I'll have to make it even shorter ( III )
on
CAN-SPAM Is A Bust
·
· Score: 1
And again, the third time.
Unless you can find at least a single quotation from me that says that spam increased 50% on the day the zombies were deployed (as implied by you in this specific quote) then you have lied.
"Spam did not increase by 50% the day that zombie machines came into existence."
You have lied. You are a liar. Claim whatever you want to, but the demonstratable facts show that you are a liar.
"I did not say, or imply, that you had made a statement that spam increased by 50% in one day."
Then why did you say that it did not increase by 50% the first day? I mean, if I didn't say it did and you didn't say it did, then why are you saying that it did not?
You were attempting to imply that I had said that. You are caught in a lie. You are a liar.
"To show that there was not some great pent-up demand for spam delivery when zombies became available and that killing zombies won't reduce spam by 50% as you had claimed."
I did not claim there was "some great pent-up demand for spam delivery".
I said that removing the zombies would reduce spam by 50%.
You are not addressing what I am saying and you are attempting to imply that I said something different. That is either a lie or a strawman.
You are a liar.
To quote you again. "His idea of a mail server is something that he set up under Windows for himself and two buddies."
Another lie. But I'm sure you'll say that I somehow managed to misconstrue what you said. But what's another lie to you?
I'll have to make it even shorter ( II )
on
CAN-SPAM Is A Bust
·
· Score: 1
Again, the second time.
Unless you can find at least a single quotation from me that says that spam increased 50% on the day the zombies were deployed (as implied by you in this specific quote) then you have lied.
"Spam did not increase by 50% the day that zombie machines came into existence."
You have lied. You are a liar. Claim whatever you want to, but the demonstratable facts show that you are a liar.
"I did not say, or imply, that you had made a statement that spam increased by 50% in one day."
Then why did you say that it did not increase by 50% the first day? I mean, if I didn't say it did and you didn't say it did, then why are you saying that it did not?
You were attempting to imply that I had said that. You are caught in a lie. You are a liar.
I'll have to make it even shorter ( I )
on
CAN-SPAM Is A Bust
·
· Score: 1
Unless you can find at least a single quotation from me that says that spam increased 50% on the day the zombies were deployed (as implied by you in this specific quote) then you have lied.
"Spam did not increase by 50% the day that zombie machines came into existence."
You have lied. You are a liar. Claim whatever you want to, but the demonstratable facts show that you are a liar.
I'll keep this short and simple for you.
on
CAN-SPAM Is A Bust
·
· Score: 1
Seeing how you're going to keep "not replying".:)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=117150&cid=9 91 0443 I said: "Technological solution: ISP's block outgoing port 25 service from their networks, except for their mailservers."
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=117150&cid=9 93 0150 You said: "Spam did not increase by 50% the day that zombie machines came into existence."
I did not say that it did. You are trying to imply that I said that. Since I did not say that, you have lied.
Why do you have to lie to try to support your position? It's because your position is unsupportable if you do not lie.
"Since you quoted the text word-for-word, I know that you went back to find the text and, therefore, you purposely fabricated that exchange by pulling your statement and mine two separate messages!"
Hey, whatever helps you get through your life. I quoted you DIRECTLY. If you can find a quote from me where I said that spam went up 50% on the day the zombies were deployed, then you will be right.
If you cannot, then you are a liar.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=117150&cid=9 92 6656 You said: "His idea of a mail server is something that he set up under Windows for himself and two buddies."
Again, find where I said that. If you cannot, then you have lied. You are a liar.
There, is that simple enough for you? Either show where I said those things or you're a liar.
"You asserted that it would block 15% of the spam at my domains if I blocked open relays at the firewall. You didn't say 15% of your spam is from open relays."
Since I don't believe you administer any domains, I really don't care what your claims are. My experience shows that blocking open relays removes 15% of the spam. Since my reply to was to claim that "You make up numbers", referencing my experience is a valid citation.
Here's the statement of your's. "I'm tired of your trolling. You're so busy trying to prove that you are right that you refuse to listen to reason. You make up numbers (50% increase in spam the week zombies became available, a "billion" pieces a day from 1,000 zombies, open relays account for 15% of spam, etc.) and then attack the numbers that I get from reputable sources like ORDB."
"You didn't ask what the source of the number was."
The source was an "anonymous coward"'s posting on/. that didn't contain any references.
Here, let me help you on that one. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=117150&c id=992 3247 "I am a postmaster at one of the biggest U.S. ISPs on the net and you don't have a clue about blocking spam. Do you actually believe that the average firewall could handle blocking of over 225,000 open relay IP addresses? That's how many there are in the ORDB blacklist alone. Did you ever try to administer a firewall of that complexity?"
"You didn't question how I knew that the number was right."
Why question that? The number is NOT what you claimed it was. How can you be "right" when you claim the number means "how many open relays are active" when the number actually means "how many entries are in the database"? You were WRONG.
"You attacked the number as being unreliable."
No, the number IS reliable in that it is the number of listings in their database. But the number is NOT the number of existing open relays out there. Which is what you claimed it was.
"You attacked me, not how I used the numbers and you did not "support" anything."
Do you want me to quote their FAQ again? They do NOT remove addresses unless specifically requested.
"You also tried to claim, without evidence, that many of the ORDB entries were no longer open relays but that no one had requested their removal."
Hey, it's in their FAQ.
"Note that you did not mention that there could be many open relays are not in there because they haven't been reported yet."
That's why I pointed you to their DAILY statistics as a BETTER indicator of the open relay situation. http://www.ordb.org/statistics/changes/
"I'm sure that you will come back with some kind of weasel-words to try to save face, but you, I, and anyone reading this thread will recognize that you have lied, made false assertions, and pulled numbers out of your ass throughout this exchange."
Why would I have to?
My original statement still stands DESPITE all your whining and complaining.
#1. Block port 25 - no more zombies - spam is reduced to 50%. You have yet to show that this is impossible. All you can do is claim that the spammers will now spam mailing lists and send a fraction of the spam through legit server
"You make up numbers (50% increase in spam the week zombies became available,..."
No, YOU are the one that went on about that. I am the one that said that 50% of the spam I receive is from zombie machines. You tried to imply that I had claimed that there was a 50% increase in spam the DAY the zombies went on line. I said that that was incorrect. It was more likely the week that they came on line.
"...a "billion" pieces a day from 1,000 zombies,..."
Comcast has stats showing that 800 million pieces of mail come from their network BUT only 100 million come from their servers. That's 700 million pieces of email (spam) from them.
