Sadly, that's not a fair assumption. Their definition is something closer to, "anything we don't like, or that might cast the government in a bad light." Also, espionage in the US (and many other countries) is a legal charge which resultingly has to be put through due process.
Meaning no disrespect, you might want to go over your polysci notes again.
"Communism goes hand in hand with Totalitarism" HUH??! Communism (theoretically speaking, i.e. Marxism) is absolutely and utterly at odds with totalitarianism. In fact, democracy was supposed to evolve into communism (through a few steps), and culminate in the dissolution of government. Government by the people, for the people. The problem with communism is that it assumes that if people are equal and happy, avarice, greed, and powerlust will die out. Never going to happen.
You'll notice that I never refered to China as a Communist country in my original post...
Moving on, "They [governments] are not evil, they just have a different method for creating a great country." ...and also... "Again, I don't agree with their methods but I do know they aren't evil."
While it's true that governments may not be inherently evil, they're also not inherently good, and not necessarily interested in creating a good country. Take the Taliban in Afghanistan, for instance; I can't imagine that they have anything other than their own power/money, and the destruction of anyone they hate in mind. They did _not_ forcibly take control to create a happy, egalitarian society.
As a final point, I'd point out that "evil" is a vague term. Wiping out all hints of cultural impurity (a la the cultural revolution) may not have been an evil goal to those doing it, but to me it is, no matter what.
And regardless of all of this, we still have to look at China's record. No matter what comes out of their mouths, the blood on their hands won't wash off easily.
Come on folks. This is the same totalitarian regime that led the slaughter of peaceful protesters in Tiananmen(sp?) Square, then refused to let their media mention that anything happened. This is one-and-a-half steps away from the regime that led the Cultural Revolution. These are ruthless dictators, and they will NOT let free speech occur until the only 'free speech' is in their favour.
This is not news.[1] This is not a change of policy. This is entirely consistent with the Chinese government's way of doing things.
Something you might want to consider then next time your government talks about 'wonderful foreign trade opportunities with China.'
[1] Which isn't to say that I don't think it should have been posted--it's definitely a/. sort of article.
Yeah, got a book for you: "Hacking Exposed!" by Stuar McClure et al. Desppite the exciting title, it's a very clear, concise, and current treatise on how to break into systems, AS WELL AS how to block them out.
There's a lot of stuff deliberately left out of it, along the lines of specific exploits to run on a buffer overflow (if you need it, go write it yourself!), but gives information on general attacks.
For higher security, check out some of the lovely online articles, like the stuff on Sage. The 'securing a Solaris server' is definitely required reading, regardless of your platform.
Re:I suspect this is scientifically invalid
on
Author Unknown
·
· Score: 2
Nonsense! It may be slightly overstated here, but that's more likely to be Jon Katz's fault than the author's.
Writing style or voice is a pretty common and obvious thing, very much like musical style and voice. I heard two bars of a song in a store the other day, and immediately knew it was Mark Knopfler, although I'd never heard the album before. Read Vonnegut and then the "sunscreen" monologue; and figure out why people believed that it was his writing, or wasn't. (It wasn't, and didn't really sound like him, but rather someone entirely different who was influenced by him)
Whether or not you can disguise your writing voice depends on how well you understand _what_ you're trying to disguise. Is it vocabulary, experiences, sentence/paragraph structure, or something else?
It's not infallible, but it's definitely got some pretty rigorous (and effective) methodologies.
Check out Games Domain for Farrah's great series, "The Pink Aisle." She points out quite well just where some of the failings in the current gamers' market are.
Hey, guess what? I can ignore this ranting if I want. Isn't it wonderful? There is nothing at all that Feral Wylde I can do to force me to read, take seriously, or believe his diatribe, no matter how he rants!
Amazing! He was rude, and didn't take away any of my freedoms at all! Remarkable! Astounding!
OK, I did it--I read the whole damned article, silly and verbose as it was.
Let's start at the very beginning: "The Internet has provided individuals with more freedom than they have ever had to express themselves.
