As for the signing requirement - well, a developer can't sign any old binary as their name is attached to it. If they sign some malware, it won't be long until said certificate is revoked by Apple and all apps signed by that developer stop working (until overridden by the last option, or they approve the app again). So developers have an interest in not signing everything.
Seems like a good idea. Is this something that is already in place? Any idea on what their general timeframe for detecting "in-the-wild" to revokation? And how are the certs revoked-- through an update, or thru a CRL?
Would be interesting to see MS try to get something similar rolling, but I have a feeling theyll mess it up in translation.
There exists a full office productivity suite which is capable of stealing market share from Microsoft Office
I love Linux, and many many things about it.... but lets not pretend that Open Office is on par with Office. I would put it as "substantially less irritating than Google Docs, but less functional than MS Office". I use it on my laptop (being cheap and not particularly caring about an Office Suite), but it has a number of things that it fails at.
Not to mention-- and yes, this is totally petty-- its remarkably unpolished and makes me feel like Im in a time-warp to the 90's when I use it. You can say "who cares", but unfortunately a lot of users, and they have expressed that to me when we have used Open Office as a stand-in when we ran out of Office licenses.
If OSS folks want their software to succeed, they need to try to remember that technical prowess is really irrelevant if the product is aimed at end users and lacks any kind of polish.
You can get well-built, high-specced laptops for much cheaper than the Macbooks. Its just that some people insist on comparing $2200 Macs to $500 laptops, and then asking why this part is plastic or that part isnt multi-touch.
Macs are well built, yes. But lets not pretend that theyre the only option out there for "well built".
That's the exact opposite of my experience, where I've had no trouble passing traffic on an overloaded conference network where some nearby non-Apple weren't even able to get a DHCP lease.
Your faith in your hardware is misplaced; whether a computer gets a DHCP lease is going to have remarkably little to do with the platform it is on, and more to do with the quality of the link. The wifi card will have a good deal to do with it, as will the antenna placement, but for the most part those arent things unique to apple. I would hazard that their wifi hardware is made either by Atheros, Broadcom, or Intel, just like everyone else.
This is right up there with turn portfast on for STP routers where Mac's plug in, don't have a.local AD domain, and expect more chatter on your network than a "normal" PC.
1) STP and portfast are switch settings, not router. STP prevents switching loops on a local segment; a router would have no need for that, since each of its interfaces will be on a separate segment and routing protocols are designed to prevent loops.
2) Whether or not portfast is set should have no impact on your network connectivity, except for a slight delay (~10-30 seconds) on initial plug-in. After that it will work fine, and IIRC unix-y OSes like OSX tend to keep trying DHCP quite a while before giving up, so you shouldnt even have any DHCP issues.
3).local is not "necessary", and its not "bad practice" not to use it. It can be useful if you want to limit DNS from attempting to resolve outside, but it is entirely possible to have AD host your internal and external DNS and use a.com or.net.
And really, im not clear what STP has to do with AD domains. I would recommend you brush up on what STP and portfast actually are before boasting about your IT knowledge, or criticizing others for their supposed lack thereof.
If it were actually a problem with the OS then it would happen to everyone.
Thats simply not true, and its not how bugs work. It is entirely possible that there could be a bug that affects only a subset of users or has a specific trigger that not everyone hits.
I rushed out to upgrade to Win7 because of the UI; IMO it is the single best default UI on the market for dealing with massive numbers of application windows and multiple screens (barring taking the time to actually learn to deal with Workspaces on Linux, which might take the cake-- but its multimonitor support is still inferior IIRC).
The start menu-- one of the most iconic things about windows-- now launches Metro. I know, because I installed the server 2012 beta, and it is mind-blowingly frustrating to have to deal with.
Metro isnt something that is optional, it is something that every single user of Windows 8 will have to interact with on a daily basis.
You cant easily sue for libel or slander in the US without the first amendment being brought up. In order for MS to successfully win their case, they would have to demonstrate that Gartner's speech / writings were NOT examples of protected speech; if they were, then no law could make such speech illegal as it would be unconstitutional legislation.
Somehow I dont think that kind of speech flies super well @ BlackHat.
Hopefully good things come from this-- I think its absurd when people try to claim that Macs are immune to viruses, and certainly Apple has some blame for that perception; but Im not about to slam them for taking at least a token step towards being serious about security.
We've seen year to year in the Pwn2Own conferences that OSX certainly can be compromised, and I think by now it is clear that the only way to be "secure" is to invite the hacking community to form a relationship where they do the hard work of finding exploits and the vendor rewards their effort with financial rewards. Certainly if you go to the googlechromereleases.blogspot.com Chrome dev blog, you will see a couple of recurring faces in the "exploit disclosure and reward" section; Im sure Chrome's respectable security is due at least in part to this outsourced, commissions based model of checking for exploits. It doesnt really matter how brilliant your engineering team is, your software will have holes, and the more motivated eyes are on your security the better your product will become.
