There is no excuse in the world for providing a method of executing untrusted code of any type out of an incoming email with a single click.
So you'd want to stop all executable attachments then, I'm assuming? I'm sorry, but that's just not realistic. I really don't see how this is Microsoft's fault at all. Many, many mail programs allow running of attachments just with a single click...it just so happened that this particular worm was written to interact with Outlook through MAPI.
Hmm.. I'm with you until #4...but #5 I just can't agree with.. who on earth wants a VBScript programmer? And such a sloppy one at that? (did you look at the code?..quite amusing)
This is slightly OT, but worth mentioning anyway since the book is titled "Irrational Exuberance." A few years back, there was a widely circulated rumor that Alan Greenspan had said that there was "irrational exuberance" in the market, and that to a certain extent this was the reason for its success. It was, however, just that--a rumor. Greenspan never used that phrase, although he did make a statement which suggested something along the same lines. One of the primary sources disseminating news of his statement paraphrased him, and this in turn was picked up as though it had been a direct quote.
Yeah, but if you open your chip's case up only to find that you don't have a faulty chip, you can forget about ever getting repairs / replacements during the warranty period.
Also, I noticed that someone was mentioning the remains of peeled up labels and some bad looking soldering. Well, we are known to relabel boards at the factory that were labeled wrong for one reason or another, and we also do our own repair to boards that have been run with wrong/without parts
Okay, to relabel a chip is one thing. To do soldering that bad is another. I mean, I can't believe that AMD would let a chip get out there with soldering that bad (I wouldn't assume that they would, but your post makes it sound like it). Maybe it doesn't actually change the chip's capabilities, but it just seems a little unprofessional to me.
Um, no. I don't think that's what he was suggesting at all. What I think he was suggesting--and what seems to make sense to me--is that sometimes education is pointless. This case would be a prime example. For reasons mentioned above, I don't think education about overclocking would lead to any less exploitation. So while education may be a good defense against exploitation sometimes, it doesn't always work and isn't always going to accomplish something.
kz45, sorry, but I was just using my +1 bonus (which I'm not going to use on this post since I don't feel it contributes much). I wasn't moderated up. I have to say I don't see how your post was redundant. Off-topic, maybe. But then again mine was too to a certain extent.
If it's alright for them to make a profit, why can't companies like mp3.com have ads in a linux bootup?
First of all, if you go back and actually read the thread you're mentioning, you'll see that the vast majority of comments that are high-scoring are ones that basically are expressing ambivalence (and even acceptance) of the "advertising" in the boot sequence. Second, the issue at hand in that thread was very very different from Slashdot's situation. The whole idea of the linux kernel is that it's open, free, and to a certain extent anti-commercial. That is not the point of slashdot. The point of slashdot is not to be anti-commercial. Slashdot never claimed to be against advertising, whether it be on the site or elsewhere. Posting and article questioning the encroachment of advertising on something that was (or at least seemed to be) up to that point advertising-free is in no way hypocritical. So I don't think your analysis of that situation is even close to fair.
Just a quick note, you mention that language is not logical. It's true that some languages don't follow formal logic (e.g., it's perfectly okay to use double-negatives in French), but formal logic is different from "logical" in another sense. The sense I'm talking about is that it's logical in terms of being in perfect harmony with the equipment that's generating it as well as with the equipment that's receiving it. Some of the things that popular critics lambast (e.g., the redundancy and strangeness of the English spelling system) are perfectly logical and make perfect sense when you analyze them for what they are, and for their use by the systems that use them and receive them. I won't go into details here, but there is plenty of reason for redundancy and "strnageness" in spelling, etc. Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct is a great introduction to a lot of this stuff that I highly reccomend.