Maybe so. I'm not sure it's a given, though.
"But not surprisingly, many people are abusing, thus endangering, their new power.
Many??! How about some, Jon? Or a very few? Sure as hell aren't _many_ people abusing their power.
Besides, if this abuse is endangering their new power, then surely that implies that some sort of cause and effect is in place?
"The idea of taking responsibility for one's words has not taken hold."
Sure it has! The necessary responsibility online is less than in real life, because physical threats aren't an issue online. (NB: If a threat online implies physical violence, then it _leaves_ the exclusively online world and becomes a different issue) As a result, the consequences of responsibility are appropriately lessened. Jail is not appropriate for flamers and trolls. Being moderated down (on/.), ignored, or eventually losing their access are appropriate.
"It makes no sense to construct and maintain commercial websites that exclude most of humanity, or punish them when they try to join communal discussions. Women have a right to speak publicly; so do older people, foreigners, newcomers, newbies."
Of course not! (Actually it occasionally does--looked at any porn sites lately?:-) However, THIS SUPPOSED EXCLUSION IS NOT HAPPENING!
Remember, "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Or a woman. Or an old person. Or a foreigner (unless their command of the language in use is bad, and there seems to be a fairly high degree of tolerance for that). Or a newcomer.
But, if someone comes into a generic discussion and tries to remake it into their own by saying, "I am a woman, we will now discuss how this pertains to women;" or, "I am a senior, why aren't you talking about how this related to seniors?;" then they get what they deserve. Similarly for newbies. Remember the term originated as meaning a newcomer who didn't bother to read the ground rules or find out how things actually worked.
"Should we be concerned that entire social groups - women, newcomers - don't feel welcome here?" Well of course, if that were the case. I don't see it, though. I regularly find that women consider the 'net to be far more liberating and welcoming than the old boys clubs of real life.
"And perhaps most importantly, are people responsible for what they say? Should they be held accountable online, as they are off, for assaultive, hostile communication and other behavior that restricts access, free speech and the free exchange of information and opinion?"
In order; Yes, they are, yes they should, and assaultive [sic] communication doesn't restrict any freedoms except for those of the assaulter.
Let's go through this in detail. Someone, let's call her Jane, posts something indicating her gender. Someone else, John, calls her a snivelling feminist bitch. Jane gets upset and contacts John's service provider. Now the questions for the reader are:
1) Who has lost any freedoms? 2) Who is being held responsible for their actions? Bonus) Essay question: Why is there any assumed implication of freedom for anyone online?
The point is: LIFE IS HOSTILE! People are hostile! Life online may be _slightly_ more verbally hostile than real life, but this is a result of people not being able to threaten physical harm. Without that threat, people can more easily ignore flames and 'abuse.'
Finally, two minor points:
"America is one of the most censorious countries in the world, blocking open discussion of many religious and political issues and increasingly deploying a whole industry of censorship technologies - blocking and filtering programs, V-Chips, insanely quixotic and unworkable ratings systems - to try and curb the very freedom it celebrates."
This is just so much bullshit. It's a sign of freedom that whenever the state suggests curbing that freedom, people jump up and down about censorship, etc. If they were REALLY censorious, then you wouldn't be able to complain about it. You'd either not know that the censorship existed, or you'd be dead.
Also... "the Net is the freest medium in American life, and the freest in its history." I got to this point of the article, and suddenly realised that as a Canadian, this article wasn't written about me. How exclusive! How appalling to cut out the entire population of the world, except for one moderately sized (population-wise)country! Oh, isn't that what we were doing to women, old people, newbies, and foreigners a few paragraphs ago?
Sheesh Jon, get a grip. Better yet, get a backbone. If you're going to get PAID to write dreck like this, expect people to take issue with you. Especially, people who have far more intelligent things to say, but aren't being paid for it.
Ah yes, of course. All atheists are rude, and all non-christians should be shunned.
Speaking of pushing an agenda, I have to ask why you're the only one (so far) who has read this 'slant' on Jon's article? Could it be that your own, aggressively pro-Christian agenda is affecting your interpretation?
