Diebold electronic voting machines are not used in WA. Sequoia systems are used.
I didn't say Diebold voting machines were used. But Diebold and the Republicans have a lot of reports of things like paperless audit trails.
You're lying.
Here's the fact that you cannot seem to accept: He has been feted as a guest at President Bush's Texas ranch, joining a cadre of "Pioneers and Rangers" who have pledged to raise more than $100,000 for the Bush reelection campaign. Most memorably, O'Dell last fall penned a letter pledging his commitment "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President."http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html
Again, because you do not like the facts, does not mean that they aren't facts.
First, Diebold never said anything like that.
The owner of Diebold said something like it, which is a very different thing.
Ummm, "Diebold" is a company. A company cannot say anything because it is not a person.
The owner of Diebold said something like it, which is a very different thing.
The people who own and run the company can make statements.
The owner of Diebold says that he's going to deliver Ohio's votes for Bush and Ohio uses Diebold machines. Claiming it is a lie does not alter the FACTS.
Sam Reed has been advocating changes in the primary, changes to absentee voting, changes to voting machines, all to improve the voting process. There are others, but when I already gave an example you cannot refute and yet simply deny exists, why should I bother coming up with others?
Because I gave a clear example of Sam Reed blocking attempts to fix problems. Here is a good quote: "Today's hearing will decide a motion to dismiss, filed by Sam Reed's office. Of interest: Reed has asked the judge to deem the formal report by California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley to be inadmissable hearsay, and in a more bizarre response, seeks to have Diebold's own "release notes" -- the document which lists changes made in the software -- to be deemed inadmissable."
So, requesting that Diebold's own paperwork be deemed inadmissable shows that Reed is trying to fix the voting issues?
Oh right: when it is against a Republican, mere allegation is all that you require. Silly me for even questioning it. If someone files a lawsuit against a Republican, that Republican is necessarily guilty. Duh.
Awww, so now you want to play the victim? Get over it.
Allegations are not all that are required. But the fact that he wanted Diebold's own paperwork ruled inadmissable does show that he was not interested in fixing the problem (which you claimed he was).
And, this has nothing to do with electronic voting machines. These are optical scan systems. All that stuff about "Diebold" on "slashdot.org" had nothing to do with these systems. But you probably knew that.
It is about how the votes are counted.
It's about how the machines count the votes.
It's about how the companies providing the machines support and certify their machines.
I can provide clear examples of Reed fighting against fixing the problems.
All you can provide are your claims that he is trying to fix the problems.
I have provided clear examples of Republicans fighting against fixing other problems.
All you have is your claim that since you said Reed was tring to fix the problems, you don't have to provide any other examples.
The facts are that the Republicans have fought to prevent the problems from being fixed. Which is why we have paperless audit trails and machines that have code added to
In the first pre-emptive lawsuit against voting machines filed by a candidate, Andy Stephenson -- a candidate for Washington Secretary of State -- has filed for an injunction to decertify Diebold GEMS central count software used in four Washington counties. The suit alleges that current Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed improperly certified the voting system. Stephenson is also suing King County over the use of uncertified optical scan software.
I know, it must really suck when your heros are found to be even more dirty than their opponents.
Yeah, the Democrats cry when they're losing and there are votes that weren't counted that might give them a win.
Yeah, the Republicans are demanding that every vote should be counted now that might give them a win.
!!!BUT!!!
NEITHER side demands that "every vote be counted" when their side is winning. Then it is all about the other side being a "gracious loser" and such.
And that tells you that neither party is interested in counting all the votes, just enough so that they win.
It's all about winning. Not Democracy.
So your little jabs at the Democrats ring a little hollow. Instead, why don't you look at why the Republicans haven't been advocating improvements in the voting process?
I think it is important to humanity as a whole, and civilization in particular that "gracious winner" become the gold standard for closely contested elections.
I'd like to see that also. But I think there will be a problem with the average person.
What ever happened to "reasoned" debate?
The political parties found that it was easier to motivate people with antagonistic attacks and sound bites. Sad, but true.
A legitimate difference of opinion?
Again, the political parties found that such does not get enough voters out to vote.
The way to motivate people is to make them believe that THEY are under attack from the "enemy". Or that they are in danger from the "enemy". Or their families, values, etc.
