Well you seemed to imply in your first post that SETI was the reason for not allowing cell phones. It has been brought to your attention that SETI is NOT the issue, there are other, more legit issues at stake and you continue to prattle on about SETI.
Unfortunatly/. has yet another misleading headline that seems to be confusing people who do not want to read the articles.
Ignore SETI, pretend the article is not so poorly titled and makes no mention of SETI
Among other concerns astronomers have is that the second harmonic of many cell phones falls in a frequency band that reveals the molecular signature of newborn and dying stars, which is among the 2% of frequencies in this part of the electromagnetic spectrum reserved for use by radio astronomers.
In case you haven't worked it out yet, SETI uses radio astronomy equipment to listen for radio signals from outer space.
Reading comprehension is fun:)
The grandparent poster is claiming that this affects more than just the SETI people, this affects all radio astronomy. In case you cannot be bothered to read the article or the/. blurb, I have pasted it here:
Among other concerns astronomers have is that the second harmonic of many cell phones falls in a frequency band that reveals the molecular signature of newborn and dying stars, which is among the 2% of frequencies in this part of the electromagnetic spectrum reserved for use by radio astronomers.
There you go, actual science being disrupted, not searching for little green men.
*sigh* this is yet another example where English just doesn't quite work right. This is not about free as in cost, it is free as in "libra". It sucks that the same word is used to mean both vastly different concepts. Charging would not make a bit of difference when the issue at hand is the availability of source code and the license used.
The kid was supposed to hold the world record in "fastest SMS sending" or something. The morse code guys held no such record. Actually wtfe (watch the fing episode) before shooting off about amateur vs professional.
The morse operator had a clean fist because he was using a keyer I believe. I would have loved to see this contest done with a straight key, it probably would have been much closer.
Memorizing patters is a horrible way to learn morse code, it stops you at around 12 words per minute. A better way is to learn at a faster rate and train your brain to hear the infividual sound of letter, rather than the dits and dahs that make up the letters. Much in the same way that once you learn to read, you begin to see whole words instead of collections of letters.
Also, the US is not the big SMS country. It hardly has GSM!
Which of course has nothing to do with SMS. It can be sent over CMDA and TDMA as well, and seamlessly go between these networks.
The reason the US is not a big SMS country like many in Europe is that our pricing structures are set up differently. Often it is cheaper to call than SMS someone.
"We are well on our way to halting any innovation or progress in many other markets and industries, but we have not yet done much damage in the video game industry."
Perhaps if they are unable to actually produce a cross compiler then they should stop pretending they do. Although frankly, as much as I like and use GCC if they are no longer going to be a cross compiler I have no idea what they will compete on. Sure as hell will not be performance.
So, everybody who fixes something that (incidentally) affects emission of debug annotations in Gcc has to learn all the idiot formats used in AIX, Solaris, Tru64, PE, and what-have-you just because FSF happens to have those machines?
They made the choice to support those "idiot formats" as you ignorantly say. If they plan to half ass it, they should expect to gain some critics.
The plural of anecdote is not data. That said, I have seen hundreds of ibooks, imacs, powerbooks, and powermacs go through my University. In my experience, the power* are VASTLY more reliable. The consensus in message boards around the net seems to be the same.
I have an iMac, 2nd generation iPod, and a Powerbook. I have never had a problem with any of them. It is wierd how it seems to cluster, people either have great experiences with certain vendors or nothing but bad ones.
Yes, but why is it pwned first? Maybe because it is the most used OS out there so most viruses are specifically written for it. Macs would have the same problem and so would Linux if they were #1.
Nope you got it backwards. Ignoring end user caused problems (like clicking on strange attachments), the vulnerabilities have to be there first. Then they will be found and exploited as a function of how popular the system is, or how attractive a target it is.
An increase in popularity does not magically cause crappy, insecure code, despite what MS would love you to believe. Apache seems to have few problems than the decidedly less popular IIS.
