>How much malware originates in Russia? Quite a bit. If Windows goes away and is replaced by Russian Linux the Russian hackers will simply change to a new target.
No, they will be too afraid to make Putin very angry:-)
And it will also mean that money stays in Russia to benefit domestic software industry. And freedom from a foreign monopoly means more for the Russian government than freedom of software. I think that this decision is purely practical. I also expect some serious "lobbying" from Microsoft's side any time soon.
Ahh... Evil Microsoft gets in the way of evil Russian government and something glorious might arise to benefit Linux and Free Software as a whole. An example of double negative to make one positive:-)
Precisely, it has been cheaper for many years to buy off the entire government than to pay taxes. No oligarch is free of guilt in that aspect. Why only Khodorkovsky is behind the bars is a different story though. I think the while the others (except for the fugitive Berezovsky) chose to share some of their wealth and surrender most of their former powers which they have acquired under Yeltsins anarchy, Khodorkovsky has tried to play politician instead and counter Putins rise. He lost.
Established trees or growing trees? I'm not a biologist, but common sense tells me that if a tree mostly consists out of carbon captured from CO2 then a growing tree should capture more of it than an established one.
Did you not find the fact that Obama has received the Nobel Peace Price a week after he declared that thirty thousand additional troops will be deployed to Afghanistan somewhat ironic too?
Oh, and US troops are now longer in Afghanistan than USSR troops were. Ironic again as the USA were the loudest to cry foul about the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. A pity though, that there is no other superpower to train Afghans against US and to give them up to 2000 SAM's.
Great Idea. Also, ban all the people who don't understand the system after it is being explained to them for 5 minutes and you will have best electoral system ever.
>Do you understand the concept of discouragement? The concept of discouragement is "moving the problem some other place". To Subway, maybe? Public buses? Concerts? Other crowded places? You can't screen everyone everywhere, you just can't.
>If there was no screening, then I would anticipate the frequency with which these attacks occurred would go up; do you disagree with this? I do, in fact, disagree with this. First, we don't see bombers exploding themselves in crowded lines before screening at the airports which they could do with almost zero hassle, but no less publicity. Second, security can be made differently, see Israeli airports. They don't do security theatre, they do security. Last but not least, if a terrorist attack occurs I'd like to live in a society that can deal with it without hysteria by the media and without politics appealing to fear, rage and vengeance. The point of terrorism is to spread fear, a society which does not bow to the fear is immune to such a threat. Face it - resulting hysteria deals much more damage than any terrorist attack would ever do.
>you are free to stay at home or travel by ground. Freedom of movement and freedom to travel mean more than just being able to walk some place. And I am not exercising my freedom to travel to the fullest if the only freedom I have is that I am "free to stay at home or travel by ground".
>Use of hyperbole ("disturbing and embarrassing") It is not a hyperbole. I insist on carefully picking persons who are allowed to touch my genitalia and I'd like it to stay this way.
Everything comes at a price. In order to be civilized, a society has to accept some risk. Similar as everyone accepts the risk of being hit by a car in order to be able to use advanced means of transportation a society has to accept the (mathematically negligible) risk of terrorist attacks in order to maintain essential freedoms which are vital and beneficial to a healthy community. A country where children are routinely touched in a disturbing and embarrassing way by strangers in uniforms does not fit my definition of a free land. And I don't believe that was the only occasion of a child being subjected to such pat-downs. With logic like yours, TSA should issue strict rectal controls because a terrorist might as likely shove some explosives up his or her ass. Oh, and no exceptions for children in that regard, too, terrorists could use them too.
When I was working for Siemens, we had to use IE6 which is a major PITA as you can imagine. So I get and theme Firefox mobile. No one has spotted the difference while I was working there.
Yet as parents go, I still prefer installing Linux and explaining them the basics. And no, it's not harder for them neither to install (I do it anyway, no matter the OS) nor to use (Web pages here, chat there, photos in this folder). Should problems occur, I've set up reverse SSH with VNC port forwarding -- I live in a different country so that's an important thing for me. As for threat like these -- I don't think we'll see something similar for Linux for the next years to come. Be it because of small market share as some people claim -- I don't care. Here and now my parents are safe and I don't see the situation changing soon. In fact, Linux is participating in arms' race for a long time -- there is simply no sword to hit its ever-improving shield.
