Given that Microsoft do have a long track record of abuses, some of which have caught up with them and they've been punished for, some have caught up with them and have been paid off, while an avalanche of others have yet to catch up with them perhaps it's time for the EU to get tough and send a message Microsoft can't ignore.
Compile a book of all the accusations against Microsoft to give them. Tell Microsoft that the EU is getting tired of wasting tax-payers money looking at each allegation individually so they're lumping it all in one. Inform Microsoft that ALL of this stops NOW, or they are banned from operating anywhere in the EU. Give them maybe one month to comply with no extensions. Every government in the EU is instructed to begin the process of removing ALL Microsoft products from their PC's, all retailers in the EU are to begin changing their stock to non-Microsoft, and making it an offense to sell ANY Microsoft products anywhere within the EU. No appeals.
Send the message loud and clear that organized crime is not welcome in the EU.
It would save a LOT of tax-payers money in yet more investigations into Microsoft's abuses, as they seem hell bent on NOT learning from their punishments. Let's see how fast Microsoft act then.
While this is all true, the best seeded cracked versions are the most likely to draw the attention of the owners (remember you never own the software you buy, you buy a license to use it under certain conditions). This can result in serial numbers which previously validated get canceled with the software suddenly pop up a warning that "this version is pirated, your IP address has been logged and will be investigated by the relevant authorities". More often than not it's a simple disabling of the software with a demand for payment to get a proper serial number. Sometimes you can un-install, re-install with a new number, sometimes it leaves traces behind and won't let you; not without some manual cleaning which requires power user knowledge of your PC.
The best way to avoid running into this, is to use software which does not need a serial number in the first place.
As far as software which "runs rings around open source alternatives" is concerned, this is mixed. In some cases FOSS software outstrips it's proprietary counterparts in terms of features, stability or flexibility, while in other cases it's the equal. In some cases the FOSS alternatives are just as good for most normal users but still have a way to go for advanced users.
Often the thing that holds the proprietary applications back is that they seek to monetize features and only offer stuff which suits their business model. If they get a lot of requests for a feature, they may decide to hold it back as a selling point to the new version where the FOSS model would be to submit the idea to the developers and if some of them like it, it will appear when it's ready, without waiting or paying for an upgrade.
This is very true, and the software itself is a double edged sword for Linux. Applications like Photoshop and Dreamweaver are not natively available for Linux although they do work for the most part with WINE. This does turn some off from making the switch to Linux, as they've gotten addicted to some of the features or the workflow in these applications. With the prices of these applications, most users on Windows and Macs WILL install pirated versions, so they are always taking the chance to get a clean, cracked version. Companies like Adobe know most of their user base is pirated versions, but they also know that professionals have no choice but to pay BIG on licenses of face HEAVY consequences. When you are the professional tool of choice, you become the most sought after, even if the user can't afford it.
Linux does have very good alternatives which work great for most people, which tend to be free in both cost and freedom. If an application is free of cost it rules out the desire to risk downloading it from anywhere other than your distro's repos or the official site of the application; after all the whole point of finding and installing cracked versions is to get something which should be paid for.....for free.
Many say they want popular applications like Photoshop and Dreamweaver ported officially to Linux, I'd rather they weren't in their current (closed and expensive) form. If they are, some Linux users will be tempted by the same goodies as Windows and Mac users. I'd much rather see the FOSS alternatives mature to a state where they rival those applications fully in features, and stay open source in the process.
It surprised me to see a Mac botnet as UNIX based system is a very good, secure base. I did expect the Mac to be more vulnerable than Linux for two reasons. It's a closed system, so any parts of it which are hidden from the user are expected by the user to be safe. There are closed doors when coders seek to find out what applications are doing. Macs tend to have the same set of applications installed under the same conditions, same hardware etc. Finding an exploit in Safari on the iMac and you can guarantee it will work on all iMacs. Apple are also notorious about protecting their reputation first, rather than accept when they do have a problem that it's their duty to fix it ASAP for their users.
Linux has a couple of advantages here, first it's an open source development model and secondly it's install base for a particular build of ANY application is always very small, so it's gonna be VERY difficult to hit those targets, and not worth even aiming for while Windows provides itself as an open goal.
