Microsoft is happy to let us know the stuff that they're happy to let us know about the Blue Hat conference.
(can you tell I've just been watching Red Vs Blue?
I do hope that nobody actually paid for this news.
Apparently it's relatively standard practice in situations like this. Supposedly, they even had an agreement on the ammount. What the ESA seems to squawking about is that the government wanted to put an NDA on the payment so that taxpayers wouldn't know what they were paying for this fiasco.
The government is going to be in a tight spot with this lawsuit. If they've already agreed on the $600K ammount, their only defence is going to be that they were willing to pay the ESA extra money to hide how much this cost. I'm sure that they'll be happy to admit that.
I'd say it's more like buying a car from your neighbour, and his crackhead son gets to keep the alarm control that runs a kill switch for the motor and can pop the locks on demand.
I mean, it's not like there's any real proof he'll use it (besides, he's in rehab right now and he's got a crush on your daughter), but....
It depends on what you're doing. If most of your stuff consists of nothing much larger than a large Word file or a couple of MP3s, then network storage and a good map of WiFi hotspots should be good enough. On the other hand, I do things like trouble shooting... so being able to boot Knoppix from CD and backup an 80GB hard drive before I get to work cleaning up a system is nice.
I've got a 1 year old 5" enclosure, so I can fit just about anything I want into the thing. It consistently transfers about 38MB/second, which makes it faster than most DVD drives and I can do whatever I want with it... Format it for any filesystem, Linux, Windows or Mac.
It'a also secure, in that I don't have to worry about Google, or my ISP snooping my data while being stored or in transit -- and if I need real security beyond physical posession, both Linux and Windows support encrypted filesystems.
The enclosure cost me about $40 (don't know the exact price.. Got it at the same time as a larger system purchase).
I agree with you that the $400 drive doesn't look like that much of a value to me. About the only value of it is that it can fit in a shirt pocket (as long as you don't need the adapter). That's not worth the $350 premium, but my $50 USB2 enclosure is someithing that I'm very glad that I bought.
(( and if I want to use it to recover a laptop drive, all I have to do is buy a $12 laptop drive adapter and plug it into the box )).
The real purpose of the three laws was to create a plot device. Asimov was clear that robots could be used to kill people -- that was the excuse for bringing up the three laws to begin with -- people scared that robots would run around killing them.. so they created the three laws to keep people calm.
That violent future history of robotics leading to the creation of the three laws could have made a story in and of itself, but asimove relegated it to a footnote -- because that sort of story would be something of a literary FPS... Go in, kill things get killed, clean up the mess. Not a whole lot of plot device in there.
On the other hand, the three laws -- while looking simple and 'safe' introduced all sorts of dilemas and thought experiments -- like, what do you do when people have to go into a slightly harmful area? What happens when your choice is between one person dying and another? Can you hurt someone to prevent him from killing someone? Is suicide (and thus breaking the third law) better than chosing how to break the first law?
Is (secret) interference with humanity's destiny justifiable to (hopefully) minimize suffering.
None of those plotlines are possible without the 3 laws. On the other hand, any plot that requires that any of the 3 laws don't exist can be facilitated by the simple (and very believable) plot device of having a human take the 'shortcut' of removing or modifying the 3 laws so as to allow something 'important' (or just profitable) to get done.
((... and you realize, of course, that getting to the point where an autonomous entity could even recognize when a possible violation of the three laws was occuring would be the excuse for creating and wallowing in entire fields of artificial intlligence that have, so far, only had their surfaces scratched. ))
I, on the other hand, started using Linux because RH5.2 had a better time using a 3com PCMCIA card and sleeping/reviving on my IBM laptop than Windows98 did.
As for compiling OO.... My question is why?? The average consumer should be using the packaged installer (or better yet, just using the version that comes with the distribution).
The real solution is a complete re-install from scratch. Maybe of something other than Ubuntu. [ducks]
Touché. You're right. Not many way to be sure that they system's not irrevocably hosed. You could, however, boot from knoppix (or the umbutu live CD) and check all of the binaries, config files and modules.
If your last try was RH7.2, then I suggest that you try a recent version of Umbutu or Knoppix (5.0 should be out in the next week). Life on Linux has gotten much better in the last 4 years or so.
