If I buy one of these cars, should I also buy an antivirus software subscription? Given that every Microsoft product I'm aware of is vulnerable to viruses, I would think that antivirus software would be a requirement.
And which Antivirus software does Microsoft recommend? I mean, I'd hate to have my car stall in a busy intersection because the onboard computer caught the blaster worm from someone's WiFi hotspot.
Kinda gives wardriving a whole new meaning, though.... Kids could drive around in rush hour traffic with a virus-infected Windows laptop and bring traffic to a halt!
In some respects, a computer program could be considered a living thing, albeit on a much lower level. So would that make deleting a program murder? After all, you created it and it belonged to you.
Considering that God created the universe, and all living things, I think that he has the right to do with His creations as wishes. If some of his creations do things which displease him, he is well within his rights to "delete" them.
People of leisurely moral growth often fail to recognize the difference between killing and murder. Killing, while undesirable, is not necessarily wrong in itself (for example, killing in war or self defense). The sin of murder is committed when one's respect for God sinks so low that they kill the image of God (mankind) for the sake of their own personal desires.
Actually, we welcome the Return of the King. But we would hate to receive the "mark of the beast" and be denied entrance to the Kingdom.
According to one interpretation of Revelation,
when these things occur, though, Christians will be persecuted in a way that will make the Holocaust seem like a fairy tale. Then, after the tribulation, the faithful will join Christ in his Kingdom.
I spent the last day trying to get my doctoral thesis back. So far, I think it's lost for good. I wrote it back in 2017, and the University copyrighted it. Last week, a fire at the University destroyed the key server; about 20,000 volumes were lost.
At first, it was thought that we could restore from tape, but the problem was that the law mandated encrypting all copyrighted works to prevent illegal distribution. Yes, we still have the backups, but they're encrypted; without the key server, useless. Some of my colleagues have wondered aloud about building a decryption utility, until the legal department reminded them that this would be illegal. Since all software is registered with a central repository by the compiler, it would be impossible to keep it a secret. And given that most decryption algorithms are patented, it would surely get tagged by the patent-crawlers.
Yeah, I remember a time before compulsory registration and mandatory networking. You could actually compile your own source code without having it registered with the copyright office. And even 20 years ago, there was no such thing as a patent-crawler; if you infringed on copyright or someone else's patent, they had to take you to court. With automatic enforcement now, it's impossible to copy someone else's bitstream. Even if you want to give it away, you still have to pay for a distribution license.
And the compulsory registration system has had its problems. The computer science department now has a waiver allowing them to run non-networked computers. With automatic copyright registration and enforcement, infringement alerts became increasingly frequent; it seems as if there's only so many correct ways to write "Hello World", or solve the fibonacci sequence. After a few years, the FBI simply ignored infringement alerts from the University, and soon after, we got the waiver.
But some of us are still writing code with a pen. I've seen illegal copies of D'Christy's prime-factoring algorithm passed around on notebook paper. You would never get away with computer file of it, though, because someone would eventually slip and use the disk on a publicly connected workstation.
Well, I think my thesis is lost. Even though I've got a key, I can't risk bringing it forward (last year, private ownership of encryption keys was made illegal). I didn't know I had it - I found it as I was rumaging through some disks, hoping for a legacy copy of my thesis.
A colleague of mine managed to get a copy of the backup on disk. While rumaging through my things, I found an old pre-registration laptop without a network interface. Tonight, we'll see if we can get our words back.
And some poor kid got busted yesterday. He bought some cheap flea-market hardware that had an old unlicensed compiler on it. He would have never gotten caught, either, had he the insight not to connect it to a network.
Re:Microsoft is going to become Apple?
on
Phoenix's BIOS Roadmap
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
If you are not in this group, fine, just buy another board, or buy the board, and _don't install Windows_.
Which is precisely the problem: if Microsoft has their way, this won't be an option.
The reason why Microsoft wants this so badly is because this would enable Microsoft to charge annual or quarterly subscription fees for their OS. If the PC can't run any other OS, then the PC owner must pay whatever Microsoft demands.
I just bought a Toshiba laptop with Windows XP. The system is horrible; Explorer crashes constantly, networking works only occasionally, and it's already been infected by the MSBlaster virus. The DRM "features" mean that even though I've got a DVD player, I can't take screenshots. And the best part? It can't read CD-R's burned on other machines(DRM???).
Fortunately, I was able to install RedHat 9, and now I've got a functional system again.
However, this might not legally be an option in the future. Consider for example the Lexmark case: Lexmark sued Static control because Static control had to copy the Lexmark handshake code in order to get their cartridges to work with Lexmark printers. Now imagine that instead of printers, it's a PC, and the BIOS requires a digital handshake before it loads an OS. Microsoft of course could pay royalties to the BIOS companies for the copyrighted handshake code. Linux, OTOH, could not. In order to distribute Linux, one would have to distribute the copyrighted handshake sequence; the threat of DMCA action would prevent Linux from even being distributed. (Even if FSS/OS proponents could win the court case, the BIOS companies could enjoin the distribution of Linux until after the case was resolved, effectively killing it.) If Linus found a way around doing the secure handshake, his kernel would be illegal as a circumvention device - in which case, he could be prosecuted criminally by the government.
And Microsoft would gladly pay the small royalty, because doing so would mean that the consumer could not legally install an OS other than theirs. And considering Microsoft's abuse of power in the past, does anyone really think that they won't charge rent for their OS's? The availability of alternate OS's has prevented this in the past, but with this gone, they will be free to charge as much as they want in annual royalties.
If this "Trusted Computing" initiative ever becomes a BIOS standard, private ownership of PC's will be a thing of the past - yes, you paid for the hardware, but you can't legally turn on the machine without a lease from Microsoft.
It was in "studying journalism" that I learned there's a particularly large rift between what is taught in school and what is practiced in the field:
NBC Dateline was successfully sued by GM after they admitted placing incindiery devices in the gas tanks of trucks. NBC was trying to show that the trucks were dangerous in side impacts; when the demonstrations failed to produce a fire, the crew placed igniters in (or near) the gas tank to produce the desired effect.
