There is this public view that pirated movies are crap quality. I'm not just talking cam/telesync jobs, but proper DVD Rips/Copies. We have this semi-shady video store we hire our videos from. Every time the video seems a bit 'off' - skips, bad audio quality, bad picture etc - my parents by default say "It must be pirated!" - Of course, I routinely try to explain that anyone can clone a DVD quite easily sector by sector, ie, lose no quality, but they don't seem to get it. While some might be the result of some crap ripper who imported the audio as MP3 or something, I think more often than not, the actual original DVD has bad sound/video. And it's not like they're using DVD-Shrink to shrink a dual layer DVD onto a single layer (I've checked...when doing my own ripping >_>).
Don't complain about the fact a megabyte isn't what you thought it was. Complain about the fact the industry still uses it for labels. But don't try and make the megabyte a mebibyte.
Going around saying "I have 830 Gibibytes of data" gets you rather strange looks - from laymen *and* other geeks.
But at the same time, an illusive, shadow enemy can be just as useful. Because they are unclear, ill-defined enemy that no one knows much about, and aren't particularly public, they can be moulded into whatever shape the government wants them to take.
I'd argue that the current anti-terror fear campaign is akin to the anti-communist witch hunts (McCarthyism) during the 1940s-1950s. Sure, a visible boogieman can gain you support from the public, but the invisible ghost can gain you power over the public.
For many years, all I had running in terms of security was Sygate Personal Firewall Home Edition and an up to date Windows XP. This was sitting behind a cheap Netgear Router. I only ever had one virus - and this was due to my own stupidity (With a software crack, I downloaded a file named pr0n.exe which I knew was a virus, but just couldn't help myself. =P) - the result was it destroying my network connection and I was in need of a reinstall (which I had planned to do soon anyway).
Now I run Sygate and Avast! Antivirus with no problems, but I'm considering uninstalling Avast due to the system resources it (and every other anti-virus program) eats up.
I guess the thing here is that, if you have clue you can generally remain safe from viruses. A patched and firewalled computer is only in risk if someone executes a virus locally. I'm sure everyone here on slashdot, is generally smart enough to recognise a 50kb executable named 'pr0n.exe' as a virus.
The issue is that, most people do not have the experience, or hell, even the 'Hide Known File Extensions' option turned off, to recognize that threat. They see pr0n.exe? They'll be "Yay porn!" and double click, grabbing a tissue and pulling their pants down. Of course, they'll be unpleasantly surprised...>_>
On my younger brother's computer, I have Avast and Sygate installed and patched, but at the same time, it has been hit by viruses 3 times in the last year (I haven't been bothered yet to find out what he does and where he goes to get the same virus three times...he's 11 - I don't think he's on *those* kindsa sites yet...or am I being naive? O_O)
In any case, Avast is proving ineffective. I've had similar experiences with Norton.
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There is this public view that pirated movies are crap quality. I'm not just talking cam/telesync jobs, but proper DVD Rips/Copies. We have this semi-shady video store we hire our videos from. Every time the video seems a bit 'off' - skips, bad audio quality, bad picture etc - my parents by default say "It must be pirated!" - Of course, I routinely try to explain that anyone can clone a DVD quite easily sector by sector, ie, lose no quality, but they don't seem to get it. While some might be the result of some crap ripper who imported the audio as MP3 or something, I think more often than not, the actual original DVD has bad sound/video. And it's not like they're using DVD-Shrink to shrink a dual layer DVD onto a single layer (I've checked...when doing my own ripping >_>).
~Jarik
Going around saying "I have 830 Gibibytes of data" gets you rather strange looks - from laymen *and* other geeks.
Trust me. I know. =P
~Jarik
But at the same time, an illusive, shadow enemy can be just as useful. Because they are unclear, ill-defined enemy that no one knows much about, and aren't particularly public, they can be moulded into whatever shape the government wants them to take.
I'd argue that the current anti-terror fear campaign is akin to the anti-communist witch hunts (McCarthyism) during the 1940s-1950s. Sure, a visible boogieman can gain you support from the public, but the invisible ghost can gain you power over the public.
Just my $0.02.
~Jarik
For many years, all I had running in terms of security was Sygate Personal Firewall Home Edition and an up to date Windows XP. This was sitting behind a cheap Netgear Router. I only ever had one virus - and this was due to my own stupidity (With a software crack, I downloaded a file named pr0n.exe which I knew was a virus, but just couldn't help myself. =P) - the result was it destroying my network connection and I was in need of a reinstall (which I had planned to do soon anyway).
Now I run Sygate and Avast! Antivirus with no problems, but I'm considering uninstalling Avast due to the system resources it (and every other anti-virus program) eats up.
I guess the thing here is that, if you have clue you can generally remain safe from viruses. A patched and firewalled computer is only in risk if someone executes a virus locally. I'm sure everyone here on slashdot, is generally smart enough to recognise a 50kb executable named 'pr0n.exe' as a virus.
The issue is that, most people do not have the experience, or hell, even the 'Hide Known File Extensions' option turned off, to recognize that threat. They see pr0n.exe? They'll be "Yay porn!" and double click, grabbing a tissue and pulling their pants down. Of course, they'll be unpleasantly surprised...>_>
On my younger brother's computer, I have Avast and Sygate installed and patched, but at the same time, it has been hit by viruses 3 times in the last year (I haven't been bothered yet to find out what he does and where he goes to get the same virus three times...he's 11 - I don't think he's on *those* kindsa sites yet...or am I being naive? O_O)
In any case, Avast is proving ineffective. I've had similar experiences with Norton.
~Jarik