Nothing is totally secure, and I am sure an increase in popularity would cause more vulnerabilities to be found in Linux and OS X, HOWEVER that does not mean it would be nearly as bad as MS since both systems seem to have followed much better coding practices and actually seem to believe in testing.
So buy higher quality PCs, and demand your supplier use quality hardware.
But then you lose the only good arguement that a PC has over a Mac, price:P
Going back to the story, if the problem is that Windows security is causing him problems, and the quality of most PC's is crap. He can either pay more for better quality PCs, and still have the Windows problem (assuming Linux is out of the question, which for most end users it still seems to be), or pay the same amount for a Mac and get the quality hardware, and solve the "crappy OS" problem.
Under windows, chances are, I can still run an app from the early 80s and expect it to work
Seriously, good luck with that. I've found the opposite to be true. For all their attempts at backward compability, I have heard of and run into a lot of older programs that simply will not run on new systems. It seems to cause much more trouble than it is worth.
That was not the nfs endpoint mapper though, it was the dcom one. And of course dcom is basically DCE without the security (because MS had not "invented" kerberosV with groups in the PAC yet). Even designed around the RPC, you would think they would have limited it to the loopback device or at least let you turn it off on external devices. Very weird decision.
I like the RPC archecture (I used to write DCE client/server apps) but it should certainly not be a required part of the OS.
The chance of "being owned" is only partial dependant on the secureness of the product. The other, larger part is dependand on the number and intensity of the attempts done.
A "detail" that you obviously did not want to think about...:-)
The chance of being owned (by something other than user stupidity) is entirely dependent on the security of the product. If it is mostly secure (no computer is completly secure unless turned off and locked up), it can stand up to the added attention.
Here's a list... let's just focus on iptables for a moment (which, btw, I use and love/lust)
I never claimed non-MS solutions were perfect, but in my experience I have found the vulnerabilities to not be as numerous and serious (a major point). Also the turnaround time for fixes is usually much better.
If you look at all the packages typically installed (default) in most BSDs and SuSE... you'll find just as many vulnerabilities.
This is partially just due to the sheer number of packages included. Comparing the windows kernel to practically every OSS product out there (which MS always does when showing stats on this stuff) is not exactly a fair comparison.
No organization should ever accept anything less than the things I've mentioned above.
I agree although I tend to be more lax on the "locking down the machine from the user" aspect. Taken to an extreme can really stifle people. Also, being at a university we do not have that option (try telling students in dorms you are going to manage their machines, or worse tenured faculty). Our security staff has focused on more of a detection/disable plan of attack. Generally if we detect someone's machine is compromised it is just dropped off the network. This "gently" encourages people to be smarter about their own stuff. Granted academia is in a pretty unique position to be able to do that but not manage the machines:)
Macs are relatively virus free because the majority of virii out there aren't aimed at Macs. If the Mac ever regained a significant market share, virus writers would start aiming at the platform and your experiment would show different results.
Possibly, then again possibly not. You analogy is closer to the truth than you probably intended because, (Christian Science wackyness aside) some people are naturally more resistent to viruses than others. It just may be that her children have above average immune systems.
Let's focus on just operating system vulnerabilities because viruses that attack user stupidity (like "please execute this email attachment") are platform independent. It is completely possible that if the roles were reversed, OS X would prove to be a better written, more secure OS and it could even stand up to the added attention of popularity. Likely it would suffer additional problems with the increased attacks but I believe that it is simply designed better and with different goals in mind that make it more secure. Of course it is also possible that it would prove to be even less secure than Windows, it is impossible to say.
My point is that the number of vulnerabilities in any system is not a linear function of how popular it is. Sure popularity causes them to be found and exploited eaiser, but they have to be there in the first place.
If you look at Apache and IIS you see a possible counter example to you point. Apache is more popular but certainly not the victim of as many serious attacks as IIS has been. It was simply designed better.