On a Veteran's day special, Jessica Lynch told Barbara Walters she never fired her weapon in combat. Numerous news agencies reported that she had been shot and went down shooting, in spite of the fact that her fellow soldiers said otherwise. Apparently, the idea of a soldier being captured after being knocked unconscious by a vehicle accident wasn't juicy enough for them.
In the late 90's, the "black church burnings in the South" scandal made the news, and several prominent celebrities called for the FBI to investigate the matter. The media neglected to report that church arson in the South had been on the deline for several years. Perhaps they felt that the South was starting to lose its racist image, so they "corrected" it by making up a story with no basis in fact.
The supposed "sex scandal" in the Catholic Church. The popular media listed names of accused priests, in spite of the fact that many already had their names cleared! In some cases, the accusers admitted publicly that they made up the stories, yet the media failed to report this. The others who had actually been convicted had been defrocked and barred from ministry, in some cases as long as 20 years ago. By the time the story broke, the so-called "needed reforms" in the Diocesan structure had been implemented for 10 years!
And let's not forget about that New York Times reporter who faked almost half of his articles over the course of a year or so.
I could go on, but I'll spare you. These stories were carried by major news agencies, some by the AP. This is not simply a matter of a someone making a mistake - this is routine practice for journalists. Granted, they might teach ethics in school, but there's a de facto assumption among journalists that they'll get a controversial story whether or not one exists.
The crimes that hackers commit
fall into three main
categories... hacking (breaking
into databases and Internet
sites; fraudulently using
Internet and credit-card accounts, and databases; and disseminating computer viruses)... [emphasis mine]
It's time to give it up, really.
One thing you learn about the press in school is that a good reporter doesn't clearly present what happened, but rather blurs the line just enough to create controversy. An excellent reporter will simply omit relevant data in order to cast the antagonist in a negative light. Journalists learn early on in their career that stereotypes and controversy sell; truth does not.
The press is not your friend. They write stories on hackers (crackers) to create controversy and instill fear, not to reassure the masses that there are people genuinely concerned about the security of your computer and your privacy rights. It wasn't hard to see this one coming.
I think it's time to give up the whole hacker/cracker debate. Since the general public already thinks of 'hacker' in a negative light, we need to come up with another term for someone who tinkers with computers; no amount of propaganda is going to convince the public that a 'hacker' is not a criminal.
Many posters have commented on Walmart's aggressive pricing policies, and the stranglehold that they have on vendor pricing. For example, Walmart routinely "rolls back prices", expecting their suppliers to take the loss. Because they have so many stores, it's hard for a supplier to say no to Walmart. Some have said no to Walmart, only to find Walmart producing it's own brand of their product, and putting them out of business. Walmart has experience taking over industries.
So now that Walmart is turning its attention to the PC market, how long will it be before Walmart starts carrying Microsoft products? Will Microsoft be able to say no when Walmart wants to do a price rollback? Will we see a "rollback" sign above $49 copies of Office?
Even though Microsoft has a monopoly on the OS market, they can't afford to shut out a giant like Walmart. And Microsoft knows that if they don't play ball, Walmart will produce their own OS, market it, and put Microsoft out of business. Yes, Microsoft is big, but Walmart:
Has experience taking over entire industries,
Has a marketing presence worldwide,
Has a marketing and advertising budget that Microsoft could only dream of.
Walmart has $100 billion in annual revenue (compare with Microsoft's $16 billion in assets).
While I don't like Walmart's monopolization of retail, this is one case in which the free market could very well correct the abuses of Microsoft.
A few years ago, someone did basically the same thing you did, until he had the misfortune of lighting up an off-duty police officer who returned fire. The law against pointing laser pointers at people was passed shortly after he died.
I think the response says a lot more about Red Hat's perspective on the enterprise market than anything else. In the enterprise market, the contracts are an order of magnitude larger than the desktop market. From a financial standpoint, the desktop market produces the least return on investment for the vendor.
Vendors like Microsoft simply don't understand what being an enterprise level vendor means (Not to flame - I'm just using MS as an example because most people are familiar with them). IBM can still sell vastly overpriced mainframes* simply because they care about the customer. We can get an IBM rep onsite within a day. Our mainframe system vendors are on a first name basis with our technical teams. They come on site to "check up" with us several times a year.
I've yet to see a Microsoft rep. Yet several times in the last few years, our mainframe systems vendors have brought the price down on much needed hardware. We weren't in the financial position to spend a lot of money, yet they accommodated us.
And this is what I think Szulik is doing. Maybe he is just after the money, but either way, he's taking care of his customers. If Red Hat builds personal relationships with their customers, Microsoft will quickly become a fringe player in the corporate world. (Think about this - in spite of cpu cycles on an Intel server costing about 1/1000th of a mainframe's, they still haven't managed to convince IT shops to give up their expensive mainframes. If one compared performance numbers alone, it would seem that Microsoft couldn't lose a corporate sale.)
* - A 500,000 dollar mainframe today has about the same computing power of a Windows2003 server. While a fully configured mainframe will give performance that can't be had on an Intel platform at any price, the entry level machines are frequently configured with only one 767 MHz processor and 2 to 4 IO channels.
you're a total idiot if you don't leverage the work someone else has done for you.
Which was kind of my point. If I've already got a lot of code which doesn't use (or doesn't need) the framework, why would I use it? If what I need to do can't be done within the framework, why bother learning it?
Yes, I suppose syntax is some kind of framework when the denotative definition of the word is used. But to most programmers, the word "framework" means a collection of libraries which provide some nice functionality at the expense of being forced to do things in a certain way.
And that's what I took issue with. There seems to be this mantra that "bigger is better", especially when it comes to the API. What inevitably happens is that 90% of the functionality provided by the framework could be implemented by the programmer with only trivial effort on the programmer's part, and the 10% that they really do need is useless because it can't be used from within the context needed.
What I see going on in framework development today is a lot of needless re-invention of the wheel. Why would I learn this framework if it doesn't offer anything beyond what I can already do without it?
I know some of you are students, but as a professional, my time is worth money. It would cost my employer (or me, in lost wages) about $10-15k for me to learn this framework well enough to use it. Given that it doesn't offer anything over the conventional C/C++/Java paradigm, I can't really justify spending the money to learn something new when we could just buy a library (or *GASP* write our own - which we do, btw) if our given environment doesn't support the functionality we need. Rather than using someone else's reinvention of the wheel, we get by rather nicely by rolling our own. Since the majority of the functionality is already written, the incremental cost is relatively small.