Find an exploit in Gnome and it may only affect the core upstream Gnome, as distros customize and build their own variant of Gnome. If the Gnome devs miss the exploit, the distro devs have a chance to find it and patch it. Patches would be submitted back to Gnome itself, which would in turn be applied as needed by the other distro devs. All of this is helped by the code being open source, so anyone can see and fix exploits. An exploit in Gnome may allow access to Thunderbird. How many people run Gnome and Thunderbird? How many people run versions of BOTH of these built with that exploit? The exploit may have been cut off without realizing it by a distro putting a lib file in a different location etc. Even with Gnome and Thunderbird; how many Linux users does that cover? I reckon around 40% run Gnome, around 40% run KDE. The openness of the platform with multiple variants on application builds makes Linux an all but impossible target to hit, and when it IS hit, the potential infection numbers are minuscule.
If that wasn't enough, when an exploit IS found, it's dealt with in a fully transparent way, with devs around the world pouncing on it to find and fix the problem; there is no share price to take into account. There is no commercial need to deny the issue until you have an update ready. More than that is that the devs work on open source applications because they LOVE to, not because they get paid to. Having a passion in your work brings pride that you're making a difference, which means your attention to detail tends to be higher.
The package management system in Linux is also a HUGE safety barrier to potential infections. Most Linux users install most of their applications through their package manager, connecting and downloading from the official repositories. Someone trying to add an exploit to Thunderbird would have to get passed the peer review from the Mozilla devs, which would be all but impossible. IF it got passed them, it'd them have to be missed by the devs for each distro, which means even more eyes missing the code. Only then would it find it's way into the updated version in the repos and onto the users system. It's much easier to get a user to download a binary from a website, but sticking to the official sites like mozilla.org keeps that risk to a minimum. With the bigger distros, most users can usually find what they need in the repos without ever needing to download and install a binary from another source.
As Linux becomes more popular, it will be a more tempting target to aim for, and eventually there will be a few exploits affecting a few (percentage wise) users for a short length of time. This is inevitable, but Linux is by far the safest OS because of HOW it works, as well as the development ecosystem which surrounds it. Saying any OS is immune is a mistake, and will lead to complacency down the line which may bite you on the ass. This is something Apple know is true and have to balance the PR message of a safe, secure, malware free OS with the realities that their users can't be complacent even though they stand on a better, more secure platform.
The exposure as evidence of even more crimes with a paper trail is very likely a large factor in deciding to just close this threat off and accept the fine. Anything from these investigations that becomes public knowledge can be used against them in other court cases around the world. It's just in one country after all, albeit a large rich one. Now we need to see other countries investigate the same practices, unless we're gullible enough to believe that only went on in Germany.
Comments on online stories would be very different. So many "news" sources are skewed towards their own agendas and income sources, not towards telling the truth as best as they can.
We see plenty of "news" stories on so-called "reputable" sites about malware / botnets etc who "forget" to mention this is an almost 100% exclusive Microsoft issue. Don't they know? If not, the reporters ain't qualified to report the stories, if they do know, why is it being censored in the version that reaches the audience?
Political parties love to "advise" the mainstream media by offering rewards and punishments for spun stories either praising or slandering someone / group and being passed off as "unbiased news". This is especially true at election time; the one time they NEED to get us actively engaged enough to tick their box but not too engaged that we see true the wall of bullshit they are spinning.
This agenda-led or income-led reporting obviously draws comments from people to seek to correct the stories they read by adding facts (intentionally) missed in the report itself.
"He who controls the media, controls the message." - (the name escapes me right now).
Reporters always like to feel their knowledge / word on any subject they do a story on is better than any citizen commentator. It's what keeps them being treated as a special case in regards to how they can harass people for exclusives and claim that hounding someone with cameras / microphones is "in the public interest" and should be defended at all costs. It's how they can embellish parts of stories out of all proportion because it's the juicy part that will make money and still claim to be "exposing the truth".
Most of all they know that many bloggers do just as good a job as they do, without the special status or bias and have to try and ensure that the publics mind still values THEIR version of the story over others. By accepting any input from mere morals, their self perceived Godhood is weakened.
Like many others, their industry is failing, their reputations / trust have been shattered because of corporate / political / religious influence to the extent that many don't believe them. They look to those who are untainted for truth. They see the writing on the wall; they know they are becoming irrelevant.
When people lose faith in the traditional sources of news, ie the ones the mega-corps have bought and paid for to spew their "truth" they bypass it to look outside the mainstream for news. The mega-corps don't like this, so their response is to astroturf. They will employ people (usually indirectly so it can't be easily traced back to the source) to flood blogs, forums etc to spew their propaganda under the guise of "normal people". They will use any and all means to try and discredit dissenters and the site itself hoping to undermine the validity of anything exposed there. The idea is to force people back into trusting only the mainstream news sources.....who are already on message.