"...open relays account for 15% of spam,..."
Again, from the spam I get, that is correct.
"...and then attack the numbers that I get from reputable sources like ORDB."
I didn't attack the numbers. I attacked how you were using them AND I supported that with references to their FAQ.
If you have to lie to support your self-image, well, I guess that's what you have to do.
Hey, just because I can count and you can't...
on
CAN-SPAM Is A Bust
·
· Score: 1
"Could be, since you apparently lack the technical expertise to evaluate the terminology."
You can keep claiming that, but YOU are the one quoting unsupported numbers from an "anonymous coward" on/.:D
"Spam did not increase by 50% the day that zombie machines came into existence."
Not that day, but that week. So it would seem that you're INCORRECT AGAIN!
"They would go back to open relays and foreign ISPs."
Open relays are blocked in #2. One Two Three, count with me.
"Here is the support for that number."
That does not appear to show active open relays. This link is a better indication: http://www.ordb.org/statistics/change s/
From their FAQ: "If you wish to receive a weekly list of open relays within your IP-ranges, simply contact us via email at reports@ordb.org, and let us know what ranges you want us to monitor. Please note that by monitor, we do not mean scan. At ORDB.org we do not perform any kind of active network scanning, we only perform relay tests (port 25/tcp)on the hosts that are submitted to us."
So, a someone puts up a test server which is an open relay, then takes it down, it will still be listed in their database until someone ASKS to have that IP address removed.
So, again, it is not necessary to block all those addresses.
"If you weren't so fscking stupid, you could have looked up the numbers just like I did. Go to the link that I provided."
I did. And they state that they do not scan for open relays NOR do they remove a server unless specifically requested. So their total number of servers is not accurate.
"Chinese and Brazillian ISPs, for example, already sell services to spammers. They send the spam. They host the domains. Obviously that disproves your claims about the economics."
No it does not. Spam does not make much money. Once the connection costs exceed the payout, the spam will stop. If all the spammers are COMPETING for the LIMITED BANDWIDTH that those ISP's have, the economics will end the spam.
"Dearest Dumbfuck, If I "opt-in" to receive e-mail from a large computer security mailing list and some spammer sends an "herbal v1agra" ad to the list, I haven't opted in to see his e-mail."
But if I have NOT subscribed to that mailing list I WILL NOT RECEIVE IT OR THE SPAM. So I do not CARE whether someone is inserting ads into your discusson about how much you enjoy sucking goats. I won't see them. Nor will 99%+ of the rest of the population.
"You don't understand that spammers will move to the cheapest option."
I do. And once the CHEAPEST option cost MORE than they make from spam, the spam will end. That's "economics".
"If zombies go away, they go back to traditional methods."
One Two Three, count with me. No open relays and ISP's with rate limits. One Two Three, count with me.
"Spam doesn't go down appreciably, the delivery mechanism just changes."
Wow, spam is magical. If there isn't a difference between open relays and zombie machines, then why were zombie machines invented?
"You don't understand that spammers will send spam to opt-in lists even though the lists have nothing to do with penis enlargement, getting out of debt, or porn."
And I work at an insurance company and the spam from those lists will be ZERO. There. Spam problem solved. The place I work at will NEVER see spam again nor will any of my bandwidth be taken up by it. Problem solved.
"As to "easily managed", do you mean someone devoting his time to moderating each and every post and approving or disapproving each subscription request?"
It's called "SpamAssassin". Look into it. It doesn't take a person, just a service running on a server.
"You don't understand that most foreign ISPs are cheaper than U.S. ISPs and that spammers are already using those ISPs to host their web sites and send out their spam."
"I know that I am smarter than you are. I headed up a team getting a C2 evaluation on a network, have set up encrypted, tunneling links, and have configured more routers and firewalls than you'll ever see. I'm also smart enough to know that SMTP is outbound TCP traffic on port 25, not just "port 25.""
Wow. A dicksize war on the Internet against an anonymous individual. Not that I don't believe everything you say, of course. I just find it amazing that someone who can't count to 3 managed to do all of that.
Or maybe you just strung together a bunch of words in an attempt to impress me.
Particularly when you come up with THIS statement.
re: What would the spammers do if the zombies were unavailable?
"What did they do before there were zombie machines, or were you still in jr. high then?"
Well, what they did BEFORE they had the zombies was SEND OUT LESS SPAM!
Which is exactly what I said would happen.
And you STILL have not provided ANY specifics on what they would do to send out the same amount of spam without the zombies.
So you can CLAIM whatever expertise you want to. But your DEMONSTRATED level of knowledge is still ZERO. And children often exaggerate their accomplishments in order to support their self image.
"There are 225K+ open relay sites (see the post from the other guy who smacked you down hard)."
Yet no one has provided ANY support for that statement. While MY research shows fewer than 100 sending me spam. And Netcraft shows only 53,341,867 domains (buy only around 22 million active sites). Given that a large portion of these are HOSTED, the 225K+ would mean an incredibly large percentage of email servers were configured incorrectly.
Oh, did I use too many numbers there? Are you confused again?
Register.com hosts 1.4 million domains.
"a. Open relays. These show up on a regular basis due to new, misconfigured mail servers coming on line. There are already over 225K of them known and for every one that goes away, another one comes online."
Again, you cite numbers whose ONLY support is an "anonymous coward"'s posting on/.:D
What was that about C2 security?:)
"b. Foreign spam-friendly ISPs who will give them outgoing e-mail for a handsome price."
Which destroys the economics of spam AND is easily handled by spamassassin.
"c. List servers (topica, Yahoo!, etc.)."
Only applicable if you have specifically opted in to those lists.:D (Remember where I said your DEMONSTRATED level of knowledge was ZERO?)
"d. Distributed mass mailings with Zombie machines going through their ISPs' mail servers. If the ISP limits e-mail to one every 30 seconds and there are 1,000 machines, that's 120,000 pieces of spam per hour."
Yep. That's what is called "reduction". Instead of a thousand machines sending a total of a BILLION messages a day, the spam load is reduced to 120,000 an hour. Not to mention that the ISP's email server would show up in services like SpamCop and the RBL's and the ISP could then take action as Comcast has done in the past and cut off service to those machines until they're cleaned.
"2. You can't block open relays at a firewall because the targets are constantly moving and there are far too many of them."
Again, your ONLY "support" for this statement has been an "anonymous coward" posting on/. (What was that about C2 security?):D
"3. You can rate-limit outgoing e-mail for residential users, but that does nothing to stop the hundreds of thousands of open relays that you couldn't block (remember number 2?)."
