I agree that there should be some level of responsibilty, however the car anaology is somewhat flawed.
Your typical Win2k/NT server has a bunch of 3rd party software on it.
It would be more like trying to claim warranty for engine damage on your turbocharged honda civic (to use another bad analogy).
I'm not saying I don't think they should be responsible, but a lot (no, not all) of Window's problems are caused by third party software not playing the game properly...
I think what I'm saying is that I agree with your point... but the analogy isn't quite accurate;)
To those going on about patching, etc... that whole way of thinking is completely flawed.
You have to assume there *are* holes in application software such as SQL server due to its complexity.
Taking a reactive approach, and simply installing hotfixes are they're available will simply not work - patches are often not available until a number of days/weeks/months until after the vulnerability is known. Even if it hasn't been fully disclosed, the blackhats may well know about it, or be prompted to scrutinize that particular product more and find it before the full announcement.
The correct way to deploy such products is to design your network with this in mind, and firewall them off from the rest of the world.
That does NOT give you the security to not worry about patching (single layer security is bad) - keep your servers patched - but it does buy you a little time, and is an extra layer of defense in case there is a server that doesn't patch properly for some reason (file couldn't be overwritten for example), or is accidentally forgotten about.
I can think of *no reason* why an SQL server must be accessible to the world. You have a webserver that uses it as a back-end? Give the public access to port 80/443 of that ONLY, and disallow connections from anywhere but localhost to the SQL software. Even better (and the approach I always take - I don't trust Win-X to be visible to the internet, period), install it on a seperate physical machine, firewall that machine more tightly (ie, allow SQL connections ONLY from machines that require them, such as your webserver).
If you have client machines that need to access the database from the internet, thats what VPNs are for.
Since I've had enough sense to firewall my servers correctly (yes, I was a clueless idiot before as well;), I have not had a single security breach.
I'm not saying that I'm definately immune to a concentrated attack, but you can definately stack the odds in your favour.
Yes, it is an investment in time, and probably money - but if you want a secure network, its simply the price you have to pay these days... how much is your data/uptime worth?
"Fair use" involves using the music/etc for your own personal use - NOT distributing to the rest of the world via P2P.
So record labels steal from artists? They give *some* money back to the artist at least - by copying a bands music, you're giving them NOTHING back, which is a hell of a lot worse than the $1.50 per cd they likely receive.
I agree that the music industry business model is completely fucked, however it does NOT give you an excuse to steal.
Thats like someone breaking your nearest electronics store and stealing a TV, because Sony only pays its workers in taiwan $2/hr (figures pulled out of my head) for making it.
If you don't agree with the way the recording industry works, then fine, don't buy their stuff. If you steal it though, you're just as bad (worse even, as you don't compensate the artist) as they are.
I thought this was supposed to be a pro-linux site?
Timothy completely missed one of the key points - that the "advanced server" version has a 3 year support plan. Its still not great, but to have "Redhat announces 12 month only errata" (or words to that effect on the front page of Slashdot is just going to give Redhat a bad name with the casual observer. We all know how few people actually RTFA...
Yeah, I was after sims I guess... however Wing Commander on the PC just blew me away - and that could hardly be called a sim;)
Lemmings, Eye of the Beholder, Prince of Persia were all on PC too, in VGA. Gods too...
Wing Commander did it for me. Once I saw Wing Commander 2, I just had to get rid of the Amiga and get a machine with the power to do 3d properly;)
Don't get me wrong, I love the Amiga for what it was, Commodore just needed more CPU power so it could move into the 3d filled polygon era - the custom chips were simply no good for that sort of thing:-\
I still think WorkBench is the best OS that has ever been put out for a home computer... going to MS-DOS was a trade off I was willing to make for decent 3d framerates though...
In 1991 I was playing Wing Commander, Indianapolis 500, F15 Strike Eagle 2 and LHX attack chopper.
These are the games that encouraged me to sell my Amiga... it just couldn't compete with the PC by this point...
smash.
