...and all I have to do is keep my hosts file reasonably up to date and substitute a blank gif for anything requested from an adsite. The Phorm interception is done at hardware at the ISP on the first hop. It won't matter what is in your hosts file. Phorm will get to read and store the opt-out information under the current proposals. All you will miss by using a cookie for "opt-out" is the placed ads. I appreciate that "The Register" is not a regular technical resource around here, but on the issue of Phorm they have done a lot of work to bring this to the attention of users. It is UK ISPs that are first on the list. The Phorm Files
Phorm have form as 121Media. 121Media were the developers and installers of PeopleonPage, ContextPlus spyware and the Apropos rootkit. None were easily removed by commercial software and users flooded malware removal forums for help in removing their malware.
They stopped doing that in 2005-2006 to move to this model of forced data interception and forced contextual advertising.
Much of the development of their software is done in Russia as it was for their previous "commercial" malware offerings.
Their Open Exchange site OIX.com resolves to 203.93.173.3 and seems to be a Chinese web server. Traceroute carried out from your location will always stop at a point somewhere near. If you are in Belgium, for example, the final hop will be in Belgium. If you are in Australia it stops at www.telstra.net/cgi-bin/trace?oix.com
Your relationship with your ISP should not be subject to third party operations at hardware level. It's not too different to the (possible non-car analogy) mail exchange opening your mail before they forward it to your house to check if you might need an alternative insurance offer. This may be coming to an ISP near you, would you know if it wasn't getting some public airing in the UK?
It's just another piece of software that will need to be installed to access information. They haven't excluded anyone that I am aware of, unless you're still using a Commodore VIC-20.
Access in 20 years is not guaranteed. Silverlight is proprietary. Micorosoft have made it accessible to other operating systems but ongoing accessibility is absolutely dependent on the whim of Microsoft maintaining the availability and leaving the format untouched.
In addition to libraries, many Records Management Systems in many Universities and public services are equally tied to proprietary formats.
What happens in 20 or 30 years. I can still read documents that are hundreds of years old that are on paper.
Microsoft's record in the past 20 years doesn't give me much confidence in their ongoing behaviours.
It also assumes that current storage media will stay the same or similar. In only the last 20 years, my 8" floppy disks have become redundant, cassette tapes are almost unusable now, some old computer tapes no longer have drives that can read them and on it goes.
This approach to important documents is so myopic, I find it difficult to believe that librarians and records management experts can't see that far ahead.
Maybe, maybe not. However I'm sick and tired of the Microsoft conspiracy nutbars who trot out evil reasons for everything Microsoft do.
The other choice is to believe that they are just incomponent. Like some sort of clumsy 800lb gorilla let loose in the marketplace to tromp unhindered on anything that gets in their way.
Since, clearly, different competing standards are bad. Which is why there is only one standard type of screw drive head, Flathead. I once heard someone claim that there were other standards, such as Philips (better for automated assembly) and Pozidriv (allows latge torque without gouging the screw); but I reckon they were lying. I mean, how could competition possibly be better than one standard having a monopoly? Everyone knows how good monopolies are."
There is no single corporation that provides both the all the screwdrivers and/or all the screws.
Lies. Try installing it on anything with an ATI video card. You boot off the CD, get a flashing Num/Capslock light combo, and nothing happens.
What a load of offal. I had no trouble installing PCLinuxOS or openSuse 10.3 on my laptop (luggable, rather than portable). It's an ATI motherboard as well as graphics. Both installed without a single glitch and both picked up the native resolution of the 17" widescreen and both enabled Compiz easily.
I have had more trouble with Vista drivers on that machine than I have with any linux distro I've installed and Vista arrived pre-installed. PCLinuxOS worked out the best. A PCL kernel upgrade even fixed the wireless NIC. The ATI graphics drivers were so appalling on the original installation that Vista wasn't worth using until I updated the drivers. Ubuntu isn't the only distro around. If one doesn't work, try another. You actually do have a choice. Something computer users seem to have forgotten in recent years.
Once again, the vast majority of Windows users never install the operating and system and most users have never installed an operating system of any kind. Geez, when I think of the hassles I used to have with the old Detonator drivers, I'm not sure that it's the fault of any operating system in particular.
