Given the general assumption that you are innocent until proven guilty, shouldn't this mean the onus is on the plaintiff to prove the alleged defamation is in fact defamation by nature of being false?
The onus should certainly be on the plaintiff to prove that the statements in question were in fact made by the defendant, should (s)he deny this. But as to proving the falsehood of the alleged defamation... how do you prove a negative?
I'm not a lawyer, but I had the general impression that it isn't all that unusual (even in the US) for interim court orders to be issued prior to a final decision by the court.
Surely if he could prove the allegedly defamatory statements to be true he would have done so by now, and the court order would have been lifted?
However, in this particular case I feel that Vince Siemer is the victim of a flawed judicial system that need rigorous re-evaluation (as do all judical systems really).
I'm curious to know why you think this to be the case, nothing in TFA suggests this to me. Do you have other information? I'd be interested in any references you can provide.
Just out of curiosity, how far do you think someone's right to free speech goes? If someone convinced your boss that you were a member of al Qaeda, and you got fired as a result, would that still be free speech and perfectly OK by you?
Speech can cause harm, and since most Governments don't allow you to defend yourself against harm of this sort, I'd argue that the Government has an obligation to defend you instead, i.e., defamation laws.
Do you have any particular reason to believe that what he was saying is in fact true? Or are you just assuming that he's honest 'cause he's an American?
That's what the summary says, but it's wrong - or rather, phrased improperly. The statement you've quoted translates to "for any configuration X, the number of steps necessary to solve X is 21, 22, or 23." Of course this is wrong; there are configurations that require fewer steps. (Also as far as I know we don't know yet whether there are solutions that require 21 steps.)
Rokicki, in his paper, phrased his statement properly: "every position in the cube can be solved in 25 moves or less".
The summary should have simply said that this shows the maximum number of moves that can be necessary to solve Rubik's cube is either 20, 21, 22, or 23.
He said "I doubt that it is 1 for any arbitrary configuration."
That translates to "there is no configuration which can be solved in 1 step" which obviously isn't true.
What he presumably meant to say was "I doubt that it is 1 for *all* configurations." (The word "arbitrary" is redundant.)
Once you know about their background of monopoly abuse, expecting a scorched-earth legacy policy from them would be the *least* of things to expect, but you apparently are so new to the IT field that you don't know a bit of their history.
Relatively new as a professional IT person - only twelve years, though I've been using computers since 1978. Regardless, I don't buy this premise.
"I don't believe Microsoft want this sort of PR."
Of course they don't, but they were counting on the large degree of public ignorance surrounding computers, the effect of their well funded deceptive marketing campaigns, and at last resort their poweful legal arm to bury it with takedown notices to prevent the word from getting out. It wouldn't be the first instance of that either.
Doesn't seem to have worked very well, and I still don't believe Microsoft are dumb enough to believe it would.
"...presumably most of the extra stuff is just candy - not likely to
have a significant impact on the underlying stability."
It doesn't all smell like candy though. Some of the changes dig down deep into the core of the kernel and change its inner workings. A new facility for signed drivers and more stringently controlled and prioritized video/audio paths come to mind.
The first sounds like one of those changes necessary (such as the servicing layer) for long-term improvement. Granted it means Vista itself is less reliable, in a version of two we'll see the benefits - or at least I suppose that's the theory. Again, we'll have to wait and see.
The second sounds like one of those changes made to support DRM. These I do disapprove of.
"I don't see any evidence that the problems with SP3 are caused by
broken software development methodology."
The evidence is that the problems with SP3 are more critical than with SP2, and that's never supposed to happen with a mature product.
I'm wondering if your memory of the introduction of SP2 is fading. It certainly wasn't hassle-free. And, as I've mentioned before, the context has changed drastically in the last few years - in particular, both malware and anti-malware software is far more prevalent and more complex.
I've never trusted imaging; seems too much like asking for trouble. Scripted installs all the way, that's my motto.
Granted, this approach probably isn't feasible for OEMs wanting to pre-install. The moral here is to always blow away the pre-installed OEM image and reinstall from the media.
I suspect Microsoft thought, obviously over-optimistically, that the vendors would fix their processes after being bitten when SP2 was released.
