..... or do you think it requires a lot more than a semi-qualified community to approach the problem?"
It's Not Like Random People Could generate something as complicated as, say, LINUX and actually have it stable and secure, right?
Never underestimate the value of adding a couple of newbies into the stew with people who can filter out the wheat from the chaff.
A quick story:
Back in the 70's the the standard example for teaching first-time programmers while loops was generally binary search algorithm...
However, for kids doing pretty much their first program, this turned out to be a bit on the difficult side, and not quite trivial to wrap their brains around.
(remember: late '70s. kids hadn't grown up with computers as anything other than huge machines with spinning tapes in the movies.)
search(value, array){
int lower=1, upper=sizeof(array), mid;
while( lower <= upper & & array[(mid=lower+upper)/2] != value ){
Lots of students would write the program as told, and just walk away scratching their heads.
A little while later, we'd get around to doing recursion, and they'd use the simplest example that you can find for recursion --
the factorial:
fact(n){
if(n < 2){ return n} else{ return n*fact(n-1)
}
It's pretty simple, but when taught in a classroom setting, about 20-30% of students would get it confused with for loops.
fact(n){
int res=1,i=1;
while (++i <= n){ res=res*i}; return(res)
};
I knew that these examples were bad, but I couldn't really pinpoint precisely what the problem (read: solution) was.
Well, one day in the lab, when we'd just gotten to while loops (and binary search), this kid walks up to me and sheepishly asks if what he has is even legal, because it's really different than what the professor described, but it just makes sense to him (they hadn't talked about recursion yet).
He'd defined binary search recursively, and it made perfect sense! I almost kissed him.
What he had taught me was that we had it backwards... Factorial is too simple for recursion.. It's to obvious to use a loop (and a good example for that).
A binary search, on the other hand, is about the simplest example which shows off how recursion can simplify the understanding of a problem.
I took the example to my prof, and it changed the way that loops and recursion have been taught at the University of Alberta (if not worldwide).
My point here is: It took a stupid question from a first year student to solve a problem that had been around for at least a decade, if not longer.
(oh: and his answer was also wrong since he was supposed to be implementing loops, not recursion!)
The true developers at Microsoft must do the same. They need to put the Marketing Department back in its place. They need to be vocal, and they need to be harsh.
AFAICT, the marketing drones have (almost) always been in charge of Microsoft. In this case, it hasn't been all that bad for the company -- just bad for the users (and , to a lesser extent, the engineers -- but at least they got good stock options before MS stock flattened out.).
...without testing to see if it breaks anything, then you deserve to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour.
True, but you can't always do exaustive testing, so you test based on what you think has changed (plus a bit of random testing just to make sure).
If MS tells you that they've changed A, B and C, then you test to make sure that those changes won't break your system. If you aren't aware that patches X, Y and Z have been included in your patch then you won't know to do extra testing of the functionality that they're most likely to affect... thus you OK the patch, having made sure that A, B and C don't affect you and you find out that the undocumented patch 'y' breaks a part of your database completely unrelated to patches A, B and C. So now, you're wondering why the patches blew up something that had nothing to do with the documented changes.
As for the stupidity of running windows on mission critical systems, all I can say is: PHB.
My question wasn't if MS was going to get nailed for doing something like this, it was when.
The main reason for implementing the monthly patch cycle (AFAICT) was PR. A bad week with 3 critical patches could really kill a sales rep's story that MS 'professional programmers' was the way to go if you wanted a secure system. It was only a matter of time until some PR hack realized that things could look even better if you didn't bother to document every security hole that a monthly patch fixed.
The upside for the user end (most often touted) of the monthly patch cycle is that a company doesn't sometimes need a full time crew just to go through the sometimes daily critical patches to see if/and what they break. The two downsides are that you don't always know what the monthly patches fix, and a well timed zero-day patch can mean that the black hats have up to a month to stomp on your system before the official fix comes out.