How does one tell if they are rootkitted? I have the latest patches and updates to my anti-virus, firewall and anti-spyware software but none of them mention anything about rootkits... Another thing that worries me is my software is all free! Comodo for my firewall, Avast for my anti-virus and Adaware for my anti-spyware...is the free software much worse than the stuff you have to payout for?
By definition rootkits are hidden from the user in normal use. On Windows systems they are usually installed as driver files with a.sys extension, often with a registry entry, or entries, to ensure startup. More on rootkits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit
There are a number of further references on the Wikipedia page that you use to find out more about them.
There are a number of rootkit detectors for Windows, but there are also many legitimate files on Windows systems that have hidden attributes for some reasons, so any rootkit detector must be used with care. Windows provides many paths of infections, but most rootkit anchored malware requires user intervention of some kind. Accepting unknown software, going to a subverted webpage or a webpage with ads that have been subverted to install malware when a vulnerable computer is found. Most of the installers use a script to check for available exploits.
Best protection is not to use Internet Explorer, next best protection is to disable javascript on untrusted websites or when you are using webpages you wouldn't show your mother.
I think you missed his point. If it was an exploitable Windows box on the net then it would also be fetching updates from Windows Update every second Tuesday. All machines you could reach to exploit would be fixed in five weeks tops. Can you say the same for Linux?
There are many Windows patches that take a lot longer than 5 weeks. Just one critical exploit which had been in all versions of Windows since 3.11 was in the wild before the details were published in December 2005 http://secunia.com/advisories/18255/ was first patched by 5th January 2006 after several free download patches were made available to users by volunteers due to the severity of the exploit and the fact that it was already being executed in the wild. A further hotfix was released on 28th February 2006 because the first hotfix pushed out didn't negate the exploit. Just one of the exploits that the original Gromozon used to infect large numbers of computers in 2006. To be fair Gromozon checked for large numbers of known exploits and even larger numbers of unpatched machines.
There are many, many more. Good Luck depending on Microsoft's hotfix schedule. A five week gap is more than long enough to allow the vulnerability to be exploited on millions of machines. They have an appalling record when dealing with hotfixes other than those that relate to WGA or their own update processes.
From the outside it often looks to me as if Microsoft live in an ivory tower. Their position in their world is currently unassailable. That may change, but not any time soon. They can employ the best and most expensive "yes-men" that money can buy.
How could they develop the internal culture shift that would enable change when they seem to be so isolated in many ways?
It is interesting to see that not one western government that has claimed that ID cards are essential for the war against fraud, terrorism, crime and quite possibly global warming, has been able to present a viable case to the public.
As costs rise (the UK ID card scheme is now expected to cost between 10 and 20 BILLION pounds over 10 years) the government arguments become more and more vague and frantic rather than more solid and sensible.
As this is the Australian ID card and I'm an Australian who has followed the very flimsy information released to the public, I think that
maybe we are reviewing and discussing something that was not put up by a government as a government initiated project. We seem to be fed this idea that governments initiate these proposals following major policy investigations of all available options and draw up specificiations which go out to tender so qualified companies can prepare bids. I don't think that's the way it happens in reality.
My suspicion is that members of the government were given a convincing powerpoint demonstration of a "wonderful ID system" that will solve all your problems followed by a great lunch and got sucked in. No policy, no preparation and no review of the proposals by the public service or anyone else, let alone the Senate (our house of review)
It was never documented to go out to tender and was apparently determined by negotiation.
The whole thing sucks.
Really, after Windows Vista i have really just stopped caring about what MS does. They can do whatever but i doubt Windows 7 will be anything but some minor enhanchements and some new fancy clothes when the day for gold comes.
Nobody has really mentioned the absolute worst thing about Vista. It's just so damn boring.
It's not exciting and it's not interesting and nothing Microsoft can do with it now will make it so.
Re:Can you use it to upload mails?
on
Free IMAP On Gmail
·
· Score: 5, Funny
gmail, hotmail, instant messanger, facebook, myspace, slashdot, etc. The distributed Internet has become very modular these days. People are worried about root DNS hosts. Imagine what people would do if you took down only a handful of these domains. 1/2 the people online would be lost.
