My smartphone has MS Office compatible word processor, spreadsheet, and database.
While I don't doubt that your smartphone has these features, I find it highly unlikely that you actually use them for anything non-trivial. Can you honestly say that you create and edit multi-page Word docs and functional spreadsheets? I don't know about you but I find entering more than about five full words (meaning not IM gibberish) to be an almost excruciatingly painful process on a cell phone (smart or otherwise). My thumbs are as good as anyone else's, but come one!
A cell phone or palm device is not a replacement for a PC. Sure, it might work in a pinch, but as far as getting actual work done on an everyday basis there is simply no way it can compete with a PC.
But with there being four in just two years? And no noticeable increase in security? I'm thinking insurance fraud. That, or the theft was planned out to get rid of some incriminating data. Even if it was an inside job unless it was planned by the owner of the company logically you would think they would have done SOMETHING to better protect their business.
Agreed, if I were investigating the break-in the first thing I would start thinking is insurance fraud and inside jobs. I don't know about getting rid of incriminating evidence though, that seems just a little bit outlandish to me. I wouldn't be surprised one bit to hear about this again in a few weeks with a headline like "Owner of Datacenter behind robbery."
Holy crap man! We're talking about a bunch of servers, not Fort Knox. All they really need is a couple of rent-a-cops who will do more than sleep and eat donuts.
The brick and morter is the best thing they have going for them, and they refuse to capitalize on it.
Well you have to look at it from their side of things. To have a brick and mortar store means having significantly higher costs than the Netflix model. Costs like paying retail employee wages (along with any benefits, insurance, and training costs of having them there), property tax, utilities, etc, etc. It's no wonder that they're not investing in their retail infrastructure anymore, they may as well be throwing their money down a rat hole.
Considering that currently most academic institutions don't recognize Wikipedia as a legitimate source (and for good reason as far as I'm concerned), yes, it is a problem. Wikipedia really is a great resource, there are a lot of dedicated authors/editors who try to publish factual, cited, information. However, there are also a lot of people who a.)don't know what they're talking about and have no business writing or editing articles, b.)don't cite their sources, of if they do their sources are questionable at best, and c.) simply show up to deface articles. These are some of the reasons why Wikipedia should not used as a source, and students need to understand this.
Isn't school the place where you CAN make mistakes and teachers will fix them, so that you learn.
No, school is the place where you can make mistakes, and teachers can point them out, so you can fix them yourself and learn not to make the same mistake. I'm not sure where you go to school, but one of the first things that I learned at school was how to recognize a credible source, and Wikipedia does not fall into that category.
As opposed to the rest of the internet which is chock-full of nothing but the highest quality, peer-reviewed content, written universally by the finest experts, hand selected from across the world?
Not everything on the internet is complete crap, it's just a matter of finding the right sources. When I do online research I tend towards.edu,.gov, and.org sites. And honestly, you can usually tell a good source from a bad one just from the way it is written.
Haha, no kidding. I wish it was available when I was in high school (10 years ago), it sure beats hunting down obscure reference books in dusty aisles. I think the last time I used the library was about two years ago, and that was only because the assignment actually required a book reference.
I don't think they understand the fact that nobody is going to cite Wikipedia as a reference for a paper, but Wikipedia does offer great sources that can be used to further explore a subject.
The thing about that is that there are students who actually do try to cite Wikipedia articles as references, I've seen it plenty of times. It usually results in the instructor having to crack down on the practice. I do think though that blocking Wikipedia entirely is overkill, it should just be understood that it does not count as an official source. Wikipedia is a good place to start researching a topic, and I usually end up using one of the external references on a page as a "legitimate source."
The user's lack of education *is* the root problem.
But it's not. Just as you said, there have always been people who will try to rip someone off or to harm others, whether or not the victim is aware of the problem. It's true that an ounce of prevention goes a long way, but there needs to be laws on the books that state that it is not OK to write malicious software. Writing a virus and spreading it with malicious intent is illegal, how is spyware any different? Lets think about what spyware does for a moment. There is spyware out there that masquerades as legitimate software, and then asks the unwitting user for their credit card number and other personal information. It can disable your security settings, change registry entries, etc, etc. I could go on. My point is that spyware can be just as damaging as a virus, the only difference being the method of distribution.
As far as "FTC approved" spyware checkers go, why have we not seen "FTC approved" anti-virus software?
Trusting a government organization to fix anything is a mistake.
