Strongly disagree. If your system can run it, then it can detect is as well.
Certainly, but it isn't as straight forward as you're implying. You're living in the 90s if you think a virus can't be hidden from a virus scanner.
your malware encrypts itself, there must be a loader program that is not encrypted
Yes, but can that loader or the mechanism for installing that loader not change its own instructions by randomly transposing code? Can it not insert NOOPs here and there? Can it not reassign registers and so on? Is it always going to have the same hash/checksum/bytes?
No, no *good* virus will.
Heuristics are the secret sauce of good AV scanners, but that is certainly far from perfect. Otherwise, virus scanners rely on some form of 'virus signature', which is often based on a database of known viruses and checksums. Nearly any changes at all means you're AV is left guessing... And no algorithm is going to be right all of the time, even *if* the changes to the loader or virus are minimal.
The offline approach worked fantastically in the year 2000, but now... the playing field has changed.
We have root kits that embed themselves into alternate data streams, utilize virtualization, employ self-encryption and password protection and randomize what would otherwise be easy-to-detect signatures etc.. Some root kits can *only* be reliably detected if they are actually *running* because they conceal themselves using these techniques. *Even then*, it requires a competent utility with things like stealth detection which look specifically for that behavior of concealing/unconcealing itself. As a result, some of these viruses don't show up in Safe Mode either...
Scanning offline is a good first step if the system is hosed. From my experiences though -- if the system can boot and mostly works -- do whatever scanning you can first while it is online. Use your best judgment as to whether you have mitigated the threat and THEN take it offline for the final clean up.
This is all obviously for attention and is merely a token to the public of Toyota's commitment for being 'green'. The actual 'good' done by planting even an infinite number of flowers around their manufacturer facility is infinitely negligible even on a regional scale.
I just been running a registry cleaner with a ton of results
Keep doing that and you'll have some problems soon enough... I've seen a tremendous amount of harm done by these things and I don't care how 'good' it is, it is going to mess up eventually. When it does, you're going to be wondering where your start bar went or why you're getting some nagging error after opening Windows Explorer.
The worst part is reg scanners don't make your system unbootable where you can just system restore your old registry; rather, it just gradually creeps problems into your install that you never notice until you can't go back far enough to fix them.;)
Yeah, naturally, companies don't want competition. If they *do* have competition, they'll do what they can to 'beat' it. That behavior brings out the best and worst in everything and everyone (the latter is unfortunate, but the prior hopefully makes it worth it).
You see things in a different way no doubt, but I don't have much trouble envisioning a successful MegaCompany in a fresh new market with such an iron hold on goods/services that they simply can't be competed against.
As an example, if MegaCompany has been peddling their stuff for awhile, they already get lots of business, get the best deals, have the most experience, have the most credibility and trust etc... There's a point where that gap becomes so wide that no start up could ever compete with that.
So, if it costs me twice as much to operate, what can I do?
Well, I can try to offer a better product/service. But, it'll be more expensive for me to do that than MegaCompany. Even if I do take a huge risk and spend everything I have to get this off of the ground, MegaCompany will undercut me by offering their own premium service for less. They can do it for less, so why wouldn't they?
I can try to innovate and replace MegaCompany's service/product by offering something that is not only superior, but perhaps a novel alternative. This might work if MegaCompany is resting on their laurels (as many monopolies would do, I'm sure). But any decent, intentional monopoly would still be looking into better ways to do things. As long as the threat of competition exists, this advancement ensures their future. Needless to say, innovation usually costs money though and MegaCompany has plenty of money, so they could already hire the 'best and brightest' who will be R&Ding in cutting edge facilities with plenty of resources. I might have some exceptional ideas, but there is a far greater chance *their* exceptional ideas will come first... and they have the capital to make sure they become reality first too.
I can offer the same or better service or product they do in a different area. Unfortunately, if MegaCompany is already well established, they can just plop down a new store or facility to undercut me if they choose to. I'm at their mercy in this respect.
What's left? Well, I could get lucky and discover something that replaces MegaCompany's product/service that is superior. I don't have as much funding or the best people working on new ideas, but I *might* be able to discover something that MegaCompany has missed with all of their resources.. I really don't like the odds though.
And perhaps, without competition, MegaCompany may be screwing up with enormously high prices or really bad service.. That might give me an 'in' as a startup. However, when I do start competing against MegaCompany, they have the advantage on practically everything. If they want to compete with me based on service or compete me with based on price, then they aren't going to have a problem doing that. Everything in capitalism revolves around money and whoever has the most money CAN offer the best service, the best price and the best products. Not every company does, but they CAN and any MegaCompany with competent leadership will ensure that they do so that no one else is able to compete in that market.