Your logic is a little confused here (much as you are). #3 isn't about preventing open relays. It is about limiting the outgoing mail. (What was that about C2 security?):D
Again, you attempt to "support" your position with un-supported references to what an "anonymous co
Technology says you need a calculator.
on
CAN-SPAM Is A Bust
·
· Score: 1
"If you doubled your IQ, you might be my equal. Right now, you're just a little kid trying to play with the big boys and you are hopelessly out of your league."
Strange, it seems that you're the one that can't count, doesn't understand what port 25 is and has problems with basic firewalls. Yet you think you're smarter than I am?
re: #1. ISP's block port 25 by default. That gets rid of all the zombie machines.
"If that happened, the spammers would stop using zombie machines and go to different methods. Unlike you, they are smart enough to stop doing something when it stops working."
So you claim. But WHAT would they do instead? Hmmm? What would they do? Don't just claim that they'd do "something". Explain what they'd do. Go ahead. I'll even help you.
To send email to my server you must: #1. Steal someone else's connection (zombie). #2. Bounce the mail off an open relay. #3. Pay for the connection yourself. #4. "Free" web mail.
The fact is, cutting off the zombie machines would reduce my spam by about 50%. That's #1.
re: #2. Block the open relays at your firewall.
"Your lack of reading comprehension is doing you in again. As I wrote before:
If you generated a rule to exclude every open relay on the Internet, the firewall, if it had the storage for that many IP addresses, would slow to a crawl. If the relay opens at 2:10AM and the spammer starts blasting your domain at 2:14AM, then I guess that relay wasn't in the list, was it?"
What is your basis for saying that a firewall couldn't handle it?
"You suggested absurd things like programming every IP address of every open relay in the world into your firewall. Yeah, that's real practical -- assuming that your firewall has infinite speed, infinite memory, and you are clairvoyent so that you can tell when an open relay comes online."
No, you'd only need infinite speed and memory if there were an infinite number of open relays.
Since there aren't, you don't.
From my server, there are fewer than 100 open relays sending me spam. It's easy to block 100 sites.
re: #3. ISP's rate limit email.
"The spammer won't go through an ISP rate-limited e-mail server, as I've tried to tell you repeatedly. They will go through open relays at small businesses."
Which was already covered in #2. The open relays are blocked.
And so the cycle begins again. I gave you three easy steps and you can't even get from #2 to #3 without forgetting #2.
Well, this has been fun. But until you can learn to count to 3, I don't think you will understand it.
Kirk! Data! Quark's mother! The guy in the red shirt that got eaten by the monster on that planet they were trapped on! We even have a special appearance by a cartoon Kzinti! And Captain Janeway!
All the best from every Star Trek series, movie and cartoon EVER produced!
See Captain Kirk battle the Obsidian Order to save Beverly Crusher!
"I don't like your rude, smart-assed tone. So don't expect this to be polite like my previous reply."
"Polite"? You're dumber than a box of rocks. How can you tell what "polite" is?
Here, I'll break it into itty-bitty chunks so you don't have to think so hard.
Start with 100% of the spam.
#1. ISP's block port 25 by default. That gets rid of all the zombie machines.
Now you only have to deal with 50% of the spam.
#2. Block the open relays at your firewall.
Now you only have to deal with 15% of the spam.
#3. ISP's rate limit email.
So instead of a spammer sending out a few million emails, s/he only sends out 100.
There, 99.9% of the spam never gets to you AND all the bandwidth is saved.
The remaining.1% can easily be handled by spamassassin or similar programs.
"That's like saying that a whitelist of phone numbers is a technological solution to telemarketing. Nevermind the fact that your wife is trying to reach you from a payphone in a dark parking lot where her car battery is dead."
I gave you the technological solution to the spam problem. You didn't like it that it required the ISP's to implement it.
So you gave new criteria that YOU would NEVER receive ANY spam AND that it be something that YOU only had to implement on YOUR side.
Now you're changing your criteria, again.
Why don't you take a little nap and have some cookies and milk and try to collect your thoughts and grow up a little before you show off your ignorance in a public forum next time?:)
And yet again! Technology has solved it.
on
CAN-SPAM Is A Bust
·
· Score: 1
"As I described before, there is no technological fix for other domains having open relays."
It's called a "firewall". You can update the "firewall" to reject connections that come from known open relays.
"They aren't static and could not compose a list of them today that would be valid next week."
So they spontaniously appear? That's amazing. I though auto-genesis was disproven years ago. Imagine my surprise. Meanwhile, I thought I covered that in the portion about ISP's locking down port 25 on their networks. Silly me. You do know what port 25 is, don't you?
"There's no fix if some Chinese ISP chooses to temporarily uncap some spammer's outgoing e-mail rates for a fee."
You haven't heard of the "usenet death penalty", have you? And again, it is a technological solution. It is drastic, but it is necessary when the ISP's refuse to implement their side of the technology.
"There's no fix for a spammer buying IP space in Brazil, blasting out a spam run, and then moving to another IP address, maybe at a different ISP."
Been over that. It's called "rate limits".
"A technological solution to the spam problem means that I implement it and get no more spam at my domain."
Sure there is, it's called a "white list". You configure the firewall to ONLY allow email access from sites you completely trust. If you've configured it correctly, you'll never get any spam. If you haven't configured it correctly, well, that's a failing on your part.
There are all kinds of antagonists to use. I believe the current crop of writers and producers just don't understand the protagonist/antagonist concept.
Example: #1. Man, stranded in the snow, struggles to find shelter. -vs- #2. Man, stranded in the snow, struggles to find shelter from evil ice wizard's storm.
There's a huge difference between the two.
With the Borg, they were initially introduced as #1. They were impersonal.
Then, with the addition of the Borg Queen, they became #2.
"The idea of having an enemy be just a force that's Out There(tm) and not interactive just doesn't occur to some people.
But a force does make for a better antagonist in some situations. You cannot argue with it, persuade it, find out why it doesn't like you, etc.
I think the problem is that the writers/producers don't WANT anything to be BIGGER than their characters. The antagonist must have a voice and you must be able to tell when it has been defeated.
Humans vs Cylons: Easy back in the 80's. People worried about losing their jobs to machines. Now we worry about being replaced by some guy in India. Robots from outer space just are not that effective as a generic threat now.
The other thing I found disappointing is how the writers never let any of the humans make a wrong decision.
#1. Must abandon the slower ships to be killed by the Cylons. But right then the Cylons show up so it isn't "abandon", it becomes "escape".