So by that logic there is no point in having the police around to make sure no one tries to break into your house? Government and laws exist for a reason. If you know how to defend yourself and how to secure your property, great, but that does not invalidate the fact that laws are (supposed to be) there to protect everyone.
That's one way to look at it, but OTOH at what point do you say enough is enough? It's all well and good that we educate people on malware, but there has to be a point that the root problem gets addressed. My only real issue with legislation like this is that it doesn't mean squat to the rest of the world, and considering how many spy/malware creators exist outside of the US I can see this kind of initiative falling on it's head.
Where on earth do you get that idea? I, for one, have been hesitant to upload due to being randomly targeted with one of those MAFIAA lawsuits. That's the only thing stopping me.
If that is true then you're in the minority. I know a lot of people simply don't like to share. This is not to say that there aren't a number of people who will keep seeding long after they finished downloading. I personally know both types of people, and I know it's not uncommon for folks to simply not upload anything for whatever reason, but I would hesitate to say that the majority of those who don't upload don't do so out of a fear of litigation.
I don't know why some yahoos decide to RAR-archive their files before posting to torrent.
Heheh, you're kidding right? RAR is an excellent way to throw a bunch of files together in a batch, heck I just downloaded a.rar file just the other day for that very reason.
But I think you'd be wrong to label everyone as just being ungrateful leeches.
I probably could've worded it better, but I certainly didn't mean to include everyone in that statement. See above.
but am I the only one that read the article and asked why there is such a huge focus on avoiding litigation?
Disclaimer: I use bit torrent to download files regularly, which may or may not be copyrighted. Take what I say here with a grain of salt. Also, this is not meant to be a trolling post.
From the article:
While some nodes currently max out their upload capacity (those who have popular content), the vast majority of nodes hardly upload anything (because either their users don't have anything that is popular, OR because they have something that is popular, but they don't dare to offer it, for fear of litigation).
Before I get to my real point, I want to call bullshit on this. People don't upload out of a fear of litigation (at least that is not their entire motive), they don't upload because they're a bunch of leaches who don't want to share their own bandwidth. Anyway, on my real purpose here.
Storing the chunks - while possibly avoiding future transfers - makes the owner of a reflector node a target of litigation, because he supported the distribution of s.th. copyrighted e.g., AND it can be proven by analyzing his harddrive. If a reflected chunk is held in memory when process is swapped out then it may still be possible to prove that the distribution was supported.
Counter measures to defeat traffic analysis would be interesting.
Seriously, come on. I think it's great that there is an interest in improving the BT protocol, but I think the motive for it needs to be examined. Any improvements that might be implemented should be in the spirit of making it easier share content within the legal framework. The focus should not be to avoid litigation, or to bypass network traffic shaping, or anything else along those lines, it should be solely to improve the ability of users to share legitimate content. Politics should have no role in the development of the protocol whatsoever.
The fact that litigation and network traffic shaping has been taken into consideration indicates that there is something wrong with the current copyright system, and that is really what should be addressed here. By taking the BT protocol and adding these kind of features the p2p community is putting itself in direct conflict with the 'AAs. This is only going to add more fuel to the fire, and it will give the 'AAs more ammunition. They will be able to point to the specs for the new protocol and say it was designed with the intent of illegally distributing copyrighted material, and they will be right.
Furthermore, I think you can prevent that. Essentially, create a new "CA" key whenever you create a.torrent file, and include the public key in the.torrent. Then, on-the-fly build a chain of authority stemming from that key. Then, whenever you get directed to a new peer, the message includes a public key for that peer, signed by your current peer, and so forth. Even if comcast tries to join the network to disrupt it, they can't disrupt communication between nodes when the chain-of-authority does not use their keys, and if tampering is detected, their keys can be revoked, un-authenticating any bogus keys they have generated and signed.
From an engineering standpoint thats a nice idea, I wouldn't doubt if someone has already thought of this. Unfortunately it doesn't address the real issue here, which is that Comcast is interfering with p2p traffic in the first place. Solutions like this are really just advancing an ongoing arms race between ISPs and file-sharers. Until Comcast realizes (and gives a damn) that there are a number of legitimate uses for p2p networks we're going to continue to see these kind of stunts.
Besides, their solution to this approach would probably be to simply block access to.torrent or.xyz files and claim that attempting to circumvent their network management tools is against their TOS, and to give your account a one-way ticket to Banville for using such tools.
Do you have a link? If the ISP actually provisioned extra bandwidth it wouldn't be so bad. It seems like it would be easier to simply provision the line for the extra speed if they are a "sharing" customer, rather than allocating it "on the fly" so to speak.