The *threat* of competition may help keep MegaCompany in check. They'll offer reasonable prices and decent products... just enough to undercut competition. But it'll never be as good as if we had real, viable choices. I also suppose a benevolent monopoly probably wouldn't be all that bad. You'd get the best prices and the best service etc... and they would spend their excess on innovation and all that jazz, but we all know that won't happen and what you get is incredibly rich people on top, poor people on the bottom and just enough reasonableness on their pricing, products and service to keep the little guys from competing.
It seems pretty hopeless, IMO. I And sure, know plenty of scenarios aren't like this, but some are... And just one is bad enough. Just imagine if you only had one store (Wal-Mart) or one phone company (AT&T). I *really* don't like the sound of that.
There is no 'natural' monopoly or duopoly. These situations are only created through Government intrusion into the market.
Based on actual history, you speak quite a bit of truth. However, it's not *only* created through government intrusion.
When a company is so successful that it can "get it" and "do it" for less... when a company offers something over an infrastructure that is so expensive and offering a product/service on a huge, national scale is the bar that has been set... That company will be so incredibly entrenched that it will never be rooted out by a startup. Ever.
It's the reason 100% free market capitalism can't work on it's own. It needs a little help from the big G, sometimes.
I totally agree the government effed up in the past and basically made AT&T a monopoly. They also continue to eff up in many ways, but without *some* government regulation, you'd STILL be stuck with AT&T anyway. In fact, their actual goal was to be *the* only telecommunications provider back in the early 1900s as they gobbled up the little companies in buyouts. AT&T would have been able to do it too, even without the government's help. I have no reason to believe AT&T or any other company in that position would feel any differently about the Internet.
To be fair, MojoRilla's argument was it's one of the "best smartphones out there", not the highest quality and certainly not the most reliable.
The iPhone has managed to put itself in the hands of many people who've never had a very nice phone, so I think the iPhone is far better quality than a large portion of its user base is used to and comparable to other phones in its class.
For what it is worth, I believe Apple's selling points are in this order: Features, quality, price (the last two are very close, for better or worse). On the flip side, I feel many computer manufacturers are price first, features second, quality third. But of course, most companies have 'cheap' and 'expensive' lines of computers, so that varies. One thing I can say though, is Apple support is far superior to any support you'll get from another computer manufacturer these days.
Although the GP may not realize that they use the same kernels (Even if there are some artificial limitations for lesser versions), I think it is fair to accept the very idea of using XP/Vista *Home* signifies Infoworld's failure to produce a meaningful analysis.
However, Infoworld did in fact use XP Professional and Vista Ultimate, so there isn't much of a discussion to be had.:-(
They didn't use XP and Vista Home editions in this test. It was XP Professional and Vista Ultimate.
"For this review, we used three identical hard drives, each preloaded by Dell with the latest versions of Windows XP Professional, Vista Ultimate, and Windows 7 Ultimate -- all 32-bit -- with the latest drivers the company makes available."
It is NO surprise that a study finds Alzheimer's related to lack of sleep. I'm sure almost any study done for nearly any negative ailment could be linked to sleep deprivation in the exact, same way.
It could make sense that insects would evolve out of this oleic acid immunity behavior, but at what cost? Would ants no longer carry their dead? Would roaches no longer avoid disease stricken roaches? Etc...
In a way though, you've contradicted yourself. To summarize, you said through natural selection, insects will evolve around avoiding oleic acids because their survival depends on it. Your argument afterward is that diseases that will spread on a massive scale as a result which I'm thinking would have a far worse result.
How would natural selection be able to allow this immunity of "stinky" oleic acid if it results in the death of those insects that require it? Or more broadly, why would evolution develop a particular trait which allows the thriving success of a species at the nearly imminent cost of its survival? I'm sure there are examples, but mathematically speaking, it would be like sacrificing your Bishop to take a Pawn. *does not compute*
Sure, not being able to feed on our crops will further limit the size of insect populations, but the species will survive. I'm sure there would be exceptions and those exceptions will be met with another form of insecticide or repellent and so on.. as has been done for many centuries.
So, in short, I'm sure the absolute *survival* of many insect species does not *depend* on our crops. It's a big planet and not insects need to stick to a strict diet of corn, soybeans etc... Sure, the population may have to be reduced, but so is the "S" curve of life.
I learned this while watching an episode of Nova...
An individual who had spent the better part of his long career researching ants applied oleic acid to a living ant. Surrounding ants swarmed it and began to carry it toward the nest (as ants supposedly do with their dead).