If you are new to the.NET Compact Framework, you are about to embark upon a challenging yet rewarding path by writing CF applications. For the experienced CF developer, you know there is a lot to learn and its constantly evolving.
1,000 pages including the index, tables of contents etc. It's composed of 22 chapters and 6 appendices.
if they covered everything to the level of detail this subject entails, the book would be 20,000 pages and take years to write.
...into Unmanaged code and P/Invoke and is probably my favorite chapter of the book. Why? Well, because a lot of things aren't yet supported...
So, if I get this right, the Compact Framework isn't really that compact, and the authors encourage using unmanaged code to get around the unsupported things. And since it's constantly evolving, by the time I've mastered one version, the next will be out, and I'll have to learn that one too...
So I assume that this is unmanageably complex and still lacking in features. Why would I ever want to take the time to learn the 1,000-odd pages of this framework if I can roll my own in less time, and it will do what I want? And even if I do spend the time to learn it, it still won't do everything I need it to?!
I've learned other frameworks in the past - Java's Swing, MFC, Borland's OWL, the standard C library, etc. What I've come to realize is that the problem with frameworks is that they consume a lot of time overhead to learn, and even the more "complete" frameworks don't handle everything a developer wants to do. Frameworks are written for writing demo code and cookie-cutter applications - neither of which is useful in either the competitive software market, nor the business world.
So I've stopped learning frameworks. Most of the time, the problems I need to solve are specific enough that the cookie-cutter approach won't work - the client always wants some special functionality that the framework's architecture can't provide.
10 years from now, frameworks will be regarded with the same derision as GOTO, COBOL, and structured programming - yes, they solved the problems of the day, but they didn't do it well.
Not trying to troll, but this is the COBOL of the new millenium - it's big, slow, takes a lot of time to learn, and will be obsolete by the time you master it.
How long will it be before this "feature" will be used to disallow any non-Windows machine from connecting to the network?
How long will it be before non-DRM enabled hardware is disallowed from network access.
I don't believe that this would solve anything. What will happen is that viruses will be written to mimic the signature of a secure machine, thereby giving themselves unrestricted access to the network. Why would any CIO PHB purchase anti-virus software for his internal network if he believes viruses are being stopped at the router?
Sorry, but I don't see any good coming from this...
It's simple - create an Outlook virus which emails a Windows activation-code cracking program to everyone in the victim's address book. Then the virus would redirect the user to the warez sites where they could download "free" copies of Windows.
I can just about guarantee that Microsoft would have a patch within days, if not hours. After that, auto-execute for email attachments would be a thing of the past.
Okay, the poster is probably a troll, but I still think it needs to be said, because I've heard this a lot.
Moral: learn to do something remarkable, or accept that you don't deserve more than three meals a day and a warm place to sleep
Suppose my job gets taken by someone being treated like a slave and paid dirt poor wages.
You would probably say I don't deserve a job. But look at what is really happening: now that my job has been shipped overseas, neither I nor my overseas counterpart can make a decent living. That's the problem with offshore outsourcing - it imports poverty more than it exports wealth. Nobody wins except the few CEO's at the top. So basically, it makes the masses suffer for the comfort of the few.
Go ahead - suggest that American workers are lazy. Go ahead - suggest that we don't deserve these "high" wages (which are actually little more than enough to support a decent standard of living).
You know what the problem with this idea is? Human dignity. Apparently, those crippled or unable to work don't deserve to live. Apparently, someone who wants to have a house and support a family is greedier than the one who "learns that special skill" and extorts money from everyone else. If everyone knew that "special skill", the price of labor for that skill would drop, and those unable to learn said skill would fall deeper into poverty.
The biggest budget items for most American families are not entertainment or luxury items, but the basic necessities such as housing, food, and job-related transportation. Just because our housing costs are higher than the third world doesn't mean we're living lavishly. Rather, it is the price of real estate and groceries which have driven salaries so high. It has nothing to do with "worth".
But by far, the biggest problem with your argument is that it implies that someone unable or unwilling to work somehow deserves to starve. Followed to its logical end, we'd kill off the old, the sick, and the disabled simply because they couldn't work anymore. Apparently, they deserve to starve because they're no longer productive workers...
A human being deserves food and shelter and productive work because they are a human. Human beings possess a certain dignity which defines them as worthy of these in spite of any other shortcomings they may possess. But this is lost on the "people are sheep for me to exploit"-liberal types because to them, the poor are not people.
Let's turn the argument around: if workers overseas are so productive, why are they paid so little? If I'm really a lazy sap, why was I paid so much? (granted, I don't think it's excessive, but you can bet some American-hating liberal does...)
It seems as if you haven't thought about the implications of what you posted.
We've spent $2.5 billion in Adaptive Enterprise...
And earlier on:
It's a business strategy for customers...
So basically, if I understand it correctly, HP has spent 2.5 billion dollars on a business strategy. Just like the dot-coms, they spend a load of cash and don't have anything tangible to show for it.
But it gets worse. Here's another quote:
You pay for what you use. You get to dynamically redeploy assets to something that's more important than what they're on right now.
This is virtually plagiarized from an IBM whitepaper for their S/390 and z/OS series mainframes. The big selling point of the mainframe was that you didn't have to buy more capacity than you actually needed; the system would prioritize processes so that you got the most out of your IT dollar.
So, I think HP's headed for the toilet. The merger with Compaq killed off the business ethics of the former HP. Kind of sad, too, because they used to make really good machines (their laserjet printers come to mind).
The basic idea was to reorder the functions in an executable so that locality of reference was maximized and cache hits were increased. The result is less paging and better performance and memory usage.
I've been doing this with x86 assembly for years. The advantage of assembly is that I can get the executable size down to the point where the entire module fits into the on-chip cache. Which improves performance considerably.
And while I do like C/C++, etc, there are simply some things which can't be done without assembly (hardware access comes to mind, bootstrap code, etc...).
The real question is how long will it be before the BIOS is 64 bit protected mode?
Probably never.