You share your bandwidth with someone else and the ISP pockets a little extra money if that someone doesn't happen to be a current customer? Yes, according to the article the other users will be on a different channel, so your service isn't interrupted, but no matter how you look at it you're still splitting your pipe. Also, since this scheme involves a new customer paying for access on your (already paid for) connection why not apply the extra money as a credit on your bill? I'm paying a pretty good chunk on my broadband (Time Warner), but I wouldn't mind this setup if it meant my bill was going to be lower.
Perhaps I'm just isolated from the sort of users who are so stupid as to get viruses on their PCs...but are there any left? And does anti-virus software help these people?
I do "premium" tech support for $_majorDslProvider, and believe me, there are A LOT of these folks out there. I would say that 70% of the calls I get are virus/spyware related, and I spend a lot of time explaining how their systems get infected, and what the differences between virii and spyware are. I usually end up installing AVG and Spybot, even if they're already using $_majorDslProvider's branded suite (which is complete crap), so in a sense their ISP really does install their A/V software.
I don't think it's really a case of "people are stupid," so much as it is "people don't care enough to learn." Most folks only want to check their mail, browse, and chat with their friends or family. If it falls outside of the realm of those activities they simply can't be bothered with it until something bites them in the ass. This is what keeps my paycheck coming; they would rather have a tech take care of all of that for them. As for whether the A/V software works, some is better than none as far I'm concerned.
Slashdot Mirror
While I don't doubt that your smartphone has these features, I find it highly unlikely that you actually use them for anything non-trivial. Can you honestly say that you create and edit multi-page Word docs and functional spreadsheets? I don't know about you but I find entering more than about five full words (meaning not IM gibberish) to be an almost excruciatingly painful process on a cell phone (smart or otherwise). My thumbs are as good as anyone else's, but come one!
A cell phone or palm device is not a replacement for a PC. Sure, it might work in a pinch, but as far as getting actual work done on an everyday basis there is simply no way it can compete with a PC.
Agreed, if I were investigating the break-in the first thing I would start thinking is insurance fraud and inside jobs. I don't know about getting rid of incriminating evidence though, that seems just a little bit outlandish to me. I wouldn't be surprised one bit to hear about this again in a few weeks with a headline like "Owner of Datacenter behind robbery."
Holy crap man! We're talking about a bunch of servers, not Fort Knox. All they really need is a couple of rent-a-cops who will do more than sleep and eat donuts.
shame on you. Fool me four or more times shame on me!
Well you have to look at it from their side of things. To have a brick and mortar store means having significantly higher costs than the Netflix model. Costs like paying retail employee wages (along with any benefits, insurance, and training costs of having them there), property tax, utilities, etc, etc. It's no wonder that they're not investing in their retail infrastructure anymore, they may as well be throwing their money down a rat hole.
Considering that currently most academic institutions don't recognize Wikipedia as a legitimate source (and for good reason as far as I'm concerned), yes, it is a problem. Wikipedia really is a great resource, there are a lot of dedicated authors/editors who try to publish factual, cited, information. However, there are also a lot of people who a.)don't know what they're talking about and have no business writing or editing articles, b.)don't cite their sources, of if they do their sources are questionable at best, and c.) simply show up to deface articles. These are some of the reasons why Wikipedia should not used as a source, and students need to understand this.
No, school is the place where you can make mistakes, and teachers can point them out, so you can fix them yourself and learn not to make the same mistake. I'm not sure where you go to school, but one of the first things that I learned at school was how to recognize a credible source, and Wikipedia does not fall into that category.
Not everything on the internet is complete crap, it's just a matter of finding the right sources. When I do online research I tend towards .edu, .gov, and .org sites. And honestly, you can usually tell a good source from a bad one just from the way it is written.
Haha, no kidding. I wish it was available when I was in high school (10 years ago), it sure beats hunting down obscure reference books in dusty aisles. I think the last time I used the library was about two years ago, and that was only because the assignment actually required a book reference.
The thing about that is that there are students who actually do try to cite Wikipedia articles as references, I've seen it plenty of times. It usually results in the instructor having to crack down on the practice. I do think though that blocking Wikipedia entirely is overkill, it should just be understood that it does not count as an official source. Wikipedia is a good place to start researching a topic, and I usually end up using one of the external references on a page as a "legitimate source."
What does it matter if Walmart is the one selling it? If it leads to more people using Linux I don't see the problem.