The thing they fail to understand is that the internet has changed the rules. Until they do, they will only spend a LOT of money trying to control the uncontrollable while destroying their reputations piece by piece. They may gain the occasional victory, but it will invariably come with a cost in a public backlash and some former customers deciding to start using a competitor instead. By the time they eventually "get it" and evolve, they will be pariahs.
Trust and respect are not things you can buy, they need to be earned. They are won and lost on not only actions, but the intent behind those actions. They are also two way streets.
Who read "tweenbots" in the title and thought it was some new type of botnet which infected kids toy pre-school computers or some web 2.0 corporate invented term for a botnet created by a tweeny-scripter? Here I thought Windows was bad enough that kids can cause havok, now the starting age has dropped even further? All I heard was 19 by Paul Hardcastle with altered lyrics:
"In 1999 the average age of a Windows hacker was 19, in 2009 it's 9."
I'm not sure if we have Fedex in the UK, I don't think so. There are private delivery services apart from the Royal Mail but the issue is about entire country coverage. A large part of the Royal Mail costs are about rural areas where they lose money but have to cover as part of their charter. Large parts of Scotland, Ireland and Wales are rural, where a village can be 50 miles from anywhere and have 10 houses and a corner shop which doubles as lots of things. It still needs a postal and bus service.
The private options cherry pick which parts to compete with and leave the unprofitable parts alone. The same applies to bus services, where private competition avoids the rural areas like the plague as they are mostly running empty.
I agree though that if mail got too expensive, we would vastly reduce our dependency on it and find other electronic ways to do the same things.....for almost everything.
In the UK, junk mail does subsidize the postal service, so although you can opt out, they plead with you not to, as it would increase the cost of normal post by quite a margin. How much of this is real and how much is just them desperate to hold onto an income from companies paying them to shovel shit through our letterboxes is open to question. I do accept it in principle though.
If that switched en-masse to email, those contracts would expire, meaning snail mail prices would increase. The Royal Mail don't have any way to transfer delivery from paper to email, so they couldn't recoup those loses. Since email is free, nobody would make any money from these mass email contracts.
On the other hand it would cut down on a LOT of wasted paper, which 99.99999999999999% people take from door to bin, bypassing the eyeballs, some people do recycle but not enough.
While email is great for most communications, snail mail is sometimes required so it can't be allowed to die. I doubt it would die if they lost the junk mail contracts.
For me, the worst offenders are the magazines and newspapers you have to pinch at the spine and shake over a bin before opening, to release all the leaflets stuffed inside. Is it not enough that for every 5 pages of a publication, 3 pages worth are adverts? If that's the state of the magazine industry, maybe it deserves to die too. The internet has already steamrolled over many business models, what's another one to add to the list?
Perhaps a solution would be a commercial / personal email distinction at an ISP level with a legal backing. Personal email is always free, commercial email costs say 1p per email. Charities / schools etc would be exempt from charge too. Make it something you have to declare with your ISP and legally stand by. Spammers using botnets wouldn't be affected since they operate illegally anyway, but it'd regulate the "normal" "legal" marketing companies. Make it a legally enforceable requirement to ONLY email people who have opted in, and fine them for ALL breaches.
Why tech savy people should be making tech policies in government. How many politicians know what data mining is other than that magical sheet of paper their advisors tell them will turn into votes when they mention specific words at a specific news conference. This was one inevitability of marketing / data mining to reach even further into our lives for the sole purpose of persuading us to empty our wallets in their direction.
Like any other scumbags, they will exploit it for all it's worth until enough people complain in a strong enough way to force change, at which point they will find ways to circumvent the law in reality while on the surface changing to stay within the law....like outside contractors handing reports with a "nudge nudge"....not unlike the CIA torture facilities.
This is one more example of why the system itself is broken. Government ruled by corporations and special interest groups will always ride rough-shot over everyone for a buck.
If I need to reply to an email to join a site I'm dubious about, in other words actually receive it, I use the Trashmail addon for Firefox. It expires after a couple of emails. If they turn out to be OK, I can then change the email to a more permanent one in the options.
When Google were sniffing around Yahoo, Microsoft complained that a monopoly (in online advertising) was "a bad deal for the consumer". They then release the lobbying hounds to Washington and ensure that any deal is blocked as "anti-competitive". Like most sane people, I agree with them that monopolies are bad for the consumer. Considering their own monopolies on desktop OS's people can buy in stores, and office suites I'd love the same tools to be turned back on Microsoft now. I'd love Google to lobby Washington with the exact same argument Microsoft used. Having said that, politicians decisions are more to do with who is bought than any rightness of a cause.