Microsoft doesn't fully document their system. Most people depend on third party documentation -- some (or much) of which is reverse engineered (against the eula). In any case, people are regularly using methods that are officially undocumented -- no matter how many people use them.
The problem arises when Microsoft decides that an 'undocumented' capability is the source of a bug. They fix the hole, but this may break your software in unpredictable ways. If you don't know what they fixed, you have no idea what (or if) things will be broken by the fix.
Remember -- for some people, Windows is used for much more than just games. If a patch breaks a mission critical piece of software it could cost some companies hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour.
Then, of course, there's just the people who want to count how many dozen MS security holes there were this week.
TFA: Cooper assumes that the existence of Boot Camp alone will be enough to entice significant numbers of Windows XP-based PC users to shell out a few grand for a new Mac
Enticing 'only' 5% of the Windows market would double Apple's market share. Knowing that you don't have to completely abandon your 'legacy' Windows apps is a comfort for those who slobber after the ease of use of the 'Mac but aren't entirely sure that they can live without some trivial Windows app (including games).
When you're buying a $2000 machine, spending an extra $150 to be able to reach back into your 15 years of accumulated Windows stuff is useful.
For those of you with storage lockers, think about how often you actually go into them to get something -- but you're willing to pay $60-$200 per month for that capability. Boot camp is like a storage locker for all your old Windows apps.
... But you only pay for it once.
It may be that that is simply the way that God chose to do things. It is god who mad man in his image, not the other way 'round. Who am I to (or you) say that God is required to do something a specific way. I'm just looking at what (s)he seems to have done.
If God made the Universe, then he probably understands how to tweak things with minimal effort. For 'someone' who has existed for 14 billion years, spending a few hundred thousand years to 'tweak' humans into existence wouldn't be a big deal -- and the end result would be indistinguishable from 'natural' evolution.
My point is that, even if one accepts that a missing link 'exists', that only proves that it hasn't been found, and not that it won't. It's the finding of other (previously) missing links which 'prove' that whatever links may currently be deemed as 'missing' are more likely to be found than not (with appropriate resources).
That something has not been found doesn't prove anything by itself. For the lack of proof to be considered proof of lack, you would also have to prove that you've created (usually contrived) conditions where, if it were possible for the 'missing' item to exist, you would have been certain of finding it.
The above statements apply to both fossils and gods.
The existence of evolution is not inconsistent with the existence of god. Most scientists agree on that point.
The most common people to claim otherwise seem to be the more rabid IDers and creationists. Go figure.
And for the most rabid athiests, I would point out that lack of proof is not proof of lack -- eg: Just because you'll never find the body doesn't mean I never killed mikie (don't tell the cops). Similarly: the fact that a 'missing link' is currently missing doesn't mean that it will never be found.
I'm also wondering just how much mayhem this guy could cause on various networks by playing with the time he returns. I'm not advocating that...
Oh, well I am -- In fact I sent the guy a letter suggesting precisely that -- He could have his router filter for any NTP traffic outside of Holland (and any IP that actually asked permission), and send it to an 'NTP server' that runs on an old Pentium 2 class machine that sets it's clock from/dev/random every hour or so.
I also suggested that he threaten them with criminal hacking charges (access beyond permission + incitement/counselling -- hell if they're charging people for informing a court that their wireless is open, why not use this sh*t on people who are actually making money from trashing someone's goodwill service??)
He didn't mention how one knows if his device is affected,
Well, if you don't know how to compare the model number on your router to the list of affected products that he's provided, then you're probably too far gone for anything other than "extreme measures".
An interesting idea- especially considering that science is religious at it's base- an unwavering belief in the myth of reality.
Well, if you want to put it that way, then expecting the science world to accept biblical creationism (or it's ID equivalent) would be like trying to get a christian to accept buddhism as part of his faith.