Bah. As the (almost) 35 year old sysadmin, I find that 14 year olds are only about twice as noisy as the online populace at large. If you could point at a single age group to ignore, it would probably be the 19-22 year olds who haven't got laid yet.:-)
Point is, there are intelligent 14 year olds and idiotic 35 year old sysadmins, and everything else everywhere.
OK, since you asked, the least I can do is answer.
1) On any computer I've used IE on (usually NT-based, I'll admit) the browser has frozen up for 10 seconds to two minutes at a time. Worse, it locks up the ENTIRE COMPUTER! Netscape has never done that to me. 2) Netscape crashes far less for me than IE. This seems to be a case of, 'your mileage may vary.' 3) Fonts? I don't have any problems with fonts. They look the same in both browsers. 4) IE5 may have finally started following some standards. IE4, in its day, was the single worst browser available for the W3C and CSS standards. Regardless, the latest version of both are pretty weak. MS was, last time I checked, trying harder than Netscape to push its own non-standard HTML extensions as well.
But it's all splitting hairs. Both are poor, bloated, slow browsers. Opera and Mozilla can't come fast enough for me.
OK, so what if they copied the file?! How about if I change my analogy to use water soluble paint instead?
What, on the other hand, if the crackers decided to rootkit the system, then cp index.html to index.html.bak, so it _appeared_ to be a harmless prank?
If a site has been compromised, the usual (and proper) course of action is to rebuild from trusted tapes. None of this affects the original point, though, which is this:
Vandalism, regardless of the financial consequences, is still vandalism. Similarly, theft is still theft. Both cause harm, both destroy trust, and both break down open and free dialog.
"One of the few things that large corporations listen to is public embarassment. When people privately tell microsoft of a security flaw they've discovered, MS just sits on its hands until it gets leaked publicly."
True 'nuff. OK, how about a week grace period after the private mail, and then public disclosure on Bugtraq or the like? There are perfectly acceptable ways of letting the victim and the community know about security breaches, other than defacement. Let's be honest; How many crackers are going to say to themselves (regardless of what they say to the media), "I feel morally required to deface this page to illustrate serious security bugs that took me three weeks of work to discover." Now how many are going to say, "C00l! I br0k3 it! I AM 31LEET D00DZ!!!" (As an aside, I suspect that they really talk like that, even internally:-)
In other words, the end (better security) doesn't justify the means (cracking and vandalism), especially when other equally effective means exist.
"The media has always said: "Be very careful using your credit cards online." That's good advice, but it should have been mentioned that you should be equally careful using it in a resaurant, over the phone, etc.."
This is something I've been fighting with for a while. On the one hand, it's far easier to steal a credit card number in a restaurant or store than it is online. On the other hand, the persistence of information online makes it a more tempting target. You can dig and hack away at (for instance) the Visa site for ages, and if you're careful, not be noticed. If you're successful, you can get a lot more card numbers than in a month of working at a store, and less tracably.
Given that, where are your numbers really safer? The answer is deep in your pocket, unused. Doesn't do a lot of good, does it? That's one of the reasons that the card companies put that $50 liability ceiling in place--to defray the (percieved) risks to the consumer, and encourage use of the cards. If you can prove that the number was stolen through no negligence on your part, then you can usually get that $50 waived.
Media be damned. You are not directly at risk of the consequences of credit card theft. Security breaches and other expensive problems are reflected in the interest rates you pay on the cards. Use your cards in good conscience, keep tabs on your statements (to spot possible theft), and pay your bill off every month, and you'll be about as safe as possible.
Yeah, I guess I do know why they do stuff like that. It doesn't help them in any obvious way, and might "shake consumer confidence." Then again, there's still a (small) part of me that gets outraged when companies cover things up. I'm getting better, though.:-)
While not all crackers are thieves, most are criminals in some form. The hotmail crackers you mention are vandals. If they want to be known as something other than criminals, then they could privately email Hotmail with the details of their security flaw. Even this would be in a grey area.