>Would people raise hell over it? No, because it won't annoy the people. Pilots? Maybe, but not passengers. Ok, some politics would cry foul about how the USA is copying old USSR flying security rules (which the USA ultimately did) but that's about it. If this measure would be combined with less annoyances at the airports it would be outright welcomed by most people who fly regularly. >Would any terrorist be caught by such a measure? No, such measure would just render plane attacks useless which is exactly the point.
I've read the protocols from Potsdam and Yalta conferences. He sure was a reasonable man as far as foreign politics goes. Even the Churchill acknowledges it. I failed to see the baby-eating monster with unlimited lust for power. Having survived the most devastating war in the history of mankind, having fought on Russian soil against best army of the time supported up by whole European industry, Soviet government naturally wanted to have buffer states just in case next war happens. Strict Soviet control over buffer counties' governments was needed at the time because said countries were aiding Hitler during WWII, having either been occupied (Poland), surrendered without a fight (Czech Republic) or being allies (Hungary, Slovakia).
As for lust for power -- Stalin didn't insist on keeping Austria or Denmark occupied by Red Army although he could easily do so.
Keep in mind that there is a great deal of bias and outright lies about him with Soviet sources being the least reliable ones. Khrushchev has been caught using Goebbel's propaganda pamphlets as stated facts against Stalin in order to achieve his own political goals.
By today's standards, his rule was cruel, despotic and oppressive. Times and people were different back then though. Still, Russia went the whole way from being backward agrarian country torn apart by a civil war to industrial and economic power able to win a world war against whole Europe.
Slashdot Mirror
>How much malware originates in Russia? Quite a bit. If Windows goes away and is replaced by Russian Linux the Russian hackers will simply change to a new target.
No, they will be too afraid to make Putin very angry :-)
Don't confuse him with Yeltsin, from what I've heard, he doesn't like vodka much and enjoys macho outdoor activities more than drinking.
And it will also mean that money stays in Russia to benefit domestic software industry. And freedom from a foreign monopoly means more for the Russian government than freedom of software. I think that this decision is purely practical. I also expect some serious "lobbying" from Microsoft's side any time soon.
Federal Security Service it is. FSB is the Russian variant. It's the same with KGB which actually stands for Committee of State Security.
For some reason such abbreviations are not translated to English properly. Perhaps they look more evil that way.
Ahh... :-)
Evil Microsoft gets in the way of evil Russian government and something glorious might arise to benefit Linux and Free Software as a whole. An example of double negative to make one positive
Precisely, it has been cheaper for many years to buy off the entire government than to pay taxes. No oligarch is free of guilt in that aspect. Why only Khodorkovsky is behind the bars is a different story though.
I think the while the others (except for the fugitive Berezovsky) chose to share some of their wealth and surrender most of their former powers which they have acquired under Yeltsins anarchy, Khodorkovsky has tried to play politician instead and counter Putins rise. He lost.
Established trees or growing trees? I'm not a biologist, but common sense tells me that if a tree mostly consists out of carbon captured from CO2 then a growing tree should capture more of it than an established one.
Did you not find the fact that Obama has received the Nobel Peace Price a week after he declared that thirty thousand additional troops will be deployed to Afghanistan somewhat ironic too?
Oh, and US troops are now longer in Afghanistan than USSR troops were. Ironic again as the USA were the loudest to cry foul about the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. A pity though, that there is no other superpower to train Afghans against US and to give them up to 2000 SAM's.
Hey, hands off Scroll Lock! On my laptop keyboard it is the top-rightmost (or right-topmost) key, very convenient to use it for yakuake...
I use Caps Lock to switch between my keyboard layouts. Much more convenient than Ctrl-Shift or Alt-Shift combos.
What about compose key?
I have no information that they are withholding the leaks they have received about Chinese government, you?
You set the KDE keyboard layout in systemsettings under Country and Language settings (don't know how it is exactly called in English locale).
Pardon me? I write this from Opensuse 11.3 and layout switcher is right here in tray. You configure it in settings manager and it works fine.
Great Idea. Also, ban all the people who don't understand the system after it is being explained to them for 5 minutes and you will have best electoral system ever.
>Do you understand the concept of discouragement?
The concept of discouragement is "moving the problem some other place". To Subway, maybe? Public buses? Concerts? Other crowded places? You can't screen everyone everywhere, you just can't.