According to the information provided by HP, the driver in question was already configured to start. For some reason I don't quite understand, the driver file was missing, which allowed the system to boot. Of course SP3 reinstalled the missing file.
It may be true that third party vendors and malware are immediately to blame, but even so I find it difficult to believe that the third parties in question would not have done any of their own testing for critical bugs.
Nevertheless, that is what the available evidence suggests. In the specific case this article references, if HP had installed any of the betas or release candidates on one of their boxes they'd have noticed that it didn't boot any more. Surely they'd have done something about this in the months prior to release? Similarly, the problems with CA antivirus could presumably have been discovered and fixed long before SP3 was released.
Microsoft aren't entirely absolved of blame; they shouldn't have started distribution via Windows Update straight away. If the update had been available from the download center for a few weeks beforehand there would have been fewer people affected before a fix could be publicized.
I find it much easier to believe that it was MS who skipped their part of the testing [...]
I'm not sure I can agree that it is Microsoft's job to test third-party products for this sort of problem; they aren't in a position to do so efficiently.
The company isn't exactly promoting XP anymore, so if XP isn't left in a perfect state for posterity I doubt they'll spend too many resources worrying about it.
Hey, I'm at least as paranoid as the next guy, but it really does seem you're assuming your conclusion and arguing backwards here.
I don't believe Microsoft want this sort of PR. Rightly or wrongly, it reflects not just on XP but on Windows and ultimately their entire product line.
As to the malware, I see it as an implicit way of blaming the users
Not my intention.
You admit Windows' design was suboptimal for security purposes, but on the other hand you haven't fully deduced where the blame belongs.
Microsoft, obviously, but we're talking about decisions made decades ago. I don't know how much blame we can reasonably assign them for not foreseeing that far in advance the extent to which malware is now a problem.
No one else we know about has enough control and visibility over the entire situation to take the steps to prevent malware from messing with system internals.
You seem to be assuming that Microsoft could fix Windows more or less easily and are choosing not to. I'm not an operating system expert, but I understand enough to be reasonably sure that there is no feasible fix. Eventually we'll have to dump Windows and replace it with something completely new, and the sooner the better. But in the meantime it is in Microsoft's interest (and in the interest of their customers) for them to do the best they can with what they've got.
Vista's design features may seem like revolutionary advances right now,
I wouldn't go that far. But I gather they have taken some steps towards improving the way operating system file versioning is handled, which should address some of the underlying frailties of prior versions.
It's not a coincidence that any *new* problems that the current version is quietly introducing aren't emphasized until the next upgrade cycle.
Are you honestly suggesting that Microsoft are deliberately introducing new problems?
Specifically in the case of Vista you don't seem concerned that its piggish size will be the source of future problems
Performance and system requirements aside, I don't see disk space or memory utilization as an inherent problem. What sort of issue are you anticipating? Of course, complexity is a problem, but presumably most of the extra stuff is just candy - not likely to have a significant impact on the underlying stability.
or excuses because you are a "true believer" that its genial new features will be e
[...] there is really no excuse for SP3 being less stable than SP2. Also no evidence that it is. It's the process of changing from SP2 to SP3 that is error-prone, and at present I'm not convinced there's anything Microsoft could have done about this.
It's always easy to pass the blame onto the users doing the installation, [...] Actually most of the problems seem to be the result of OEM or third-party-vendor defects, or malware. I don't blame the users.
Is it too much to ask that MS test for critical bugs before releasing? Don't forget the install works fine for most people. There are just too many combinations of hardware and software out there for Microsoft to test every possibility. However, I would have preferred for it to be available via the download center for at least a few weeks before it was pushed out via Windows Update, in order to get more of a head start on the issues before they became widespread.
An OS that needs to be subverted in order to ensure correct operation doesn't strike me as particularly well-designed. It isn't! The underlying design is unsuited to today's environment, but there isn't any way to fix that now.
You seem to be saying that it's not worth applying good software development practices to a service pack, I don't see any reason to believe that good development practices weren't followed. The situation simply didn't allow for a 100% success rate.