Re:The X-box of 1991 was the Amiga
on
The 1991 "X-Box"
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The CD32 didn't come out until later, but regardless of this I agree with you.
The PC simply could not compete with the Amiga until until later - bang for buck, for games, the PC simply wasn't a starter.
The amiga also had a more TV friendly output - 320x200 or 320x256(PAL) with 64/4096 colours in extra half-bright mode, with an appropriate refresh rate, and even came with a modulator (brick) for connecting to a TV.
The sound was much more capable - 4 channel, 8 bit 29khz (compared to the SoundBlaster's 22hz 1 channel 8 bit mono). Sure you can do software mixing on the soundblaster, but that took more CPU power than was usually feasible on a 386.
My only gripe with the Amiga, and the reason I ended up selling mine, is that they took far too long to put a quicker CPU in it at a decent price. If they'd put a 68020 in the A500 from the start, and a 68030 in the A1200, I'd probably not have moved to the PC in 1992:-\
Anybody who puts an SQL server of any kind out in the open, let alone one with such a colourful security history as MS-SQL server, deserves whatever they get.
I'm not justifying behavior of the assholes who release these worms, but leaving the SQL server visible to the public internet is just slightly retarded.
If these boxes actually have someone employed as admins, they should get fired, plain and simple
"Why would they use Linux, when FreeBSD is available under a less restrictive license."
Why didn't Apple simply use FreeBSD?
As far as I'm aware, they did use most of the FreeBSD userland. They used mach as the underlying kernel for reasons I don't know - possibly something to do with having another seperate virtual machine running on it to run legacy MacOS apps with? I don't know the specifics, I'm not a MacHead;P
"Parts of Windows have used BSD derived code in the past, such as the TCP/IP stack (which may have since been rewritten), and MS is a lot friendlier to FreeBSD than linux (C# anyone?)."
BSD != FreeBSD, and I haven't ever seen any proof that Windows actually uses/used BSD code. All in all, that's a very shaky foundation.
I never said BSD==FreeBSD. I merely used FreeBSD as an example of a BSD licensed codebase, as thats the most polished IMHO for i386. I never meant to imply they used FreeBSD code, but I've read credits on MS packaging before (NT 4 I believe) giving credit to Berkley university or such. Forget the exact wording, but I recall specifically thinking "hey thats BSD code" when I read it (this was 1997 or so).
Rumors aside, you're saying that Microsoft should choose FreeBSD over Linux because they could easily make FreeBSD proprietary and closed. That might be true, but is it better?
I never intented to imply it was better for the end user. From Microsoft's point of view, however (and they are the ones who would make the decision in the end) it makes more business sense.
Personally, I don't care if they were to take some BSD code and put it into Windows and close it, so long as they credit it as per the BSD license (and this is likely the opinion shared by the BSD developers). Maybe Windows might actually start being functional;P
My point was, that there is other code out there, equivalent to Linux, with a less restrictive license. Using Linux as the basis for the next version of Windows would simply make no business sense.
Why would they use Linux, when FreeBSD is available under a less restrictive license.
Now before the Linux purists get started up and start modding me as flamebait - I use both Linux and FreeBSD (Linux since 96, BSD since 2000) and although I'm partial to FreeBSD myself, I have nothing serious against either one...
Parts of Windows have used BSD derived code in the past, such as the TCP/IP stack (which may have since been rewritten), and MS is a lot friendlier to FreeBSD than linux (C# anyone?).
Barring legalities, the whole FreeBSD vs Linux argument is a matter of personal preference at the moment for most people. So Linux does better SMP at the moment? How many desktop users have SMP desktop machines out there? Amongst the *geeks* maybe 10%. I've run both extensively and as far as performance goes, there's not enough in it to bicker about.
Again, the BSD license is a lot more compatible with MS - they can base Windows 2008 on xBSD and not have to open the source up at all if they like!