Honestly, my apartment security sucks compared to, say, Intel's fab plants. Does that mean that I should thank thieves and vandals for breaking in, stealing my stereo, and destroying my records? Should I appreciate the message they sent my by spray painting my wall with, "Your locks SUCK DOOD!!!"?
There's no reason we should accept that security less than NSA levels is an acceptable invitation to invasion, either physically or cybernetically. Criminal Trespass is indefensible no matter where it takes place.
Well, that 'trillions of dollars a year' is basically their throughput. Their gross income will be substantially less than that. (and their net income less than that, etc.)
But the thing is, $10 million is big enough to be HUGE for the average band of thieves, but maybe small enough for Visa to consider paying instead of hunting for blood. If it was only $1 million, they almost definitely would have paid. If it were $100 million, then the crackers would be hunted to the ends of the earth.
As it is, it sounds like they erred a bit too close to the $100 million mark. Too bad for them.
Shit. Moderated down, because I posted something unpopular. *sigh*
"Linux will never be the most popular desktop OS until it has the best browser."
I personally don't think Linux stands much more than a snowball's chance in hell at becoming the most popular desktop OS (in anything resembling its present form), but your point is well taken. Browsing The Web has been the biggest source of computer sales ever, and Linux is without a decent browser. All I was suggesting is that (a) IE is worse than Netscape (which it definitely is, in my experience), (b) MS isn't likely to port it, and (c) in the time it would take to do so, Mozilla and Opera will both be available.
So yeah, the browser situation for linux sucks, but porting IE isn't going to help anything.
Well if past records are anything to go on, any second now someone will post here about how we should be thanking the crackers for forcing the companies to get their acts together. This will come despite the fact that the crackers are thieves, blackmailers, and dealers (of illegally obtained information).
I wonder how culpable Visa really is in this. I suspect that they had good solid security in place, and that the criminals broke in through some actual code bugs. (i.e. some new buffer overflow, rather than something like poor/no password selection)
I'm not sure what to make of the fact that Visa didn't tell the public, though. That's a bit disturbing.
IE on its native platform (Win, of course) is slow, buggy, crashy, and annoying. Netscape4 may not be much better, but it at least supports CSS passably.
Why would we want to port the worst browser around to linux? This is entirely aside from the fact that (1) MS really REALLY won't want to support anything linux, and (2) they're an evil company:-).
Bite the bullet and wait (and wait, and wait, and wait some more) for Mozilla, or for Opera. Honestly, if web browsing is that important, what difference does the underlying platform make? (other than philosophical ones)
I cannot stress this enough. Do NOT NOT NOT work for any company that does not offer stock options (or some other form of profit sharing) to its technical employees. If they do not, there is something wrong. The tech industry is booming. Working without the possibilty of sharing the success of the business is pure lunacy."
Um, ever hear of a privately owned company? Not every company in existence is publicly traded, or heading in that direction.
You mentioned that the company is offering a trade of salary for options. Take the options!!
Take the options in lieu of salary? NO!!! If a company wants to offer me options, that's nice. It had better not be at a reduction in salary, though. Stock options are an added incentive. Stock options are a temptation. Stock options are NOT a replacement for getting paid.
If they offer a decent salary and throw in options as a sweetener, then take it if you like the job. If they offer stock options and a reduced salary, tell the cheap bastards to push off.
OK, probably no one will read this but I should address it anyways.
You're right--the AOLWatch example was weaker than the others. However, he still saw the biggest merger in the world in terms of his own little world, i.e. was unable to see the Big Picture. Also, in all likelihood, the reason that AOLWatch was filtered was exactly that--the automatic (non-ideological, impersonal) anti-spam filters caught it as being over some threshold. Pretty simple. To suggest anything else without a hint of evidence is simply paranoia.
Slashdot Mirror
"However, trade restrictions generally hurt people on the side that is maintaining the restriction."
Financially, maybe. I don't care. I don't want to get the cheapest product possible if it's going to explicitly support oppression, torture, etc. etc.