I'd love to see Microsoft waste money on yet another falling star, try to get market share by acquisition rather than providing a product / service people actually want. Business as usual really. This time round they may not want all of Yahoo, but only cherry pick parts of it. The part that I'd draw attention to is Zimbra. We all know how Microsoft love competition to their flagship earners, so any Yahoo deal will involve the destruction of Zimbra as we know it. Does anyone know offhand how well placed Zimbra is license wise to fork if / when the hammer of Redmond strikes?
Is it possible the first part the OS looks at, with the index of everything on the drive has failed and shows nothing when in fact the data is there. Not unlike a dual booting Windows overwriting a previous Linux MBR and "forgetting" to add the already installed Linux to the list of boot options. Linux is still there although there is nothing in the first part pointing to it. I dunno how flash works at this level so it may be bullshit, but I thought I'd throw it out there; you never know.
You could try vobcopy from the CLI with the command vobcopy -l which looks at the single largest title which tends to be the movie, and copies it to the HD as a single.vob which can then be opened in either Avidmux, OGM, AcidRip or Handbrake. Some can work direct from the DVD but it is slower. I've noticed some copy protection like parts of chapters repeating on the Matrix, and the ONLY application to spot th movie is 2:10 correctly is OGM, all the rest fell for the copy protection and gave files at 2:20mins. I have not tried Handbrake yet but AcidRip is certainly poor, OGM is simple but produces good results and Avidmux is a much bigger toolbox than I'd ever need. Avidmux is damn handy for resizing video files.
I'm guessing that'd pretty much sum up Hank Hill's reaction to this monstrous melding of beloved mower and new fangled gadgetry things. Mowers are a lifestyle I tell you what.
Corporations look at growth from the previous year, greed demands that they make more this year than last; otherwise they are failing. They have been able to ream vast amounts of cash due to their monopolies and lobbying. This can't continue indefinitely. In part because some people are sick of their exploitation and are turning away from them, in part because they don't have the money to keep handing over to Microsoft for new versions of software they don't need. The recession in general means people in all sectors are having to question their expenses and make changes in spending they previously wouldn't have even considered. Microsoft licenses are one extravagant expense if your needs can be met with free software. If that wasn't enough, like any company Microsoft have had a lot of time to build a reputation and has gained many disgruntled ex-customers who now would like to see it fail.
Even allowing for no negative self inflicted Microsoft damage to their profit levels, the recession alone will make it impossible for them to reach their targets for several years to come. They will have several years of "missed last years profits by X%". Shareholders don't care how the money is made, all they want is a return on their investment. Shareholders turn a blind eye to a lot of practices as long as the money rolls in. The bright side in this for Microsoft is that while the recession continues, most companies will also miss their targets. Long term is the key.
The recession will force a lot of people to find cheaper or free alternatives to expensive licenses. This alone will draw many to Linux / FOSS software. After that upheaval and retraining, after seeing that it can do what they need, how many will be receptive to a Microsoft sales rep offering them more upheaval with a multi-million dollar price tag attached to change back? They will lose customers to both Linux and bankruptcy during the recession. They long term question surrounding Microsoft is how many they can win back afterwards, and how many they can convince to just hold off in the meantime.
People will always look out for themselves first. Do Microsoft shareholders really believe the CEO of a small business is going to favor giving Microsoft money than investing that same money into his own company to keep it afloat? Are they really that arrogant? They will do everything to save their business, customers and their jobs. If that means being forced to cut ties with an expensive software license, then so be it.
I stand corrected, I should have said "one of the richest". Several years ago I thought they were the richest, maybe I was mistaken then, or maybe karma has caught up with them to some degree. The point is still valid however.
Microsoft are the richest corporation on the planet (to my knowledge) but their income is fading. They are losing money hand over fist for all sorts of reasons. Their monopolies in various sectors are being challenged by competitors, their influence is ebbing away like a cut they can't stem the blood flow from.
For many years they've been able to demand a high Windows fee on pre-installed PCs, with hardware costs falling so much, then netbooks they can't demand such a high price.
Yes they have a lot of money now, but don't assume a fine like this is just small change to them. It'll hurt because their ability to recoup it quickly is diminished.
They have shareholder dissent, with people demanding better returns, so an almost $400m fine going OUT is not good for the shareholders who want that $400m going IN to the company.