Unless Im mis-remembering badly, dont 99% of Macs already have USB connectors? Seems like the choice is between "mediocre USB port" and "superior, backwards compatible USB port".
Threatening lawyers would have 0 effect, as he would immediately have scores of Pro-bono lawyers lining up to defend his 1st amendment rights. The EFF immediately springs to mind.
Frankly though, I don't really care about the UI, I've been using the Win2K classic mode since well..win2K.
The UI is one of the most forefront things in Windows, and if theyre radically changing how applications are going to interact with the user (single fullscreen app, two contexts metro / regular, new widgets) thats going to affect 99% of users.
I mean maybe there are new commandline commands or powershell cmdlets, but Im going to go out on a limb and say those arent why people get a new desktop version of windows.
This wasnt something "to fall for"-- the emails were legit in that they really came from BlackHat registration. That everyone thinks the summary is accurate is little hillarious.
I mean, the article wasnt exctly lengthy, and they even gave an executive summary:
This morning, some idle hands browsed their way to a screen that looked like this:
We would provide a better screenshot, but that actually ends in sending an email. Call it a 'feature'. The link provided in the email is to an onsite host on our registration network.
Basically, a volunteer went to a place they shouldnt have, which resulted in reset emails being fired off to everyone.
Nowhere does it say or imply that it was phishing attempt. Im glad the editors are continuing the fine tradition of not even opening the links of the article they are supposed to be reviewing.
Im pretty sure they dont assign "the entire police force" to a single issue, particularly one like this. Seems far more likely "get warrant from courts for SMS records" would just get tacked onto the end of one officer's to-do list.
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As for the signing requirement - well, a developer can't sign any old binary as their name is attached to it. If they sign some malware, it won't be long until said certificate is revoked by Apple and all apps signed by that developer stop working (until overridden by the last option, or they approve the app again). So developers have an interest in not signing everything.
Seems like a good idea. Is this something that is already in place? Any idea on what their general timeframe for detecting "in-the-wild" to revokation? And how are the certs revoked-- through an update, or thru a CRL?
Would be interesting to see MS try to get something similar rolling, but I have a feeling theyll mess it up in translation.
There exists a full office productivity suite which is capable of stealing market share from Microsoft Office
I love Linux, and many many things about it.... but lets not pretend that Open Office is on par with Office. I would put it as "substantially less irritating than Google Docs, but less functional than MS Office". I use it on my laptop (being cheap and not particularly caring about an Office Suite), but it has a number of things that it fails at.
Not to mention-- and yes, this is totally petty-- its remarkably unpolished and makes me feel like Im in a time-warp to the 90's when I use it. You can say "who cares", but unfortunately a lot of users, and they have expressed that to me when we have used Open Office as a stand-in when we ran out of Office licenses.
If OSS folks want their software to succeed, they need to try to remember that technical prowess is really irrelevant if the product is aimed at end users and lacks any kind of polish.
You can get well-built, high-specced laptops for much cheaper than the Macbooks. Its just that some people insist on comparing $2200 Macs to $500 laptops, and then asking why this part is plastic or that part isnt multi-touch.
Macs are well built, yes. But lets not pretend that theyre the only option out there for "well built".
Macs are ten times easier to set up wireless than Windows.
Windows is 2 clicks, type in a password, hit connect.
OSX is 2 clicks, type in password, hit connect.
Where are you getting 10 times easier? Theyre quite similar experiences, tbqh.
Then again, the Apple Base Station Extreme is a dream compared to the 3rd party crap on the market
What are you using to judge something to be "third party"? Is Linksys third party? What about Buffalo?
That's the exact opposite of my experience, where I've had no trouble passing traffic on an overloaded conference network where some nearby non-Apple weren't even able to get a DHCP lease.
Your faith in your hardware is misplaced; whether a computer gets a DHCP lease is going to have remarkably little to do with the platform it is on, and more to do with the quality of the link. The wifi card will have a good deal to do with it, as will the antenna placement, but for the most part those arent things unique to apple. I would hazard that their wifi hardware is made either by Atheros, Broadcom, or Intel, just like everyone else.
This is right up there with turn portfast on for STP routers where Mac's plug in, don't have a .local AD domain, and expect more chatter on your network than a "normal" PC.
1) STP and portfast are switch settings, not router. STP prevents switching loops on a local segment; a router would have no need for that, since each of its interfaces will be on a separate segment and routing protocols are designed to prevent loops.
2) Whether or not portfast is set should have no impact on your network connectivity, except for a slight delay (~10-30 seconds) on initial plug-in. After that it will work fine, and IIRC unix-y OSes like OSX tend to keep trying DHCP quite a while before giving up, so you shouldnt even have any DHCP issues.