If this is the case, this obviously isn't the end-all solution to repelling insects that the summary makes it out to be. I also imagine ants aren't the only insects that come back for their dead.
I found some supportive information of my claim here.
Yeah. I do believe it is fine to borrow from yourself (especially when the ideas are good). They've certainly been doing that, but I have the feeling a little *too* much is going to be bad for the game. Many of the skills and even the classes are reminiscent of Warcraft and previous versions of Diablo (as you mentioned).
For example, the Barbarian has a skill called "Ground Stomp" does the exact same thing that "War stomp" does in Warcraft III. And once again, the "Seismic Slam" ability is identical to the Tauren Chieftan's "Shock wave" ability... See what they did there? Seismic... shock wave.. har har...:-)
Yes, the Hellfire expansion has a Monk class. As much as I've been a Blizz fan over the years, I actually never owned Hellfire. I wonder if there are any similarities?
In all honesty, I'm sure I'll still like the game even if they borrow HEAVILY from the past. I know it's tough, but I'm just amazed that Blizzard's talent would choose to recycle so much instead of coming up with fresh material in its place. Based on their track record though, I can only assume they know what they are doing.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Why are you so hard on W|A? Wolfram Alpha answers LOTS of extremely important questions!
Query: What is the speed of an unladen swallow?
Answer: "there is unfortunately insufficient data to estimate the velocity of an African swallow (even if you specified which of the 47 species of swallow found in Africa you meant)"
Query: What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
Answer: 42
Query: Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Answer: Not sure, but wherever she is, it isn't here.
Query: When is judgement day?
Answer: "2:14 am EDT | Friday, August 29, 1997"
Query: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound??
Answer: "No. Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound."
Query: Can entropy be reversed?
Answer: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
Query: who would win in a fight: pirates or ninjas?
Answer: "The answer remains an ongoing debate which Wolfram|Alpha is not in a position to arbitrate."
Strongly disagree. If your system can run it, then it can detect is as well.
Certainly, but it isn't as straight forward as you're implying. You're living in the 90s if you think a virus can't be hidden from a virus scanner.
your malware encrypts itself, there must be a loader program that is not encrypted
Yes, but can that loader or the mechanism for installing that loader not change its own instructions by randomly transposing code? Can it not insert NOOPs here and there? Can it not reassign registers and so on? Is it always going to have the same hash/checksum/bytes?
No, no *good* virus will.
Heuristics are the secret sauce of good AV scanners, but that is certainly far from perfect. Otherwise, virus scanners rely on some form of 'virus signature', which is often based on a database of known viruses and checksums. Nearly any changes at all means you're AV is left guessing... And no algorithm is going to be right all of the time, even *if* the changes to the loader or virus are minimal.
The offline approach worked fantastically in the year 2000, but now... the playing field has changed.
We have root kits that embed themselves into alternate data streams, utilize virtualization, employ self-encryption and password protection and randomize what would otherwise be easy-to-detect signatures etc.. Some root kits can *only* be reliably detected if they are actually *running* because they conceal themselves using these techniques. *Even then*, it requires a competent utility with things like stealth detection which look specifically for that behavior of concealing/unconcealing itself. As a result, some of these viruses don't show up in Safe Mode either...
Scanning offline is a good first step if the system is hosed. From my experiences though -- if the system can boot and mostly works -- do whatever scanning you can first while it is online. Use your best judgment as to whether you have mitigated the threat and THEN take it offline for the final clean up.
It might be a good idea to take the pancreas too...
Now, if only it could warm your fingers which would be frozen so stiff they'd be useless for typing. :-)
This is all obviously for attention and is merely a token to the public of Toyota's commitment for being 'green'. The actual 'good' done by planting even an infinite number of flowers around their manufacturer facility is infinitely negligible even on a regional scale.
How *ever* do we intend to qualify everyone in the U.S. populace as a terrorist if we can't even keep up with the rate of population growth?
Slackers!
At this rate, I'll take nearly 5 centuries to burn our current citizenry at the stake. I'm sure we'll have many more people by then...
I just been running a registry cleaner with a ton of results
Keep doing that and you'll have some problems soon enough... I've seen a tremendous amount of harm done by these things and I don't care how 'good' it is, it is going to mess up eventually. When it does, you're going to be wondering where your start bar went or why you're getting some nagging error after opening Windows Explorer.
;)
The worst part is reg scanners don't make your system unbootable where you can just system restore your old registry; rather, it just gradually creeps problems into your install that you never notice until you can't go back far enough to fix them.