Memory Not all RAM is equal. Some works well. Cheap stuff doesn't. : Makes save you from this trouble by only allowing you to buy the expensive stuff
Hard disks. Same problem: cheap or reliable. Your call. : Again, solved by Apple by not allowing "cheap".
Are you one of those people under the weird assumption that you cannot put non-Apple purchased memory and hard drives into a Mac?
Although I do not really see what this has to do with Windows vs Mac, Apple has their hardware quality control issues just like anyone else (avoid the i* stuff and only go with the power* stuff).
I love how the standard response from anyone on windows network security is to put the windows machine behind another machine running an OS that does not have the history of massive security problems.
When was the last time you heard of a firewall running (IOS/Linux/BSD/whatever) having an unpatched vulnerability on a network service that (1) you cannot turn off and (2) you cannot tell not to listen on every port? I of course refer to the RPC endpoint mapper on 135 vulnerability that plagued windows a while ago. Stuff like that is why windows is known as a joke in the security world.
I agree however, that the vast majority of windows problems are caused by clueless admins. However, it is MS's own fault in a sense. A major selling point is that you do not need to understand networking or really much of anything to administer a windows network. This has led to legions of drooling point and click admins who lack even the most basic understand of security and networking principles. Interestingly Mac's are just as easy (if not easier) to admin, BUT they are much more secure by default. Plop a windows box and a Mac in front of a newbie and see which one is "0wned" first.
Assuming the cryptography is implemented correctly, if someone breaks 2048 bit RSA public key crypto, contactless credit cards are by far the least of our problems.
Slashdot Mirror
Well you seemed to imply in your first post that SETI was the reason for not allowing cell phones. It has been brought to your attention that SETI is NOT the issue, there are other, more legit issues at stake and you continue to prattle on about SETI.
/. has yet another misleading headline that seems to be confusing people who do not want to read the articles.
Unfortunatly
Finkployd
Ignore SETI, pretend the article is not so poorly titled and makes no mention of SETI
Among other concerns astronomers have is that the second harmonic of many cell phones falls in a frequency band that reveals the molecular signature of newborn and dying stars, which is among the 2% of frequencies in this part of the electromagnetic spectrum reserved for use by radio astronomers.
THAT is a problem.
In case you haven't worked it out yet, SETI uses radio astronomy equipment to listen for radio signals from outer space.
:)
/. blurb, I have pasted it here:
Reading comprehension is fun
The grandparent poster is claiming that this affects more than just the SETI people, this affects all radio astronomy. In case you cannot be bothered to read the article or the
Among other concerns astronomers have is that the second harmonic of many cell phones falls in a frequency band that reveals the molecular signature of newborn and dying stars, which is among the 2% of frequencies in this part of the electromagnetic spectrum reserved for use by radio astronomers.
There you go, actual science being disrupted, not searching for little green men.
Finkployd
*sigh* this is yet another example where English just doesn't quite work right. This is not about free as in cost, it is free as in "libra". It sucks that the same word is used to mean both vastly different concepts. Charging would not make a bit of difference when the issue at hand is the availability of source code and the license used.
Finkployd
(Score:5, Insightful)
Score:5. Incorrect
The kid was supposed to hold the world record in "fastest SMS sending" or something. The morse code guys held no such record. Actually wtfe (watch the fing episode) before shooting off about amateur vs professional.
The morse operator had a clean fist because he was using a keyer I believe. I would have loved to see this contest done with a straight key, it probably would have been much closer.
Memorizing patters is a horrible way to learn morse code, it stops you at around 12 words per minute. A better way is to learn at a faster rate and train your brain to hear the infividual sound of letter, rather than the dits and dahs that make up the letters. Much in the same way that once you learn to read, you begin to see whole words instead of collections of letters.
Finkployd
Also, the US is not the big SMS country. It hardly has GSM!
Which of course has nothing to do with SMS. It can be sent over CMDA and TDMA as well, and seamlessly go between these networks.
The reason the US is not a big SMS country like many in Europe is that our pricing structures are set up differently. Often it is cheaper to call than SMS someone.