I still write in 16 bit assembly because the BIOS still runs in 16 bit mode. It would be nice if AMD broke backward compatibility for once and started off with 64 bit firmware so I could at least write 64 bit assembly. The mixed-mode stuff (16 and 32 bit) that I would have to do for OS programming is getting ridiculous:
I could write in 32 bit mode, if I wanted to write drivers for every single conceivable piece of hardware out there. While this would be ideal, it is far from possible. And since the processor starts in 16 bit mode, I'd still have to write at least a little real mode assembly.
I could still use 32 bit mode if I wanted to use a call gate to call the 16 bit code of the BIOS, or:
I can write 16 bit code, call the BIOS directly, and only have to worry about the 64k and 1M memory limitations.
I don't like any of these solutions, but it's a lot easier to fit kernel modules in 64k than it is to write call gates for BIOS services. The reason why I like using the BIOS is because it is standard across differing computers - I don't have to write a different driver for every single video card and hard disk controller that I might come across. Plus, if it uses the BIOS, I can be reasonably certain that it will run on an arbitrary PC; I don't have to do any hardware probing or detection.
Well, it's a pipe dream, I guess.
Those of us who like to program their own hardware took a serious hit when the 32 bit OS became the standard. We either ended up jumping through hoops to use the 16 bit BIOS from protected mode, or we just decided not to use more than 1 megabyte of the machine's memory. If they had installed 32 bit BIOS's when the 32 bit processors came out, we would never have had these problems.
But no, we still have a 16 bit BIOS because the manufacturers are afraid that some fool might want to run DOS on their 3GHz Pentium 4 with 1 GB of RAM....
but maybe it is interesting to investigate oneself...
Actually, I think it is rather healthy.
I do have one nit to pick, though. The intellectual dishonesty that passes for modern psychology I find reprehensible. For example, many contemporary psychologists will list denial of the condition as a symptom of having that condition - for example, alcoholics are prone to denying that they have alcoholism.
Problem is, a non-alcoholic person would also deny that they have alcoholism.
So the test is essentially useless. The only way one can know if a person is an alcoholic by asking the question, "Are you an alcoholic?" is if the person answers in the affirmitive. If they answer in the negative, either they are really not alcholic, or they are denying it. Either way, the "denial test" is a useless criterion for diagnosing alcoholism.
Now just substitute racism for alcoholism in the above paragraphs, and you have basically the same premise that was taught in public schools. If you admit you are a racist, well, then you deserve to be burned. If you deny that you are a racist, then you are in denial, and must be "educated".
Microsoft is trying to appear "Open" while denying the actuallity thereof.
Does anyone seriously believe that third party developers will be able to write Office document generators and formatters with this information? Do we really believe that:
Microsoft will comply fully with the spec (it's disclaimed in the legal terms), and
a developer will be able to write document parsers for these schema without infringing on Microsoft's patents?
Given the fact that there will always be legal encumbrances with anything interfacing with Microsoft technologies, I believe these schema would be better left ignored by the OS community. With Open Office and KOffice maturing (and the former running on Windows, and available for free), there's no good reason to cater to Microsoft document protocols anymore. They are simply irrelevant.
And no, we in the OS community don't have to copy everything that Microsoft does. Compatibility with Microsoft is no longer a necessity.
Close, Microsoft, but no cigar. Kudos for the marketspeak.
In the U.S., there still exists a stereotype of blacks as dumb and stupid. While these people (the believers in the stereotype) represent only a small minority, the image of them is burned into the memory of most Americans.
It's not difficult to imagine that these "scam the scammer" types believe in the stereotype. So the parent poster wasn't necessarily being racist, but merely responding to his perception of the site.
The last few years, I've had to undo the racial indoctrination that I was taught in school. Because of all of the emphasis on racism, whites were taught that blacks were the victims of their forebears. The belief that blacks were formerly, now, and always will be victims of racism could not be challenged without being ostracized as a racist. And likewise, the stereotype of a white man being a misogynistic racist was somehow beyond reproach as well. To suggest that *GASP* I wasn't racist (I really had no feelings one way or the other) was equivalent to heresy - it meant that I was "denying" my racism. Lord knows it's not possible for a white man to be indifferent to race, right? Yes, a lot has changed in America, but somehow, the stereotype of a white man being inherently racist hasn't changed.
I remember my first experience with racism. When I first transferred to a public school, I was filling out my enrollment forms and there was a box marked 'race'. Until that point, I had never considered the question of race - I had to think about it for a minute before I realized that I was white. From then on, I would be regarded as "white", meaning that I was somehow responsible for all of the oppression that the rest of the world faced... Many years would pass before I realized that the goal of the question was not merely to collect statistics, but also to introduce me to the concept of thinking of people in terms of their color. Character, it seemed, was irrelevant.
To the righteous, a person is never defined by their physical attributes, but rather, their character. Strangely, I was taught in school to think of people in terms of race; because I was white, I was the oppressor; because they were not white, they were the victims. Because I was white, it was assumed that I somehow lacked the ability to think of people in terms of their character, rather than their color. Thus, any criticism of any non-white person was regarded with the suspicion of racism, for to them, it was simply not possible for a white man to be objective.
The last few months, I've gone from caring to indifferent in regards to RFID's. The reason? Visible Light.
With Visible Light, the FBI can track anyone, anywhere. In case you haven't noticed, they already have cameras which can read license plates, and from distances much longer than the few meters of RFIDs. RFID's are a moot point - the technology for tracking people using Visible Light already exists, and is already installed.
Eavesdropping technology is a red herring designed to distract the public from the real issue - that is, our legal system isn't entirely just. There have always been ways to frame the innocent, and there have always been ways to coerce and intimidate. The absence (sp?) of RFID's isn't going to prevent the government from oppressing people; last I checked, we are still "detaining" Muslim "persons of interest" for extended periods of time. Now tell me, what do RFID's have to do with that?
RFID's are a moot point. The real issue is the Federal Government's lack of accountability to the public.
Well, I'll take the bait. The problem from Microsoft's perspective is that they have been trying to break into the enterprise class market for the past 10 years and have failed miserably.
Microsoft just doesn't understand Enterprise computing. My company pays hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for development software on a mainframe. And even more insidious is the fact that the license agreement cedes ownership of code our developers write back to the vendor. So not only do we pay for the priviledge of developing software, the vendor owns it when we are finished!