Someday there will be a grand museum of clealy superior technology that failed in the market anyhow (CSTTFMA).
In it you will see the Amiga, OS/2, and the Alpha.
Hopefully we *won't* also see Linux there:-)
Well you damn well won't see windows there, thats for sure:P
Seriously, you have to question someone's priorities if they're willing to go so far with pointless PC bits like that - just think of the manufacturing waste and damage to the environment involved for the sake of some fucking keyboard neons...
A computer is a *tool*... nothing more, nothing less.
You don't see people sticking neons on chainsaws do you?
"A computer browser that is said to least quadruple surfing speeds on the Internet has won the top prize at an Irish exhibition for young scientists, it was announced on Saturday. Adnan Osmani, 16, a student at Saint Finian's College in Mullingar, central Ireland spent 18 months writing 780,000 lines of computer code to develop the browser. Known as "XWEBS", the system works with an ordinary Internet connection using a 56K modem on a normal telephone line. "
Some people will go to pretty extreme lengths to download their pr0n quicker, it seems...
Okay, wait, so they compared a 3 GHz processor with a 1.25 GHz processor? Even though it's dual, it won't be used by everything that he does.. OS X itself uses the Duals, as does Photoshop, but his digicam software may not.
Regardless, it really comes down to a personal choice. Are you strong enough to make the right one?;)
That may be the case, but I think it was a matter of finding the quickest mac available.
If you can provide a quicker mac than the dual 1.25 to compete with the 3ghz PC, I'll give you a cookie.
Points (fucking ISP went down when I submitted my last post and I lost it
I've had 3 Win2k reinstalls in the last 2 1/2 years. One due to drive failure, and 2 due to major hardware upgrades. Thats hardly unexpected
I've had 4 windows blue screens in that time, all accounted for: 1, due to the dead harddisk - had errors in the swapfile. 2 and 3, due to testing pre-release Win2k accelerated 3d Nvidia drivers on Unreal Tournament (can you even play it on a mac?:P). 4, due to dead stick of RAM.
My mum can, and does use windows, without my assistance. If she needs to use someone elses PC, the chances of it being another Windows box are about 90%:P
OS installation is irrelevant, but for the record, Windows can be left unattended for most of the install these days. Ditto linux/freebsd(my unix of choice)
DJGPP is available for Windows, and the whole GNU toolkit is available for Linux/BSD/whatever flavor of unix you like
Every PC I've had has outperformed any Mac available of equivalent age, at 50-75% of the price. It also runs more software.
I'll admit, OS/X is nice, and I've considered buying a Mac for it, but I just can't justify it at all.
I'm no Windows fanboy, but your claims that it crashes all the time are simply fucking wrong.
If it crashes that much, either:
a) stop running that shitty old copy of Windows 98 you bought/copied 5 years ago on your modern (or hey, even an old) PC, and install a real OS like 2k or FreeBSD.
b) get your hardware looked at. Its either cheap, or its fucked. I'd argue that most cheap hardware is fucked by design, but your milage my vary...
Who still cares about speed with 1GHz+ processors ? 400MHz is fast enough for me, only people dealing with synthetic images need the fastest... I mean what difference does it if your filter applies in 6 seconds instead of 3 ?
So, if you're running a batch on 5000 images, you'd not care if it took 15,000 seconds instead of 5000?
Seriously... besides, there is *plenty* of ways for programmers to use all the CPU horsepower we can muster - all you need to do is double the horizontal and vertial resolution of those images and you're already talking about 4 times as much power again...
Div-X encoding takes a really beefy machine to run in real time (ie, taking 2 hours to encode a movie) - I'd rather it was done instantaneously.
Shouldn't be a big surprise to anyone who read over those 'Shared Source' slides yesterday.
M$ actually used TCP/IP as an example of how the software market has been harmed by free/open-source software instead of commercial software.
Looks to me like they hold the creators of TCP/IP in contempt for not making it licensed, closed-source software!