Finkployd
"We are well on our way to halting any innovation or progress in many other markets and industries, but we have not yet done much damage in the video game industry."
Perhaps if they are unable to actually produce a cross compiler then they should stop pretending they do. Although frankly, as much as I like and use GCC if they are no longer going to be a cross compiler I have no idea what they will compete on. Sure as hell will not be performance.
So, everybody who fixes something that (incidentally) affects emission of debug annotations in Gcc has to learn all the idiot formats used in AIX, Solaris, Tru64, PE, and what-have-you just because FSF happens to have those machines?
They made the choice to support those "idiot formats" as you ignorantly say. If they plan to half ass it, they should expect to gain some critics.
Finkployd
Because we all know that morality is strictly tied to nudity.
Jackass
I suggest you re-read the parent post, you clearly did not understand it.
Finkployd
The plural of anecdote is not data. That said, I have seen hundreds of ibooks, imacs, powerbooks, and powermacs go through my University. In my experience, the power* are VASTLY more reliable. The consensus in message boards around the net seems to be the same.
I have an iMac, 2nd generation iPod, and a Powerbook. I have never had a problem with any of them. It is wierd how it seems to cluster, people either have great experiences with certain vendors or nothing but bad ones.
Finkployd
Yes, but why is it pwned first? Maybe because it is the most used OS out there so most viruses are specifically written for it. Macs would have the same problem and so would Linux if they were #1.
Nope you got it backwards. Ignoring end user caused problems (like clicking on strange attachments), the vulnerabilities have to be there first. Then they will be found and exploited as a function of how popular the system is, or how attractive a target it is.
An increase in popularity does not magically cause crappy, insecure code, despite what MS would love you to believe. Apache seems to have few problems than the decidedly less popular IIS.
Nothing is totally secure, and I am sure an increase in popularity would cause more vulnerabilities to be found in Linux and OS X, HOWEVER that does not mean it would be nearly as bad as MS since both systems seem to have followed much better coding practices and actually seem to believe in testing.
Finkployd
So buy higher quality PCs, and demand your supplier use quality hardware.
:P
But then you lose the only good arguement that a PC has over a Mac, price
Going back to the story, if the problem is that Windows security is causing him problems, and the quality of most PC's is crap. He can either pay more for better quality PCs, and still have the Windows problem (assuming Linux is out of the question, which for most end users it still seems to be), or pay the same amount for a Mac and get the quality hardware, and solve the "crappy OS" problem.
Finkployd
Finkployd
Under windows, chances are, I can still run an app from the early 80s and expect it to work
Seriously, good luck with that. I've found the opposite to be true. For all their attempts at backward compability, I have heard of and run into a lot of older programs that simply will not run on new systems. It seems to cause much more trouble than it is worth.
Finkployd
That was not the nfs endpoint mapper though, it was the dcom one. And of course dcom is basically DCE without the security (because MS had not "invented" kerberosV with groups in the PAC yet). Even designed around the RPC, you would think they would have limited it to the loopback device or at least let you turn it off on external devices. Very weird decision.
I like the RPC archecture (I used to write DCE client/server apps) but it should certainly not be a required part of the OS.
Finkployd
Don't tell me to run multiple NICs, that's not practical.
How on earth did this get modded up? This guy has no clue what he is talking about. Multiple NICs indeed.
Finkployd
The chance of "being owned" is only partial dependant on the secureness of the product. The other, larger part is dependand on the number and intensity of the attempts done.
... :-)
A "detail" that you obviously did not want to think about
I address this here
The chance of being owned (by something other than user stupidity) is entirely dependent on the security of the product. If it is mostly secure (no computer is completly secure unless turned off and locked up), it can stand up to the added attention.
Finkployd
Here's a list... let's just focus on iptables for a moment (which, btw, I use and love/lust)
:)
I never claimed non-MS solutions were perfect, but in my experience I have found the vulnerabilities to not be as numerous and serious (a major point). Also the turnaround time for fixes is usually much better.