Windows is too big and complex, so the company decides to make Vista an even *bigger* and *more* complex OS? Some of the underlying design, in particular the way that updates and service packs interact, looks to be superior. The downside is that essential parts of the OS are too new and the bugs have yet to be shaken out properly. I'm hoping the next version will see the benefits without as much of the pain. This may prove overly optimistic, but we'll have to wait and see.
However, you would be correct to imply that a redesign that sacrifices compatibility will be just as widely criticized as one with quality problems. Exactly. For the foreseeable future, there's going to be enough of a market share for Windows despite the problems. And, barring the unforeseeable, there isn't likely to be enough of a market share for a new OS to make this a reasonable business decision.
I forgot to mention - there is an old saying that odd-numbered Windows service packs are bad news. Certainly Windows 2000 service pack 3 (IIRC) was a dog, and perhaps Windows XP service pack 3 will go down in history much the same way; we'll have to wait and see.
Personally, I'm guessing that Windows XP service pack 3 will eventually be just as stable as sp2 is. That doesn't mean I'd recommend installing it right now! Wait a few months for the device drivers and application software to catch up; for that matter, Microsoft haven't ironed out all the sp3 related kinks in Windows Update yet, never mind in products like Windows Live.
Isn't the original purpose of a service pack to add reliability, rather than take it away? Not really; after all, it would be hard to make WinXP sp2 significantly more reliable than it already is. At least on our systems, it's proved to be extremely robust - YMMV, of course. (To be fair, we did have problems with some versions of Maya on certain graphics cards.)
What service pack 3 does do is fix a significant number of bugs. Only some of those fixes were already widely released, many could only be obtained on request.
Unfortunately, any major change to an existing Windows installation (such as, say, a service pack) has associated risks. If there's anything wrong with the existing installation, even if it doesn't currently exhibit any symptoms, it may well fall over.
This would include issues such as mismatched CPU drivers, the presence of malware, buggy third party drivers; also, anti-malware products are particularly risky because by design they subvert the proper operation of the OS.
Windows is just too big and complex for something like installing a service pack to be a completely safe operation. I don't think there is any realistic way Microsoft could fix this - although there are signs that Vista may be an improvement, despite the current growing pains.
The fact that Windows is too complex to be reliable is unfortunate, and I'd really like to see Windows retired sooner rather than later, preferably in favour of a brand new operating system built from the ground up with today's security threats in mind. However, this isn't likely to be feasible in the foreseeable future because of the huge base of existing software. It certainly isn't a feasible strategy for Microsoft as a for-profit company!
It may also be worth pointing out that (according to TFA) folks had this exact same issue when service pack 2 came out, so it isn't as if HP's configuration wasn't already known to cause problems.
I'm not sure about some other people's comments, but as a Windows developer, I have come to exactly the same conclusion as this article. Especially this line: "Windows Vista's improved security model is nothing more than a series of obstacles that in reality only make it more difficult for honest ISVs to publish working code and not actually providing any true protection from malware authors." To the best of my knowledge, provided the application was coded properly in the first place, UAC shouldn't present more than trivial issues.
Question 1 would be: what happened in Windows XP when a non-administrative user account tried to use the application? If the answer is "it didn't work" then the app was already broken and UAC is just helping to encourage you to fix it.
However, I'm not a real-world programmer, so perhaps I've missed something; do you have any specific examples you can present?
When they're done highfiving themselves maybe they should pause one sec and think about what they've really done: any app running as an ordinary user can now make a call to their service and muck around with the BCD.
And this is a problem why exactly? That's what the application is for. If you don't want your users to be able to change the BCD settings, don't install the app.
So the WindowsXP security model is fairly robust as a model. But with software written by Microsoft themselves not taking advantage of it in a way that makes the end user's life convenient, there's certainly something that smells.
This is a good point, and it may be worth highlighting the fact that Microsoft isn't a homogeneous entity. The OS team seem (in general) to be fairly competent, but sometimes they're let down by others... you mention IE in particular, which to my mind has been one of the major problems with Windows ever since it appeared. (In particular I really wish they'd decide once and for all whether it's an application or part of the OS. The current hybrid model causes no end of technical issues, quite apart from the security problems.)