At the risk of sounding like we should all just get along, there is merit to the idea that if we, the left and the right, are working for the betterment of the people... then no one loses.
But the politicians aren't out for the betterment of the people. They are out to get power and to keep power.
Of course, as long as government suckles at the teat of corrupt corporate influence peddlers, as well as letting the dog get wagged by the tail of the marginally disenfranchised then we will have partisan bickering that lowers us all.
There is that, also.
Although I'd look at it differently. I see it as people fighting to get the power so they are the ones getting the corporate attentions.
Politics is now about getting power and holding power. The easiest way to do that is fear and hate. The worst way is through rational discussion and mutual respect.
All of that does not look like good marketing to me, but MS lives on good marketing and little more, so it would appear that there are two possible outcomes here: either MS has something up its sleeve to counteract all of the things going wrong for their image lately, or that they honestly believe in their own untouchability, in which case they might just have a hard fall coming before Longhorn is out the door.
The 3rd option: Microsoft doesn't have any plan and is hoping that claiming that they aren't worried will slow the defection rate long enough that they can come up with a plan.
How many new games are released that use unusual ports? The educated users will be the ones who can fill in web forms on what ports they need open and why. There's no reason why it would have to be difficult to get new ports open.
But the ISP doesn't have to take the "lock down everything unless specifically requested to be open" approach.
They can monitor what ports are used by what customers and what ports are used by what viruses.
Example, the IRC controlled bots. If they see IRC activity on a line, they can send the customer a note notifying the customer. Then, if they see DDoS activity or a sudden flood of outbound email, they can check into the situation and possibly cut off that connection until the customer has fixed the problem.
The whole thing comes down to personal responsibility. When we buy a car, we have certain responsibilities that we have to maintain if we want the continued privilege of driving that car.
Yep. But that's only because thousands and thousands of people actually DIE because of cars each year.
On the Internet, the risk of death is far, Far, FAR, FAR less likely. So the same standards will not be applied.
The problem with this topic is that Microsoft is always blamed for making an inherently insecure operating system. They are also to blame because of "too little, too late", aka. activating the firewall by default only in SP2.
Gotta agree. But the firewall is only a band-aid to the real problem. If Microsoft fixed their security model, we wouldn't see the viruses in the first place. Look at how many Linux viruses there are then look at how many of them exist only on 5 machines or fewer. That's a lab.
Viruses have to propogate to be a problem. Kill the propogation means and the virus is nothing more than a programming oddity.
Why don't broadband ISPs require boradband firewalls? Only recently have some of them started to incorporate firewalled modems, and even then they're only sent to new customers.
Why don't the ISP's do the even easier thing and just firewall whole sections of their network? That way they have a single investment instead of a bunch of $50 "modems". Since all the traffic is traveling over their network anyway...
Additionally, most virii are sent over SMTP ports since they contain their own SMTP servers. I would not be against shutting down direct-from-client SMTP as long as those who run their own mail servers have the option of having their specific connection opened for SMTP traffic.
This gets back to the ISP firewalling their own networks. It should be very easy for them to do and they don't have to spend $50 per customer.
Finally, the users absolutely MUST be educated. There are enough free tools out there that no one should be unprotected. But again who should be responsible for teaching these end users?
Educating them will be a problem. But there is no reason that their OS's cannot be written so that they fail to a secured state. Microsoft has taken the opposite approach and had the initial installed state be completely open.
But, again, the easiest thing would be for their ISP's to setup a website to do basic virus checking and to remind the customer of that in every bill they get. They could also put a button on their web-based email services to make it ultra-easy.
If people were made aware that any virus or worm outbreak cause by them would mean the complete loss of their Internet connectivity, I think we'd see the number of virus infections drop dramatically.
That could work with a little bit of re-working. The ISP should be able to monitor the traffic on their network. If they see virus-like activity, they should be investigating it and cutting off that service.
Before anyone says that such would not be financially possible, I do a similar thing with spam where I work. Initially, there was a lot of work to do. But as I fixed each problem, there were fewer new problems.
But have an ISP do the responsible thing at the risk of pissing off customers?