Non-natural languages such as lojban are notoriously problematic. There are reasons why natural languages don't have only 850 words, and why they aren't comprised of musical notes (I'm not kidding, one constructed language was actually meant to be sung only, and its writing system was using musical notes), and why adjectives have negatives other than just the original adjective with an "un" in front of them. For reasons other than their obvious shortcomings stemming from small word-sets (reasons dealing with our innate language capabilities that I'm sure you don't want me to go into here), no constructed language has ever been--and probably none will ever be--even close to natural languages in terms of our brains' abilities to process them. Also, constructed languages are notoriously limited in terms of language change. Languages are, by their very nature, changing beings, and trying to lock them into a singular state is pure stupidity. I don't mean this as a flame or anything of the sort, it is just that I'm getting a bit sick of seeing people suggest that man-made languages replace (or even become lingua francas) natural languages so that everything would be "easier." It's just not even a remote possibility, and aside from hobbyists who enjoy learning Esperanto in their spare time (as quite a few of my colleagues do), there's just no useful application of them. Unfortunately the idea of a world-wide universal language that is man-made is pure fantasy. World-wide lingua francas based on natural languages is much more realistic, although I hope that day never comes--it would seem quite a boring world to me if everyone spoke the same language. But that's probably because my job would be a lot less interesting then.
nope, sorry. the default setting causes the script to be dealt with as if it were an embedded feature of the message (just as if HTML were in the message) and it's executed without any user action. I actually saw this happen, so please no more trolling.
Okay, some of the file names do indicate that there would be child pornography to be found. But others aren't so clear. For example, "hot teen.jpg", "schoolgirl.jpg", and "teen-sucking.jpg" aren't really too indicative of child pornography. There are plent of sites / images out there touting "teens" and "school girls" that don't have anyone under 18 pictured. Now, I realize that they do indicate which files the particular IP addresses have downloaded, but even so, this has potential to get out of hand and I think they should be a bit more responsible trying to choose their fake file names.
Some users have already summoned for civil litigation, and the number is rising.
This is the fisrt I've heard of this, and I've been following this story closely. Please show me your source of information. I am pretty sure I would have heard this either here or in a major publication before if it were true, but it's possible it's been overlooked.
You say "the few users who already own the music". What do you mean by few, several million
No, I mean that the number of people downloading/hosting the Metallica mp3s in question who actually own the musis is probably a very small number compared to the number of people who never did own it.
You purchased the intellectual rights for that music, might as well keep it at its prime condition through digital storage.
Bzzzt.. wrong..First, you should be clearer on legal terms before you start throwing them about incorrectly. When you buy a CD you do not in any sense of the term purchase the intellectual rights. That stays with the original artists. Had you purchased the intellectual rights, that would mean you'd be free to re-sell the music making any changes you see fit. Second, sorry, but it's illegal to make digital copies of music for home use. Analog is allowed completely. The one exception to the rule is that you're allowed to make CD copies using a standalone CDR which was made to make audio copies. Encoding music to mp3s and/or copying CDs using computer-based CDRs is illegal.
DON'T THINK FOR A MOMENT THAT EVERYTHING IS ILLEGAL ABOUT NAPSTER.
Um.. I don't. I wasn't for a moment suggesting this. Re-read my original post--hopefully calm down a bit first--and I'm sure it'll be quite evident to you that I'm not making any blanket statements.
Metallica has every right to fight for its interests. But the unleashing of lawyers on more than 330,000 Napster users -- many of them kids -- who allegedly downloaded the band's music last week is an outrage, a punitive and thoughtless assault on privacy and freedom.
Sorry, but this just isn't the case. Lawyers are not going to be unleashed. They are just going to ask Napster to ban the users, as Napster has in the past stated they would. There's a difference between unleashing lawyers on people and tryiing to have them blocked from a service. Sorry, katz, get the story straight next time. As for a punitive assault on freedom, since when has it been an assault on freedom to take someone to task for doing something illegal? Don't for a moment think there's anything legal about using Napster to download or host Metallica mp3s (the few users who already own the music aside).