#2. "Bad" human guy tries to shift suspicion away from him by blaming an innocent person. But the "innocent person" turns out to be a robot.
There are lots of reasons why people will resist implementing the technological fixes, but that does not mean that they do not exist.
Technology has already solved the problem.
on
CAN-SPAM Is A Bust
·
· Score: 1
The vast majority of spam I see is from zombies.
Technological solution: ISP's block outgoing port 25 service from their networks, except for their mailservers.
The next largest segment is from open relays.
Technological solution: Block those addresses.
Which leaves spammers with their own accounts on ISP's.
Technological solution: ISP's put rate limits on outgoing email.
Nice, simple and easy to implement.
There will be a few issues with that, such as mailing lists, but those should be easy to handle on a case by case basis from the ISP.
Technology has solved the problem. But getting the ISP's to implement the technology isn't easy. Some of those ISP's are very happy to host spammers for a price.
From the article: "Ximian agrees to grant back to Developer, and does hereby grant, nonexclusive, royaltyfree and noncancelable rights to use the Works,"...
So. YOU write the code and then you give ALL THE RIGHTS to Novell.
"We're giving it a pretty good chance of passing," said Ruskin, who has a company representative at the IETF meetings. "The word on the street is that everyone wants to support [Sender ID], but that some are concerned about the proprietary licensing that Microsoft wants to put in it. If someone has to fax Microsoft each time a change is proposed to the standard, that doesn't go down well with a certain group of people."
Sounds like someone has his panties in a wad.
Drop the proprietary crap. There's no need for it.
The majority of desktops out there are supported by an IT department.
"The point he's missing that you are trying to make is that you include GETTING to a working install and MAINTAINING a working install to be critical to your view of "ready for the desktop"."
I haven't missed that. I've run Linux on Compaq EVO's, HP Vectra VL's and IBM laptops (all used at work).
Everything on those worked AUTOMATICALLY. In a CORPORATE environment, getting a working install is very, Very, VERY easy.
And maintaining Linux is easier than maintaining Windows.
"It's an important distinction, because I really feel like Linux is in a very odd position where it works GREAT for "Aunt Millies" and PHB level users and GREAT for expert users, but the true middle class of users has trouble."
Those are the users who are managing their own machines, right?
The problem is how you define "average". Like I pointed out, the majority of machines are managed by IT departments.... So the "average" person-in-the-street is not typing on the "average" computer.
Which is what I tried to illustrate with my DeLorean analogy. Just because something isn't "average" (very few DeLoreans on the road compared to Ford Taurus') does NOT mean that it isn't as capable and as easy to use as the "average".
"It depends on your definition of "average user" and "ready for the desktop"."
!!!BINGO!!!
"A point the article was making was that the "average user" doesn't have to install WinXP, it comes ready. If you give the same peron a Linux box ready to use they have no more problems, possibly less."
!!!BINGO^2!!!
In fact, 99%+ of the "reviews" I've read on Linux focus SOLELY on the installation. I believe that such is what the original author was refering to when he pointed out the problems with modems and wireless network cards.
"Most of them would have absolutely no problem using Linux instead of Windows. In fact, I bet if you put an IE skin on Firefox and set up Crossover Office, and stuck a Windows bootimage over top of the start up stuff, you could convince a large number of them they WERE using Windows."
!!!BINGO^2^2!!!
And when that is possible, how can it be said that Linux is NOT ready for the desktop ("corporate desktop" and "aunt Minnie")?
Thanks!
I think the "problem" we keep having is that different people understand the following terms differently:
"average PC" "desktop" "average user" "ready for the desktop"
"Er, you didn't actually address any of my points."
That's because your points are irrelevent to my position.
"Sure, anyone can rent a DeLorean and move it around."
Exactly. They can even buy one and move it around. The SAME as they can with a more POPULAR car. Because "marketshare" != "ready".
"That's different than owning and maintaining it."
I can own it and never drive it. So owning it doesn't matter.
I can maintain one and never drive it. So maintaining it doesn't matter.
If I wanted to drive to the movies, is there anything about a DeLorean that would prevent me from doing so THE EXACT SAME AS I WOULD IN A FORD TAURUS?
No. There is not.
"Which I already said - anyone can use a Linux box if someone else sets it up and maintains it."
Welcome to the corporate world. I work in an IT department.
"That's hardly "ready for the desktop.""
If anyone can use it, then it is, by definition, "ready for the desktop".
Of course, MY view of the "desktop" is the corporate desktop. But there are others. It's just that the corporate desktop is the largest segment.
Linux is ill-suited to the power-gamer desktop or the person who purchases new or weird devices. But these are much smaller segments (compared to the corporate desktop).
"Good point. It does mean that they aren't ready to be driven and maintained by your Aunt Minnie."
Unless Aunt Minnie has an interest in doing so. There is nothing stopping her. She does not need to learn how to overhaul and engine nor a new way of driving. Her current skills are sufficient.
"Or by most people for that matter."
Again, the only thing stopping them is the desire. They do not need to learn new skills.
"The average guy-on-the-street? Not a chance."
Only if you define "average" to be "not someone who wants to spend the time with a DeLorean".
If anyone has an interest to, they can. They do not need to learn new skills.
They are not restricted on which streets they can drive on.
"Even this isn't true. The OEM doesn't have to reject certain hardware as "not working with windows" because it all does."
Riiiigggghhhhtttttt.....
So, let's see you install XP on an iMac. How about a G4?
Your definition for "all" hardware is "that which works with the version of Windows that I'm installing".
I have accelerated video cards that haven't had Windows drivers since NT 4.0. They came out of an old Alpha box.
"Now I'm not blaming anyone here - it's often the fault of the manufacturers, and sure, I could write the drivers myself (well actually, I probably couldn't) but the fact is still that Linux causes me more problems than windows."
Welcome to "marketshare". And this situation will not change until Linux has 50%+ of the desktop market.
But you are confusing "marketshare" with "ready for the desktop".
There aren't many DeLoreans out there. And you have to pay particular attention when purchasing parts for them (and sometimes special order).
But that does not mean they aren't ready to be driven.
Slashdot Mirror
And again, the third time.
Unless you can find at least a single quotation from me that says that spam increased 50% on the day the zombies were deployed (as implied by you in this specific quote) then you have lied.
"Spam did not increase by 50% the day that zombie machines came into existence."
You have lied. You are a liar. Claim whatever you want to, but the demonstratable facts show that you are a liar.
"I did not say, or imply, that you had made a statement that spam increased by 50% in one day."
Then why did you say that it did not increase by 50% the first day? I mean, if I didn't say it did and you didn't say it did, then why are you saying that it did not?
