No user is the source of a rootkit, a virus, or a trojan. A typical user does not have the knowledge to write any of these often very sophisticated pieces of software. By the time they can write a virus they are software developer.
We should not expect those users to know all the ins and outs of security. They should only know the basics: keep your password secure, and don't enter your personal details (including credit card info) on unknown sites (a simple google search on the company name is usually enough to get a few references on a company - if no reference it's of course not OK). That's all a user should know, and care about.
Then the more advanced user starts installing a WiFi network by themselves (as opposed to a TelCo installing it), they should know that there is such a thing as encryption and that it is a good idea to use this.
All the rest they don't need to know. The implementation of this WiFi encryption and key exchange: leave that to the experts. Protection against cross-site scripting, drive-by downloads, etc: this is the browser developer's task. Preventing rootkits from taking over: the O/S developer. A user should not need to know anything about all this, a computer is first and foremost an appliance, it just has to work.
If only the software developers were doing their homework and the hardware resellers checking on the software they install and only work with secure stuff, then those computers can be connected to the Big Bad Internet safely.
Watching the video I wondered why don't they have a fishing rod at hand... just throw the line to the tool bag, hook it up, and pull it back. Simple solution, no?
Joking aside: why was this tool bag not attached to the space station or its user to prevent exactly this from happening?
Becoming an air marshall must be the ultimate job for a would-be terrorist.
Not only do they allow you to carry a weapon on board, they expect you to do so, and you will likely even get training on how to use this weapon effectively while on the plane.
It is more likely that if you refuse the search, they won't let you go to the boarding gate. So you probably can refuse the search, but then you will miss your flight. You choose.
So, by this logic, if only 1:1,000,000 travelers are ACTUALLY a terrorist carrying a bomb,
I think you miss a few zeroes there. Hijackers are far more common than people trying to CARRY a bomb on board, afaik most bombs on planes were either placed there in advance, or through check-in luggage.
then we should stop all airport security whatsoever, since we have inconvenienced 999,999 travelers who are NOT terrorists.
Is that what you're saying?
1% of people found violating laws, primarily fake IDs or carrying drugs. From a supposedly non-random sample. That is really piss poor to say it positively. There are far better and more effective ways of preventing bad things happening in the skies.
Locks on the cockpit door, for example, so they can be opened from the cockpit side only.
This simple measure would have prevented the 11/9 attacks from happening. The worst those terrorists could have done is starting to stab the passengers: a pretty bad thing in itself. In a "normal" hijacking the hijacker can still give instructions to the pilot to fly to certain airports, which a pilot could safely do. But any instruction putting the aircraft itself in danger he could refuse. Better a few passengers killed than a plane flying into an office tower, killing all the passengers in the process.
Long story short: the TFA is adding nothing to improve safety. It is time to sit down, clear heads, and start thinking of what is really effective.
Sure... but how many people are really doing that?
I get more and more complaints that e-mails bounce: my mail server has a 10 MB per-email limit, and that should be enough. But many people copy the image from the camera, and then directly attach it to the e-mail. So I get many 3-4 MB sized attachments!
It really seems most people just don't care or don't know about this.
Why would you want to compile a browser on your server? That is for your work stations. At least I do assume you're not running SLES on work stations. One way or another there seems to be something terribly wrong in your set-up.
Which is really sad. My iBook G4 is maybe five years old, I don't remember really. It takes care of all my needs and is technically in good shape, even the battery still gives me about two hours of off-net work. Sitting on my roof terrace, for example.
Just security updates would be fine with me - how hard can it be? Firefox3 et. al not supporting it anymore, I can live with that as FF2 does the job well, but again security updates would be nice.
As long as software vendors come out with software that they can not guarantee to be secure and that is directly exposed to the Internet, I think it is not too much to asked, particularly for popular software or software that is sold bundled with hardware, to provide free security updates for at least eight, preferably ten years. That accounts to OS/X, but also to e.g. Windows, Firefox and Thunderbird.