Rather, they'd prefer not to do anything so they don't have to deal with the problems. If spam and viruses are a big problem, they affect all ISP's equally. So there isn't any competitive advantage for one ISP to deal with the problem.
Unless you're working with a small, local ISP. Then you can get better support and service.
Do you have a credit card from a company that likes to send you handy "checks" that can be written against your account?
All it takes is one punk to grab your mail and you have a problem.
Your mail can even be delivered to the wrong house and you can be compromised.
The fact is, we are not currently setup to deal with identity theft. We have a bunch of half measures that easily circumvented by anyone who thinks about it.
It's rare to find someone who understands the situation.
Don't forget to factor in the off-shoring drive. Even the stuff that is currently built in the US isn't looking very good for the mid to long term.
So, when you vote for "less taxes", you put one more stone in the end of the great American empire. I, as a European, shake my head and wonder whether you Americans have any idea what is happening in your country...
Many of us do. But more of us vote against our economic interests in order to support their ideological/religious interests.
So Bush wants the dollow low compared to other currencies which are pegged to the dollar...... but then he runs up massive debt which is paid for by bonds sold to those same countries.
That means they have a 3rd option. Re-peg their currencies to the Euro and let the US economy crash. It's a lot of short term pain for them, but a lot more short term and long term pain for us.
Yes, and I just got back from the pub, where I was talking with a friend who claimed you don't need to bother applying security updates if you have a good firewall - in fact, he said, it's best not to because stuff might break. And this is with a huge amount of effort put into things like SP2 by Microsoft. He isn't the first person I've met with that attitude.
Great. But the issue isn't what someone's attitude is. The issue is patches for known bugs. Without patching, you are relying upon a single point of failure. Your firewall. And a single point of failure is plain bad security practice.
I work for Codeweavers and in fact this Windows 3.1 app (it was for a hospital) now runs quite well on Linux.
Don't worry. I won't charge you for the advice. I'm glad it worked.
Here's a simple experiment to try....
I don't have IBM Domino Server so I cannot find the problem you're having. I also couldn't find "Lore" on that website. Yes, I know what NPTL and LD_ASSUME_KERNEL are and what they do. I'm even aware of the problems that Red Hat has and why those problems are there. Here's a quick link about that http://people.redhat.com/drepper/assumekernel.html
I'll see if I still have an old copy of Loki's "Civilization: Call to Power" that I can test with.
But which is dominant? I think you'll find it's Windows.
Only if you count total number of units in the whole industry. If Linux keeps growing at the rate it is, it will, eventually, overtake Windows. I don't see anything indicating that Linux's growth rate will slow before that happens.
Sure. Stability and backwards compatibility don't matter much when you're selling a product that just has to serve web pages, or route mail. Everything you need comes out of the box. If stuff breaks it can be fixed by the distribution provider. The same is not true on the desktop which has a much less homogenous set of software in use.
Possibly. We'll see when Linux starts getting about 10-20% desktop share.
It's funny because it's true. Management might get downsized, but I can't conceive of it being outsourced. At least, management above a certain level. So, to be safe, find a job that requires neither knowledge or ethical compunctions. Like PR, marketing, or the executive suite.
It won't be "outsourced" as such, but the jobs will go overseas.
The people doing the cheap labour in India right now will gain experience. They will move up the ladder.
There's nothing stopping them from getting an MBA.
So, in 10 years or so, you have people in India with 10 years of experience in the industry (which ever industry we're talking about) who are quite capable of launching their own start-ups doing exactly what they've been paid to do for the last 10 years.
And their executives will be making 1/10th what our executives make. And there won't be any language barrier at all and the execs will be in the same building as the workers.
So, a new company is formed, doing the same thing as the old US company, but for a fraction of the price.
The only thing left is to let the US-based marketing firms fight for the marketing contract. (and they will be fighting each other down pretty cheap)
5 years 10 years 15 years 20 years
Eventually, given our current off-shoring practices, it will happen.
Quite a lot of people play games that are >12 months old. Breaking them isn't an option: they simply won't apply any more security updates from that point forward.
Given the number of zombie Windows machines, it seems that they're not applying them right now. But at least the option would be available to those who choose to.
Welcome to the real world. I've already dealt with several in various test Linux migrations. One of them was written by a company that doesn't appear on Google and is apparently bust anyway. Actually this app was a Windows 3.1 program, from even earlier.