Worth checking old/. topics sometimes. The company that thought up this one and applied for a patent is not in a position to even comment on any issue related to privacy.
People in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones. Aren't windows usually made of glass?
Not including the amount of personal user information and activity that is part of the Volume Shadow Copy and System Restore functions in Vista. Less so in XP.
These people are doing something I've never been forced to consider. The Myanmar regime has been a very rich, very powerful military ditatorship for some years and we have stood by in blissful ignorance of terrible things happening in a part of the world we dont live in and don't have to think about. Myanmar's biggest customer is China - It supplies most of China's oil and gas. China is Myanmar's biggest supplier of arms and luxuries. China is unlikely to intervene unless it looks like it could affect the Olympics.
They have made one of the most peaceful Buddhist countries in South East Asia into one of the most terrifying. You could try googling for the history. Here are some links to some stuff that has been got out before the internet was shutdown. Real bodies, real blood of unarmed victims. We do nothing!!!
All these corporations are happy to deal with a brutal military dictatorship. Recognise any, they aren't fussy about ethics
A World Away Travels
Abercrombie & Kent
Alcatel
Andaman Club
Andrew Brock Travel
Aquatic
Archaeological Tours
Asean Explorer
Asia Optical
Audley Travel
Baker Hughes
Bales Worldwide
Bamboo Travel
Ben Line Agencies/ Egt Holdings
BJ Services
Britannic Garden Furniture Ltd
CHC Helicopter Corporation
Chevron
China National Offshore Oil Corp
China National Petroleum Corporation
China Petro Chemical Corp (Sinopec)
CAN Group Ltd
Crown Relocations
Danford Equities Corporation
Daewoo International Corporation
DBS Group Holdings
Diethelm Keller/ STA Travel
Dragon Travel
EGAT
EO Burton
Essar Group
Euro Teck
Flatau Dick & Co
Fodors/ Random house
Gas Authority of India
Geckos Adventures
Geopetrol
Ginnacle Import-Export
Golden Aaron
Hapag-Lloyd
Hawke House
Helicopters New Zealand
Hunter Publishing/ Nelles Guides
Hutchison Whampoa/ 3 Mobile/ Superdrug
H2O Yachts
Impact Publications
Insight Guides
Interra Resources
Itera Group
Ivanhoe Mines
James Latham
Jet Gold Corp
Jetstar
Keppel Corporation
Kerry Logistics Group/ Kuok Group
Kircodan Furniture
Kogas
Leeward Capital Corporation
Lets Go/ Pan MacMillan
Lister/Sun Wood Industries
Lonely Planet
Maersk
Marubeni
Mekong Travel
Mel Flooring
Mitsui
Mitsui Osk Lines
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance
Morgan Timber
Moss & Co
Mountain Travel Sobek
New Horizons Travels and Tours
NHG Timber
Nikko Hotels International/ Japan Airlines
Nippon Oil
Nobel Caledonia
NYK Shipping
OCBC Bank
Old Burma Tour and Trading Co
ONGC Videsh
Orient Express
Parker Kislingbury
Peregrine Adventures
Petronas
Pettitts
Pttep
Purple Dragon
Road to Mandalay
Robbins Timber
Ro
*I think it was 2.0, it was 20 years ago. It was about 20 years ago and it was 2.x and it ran on DOS 5.0 (maybe even DOS 3.3) with "runtime" windows on my 286 with 640 KB RAM just before Windows 3.0 was unleashed on an unsuspecting world to give us Solitaire.
Sometimes I hate it that I can remember this stuff:|
That all sounds good, but right now our hardware is way ahead of the software. The programs and operating systems aren't smart enough to make full use of the extra cores in the way you describe to get the real performance boosts that are possible. I'm sure that will change as dual and quad core processors become more and more common and eventually standard. While Microsoft have a stranglehold on the retail market and the desktop and consequently on application development, this will be true. I can't see any software on their current development models appearing in under 5 years. I'd expect any of the *ixes to be making use of multiple cores far more quickly.