3) .local is not "necessary", and its not "bad practice" not to use it. It can be useful if you want to limit DNS from attempting to resolve outside, but it is entirely possible to have AD host your internal and external DNS and use a .com or .net.
And really, im not clear what STP has to do with AD domains. I would recommend you brush up on what STP and portfast actually are before boasting about your IT knowledge, or criticizing others for their supposed lack thereof.
If it were actually a problem with the OS then it would happen to everyone.
Thats simply not true, and its not how bugs work. It is entirely possible that there could be a bug that affects only a subset of users or has a specific trigger that not everyone hits.
on my horribly old 2009
Whatever happened to that whole "we pay more for Macs because theyre designed to last longer" mantra that gets thrown about so much?
I thought the entire justification for paying in excess of $1200 for a mediocre specc'd laptop was that the thing would last more than 3 years?
Some will say many things while ignoring that there arent a ton of feasible alternatives.
just like every single operating system in service today.
There, FTFY.
SEE? Windows is buggy!
A REAL OS would have just kept on chugging until those puppies burned out.
I rushed out to upgrade to Win7 because of the UI; IMO it is the single best default UI on the market for dealing with massive numbers of application windows and multiple screens (barring taking the time to actually learn to deal with Workspaces on Linux, which might take the cake-- but its multimonitor support is still inferior IIRC).
The start menu-- one of the most iconic things about windows-- now launches Metro. I know, because I installed the server 2012 beta, and it is mind-blowingly frustrating to have to deal with.
Metro isnt something that is optional, it is something that every single user of Windows 8 will have to interact with on a daily basis.
You cant easily sue for libel or slander in the US without the first amendment being brought up. In order for MS to successfully win their case, they would have to demonstrate that Gartner's speech / writings were NOT examples of protected speech; if they were, then no law could make such speech illegal as it would be unconstitutional legislation.
Somehow I dont think that kind of speech flies super well @ BlackHat.
Hopefully good things come from this-- I think its absurd when people try to claim that Macs are immune to viruses, and certainly Apple has some blame for that perception; but Im not about to slam them for taking at least a token step towards being serious about security.
We've seen year to year in the Pwn2Own conferences that OSX certainly can be compromised, and I think by now it is clear that the only way to be "secure" is to invite the hacking community to form a relationship where they do the hard work of finding exploits and the vendor rewards their effort with financial rewards. Certainly if you go to the googlechromereleases.blogspot.com Chrome dev blog, you will see a couple of recurring faces in the "exploit disclosure and reward" section; Im sure Chrome's respectable security is due at least in part to this outsourced, commissions based model of checking for exploits. It doesnt really matter how brilliant your engineering team is, your software will have holes, and the more motivated eyes are on your security the better your product will become.
When our users connect to their VPN, a script automatically randomizes their keyboard layout.
Have fun wiretapping!
Though both are far better standards than USB,
Except in the most important way, which is "compatibility" and "widespread use".
Heres to hoping that changes with thunderbolt, but lets not kid ourselves that firewire is viable as a consumer option.
I can understand having R and L line in and out, but why in the world do they need firewire AND USB in the cable?
Unless Im mis-remembering badly, dont 99% of Macs already have USB connectors? Seems like the choice is between "mediocre USB port" and "superior, backwards compatible USB port".
Threatening lawyers would have 0 effect, as he would immediately have scores of Pro-bono lawyers lining up to defend his 1st amendment rights. The EFF immediately springs to mind.
Frankly though, I don't really care about the UI, I've been using the Win2K classic mode since well..win2K.
The UI is one of the most forefront things in Windows, and if theyre radically changing how applications are going to interact with the user (single fullscreen app, two contexts metro / regular, new widgets) thats going to affect 99% of users.
I mean maybe there are new commandline commands or powershell cmdlets, but Im going to go out on a limb and say those arent why people get a new desktop version of windows.
Is this the same slashdot crowd that gets all uppity when a politician lies?
I smell the stench of hypocrisy in the air.
This wasnt something "to fall for"-- the emails were legit in that they really came from BlackHat registration. That everyone thinks the summary is accurate is little hillarious.
I mean, the article wasnt exctly lengthy, and they even gave an executive summary:
This morning, some idle hands browsed their way to a screen that looked like this:
We would provide a better screenshot, but that actually ends in sending an email. Call it a 'feature'. The link provided in the email is to an onsite host on our registration network.
Basically, a volunteer went to a place they shouldnt have, which resulted in reset emails being fired off to everyone.
Nowhere does it say or imply that it was phishing attempt. Im glad the editors are continuing the fine tradition of not even opening the links of the article they are supposed to be reviewing.
Im pretty sure they dont assign "the entire police force" to a single issue, particularly one like this. Seems far more likely "get warrant from courts for SMS records" would just get tacked onto the end of one officer's to-do list.
And all you have is wild speculation. Thats so much better than what the first responders had to go on.