However, I'd argue that science doesn't pretend to answer questions of faith. It doesn't (and really can't) answer the question of if there is a god. Einstein presumed the existence of God (thus his infamous "God does not play dice!" quote about quantum mechanics). Other scientists have been devout athiests, but neither religion, nor the lack of it has seriously hindered most scientists (though it may color how they investigate some issues).
I think that forcing a specific religion's views to be accepted as 'science' does a disservice to both -- even if one comes from your view that science is simply a different religion (which, I think, most scientists -- especially religious ones would be quick to disagree with you on).
Which to THEM, is explaination. You're trying to stick with a scientific mindset while talking to non-scientific people, which is a basic error.
The problem with (some) IDers is that they're claiming that ID is somehow a scientific theory which deserves to set beside (if not in front of) evolution in our science classes. If these pseudo-science IDers were to simply acknowledge that their belief is religious and not scientific, we could all get back to what we do best.
There are, by the way a number of religious figures (including the vatican) who have no problem accepting both evolution and a belief that god had a hand in creation.
The problem is with those who believe that
religion and evolution are mutually exclusive, and
you must believe the bible literally (well, OK -- not literally, but my interpretation of literal which conveniently smothes out the inconsistincies...), and
my 'literal interpretation' (talk about an oxymorn) is more scientific than yours
(( and I just finished posting most of this in the 'missing link' thread ))
AFAICT, the heart of ID is that the 'proof' of evolutionary theory is nothing more than a godly prank on the scientific community, and the reason why there are (or rather, aren't) "missing links" is that the all-seeing, all-knowing God somehow 'forgot' to create some of the missing intermediate links in the
paleontological record.
They seem to further believe that 'we're right' is sufficient scientific cause to throw out a couple of centuries of accumulated proof and refinement.
The real problem with ID proponents is that they seem to think that accepting evolution somehow requires a disbelief in god -- which is incorrect. Even the vatican has denounced anti-evolution ID as misguided, while clinging to the belief that
God still had a hand in creation.
The fact of the matter is that the 'proof' of evolution is out there. You can believe it or not -- but if you reject it, you should at least be honest enough to admit that it's for religious reasons and not scientific ones.
[which applications on Windows actually DO for no reason other than they didn't want to test non-admin scenarios]
The design of Windows is such that it actually takes some work to write many normal applications so that they don't need root privileges to do reasonably normal, everyday things. People don't write Admin-using applications just for the fun of it -- as you so aptly pointed out. They do it because writing non-admin code for Windows is work.
Linux, on the other hand, makes writing non-admin applications almost trivial Unix applications which need root permissions are very limited, and tend to be carefully written.
Writing code that presumes admin status is the result of bad design by Microsoft, and they've effectively encouraged the practice for more than a decade. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be fixing the problem, but that doesn't change the fact that the fix that they've come up with is crufty and error-prone. Even if I was the person writing the code, I'd describe it as crufty and error prone.
As an example of the way in which Linux/Unix allows the separation of OS and user, I have at least 3 kernels from 2 different distributions on my machine, but I can use the same home partition for all of them and boot whichever one I want. It's not quite absolutely trivial (I have to make sure that the userid matches on all three), but it's far easier than moving the user data directories on Windows onto a newly installed second drive.
It doesn't matter. Malware doesn't need admin privs to access user data.
It does, however, need admin privs to install a root kit, and XP home gives that to you by default, and even XP professional effectively envourages a home user (especially the 'dumb' ones) to set themselves up as an admin user.
Oh yea, it is also mostly the newborns and catholics that cite the 6000 year stuff.
I'm a catholic and I spent 4 years at a catholic boarding school where I was taught mostly by priests. I think that the IDers who believe that the bible trumps evolution completely misusnderstand the purpose and the style of Genesis, and I got a lot of that belief from the priests that taught me.
That having been said, I don't believe that the validity of evolution and the existence of a god are at odds with each other. They're really disjoint questions. Answering yes to one doesn't require answering yes or no to the other.