Sadly, that's not a fair assumption. Their definition is something closer to, "anything we don't like, or that might cast the government in a bad light." Also, espionage in the US (and many other countries) is a legal charge which resultingly has to be put through due process.
Meaning no disrespect, you might want to go over your polysci notes again.
"Communism goes hand in hand with Totalitarism" HUH??! Communism (theoretically speaking, i.e. Marxism) is absolutely and utterly at odds with totalitarianism. In fact, democracy was supposed to evolve into communism (through a few steps), and culminate in the dissolution of government. Government by the people, for the people. The problem with communism is that it assumes that if people are equal and happy, avarice, greed, and powerlust will die out. Never going to happen.
You'll notice that I never refered to China as a Communist country in my original post...
Moving on, "They [governments] are not evil, they just have a different method for creating a great country."
...and also...
"Again, I don't agree with their methods but I do know they aren't evil."
While it's true that governments may not be inherently evil, they're also not inherently good, and not necessarily interested in creating a good country. Take the Taliban in Afghanistan, for instance; I can't imagine that they have anything other than their own power/money, and the destruction of anyone they hate in mind. They did _not_ forcibly take control to create a happy, egalitarian society.
As a final point, I'd point out that "evil" is a vague term. Wiping out all hints of cultural impurity (a la the cultural revolution) may not have been an evil goal to those doing it, but to me it is, no matter what.
And regardless of all of this, we still have to look at China's record. No matter what comes out of their mouths, the blood on their hands won't wash off easily.
Come on folks. This is the same totalitarian regime that led the slaughter of peaceful protesters in Tiananmen(sp?) Square, then refused to let their media mention that anything happened. This is one-and-a-half steps away from the regime that led the Cultural Revolution. These are ruthless dictators, and they will NOT let free speech occur until the only 'free speech' is in their favour.
/. sort of article.
This is not news.[1] This is not a change of policy. This is entirely consistent with the Chinese government's way of doing things.
Something you might want to consider then next time your government talks about 'wonderful foreign trade opportunities with China.'
[1] Which isn't to say that I don't think it should have been posted--it's definitely a
Yeah, got a book for you: "Hacking Exposed!" by Stuar McClure et al. Desppite the exciting title, it's a very clear, concise, and current treatise on how to break into systems, AS WELL AS how to block them out.
There's a lot of stuff deliberately left out of it, along the lines of specific exploits to run on a buffer overflow (if you need it, go write it yourself!), but gives information on general attacks.
For higher security, check out some of the lovely online articles, like the stuff on Sage. The 'securing a Solaris server' is definitely required reading, regardless of your platform.
Nonsense! It may be slightly overstated here, but that's more likely to be Jon Katz's fault than the author's.
Writing style or voice is a pretty common and obvious thing, very much like musical style and voice. I heard two bars of a song in a store the other day, and immediately knew it was Mark Knopfler, although I'd never heard the album before. Read Vonnegut and then the "sunscreen" monologue; and figure out why people believed that it was his writing, or wasn't. (It wasn't, and didn't really sound like him, but rather someone entirely different who was influenced by him)
Whether or not you can disguise your writing voice depends on how well you understand _what_ you're trying to disguise. Is it vocabulary, experiences, sentence/paragraph structure, or something else?
It's not infallible, but it's definitely got some pretty rigorous (and effective) methodologies.
Check out Games Domain for Farrah's great series, "The Pink Aisle." She points out quite well just where some of the failings in the current gamers' market are.
"Video games appeal to boys more and men more than girls and women."
1) Says who?
2) If so, then why?
I don't necessarily buy (1), and what are the odds that the reason is partly because of the marketing?
Hey, guess what? I can ignore this ranting if I want. Isn't it wonderful? There is nothing at all that Feral Wylde I can do to force me to read, take seriously, or believe his diatribe, no matter how he rants!
Amazing! He was rude, and didn't take away any of my freedoms at all! Remarkable! Astounding!
OK, I did it--I read the whole damned article, silly and verbose as it was.