>If there was no screening, then I would anticipate the frequency with which these attacks occurred would go up; do you disagree with this?
I do, in fact, disagree with this. First, we don't see bombers exploding themselves in crowded lines before screening at the airports which they could do with almost zero hassle, but no less publicity.
Second, security can be made differently, see Israeli airports. They don't do security theatre, they do security.
Last but not least, if a terrorist attack occurs I'd like to live in a society that can deal with it without hysteria by the media and without politics appealing to fear, rage and vengeance. The point of terrorism is to spread fear, a society which does not bow to the fear is immune to such a threat. Face it - resulting hysteria deals much more damage than any terrorist attack would ever do.
>you are free to stay at home or travel by ground.
Freedom of movement and freedom to travel mean more than just being able to walk some place. And I am not exercising my freedom to travel to the fullest if the only freedom I have is that I am "free to stay at home or travel by ground".
>Use of hyperbole ("disturbing and embarrassing")
It is not a hyperbole. I insist on carefully picking persons who are allowed to touch my genitalia and I'd like it to stay this way.
Everything comes at a price. In order to be civilized, a society has to accept some risk. Similar as everyone accepts the risk of being hit by a car in order to be able to use advanced means of transportation a society has to accept the (mathematically negligible) risk of terrorist attacks in order to maintain essential freedoms which are vital and beneficial to a healthy community.
A country where children are routinely touched in a disturbing and embarrassing way by strangers in uniforms does not fit my definition of a free land. And I don't believe that was the only occasion of a child being subjected to such pat-downs.
With logic like yours, TSA should issue strict rectal controls because a terrorist might as likely shove some explosives up his or her ass. Oh, and no exceptions for children in that regard, too, terrorists could use them too.
When I was working for Siemens, we had to use IE6 which is a major PITA as you can imagine. So I get and theme Firefox mobile. No one has spotted the difference while I was working there.
Yet as parents go, I still prefer installing Linux and explaining them the basics. And no, it's not harder for them neither to install (I do it anyway, no matter the OS) nor to use (Web pages here, chat there, photos in this folder). Should problems occur, I've set up reverse SSH with VNC port forwarding -- I live in a different country so that's an important thing for me.
As for threat like these -- I don't think we'll see something similar for Linux for the next years to come. Be it because of small market share as some people claim -- I don't care. Here and now my parents are safe and I don't see the situation changing soon. In fact, Linux is participating in arms' race for a long time -- there is simply no sword to hit its ever-improving shield.
>Would people raise hell over it?
No, because it won't annoy the people. Pilots? Maybe, but not passengers. Ok, some politics would cry foul about how the USA is copying old USSR flying security rules (which the USA ultimately did) but that's about it.
If this measure would be combined with less annoyances at the airports it would be outright welcomed by most people who fly regularly.
>Would any terrorist be caught by such a measure?
No, such measure would just render plane attacks useless which is exactly the point.
I've read the protocols from Potsdam and Yalta conferences. He sure was a reasonable man as far as foreign politics goes. Even the Churchill acknowledges it. I failed to see the baby-eating monster with unlimited lust for power.
Having survived the most devastating war in the history of mankind, having fought on Russian soil against best army of the time supported up by whole European industry, Soviet government naturally wanted to have buffer states just in case next war happens. Strict Soviet control over buffer counties' governments was needed at the time because said countries were aiding Hitler during WWII, having either been occupied (Poland), surrendered without a fight (Czech Republic) or being allies (Hungary, Slovakia).
As for lust for power -- Stalin didn't insist on keeping Austria or Denmark occupied by Red Army although he could easily do so.
Keep in mind that there is a great deal of bias and outright lies about him with Soviet sources being the least reliable ones. Khrushchev has been caught using Goebbel's propaganda pamphlets as stated facts against Stalin in order to achieve his own political goals.
By today's standards, his rule was cruel, despotic and oppressive. Times and people were different back then though. Still, Russia went the whole way from being backward agrarian country torn apart by a civil war to industrial and economic power able to win a world war against whole Europe.
It will obviously regrow as you digest it (giving you diabetes and making an average US citizen look thin in comparison to you).
Well, those of us who update their Linux installation should be safe then. Windows is trickier of course with no centralized updates in place.
IIRC, the name has been discovered somewhere in worm's files. Can't find the link though.
As far as freedoms go: opt-in is much better than opt-out.
Storing hash, maybe?