_____
AFAICT, the heart of ID is that the 'proof' of evolutionary theory is nothing more than a godly prank on the scientific community, and the reason why there are (or rather, aren't) "missing links" is that the all-seeing, all-knowing God somehow 'forgot' to create some of the missing intermediate links in the palentelogical record.
They seem to further believe that 'we're right' is sufficient scientific cause to throw out a couple of centuries of accumulated proof and refinement.
Missing link, missing step. Whatever. This is a kind of creature that was missing in the evolutionary chain, and it was actively being searched for -- not because ID protagonists were talking about it, but because evolutionary biologists knew that it had to be somewhere.
You do bring up a good point, though about the fact that they (some of them, at least) had a reasonable idea as to where somewhere was. -- and, yes, the predictive nature of the evolutionary theory is one of the missing links (bwahahahaha!) in the ID process.
ID proponents just sit back and scream "HA! but now, you're missing step 2.3!"
"Uh, yes mam, I think I just said that."
Lessee now, God spent 2 billion years making them, and we've spent 200 years looking for them. It's not a big shock that we haven't found them all yet.
The Freeplay Foundation uses radio, all-but-indestructible clockwork and solar powered multiband portables that can be manufactured anywhere.
It's not an either-or thing. The radio provides certain kinds of education. The $100 laptop will provide others. Between them , you can hope to generally raise both the floor and the ceiling of education in the boondocks of the third world.
Most malware finds its way onto machines directly due to user stupidity. (or have you never witnessed how effectivly one of those damn email worms spreads?)
Yes, and with XP Home installing with the user as admin by default, all these email worms have instant admin status -- along with the drive by downloads, not-so-benign 'porn viewers' and anti-spam programs that really aren't.
Sounds like a horridly crufty jury-rig that they're going to be spending the next decade patching to me.
The design of Windows is perfectly capable of allowing users to run under non-root accounts.
Sounds almost like a monty pythonesque skit:
You want to run across the street to get a bite to eat? No problem!... Ah, except that you'll have to leave your shoes here for security purposes.... And your pants..... Ohh, did I forget to mention your wallet? Oh, yes, of course you can keep your cash. We'll need it to buy that snack won't we?..... You can put your cash wherever you want!.... Yes, yes, nice turtleneck that.
Well, if you find all this security stuff too annoying, all have to do is sign this administrative form that says that we can strip you naked and hang you upside down to check for contraband when you get back...... Oh, no, no, we don't do it in some dark, dank back room, we do it right out here in front!
Oh, no, it's just an administrative detail, we almost never do the full monty thing... rarely.. barely half the time!
Need a pen? There you go! see you soon!
The problem you're pointing out is that XP home runs users as admin by default.
No. The problem is that XP home needs to run admin by default to keep users from freaking out and running away at the fact that 90% of their software would be broken out of the box.
That's because Window's design makes it far too difficult to write programs that don't need admin privs.
This means that you have lots of programs which need admin to run.
This means that users (both stupid and not stupid), are effectively pushed to run in admin mode by default.
for the few programs that don't need admin mode, it's just too much work to be switching back and forth.
The end result is that you end up having users who run things like IE in admin mode, and then end up with root kits all over their hard drives.
Linux makes it almost trivial to run most programs without admin mode... Thus most Linux users rarely need admin mode in day-to-day use, so viral infections don't have an easy path to root privs.
(Most (if not all) linux root exploits are programming errors (aka root exploits) rather than design faults, so they can be removed without having to redesign the system and reprogram a siginifcant % of programs).
Windows, on the other hand, will have to break lots of programs to avoid admin-default programming.
Slashdot Mirror
It's Not Like Random People Could generate something as complicated as, say, LINUX and actually have it stable and secure, right?
Never underestimate the value of adding a couple of newbies into the stew with people who can filter out the wheat from the chaff.
A quick story:
Back in the 70's the the standard example for teaching first-time programmers while loops was generally binary search algorithm... However, for kids doing pretty much their first program, this turned out to be a bit on the difficult side, and not quite trivial to wrap their brains around.