Personally I'm waiting on the class action suit against Microsoft in every country on the planet for damage due to botnets / malware / spam. That one would REALLY hurt them.
If Microsoft are stopping supporting XP on 14 April 2009 as reported, is it moral to sell netbooks with an unsupported (after that date) XP pre-installed? Yes they will do security fixes but will they insist on sales staff telling customers they are buying an unsupported system before they hand over cash? They like to hide the cost of the Windows license in the total purchase so the customer thinks it's free, so I don't hold much hope for their honesty.
At that point Linux (either official like RedHat or Novell, or a community Ubuntu / Feodra / Debian / Mandriva) becomes better supported than the XP version by default. Is it legal to sell an unsupported PC? Or will Microsoft be responsible and withdraw all XP netbooks from the market on April 15th? Will they be forced to?
It does show a company in desperation to make money, regardless of their customers wishes. When the carrot (advertising and shill PR) won't work use the stick. Any company behaving like this does not deserve any customers, and will eventually bring that to pass by it's own actions.
In theory patents are supposed to promote innovation. In reality they are used by incumbents to pull up the ladder and avoid new competition. Where a group of players can all cross-license with each other it means any new competitor would have to pay a fortune to everyone else just to play, which means they stand zero chance of growing into a threat.
I'm not against the general principle of patents on certain things but it seems logical to have provisos like:
1 - You must be the inventor of something to apply for a patent on it. 2 - You must have that product on the market, stopping production invalidates the patent. 3 - The patent must be short term to allow you to recoup your costs in inventing it and profiting from it. 4 - It must not inhibit innovation. 5 - It must not be obvious. 6 - It must be declared to any partner who may choose to implement it BEFORE they decide to start work implementing it. 7 - If it's not declared or pointed out at the first opportunity, the patent cannot be legally enforced on that product. 8 - Any accepted ISO standard should be patent free, with the patent holder waving rights to the patent in the application. Failure to declare / wave those rights nulls the application.
You can think of plenty more sensible conditions that should apply. Those spilled over to ISO stuff too. They were also about patents in general rather than software patents. I don't see any advantage to customers or the innovation of software to software or business method patents.
In part this is also about submarine patents which I think are VERY bogus and need addressed. Microsoft KNEW they held the FAT patents before it became a standard and didn't declare it until YEARS later when it was everywhere. Whether or not their FAT patents will hold scrutiny in court is beside the point here. The point here is that they INTENTIONALLY didn't say a word while it was spreading. Patent laws should FORCE a patent holder to declare their ownership early on, giving the other parties the chance to either pay a license or choose a different option. If they stay shtumm the patents involved should be null, regardless of their initial validity. It also applies to MONO, Silverlight, OOXML etc.
Until I saw a doctor on a morning TV show explaining that you CAN overdose on caffeine (a feat I previously thought impossible) I never considered quitting. On that same interview he explained the ratios of caffeine in regular instant / espresso / cappuccino etc After that I have resisted the urge to buy a coffee maker on the grounds that it'd probably kill me. I apply the same logic for resisting the urge to buy a deep fat fryer as I LOVE fried chip-shop-style chips which are soaked with fat. Too much of a good thing can be very dangerous to your health.
I wonder how many people have really experienced a caffeine hit, compared to how many just think they have. I've been a heavy coffee drinker for over half my life, with an average of between 20 - 25 mugs (not cups) per day depending on what I'm doing and have only ever had ONE single caffeine hit.
After a long day at college (I think I was awake all the previous day and night before) I had a mug of coffee when I got home, went to the bathroom and my eyes suddenly sprung open. I mean WIDE open, Frodo Baggins open.....for about maybe 15 seconds I was the most awake I'd been in a long time, which then wore off very quick and my eyelids drooped back to very tired. I went from being overtired but still awake to WIDE awake and back to tired in the space of about 20 seconds. This was about maybe 12 years ago so some of the details are hazy. It was either a caffeine hit, or I was temporarily possessed by something; personally I'd put money on the caffeine.
Slashdot Mirror
Given that Microsoft do have a long track record of abuses, some of which have caught up with them and they've been punished for, some have caught up with them and have been paid off, while an avalanche of others have yet to catch up with them perhaps it's time for the EU to get tough and send a message Microsoft can't ignore.