People seem to be under the terribly misguided impression that anything in the name of humor cannot be at all "wrong" in any sense. You seem to be taking that stance. If not, why not try to offer some reasonable arguments against my claims? Just saying that it was a joke and "that's all" is totally hollow.
Sorry, even if it was meant as a joke, that doesn't make it better. A joke that's humor is derived from something racist, let's say, would not make it any less racist than the underlying things which it was written to convey.
abandoning common sense and continuing on with an alternate interpretation of the can of worms you insisted on creating where there was none before...
Just because your particular set of biases doesn't cause you to see a problem with a situation, that doesn't mean that there isn't a problem. In fact, the biggest problem here is that people like you don't even think there is one. It's precisely that your particular set of biases condition you to not see a problem.
Or, perhaps someone was trying to say "Bruce's kid", in a geeky sort of way.
Yeah, which is my point entirely. Thinking of the child just as "Bruce's kid" is where the problem lies, and where the greater problem stems from.
Basically, typecasting is incompatible with political-correctness, which just goes to show that programming languages are direct, to-the-point, and don't care about those wussy Humanities issues of fairness, children with more than one parent, or the English language.
First, you've failed to show how any claims you make about computer programming languages are at all substantiated. The issue here is program naming, not programming languages themselves. The fact that Bruce or Linus could think that they could apply program-naming terms to children without problems, and the fact that they do so without compunctions is a symptom of the larger problem of sexism.
sorry, but you can't copy any music in any digital format..only analog..you can copy to tape, and the one exception to the digital rule is that you can use a CDR which is intended for audio copying only..but you can't use a PC CDR nor can you make mp3 copies..sorry, that's just the law..
how on earth is the parent post in any way a "troll"? it's just an expression of opinion. it may not be what you agree with, but if all you wanted to hear were opinions you agreed with, why would you even bother coming to an open forum? you could just talk to yourself. the modding down of the above post is, i'm afraid, representative of the horribly misguided moderation of late. namely, "I'll mod anything down I don't agree with or that the general slashdot community wouldn't agree with." If you feel the need, mod me down as offtopic, but please, mod the above post up.
Slashdot Mirror
So you'd want to stop all executable attachments then, I'm assuming? I'm sorry, but that's just not realistic. I really don't see how this is Microsoft's fault at all. Many, many mail programs allow running of attachments just with a single click...it just so happened that this particular worm was written to interact with Outlook through MAPI.
Hmm.. I'm with you until #4...but #5 I just can't agree with.. who on earth wants a VBScript programmer? And such a sloppy one at that? (did you look at the code?..quite amusing)
This is slightly OT, but worth mentioning anyway since the book is titled "Irrational Exuberance." A few years back, there was a widely circulated rumor that Alan Greenspan had said that there was "irrational exuberance" in the market, and that to a certain extent this was the reason for its success. It was, however, just that--a rumor. Greenspan never used that phrase, although he did make a statement which suggested something along the same lines. One of the primary sources disseminating news of his statement paraphrased him, and this in turn was picked up as though it had been a direct quote.
Yeah, but if you open your chip's case up only to find that you don't have a faulty chip, you can forget about ever getting repairs / replacements during the warranty period.
Okay, to relabel a chip is one thing. To do soldering that bad is another. I mean, I can't believe that AMD would let a chip get out there with soldering that bad (I wouldn't assume that they would, but your post makes it sound like it). Maybe it doesn't actually change the chip's capabilities, but it just seems a little unprofessional to me.
yup, it's pretty nifty, and can be found right here.
Um, no. I don't think that's what he was suggesting at all. What I think he was suggesting--and what seems to make sense to me--is that sometimes education is pointless. This case would be a prime example. For reasons mentioned above, I don't think education about overclocking would lead to any less exploitation. So while education may be a good defense against exploitation sometimes, it doesn't always work and isn't always going to accomplish something.
kz45, sorry, but I was just using my +1 bonus (which I'm not going to use on this post since I don't feel it contributes much). I wasn't moderated up. I have to say I don't see how your post was redundant. Off-topic, maybe. But then again mine was too to a certain extent.