But it's not. Just as you said, there have always been people who will try to rip someone off or to harm others, whether or not the victim is aware of the problem. It's true that an ounce of prevention goes a long way, but there needs to be laws on the books that state that it is not OK to write malicious software. Writing a virus and spreading it with malicious intent is illegal, how is spyware any different? Lets think about what spyware does for a moment. There is spyware out there that masquerades as legitimate software, and then asks the unwitting user for their credit card number and other personal information. It can disable your security settings, change registry entries, etc, etc. I could go on. My point is that spyware can be just as damaging as a virus, the only difference being the method of distribution.
As far as "FTC approved" spyware checkers go, why have we not seen "FTC approved" anti-virus software?
So by that logic there is no point in having the police around to make sure no one tries to break into your house? Government and laws exist for a reason. If you know how to defend yourself and how to secure your property, great, but that does not invalidate the fact that laws are (supposed to be) there to protect everyone.
Woops, that was meant to be a reply to this post.
That's one way to look at it, but OTOH at what point do you say enough is enough? It's all well and good that we educate people on malware, but there has to be a point that the root problem gets addressed. My only real issue with legislation like this is that it doesn't mean squat to the rest of the world, and considering how many spy/malware creators exist outside of the US I can see this kind of initiative falling on it's head.
If that is true then you're in the minority. I know a lot of people simply don't like to share. This is not to say that there aren't a number of people who will keep seeding long after they finished downloading. I personally know both types of people, and I know it's not uncommon for folks to simply not upload anything for whatever reason, but I would hesitate to say that the majority of those who don't upload don't do so out of a fear of litigation.
Heheh, you're kidding right? RAR is an excellent way to throw a bunch of files together in a batch, heck I just downloaded a .rar file just the other day for that very reason.
I probably could've worded it better, but I certainly didn't mean to include everyone in that statement. See above.
but am I the only one that read the article and asked why there is such a huge focus on avoiding litigation?
Disclaimer: I use bit torrent to download files regularly, which may or may not be copyrighted. Take what I say here with a grain of salt. Also, this is not meant to be a trolling post.
From the article:
Before I get to my real point, I want to call bullshit on this. People don't upload out of a fear of litigation (at least that is not their entire motive), they don't upload because they're a bunch of leaches who don't want to share their own bandwidth. Anyway, on my real purpose here.Seriously, come on. I think it's great that there is an interest in improving the BT protocol, but I think the motive for it needs to be examined. Any improvements that might be implemented should be in the spirit of making it easier share content within the legal framework. The focus should not be to avoid litigation, or to bypass network traffic shaping, or anything else along those lines, it should be solely to improve the ability of users to share legitimate content. Politics should have no role in the development of the protocol whatsoever.
The fact that litigation and network traffic shaping has been taken into consideration indicates that there is something wrong with the current copyright system, and that is really what should be addressed here. By taking the BT protocol and adding these kind of features the p2p community is putting itself in direct conflict with the 'AAs. This is only going to add more fuel to the fire, and it will give the 'AAs more ammunition. They will be able to point to the specs for the new protocol and say it was designed with the intent of illegally distributing copyrighted material, and they will be right.
From an engineering standpoint thats a nice idea, I wouldn't doubt if someone has already thought of this. Unfortunately it doesn't address the real issue here, which is that Comcast is interfering with p2p traffic in the first place. Solutions like this are really just advancing an ongoing arms race between ISPs and file-sharers. Until Comcast realizes (and gives a damn) that there are a number of legitimate uses for p2p networks we're going to continue to see these kind of stunts.
Besides, their solution to this approach would probably be to simply block access to .torrent or .xyz files and claim that attempting to circumvent their network management tools is against their TOS, and to give your account a one-way ticket to Banville for using such tools.
Do you have a link? If the ISP actually provisioned extra bandwidth it wouldn't be so bad. It seems like it would be easier to simply provision the line for the extra speed if they are a "sharing" customer, rather than allocating it "on the fly" so to speak.
You share your bandwidth with someone else and the ISP pockets a little extra money if that someone doesn't happen to be a current customer? Yes, according to the article the other users will be on a different channel, so your service isn't interrupted, but no matter how you look at it you're still splitting your pipe. Also, since this scheme involves a new customer paying for access on your (already paid for) connection why not apply the extra money as a credit on your bill? I'm paying a pretty good chunk on my broadband (Time Warner), but I wouldn't mind this setup if it meant my bill was going to be lower.