I'd be happy to upgrade to a newer version of OS/X if Apple wants me to (just to keep up with security updates and so, that'd be fine with me already), but I'm not OK to pay much, if anything at all, for that. Upgrades of OS/X still cost a few hundred US dollars last time I checked. Considering the laptop itself cost barely the equivalent of USD1000 that's quite a chunk of money. It's for sure way more than the current resale value of my laptop.
Oh yeah, I already have considered pirating it.... I'm just too lazy to actually go for it.
I'm quite sure that about 95% of the cost of the two rovers has been the building and actually launching them all the way to Mars. Now the rovers themselves do not cost extra money, only the salaries of the scientists operating them. Extending the life of these rovers is for sure more cost-effective than sending a new one. Even if the new one comes with upgraded or different instruments.
Marry a royal neighbour... then kill him/her and his/her family... doesn't sound too far from real life to me. Those sims are getting more and more realistic by the day.
Good idea except for the corruption of file systems: 99% of the people won't notice the difference between that and an actual format/erase. The data is gone for them. Would be good business for data recovery companies.
Randomly changing the background colour of the Windows desktop will do the job just as well.
It sure is a point that back in the day, the end user was really inconvenienced by viruses. Internet didn't exist yet for end-users, and software was transfered by floppy or over BBSes. Spamming hadn't been invented.
The first virus I encountered was relatively benign: displaying fake cursors on your screen, something like that. Irritating enough to realise you're infected and figure out what's wrong and doing something about it.
At the time many viruses were also designed to wipe/corrupt data - something that keeps you on the edge. That risk is much more direct, and much more costly that a slightly slower computer that tries to send out a lot of e-mail.
Nowadays I do have to admit being less concerned about these viruses, except where it comes to keyloggers and so. That want to steal your banking data. However considering the profilation of fishing (recently I get dozens of mails for "update your Google AdWords payment information") even that seems to be a low risk issue.
Besides I'm not using Windows... OS/X and Linux only... and I know not to click on links in spam, and browsing with non-IE browsers blocks 99.9% of the drive-by downloads but not all: I have got some requests for where to save a.exe file to; automatic download function. At least not hidden.
As an AC pointed out, it is a trademark, not copyright.
Secondly, if for example TPB would put this logo on their website, they can be sued for the use, and it's an easy case. Website uses logo without permission, gets fined.
The torrents they host on the other hand is not so clip and clear legally speaking: TPB is not directly infringing on copyright here, however they do facilitate it.
Anyway not likely that sites like TPB will use it unauthorised, way too risky.
Are Brits more open-minded than the rest of the world when it comes to choosing an OS?
Microsoft's Lock-In strategies have stopped working in Europe, thanks to European Commission's efforts to make Microsoft play by fair rules.
I think this is not so much as MS pretending to play by those rules, it's more that Linux is in the news big time partly because of this. MS has to play by the rules because there are alternatives - this is in the news, so people learn there are alternatives. Munich switching to Linux, more governments proposing it: this comes in the newspapers, so people learn about it.
Part of the problem is that many people don't realise there's a world outside Microsoft. This way they are slowly taught there is more to this world. More and more will become curious to what this world might be, and a relative cheap netbook may be just the time to say "hey lets just try it out".
I don't believe that some injunctions and fines against MS really break the lock-in. Companies are firmly locked in. Netbooks are for the personal uses, where lock-in is less strong and direct.
For Linux to compete, it should aim at producing distributions that support as much hardware as XP, have similar friendly installations, and possibly -- dear god did I say it -- run XP software, because win32 is the biggest software base in the world and it's what users want.
OS/2 did just that: run Windows software (Win 3.1 at the time). Later there was "OS/2 for windows" - no that's not OS/2 running as a Windows application, it's kinda the other way around.
And we all know how OS/2 ended up... recently I saw it on a booting ATM machine. That's where it's still used. Not on PC's.
Windows software runs on it - so why make a native OS/2 version? And as there is no native OS/2 software and you'll be using Windows software anyway, why not just stick with Windows?
This part I still don't get: how can you initiate a transfer so easily? Every cheque has a six-digit serial number (at least that's the case here). The bank knows which cheques they have issued to you, and they know which cheques have been cashed in. So only cheque numbers that have been issued to you and not cashed in, that may be valid cheques. This is also the way I can block a cheque from being accepted by the bank.