To me, this looks like a perfect example of UAC doing exactly what it was designed to do; forcing developers to write software that will run for non-administrative users. Heck, we read about it here just a few weeks ago:
As far as I know Microsoft haven't said anything about this, but it wouldn't be surprising to see a version of Windows in a few years that by default creates a non-administrative account during setup and encourages the home user to use that one for day-to-day activities. UAC is just a first step towards making that feasible.
Both, I'd say. But it's the ISP that gets to make the decisions.
"Isn't reinvesting in your business the way you actually grow your business [...]"
Putting extra money in for no extra money out isn't generally a good investment.
Electrictoy got it exactly right: this isn't Harry Potter. Capital investments still have to be paid for, even if you ignore the ongoing maintenance costs; money isn't free.
The bottom line is that costs increase with bandwidth. Unless your ISP was overcharging, they'll have to charge more if they want to increase the total available bandwidth, or go bankrupt.
"[...] they deserve what they will get as soon as fiber oversells cable by provide what people actually want [...]"
If fibre is the cheaper technology, it's inevitable that it will eventually take over. All the more reason for cable providers not to over-invest in an obsolete system!
Over here (New Zealand) most home broadband is ADSL, and the bandwidth bottleneck isn't in the last mile but rather the upstream connections. The same economics still apply; all the upstream bandwidth has to be paid for, so in the absence of caps, charges would have to increase.
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That sounds daft - how do you prove a negative? How, for example, would you go about disproving allegations of al Qaeda membership?
On the other hand, I'd be happy to accept a "balance of probabilities" basis for a decision; isn't this usually the case in civil cases?
The onus should certainly be on the plaintiff to prove that the statements in question were in fact made by the defendant, should (s)he deny this. But as to proving the falsehood of the alleged defamation ... how do you prove a negative?
There must be a mechanism to challenge an interim order? Of course, his refusal to follow the court order probably prejudices his case.
I'm not a lawyer, but I had the general impression that it isn't all that unusual (even in the US) for interim court orders to be issued prior to a final decision by the court.
Surely if he could prove the allegedly defamatory statements to be true he would have done so by now, and the court order would have been lifted?
I'm curious to know why you think this to be the case, nothing in TFA suggests this to me. Do you have other information? I'd be interested in any references you can provide.
But what happens if the defendant is found guilty, but simply refuses to comply with the court's decision?
I find it hard to believe that someone can simply ignore a court order in the US and nothing will happen to him.
Just out of curiosity, how far do you think someone's right to free speech goes? If someone convinced your boss that you were a member of al Qaeda, and you got fired as a result, would that still be free speech and perfectly OK by you?
Speech can cause harm, and since most Governments don't allow you to defend yourself against harm of this sort, I'd argue that the Government has an obligation to defend you instead, i.e., defamation laws.
Do you have any particular reason to believe that what he was saying is in fact true? Or are you just assuming that he's honest 'cause he's an American?
That's what the summary says, but it's wrong - or rather, phrased improperly. The statement you've quoted translates to "for any configuration X, the number of steps necessary to solve X is 21, 22, or 23." Of course this is wrong; there are configurations that require fewer steps. (Also as far as I know we don't know yet whether there are solutions that require 21 steps.)
Rokicki, in his paper, phrased his statement properly: "every position in the cube can be solved in 25 moves or less".
The summary should have simply said that this shows the maximum number of moves that can be necessary to solve Rubik's cube is either 20, 21, 22, or 23.
He said "I doubt that it is 1 for any arbitrary configuration." That translates to "there is no configuration which can be solved in 1 step" which obviously isn't true. What he presumably meant to say was "I doubt that it is 1 for *all* configurations." (The word "arbitrary" is redundant.)
Relatively new as a professional IT person - only twelve years, though I've been using computers since 1978. Regardless, I don't buy this premise.
Of course they don't, but they were counting on the large degree of public ignorance surrounding computers, the effect of their well funded deceptive marketing campaigns, and at last resort their poweful legal arm to bury it with takedown notices to prevent the word from getting out. It wouldn't be the first instance of that either.
Doesn't seem to have worked very well, and I still don't believe Microsoft are dumb enough to believe it would.