Look into a service contract from these people http://www.codeweavers.com/ they'd still be running that app, but they'd be on a modern, secured OS.
Linux is pretty much a textbook case of how not to maintain backwards compatibility. It's a serious problem. Some vendors are telling the LSB they won't start porting their apps to Linux until it becomes more stable (C++ in particular is an issue).
Due to the projects I'm involved with, I deal with the lack of stability on Linux all the time, and I can tell you it's one seriously fucked platform from that perspective. I've seen more than one open source developer get up and walk away (back to Windows) because the stuff they wrote simply didn't keep working.
Here's a posting about how to run ancient a.out binaries on an ELF-based version of Red Hat http://www.ofb.net/~jheiss/aout_redhat.shtml. Running ancient apps on Linux is simple. Everyone knows it is simple. Why do you try to claim that it is difficult?
It's easy to talk about source code escrow now. Too late, it's already happened. On a large scale. Deal with it.
Life, like business, is harsh. Deal with it.
That's why you don't work for Microsoft, and therefore have no say in the matter. You don't sell many operating systems by telling your customers that they're screwed but it's OK because "that's business, it's harsh". People will just tell you to fuck off, and they will give their money to people who care about their software investments (like Microsoft).
That's why Linux is the fastest growing server OS right now.
Because people are concerned about bugs in the OS and they aren't accepting your answer of "well, some other company doesn't want it fixed so you are shit outta luck".
The companies running correctly written apps should not be denied patches simply because some other company is running an app that depends upon a bug.
Which is why Linux is the fastest growing server OS. That's business. It's harsh, but companies have to look out for their own best interests.
Not whether some other company can convince Microsoft to skip a bug fix because it will break some ancient app.
You mean game vendors who stop caring 12 months after release?
Yep. Because the most popular games are new versions of old games. I don't care if DOOM no longer works on XP because of a service pack, but there is no reason why the next version of Quake wouldn't be patched to no longer depend upon that bug.
You mean vertical-market "vendors" where the company using the program is the same company that wrote it?
That's not a "vertical-market". That's a "home-grown app". And yes, they programmers at that company would be expected to update that app.
You mean the vendors that went out of business in 1996?
If your company is running a critical app from 1996 without support, your company has bigger problems.
Application compatibility is no joke, and it's not a simple matter of "communication" as you put it.
Actually, it is. Just look at Linux development.
A lot of the software out there will never be rewritten or changed. A disturbingly high number of programs no longer have any source code, as it was lost.
Cry me a river. Look into the concept of "source code escrow".
I'm not worried about companies that didn't take basic precautions when they licensed software. They made the wrong decision, they suffer the consequences. That's business.
Why should Company A's bad decision mean that Companies B, C and D have to run an OS with a known, fixable bug?
The communication takes place, the problems are identified and adequate time is given to get patches/work-arounds in place.
Beyond that, the companies have to take responsibility for their previous decisions.
Of course any hardware 3d-accelerated video driver in Linux can also bring down the system, since parts of DRI and nvidia's GLX run in the kernel. The salient difference is that video drivers in NT are coded against an interface that is designed not to change. Change your kernel version, or apply the wrong patches to the kernel you're already running, and your Linux video driver might very well break, particularly if it's a binary-only driver like the ones from ATI or Nvidia.
I don't run hardware accelerated 3d in Linux. Which may explain why I've never had a video problem with Linux, even though the modules would be loaded with the kernel.
Running video drivers in kernel space is not a "bad technical decision," it's a tradeoff, informed by the realizations that for end users crashing your graphics subsystem is just as bad as crashing the entire machine, video performance is pretty important, and video drivers can be made pretty reliable. It's the same tradeoff most reasonably-performing 3d-accelerated drivers make in Linux. The difference is that it works a lot better in NT, since the driver won't just break one day for no apparent reason.
But the 2d drivers would also cause problems with Windows. So any video problem in Windows could bring down the whole OS.
Which is very different from a very specific video problem in Linux.
It is not the same trade-off as with Linux because it is possible to run a Linux server with only the command line interface.
With Windows, every implementation has those flaws.