(remember: late '70s. kids hadn't grown up with computers as anything other than huge machines with spinning tapes in the movies.)
Lots of students would write the program as told, and just walk away scratching their heads.A little while later, we'd get around to doing recursion, and they'd use the simplest example that you can find for recursion -- the factorial:
It's pretty simple, but when taught in a classroom setting, about 20-30% of students would get it confused with for loops.
I knew that these examples were bad, but I couldn't really pinpoint precisely what the problem (read: solution) was.Well, one day in the lab, when we'd just gotten to while loops (and binary search), this kid walks up to me and sheepishly asks if what he has is even legal, because it's really different than what the professor described, but it just makes sense to him (they hadn't talked about recursion yet). He'd defined binary search recursively, and it made perfect sense! I almost kissed him.
What he had taught me was that we had it backwards... Factorial is too simple for recursion.. It's to obvious to use a loop (and a good example for that). A binary search, on the other hand, is about the simplest example which shows off how recursion can simplify the understanding of a problem.
I took the example to my prof, and it changed the way that loops and recursion have been taught at the University of Alberta (if not worldwide).
My point here is: It took a stupid question from a first year student to solve a problem that had been around for at least a decade, if not longer.
(oh: and his answer was also wrong since he was supposed to be implementing loops, not recursion!)
AFAICT, the marketing drones have (almost) always been in charge of Microsoft. In this case, it hasn't been all that bad for the company -- just bad for the users (and , to a lesser extent, the engineers -- but at least they got good stock options before MS stock flattened out.).
True, but you can't always do exaustive testing, so you test based on what you think has changed (plus a bit of random testing just to make sure).
If MS tells you that they've changed A, B and C, then you test to make sure that those changes won't break your system. If you aren't aware that patches X, Y and Z have been included in your patch then you won't know to do extra testing of the functionality that they're most likely to affect... thus you OK the patch, having made sure that A, B and C don't affect you and you find out that the undocumented patch 'y' breaks a part of your database completely unrelated to patches A, B and C. So now, you're wondering why the patches blew up something that had nothing to do with the documented changes.
As for the stupidity of running windows on mission critical systems, all I can say is: PHB.
The main reason for implementing the monthly patch cycle (AFAICT) was PR. A bad week with 3 critical patches could really kill a sales rep's story that MS 'professional programmers' was the way to go if you wanted a secure system. It was only a matter of time until some PR hack realized that things could look even better if you didn't bother to document every security hole that a monthly patch fixed.
The upside for the user end (most often touted) of the monthly patch cycle is that a company doesn't sometimes need a full time crew just to go through the sometimes daily critical patches to see if/and what they break. The two downsides are that you don't always know what the monthly patches fix, and a well timed zero-day patch can mean that the black hats have up to a month to stomp on your system before the official fix comes out.
The problem arises when Microsoft decides that an 'undocumented' capability is the source of a bug. They fix the hole, but this may break your software in unpredictable ways. If you don't know what they fixed, you have no idea what (or if) things will be broken by the fix.
Remember -- for some people, Windows is used for much more than just games. If a patch breaks a mission critical piece of software it could cost some companies hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour.
Then, of course, there's just the people who want to count how many dozen MS security holes there were this week.
Enticing 'only' 5% of the Windows market would double Apple's market share. Knowing that you don't have to completely abandon your 'legacy' Windows apps is a comfort for those who slobber after the ease of use of the 'Mac but aren't entirely sure that they can live without some trivial Windows app (including games).
When you're buying a $2000 machine, spending an extra $150 to be able to reach back into your 15 years of accumulated Windows stuff is useful.
For those of you with storage lockers, think about how often you actually go into them to get something -- but you're willing to pay $60-$200 per month for that capability. Boot camp is like a storage locker for all your old Windows apps.
... But you only pay for it once.