That said, WTF is anyone outside IT going to do with the processing power we now have available. My mobile phone is more powerful than the first computer I owned umm... somewhere around 1979-1980.
Linux, unix, OSX and Windows are just operating systems, the interface between the user and the hardare. They are not inventions of the almighty one(s)!!
How long is it since you used Linux and more importantly how long did you use it for? An hour, a day, a week?
Most users never install Windows themselves so they never run into the hassles of finding the right drivers and software that are just as real in Windows as any other OS. OSX is the only OS that has a true advantage there, preinstalled or out of the box, it does just work because Apple provide the hardware as well.
I can install most linux distros in less than 30 minutes and be up and running with the right drivers and software already installed and only one reboot. Try that on an upgrade install of Vista.
Slashdot Mirror
English company? Some sort of English thing? Won't affect anyone anywhere else? Think again.
They hold a USA patent for this technology http://www.freshpatents.com/Targeted-advertising-system-and-method-dt20060921ptan20060212353.php?type=description
The patent is discussed in some depth www.politicalpenguin.org.uk/blog/p,295
This is a US patent and Phorm is registered in Delaware.
...and all I have to do is keep my hosts file reasonably up to date and substitute a blank gif for anything requested from an adsite.The Phorm interception is done at hardware at the ISP on the first hop. It won't matter what is in your hosts file. Phorm will get to read and store the opt-out information under the current proposals. All you will miss by using a cookie for "opt-out" is the placed ads. I appreciate that "The Register" is not a regular technical resource around here, but on the issue of Phorm they have done a lot of work to bring this to the attention of users. It is UK ISPs that are first on the list. The Phorm Files
Phorm have form as 121Media. 121Media were the developers and installers of PeopleonPage, ContextPlus spyware and the Apropos rootkit. None were easily removed by commercial software and users flooded malware removal forums for help in removing their malware.
They stopped doing that in 2005-2006 to move to this model of forced data interception and forced contextual advertising.
Much of the development of their software is done in Russia as it was for their previous "commercial" malware offerings.
Their Open Exchange site OIX.com resolves to 203.93.173.3 and seems to be a Chinese web server. Traceroute carried out from your location will always stop at a point somewhere near. If you are in Belgium, for example, the final hop will be in Belgium. If you are in Australia it stops at www.telstra.net/cgi-bin/trace?oix.com
Your relationship with your ISP should not be subject to third party operations at hardware level. It's not too different to the (possible non-car analogy) mail exchange opening your mail before they forward it to your house to check if you might need an alternative insurance offer. This may be coming to an ISP near you, would you know if it wasn't getting some public airing in the UK?
Access in 20 years is not guaranteed. Silverlight is proprietary. Micorosoft have made it accessible to other operating systems but ongoing accessibility is absolutely dependent on the whim of Microsoft maintaining the availability and leaving the format untouched.
In addition to libraries, many Records Management Systems in many Universities and public services are equally tied to proprietary formats.
What happens in 20 or 30 years. I can still read documents that are hundreds of years old that are on paper.
Microsoft's record in the past 20 years doesn't give me much confidence in their ongoing behaviours.
It also assumes that current storage media will stay the same or similar. In only the last 20 years, my 8" floppy disks have become redundant, cassette tapes are almost unusable now, some old computer tapes no longer have drives that can read them and on it goes.
This approach to important documents is so myopic, I find it difficult to believe that librarians and records management experts can't see that far ahead.
Is that this blog post? http://blog.anamazingmind.com/2008/02/why-linux-doesnt-spread-curse-of-being.html
The other choice is to believe that they are just incomponent. Like some sort of clumsy 800lb gorilla let loose in the marketplace to tromp unhindered on anything that gets in their way.
Oh wait....
Since, clearly, different competing standards are bad. Which is why there is only one standard type of screw drive head, Flathead. I once heard someone claim that there were other standards, such as Philips (better for automated assembly) and Pozidriv (allows latge torque without gouging the screw); but I reckon they were lying. I mean, how could competition possibly be better than one standard having a monopoly? Everyone knows how good monopolies are."
There is no single corporation that provides both the all the screwdrivers and/or all the screws.