/.), ignored, or eventually losing their access are appropriate.
:-) However, THIS SUPPOSED EXCLUSION IS NOT HAPPENING!
Let's start at the very beginning:
"The Internet has provided individuals with more freedom than they have ever had to express themselves.
Maybe so. I'm not sure it's a given, though.
"But not surprisingly, many people are abusing, thus endangering, their new power.
Many??! How about some, Jon? Or a very few?
Sure as hell aren't _many_ people abusing their power.
Besides, if this abuse is endangering their new power, then surely that implies that some sort of cause and effect is in place?
"The idea of taking responsibility for one's words has not taken hold."
Sure it has! The necessary responsibility online is less than in real life, because physical threats aren't an issue online. (NB: If a threat online implies physical violence, then it _leaves_ the exclusively online world and becomes a different issue) As a result, the consequences of responsibility are appropriately lessened. Jail is not appropriate for flamers and trolls. Being moderated down (on
"It makes no sense to construct and maintain commercial websites that exclude most of humanity, or punish them when they try to join communal discussions. Women have a right to speak publicly; so do older people, foreigners, newcomers, newbies."
Of course not! (Actually it occasionally does--looked at any porn sites lately?
Remember, "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Or a woman. Or an old person. Or a foreigner (unless their command of the language in use is bad, and there seems to be a fairly high degree of tolerance for that). Or a newcomer.
But, if someone comes into a generic discussion and tries to remake it into their own by saying, "I am a woman, we will now discuss how this pertains to women;" or, "I am a senior, why aren't you talking about how this related to seniors?;" then they get what they deserve. Similarly for newbies. Remember the term originated as meaning a newcomer who didn't bother to read the ground rules or find out how things actually worked.
"Should we be concerned that entire social groups - women, newcomers - don't feel welcome here?"
Well of course, if that were the case. I don't see it, though. I regularly find that women consider the 'net to be far more liberating and welcoming than the old boys clubs of real life.
"And perhaps most importantly, are people responsible for what they say? Should they be held accountable online, as they are off, for assaultive, hostile communication and other behavior that restricts access, free speech and the free exchange of information and opinion?"
In order; Yes, they are, yes they should, and assaultive [sic] communication doesn't restrict any freedoms except for those of the assaulter.
Let's go through this in detail. Someone, let's call her Jane, posts something indicating her gender. Someone else, John, calls her a snivelling feminist bitch. Jane gets upset and contacts John's service provider. Now the questions for the reader are:
1) Who has lost any freedoms?
2) Who is being held responsible for their actions?
Bonus) Essay question: Why is there any assumed implication of freedom for anyone online?
The point is: LIFE IS HOSTILE! People are hostile! Life online may be _slightly_ more verbally hostile than real life, but this is a result of people not being able to threaten physical harm. Without that threat, people can more easily ignore flames and 'abuse.'
Finally, two minor points:
"America is one of the most censorious countries in the world, blocking open discussion of many religious and political issues and increasingly deploying a whole industry of censorship technologies - blocking and filtering programs, V-Chips, insanely quixotic and unworkable ratings systems - to try and curb the very freedom it celebrates."
This is just so much bullshit. It's a sign of freedom that whenever the state suggests curbing that freedom, people jump up and down about censorship, etc. If they were REALLY censorious, then you wouldn't be able to complain about it. You'd either not know that the censorship existed, or you'd be dead.
Also...
"the Net is the freest medium in American life, and the freest in its history."
I got to this point of the article, and suddenly realised that as a Canadian, this article wasn't written about me. How exclusive! How appalling to cut out the entire population of the world, except for one moderately sized (population-wise)country!
Oh, isn't that what we were doing to women, old people, newbies, and foreigners a few paragraphs ago?
Sheesh Jon, get a grip. Better yet, get a backbone. If you're going to get PAID to write dreck like this, expect people to take issue with you. Especially, people who have far more intelligent things to say, but aren't being paid for it.
Ah yes, of course. All atheists are rude, and all non-christians should be shunned.