You were attempting to imply that I had said that. You are caught in a lie. You are a liar.
"To show that there was not some great pent-up demand for spam delivery when zombies became available and that killing zombies won't reduce spam by 50% as you had claimed."
I did not claim there was "some great pent-up demand for spam delivery".
I said that removing the zombies would reduce spam by 50%.
You are not addressing what I am saying and you are attempting to imply that I said something different. That is either a lie or a strawman.
You are a liar.
To quote you again.
"His idea of a mail server is something that he set up under Windows for himself and two buddies."
Another lie. But I'm sure you'll say that I somehow managed to misconstrue what you said. But what's another lie to you?
Again, the second time.
Unless you can find at least a single quotation from me that says that spam increased 50% on the day the zombies were deployed (as implied by you in this specific quote) then you have lied.
"Spam did not increase by 50% the day that zombie machines came into existence."
You have lied. You are a liar. Claim whatever you want to, but the demonstratable facts show that you are a liar.
"I did not say, or imply, that you had made a statement that spam increased by 50% in one day."
Then why did you say that it did not increase by 50% the first day? I mean, if I didn't say it did and you didn't say it did, then why are you saying that it did not?
You were attempting to imply that I had said that. You are caught in a lie. You are a liar.
Unless you can find at least a single quotation from me that says that spam increased 50% on the day the zombies were deployed (as implied by you in this specific quote) then you have lied.
"Spam did not increase by 50% the day that zombie machines came into existence."
You have lied. You are a liar. Claim whatever you want to, but the demonstratable facts show that you are a liar.
Seeing how you're going to keep "not replying". :)
9 91 0443
9 93 0150
9 92 6656
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=117150&cid=
I said: "Technological solution: ISP's block outgoing port 25 service from their networks, except for their mailservers."
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=117150&cid=
You said: "Spam did not increase by 50% the day that zombie machines came into existence."
I did not say that it did. You are trying to imply that I said that. Since I did not say that, you have lied.
Why do you have to lie to try to support your position? It's because your position is unsupportable if you do not lie.
"Since you quoted the text word-for-word, I know that you went back to find the text and, therefore, you purposely fabricated that exchange by pulling your statement and mine two separate messages!"
Hey, whatever helps you get through your life. I quoted you DIRECTLY. If you can find a quote from me where I said that spam went up 50% on the day the zombies were deployed, then you will be right.
If you cannot, then you are a liar.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=117150&cid=
You said: "His idea of a mail server is something that he set up under Windows for himself and two buddies."
Again, find where I said that. If you cannot, then you have lied. You are a liar.
There, is that simple enough for you? Either show where I said those things or you're a liar.
I had said:
/. that didn't contain any references.
/
"#1. ISP's block port 25 by default. That gets rid of all the zombie machines.
Now you only have to deal with 50% of the spam."
Now YOUR "counter" to that was:
"Spam did not increase by 50% the day that zombie machines came into existence."
Hey, I didn't say ANYTHING about "the day". YOU were the one that inserted that.
Since I had NOT said it, but you tried to imply I had said it, that was a LIE.
"All e-mail from Comcast's network is spam unless it went through Comcast's servers; there are no mail servers run by non-spamming users."
Reference:
http://news.com.com/Attack+of+Comcas t's+Internet+z ombies/2010-1034_3-5218178.html
Deal with it.
"You asserted that it would block 15% of the spam at my domains if I blocked open relays at the firewall. You didn't say 15% of your spam is from open relays."
Since I don't believe you administer any domains, I really don't care what your claims are. My experience shows that blocking open relays removes 15% of the spam. Since my reply to was to claim that "You make up numbers", referencing my experience is a valid citation.
Here's the statement of your's.
"I'm tired of your trolling. You're so busy trying to prove that you are right that you refuse to listen to reason. You make up numbers (50% increase in spam the week zombies became available, a "billion" pieces a day from 1,000 zombies, open relays account for 15% of spam, etc.) and then attack the numbers that I get from reputable sources like ORDB."
"You didn't ask what the source of the number was."
The source was an "anonymous coward"'s posting on
Here, let me help you on that one.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=117150&c id=992 3247
"I am a postmaster at one of the biggest U.S. ISPs on the net and you don't have a clue about blocking spam. Do you actually believe that the average firewall could handle blocking of over 225,000 open relay IP addresses? That's how many there are in the ORDB blacklist alone. Did you ever try to administer a firewall of that complexity?"
"You didn't question how I knew that the number was right."
Why question that? The number is NOT what you claimed it was. How can you be "right" when you claim the number means "how many open relays are active" when the number actually means "how many entries are in the database"? You were WRONG.
"You attacked the number as being unreliable."
No, the number IS reliable in that it is the number of listings in their database. But the number is NOT the number of existing open relays out there. Which is what you claimed it was.
"You attacked me, not how I used the numbers and you did not "support" anything."
Do you want me to quote their FAQ again? They do NOT remove addresses unless specifically requested.
"You also tried to claim, without evidence, that many of the ORDB entries were no longer open relays but that no one had requested their removal."
Hey, it's in their FAQ.
"Note that you did not mention that there could be many open relays are not in there because they haven't been reported yet."
That's why I pointed you to their DAILY statistics as a BETTER indicator of the open relay situation.
http://www.ordb.org/statistics/changes
"I'm sure that you will come back with some kind of weasel-words to try to save face, but you, I, and anyone reading this thread will recognize that you have lied, made false assertions, and pulled numbers out of your ass throughout this exchange."
Why would I have to?
My original statement still stands DESPITE all your whining and complaining.
#1. Block port 25 - no more zombies - spam is reduced to 50%.
You have yet to show that this is impossible. All you can do is claim that the spammers will now spam mailing lists and send a fraction of the spam through legit server
"You make up numbers (50% increase in spam the week zombies became available,..."
No, YOU are the one that went on about that. I am the one that said that 50% of the spam I receive is from zombie machines. You tried to imply that I had claimed that there was a 50% increase in spam the DAY the zombies went on line. I said that that was incorrect. It was more likely the week that they came on line.
"...a "billion" pieces a day from 1,000 zombies,..."
Comcast has stats showing that 800 million pieces of mail come from their network BUT only 100 million come from their servers. That's 700 million pieces of email (spam) from them.
"...open relays account for 15% of spam,..."
Again, from the spam I get, that is correct.
"...and then attack the numbers that I get from reputable sources like ORDB."
I didn't attack the numbers. I attacked how you were using them AND I supported that with references to their FAQ.