Compile a book of all the accusations against Microsoft to give them. Tell Microsoft that the EU is getting tired of wasting tax-payers money looking at each allegation individually so they're lumping it all in one. Inform Microsoft that ALL of this stops NOW, or they are banned from operating anywhere in the EU. Give them maybe one month to comply with no extensions. Every government in the EU is instructed to begin the process of removing ALL Microsoft products from their PC's, all retailers in the EU are to begin changing their stock to non-Microsoft, and making it an offense to sell ANY Microsoft products anywhere within the EU. No appeals.
Send the message loud and clear that organized crime is not welcome in the EU.
It would save a LOT of tax-payers money in yet more investigations into Microsoft's abuses, as they seem hell bent on NOT learning from their punishments. Let's see how fast Microsoft act then.
While this is all true, the best seeded cracked versions are the most likely to draw the attention of the owners (remember you never own the software you buy, you buy a license to use it under certain conditions). This can result in serial numbers which previously validated get canceled with the software suddenly pop up a warning that "this version is pirated, your IP address has been logged and will be investigated by the relevant authorities". More often than not it's a simple disabling of the software with a demand for payment to get a proper serial number. Sometimes you can un-install, re-install with a new number, sometimes it leaves traces behind and won't let you; not without some manual cleaning which requires power user knowledge of your PC.
The best way to avoid running into this, is to use software which does not need a serial number in the first place.
As far as software which "runs rings around open source alternatives" is concerned, this is mixed. In some cases FOSS software outstrips it's proprietary counterparts in terms of features, stability or flexibility, while in other cases it's the equal. In some cases the FOSS alternatives are just as good for most normal users but still have a way to go for advanced users.
Often the thing that holds the proprietary applications back is that they seek to monetize features and only offer stuff which suits their business model. If they get a lot of requests for a feature, they may decide to hold it back as a selling point to the new version where the FOSS model would be to submit the idea to the developers and if some of them like it, it will appear when it's ready, without waiting or paying for an upgrade.
This is very true, and the software itself is a double edged sword for Linux. Applications like Photoshop and Dreamweaver are not natively available for Linux although they do work for the most part with WINE. This does turn some off from making the switch to Linux, as they've gotten addicted to some of the features or the workflow in these applications. With the prices of these applications, most users on Windows and Macs WILL install pirated versions, so they are always taking the chance to get a clean, cracked version. Companies like Adobe know most of their user base is pirated versions, but they also know that professionals have no choice but to pay BIG on licenses of face HEAVY consequences. When you are the professional tool of choice, you become the most sought after, even if the user can't afford it.
Linux does have very good alternatives which work great for most people, which tend to be free in both cost and freedom. If an application is free of cost it rules out the desire to risk downloading it from anywhere other than your distro's repos or the official site of the application; after all the whole point of finding and installing cracked versions is to get something which should be paid for.....for free.
Many say they want popular applications like Photoshop and Dreamweaver ported officially to Linux, I'd rather they weren't in their current (closed and expensive) form. If they are, some Linux users will be tempted by the same goodies as Windows and Mac users. I'd much rather see the FOSS alternatives mature to a state where they rival those applications fully in features, and stay open source in the process.
It surprised me to see a Mac botnet as UNIX based system is a very good, secure base. I did expect the Mac to be more vulnerable than Linux for two reasons. It's a closed system, so any parts of it which are hidden from the user are expected by the user to be safe. There are closed doors when coders seek to find out what applications are doing. Macs tend to have the same set of applications installed under the same conditions, same hardware etc. Finding an exploit in Safari on the iMac and you can guarantee it will work on all iMacs. Apple are also notorious about protecting their reputation first, rather than accept when they do have a problem that it's their duty to fix it ASAP for their users.
Linux has a couple of advantages here, first it's an open source development model and secondly it's install base for a particular build of ANY application is always very small, so it's gonna be VERY difficult to hit those targets, and not worth even aiming for while Windows provides itself as an open goal.
Find an exploit in Gnome and it may only affect the core upstream Gnome, as distros customize and build their own variant of Gnome. If the Gnome devs miss the exploit, the distro devs have a chance to find it and patch it. Patches would be submitted back to Gnome itself, which would in turn be applied as needed by the other distro devs. All of this is helped by the code being open source, so anyone can see and fix exploits. An exploit in Gnome may allow access to Thunderbird. How many people run Gnome and Thunderbird? How many people run versions of BOTH of these built with that exploit? The exploit may have been cut off without realizing it by a distro putting a lib file in a different location etc. Even with Gnome and Thunderbird; how many Linux users does that cover? I reckon around 40% run Gnome, around 40% run KDE. The openness of the platform with multiple variants on application builds makes Linux an all but impossible target to hit, and when it IS hit, the potential infection numbers are minuscule.