If anything, this alone gives us a very big incentive to use Microsoft. But the problem is that MS doesn't understand any platform beyond the desktop. 24/7/365 is buzzword, not an operating principle to them. They won't support an OS for more than 6 years (heck, IBM has supported some OS's for more than 20 years!). They think that security is an add-on feature and the web browser is an integral part of the OS.
In short, they're idiots!
Microsoft can't sell to the enterprise market because they don't understand the enterprise market. It's that simple.
Slashdot Mirror
DNA testing is required to get a job, health insurance, etc....
Gattaca isn't far away...
And which Antivirus software does Microsoft recommend? I mean, I'd hate to have my car stall in a busy intersection because the onboard computer caught the blaster worm from someone's WiFi hotspot.
Kinda gives wardriving a whole new meaning, though.... Kids could drive around in rush hour traffic with a virus-infected Windows laptop and bring traffic to a halt!
Think about the last time you deleted a program.
In some respects, a computer program could be considered a living thing, albeit on a much lower level. So would that make deleting a program murder? After all, you created it and it belonged to you.
Considering that God created the universe, and all living things, I think that he has the right to do with His creations as wishes. If some of his creations do things which displease him, he is well within his rights to "delete" them.
People of leisurely moral growth often fail to recognize the difference between killing and murder. Killing, while undesirable, is not necessarily wrong in itself (for example, killing in war or self defense). The sin of murder is committed when one's respect for God sinks so low that they kill the image of God (mankind) for the sake of their own personal desires.
Actually, we welcome the Return of the King. But we would hate to receive the "mark of the beast" and be denied entrance to the Kingdom.
According to one interpretation of Revelation, when these things occur, though, Christians will be persecuted in a way that will make the Holocaust seem like a fairy tale. Then, after the tribulation, the faithful will join Christ in his Kingdom.
I spent the last day trying to get my doctoral thesis back. So far, I think it's lost for good. I wrote it back in 2017, and the University copyrighted it. Last week, a fire at the University destroyed the key server; about 20,000 volumes were lost.
At first, it was thought that we could restore from tape, but the problem was that the law mandated encrypting all copyrighted works to prevent illegal distribution. Yes, we still have the backups, but they're encrypted; without the key server, useless. Some of my colleagues have wondered aloud about building a decryption utility, until the legal department reminded them that this would be illegal. Since all software is registered with a central repository by the compiler, it would be impossible to keep it a secret. And given that most decryption algorithms are patented, it would surely get tagged by the patent-crawlers.
Yeah, I remember a time before compulsory registration and mandatory networking. You could actually compile your own source code without having it registered with the copyright office. And even 20 years ago, there was no such thing as a patent-crawler; if you infringed on copyright or someone else's patent, they had to take you to court. With automatic enforcement now, it's impossible to copy someone else's bitstream. Even if you want to give it away, you still have to pay for a distribution license.
And the compulsory registration system has had its problems. The computer science department now has a waiver allowing them to run non-networked computers. With automatic copyright registration and enforcement, infringement alerts became increasingly frequent; it seems as if there's only so many correct ways to write "Hello World", or solve the fibonacci sequence. After a few years, the FBI simply ignored infringement alerts from the University, and soon after, we got the waiver.
But some of us are still writing code with a pen. I've seen illegal copies of D'Christy's prime-factoring algorithm passed around on notebook paper. You would never get away with computer file of it, though, because someone would eventually slip and use the disk on a publicly connected workstation.
Well, I think my thesis is lost. Even though I've got a key, I can't risk bringing it forward (last year, private ownership of encryption keys was made illegal). I didn't know I had it - I found it as I was rumaging through some disks, hoping for a legacy copy of my thesis.
A colleague of mine managed to get a copy of the backup on disk. While rumaging through my things, I found an old pre-registration laptop without a network interface. Tonight, we'll see if we can get our words back.
And some poor kid got busted yesterday. He bought some cheap flea-market hardware that had an old unlicensed compiler on it. He would have never gotten caught, either, had he the insight not to connect it to a network.
Which is precisely the problem: if Microsoft has their way, this won't be an option.
The reason why Microsoft wants this so badly is because this would enable Microsoft to charge annual or quarterly subscription fees for their OS. If the PC can't run any other OS, then the PC owner must pay whatever Microsoft demands.
I just bought a Toshiba laptop with Windows XP. The system is horrible; Explorer crashes constantly, networking works only occasionally, and it's already been infected by the MSBlaster virus. The DRM "features" mean that even though I've got a DVD player, I can't take screenshots. And the best part? It can't read CD-R's burned on other machines(DRM???).
Fortunately, I was able to install RedHat 9, and now I've got a functional system again.
However, this might not legally be an option in the future. Consider for example the Lexmark case: Lexmark sued Static control because Static control had to copy the Lexmark handshake code in order to get their cartridges to work with Lexmark printers. Now imagine that instead of printers, it's a PC, and the BIOS requires a digital handshake before it loads an OS. Microsoft of course could pay royalties to the BIOS companies for the copyrighted handshake code. Linux, OTOH, could not. In order to distribute Linux, one would have to distribute the copyrighted handshake sequence; the threat of DMCA action would prevent Linux from even being distributed. (Even if FSS/OS proponents could win the court case, the BIOS companies could enjoin the distribution of Linux until after the case was resolved, effectively killing it.) If Linus found a way around doing the secure handshake, his kernel would be illegal as a circumvention device - in which case, he could be prosecuted criminally by the government.
And Microsoft would gladly pay the small royalty, because doing so would mean that the consumer could not legally install an OS other than theirs. And considering Microsoft's abuse of power in the past, does anyone really think that they won't charge rent for their OS's? The availability of alternate OS's has prevented this in the past, but with this gone, they will be free to charge as much as they want in annual royalties.
If this "Trusted Computing" initiative ever becomes a BIOS standard, private ownership of PC's will be a thing of the past - yes, you paid for the hardware, but you can't legally turn on the machine without a lease from Microsoft.