Not a foolproof safeguard of course but it should make it a lot harder to just fake a cheque.
In Hong Kong, a post-dated cheque will be refused. I have had this a few times that i got a cheque dated day after tomorrow, that I didn't look at the cheque and simply handed it in at the bank. Even the teller didn't spot it, but next day I got a call from another bank staff that this cheque was not valid yet.
The most impressive part is that it seems that every cheque is checked by a human. Or maybe they use automatic handwriting recognition only sending the fails to humans for checking.
I really doubt that this is also the case for the small businesses: the less than five person business that writes maybe 20 cheques a month. And those account for the vast majority of businesses in most countries, and even a very large share of overall employment.
The boss who writes the cheques and keeps the bookkeeping by himself is usually not interested in doing all that extra handling just to have that one cheque written today be cleared.
And what about if you make an error there? Say add an extra zero to the amount written on the cheque? I may assume the drawee will file a dispute. Or maybe it bounces because they have $500 on the bank which is enough for the $200 cheque you got but not for the $2000 you entered.
Or for that case: completely fake cheques. What happens in that case? Who has to take the risk of the loss?
I do check my bank statement every month, and would file a dispute if I were to find a withdrawal that does not match my records. This luckily hasn't happened so far.
Hong Kong also uses cheques big time: it was my first introduction to them after I moved here from The Nethrlands six years ago.
In The Netherlands we don't use cheques, at least not to send to other people or businesses. Instead for making transfers I would either use e-banking which my bank offers since about 1990, or mail a transfer order (similar to a cheque) directly to my bank. I have never ever mailed it out to a third party.
A weird part of cheques is that to make a payment to someone else, the cheque must go to their bank which will then send it to my bank asking for a transfer of the money to their bank. Instead of what I did is send it to my bank, asking to make a transfer to their bank.
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No user is the source of a rootkit, a virus, or a trojan. A typical user does not have the knowledge to write any of these often very sophisticated pieces of software. By the time they can write a virus they are software developer.
We should not expect those users to know all the ins and outs of security. They should only know the basics: keep your password secure, and don't enter your personal details (including credit card info) on unknown sites (a simple google search on the company name is usually enough to get a few references on a company - if no reference it's of course not OK). That's all a user should know, and care about.
Then the more advanced user starts installing a WiFi network by themselves (as opposed to a TelCo installing it), they should know that there is such a thing as encryption and that it is a good idea to use this.
All the rest they don't need to know. The implementation of this WiFi encryption and key exchange: leave that to the experts. Protection against cross-site scripting, drive-by downloads, etc: this is the browser developer's task. Preventing rootkits from taking over: the O/S developer. A user should not need to know anything about all this, a computer is first and foremost an appliance, it just has to work.
If only the software developers were doing their homework and the hardware resellers checking on the software they install and only work with secure stuff, then those computers can be connected to the Big Bad Internet safely.
Watching the video I wondered why don't they have a fishing rod at hand... just throw the line to the tool bag, hook it up, and pull it back. Simple solution, no?
Joking aside: why was this tool bag not attached to the space station or its user to prevent exactly this from happening?
Becoming an air marshall must be the ultimate job for a would-be terrorist.
Not only do they allow you to carry a weapon on board, they expect you to do so, and you will likely even get training on how to use this weapon effectively while on the plane.
Great idea, isn't it?
It is more likely that if you refuse the search, they won't let you go to the boarding gate. So you probably can refuse the search, but then you will miss your flight. You choose.
So, by this logic, if only 1:1,000,000 travelers are ACTUALLY a terrorist carrying a bomb,
I think you miss a few zeroes there. Hijackers are far more common than people trying to CARRY a bomb on board, afaik most bombs on planes were either placed there in advance, or through check-in luggage.
then we should stop all airport security whatsoever, since we have inconvenienced 999,999 travelers who are NOT terrorists.
Is that what you're saying?
1% of people found violating laws, primarily fake IDs or carrying drugs. From a supposedly non-random sample. That is really piss poor to say it positively. There are far better and more effective ways of preventing bad things happening in the skies.