With Linux, only a very specific sub-set of implementations have those flaws.
The ring 0 issue has been known ever since Microsoft implemented it in NT 4.0 (3.51 did not run the video drivers in ring 0).
It was a stupid decision to do that and the only reason they did it was to improve the video performance on their GUI-driven OS.
So your whole OS can go down because of the video driver.
This is/. and a good technical decision would not have a problem here.
But Microsoft makes bad technical decisions and they make them because of Marketing demands. You might not agree with that, but that's the fact.
Respect is earned, not given. For Microsoft to be respected for anything other than lots of money or great marketing, they'll have to earn it by making technically sound decisions.
Yeah, Windows has lots of bugs. But some of those bugs can't be fixed, because certain major programs rely on those bugs . When you fix the bugs, you break the programs. Almost every bug fix windows gets these days is accompanied by a program breaking. MS has to try and decide whether enough users are affected by the bug to make the fix worthwhile.
So, why doesn't someone at Microsoft call up the vendor of those apps and let them know that the next service pack will break their apps in this very specific fashion?
Then the vendors can release patches for their apps so that they will work after the service pack is applied.
And before anyone goes off about how Microsoft would have to spend too much money and time testing every app out there, you're wrong.
There are lots of companies with contracts with Microsoft and Microsoft could ask those companies to run a quick diagnostic app on some of their machines with the apps those companies consider critical to their business running.
That way, Microsoft could see what apps were using the bug that they planned to fix and how many of their big customers would be affected by a fix.
Microsoft has the money, the contact info, the company info and the existing contracts to do just that.
The real reason Microsoft doesn't do that is because there are too many bugs that rely upon other bugs and Microsoft doesn't even know which are which or where they are.
My friend was slamming SP2 from the start because it "broke" alot of apps where he works (a medical powerhouse in the state)
SP2 should have been released separately from the firewall.
That way, users such as he with apps such as those could still get the OS patches and work on deploying the firewall by itself.
My response was something along the lines of, wait, let me get this straight, you're complainig because an application you rely on is designed around security risks in the operating system, and those holes were fixed?
It would depend upon the specifics of those "holes" and the apps that depend upon them.
There is nothing wrong with having an app listen on an open port. Web servers do it, email servers do it, FTP servers do it, etc.
Not having a firewall should not be considered "security risks in the operating system".
I know lots of people who have turned off the firewall in XP sp2 because it stopped apps from working (VPN in particular). That doesn't sound like much of a "fix" for the "holes" in the OS.
Griefers are not lone misanthropes looking torture the weak, they just start that way. They form their own groups and then use these groups/guilds/mafia to "police" the server in the form of organised greifing. To make matters worse, they are usually the most likely players to take advantage of bugs and/or exploits, which often unbalances the playing field further.
Pretty much. So the most annoying players have the highest level characters with the best equipment.
Not being discriminating in their associates often characterises greifers in MMOs. They don't care who their friends are, so long as they can maintain strangth in numbers, and their rules of conduct are so minimal, that they can grow to outnumber any other organisation on thee server, becoming an unbalancing force of extreme inconvenience to other players.
Yep. That's because, unlike the Real World, there really hasn't been any effective in-game punishment for the characters / players.
Against such dedicated players, there is often no real recourse, or even means to ignore and avoid, so younger players who have been on the recieving end of greifing behavior often break down and become counter-greifers, themselves.
Or the new players quit the game.
It then becomes impossible to oraganise events on a server, or do any of the really interesting "player created content" that MMO developers yearn to inspire.
Which will probably result in fewer new players anyway.
MMO developers are often afraid to take real action against the players involved in a greif oriented organisation. They desperately need the dollars, and can't afford to ban players right and left. Often greifing organisations are led by players who have numerous accounts, and banning the leaders of these organisations would cost hundreds of dollars per month, per individual, and would eventually lead to a noticable drop in revenue.
If the benefits of getting rid of the griefers don't outweigh the benefits of keeping them, then those game developers really need to re-examine their basic assumptions.
Greifers are also the most likely poulation to purchase items, characters or money outside of game, to further increase their disporportionate power. They drive inflation on a server, and can further tip the PvP balance towards their favour by means not available to most players, or by means that the majority of players, and the developer feel are unethical.