- NBC Dateline was successfully sued by GM after they admitted placing incindiery devices in the gas tanks of trucks. NBC was trying to show that the trucks were dangerous in side impacts; when the demonstrations failed to produce a fire, the crew placed igniters in (or near) the gas tank to produce the desired effect.
- On a Veteran's day special, Jessica Lynch told Barbara Walters she never fired her weapon in combat. Numerous news agencies reported that she had been shot and went down shooting, in spite of the fact that her fellow soldiers said otherwise. Apparently, the idea of a soldier being captured after being knocked unconscious by a vehicle accident wasn't juicy enough for them.
- In the late 90's, the "black church burnings in the South" scandal made the news, and several prominent celebrities called for the FBI to investigate the matter. The media neglected to report that church arson in the South had been on the deline for several years. Perhaps they felt that the South was starting to lose its racist image, so they "corrected" it by making up a story with no basis in fact.
- The supposed "sex scandal" in the Catholic Church. The popular media listed names of accused priests, in spite of the fact that many already had their names cleared! In some cases, the accusers admitted publicly that they made up the stories, yet the media failed to report this. The others who had actually been convicted had been defrocked and barred from ministry, in some cases as long as 20 years ago. By the time the story broke, the so-called "needed reforms" in the Diocesan structure had been implemented for 10 years!
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And let's not forget about that New York Times reporter who faked almost half of his articles over the course of a year or so.
I could go on, but I'll spare you. These stories were carried by major news agencies, some by the AP. This is not simply a matter of a someone making a mistake - this is routine practice for journalists. Granted, they might teach ethics in school, but there's a de facto assumption among journalists that they'll get a controversial story whether or not one exists.It's time to give it up, really.
One thing you learn about the press in school is that a good reporter doesn't clearly present what happened, but rather blurs the line just enough to create controversy. An excellent reporter will simply omit relevant data in order to cast the antagonist in a negative light. Journalists learn early on in their career that stereotypes and controversy sell; truth does not.
The press is not your friend. They write stories on hackers (crackers) to create controversy and instill fear, not to reassure the masses that there are people genuinely concerned about the security of your computer and your privacy rights. It wasn't hard to see this one coming.
I think it's time to give up the whole hacker/cracker debate. Since the general public already thinks of 'hacker' in a negative light, we need to come up with another term for someone who tinkers with computers; no amount of propaganda is going to convince the public that a 'hacker' is not a criminal.
Many posters have commented on Walmart's aggressive pricing policies, and the stranglehold that they have on vendor pricing. For example, Walmart routinely "rolls back prices", expecting their suppliers to take the loss. Because they have so many stores, it's hard for a supplier to say no to Walmart. Some have said no to Walmart, only to find Walmart producing it's own brand of their product, and putting them out of business. Walmart has experience taking over industries.
So now that Walmart is turning its attention to the PC market, how long will it be before Walmart starts carrying Microsoft products? Will Microsoft be able to say no when Walmart wants to do a price rollback? Will we see a "rollback" sign above $49 copies of Office?
Even though Microsoft has a monopoly on the OS market, they can't afford to shut out a giant like Walmart. And Microsoft knows that if they don't play ball, Walmart will produce their own OS, market it, and put Microsoft out of business. Yes, Microsoft is big, but Walmart:
- Has experience taking over entire industries,
- Has a marketing presence worldwide,
- Has a marketing and advertising budget that Microsoft could only dream of.
Walmart has $100 billion in annual revenue (compare with Microsoft's $16 billion in assets).While I don't like Walmart's monopolization of retail, this is one case in which the free market could very well correct the abuses of Microsoft.
A few years ago, someone did basically the same thing you did, until he had the misfortune of lighting up an off-duty police officer who returned fire. The law against pointing laser pointers at people was passed shortly after he died.
I think the response says a lot more about Red Hat's perspective on the enterprise market than anything else. In the enterprise market, the contracts are an order of magnitude larger than the desktop market. From a financial standpoint, the desktop market produces the least return on investment for the vendor.
Vendors like Microsoft simply don't understand what being an enterprise level vendor means (Not to flame - I'm just using MS as an example because most people are familiar with them). IBM can still sell vastly overpriced mainframes* simply because they care about the customer. We can get an IBM rep onsite within a day. Our mainframe system vendors are on a first name basis with our technical teams. They come on site to "check up" with us several times a year.
I've yet to see a Microsoft rep. Yet several times in the last few years, our mainframe systems vendors have brought the price down on much needed hardware. We weren't in the financial position to spend a lot of money, yet they accommodated us.
And this is what I think Szulik is doing. Maybe he is just after the money, but either way, he's taking care of his customers. If Red Hat builds personal relationships with their customers, Microsoft will quickly become a fringe player in the corporate world. (Think about this - in spite of cpu cycles on an Intel server costing about 1/1000th of a mainframe's, they still haven't managed to convince IT shops to give up their expensive mainframes. If one compared performance numbers alone, it would seem that Microsoft couldn't lose a corporate sale.)
* - A 500,000 dollar mainframe today has about the same computing power of a Windows2003 server. While a fully configured mainframe will give performance that can't be had on an Intel platform at any price, the entry level machines are frequently configured with only one 767 MHz processor and 2 to 4 IO channels.
Which was kind of my point. If I've already got a lot of code which doesn't use (or doesn't need) the framework, why would I use it? If what I need to do can't be done within the framework, why bother learning it?
Yes, I suppose syntax is some kind of framework when the denotative definition of the word is used. But to most programmers, the word "framework" means a collection of libraries which provide some nice functionality at the expense of being forced to do things in a certain way.
And that's what I took issue with. There seems to be this mantra that "bigger is better", especially when it comes to the API. What inevitably happens is that 90% of the functionality provided by the framework could be implemented by the programmer with only trivial effort on the programmer's part, and the 10% that they really do need is useless because it can't be used from within the context needed.
What I see going on in framework development today is a lot of needless re-invention of the wheel. Why would I learn this framework if it doesn't offer anything beyond what I can already do without it?
I know some of you are students, but as a professional, my time is worth money. It would cost my employer (or me, in lost wages) about $10-15k for me to learn this framework well enough to use it. Given that it doesn't offer anything over the conventional C/C++/Java paradigm, I can't really justify spending the money to learn something new when we could just buy a library (or *GASP* write our own - which we do, btw) if our given environment doesn't support the functionality we need. Rather than using someone else's reinvention of the wheel, we get by rather nicely by rolling our own. Since the majority of the functionality is already written, the incremental cost is relatively small.