And at the same time, they steal and modify the TCP/IP stack from BSD UNIX so they can forward their own business goals! Oh wait, they call that 'innovation'...
-Dragoth
Jesus christ...
I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but you can't steal something that is freely distributable and modifiable...
If you read the Microsoft packaging/manual to Windows, it clearly states that it contains BSD derived code - as per the requirements of the BSD license.
Can't remember where exactly, but I read it on the packaging way back in 1996 or so...
Again, its the BSD way of thinking - anyone who writes for BSD doesn't care who uses their code - its put out there for the good of the industry. If people use it, all the better - we get less bugs due to everybody re-inventing the wheel....
I'm certain there must be plenty of habitable planets out there - regardless of being common or not, the sheer size of the galaxy/universe/etc is just so huge.
I think the whole perspective people seem to have that they must be rare is just a need to feel special - that we are the centre of the universe, etc (similar to the old thinking that the sun rotated around the moon).
My opinion is that we *aren't* special, and that our solar system is probably just like billions of other systems out there.
If our system formed this way, and its not special, then surely plenty of other systems formed the same way, and had similar results...
Just my 2c...
smash.
I have run SMTP servers in the past (right now, both at work and at home, it's handled by other people).
I wonder if you've actually maintained any of any consequence...
Think of it this way: I get a lot of spam, and I download it to my computer. It's annoying to have to look through it. But it clearly doesn't take a lot of resources: it takes a couple of minutes per day to download and almost no CPU time to process. Browsing the web for a few minutes is more effort. Clearly, when looked at it per-user, spam is not a bandwidth or resource problem.
Regardless of HOW MUCH time and resources it uses, its still use of resources which are neither infinite or cheap. Due to the nature of SMTP, the vast majority of these resources are consumed on the receiver's end.
If we sit here and simply accept spam as OK, the situation is only going to get worse, to the point that e-mail will be completely unusable.
I've been maintaining e-mail servers in a business environment (for an ISP, and currently, a medium sized mining company), and can vouch for the 50% spam figure being quoted by another poster as believable.
See this reaction
That link shows exactly what is wrong. The guy is complaining that he can't handle thousands of mailboxes on a single SPARC 2. Would he expect to be able to handle thousands of dial-ins on a single SPARC 2? Would he expect to be able to handle switching network connections for thousands of users through a single SPARC 2? Would he expect to be able to cache and proxy the traffic from thousands of web users through a single SPARC 2?
Yes. Its quite possible that same SPARC2 WAS doing these things quite happily before it was bogged down processing double the amount of mail due to spam.
Mail traffic used to be unusually small compared to other traffic and ISPs have gotten used to getting off cheap in terms of hardware and to be able to centralize it. Now it's catching up with other traffic and ISPs are whining.
I call bullshit. Our company does not provide internet access to most employees for example. Out of our monthly bandwidth usage, 80% would be e-mail. If 50% of that is unsolicited (ie, spam) thats 40% of our bandwidth costs directly attributed to spam. 40% of our bill that is UNWANTED traffic.
And if ISPs want to get rid of the problem, there is a very simple solution, at least for broadband providers: give people static IP addresses and let them run their own SMTP servers. They can do that either on their PCs, or the broadband modems or firewalls could acquire store-and-forward functionality for mail. Then, the hardware is distributed, people pay for the level of SMTP service they need and want through their choice of equipment and bandwidth, and ISPs are rid of the problem. My $170 embedded firewall on my broadband connection has more than enough capacity as it is to handle my mail volume.
Again, bullshit.
You end up with a mass of poorly configured open relays, happily flooding everybody else with even more spam.
The problem is NOT CPU power these days. The problem is wasted bandwidth, wasted disk space and wasted time tracking down the source of UCE pr0n mail delivered to irate users...
I suggest you leave arguments regarding things you have no clue about to those who do...
Slashdot Mirror
Your typical Win2k/NT server has a bunch of 3rd party software on it.