If that wasn't enough, when an exploit IS found, it's dealt with in a fully transparent way, with devs around the world pouncing on it to find and fix the problem; there is no share price to take into account. There is no commercial need to deny the issue until you have an update ready. More than that is that the devs work on open source applications because they LOVE to, not because they get paid to. Having a passion in your work brings pride that you're making a difference, which means your attention to detail tends to be higher.
The package management system in Linux is also a HUGE safety barrier to potential infections. Most Linux users install most of their applications through their package manager, connecting and downloading from the official repositories. Someone trying to add an exploit to Thunderbird would have to get passed the peer review from the Mozilla devs, which would be all but impossible. IF it got passed them, it'd them have to be missed by the devs for each distro, which means even more eyes missing the code. Only then would it find it's way into the updated version in the repos and onto the users system. It's much easier to get a user to download a binary from a website, but sticking to the official sites like mozilla.org keeps that risk to a minimum. With the bigger distros, most users can usually find what they need in the repos without ever needing to download and install a binary from another source.
As Linux becomes more popular, it will be a more tempting target to aim for, and eventually there will be a few exploits affecting a few (percentage wise) users for a short length of time. This is inevitable, but Linux is by far the safest OS because of HOW it works, as well as the development ecosystem which surrounds it. Saying any OS is immune is a mistake, and will lead to complacency down the line which may bite you on the ass. This is something Apple know is true and have to balance the PR message of a safe, secure, malware free OS with the realities that their users can't be complacent even though they stand on a better, more secure platform.
The exposure as evidence of even more crimes with a paper trail is very likely a large factor in deciding to just close this threat off and accept the fine. Anything from these investigations that becomes public knowledge can be used against them in other court cases around the world. It's just in one country after all, albeit a large rich one. Now we need to see other countries investigate the same practices, unless we're gullible enough to believe that only went on in Germany.
Comments on online stories would be very different. So many "news" sources are skewed towards their own agendas and income sources, not towards telling the truth as best as they can.
We see plenty of "news" stories on so-called "reputable" sites about malware / botnets etc who "forget" to mention this is an almost 100% exclusive Microsoft issue. Don't they know? If not, the reporters ain't qualified to report the stories, if they do know, why is it being censored in the version that reaches the audience?
Political parties love to "advise" the mainstream media by offering rewards and punishments for spun stories either praising or slandering someone / group and being passed off as "unbiased news". This is especially true at election time; the one time they NEED to get us actively engaged enough to tick their box but not too engaged that we see true the wall of bullshit they are spinning.
This agenda-led or income-led reporting obviously draws comments from people to seek to correct the stories they read by adding facts (intentionally) missed in the report itself.
"He who controls the media, controls the message." - (the name escapes me right now).
Reporters always like to feel their knowledge / word on any subject they do a story on is better than any citizen commentator. It's what keeps them being treated as a special case in regards to how they can harass people for exclusives and claim that hounding someone with cameras / microphones is "in the public interest" and should be defended at all costs. It's how they can embellish parts of stories out of all proportion because it's the juicy part that will make money and still claim to be "exposing the truth".
Most of all they know that many bloggers do just as good a job as they do, without the special status or bias and have to try and ensure that the publics mind still values THEIR version of the story over others. By accepting any input from mere morals, their self perceived Godhood is weakened.
Like many others, their industry is failing, their reputations / trust have been shattered because of corporate / political / religious influence to the extent that many don't believe them. They look to those who are untainted for truth. They see the writing on the wall; they know they are becoming irrelevant.
When people lose faith in the traditional sources of news, ie the ones the mega-corps have bought and paid for to spew their "truth" they bypass it to look outside the mainstream for news. The mega-corps don't like this, so their response is to astroturf. They will employ people (usually indirectly so it can't be easily traced back to the source) to flood blogs, forums etc to spew their propaganda under the guise of "normal people". They will use any and all means to try and discredit dissenters and the site itself hoping to undermine the validity of anything exposed there. The idea is to force people back into trusting only the mainstream news sources.....who are already on message.
The thing they fail to understand is that the internet has changed the rules. Until they do, they will only spend a LOT of money trying to control the uncontrollable while destroying their reputations piece by piece. They may gain the occasional victory, but it will invariably come with a cost in a public backlash and some former customers deciding to start using a competitor instead. By the time they eventually "get it" and evolve, they will be pariahs.