Linux is slower but takes more load, multitasking, but you have to get your hands dirty cause it doesn't work all the time off the box.
The only reason why Windows can look stable is that OEMs can spend man-months trying to figure out how to get a stable install -- and sometimes even that isn't enough. If you've ever tried to install a retail copy of Windows on a random box then you'll know that it's not a slam-dunk.
Generally, Linux works far better on a random box (as long as the Linux community has reverse-engineered the drivers by then) than Windows does.
As for Windows being faster than Linux, I think I'll just disagree.
11 years ago Microsoft was touting Windows 95 as being 'almost as good as a Mac."
As far as I'm concerned, they're still there. Putting User directories into yet another different directory than they are today isn't going to fix things. MS Windows still has it's soul bound to the daemon of the single-user. It's probably never going to get free.
(( And as for Microsoft being King of Consistency: I'd say that they are shabby pretenders to the throne. Apple has been and remains secure as rulers of that domain. ))
One of the points of Linux is that each distributor/user has the full freedom to make Linux work the way that we want it to.
I'm not forced to put the Xgl Desktop on my file server, and I'm not forced to use the console screen to do my text editing. I can put the Umbutu desktop on my friend's desktop and a smoothwall install on his firewall.
And best of all, I don't have to write to Washington for permission to start the computers.
My point is that that's fine for a virgin install where nobody other than the sysadmin(s) has logged into the system. If, on the other hand, the box has been in production for 2 months, how do you know that nobody else has managed (either on purpose or by mistake) to read or make a copy of questions.dat?
The only real solution to that problem is to change your password.
Perhaps they were just trying to do a pre-emptive deletion of MS-AntiVirus and set the net too wide.
Oh well... At least it's a commercial package so, unlike Open Source, I have somebody I they can sue when something like this......
WHAT???!!! EULA?? Yeah, but I didn' think... arrrrgh!
It should then also shred the unallocated space on the filesystem -- to make sure that the original contents of the file aren't floating around waiting for someone to boot the system from CD and go dumpster diving.
But anybody who tells them about the illegal spy program is going to end up in jail -- and the reporter will end up in jail on contempt of court charges for not ratting out his/her informant.
So they want to make it illegal to report a crime.....
Talk about stupid. Hopefully the Supreme Court would see fit to nuke this bill from orbit (should the US suffer the misfortune of this insane bill not being stillborn).
Anybody who's done a breezy install and allowed any sort of remote or non-admin access should be changing their password....NOW!.
The patch (unless it goes out and deletes the offending files) is only going to patch the installer (which you're probably never going to run again). You're still going to have a cleartext copy of your original admin password sitting on the box in a file with read-other permissions.
Even if the files get deleted (or have their permissions changed), you still have no idea as to whether somebody has read the files since October.
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Nah. I'd say that Micorosft is more like Wyoming than caboose. Just getting Blues to do all of their dirty work.
(can you tell I've just been watching Red Vs Blue?
I do hope that nobody actually paid for this news.
guh.The government is going to be in a tight spot with this lawsuit. If they've already agreed on the $600K ammount, their only defence is going to be that they were willing to pay the ESA extra money to hide how much this cost. I'm sure that they'll be happy to admit that.
So, get your geek friends together and start a campaign....
Criticizing DHS can be seen as being unpatriotic.
I mean, it's not like there's any real proof he'll use it (besides, he's in rehab right now and he's got a crush on your daughter), but....
"The next person who tells me that we've got a bug in the system eats and exploding cockroach."
Not much disagreement there. All part of the reason why people would be afraid of these things.
For the curious among you... That's about 10 feet/gallon... almost as good as an M5 Abrams. :-/
I've got a 1 year old 5" enclosure, so I can fit just about anything I want into the thing. It consistently transfers about 38MB/second, which makes it faster than most DVD drives and I can do whatever I want with it... Format it for any filesystem, Linux, Windows or Mac.
It'a also secure, in that I don't have to worry about Google, or my ISP snooping my data while being stored or in transit -- and if I need real security beyond physical posession, both Linux and Windows support encrypted filesystems.
The enclosure cost me about $40 (don't know the exact price.. Got it at the same time as a larger system purchase).