If you have to lie to support your self-image, well, I guess that's what you have to do.
"Could be, since you apparently lack the technical expertise to evaluate the terminology."
/. :D
You can keep claiming that, but YOU are the one quoting unsupported numbers from an "anonymous coward" on
"Spam did not increase by 50% the day that zombie machines came into existence."
Not that day, but that week. So it would seem that you're INCORRECT AGAIN!
"They would go back to open relays and foreign ISPs."
Open relays are blocked in #2.
One Two Three, count with me.
"Here is the support for that number."
That does not appear to show active open relays.
This link is a better indication:
http://www.ordb.org/statistics/change s/
From their FAQ:
"If you wish to receive a weekly list of open relays within your IP-ranges, simply contact us via email at reports@ordb.org, and let us know what ranges you want us to monitor. Please note that by monitor, we do not mean scan. At ORDB.org we do not perform any kind of active network scanning, we only perform relay tests (port 25/tcp)on the hosts that are submitted to us."
So, a someone puts up a test server which is an open relay, then takes it down, it will still be listed in their database until someone ASKS to have that IP address removed.
So, again, it is not necessary to block all those addresses.
"If you weren't so fscking stupid, you could have looked up the numbers just like I did. Go to the link that I provided."
I did. And they state that they do not scan for open relays NOR do they remove a server unless specifically requested. So their total number of servers is not accurate.
"Chinese and Brazillian ISPs, for example, already sell services to spammers. They send the spam. They host the domains. Obviously that disproves your claims about the economics."
No it does not. Spam does not make much money. Once the connection costs exceed the payout, the spam will stop. If all the spammers are COMPETING for the LIMITED BANDWIDTH that those ISP's have, the economics will end the spam.
"Dearest Dumbfuck, If I "opt-in" to receive e-mail from a large computer security mailing list and some spammer sends an "herbal v1agra" ad to the list, I haven't opted in to see his e-mail."
But if I have NOT subscribed to that mailing list I WILL NOT RECEIVE IT OR THE SPAM. So I do not CARE whether someone is inserting ads into your discusson about how much you enjoy sucking goats. I won't see them. Nor will 99%+ of the rest of the population.
"You don't understand that spammers will move to the cheapest option."
I do. And once the CHEAPEST option cost MORE than they make from spam, the spam will end. That's "economics".
"If zombies go away, they go back to traditional methods."
One Two Three, count with me.
No open relays and ISP's with rate limits.
One Two Three, count with me.
"Spam doesn't go down appreciably, the delivery mechanism just changes."
Wow, spam is magical. If there isn't a difference between open relays and zombie machines, then why were zombie machines invented?
"You don't understand that spammers will send spam to opt-in lists even though the lists have nothing to do with penis enlargement, getting out of debt, or porn."
And I work at an insurance company and the spam from those lists will be ZERO. There. Spam problem solved. The place I work at will NEVER see spam again nor will any of my bandwidth be taken up by it. Problem solved.
"As to "easily managed", do you mean someone devoting his time to moderating each and every post and approving or disapproving each subscription request?"
It's called "SpamAssassin". Look into it. It doesn't take a person, just a service running on a server.
"You don't understand that most foreign ISPs are cheaper than U.S. ISPs and that spammers are already using those ISPs to host their web sites and send out their spam."
BBBZZZZZTTTTT!!!!!!!!
Mos
"I know that I am smarter than you are. I headed up a team getting a C2 evaluation on a network, have set up encrypted, tunneling links, and have configured more routers and firewalls than you'll ever see. I'm also smart enough to know that SMTP is outbound TCP traffic on port 25, not just "port 25.""
/. :D
:)
:D (Remember where I said your DEMONSTRATED level of knowledge was ZERO?)
/. (What was that about C2 security?) :D
:D
Wow. A dicksize war on the Internet against an anonymous individual. Not that I don't believe everything you say, of course. I just find it amazing that someone who can't count to 3 managed to do all of that.
Or maybe you just strung together a bunch of words in an attempt to impress me.
Particularly when you come up with THIS statement.
re: What would the spammers do if the zombies were unavailable?
"What did they do before there were zombie machines, or were you still in jr. high then?"
Well, what they did BEFORE they had the zombies was SEND OUT LESS SPAM!
Which is exactly what I said would happen.
And you STILL have not provided ANY specifics on what they would do to send out the same amount of spam without the zombies.
So you can CLAIM whatever expertise you want to. But your DEMONSTRATED level of knowledge is still ZERO. And children often exaggerate their accomplishments in order to support their self image.
"There are 225K+ open relay sites (see the post from the other guy who smacked you down hard)."
Yet no one has provided ANY support for that statement. While MY research shows fewer than 100 sending me spam. And Netcraft shows only 53,341,867 domains (buy only around 22 million active sites). Given that a large portion of these are HOSTED, the 225K+ would mean an incredibly large percentage of email servers were configured incorrectly.
Oh, did I use too many numbers there? Are you confused again?
Register.com hosts 1.4 million domains.
"a. Open relays. These show up on a regular basis due to new, misconfigured mail servers coming on line. There are already over 225K of them known and for every one that goes away, another one comes online."
Again, you cite numbers whose ONLY support is an "anonymous coward"'s posting on
What was that about C2 security?
"b. Foreign spam-friendly ISPs who will give them outgoing e-mail for a handsome price."
Which destroys the economics of spam AND is easily handled by spamassassin.
"c. List servers (topica, Yahoo!, etc.)."
Only applicable if you have specifically opted in to those lists.
"d. Distributed mass mailings with Zombie machines going through their ISPs' mail servers. If the ISP limits e-mail to one every 30 seconds and there are 1,000 machines, that's 120,000 pieces of spam per hour."
Yep. That's what is called "reduction". Instead of a thousand machines sending a total of a BILLION messages a day, the spam load is reduced to 120,000 an hour. Not to mention that the ISP's email server would show up in services like SpamCop and the RBL's and the ISP could then take action as Comcast has done in the past and cut off service to those machines until they're cleaned.
"2. You can't block open relays at a firewall because the targets are constantly moving and there are far too many of them."
Again, your ONLY "support" for this statement has been an "anonymous coward" posting on
"3. You can rate-limit outgoing e-mail for residential users, but that does nothing to stop the hundreds of thousands of open relays that you couldn't block (remember number 2?)."
Your logic is a little confused here (much as you are). #3 isn't about preventing open relays. It is about limiting the outgoing mail. (What was that about C2 security?)