Navigon. 1.2GB
Yeah, naturally, companies don't want competition. If they *do* have competition, they'll do what they can to 'beat' it. That behavior brings out the best and worst in everything and everyone (the latter is unfortunate, but the prior hopefully makes it worth it).
You see things in a different way no doubt, but I don't have much trouble envisioning a successful MegaCompany in a fresh new market with such an iron hold on goods/services that they simply can't be competed against.
As an example, if MegaCompany has been peddling their stuff for awhile, they already get lots of business, get the best deals, have the most experience, have the most credibility and trust etc... There's a point where that gap becomes so wide that no start up could ever compete with that.
So, if it costs me twice as much to operate, what can I do?
Well, I can try to offer a better product/service. But, it'll be more expensive for me to do that than MegaCompany. Even if I do take a huge risk and spend everything I have to get this off of the ground, MegaCompany will undercut me by offering their own premium service for less. They can do it for less, so why wouldn't they?
I can try to innovate and replace MegaCompany's service/product by offering something that is not only superior, but perhaps a novel alternative. This might work if MegaCompany is resting on their laurels (as many monopolies would do, I'm sure). But any decent, intentional monopoly would still be looking into better ways to do things. As long as the threat of competition exists, this advancement ensures their future. Needless to say, innovation usually costs money though and MegaCompany has plenty of money, so they could already hire the 'best and brightest' who will be R&Ding in cutting edge facilities with plenty of resources. I might have some exceptional ideas, but there is a far greater chance *their* exceptional ideas will come first... and they have the capital to make sure they become reality first too.
I can offer the same or better service or product they do in a different area. Unfortunately, if MegaCompany is already well established, they can just plop down a new store or facility to undercut me if they choose to. I'm at their mercy in this respect.
What's left? Well, I could get lucky and discover something that replaces MegaCompany's product/service that is superior. I don't have as much funding or the best people working on new ideas, but I *might* be able to discover something that MegaCompany has missed with all of their resources.. I really don't like the odds though.
And perhaps, without competition, MegaCompany may be screwing up with enormously high prices or really bad service.. That might give me an 'in' as a startup. However, when I do start competing against MegaCompany, they have the advantage on practically everything. If they want to compete with me based on service or compete me with based on price, then they aren't going to have a problem doing that. Everything in capitalism revolves around money and whoever has the most money CAN offer the best service, the best price and the best products. Not every company does, but they CAN and any MegaCompany with competent leadership will ensure that they do so that no one else is able to compete in that market.
The *threat* of competition may help keep MegaCompany in check. They'll offer reasonable prices and decent products... just enough to undercut competition. But it'll never be as good as if we had real, viable choices. I also suppose a benevolent monopoly probably wouldn't be all that bad. You'd get the best prices and the best service etc... and they would spend their excess on innovation and all that jazz, but we all know that won't happen and what you get is incredibly rich people on top, poor people on the bottom and just enough reasonableness on their pricing, products and service to keep the little guys from competing.
It seems pretty hopeless, IMO. I And sure, know plenty of scenarios aren't like this, but some are... And just one is bad enough. Just imagine if you only had one store (Wal-Mart) or one phone company (AT&T). I *really* don't like the sound of that.
There is no 'natural' monopoly or duopoly. These situations are only created through Government intrusion into the market.
Based on actual history, you speak quite a bit of truth. However, it's not *only* created through government intrusion.
When a company is so successful that it can "get it" and "do it" for less... when a company offers something over an infrastructure that is so expensive and offering a product/service on a huge, national scale is the bar that has been set... That company will be so incredibly entrenched that it will never be rooted out by a startup. Ever.
It's the reason 100% free market capitalism can't work on it's own. It needs a little help from the big G, sometimes.
I totally agree the government effed up in the past and basically made AT&T a monopoly. They also continue to eff up in many ways, but without *some* government regulation, you'd STILL be stuck with AT&T anyway. In fact, their actual goal was to be *the* only telecommunications provider back in the early 1900s as they gobbled up the little companies in buyouts. AT&T would have been able to do it too, even without the government's help. I have no reason to believe AT&T or any other company in that position would feel any differently about the Internet.
Consider NPR a private organization with a (very small) government subsidy. Does everything with a subsidy automatically become public domain?
I think the GP was making the point that some 'evils' are greater than others.
Obviously though, if you want to choose the greatest evil, always go for the option with Cthulhu.
To be fair, MojoRilla's argument was it's one of the "best smartphones out there", not the highest quality and certainly not the most reliable.