It would be more like trying to claim warranty for engine damage on your turbocharged honda civic (to use another bad analogy).
I'm not saying I don't think they should be responsible, but a lot (no, not all) of Window's problems are caused by third party software not playing the game properly...
I think what I'm saying is that I agree with your point... but the analogy isn't quite accurate ;)
smash.
You have to assume there *are* holes in application software such as SQL server due to its complexity.
Taking a reactive approach, and simply installing hotfixes are they're available will simply not work - patches are often not available until a number of days/weeks/months until after the vulnerability is known. Even if it hasn't been fully disclosed, the blackhats may well know about it, or be prompted to scrutinize that particular product more and find it before the full announcement.
The correct way to deploy such products is to design your network with this in mind, and firewall them off from the rest of the world.
That does NOT give you the security to not worry about patching (single layer security is bad) - keep your servers patched - but it does buy you a little time, and is an extra layer of defense in case there is a server that doesn't patch properly for some reason (file couldn't be overwritten for example), or is accidentally forgotten about.
I can think of *no reason* why an SQL server must be accessible to the world. You have a webserver that uses it as a back-end? Give the public access to port 80/443 of that ONLY, and disallow connections from anywhere but localhost to the SQL software. Even better (and the approach I always take - I don't trust Win-X to be visible to the internet, period), install it on a seperate physical machine, firewall that machine more tightly (ie, allow SQL connections ONLY from machines that require them, such as your webserver).
If you have client machines that need to access the database from the internet, thats what VPNs are for.
Since I've had enough sense to firewall my servers correctly (yes, I was a clueless idiot before as well ;), I have not had a single security breach.
I'm not saying that I'm definately immune to a concentrated attack, but you can definately stack the odds in your favour.
Yes, it is an investment in time, and probably money - but if you want a secure network, its simply the price you have to pay these days... how much is your data/uptime worth?
smash.
"Fair use" involves using the music/etc for your own personal use - NOT distributing to the rest of the world via P2P.
So record labels steal from artists? They give *some* money back to the artist at least - by copying a bands music, you're giving them NOTHING back, which is a hell of a lot worse than the $1.50 per cd they likely receive.
I agree that the music industry business model is completely fucked, however it does NOT give you an excuse to steal.
Thats like someone breaking your nearest electronics store and stealing a TV, because Sony only pays its workers in taiwan $2/hr (figures pulled out of my head) for making it.
If you don't agree with the way the recording industry works, then fine, don't buy their stuff. If you steal it though, you're just as bad (worse even, as you don't compensate the artist) as they are.
smash.
I thought this was supposed to be a pro-linux site?
Timothy completely missed one of the key points - that the "advanced server" version has a 3 year support plan. Its still not great, but to have "Redhat announces 12 month only errata" (or words to that effect on the front page of Slashdot is just going to give Redhat a bad name with the casual observer. We all know how few people actually RTFA...
smash.
smash.
Lemmings, Eye of the Beholder, Prince of Persia were all on PC too, in VGA. Gods too...
Wing Commander did it for me. Once I saw Wing Commander 2, I just had to get rid of the Amiga and get a machine with the power to do 3d properly ;)
Don't get me wrong, I love the Amiga for what it was, Commodore just needed more CPU power so it could move into the 3d filled polygon era - the custom chips were simply no good for that sort of thing :-\
I still think WorkBench is the best OS that has ever been put out for a home computer... going to MS-DOS was a trade off I was willing to make for decent 3d framerates though...
smash.
In 1991 I was playing Wing Commander, Indianapolis 500, F15 Strike Eagle 2 and LHX attack chopper.
These are the games that encouraged me to sell my Amiga... it just couldn't compete with the PC by this point...
smash.
The PC simply could not compete with the Amiga until until later - bang for buck, for games, the PC simply wasn't a starter.
The amiga also had a more TV friendly output - 320x200 or 320x256(PAL) with 64/4096 colours in extra half-bright mode, with an appropriate refresh rate, and even came with a modulator (brick) for connecting to a TV.