It doesn't all smell like candy though. Some of the changes dig down deep into the core of the kernel and change its inner workings. A new facility for signed drivers and more stringently controlled and prioritized video/audio paths come to mind.
The first sounds like one of those changes necessary (such as the servicing layer) for long-term improvement. Granted it means Vista itself is less reliable, in a version of two we'll see the benefits - or at least I suppose that's the theory. Again, we'll have to wait and see.
The second sounds like one of those changes made to support DRM. These I do disapprove of.
The evidence is that the problems with SP3 are more critical than with SP2, and that's never supposed to happen with a mature product.
I'm wondering if your memory of the introduction of SP2 is fading. It certainly wasn't hassle-free. And, as I've mentioned before, the context has changed drastically in the last few years - in particular, both malware and anti-malware software is far more prevalent and more complex.I've never trusted imaging; seems too much like asking for trouble. Scripted installs all the way, that's my motto. Granted, this approach probably isn't feasible for OEMs wanting to pre-install. The moral here is to always blow away the pre-installed OEM image and reinstall from the media.
I suspect Microsoft thought, obviously over-optimistically, that the vendors would fix their processes after being bitten when SP2 was released. According to the information provided by HP, the driver in question was already configured to start. For some reason I don't quite understand, the driver file was missing, which allowed the system to boot. Of course SP3 reinstalled the missing file.
It may be true that third party vendors and malware are immediately to blame, but even so I find it difficult to believe that the third parties in question would not have done any of their own testing for critical bugs.
Nevertheless, that is what the available evidence suggests. In the specific case this article references, if HP had installed any of the betas or release candidates on one of their boxes they'd have noticed that it didn't boot any more. Surely they'd have done something about this in the months prior to release? Similarly, the problems with CA antivirus could presumably have been discovered and fixed long before SP3 was released.
Microsoft aren't entirely absolved of blame; they shouldn't have started distribution via Windows Update straight away. If the update had been available from the download center for a few weeks beforehand there would have been fewer people affected before a fix could be publicized.
I find it much easier to believe that it was MS who skipped their part of the testing [...]
I'm not sure I can agree that it is Microsoft's job to test third-party products for this sort of problem; they aren't in a position to do so efficiently.
The company isn't exactly promoting XP anymore, so if XP isn't left in a perfect state for posterity I doubt they'll spend too many resources worrying about it.
Hey, I'm at least as paranoid as the next guy, but it really does seem you're assuming your conclusion and arguing backwards here.
I don't believe Microsoft want this sort of PR. Rightly or wrongly, it reflects not just on XP but on Windows and ultimately their entire product line.
As to the malware, I see it as an implicit way of blaming the users
Not my intention.
You admit Windows' design was suboptimal for security purposes, but on the other hand you haven't fully deduced where the blame belongs.
Microsoft, obviously, but we're talking about decisions made decades ago. I don't know how much blame we can reasonably assign them for not foreseeing that far in advance the extent to which malware is now a problem.
No one else we know about has enough control and visibility over the entire situation to take the steps to prevent malware from messing with system internals.
You seem to be assuming that Microsoft could fix Windows more or less easily and are choosing not to. I'm not an operating system expert, but I understand enough to be reasonably sure that there is no feasible fix. Eventually we'll have to dump Windows and replace it with something completely new, and the sooner the better. But in the meantime it is in Microsoft's interest (and in the interest of their customers) for them to do the best they can with what they've got.
Vista's design features may seem like revolutionary advances right now,
I wouldn't go that far. But I gather they have taken some steps towards improving the way operating system file versioning is handled, which should address some of the underlying frailties of prior versions.
It's not a coincidence that any *new* problems that the current version is quietly introducing aren't emphasized until the next upgrade cycle.
Are you honestly suggesting that Microsoft are deliberately introducing new problems?
Specifically in the case of Vista you don't seem concerned that its piggish size will be the source of future problems
Performance and system requirements aside, I don't see disk space or memory utilization as an inherent problem. What sort of issue are you anticipating? Of course, complexity is a problem, but presumably most of the extra stuff is just candy - not likely to have a significant impact on the underlying stability.
or excuses because you are a "true believer" that its genial new features will be e
I forgot to mention - there is an old saying that odd-numbered Windows service packs are bad news. Certainly Windows 2000 service pack 3 (IIRC) was a dog, and perhaps Windows XP service pack 3 will go down in history much the same way; we'll have to wait and see.