Locks on the cockpit door, for example, so they can be opened from the cockpit side only.
This simple measure would have prevented the 11/9 attacks from happening. The worst those terrorists could have done is starting to stab the passengers: a pretty bad thing in itself. In a "normal" hijacking the hijacker can still give instructions to the pilot to fly to certain airports, which a pilot could safely do. But any instruction putting the aircraft itself in danger he could refuse. Better a few passengers killed than a plane flying into an office tower, killing all the passengers in the process.
Long story short: the TFA is adding nothing to improve safety. It is time to sit down, clear heads, and start thinking of what is really effective.
Sure... but how many people are really doing that?
I get more and more complaints that e-mails bounce: my mail server has a 10 MB per-email limit, and that should be enough. But many people copy the image from the camera, and then directly attach it to the e-mail. So I get many 3-4 MB sized attachments!
It really seems most people just don't care or don't know about this.
Why would you want to compile a browser on your server? That is for your work stations. At least I do assume you're not running SLES on work stations. One way or another there seems to be something terribly wrong in your set-up.
Which is really sad. My iBook G4 is maybe five years old, I don't remember really. It takes care of all my needs and is technically in good shape, even the battery still gives me about two hours of off-net work. Sitting on my roof terrace, for example.
Just security updates would be fine with me - how hard can it be? Firefox3 et. al not supporting it anymore, I can live with that as FF2 does the job well, but again security updates would be nice.
As long as software vendors come out with software that they can not guarantee to be secure and that is directly exposed to the Internet, I think it is not too much to asked, particularly for popular software or software that is sold bundled with hardware, to provide free security updates for at least eight, preferably ten years. That accounts to OS/X, but also to e.g. Windows, Firefox and Thunderbird.
I'd be happy to upgrade to a newer version of OS/X if Apple wants me to (just to keep up with security updates and so, that'd be fine with me already), but I'm not OK to pay much, if anything at all, for that. Upgrades of OS/X still cost a few hundred US dollars last time I checked. Considering the laptop itself cost barely the equivalent of USD1000 that's quite a chunk of money. It's for sure way more than the current resale value of my laptop.
Oh yeah, I already have considered pirating it.... I'm just too lazy to actually go for it.
[...]enforcing ISP's to act as police, attorney, jury and judge.
And so much for the country that brought us the separation of powers.
I'm quite sure that about 95% of the cost of the two rovers has been the building and actually launching them all the way to Mars. Now the rovers themselves do not cost extra money, only the salaries of the scientists operating them. Extending the life of these rovers is for sure more cost-effective than sending a new one. Even if the new one comes with upgraded or different instruments.
Marry a royal neighbour... then kill him/her and his/her family... doesn't sound too far from real life to me. Those sims are getting more and more realistic by the day.
Good idea except for the corruption of file systems: 99% of the people won't notice the difference between that and an actual format/erase. The data is gone for them. Would be good business for data recovery companies.
Randomly changing the background colour of the Windows desktop will do the job just as well.
It sure is a point that back in the day, the end user was really inconvenienced by viruses. Internet didn't exist yet for end-users, and software was transfered by floppy or over BBSes. Spamming hadn't been invented.
The first virus I encountered was relatively benign: displaying fake cursors on your screen, something like that. Irritating enough to realise you're infected and figure out what's wrong and doing something about it.
At the time many viruses were also designed to wipe/corrupt data - something that keeps you on the edge. That risk is much more direct, and much more costly that a slightly slower computer that tries to send out a lot of e-mail.
Nowadays I do have to admit being less concerned about these viruses, except where it comes to keyloggers and so. That want to steal your banking data. However considering the profilation of fishing (recently I get dozens of mails for "update your Google AdWords payment information") even that seems to be a low risk issue.
Besides I'm not using Windows... OS/X and Linux only... and I know not to click on links in spam, and browsing with non-IE browsers blocks 99.9% of the drive-by downloads but not all: I have got some requests for where to save a .exe file to; automatic download function. At least not hidden.
As an AC pointed out, it is a trademark, not copyright.
Secondly, if for example TPB would put this logo on their website, they can be sued for the use, and it's an easy case. Website uses logo without permission, gets fined.