Speaking of pushing an agenda, I have to ask why you're the only one (so far) who has read this 'slant' on Jon's article? Could it be that your own, aggressively pro-Christian agenda is affecting your interpretation?
Bah. As the (almost) 35 year old sysadmin, I find that 14 year olds are only about twice as noisy as the online populace at large. If you could point at a single age group to ignore, it would probably be the 19-22 year olds who haven't got laid yet. :-)
Point is, there are intelligent 14 year olds and idiotic 35 year old sysadmins, and everything else everywhere.
OK, since you asked, the least I can do is answer.
1) On any computer I've used IE on (usually NT-based, I'll admit) the browser has frozen up for 10 seconds to two minutes at a time. Worse, it locks up the ENTIRE COMPUTER! Netscape has never done that to me.
2) Netscape crashes far less for me than IE. This seems to be a case of, 'your mileage may vary.'
3) Fonts? I don't have any problems with fonts. They look the same in both browsers.
4) IE5 may have finally started following some standards. IE4, in its day, was the single worst browser available for the W3C and CSS standards. Regardless, the latest version of both are pretty weak. MS was, last time I checked, trying harder than Netscape to push its own non-standard HTML extensions as well.
But it's all splitting hairs. Both are poor, bloated, slow browsers. Opera and Mozilla can't come fast enough for me.
Like I said, "bring on the defenders...."
OK, so what if they copied the file?! How about if I change my analogy to use water soluble paint instead?
What, on the other hand, if the crackers decided to rootkit the system, then cp index.html to index.html.bak, so it _appeared_ to be a harmless prank?
If a site has been compromised, the usual (and proper) course of action is to rebuild from trusted tapes. None of this affects the original point, though, which is this:
Vandalism, regardless of the financial consequences, is still vandalism. Similarly, theft is still theft. Both cause harm, both destroy trust, and both break down open and free dialog.
"One of the few things that large corporations listen to is public embarassment. When people privately tell microsoft of a security flaw they've discovered, MS just sits on its hands until it gets leaked publicly."
:-)
True 'nuff. OK, how about a week grace period after the private mail, and then public disclosure on Bugtraq or the like? There are perfectly acceptable ways of letting the victim and the community know about security breaches, other than defacement. Let's be honest; How many crackers are going to say to themselves (regardless of what they say to the media), "I feel morally required to deface this page to illustrate serious security bugs that took me three weeks of work to discover." Now how many are going to say, "C00l! I br0k3 it! I AM 31LEET D00DZ!!!" (As an aside, I suspect that they really talk like that, even internally
In other words, the end (better security) doesn't justify the means (cracking and vandalism), especially when other equally effective means exist.
"The media has always said: "Be very careful using your credit cards online." That's good advice, but it should have been mentioned that you should be equally careful using it in a resaurant, over the phone, etc.."
This is something I've been fighting with for a while. On the one hand, it's far easier to steal a credit card number in a restaurant or store than it is online. On the other hand, the persistence of information online makes it a more tempting target. You can dig and hack away at (for instance) the Visa site for ages, and if you're careful, not be noticed. If you're successful, you can get a lot more card numbers than in a month of working at a store, and less tracably.
Given that, where are your numbers really safer? The answer is deep in your pocket, unused. Doesn't do a lot of good, does it? That's one of the reasons that the card companies put that $50 liability ceiling in place--to defray the (percieved) risks to the consumer, and encourage use of the cards. If you can prove that the number was stolen through no negligence on your part, then you can usually get that $50 waived.
Media be damned. You are not directly at risk of the consequences of credit card theft. Security breaches and other expensive problems are reflected in the interest rates you pay on the cards. Use your cards in good conscience, keep tabs on your statements (to spot possible theft), and pay your bill off every month, and you'll be about as safe as possible.
The scary part is that this statement came from someone doing diagnosis!
Yeah, I guess I do know why they do stuff like that. It doesn't help them in any obvious way, and might "shake consumer confidence." Then again, there's still a (small) part of me that gets outraged when companies cover things up. :-)
I'm getting better, though.
