's insulting, he's not doing IRC any favor.
When, sometimes your sky is Red. and often it's Blue, but mostly it's expensive, polouted and full of hotair, you need to find another sky. The air is free.
I hope this does not break Hotway. Which also worked with Lycos and Spray and even worked within Cygwin.
To me, this is more evidence that the less you have to do with non-free jerks like M$, the less pain you will suffer. It's not enough that they loaded Hotmail with four or six frames of blinking adverts. It's not enough that they put tagline adverts into your mail. Confronted with superior competition from Google, M$ responds by removing features.
You have to be shitting me. Do you really believe the US Government would spend money because it was getting TOO MUCH information?
The truth is, you can probably download a packet sniffer off Sourceforge that's more powerful than the dread Carnivore. And that's probably what the FBI's doing now.
No, the FBI now demands what they want from ISP's who collect and sort all the information for marketing purposes. Thanks to the Patriot ACT they no longer need court orders. It's now easier than ever to get wiretaps and snoop on US Citizens. There ARE more than ever and it's getting worse.
If my Government wants to respect my privacy, they can stop their own and other's snooping. What happened to the principle of an inviolable post? My communications, snail, phone, email and others should be private, damn it. I resent my government spending my money to tap into it and I resent the collection of such information by fools who think it's worth money. Such efforts, like ticket sorting are a waste of everyone's time and money. When it's collected, it's done at your cost and you only pay it only when there's no reasonable alternative to the service you need and the cost can be pushed onto you. That, or you're dealing with the wrong people.
Several honest lawyers are trying to make a patent that does not infringe on any known computer program.
So, is this a good reason to use Windoze or something? What's your point? Most of us here are running "random" machines and would rather not be owned before we can update our way out of harm's way. Even if you were right in your reasoning, the result is still in favor of using Linux over the alternatives, Windoze and Solaris.
Do you have a better method to determine system performance than the one used? All your theorizing is so much BS when actual computers are put onto the web in normal configurations. Put it up.
If anything, the Windoze boxes had it easy. I doubt they configured the thing to surf with IE or read email with OE, which are both filled with holes. Surfing with Konqueror/Mozilla/Dillo/Galeon/whatever is a world safer as is reading your email with Evolution/Kmail/MozillaMail/Balsa/mutt/whatever. We can be sure the results would be worse for Windoze if all the machines were set to get mail every 5 minutes. Many would not survive the first shot.
You said a lot of nasty things about Brian Hook and Slashdot without offering anything better. It, like most of your Microsoft apologies, waste time and prevent useful conversation.
Your also called me a zealot about a month ago for wanting an ogg only music player and thinking it would be cheaper for not having to pay MP3 licensing fees. I wondered what kind of person would act this way so I looked into your posting history and found consistent behavior.
Solutions talk and bushit walks. Mindlessly promoting Microsoft solutions is bullshit.
My research did not take long.
You sure did take that wrong.
I don't think so.
Great apology, GeckoX. Would you mind telling us how using ATL would help and why those mechanisms have not been put back into MFC? The problem is seven years old because Microsoft did a bad job seven years ago and has not fixed it yet.
It's all too obvious that this article was posted because it fits the anti-MS slant quite well. ... this article brings absolutely NOTHING to the table except another excuse to bash MS and an OLD MS technology.
Once again, enlighten us, GeckoX. What nasty piece of crap does Microsoft have to replace this old nasty? Tell us the wonders of .NET single sign on or something.
The author has done a service to people contemplating this kind of work. The neophyte designer should know the general reputation of the players involved and that comes from looking at old stuff too, especially if it's currently used. People in the past have been suckered by M$'s huge PR budget, which includes astroturfing of discussion forums.
Gecko, the name rings a bell. Let's look at what we find in your posting history. Oh yes, lots of M$ apologizing and insult for Slashdot readers:
It's easy to find junk like this from GeckoX using a Google search, geckox slashdot. Thanks for playing.
Flattered, thanks, but it's not the first time. I'm happy when morons like that waste their time on little fish like me.
Just use an OS that manages memory properly!
Got a study to back that up? I doubt it.