First of all, if you go back and actually read the thread you're mentioning, you'll see that the vast majority of comments that are high-scoring are ones that basically are expressing ambivalence (and even acceptance) of the "advertising" in the boot sequence. Second, the issue at hand in that thread was very very different from Slashdot's situation. The whole idea of the linux kernel is that it's open, free, and to a certain extent anti-commercial. That is not the point of slashdot. The point of slashdot is not to be anti-commercial. Slashdot never claimed to be against advertising, whether it be on the site or elsewhere. Posting and article questioning the encroachment of advertising on something that was (or at least seemed to be) up to that point advertising-free is in no way hypocritical. So I don't think your analysis of that situation is even close to fair.
Just a quick note, you mention that language is not logical. It's true that some languages don't follow formal logic (e.g., it's perfectly okay to use double-negatives in French), but formal logic is different from "logical" in another sense. The sense I'm talking about is that it's logical in terms of being in perfect harmony with the equipment that's generating it as well as with the equipment that's receiving it. Some of the things that popular critics lambast (e.g., the redundancy and strangeness of the English spelling system) are perfectly logical and make perfect sense when you analyze them for what they are, and for their use by the systems that use them and receive them. I won't go into details here, but there is plenty of reason for redundancy and "strnageness" in spelling, etc. Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct is a great introduction to a lot of this stuff that I highly reccomend.
Non-natural languages such as lojban are notoriously problematic. There are reasons why natural languages don't have only 850 words, and why they aren't comprised of musical notes (I'm not kidding, one constructed language was actually meant to be sung only, and its writing system was using musical notes), and why adjectives have negatives other than just the original adjective with an "un" in front of them. For reasons other than their obvious shortcomings stemming from small word-sets (reasons dealing with our innate language capabilities that I'm sure you don't want me to go into here), no constructed language has ever been--and probably none will ever be--even close to natural languages in terms of our brains' abilities to process them. Also, constructed languages are notoriously limited in terms of language change. Languages are, by their very nature, changing beings, and trying to lock them into a singular state is pure stupidity.
I don't mean this as a flame or anything of the sort, it is just that I'm getting a bit sick of seeing people suggest that man-made languages replace (or even become lingua francas) natural languages so that everything would be "easier." It's just not even a remote possibility, and aside from hobbyists who enjoy learning Esperanto in their spare time (as quite a few of my colleagues do), there's just no useful application of them. Unfortunately the idea of a world-wide universal language that is man-made is pure fantasy. World-wide lingua francas based on natural languages is much more realistic, although I hope that day never comes--it would seem quite a boring world to me if everyone spoke the same language. But that's probably because my job would be a lot less interesting then.
Sorry, you must be basing your experience on Outlook Express, not Outlook. There's a difference. Outlook runs it automatically, OE doesn't.
nerds? "kickin' it in the Bahamas"? umm..sorry, but there's just no way that's possible. nerds are nerds after all.
nope, sorry. the default setting causes the script to be dealt with as if it were an embedded feature of the message (just as if HTML were in the message) and it's executed without any user action. I actually saw this happen, so please no more trolling.
Okay, some of the file names do indicate that there would be child pornography to be found. But others aren't so clear. For example, "hot teen.jpg", "schoolgirl.jpg", and "teen-sucking.jpg" aren't really too indicative of child pornography. There are plent of sites / images out there touting "teens" and "school girls" that don't have anyone under 18 pictured. Now, I realize that they do indicate which files the particular IP addresses have downloaded, but even so, this has potential to get out of hand and I think they should be a bit more responsible trying to choose their fake file names.
This will reject mails containing this subject.
Sure, but then you're going to live a miserable, solitary life. It's not wise to shut potential dates / mates out of your inbox.