The sound was much more capable - 4 channel, 8 bit 29khz (compared to the SoundBlaster's 22hz 1 channel 8 bit mono). Sure you can do software mixing on the soundblaster, but that took more CPU power than was usually feasible on a 386.
My only gripe with the Amiga, and the reason I ended up selling mine, is that they took far too long to put a quicker CPU in it at a decent price. If they'd put a 68020 in the A500 from the start, and a 68030 in the A1200, I'd probably not have moved to the PC in 1992 :-\
smash.
I'm not justifying behavior of the assholes who release these worms, but leaving the SQL server visible to the public internet is just slightly retarded.
If these boxes actually have someone employed as admins, they should get fired, plain and simple
smash.
Personally, I don't care if they were to take some BSD code and put it into Windows and close it, so long as they credit it as per the BSD license (and this is likely the opinion shared by the BSD developers). Maybe Windows might actually start being functional ;P
My point was, that there is other code out there, equivalent to Linux, with a less restrictive license. Using Linux as the basis for the next version of Windows would simply make no business sense.
Hope that clarifies things a bit...
smash
If your business can't change with the times (ie, they start selling music on-line for a sensible price) then you should go out of business. Period.
Idiots.
smash.
Now before the Linux purists get started up and start modding me as flamebait - I use both Linux and FreeBSD (Linux since 96, BSD since 2000) and although I'm partial to FreeBSD myself, I have nothing serious against either one...
Parts of Windows have used BSD derived code in the past, such as the TCP/IP stack (which may have since been rewritten), and MS is a lot friendlier to FreeBSD than linux (C# anyone?).
Barring legalities, the whole FreeBSD vs Linux argument is a matter of personal preference at the moment for most people. So Linux does better SMP at the moment? How many desktop users have SMP desktop machines out there? Amongst the *geeks* maybe 10%. I've run both extensively and as far as performance goes, there's not enough in it to bicker about.
Again, the BSD license is a lot more compatible with MS - they can base Windows 2008 on xBSD and not have to open the source up at all if they like!
smash.
Ie, its expired?
smash
Old or new, I don't give a fuck.
RMS is a gimp.
smash.
smash.
I thought neons on cars was bad enough...
Seriously, you have to question someone's priorities if they're willing to go so far with pointless PC bits like that - just think of the manufacturing waste and damage to the environment involved for the sake of some fucking keyboard neons...
A computer is a *tool* ... nothing more, nothing less.
You don't see people sticking neons on chainsaws do you?
smash.
smash.
"Just say no to SCO..."
Doesn't affect me in the slightest anymore, I've happily switched to FreeBSD - 3d support, Linux emulation, and less GNU-hippy-ism :)
smash.
That may be the case, but I think it was a matter of finding the quickest mac available.
If you can provide a quicker mac than the dual 1.25 to compete with the 3ghz PC, I'll give you a cookie.
smash.
I'll admit, OS/X is nice, and I've considered buying a Mac for it, but I just can't justify it at all.
I'm no Windows fanboy, but your claims that it crashes all the time are simply fucking wrong.
If it crashes that much, either:
a) stop running that shitty old copy of Windows 98 you bought/copied 5 years ago on your modern (or hey, even an old) PC, and install a real OS like 2k or FreeBSD.
b) get your hardware looked at. Its either cheap, or its fucked. I'd argue that most cheap hardware is fucked by design, but your milage my vary...
smash.
So, if you're running a batch on 5000 images, you'd not care if it took 15,000 seconds instead of 5000?
Seriously... besides, there is *plenty* of ways for programmers to use all the CPU horsepower we can muster - all you need to do is double the horizontal and vertial resolution of those images and you're already talking about 4 times as much power again...
Div-X encoding takes a really beefy machine to run in real time (ie, taking 2 hours to encode a movie) - I'd rather it was done instantaneously.
smash.