Check out these gems:
If you are new to the .NET Compact Framework, you are about to embark upon a challenging yet rewarding path by writing CF applications. For the experienced CF developer, you know there is a lot to learn and its constantly evolving.
1,000 pages including the index, tables of contents etc. It's composed of 22 chapters and 6 appendices.
if they covered everything to the level of detail this subject entails, the book would be 20,000 pages and take years to write.
So, if I get this right, the Compact Framework isn't really that compact, and the authors encourage using unmanaged code to get around the unsupported things. And since it's constantly evolving, by the time I've mastered one version, the next will be out, and I'll have to learn that one too...
So I assume that this is unmanageably complex and still lacking in features. Why would I ever want to take the time to learn the 1,000-odd pages of this framework if I can roll my own in less time, and it will do what I want? And even if I do spend the time to learn it, it still won't do everything I need it to?!
I've learned other frameworks in the past - Java's Swing, MFC, Borland's OWL, the standard C library, etc. What I've come to realize is that the problem with frameworks is that they consume a lot of time overhead to learn, and even the more "complete" frameworks don't handle everything a developer wants to do. Frameworks are written for writing demo code and cookie-cutter applications - neither of which is useful in either the competitive software market, nor the business world.
So I've stopped learning frameworks. Most of the time, the problems I need to solve are specific enough that the cookie-cutter approach won't work - the client always wants some special functionality that the framework's architecture can't provide.
10 years from now, frameworks will be regarded with the same derision as GOTO, COBOL, and structured programming - yes, they solved the problems of the day, but they didn't do it well.
Not trying to troll, but this is the COBOL of the new millenium - it's big, slow, takes a lot of time to learn, and will be obsolete by the time you master it.
How long will it be before this "feature" will be used to disallow any non-Windows machine from connecting to the network?
How long will it be before non-DRM enabled hardware is disallowed from network access.
I don't believe that this would solve anything. What will happen is that viruses will be written to mimic the signature of a secure machine, thereby giving themselves unrestricted access to the network. Why would any CIO PHB purchase anti-virus software for his internal network if he believes viruses are being stopped at the router?
Sorry, but I don't see any good coming from this...
to the MS Outlook virus-propagation problem.
It's simple - create an Outlook virus which emails a Windows activation-code cracking program to everyone in the victim's address book. Then the virus would redirect the user to the warez sites where they could download "free" copies of Windows.
I can just about guarantee that Microsoft would have a patch within days, if not hours. After that, auto-execute for email attachments would be a thing of the past.
Okay, the poster is probably a troll, but I still think it needs to be said, because I've heard this a lot.
Moral: learn to do something remarkable, or accept that you don't deserve more than three meals a day and a warm place to sleep
Suppose my job gets taken by someone being treated like a slave and paid dirt poor wages.
You would probably say I don't deserve a job. But look at what is really happening: now that my job has been shipped overseas, neither I nor my overseas counterpart can make a decent living. That's the problem with offshore outsourcing - it imports poverty more than it exports wealth. Nobody wins except the few CEO's at the top. So basically, it makes the masses suffer for the comfort of the few.
Go ahead - suggest that American workers are lazy. Go ahead - suggest that we don't deserve these "high" wages (which are actually little more than enough to support a decent standard of living).
You know what the problem with this idea is? Human dignity. Apparently, those crippled or unable to work don't deserve to live. Apparently, someone who wants to have a house and support a family is greedier than the one who "learns that special skill" and extorts money from everyone else. If everyone knew that "special skill", the price of labor for that skill would drop, and those unable to learn said skill would fall deeper into poverty.
The biggest budget items for most American families are not entertainment or luxury items, but the basic necessities such as housing, food, and job-related transportation. Just because our housing costs are higher than the third world doesn't mean we're living lavishly. Rather, it is the price of real estate and groceries which have driven salaries so high. It has nothing to do with "worth".
But by far, the biggest problem with your argument is that it implies that someone unable or unwilling to work somehow deserves to starve. Followed to its logical end, we'd kill off the old, the sick, and the disabled simply because they couldn't work anymore. Apparently, they deserve to starve because they're no longer productive workers...
A human being deserves food and shelter and productive work because they are a human. Human beings possess a certain dignity which defines them as worthy of these in spite of any other shortcomings they may possess. But this is lost on the "people are sheep for me to exploit"-liberal types because to them, the poor are not people.
Let's turn the argument around: if workers overseas are so productive, why are they paid so little? If I'm really a lazy sap, why was I paid so much? (granted, I don't think it's excessive, but you can bet some American-hating liberal does...)
It seems as if you haven't thought about the implications of what you posted.
We've spent $2.5 billion in Adaptive Enterprise...
And earlier on:It's a business strategy for customers...
So basically, if I understand it correctly, HP has spent 2.5 billion dollars on a business strategy. Just like the dot-coms, they spend a load of cash and don't have anything tangible to show for it.
But it gets worse. Here's another quote:
You pay for what you use. You get to dynamically redeploy assets to something that's more important than what they're on right now.
This is virtually plagiarized from an IBM whitepaper for their S/390 and z/OS series mainframes. The big selling point of the mainframe was that you didn't have to buy more capacity than you actually needed; the system would prioritize processes so that you got the most out of your IT dollar.
So, I think HP's headed for the toilet. The merger with Compaq killed off the business ethics of the former HP. Kind of sad, too, because they used to make really good machines (their laserjet printers come to mind).
I've been doing this with x86 assembly for years. The advantage of assembly is that I can get the executable size down to the point where the entire module fits into the on-chip cache. Which improves performance considerably.
And while I do like C/C++, etc, there are simply some things which can't be done without assembly (hardware access comes to mind, bootstrap code, etc...).
The real question is how long will it be before the BIOS is 64 bit protected mode?
Probably never.