Yep. So the game developers need to take those actions into account when designing the system.
Think about what life would be life in a world where "death" did not exist. If you were killed, you came back 5 minutes later in a new body.
How would our criminal justice system have evolved? Murder wouldn't be the big crime it is right now. And the death penalty... it would be more of a burden for the government to get rid of the corpses of the criminals than any counter-incentive to the criminal.
The game developers really need to look at what the logical results would be of some of their game-based decisions.
I was an EQ1 griefer. Griefing takes intelligence, ingenuity, style and thought. Griefing also helps the game IMO making it more challenging and pointing out the flaws in design. If it weren't for griefing, Sony woulda lost my monthly fees months before I quit.
Hardly. Griefing only requires that the Griefer have no life outside of the game.
That way, the Griefer can learn all the exploits and get the levels needed to grief those who do have a life outside the game.
We griefers are the equivalent of project mayhem and all you players out there should appreciate us! "we are everyone you depend on. We're the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. We guard you while you sleep. We drive the ambulances. We process your insurance claims. We control every part of your life. So don't fuck with us."
Right. Quote Fight Club if it makes you feel more like a man. The only fights you've ever won have been online and you're too chickenshit to take that philosophy in the Real World.
That's what a Griefer is. A loser who spends his life online in an attempt to prove to himself that he isn't as pathetic as everyone believes he is.
Slashdot Mirror
for a person who fantasizes about the glamour and popularity that would be his if only he could be a nerd?
Being a nerd isn't cool. But at least you have some respect and recognition from fellow nerds.
But you won't be there forever. When you move on, the next person will most likely pillage your audience for the maximum profit/lowest cost.
I think that's what was shown in the original article. While the show was under control of TechTV, it was good. After the buyout/merger, it sucked.
I didn't say Diebold voting machines were used. But Diebold and the Republicans have a lot of reports of things like paperless audit trails.
Here's the fact that you cannot seem to accept: He has been feted as a guest at President Bush's Texas ranch, joining a cadre of "Pioneers and Rangers" who have pledged to raise more than $100,000 for the Bush reelection campaign. Most memorably, O'Dell last fall penned a letter pledging his commitment "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President." http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004 /03/03_200.html
Again, because you do not like the facts, does not mean that they aren't facts.
Ummm, "Diebold" is a company. A company cannot say anything because it is not a person.
The people who own and run the company can make statements.
The owner of Diebold says that he's going to deliver Ohio's votes for Bush and Ohio uses Diebold machines. Claiming it is a lie does not alter the FACTS.
Because I gave a clear example of Sam Reed blocking attempts to fix problems. Here is a good quote: "Today's hearing will decide a motion to dismiss, filed by Sam Reed's office. Of interest: Reed has asked the judge to deem the formal report by California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley to be inadmissable hearsay, and in a more bizarre response, seeks to have Diebold's own "release notes" -- the document which lists changes made in the software -- to be deemed inadmissable."
So, requesting that Diebold's own paperwork be deemed inadmissable shows that Reed is trying to fix the voting issues?
Awww, so now you want to play the victim? Get over it.
Allegations are not all that are required. But the fact that he wanted Diebold's own paperwork ruled inadmissable does show that he was not interested in fixing the problem (which you claimed he was).
It is about how the votes are counted.
It's about how the machines count the votes.
It's about how the companies providing the machines support and certify their machines.
I can provide clear examples of Reed fighting against fixing the problems.
All you can provide are your claims that he is trying to fix the problems.
I have provided clear examples of Republicans fighting against fixing other problems.
All you have is your claim that since you said Reed was tring to fix the problems, you don't have to provide any other examples.
The facts are that the Republicans have fought to prevent the problems from being fixed. Which is why we have paperless audit trails and machines that have code added to
Paperless audit trails.
Talking about delivering the election for the Republicans.
Diebold being sued by California.
And so forth.
Just because you don't like the FACTS does not mean that they aren't FACTS.
The Republicans are NOT pushing for better methods of voting.
"Sam Reed", eh? Maybe you'd like to look at this story http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0405/S0016
I know, it must really suck when your heros are found to be even more dirty than their opponents.
Yeah, the Democrats cry when they're losing and there are votes that weren't counted that might give them a win.