Again, you attempt to "support" your position with un-supported references to what an "anonymous co
"If you doubled your IQ, you might be my equal. Right now, you're just a little kid trying to play with the big boys and you are hopelessly out of your league."
Strange, it seems that you're the one that can't count, doesn't understand what port 25 is and has problems with basic firewalls. Yet you think you're smarter than I am?
re: #1. ISP's block port 25 by default. That gets rid of all the zombie machines.
"If that happened, the spammers would stop using zombie machines and go to different methods. Unlike you, they are smart enough to stop doing something when it stops working."
So you claim. But WHAT would they do instead? Hmmm? What would they do? Don't just claim that they'd do "something". Explain what they'd do. Go ahead. I'll even help you.
To send email to my server you must:
#1. Steal someone else's connection (zombie).
#2. Bounce the mail off an open relay.
#3. Pay for the connection yourself.
#4. "Free" web mail.
The fact is, cutting off the zombie machines would reduce my spam by about 50%. That's #1.
re: #2. Block the open relays at your firewall.
"Your lack of reading comprehension is doing you in again. As I wrote before:
If you generated a rule to exclude every open relay on the Internet, the firewall, if it had the storage for that many IP addresses, would slow to a crawl. If the relay opens at 2:10AM and the spammer starts blasting your domain at 2:14AM, then I guess that relay wasn't in the list, was it?"
What is your basis for saying that a firewall couldn't handle it?
"You suggested absurd things like programming every IP address of every open relay in the world into your firewall. Yeah, that's real practical -- assuming that your firewall has infinite speed, infinite memory, and you are clairvoyent so that you can tell when an open relay comes online."
No, you'd only need infinite speed and memory if there were an infinite number of open relays.
Since there aren't, you don't.
From my server, there are fewer than 100 open relays sending me spam. It's easy to block 100 sites.
re: #3. ISP's rate limit email.
"The spammer won't go through an ISP rate-limited e-mail server, as I've tried to tell you repeatedly. They will go through open relays at small businesses."
Which was already covered in #2. The open relays are blocked.
And so the cycle begins again. I gave you three easy steps and you can't even get from #2 to #3 without forgetting #2.
Well, this has been fun. But until you can learn to count to 3, I don't think you will understand it.
Buh bye now.
All your favourite characters!
Kirk!
Data!
Quark's mother!
The guy in the red shirt that got eaten by the monster on that planet they were trapped on!
We even have a special appearance by a cartoon Kzinti!
And Captain Janeway!
All the best from every Star Trek series, movie and cartoon EVER produced!
See Captain Kirk battle the Obsidian Order to save Beverly Crusher!
you can always fall back on guest appearances from characters from shows that had good writers.
This is just sad.
"I don't like your rude, smart-assed tone. So don't expect this to be polite like my previous reply."
.1% can easily be handled by spamassassin or similar programs.
:)
"Polite"? You're dumber than a box of rocks. How can you tell what "polite" is?
Here, I'll break it into itty-bitty chunks so you don't have to think so hard.
Start with 100% of the spam.
#1. ISP's block port 25 by default. That gets rid of all the zombie machines.
Now you only have to deal with 50% of the spam.
#2. Block the open relays at your firewall.
Now you only have to deal with 15% of the spam.
#3. ISP's rate limit email.
So instead of a spammer sending out a few million emails, s/he only sends out 100.
There, 99.9% of the spam never gets to you AND all the bandwidth is saved.
The remaining
"That's like saying that a whitelist of phone numbers is a technological solution to telemarketing. Nevermind the fact that your wife is trying to reach you from a payphone in a dark parking lot where her car battery is dead."
I gave you the technological solution to the spam problem. You didn't like it that it required the ISP's to implement it.
So you gave new criteria that YOU would NEVER receive ANY spam AND that it be something that YOU only had to implement on YOUR side.
Now you're changing your criteria, again.
Why don't you take a little nap and have some cookies and milk and try to collect your thoughts and grow up a little before you show off your ignorance in a public forum next time?
"As I described before, there is no technological fix for other domains having open relays."
It's called a "firewall". You can update the "firewall" to reject connections that come from known open relays.
"They aren't static and could not compose a list of them today that would be valid next week."
So they spontaniously appear? That's amazing. I though auto-genesis was disproven years ago. Imagine my surprise. Meanwhile, I thought I covered that in the portion about ISP's locking down port 25 on their networks. Silly me. You do know what port 25 is, don't you?
"There's no fix if some Chinese ISP chooses to temporarily uncap some spammer's outgoing e-mail rates for a fee."
You haven't heard of the "usenet death penalty", have you? And again, it is a technological solution. It is drastic, but it is necessary when the ISP's refuse to implement their side of the technology.
"There's no fix for a spammer buying IP space in Brazil, blasting out a spam run, and then moving to another IP address, maybe at a different ISP."
Been over that. It's called "rate limits".
"A technological solution to the spam problem means that I implement it and get no more spam at my domain."
Sure there is, it's called a "white list". You configure the firewall to ONLY allow email access from sites you completely trust. If you've configured it correctly, you'll never get any spam. If you haven't configured it correctly, well, that's a failing on your part.
There are all kinds of antagonists to use.
I believe the current crop of writers and producers just don't understand the protagonist/antagonist concept.
Example:
#1. Man, stranded in the snow, struggles to find shelter.
-vs-
#2. Man, stranded in the snow, struggles to find shelter from evil ice wizard's storm.
There's a huge difference between the two.
With the Borg, they were initially introduced as #1. They were impersonal.
Then, with the addition of the Borg Queen, they became #2.
"The idea of having an enemy be just a force that's Out There(tm) and not interactive just doesn't occur to some people.
But a force does make for a better antagonist in some situations. You cannot argue with it, persuade it, find out why it doesn't like you, etc.
I think the problem is that the writers/producers don't WANT anything to be BIGGER than their characters. The antagonist must have a voice and you must be able to tell when it has been defeated.
Humans vs Cylons:
Easy back in the 80's. People worried about losing their jobs to machines. Now we worry about being replaced by some guy in India. Robots from outer space just are not that effective as a generic threat now.
The other thing I found disappointing is how the writers never let any of the humans make a wrong decision.
#1. Must abandon the slower ships to be killed by the Cylons. But right then the Cylons show up so it isn't "abandon", it becomes "escape".
#2. "Bad" human guy tries to shift suspicion away from him by blaming an innocent person. But the "innocent person" turns out to be a robot.
There are lots of reasons why people will resist implementing the technological fixes, but that does not mean that they do not exist.
The vast majority of spam I see is from zombies.