I still write in 16 bit assembly because the BIOS still runs in 16 bit mode. It would be nice if AMD broke backward compatibility for once and started off with 64 bit firmware so I could at least write 64 bit assembly. The mixed-mode stuff (16 and 32 bit) that I would have to do for OS programming is getting ridiculous:
- I could write in 32 bit mode, if I wanted to write drivers for every single conceivable piece of hardware out there. While this would be ideal, it is far from possible. And since the processor starts in 16 bit mode, I'd still have to write at least a little real mode assembly.
- I could still use 32 bit mode if I wanted to use a call gate to call the 16 bit code of the BIOS, or:
- I can write 16 bit code, call the BIOS directly, and only have to worry about the 64k and 1M memory limitations.
I don't like any of these solutions, but it's a lot easier to fit kernel modules in 64k than it is to write call gates for BIOS services. The reason why I like using the BIOS is because it is standard across differing computers - I don't have to write a different driver for every single video card and hard disk controller that I might come across. Plus, if it uses the BIOS, I can be reasonably certain that it will run on an arbitrary PC; I don't have to do any hardware probing or detection.Well, it's a pipe dream, I guess.
Those of us who like to program their own hardware took a serious hit when the 32 bit OS became the standard. We either ended up jumping through hoops to use the 16 bit BIOS from protected mode, or we just decided not to use more than 1 megabyte of the machine's memory. If they had installed 32 bit BIOS's when the 32 bit processors came out, we would never have had these problems.
But no, we still have a 16 bit BIOS because the manufacturers are afraid that some fool might want to run DOS on their 3GHz Pentium 4 with 1 GB of RAM....
Actually, I think it is rather healthy.
I do have one nit to pick, though. The intellectual dishonesty that passes for modern psychology I find reprehensible. For example, many contemporary psychologists will list denial of the condition as a symptom of having that condition - for example, alcoholics are prone to denying that they have alcoholism.
Problem is, a non-alcoholic person would also deny that they have alcoholism.
So the test is essentially useless. The only way one can know if a person is an alcoholic by asking the question, "Are you an alcoholic?" is if the person answers in the affirmitive. If they answer in the negative, either they are really not alcholic, or they are denying it. Either way, the "denial test" is a useless criterion for diagnosing alcoholism.
Now just substitute racism for alcoholism in the above paragraphs, and you have basically the same premise that was taught in public schools. If you admit you are a racist, well, then you deserve to be burned. If you deny that you are a racist, then you are in denial, and must be "educated".
Microsoft is trying to appear "Open" while denying the actuallity thereof.
Does anyone seriously believe that third party developers will be able to write Office document generators and formatters with this information? Do we really believe that:
Given the fact that there will always be legal encumbrances with anything interfacing with Microsoft technologies, I believe these schema would be better left ignored by the OS community. With Open Office and KOffice maturing (and the former running on Windows, and available for free), there's no good reason to cater to Microsoft document protocols anymore. They are simply irrelevant.
And no, we in the OS community don't have to copy everything that Microsoft does. Compatibility with Microsoft is no longer a necessity.
Close, Microsoft, but no cigar. Kudos for the marketspeak.
It's not difficult to imagine that these "scam the scammer" types believe in the stereotype. So the parent poster wasn't necessarily being racist, but merely responding to his perception of the site.
The last few years, I've had to undo the racial indoctrination that I was taught in school. Because of all of the emphasis on racism, whites were taught that blacks were the victims of their forebears. The belief that blacks were formerly, now, and always will be victims of racism could not be challenged without being ostracized as a racist. And likewise, the stereotype of a white man being a misogynistic racist was somehow beyond reproach as well. To suggest that *GASP* I wasn't racist (I really had no feelings one way or the other) was equivalent to heresy - it meant that I was "denying" my racism. Lord knows it's not possible for a white man to be indifferent to race, right? Yes, a lot has changed in America, but somehow, the stereotype of a white man being inherently racist hasn't changed.
I remember my first experience with racism. When I first transferred to a public school, I was filling out my enrollment forms and there was a box marked 'race'. Until that point, I had never considered the question of race - I had to think about it for a minute before I realized that I was white. From then on, I would be regarded as "white", meaning that I was somehow responsible for all of the oppression that the rest of the world faced... Many years would pass before I realized that the goal of the question was not merely to collect statistics, but also to introduce me to the concept of thinking of people in terms of their color. Character, it seemed, was irrelevant.
To the righteous, a person is never defined by their physical attributes, but rather, their character. Strangely, I was taught in school to think of people in terms of race; because I was white, I was the oppressor; because they were not white, they were the victims. Because I was white, it was assumed that I somehow lacked the ability to think of people in terms of their character, rather than their color. Thus, any criticism of any non-white person was regarded with the suspicion of racism, for to them, it was simply not possible for a white man to be objective.
The last few months, I've gone from caring to indifferent in regards to RFID's. The reason? Visible Light.
With Visible Light, the FBI can track anyone, anywhere. In case you haven't noticed, they already have cameras which can read license plates, and from distances much longer than the few meters of RFIDs. RFID's are a moot point - the technology for tracking people using Visible Light already exists, and is already installed.
Eavesdropping technology is a red herring designed to distract the public from the real issue - that is, our legal system isn't entirely just. There have always been ways to frame the innocent, and there have always been ways to coerce and intimidate. The absence (sp?) of RFID's isn't going to prevent the government from oppressing people; last I checked, we are still "detaining" Muslim "persons of interest" for extended periods of time. Now tell me, what do RFID's have to do with that?
RFID's are a moot point. The real issue is the Federal Government's lack of accountability to the public.
Well, I'll take the bait. The problem from Microsoft's perspective is that they have been trying to break into the enterprise class market for the past 10 years and have failed miserably.
Microsoft just doesn't understand Enterprise computing. My company pays hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for development software on a mainframe. And even more insidious is the fact that the license agreement cedes ownership of code our developers write back to the vendor. So not only do we pay for the priviledge of developing software, the vendor owns it when we are finished!
If anything, this alone gives us a very big incentive to use Microsoft. But the problem is that MS doesn't understand any platform beyond the desktop. 24/7/365 is buzzword, not an operating principle to them. They won't support an OS for more than 6 years (heck, IBM has supported some OS's for more than 20 years!). They think that security is an add-on feature and the web browser is an integral part of the OS.
In short, they're idiots!
Microsoft can't sell to the enterprise market because they don't understand the enterprise market. It's that simple.