I agree with you that the $400 drive doesn't look like that much of a value to me. About the only value of it is that it can fit in a shirt pocket (as long as you don't need the adapter). That's not worth the $350 premium, but my $50 USB2 enclosure is someithing that I'm very glad that I bought.
(( and if I want to use it to recover a laptop drive, all I have to do is buy a $12 laptop drive adapter and plug it into the box )).
That violent future history of robotics leading to the creation of the three laws could have made a story in and of itself, but asimove relegated it to a footnote -- because that sort of story would be something of a literary FPS... Go in, kill things get killed, clean up the mess. Not a whole lot of plot device in there.
On the other hand, the three laws -- while looking simple and 'safe' introduced all sorts of dilemas and thought experiments -- like, what do you do when people have to go into a slightly harmful area?
What happens when your choice is between one person dying and another?
Can you hurt someone to prevent him from killing someone?
Is suicide (and thus breaking the third law) better than chosing how to break the first law?
Is (secret) interference with humanity's destiny justifiable to (hopefully) minimize suffering.
None of those plotlines are possible without the 3 laws. On the other hand, any plot that requires that any of the 3 laws don't exist can be facilitated by the simple (and very believable) plot device of having a human take the 'shortcut' of removing or modifying the 3 laws so as to allow something 'important' (or just profitable) to get done.
(( ... and you realize, of course, that getting to the point where an autonomous entity could even recognize when a possible violation of the three laws was occuring would be the excuse for creating and wallowing in entire fields of artificial intlligence that have, so far, only had their surfaces scratched. ))
As for compiling OO.... My question is why?? The average consumer should be using the packaged installer (or better yet, just using the version that comes with the distribution).
Touché. You're right. Not many way to be sure that they system's not irrevocably hosed. You could, however, boot from knoppix (or the umbutu live CD) and check all of the binaries, config files and modules.
If your last try was RH7.2, then I suggest that you try a recent version of Umbutu or Knoppix (5.0 should be out in the next week). Life on Linux has gotten much better in the last 4 years or so.
The only reason why Windows can look stable is that OEMs can spend man-months trying to figure out how to get a stable install -- and sometimes even that isn't enough. If you've ever tried to install a retail copy of Windows on a random box then you'll know that it's not a slam-dunk.
Generally, Linux works far better on a random box (as long as the Linux community has reverse-engineered the drivers by then) than Windows does.
As for Windows being faster than Linux, I think I'll just disagree.
As far as I'm concerned, they're still there. Putting User directories into yet another different directory than they are today isn't going to fix things. MS Windows still has it's soul bound to the daemon of the single-user. It's probably never going to get free.
(( And as for Microsoft being King of Consistency: I'd say that they are shabby pretenders to the throne. Apple has been and remains secure as rulers of that domain. ))
I'm not forced to put the Xgl Desktop on my file server, and I'm not forced to use the console screen to do my text editing. I can put the Umbutu desktop on my friend's desktop and a smoothwall install on his firewall.
And best of all, I don't have to write to Washington for permission to start the computers.
My point is that that's fine for a virgin install where nobody other than the sysadmin(s) has logged into the system. If, on the other hand, the box has been in production for 2 months, how do you know that nobody else has managed (either on purpose or by mistake) to read or make a copy of questions.dat?
The only real solution to that problem is to change your password.
You stop slicing my back, I'll scratch yours.
You might want to scan your hard drive for bad blocks.
Oh well... At least it's a commercial package so, unlike Open Source, I have somebody I they can sue when something like this
WHAT???!!! EULA?? Yeah, but I didn' think... arrrrgh!
It should then also shred the unallocated space on the filesystem -- to make sure that the original contents of the file aren't floating around waiting for someone to boot the system from CD and go dumpster diving.
But anybody who tells them about the illegal spy program is going to end up in jail -- and the reporter will end up in jail on contempt of court charges for not ratting out his/her informant.
Talk about stupid. Hopefully the Supreme Court would see fit to nuke this bill from orbit (should the US suffer the misfortune of this insane bill not being stillborn).
The patch (unless it goes out and deletes the offending files) is only going to patch the installer (which you're probably never going to run again). You're still going to have a cleartext copy of your original admin password sitting on the box in a file with read-other permissions.
Even if the files get deleted (or have their permissions changed), you still have no idea as to whether somebody has read the files since October.
BTW: Are they re-burning the installation CDs?