Technological solution: ISP's block outgoing port 25 service from their networks, except for their mailservers.
The next largest segment is from open relays.
Technological solution: Block those addresses.
Which leaves spammers with their own accounts on ISP's.
Technological solution: ISP's put rate limits on outgoing email.
Nice, simple and easy to implement.
There will be a few issues with that, such as mailing lists, but those should be easy to handle on a case by case basis from the ISP.
Technology has solved the problem. But getting the ISP's to implement the technology isn't easy. Some of those ISP's are very happy to host spammers for a price.
From the article:
"Ximian agrees to grant back to Developer, and does hereby grant, nonexclusive, royaltyfree and noncancelable rights to use the Works,"...
So. YOU write the code and then you give ALL THE RIGHTS to Novell.
Then Novell licenses YOUR CODE BACK TO YOU.
"We're giving it a pretty good chance of passing," said Ruskin, who has a company representative at the IETF meetings. "The word on the street is that everyone wants to support [Sender ID], but that some are concerned about the proprietary licensing that Microsoft wants to put in it. If someone has to fax Microsoft each time a change is proposed to the standard, that doesn't go down well with a certain group of people."
Sounds like someone has his panties in a wad.
Drop the proprietary crap. There's no need for it.
The majority of desktops out there are supported by an IT department.
...
"The point he's missing that you are trying to make is that you include GETTING to a working install and MAINTAINING a working install to be critical to your view of "ready for the desktop"."
I haven't missed that. I've run Linux on Compaq EVO's, HP Vectra VL's and IBM laptops (all used at work).
Everything on those worked AUTOMATICALLY. In a CORPORATE environment, getting a working install is very, Very, VERY easy.
And maintaining Linux is easier than maintaining Windows.
"It's an important distinction, because I really feel like Linux is in a very odd position where it works GREAT for "Aunt Millies" and PHB level users and GREAT for expert users, but the true middle class of users has trouble."
Those are the users who are managing their own machines, right?
The problem is how you define "average". Like I pointed out, the majority of machines are managed by IT departments.
So the "average" person-in-the-street is not typing on the "average" computer.
Which is what I tried to illustrate with my DeLorean analogy. Just because something isn't "average" (very few DeLoreans on the road compared to Ford Taurus') does NOT mean that it isn't as capable and as easy to use as the "average".
"It depends on your definition of "average user" and "ready for the desktop"."
!!!BINGO!!!
"A point the article was making was that the "average user" doesn't have to install WinXP, it comes ready. If you give the same peron a Linux box ready to use they have no more problems, possibly less."
!!!BINGO^2!!!
In fact, 99%+ of the "reviews" I've read on Linux focus SOLELY on the installation. I believe that such is what the original author was refering to when he pointed out the problems with modems and wireless network cards.
"Most of them would have absolutely no problem using Linux instead of Windows. In fact, I bet if you put an IE skin on Firefox and set up Crossover Office, and stuck a Windows bootimage over top of the start up stuff, you could convince a large number of them they WERE using Windows."
!!!BINGO^2^2!!!
And when that is possible, how can it be said that Linux is NOT ready for the desktop ("corporate desktop" and "aunt Minnie")?
Thanks!
I think the "problem" we keep having is that different people understand the following terms differently:
"average PC"
"desktop"
"average user"
"ready for the desktop"
"Er, you didn't actually address any of my points."
That's because your points are irrelevent to my position.
"Sure, anyone can rent a DeLorean and move it around."
Exactly. They can even buy one and move it around. The SAME as they can with a more POPULAR car. Because "marketshare" != "ready".
"That's different than owning and maintaining it."
I can own it and never drive it. So owning it doesn't matter.
I can maintain one and never drive it. So maintaining it doesn't matter.
If I wanted to drive to the movies, is there anything about a DeLorean that would prevent me from doing so THE EXACT SAME AS I WOULD IN A FORD TAURUS?
No. There is not.
"Which I already said - anyone can use a Linux box if someone else sets it up and maintains it."
Welcome to the corporate world. I work in an IT department.
"That's hardly "ready for the desktop.""
If anyone can use it, then it is, by definition, "ready for the desktop".
Of course, MY view of the "desktop" is the corporate desktop. But there are others. It's just that the corporate desktop is the largest segment.
Linux is ill-suited to the power-gamer desktop or the person who purchases new or weird devices. But these are much smaller segments (compared to the corporate desktop).
http://doc.vic.computerbank.org.au/user_support/au tologin/
Easily found by typing "KDE automatic login" into google. ibtiwtkagn
Thanks for supporting my point.
It isn't that a DeLorean is NOT ready for anyone to drive it, it is that it is so rare that there aren't many people to SUPPORT the hardware.
Linux IS ready for the desktop.
But because of marketshare, not every hardware manufacturer will support it.
You do not need to learn new skills (with Linux or a DeLorean) to operate it.
Both are as capable as the alternatives (Windows or a Ford).
It's all down to marketshare. Linux has been ready for a while.
The fact is, a Linux box would be perfect for your grandmother.
It can be configured to automatically log her in.
Other than that, nothing you've noted is any different in Linux than in Windows.
"Good point. It does mean that they aren't ready to be driven and maintained by your Aunt Minnie."
Unless Aunt Minnie has an interest in doing so. There is nothing stopping her. She does not need to learn how to overhaul and engine nor a new way of driving. Her current skills are sufficient.
"Or by most people for that matter."
Again, the only thing stopping them is the desire. They do not need to learn new skills.
"The average guy-on-the-street? Not a chance."
Only if you define "average" to be "not someone who wants to spend the time with a DeLorean".
If anyone has an interest to, they can. They do not need to learn new skills.
They are not restricted on which streets they can drive on.
It is only about marketshare and interest.
"Even this isn't true. The OEM doesn't have to reject certain hardware as "not working with windows" because it all does."
Riiiigggghhhhtttttt.....
So, let's see you install XP on an iMac. How about a G4?
Your definition for "all" hardware is "that which works with the version of Windows that I'm installing".
I have accelerated video cards that haven't had Windows drivers since NT 4.0. They came out of an old Alpha box.
"Now I'm not blaming anyone here - it's often the fault of the manufacturers, and sure, I could write the drivers myself (well actually, I probably couldn't) but the fact is still that Linux causes me more problems than windows."
Welcome to "marketshare". And this situation will not change until Linux has 50%+ of the desktop market.
But you are confusing "marketshare" with "ready for the desktop".
There aren't many DeLoreans out there. And you have to pay particular attention when purchasing parts for them (and sometimes special order).
But that does not mean they aren't ready to be driven.