It may be that that is simply the way that God chose to do things. It is god who mad man in his image, not the other way 'round. Who am I to (or you) say that God is required to do something a specific way. I'm just looking at what (s)he seems to have done.
If God made the Universe, then he probably understands how to tweak things with minimal effort. For 'someone' who has existed for 14 billion years, spending a few hundred thousand years to 'tweak' humans into existence wouldn't be a big deal -- and the end result would be indistinguishable from 'natural' evolution.
That something has not been found doesn't prove anything by itself. For the lack of proof to be considered proof of lack, you would also have to prove that you've created (usually contrived) conditions where, if it were possible for the 'missing' item to exist, you would have been certain of finding it.
The above statements apply to both fossils and gods.
The most common people to claim otherwise seem to be the more rabid IDers and creationists. Go figure.
And for the most rabid athiests, I would point out that lack of proof is not proof of lack -- eg: Just because you'll never find the body doesn't mean I never killed mikie (don't tell the cops). Similarly: the fact that a 'missing link' is currently missing doesn't mean that it will never be found.
Oh, well I am -- In fact I sent the guy a letter suggesting precisely that -- He could have his router filter for any NTP traffic outside of Holland (and any IP that actually asked permission), and send it to an 'NTP server' that runs on an old Pentium 2 class machine that sets it's clock from /dev/random every hour or so.
I also suggested that he threaten them with criminal hacking charges (access beyond permission + incitement/counselling -- hell if they're charging people for informing a court that their wireless is open, why not use this sh*t on people who are actually making money from trashing someone's goodwill service??)
He didn't mention how one knows if his device is affected, Well, if you don't know how to compare the model number on your router to the list of affected products that he's provided, then you're probably too far gone for anything other than "extreme measures".
Well, if you want to put it that way, then expecting the science world to accept biblical creationism (or it's ID equivalent) would be like trying to get a christian to accept buddhism as part of his faith.
However, I'd argue that science doesn't pretend to answer questions of faith. It doesn't (and really can't) answer the question of if there is a god. Einstein presumed the existence of God (thus his infamous "God does not play dice!" quote about quantum mechanics). Other scientists have been devout athiests, but neither religion, nor the lack of it has seriously hindered most scientists (though it may color how they investigate some issues).
I think that forcing a specific religion's views to be accepted as 'science' does a disservice to both -- even if one comes from your view that science is simply a different religion (which, I think, most scientists -- especially religious ones would be quick to disagree with you on).
The problem with (some) IDers is that they're claiming that ID is somehow a scientific theory which deserves to set beside (if not in front of) evolution in our science classes. If these pseudo-science IDers were to simply acknowledge that their belief is religious and not scientific, we could all get back to what we do best.
There are, by the way a number of religious figures (including the vatican) who have no problem accepting both evolution and a belief that god had a hand in creation.
The problem is with those who believe that
AFAICT, the heart of ID is that the 'proof' of evolutionary theory is nothing more than a godly prank on the scientific community, and the reason why there are (or rather, aren't) "missing links" is that the all-seeing, all-knowing God somehow 'forgot' to create some of the missing intermediate links in the paleontological record.
They seem to further believe that 'we're right' is sufficient scientific cause to throw out a couple of centuries of accumulated proof and refinement.
The real problem with ID proponents is that they seem to think that accepting evolution somehow requires a disbelief in god -- which is incorrect. Even the vatican has denounced anti-evolution ID as misguided, while clinging to the belief that God still had a hand in creation.
The fact of the matter is that the 'proof' of evolution is out there. You can believe it or not -- but if you reject it, you should at least be honest enough to admit that it's for religious reasons and not scientific ones.
The design of Windows is such that it actually takes some work to write many normal applications so that they don't need root privileges to do reasonably normal, everyday things. People don't write Admin-using applications just for the fun of it -- as you so aptly pointed out. They do it because writing non-admin code for Windows is work.