Yeah, the Republicans are demanding that every vote should be counted now that might give them a win.
!!!BUT!!!
NEITHER side demands that "every vote be counted" when their side is winning. Then it is all about the other side being a "gracious loser" and such.
And that tells you that neither party is interested in counting all the votes, just enough so that they win.
It's all about winning. Not Democracy.
So your little jabs at the Democrats ring a little hollow. Instead, why don't you look at why the Republicans haven't been advocating improvements in the voting process?
The way to motivate people is to make them believe that THEY are under attack from the "enemy". Or that they are in danger from the "enemy". Or their families, values, etc.But the politicians aren't out for the betterment of the people. They are out to get power and to keep power.There is that, also.
Although I'd look at it differently. I see it as people fighting to get the power so they are the ones getting the corporate attentions.
Politics is now about getting power and holding power. The easiest way to do that is fear and hate. The worst way is through rational discussion and mutual respect.
But the ISP doesn't have to take the "lock down everything unless specifically requested to be open" approach.
They can monitor what ports are used by what customers and what ports are used by what viruses.
Example, the IRC controlled bots. If they see IRC activity on a line, they can send the customer a note notifying the customer. Then, if they see DDoS activity or a sudden flood of outbound email, they can check into the situation and possibly cut off that connection until the customer has fixed the problem.Yep. But that's only because thousands and thousands of people actually DIE because of cars each year.
On the Internet, the risk of death is far, Far, FAR, FAR less likely. So the same standards will not be applied.
Viruses have to propogate to be a problem. Kill the propogation means and the virus is nothing more than a programming oddity.Why don't the ISP's do the even easier thing and just firewall whole sections of their network? That way they have a single investment instead of a bunch of $50 "modems". Since all the traffic is traveling over their network anyway
But, again, the easiest thing would be for their ISP's to setup a website to do basic virus checking and to remind the customer of that in every bill they get. They could also put a button on their web-based email services to make it ultra-easy.That could work with a little bit of re-working. The ISP should be able to monitor the traffic on their network. If they see virus-like activity, they should be investigating it and cutting off that service.
Before anyone says that such would not be financially possible, I do a similar thing with spam where I work. Initially, there was a lot of work to do. But as I fixed each problem, there were fewer new problems.Rather, they'd prefer not to do anything so they don't have to deal with the problems. If spam and viruses are a big problem, they affect all ISP's equally. So there isn't any competitive advantage for one ISP to deal with the problem.
Unless you're working with a small, local ISP. Then you can get better support and service.
Do you have a credit card from a company that likes to send you handy "checks" that can be written against your account?
All it takes is one punk to grab your mail and you have a problem.
Your mail can even be delivered to the wrong house and you can be compromised.
The fact is, we are not currently setup to deal with identity theft. We have a bunch of half measures that easily circumvented by anyone who thinks about it.
Don't forget to factor in the off-shoring drive. Even the stuff that is currently built in the US isn't looking very good for the mid to long term.Many of us do. But more of us vote against our economic interests in order to support their ideological/religious interests.
So Bush wants the dollow low compared to other currencies which are pegged to the dollar ... ... but then he runs up massive debt which is paid for by bonds sold to those same countries.
That means they have a 3rd option. Re-peg their currencies to the Euro and let the US economy crash. It's a lot of short term pain for them, but a lot more short term and long term pain for us.
I'll see if I still have an old copy of Loki's "Civilization: Call to Power" that I can test with.Only if you count total number of units in the whole industry. If Linux keeps growing at the rate it is, it will, eventually, overtake Windows. I don't see anything indicating that Linux's growth rate will slow before that happens.Possibly. We'll see when Linux starts getting about 10-20% desktop share.
The people doing the cheap labour in India right now will gain experience. They will move up the ladder.
There's nothing stopping them from getting an MBA.
So, in 10 years or so, you have people in India with 10 years of experience in the industry (which ever industry we're talking about) who are quite capable of launching their own start-ups doing exactly what they've been paid to do for the last 10 years.
And their executives will be making 1/10th what our executives make. And there won't be any language barrier at all and the execs will be in the same building as the workers.
So, a new company is formed, doing the same thing as the old US company, but for a fraction of the price.