Looks to me like they hold the creators of TCP/IP in contempt for not making it licensed, closed-source software!
And at the same time, they steal and modify the TCP/IP stack from BSD UNIX so they can forward their own business goals! Oh wait, they call that 'innovation'...
-Dragoth
Jesus christ...
I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but you can't steal something that is freely distributable and modifiable...
If you read the Microsoft packaging/manual to Windows, it clearly states that it contains BSD derived code - as per the requirements of the BSD license.
Can't remember where exactly, but I read it on the packaging way back in 1996 or so...
Again, its the BSD way of thinking - anyone who writes for BSD doesn't care who uses their code - its put out there for the good of the industry. If people use it, all the better - we get less bugs due to everybody re-inventing the wheel....
smash.
haven't posted for a while... all the other forums I post on auto-format posts...
smash.
I'm certain there must be plenty of habitable planets out there - regardless of being common or not, the sheer size of the galaxy/universe/etc is just so huge. I think the whole perspective people seem to have that they must be rare is just a need to feel special - that we are the centre of the universe, etc (similar to the old thinking that the sun rotated around the moon). My opinion is that we *aren't* special, and that our solar system is probably just like billions of other systems out there. If our system formed this way, and its not special, then surely plenty of other systems formed the same way, and had similar results... Just my 2c... smash.
I wonder if you've actually maintained any of any consequence...
Think of it this way: I get a lot of spam, and I download it to my computer. It's annoying to have to look through it. But it clearly doesn't take a lot of resources: it takes a couple of minutes per day to download and almost no CPU time to process. Browsing the web for a few minutes is more effort. Clearly, when looked at it per-user, spam is not a bandwidth or resource problem.
Regardless of HOW MUCH time and resources it uses, its still use of resources which are neither infinite or cheap. Due to the nature of SMTP, the vast majority of these resources are consumed on the receiver's end.
If we sit here and simply accept spam as OK, the situation is only going to get worse, to the point that e-mail will be completely unusable.
I've been maintaining e-mail servers in a business environment (for an ISP, and currently, a medium sized mining company), and can vouch for the 50% spam figure being quoted by another poster as believable.
See this reaction That link shows exactly what is wrong. The guy is complaining that he can't handle thousands of mailboxes on a single SPARC 2. Would he expect to be able to handle thousands of dial-ins on a single SPARC 2? Would he expect to be able to handle switching network connections for thousands of users through a single SPARC 2? Would he expect to be able to cache and proxy the traffic from thousands of web users through a single SPARC 2?
Yes. Its quite possible that same SPARC2 WAS doing these things quite happily before it was bogged down processing double the amount of mail due to spam.
Mail traffic used to be unusually small compared to other traffic and ISPs have gotten used to getting off cheap in terms of hardware and to be able to centralize it. Now it's catching up with other traffic and ISPs are whining.
I call bullshit. Our company does not provide internet access to most employees for example. Out of our monthly bandwidth usage, 80% would be e-mail. If 50% of that is unsolicited (ie, spam) thats 40% of our bandwidth costs directly attributed to spam. 40% of our bill that is UNWANTED traffic.
And if ISPs want to get rid of the problem, there is a very simple solution, at least for broadband providers: give people static IP addresses and let them run their own SMTP servers. They can do that either on their PCs, or the broadband modems or firewalls could acquire store-and-forward functionality for mail. Then, the hardware is distributed, people pay for the level of SMTP service they need and want through their choice of equipment and bandwidth, and ISPs are rid of the problem. My $170 embedded firewall on my broadband connection has more than enough capacity as it is to handle my mail volume.
Again, bullshit.
You end up with a mass of poorly configured open relays, happily flooding everybody else with even more spam.
The problem is NOT CPU power these days. The problem is wasted bandwidth, wasted disk space and wasted time tracking down the source of UCE pr0n mail delivered to irate users...
I suggest you leave arguments regarding things you have no clue about to those who do...
smash.