What a load of offal. I had no trouble installing PCLinuxOS or openSuse 10.3 on my laptop (luggable, rather than portable). It's an ATI motherboard as well as graphics. Both installed without a single glitch and both picked up the native resolution of the 17" widescreen and both enabled Compiz easily.
I have had more trouble with Vista drivers on that machine than I have with any linux distro I've installed and Vista arrived pre-installed. PCLinuxOS worked out the best. A PCL kernel upgrade even fixed the wireless NIC. The ATI graphics drivers were so appalling on the original installation that Vista wasn't worth using until I updated the drivers. Ubuntu isn't the only distro around. If one doesn't work, try another. You actually do have a choice. Something computer users seem to have forgotten in recent years.
Once again, the vast majority of Windows users never install the operating and system and most users have never installed an operating system of any kind. Geez, when I think of the hassles I used to have with the old Detonator drivers, I'm not sure that it's the fault of any operating system in particular.
By definition rootkits are hidden from the user in normal use. On Windows systems they are usually installed as driver files with a
There are a number of further references on the Wikipedia page that you use to find out more about them.
This is a list of "known" Windows NT related rootkit files with details of which rootkit pack they belong to http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/rootkit.html
There are a number of rootkit detectors for Windows, but there are also many legitimate files on Windows systems that have hidden attributes for some reasons, so any rootkit detector must be used with care. Windows provides many paths of infections, but most rootkit anchored malware requires user intervention of some kind. Accepting unknown software, going to a subverted webpage or a webpage with ads that have been subverted to install malware when a vulnerable computer is found. Most of the installers use a script to check for available exploits.
Best protection is not to use Internet Explorer, next best protection is to disable javascript on untrusted websites or when you are using webpages you wouldn't show your mother.
There are many Windows patches that take a lot longer than 5 weeks. Just one critical exploit which had been in all versions of Windows since 3.11 was in the wild before the details were published in December 2005 http://secunia.com/advisories/18255/ was first patched by 5th January 2006 after several free download patches were made available to users by volunteers due to the severity of the exploit and the fact that it was already being executed in the wild. A further hotfix was released on 28th February 2006 because the first hotfix pushed out didn't negate the exploit. Just one of the exploits that the original Gromozon used to infect large numbers of computers in 2006. To be fair Gromozon checked for large numbers of known exploits and even larger numbers of unpatched machines.
There are many, many more. Good Luck depending on Microsoft's hotfix schedule. A five week gap is more than long enough to allow the vulnerability to be exploited on millions of machines. They have an appalling record when dealing with hotfixes other than those that relate to WGA or their own update processes.
From the outside it often looks to me as if Microsoft live in an ivory tower. Their position in their world is currently unassailable. That may change, but not any time soon. They can employ the best and most expensive "yes-men" that money can buy.
How could they develop the internal culture shift that would enable change when they seem to be so isolated in many ways?
As this is the Australian ID card and I'm an Australian who has followed the very flimsy information released to the public, I think that maybe we are reviewing and discussing something that was not put up by a government as a government initiated project. We seem to be fed this idea that governments initiate these proposals following major policy investigations of all available options and draw up specificiations which go out to tender so qualified companies can prepare bids. I don't think that's the way it happens in reality.
My suspicion is that members of the government were given a convincing powerpoint demonstration of a "wonderful ID system" that will solve all your problems followed by a great lunch and got sucked in. No policy, no preparation and no review of the proposals by the public service or anyone else, let alone the Senate (our house of review)
It was never documented to go out to tender and was apparently determined by negotiation. The whole thing sucks.
Nobody has really mentioned the absolute worst thing about Vista. It's just so damn boring.
It's not exciting and it's not interesting and nothing Microsoft can do with it now will make it so.
So it wouldn't be all bad then
Worth checking old /. topics sometimes. The company that thought up this one and applied for a patent is not in a position to even comment on any issue related to privacy.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/14/043200
The patent is real: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220070157227%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20070157227&RS=DN/20070157227
People in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones. Aren't windows usually made of glass?