The torrents they host on the other hand is not so clip and clear legally speaking: TPB is not directly infringing on copyright here, however they do facilitate it.
Anyway not likely that sites like TPB will use it unauthorised, way too risky.
Makes one wonder why a /. user would want a mobile recharging device in the first place.
If so, the Linux EEE breaks the law just as the XP EEE does... it's a bundle of hard- and software.
Are Brits more open-minded than the rest of the world when it comes to choosing an OS?
Microsoft's Lock-In strategies have stopped working in Europe, thanks to European Commission's efforts to make Microsoft play by fair rules.
I think this is not so much as MS pretending to play by those rules, it's more that Linux is in the news big time partly because of this. MS has to play by the rules because there are alternatives - this is in the news, so people learn there are alternatives. Munich switching to Linux, more governments proposing it: this comes in the newspapers, so people learn about it.
Part of the problem is that many people don't realise there's a world outside Microsoft. This way they are slowly taught there is more to this world. More and more will become curious to what this world might be, and a relative cheap netbook may be just the time to say "hey lets just try it out".
I don't believe that some injunctions and fines against MS really break the lock-in. Companies are firmly locked in. Netbooks are for the personal uses, where lock-in is less strong and direct.
For Linux to compete, it should aim at producing distributions that support as much hardware as XP, have similar friendly installations, and possibly -- dear god did I say it -- run XP software, because win32 is the biggest software base in the world and it's what users want.
OS/2 did just that: run Windows software (Win 3.1 at the time). Later there was "OS/2 for windows" - no that's not OS/2 running as a Windows application, it's kinda the other way around.
And we all know how OS/2 ended up... recently I saw it on a booting ATM machine. That's where it's still used. Not on PC's.
Windows software runs on it - so why make a native OS/2 version? And as there is no native OS/2 software and you'll be using Windows software anyway, why not just stick with Windows?
Now change OS/2 to Linux.
Still think it's such a great idea?
This part I still don't get: how can you initiate a transfer so easily? Every cheque has a six-digit serial number (at least that's the case here). The bank knows which cheques they have issued to you, and they know which cheques have been cashed in. So only cheque numbers that have been issued to you and not cashed in, that may be valid cheques. This is also the way I can block a cheque from being accepted by the bank.
Not a foolproof safeguard of course but it should make it a lot harder to just fake a cheque.
In Hong Kong, a post-dated cheque will be refused. I have had this a few times that i got a cheque dated day after tomorrow, that I didn't look at the cheque and simply handed it in at the bank. Even the teller didn't spot it, but next day I got a call from another bank staff that this cheque was not valid yet.
The most impressive part is that it seems that every cheque is checked by a human. Or maybe they use automatic handwriting recognition only sending the fails to humans for checking.
I really doubt that this is also the case for the small businesses: the less than five person business that writes maybe 20 cheques a month. And those account for the vast majority of businesses in most countries, and even a very large share of overall employment.
The boss who writes the cheques and keeps the bookkeeping by himself is usually not interested in doing all that extra handling just to have that one cheque written today be cleared.
And what about if you make an error there? Say add an extra zero to the amount written on the cheque? I may assume the drawee will file a dispute. Or maybe it bounces because they have $500 on the bank which is enough for the $200 cheque you got but not for the $2000 you entered.
Or for that case: completely fake cheques. What happens in that case? Who has to take the risk of the loss?
I do check my bank statement every month, and would file a dispute if I were to find a withdrawal that does not match my records. This luckily hasn't happened so far.
Hong Kong also uses cheques big time: it was my first introduction to them after I moved here from The Nethrlands six years ago.
In The Netherlands we don't use cheques, at least not to send to other people or businesses. Instead for making transfers I would either use e-banking which my bank offers since about 1990, or mail a transfer order (similar to a cheque) directly to my bank. I have never ever mailed it out to a third party.
A weird part of cheques is that to make a payment to someone else, the cheque must go to their bank which will then send it to my bank asking for a transfer of the money to their bank. Instead of what I did is send it to my bank, asking to make a transfer to their bank.
Next time remember to not have that dinner in your ivory tower then, problem solved!