The only thing left is to let the US-based marketing firms fight for the marketing contract. (and they will be fighting each other down pretty cheap)
5 years
10 years
15 years
20 years
Eventually, given our current off-shoring practices, it will happen.
Because people are concerned about bugs in the OS and they aren't accepting your answer of "well, some other company doesn't want it fixed so you are shit outta luck".
The companies running correctly written apps should not be denied patches simply because some other company is running an app that depends upon a bug.
Which is why Linux is the fastest growing server OS. That's business. It's harsh, but companies have to look out for their own best interests.
Not whether some other company can convince Microsoft to skip a bug fix because it will break some ancient app.
I'm not worried about companies that didn't take basic precautions when they licensed software. They made the wrong decision, they suffer the consequences. That's business.
Why should Company A's bad decision mean that Companies B, C and D have to run an OS with a known, fixable bug?
The communication takes place, the problems are identified and adequate time is given to get patches/work-arounds in place.
Beyond that, the companies have to take responsibility for their previous decisions.
Business, like life, is harsh.
Which is very different from a very specific video problem in Linux.
It is not the same trade-off as with Linux because it is possible to run a Linux server with only the command line interface.
With Windows, every implementation has those flaws.
With Linux, only a very specific sub-set of implementations have those flaws.
Service packs are to fix bugs in an existing system.
Like I said in my original post, I know lots of people who have turned off the firewall because it caused problems.
The idea is to add security to the system.
Not to disable an app that you weren't running before the patch because that app causes problems with apps that you were running before the patch.
Once you get the firewall out of the service pack, you can deal with it on its own and work on its configuration on its own, as it should be.
The ring 0 issue has been known ever since Microsoft implemented it in NT 4.0 (3.51 did not run the video drivers in ring 0).
/. and a good technical decision would not have a problem here.
It was a stupid decision to do that and the only reason they did it was to improve the video performance on their GUI-driven OS.
So your whole OS can go down because of the video driver.
This is
But Microsoft makes bad technical decisions and they make them because of Marketing demands. You might not agree with that, but that's the fact.
Respect is earned, not given. For Microsoft to be respected for anything other than lots of money or great marketing, they'll have to earn it by making technically sound decisions.
Then the vendors can release patches for their apps so that they will work after the service pack is applied.
And before anyone goes off about how Microsoft would have to spend too much money and time testing every app out there, you're wrong.
There are lots of companies with contracts with Microsoft and Microsoft could ask those companies to run a quick diagnostic app on some of their machines with the apps those companies consider critical to their business running.
That way, Microsoft could see what apps were using the bug that they planned to fix and how many of their big customers would be affected by a fix.
Microsoft has the money, the contact info, the company info and the existing contracts to do just that.
The real reason Microsoft doesn't do that is because there are too many bugs that rely upon other bugs and Microsoft doesn't even know which are which or where they are.
For reference, look at this previous
That way, users such as he with apps such as those could still get the OS patches and work on deploying the firewall by itself.It would depend upon the specifics of those "holes" and the apps that depend upon them.
There is nothing wrong with having an app listen on an open port. Web servers do it, email servers do it, FTP servers do it, etc.
Not having a firewall should not be considered "security risks in the operating system".
I know lots of people who have turned off the firewall in XP sp2 because it stopped apps from working (VPN in particular). That doesn't sound like much of a "fix" for the "holes" in the OS.
Think about what life would be life in a world where "death" did not exist. If you were killed, you came back 5 minutes later in a new body.
How would our criminal justice system have evolved? Murder wouldn't be the big crime it is right now. And the death penalty
The game developers really need to look at what the logical results would be of some of their game-based decisions.
So, you have 5 credit cards which give you 5 characters and all 5 of them are spending time in jail for anti-social crimes
And you're paying $50/month for that privilege.
That way, the Griefer can learn all the exploits and get the levels needed to grief those who do have a life outside the game.Right. Quote Fight Club if it makes you feel more like a man. The only fights you've ever won have been online and you're too chickenshit to take that philosophy in the Real World.
That's what a Griefer is. A loser who spends his life online in an attempt to prove to himself that he isn't as pathetic as everyone believes he is.
Sir Killzalot has challenged you to a duel. Do you accept. [y/N]