Dinsdale! My man, you are a solid troll.
This is the fisrt I've heard of this, and I've been following this story closely. Please show me your source of information. I am pretty sure I would have heard this either here or in a major publication before if it were true, but it's possible it's been overlooked.
You say "the few users who already own the music". What do you mean by few, several million
No, I mean that the number of people downloading/hosting the Metallica mp3s in question who actually own the musis is probably a very small number compared to the number of people who never did own it.
You purchased the intellectual rights for that music, might as well keep it at its prime condition through digital storage.
Bzzzt.. wrong..First, you should be clearer on legal terms before you start throwing them about incorrectly. When you buy a CD you do not in any sense of the term purchase the intellectual rights. That stays with the original artists. Had you purchased the intellectual rights, that would mean you'd be free to re-sell the music making any changes you see fit. Second, sorry, but it's illegal to make digital copies of music for home use. Analog is allowed completely. The one exception to the rule is that you're allowed to make CD copies using a standalone CDR which was made to make audio copies. Encoding music to mp3s and /or copying CDs using computer-based CDRs is illegal.
DON'T THINK FOR A MOMENT THAT EVERYTHING IS ILLEGAL ABOUT NAPSTER.
Um.. I don't. I wasn't for a moment suggesting this. Re-read my original post--hopefully calm down a bit first--and I'm sure it'll be quite evident to you that I'm not making any blanket statements.
Sorry, but this just isn't the case. Lawyers are not going to be unleashed. They are just going to ask Napster to ban the users, as Napster has in the past stated they would. There's a difference between unleashing lawyers on people and tryiing to have them blocked from a service. Sorry, katz, get the story straight next time. As for a punitive assault on freedom, since when has it been an assault on freedom to take someone to task for doing something illegal? Don't for a moment think there's anything legal about using Napster to download or host Metallica mp3s (the few users who already own the music aside).
People seem to be under the terribly misguided impression that anything in the name of humor cannot be at all "wrong" in any sense. You seem to be taking that stance. If not, why not try to offer some reasonable arguments against my claims? Just saying that it was a joke and "that's all" is totally hollow.
And that makes it right? Quite equivocating.
Sorry, even if it was meant as a joke, that doesn't make it better. A joke that's humor is derived from something racist, let's say, would not make it any less racist than the underlying things which it was written to convey.
Just because your particular set of biases doesn't cause you to see a problem with a situation, that doesn't mean that there isn't a problem. In fact, the biggest problem here is that people like you don't even think there is one. It's precisely that your particular set of biases condition you to not see a problem.
Or, perhaps someone was trying to say "Bruce's kid", in a geeky sort of way.
Yeah, which is my point entirely. Thinking of the child just as "Bruce's kid" is where the problem lies, and where the greater problem stems from.
Basically, typecasting is incompatible with political-correctness, which just goes to show that programming languages are direct, to-the-point, and don't care about those wussy Humanities issues of fairness, children with more than one parent, or the English language.
First, you've failed to show how any claims you make about computer programming languages are at all substantiated. The issue here is program naming, not programming languages themselves. The fact that Bruce or Linus could think that they could apply program-naming terms to children without problems, and the fact that they do so without compunctions is a symptom of the larger problem of sexism.
sorry, but you can't copy any music in any digital format..only analog..you can copy to tape, and the one exception to the digital rule is that you can use a CDR which is intended for audio copying only..but you can't use a PC CDR nor can you make mp3 copies..sorry, that's just the law..
how on earth is the parent post in any way a "troll"? it's just an expression of opinion. it may not be what you agree with, but if all you wanted to hear were opinions you agreed with, why would you even bother coming to an open forum? you could just talk to yourself. the modding down of the above post is, i'm afraid, representative of the horribly misguided moderation of late. namely, "I'll mod anything down I don't agree with or that the general slashdot community wouldn't agree with." If you feel the need, mod me down as offtopic, but please, mod the above post up.