Not including the amount of personal user information and activity that is part of the Volume Shadow Copy and System Restore functions in Vista. Less so in XP.
http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/07/14/071237.shtml
Perhaps Steve Ballmer forgot that Windows users are the customers not the damned product
These people are doing something I've never been forced to consider. The Myanmar regime has been a very rich, very powerful military ditatorship for some years and we have stood by in blissful ignorance of terrible things happening in a part of the world we dont live in and don't have to think about. Myanmar's biggest customer is China - It supplies most of China's oil and gas. China is Myanmar's biggest supplier of arms and luxuries. China is unlikely to intervene unless it looks like it could affect the Olympics.
/. ,BR>
They have made one of the most peaceful Buddhist countries in South East Asia into one of the most terrifying. You could try googling for the history. Here are some links to some stuff that has been got out before the internet was shutdown. Real bodies, real blood of unarmed victims. We do nothing!!!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/racoles/1437348927/in/photostream/
http://bp1.blogger.com/_5lDKnFpM4T4/RvlasEw2cGI/AAAAAAAAAPg/1YnNaWBd-wo/s1600-h/denied_-1.JPG
http://moemaka.blogspot.com/2007/09/blood-shed-in-ngwe-kyar-yan-monestery.html
The Burmese government webpage is still available with the oficial version http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=481 This is a small part of the $40 million wedding for the daughter of the dictator general for contrast. This wedding was one of the tipping points. I'd say it might have cost him that much to marry her off. At 4:00m+ it might be a bit long for
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHRWToNhkCo
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22516505-601,00.html
This one is brutal, not up to the standard of CSI, but a real person whose weapon was prayer
http://soneseayar.blogspot.com/2007/09/blog-post_2316.html
All these corporations are happy to deal with a brutal military dictatorship. Recognise any, they aren't fussy about ethics
A World Away Travels Abercrombie & Kent Alcatel Andaman Club Andrew Brock Travel Aquatic Archaeological Tours Asean Explorer Asia Optical Audley Travel Baker Hughes Bales Worldwide Bamboo Travel Ben Line Agencies/ Egt Holdings BJ Services Britannic Garden Furniture Ltd CHC Helicopter Corporation Chevron China National Offshore Oil Corp China National Petroleum Corporation China Petro Chemical Corp (Sinopec) CAN Group Ltd Crown Relocations Danford Equities Corporation Daewoo International Corporation DBS Group Holdings Diethelm Keller/ STA Travel Dragon Travel EGAT EO Burton Essar Group Euro Teck Flatau Dick & Co Fodors/ Random house Gas Authority of India Geckos Adventures Geopetrol Ginnacle Import-Export Golden Aaron Hapag-Lloyd Hawke House Helicopters New Zealand Hunter Publishing/ Nelles Guides Hutchison Whampoa/ 3 Mobile/ Superdrug H2O Yachts Impact Publications Insight Guides Interra Resources Itera Group Ivanhoe Mines James Latham Jet Gold Corp Jetstar Keppel Corporation Kerry Logistics Group/ Kuok Group Kircodan Furniture Kogas Leeward Capital Corporation Lets Go/ Pan MacMillan Lister/Sun Wood Industries Lonely Planet Maersk Marubeni Mekong Travel Mel Flooring Mitsui Mitsui Osk Lines Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Morgan Timber Moss & Co Mountain Travel Sobek New Horizons Travels and Tours NHG Timber Nikko Hotels International/ Japan Airlines Nippon Oil Nobel Caledonia NYK Shipping OCBC Bank Old Burma Tour and Trading Co ONGC Videsh Orient Express Parker Kislingbury Peregrine Adventures Petronas Pettitts Pttep Purple Dragon Road to Mandalay Robbins Timber Ro
Crap!
Linux, unix, OSX and Windows are just operating systems, the interface between the user and the hardare. They are not inventions of the almighty one(s)!!
How long is it since you used Linux and more importantly how long did you use it for? An hour, a day, a week?
Most users never install Windows themselves so they never run into the hassles of finding the right drivers and software that are just as real in Windows as any other OS. OSX is the only OS that has a true advantage there, preinstalled or out of the box, it does just work because Apple provide the hardware as well.
I can install most linux distros in less than 30 minutes and be up and running with the right drivers and software already installed and only one reboot. Try that on an upgrade install of Vista.