I have not used IE at home for more than three years and have not had any problems. Sure, I've got an old version that came with Winblows 98, but I removed the network drivers from it ages ago and I doubt it would do me any good anyway. Under Linus I've have a few problems with streaming media on a few sites, but Mepis comes with Real Player and Xine. Between those two, I've got all normal formats and abnormal ones like Windoze Media, without having to worry about the trojans. Over the last three years, I've seen fewer and fewer sites requiring IE, and none of them that I actually need to use. I imagine that a site that really requires me to use IE would require me to load a steaming pile of DRM crap to work and that pile would break the scanner drivers and other stuff that I keep 98 for in the first place.
Keeping IE on the shelf is an instructive waste of time. The upgrade train never ends so when you think you need it, it's not going to work.
At work, for instance, I can't use Firefox for certain tasks because the Java-based admin pages (finances and grading) at our University won't work with it.
Too bad but don't worry. Your employer made a mistake. Most people are figuring that out by now. My University is quickly wiping out such junk. It cost a little money to get data out of the Microsoft Roach Motel, but it saves much more in the long run.
You do what you complain about:
Instead of discussing the technology ... I have a feeling this will be a bunch of +5 Funny Microsoft-bash posts.
Notice any technical details after that? I did not. The post is completely uninformative. Of course, there can be no techincal details other than what M$ provides at this point because they just released it.
Without reading further into posts, he then bashes every Slashdot reader. So he's come here, to a free software discussion forum, to tell us how much he hates everyone else but loves Microsoft:
they do have smart engineers at Microsoft ... it looks like interesting stuff, and I can't wait to not only develop with it, but develop with the competing technologies that will also spring up as a result.
Great, Bonch, you can wipe the drool of your shirt. Let's go back in time and look at some of the M$ love fest, apologizing and Slashdot insulting from Bonch:
All of the above was found by looking at two pages of google results for bonch slashdot. More than half of the results were like those.
Well, that's enough fun for me for now. I hope your account is deleted soon. Until then, I think I'll save this post and put it wherever you show up. Thanks for playing, Bonch.
Nah, just another troll. It's designed to insult, infuriate and waste time. No problem, I have a little time to waste picking him apart.
Notice he does what he complains about:
Instead of discussing the technology ... I have a feeling this will be a bunch of +5 Funny Microsoft-bash posts.
Notice any technical details after that? I did not. The post is completely uninformative.
Without reading further, he then bashes every Slashdot reader.
So he's come here, to a free software discussion forum, to tell us how much he hates everyone else but loves Microsoft:
they do have smart engineers at Microsoft ... it looks like interesting stuff, and I can't wait to not only develop with it, but develop with the competing technologies that will also spring up as a result.
Great, Bonch, you can wipe the drool of your shirt. Yeah, that name is familiar from older trollish stuff. Let's go back in time and look at some of the M$ apologizing and Slashdot insulting Bonch has done:
Well, that's enough fun for me for now. Thanks for playin, Bonch. I hope your account is deleted soon.
His argument is the same as it always is: If you don't give me your money, you won't be able to do what you want. It's hard to pull that out of that rambling BS piece, but the argument is there. In a nutshell it is, you must accept my DRM or "authors" (I think he really means big media publishers) won't let you have their content. In this case he further's his argument by telling you that you never had the rights you thought you did if the "author" decides you don't have it. Once again, he pretends he wishes to reward others for their work. As usual, he tries to shore it all up with insults, "communist" this time but he's always called his customers "theives". You can see the same arguments from him all the way back in 1976
The key quotes are:
What we want is to have as much content as possible available. ... an envelope ... in order to get authors to be willing to put an ever broader range of content on our platform ... there's content that can only be there if it's rights protected ...
DRM is just like a speed bump that reminds you whether you're staying within the scope of rights that you have or you don't.
This is an astoundingly dishonest position at every level. The fact of the mater is that authors ARE putting their work up on the Creative Commons for everyone to use without restrictions. They don't want Mr. Gate's "protection". They want to compete on their merits and publish in a normal, and easy to use way. Surely, authors have enough sense to know that the control they pass onto big publishers through DRM will be lost to them forever. Right now the RIAA can threaten to keep your work off air and out of stores. Can you imagine the power music publisher would have if they could throw a few bits in their database and prevent your music from working anywhere? Not even the big publisher's believe that they will remain in control of their rights if they lend Microsoft their trust.
Mr. Gates and his DRM scheme are not "enablers" of any sort. His and big media's expansion of copyright and other forms of government granted exclusive franchises are the reason we have more consolidated and stagnant media than ever. When you give your money to this man, you hurt your rights in every way. If you use his software, he owns your system. Now he wants to own your media too. No thanks, I do just fine without him or his software.