Personally, I'm guessing that Windows XP service pack 3 will eventually be just as stable as sp2 is. That doesn't mean I'd recommend installing it right now! Wait a few months for the device drivers and application software to catch up; for that matter, Microsoft haven't ironed out all the sp3 related kinks in Windows Update yet, never mind in products like Windows Live.
What service pack 3 does do is fix a significant number of bugs. Only some of those fixes were already widely released, many could only be obtained on request.
Unfortunately, any major change to an existing Windows installation (such as, say, a service pack) has associated risks. If there's anything wrong with the existing installation, even if it doesn't currently exhibit any symptoms, it may well fall over.
This would include issues such as mismatched CPU drivers, the presence of malware, buggy third party drivers; also, anti-malware products are particularly risky because by design they subvert the proper operation of the OS.
Windows is just too big and complex for something like installing a service pack to be a completely safe operation. I don't think there is any realistic way Microsoft could fix this - although there are signs that Vista may be an improvement, despite the current growing pains.
The fact that Windows is too complex to be reliable is unfortunate, and I'd really like to see Windows retired sooner rather than later, preferably in favour of a brand new operating system built from the ground up with today's security threats in mind. However, this isn't likely to be feasible in the foreseeable future because of the huge base of existing software. It certainly isn't a feasible strategy for Microsoft as a for-profit company!
It may also be worth pointing out that (according to TFA) folks had this exact same issue when service pack 2 came out, so it isn't as if HP's configuration wasn't already known to cause problems.
To the best of my knowledge, provided the application was coded properly in the first place, UAC shouldn't present more than trivial issues.
Question 1 would be: what happened in Windows XP when a non-administrative user account tried to use the application? If the answer is "it didn't work" then the app was already broken and UAC is just helping to encourage you to fix it.
However, I'm not a real-world programmer, so perhaps I've missed something; do you have any specific examples you can present?
And this is a problem why exactly? That's what the application is for. If you don't want your users to be able to change the BCD settings, don't install the app.
This is a good point, and it may be worth highlighting the fact that Microsoft isn't a homogeneous entity. The OS team seem (in general) to be fairly competent, but sometimes they're let down by others
Technically, Local System isn't a user; it's a security principle. Doesn't make any difference to your point, of course, but hey, I love to nitpick.
"free: 2 adv.) without cost or payment" - The New Zealand Pocket Oxford Dictionary
The fact that the FSF like to use the phrase "free software" in one particular way doesn't invalidate the other definitions.
To me, this looks like a perfect example of UAC doing exactly what it was designed to do; forcing developers to write software that will run for non-administrative users. Heck, we read about it here just a few weeks ago:
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/12/006242
As far as I know Microsoft haven't said anything about this, but it wouldn't be surprising to see a version of Windows in a few years that by default creates a non-administrative account during setup and encourages the home user to use that one for day-to-day activities. UAC is just a first step towards making that feasible.
"Is this a problem for the users or the ISPs ?"
Both, I'd say. But it's the ISP that gets to make the decisions.
"Isn't reinvesting in your business the way you actually grow your business [...]"
Putting extra money in for no extra money out isn't generally a good investment.
Electrictoy got it exactly right: this isn't Harry Potter. Capital investments still have to be paid for, even if you ignore the ongoing maintenance costs; money isn't free.
The bottom line is that costs increase with bandwidth. Unless your ISP was overcharging, they'll have to charge more if they want to increase the total available bandwidth, or go bankrupt.
"[...] they deserve what they will get as soon as fiber oversells cable by provide what people actually want [...]"
If fibre is the cheaper technology, it's inevitable that it will eventually take over. All the more reason for cable providers not to over-invest in an obsolete system!
Over here (New Zealand) most home broadband is ADSL, and the bandwidth bottleneck isn't in the last mile but rather the upstream connections. The same economics still apply; all the upstream bandwidth has to be paid for, so in the absence of caps, charges would have to increase.