If you look at all the packages typically installed (default) in most BSDs and SuSE... you'll find just as many vulnerabilities.
This is partially just due to the sheer number of packages included. Comparing the windows kernel to practically every OSS product out there (which MS always does when showing stats on this stuff) is not exactly a fair comparison.
No organization should ever accept anything less than the things I've mentioned above.
I agree although I tend to be more lax on the "locking down the machine from the user" aspect. Taken to an extreme can really stifle people. Also, being at a university we do not have that option (try telling students in dorms you are going to manage their machines, or worse tenured faculty). Our security staff has focused on more of a detection/disable plan of attack. Generally if we detect someone's machine is compromised it is just dropped off the network. This "gently" encourages people to be smarter about their own stuff. Granted academia is in a pretty unique position to be able to do that but not manage the machines
Finkployd
Macs are relatively virus free because the majority of virii out there aren't aimed at Macs. If the Mac ever regained a significant market share, virus writers would start aiming at the platform and your experiment would show different results.
Possibly, then again possibly not. You analogy is closer to the truth than you probably intended because, (Christian Science wackyness aside) some people are naturally more resistent to viruses than others. It just may be that her children have above average immune systems.
Let's focus on just operating system vulnerabilities because viruses that attack user stupidity (like "please execute this email attachment") are platform independent. It is completely possible that if the roles were reversed, OS X would prove to be a better written, more secure OS and it could even stand up to the added attention of popularity. Likely it would suffer additional problems with the increased attacks but I believe that it is simply designed better and with different goals in mind that make it more secure. Of course it is also possible that it would prove to be even less secure than Windows, it is impossible to say.
My point is that the number of vulnerabilities in any system is not a linear function of how popular it is. Sure popularity causes them to be found and exploited eaiser, but they have to be there in the first place.
If you look at Apache and IIS you see a possible counter example to you point. Apache is more popular but certainly not the victim of as many serious attacks as IIS has been. It was simply designed better.
Finkployd
With the exception of cards I guess.
s/exception of cards/exception of video cards
Finkployd
I started with Macs around the time of OS 10.2 and I upped the memory in mine with generic stuff from MemoryX and IDE hard drives I already had.
Maybe it was true before, but is certainly is not now. With the exception of cards I guess.
Finkployd
Memory Not all RAM is equal. Some works well. Cheap stuff doesn't. : Makes save you from this trouble by only allowing you to buy the expensive stuff
Hard disks. Same problem: cheap or reliable. Your call. : Again, solved by Apple by not allowing "cheap".
Are you one of those people under the weird assumption that you cannot put non-Apple purchased memory and hard drives into a Mac?
Although I do not really see what this has to do with Windows vs Mac, Apple has their hardware quality control issues just like anyone else (avoid the i* stuff and only go with the power* stuff).
Finkployd
Finkployd
Put in a good corporate firewall!
I love how the standard response from anyone on windows network security is to put the windows machine behind another machine running an OS that does not have the history of massive security problems.
When was the last time you heard of a firewall running (IOS/Linux/BSD/whatever) having an unpatched vulnerability on a network service that (1) you cannot turn off and (2) you cannot tell not to listen on every port?
I of course refer to the RPC endpoint mapper on 135 vulnerability that plagued windows a while ago. Stuff like that is why windows is known as a joke in the security world.
I agree however, that the vast majority of windows problems are caused by clueless admins. However, it is MS's own fault in a sense. A major selling point is that you do not need to understand networking or really much of anything to administer a windows network. This has led to legions of drooling point and click admins who lack even the most basic understand of security and networking principles. Interestingly Mac's are just as easy (if not easier) to admin, BUT they are much more secure by default. Plop a windows box and a Mac in front of a newbie and see which one is "0wned" first.
Finkployd
Assuming the cryptography is implemented correctly, if someone breaks 2048 bit RSA public key crypto, contactless credit cards are by far the least of our problems.
Finkployd