While not all crackers are thieves, most are criminals in some form. The hotmail crackers you mention are vandals. If they want to be known as something other than criminals, then they could privately email Hotmail with the details of their security flaw. Even this would be in a grey area.
Honestly, my apartment security sucks compared to, say, Intel's fab plants. Does that mean that I should thank thieves and vandals for breaking in, stealing my stereo, and destroying my records? Should I appreciate the message they sent my by spray painting my wall with, "Your locks SUCK DOOD!!!"?
There's no reason we should accept that security less than NSA levels is an acceptable invitation to invasion, either physically or cybernetically. Criminal Trespass is indefensible no matter where it takes place.
Well, that 'trillions of dollars a year' is basically their throughput. Their gross income will be substantially less than that. (and their net income less than that, etc.)
But the thing is, $10 million is big enough to be HUGE for the average band of thieves, but maybe small enough for Visa to consider paying instead of hunting for blood. If it was only $1 million, they almost definitely would have paid. If it were $100 million, then the crackers would be hunted to the ends of the earth.
As it is, it sounds like they erred a bit too close to the $100 million mark. Too bad for them.
Shit. Moderated down, because I posted something unpopular. *sigh*
"Linux will never be the most popular desktop OS until it has the best browser."
I personally don't think Linux stands much more than a snowball's chance in hell at becoming the most popular desktop OS (in anything resembling its present form), but your point is well taken. Browsing The Web has been the biggest source of computer sales ever, and Linux is without a decent browser. All I was suggesting is that (a) IE is worse than Netscape (which it definitely is, in my experience), (b) MS isn't likely to port it, and (c) in the time it would take to do so, Mozilla and Opera will both be available.
So yeah, the browser situation for linux sucks, but porting IE isn't going to help anything.
Well if past records are anything to go on, any second now someone will post here about how we should be thanking the crackers for forcing the companies to get their acts together. This will come despite the fact that the crackers are thieves, blackmailers, and dealers (of illegally obtained information).
I wonder how culpable Visa really is in this. I suspect that they had good solid security in place, and that the criminals broke in through some actual code bugs. (i.e. some new buffer overflow, rather than something like poor/no password selection)
I'm not sure what to make of the fact that Visa didn't tell the public, though. That's a bit disturbing.
Let's NOT!
:-).
IE on its native platform (Win, of course) is slow, buggy, crashy, and annoying. Netscape4 may not be much better, but it at least supports CSS passably.
Why would we want to port the worst browser around to linux? This is entirely aside from the fact that (1) MS really REALLY won't want to support anything linux, and (2) they're an evil company
Bite the bullet and wait (and wait, and wait, and wait some more) for Mozilla, or for Opera. Honestly, if web browsing is that important, what difference does the underlying platform make? (other than philosophical ones)
I cannot stress this enough. Do NOT NOT NOT work for any company that does not offer stock options (or some other form of profit sharing) to its technical employees. If they do not, there is something wrong. The tech industry is booming. Working without the possibilty of sharing the success of the business is pure lunacy."
Um, ever hear of a privately owned company? Not every company in existence is publicly traded, or heading in that direction.
You mentioned that the company is offering a trade of salary for options. Take the options!!
Take the options in lieu of salary? NO!!! If a company wants to offer me options, that's nice. It had better not be at a reduction in salary, though. Stock options are an added incentive. Stock options are a temptation. Stock options are NOT a replacement for getting paid.
If they offer a decent salary and throw in options as a sweetener, then take it if you like the job. If they offer stock options and a reduced salary, tell the cheap bastards to push off.
OK, probably no one will read this but I should address it anyways.
You're right--the AOLWatch example was weaker than the others. However, he still saw the biggest merger in the world in terms of his own little world, i.e. was unable to see the Big Picture. Also, in all likelihood, the reason that AOLWatch was filtered was exactly that--the automatic (non-ideological, impersonal) anti-spam filters caught it as being over some threshold. Pretty simple. To suggest anything else without a hint of evidence is simply paranoia.