Linux, on the other hand, makes writing non-admin applications almost trivial Unix applications which need root permissions are very limited, and tend to be carefully written.
Writing code that presumes admin status is the result of bad design by Microsoft, and they've effectively encouraged the practice for more than a decade. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be fixing the problem, but that doesn't change the fact that the fix that they've come up with is crufty and error-prone. Even if I was the person writing the code, I'd describe it as crufty and error prone.
As an example of the way in which Linux/Unix allows the separation of OS and user, I have at least 3 kernels from 2 different distributions on my machine, but I can use the same home partition for all of them and boot whichever one I want. It's not quite absolutely trivial (I have to make sure that the userid matches on all three), but it's far easier than moving the user data directories on Windows onto a newly installed second drive.
It does, however, need admin privs to install a root kit, and XP home gives that to you by default, and even XP professional effectively envourages a home user (especially the 'dumb' ones) to set themselves up as an admin user.
I'm a catholic and I spent 4 years at a catholic boarding school where I was taught mostly by priests. I think that the IDers who believe that the bible trumps evolution completely misusnderstand the purpose and the style of Genesis, and I got a lot of that belief from the priests that taught me.
Even the vatican has denounced ID as misguided.
That having been said, I don't believe that the validity of evolution and the existence of a god are at odds with each other. They're really disjoint questions. Answering yes to one doesn't require answering yes or no to the other.
_____
AFAICT, the heart of ID is that the 'proof' of evolutionary theory is nothing more than a godly prank on the scientific community, and the reason why there are (or rather, aren't) "missing links" is that the all-seeing, all-knowing God somehow 'forgot' to create some of the missing intermediate links in the palentelogical record.
They seem to further believe that 'we're right' is sufficient scientific cause to throw out a couple of centuries of accumulated proof and refinement.
You do bring up a good point, though about the fact that they (some of them, at least) had a reasonable idea as to where somewhere was. -- and, yes, the predictive nature of the evolutionary theory is one of the missing links (bwahahahaha!) in the ID process.
ID proponents just sit back and scream "HA! but now, you're missing step 2.3!"
"Uh, yes mam, I think I just said that."
Lessee now, God spent 2 billion years making them, and we've spent 200 years looking for them. It's not a big shock that we haven't found them all yet.
I Am Not An Evolutionary Biologist -- So talking about this makes me feel a bit like a fish out of water.
I mean we don't need open standards -- we need we need competition, er, innovation, er, securit... uhm... you know what I mean!
It's not an either-or thing. The radio provides certain kinds of education. The $100 laptop will provide others. Between them , you can hope to generally raise both the floor and the ceiling of education in the boondocks of the third world.
Yes, and with XP Home installing with the user as admin by default, all these email worms have instant admin status -- along with the drive by downloads, not-so-benign 'porn viewers' and anti-spam programs that really aren't.
Sounds like a horridly crufty jury-rig that they're going to be spending the next decade patching to me.
The design of Windows is perfectly capable of allowing users to run under non-root accounts.
Sounds almost like a monty pythonesque skit:
The problem you're pointing out is that XP home runs users as admin by default.No. The problem is that XP home needs to run admin by default to keep users from freaking out and running away at the fact that 90% of their software would be broken out of the box.
This means that you have lots of programs which need admin to run.
This means that users (both stupid and not stupid), are effectively pushed to run in admin mode by default.
for the few programs that don't need admin mode, it's just too much work to be switching back and forth.
The end result is that you end up having users who run things like IE in admin mode, and then end up with root kits all over their hard drives.
Linux makes it almost trivial to run most programs without admin mode... Thus most Linux users rarely need admin mode in day-to-day use, so viral infections don't have an easy path to root privs.
(Most (if not all) linux root exploits are programming errors (aka root exploits) rather than design faults, so they can be removed without having to redesign the system and reprogram a siginifcant % of programs).
Windows, on the other hand, will have to break lots of programs to avoid admin-default programming.