The iPhone has managed to put itself in the hands of many people who've never had a very nice phone, so I think the iPhone is far better quality than a large portion of its user base is used to and comparable to other phones in its class.
For what it is worth, I believe Apple's selling points are in this order: Features, quality, price (the last two are very close, for better or worse). On the flip side, I feel many computer manufacturers are price first, features second, quality third. But of course, most companies have 'cheap' and 'expensive' lines of computers, so that varies. One thing I can say though, is Apple support is far superior to any support you'll get from another computer manufacturer these days.
As much sense as that makes and as true as it may be, those who exploit will always be one step ahead of those who patch the exploits.
Har har har....
Although the GP may not realize that they use the same kernels (Even if there are some artificial limitations for lesser versions), I think it is fair to accept the very idea of using XP/Vista *Home* signifies Infoworld's failure to produce a meaningful analysis.
:-(
However, Infoworld did in fact use XP Professional and Vista Ultimate, so there isn't much of a discussion to be had.
"For this review, we used three identical hard drives, each preloaded by Dell with the latest versions of Windows XP Professional, Vista Ultimate, and Windows 7 Ultimate -- all 32-bit -- with the latest drivers the company makes available."
Indeed. So much work with my lightning catcher for nothing. Well, time to go back to the human reanimation experiment.
I find human DEanimation is much easier. Perhaps you should start with that and see where it leads.
"Surreal" Vegetarian Spider Found -- A First
"Though the spider does occasionally snack on ant larvae, the bulk of their diet is plants" -- Meehan said.
"Vegetarian Spider" results: 118
"Omnivore Spider" results: 2 (both unrelated)
Are they vegetarian? Absolutely not. But it sounds good.
... aaaand ATI has done the same thing at least a couple of times.
The question is probably more easily answered if asked, "Who *doesn't* cheat?". http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20030526040035.html
It is NO surprise that a study finds Alzheimer's related to lack of sleep. I'm sure almost any study done for nearly any negative ailment could be linked to sleep deprivation in the exact, same way.
That doesn't *have* to necessarily be true.
It could make sense that insects would evolve out of this oleic acid immunity behavior, but at what cost? Would ants no longer carry their dead? Would roaches no longer avoid disease stricken roaches? Etc...
In a way though, you've contradicted yourself. To summarize, you said through natural selection, insects will evolve around avoiding oleic acids because their survival depends on it. Your argument afterward is that diseases that will spread on a massive scale as a result which I'm thinking would have a far worse result.
How would natural selection be able to allow this immunity of "stinky" oleic acid if it results in the death of those insects that require it? Or more broadly, why would evolution develop a particular trait which allows the thriving success of a species at the nearly imminent cost of its survival? I'm sure there are examples, but mathematically speaking, it would be like sacrificing your Bishop to take a Pawn. *does not compute*
Sure, not being able to feed on our crops will further limit the size of insect populations, but the species will survive. I'm sure there would be exceptions and those exceptions will be met with another form of insecticide or repellent and so on.. as has been done for many centuries.
So, in short, I'm sure the absolute *survival* of many insect species does not *depend* on our crops. It's a big planet and not insects need to stick to a strict diet of corn, soybeans etc... Sure, the population may have to be reduced, but so is the "S" curve of life.
I learned this while watching an episode of Nova... An individual who had spent the better part of his long career researching ants applied oleic acid to a living ant. Surrounding ants swarmed it and began to carry it toward the nest (as ants supposedly do with their dead). If this is the case, this obviously isn't the end-all solution to repelling insects that the summary makes it out to be. I also imagine ants aren't the only insects that come back for their dead. I found some supportive information of my claim here.
Yeah. I do believe it is fine to borrow from yourself (especially when the ideas are good). They've certainly been doing that, but I have the feeling a little *too* much is going to be bad for the game. Many of the skills and even the classes are reminiscent of Warcraft and previous versions of Diablo (as you mentioned).
:-)
:-)
For example, the Barbarian has a skill called "Ground Stomp" does the exact same thing that "War stomp" does in Warcraft III. And once again, the "Seismic Slam" ability is identical to the Tauren Chieftan's "Shock wave" ability... See what they did there? Seismic... shock wave.. har har...
Yes, the Hellfire expansion has a Monk class. As much as I've been a Blizz fan over the years, I actually never owned Hellfire. I wonder if there are any similarities?
In all honesty, I'm sure I'll still like the game even if they borrow HEAVILY from the past. I know it's tough, but I'm just amazed that Blizzard's talent would choose to recycle so much instead of coming up with fresh material in its place. Based on their track record though, I can only assume they know what they are doing.