Trust and respect are not things you can buy, they need to be earned. They are won and lost on not only actions, but the intent behind those actions. They are also two way streets.
Who read "tweenbots" in the title and thought it was some new type of botnet which infected kids toy pre-school computers or some web 2.0 corporate invented term for a botnet created by a tweeny-scripter? Here I thought Windows was bad enough that kids can cause havok, now the starting age has dropped even further? All I heard was 19 by Paul Hardcastle with altered lyrics:
"In 1999 the average age of a Windows hacker was 19, in 2009 it's 9."
Personally I prefer "x". It has a cooler sound to it, and is more exclusive with the words that use it.
"I prefer extortion. The X makes it sound cool." - Bender.
I'm not sure if we have Fedex in the UK, I don't think so. There are private delivery services apart from the Royal Mail but the issue is about entire country coverage. A large part of the Royal Mail costs are about rural areas where they lose money but have to cover as part of their charter. Large parts of Scotland, Ireland and Wales are rural, where a village can be 50 miles from anywhere and have 10 houses and a corner shop which doubles as lots of things. It still needs a postal and bus service.
The private options cherry pick which parts to compete with and leave the unprofitable parts alone. The same applies to bus services, where private competition avoids the rural areas like the plague as they are mostly running empty.
I agree though that if mail got too expensive, we would vastly reduce our dependency on it and find other electronic ways to do the same things.....for almost everything.
In the UK, junk mail does subsidize the postal service, so although you can opt out, they plead with you not to, as it would increase the cost of normal post by quite a margin. How much of this is real and how much is just them desperate to hold onto an income from companies paying them to shovel shit through our letterboxes is open to question. I do accept it in principle though.
If that switched en-masse to email, those contracts would expire, meaning snail mail prices would increase. The Royal Mail don't have any way to transfer delivery from paper to email, so they couldn't recoup those loses. Since email is free, nobody would make any money from these mass email contracts.
On the other hand it would cut down on a LOT of wasted paper, which 99.99999999999999% people take from door to bin, bypassing the eyeballs, some people do recycle but not enough.
While email is great for most communications, snail mail is sometimes required so it can't be allowed to die. I doubt it would die if they lost the junk mail contracts.
For me, the worst offenders are the magazines and newspapers you have to pinch at the spine and shake over a bin before opening, to release all the leaflets stuffed inside. Is it not enough that for every 5 pages of a publication, 3 pages worth are adverts? If that's the state of the magazine industry, maybe it deserves to die too. The internet has already steamrolled over many business models, what's another one to add to the list?
Perhaps a solution would be a commercial / personal email distinction at an ISP level with a legal backing. Personal email is always free, commercial email costs say 1p per email. Charities / schools etc would be exempt from charge too. Make it something you have to declare with your ISP and legally stand by. Spammers using botnets wouldn't be affected since they operate illegally anyway, but it'd regulate the "normal" "legal" marketing companies. Make it a legally enforceable requirement to ONLY email people who have opted in, and fine them for ALL breaches.
Why tech savy people should be making tech policies in government. How many politicians know what data mining is other than that magical sheet of paper their advisors tell them will turn into votes when they mention specific words at a specific news conference. This was one inevitability of marketing / data mining to reach even further into our lives for the sole purpose of persuading us to empty our wallets in their direction.
Like any other scumbags, they will exploit it for all it's worth until enough people complain in a strong enough way to force change, at which point they will find ways to circumvent the law in reality while on the surface changing to stay within the law....like outside contractors handing reports with a "nudge nudge"....not unlike the CIA torture facilities.
This is one more example of why the system itself is broken. Government ruled by corporations and special interest groups will always ride rough-shot over everyone for a buck.
If I need to reply to an email to join a site I'm dubious about, in other words actually receive it, I use the Trashmail addon for Firefox. It expires after a couple of emails. If they turn out to be OK, I can then change the email to a more permanent one in the options.
When Google were sniffing around Yahoo, Microsoft complained that a monopoly (in online advertising) was "a bad deal for the consumer". They then release the lobbying hounds to Washington and ensure that any deal is blocked as "anti-competitive". Like most sane people, I agree with them that monopolies are bad for the consumer. Considering their own monopolies on desktop OS's people can buy in stores, and office suites I'd love the same tools to be turned back on Microsoft now. I'd love Google to lobby Washington with the exact same argument Microsoft used. Having said that, politicians decisions are more to do with who is bought than any rightness of a cause.
I'd love to see Microsoft waste money on yet another falling star, try to get market share by acquisition rather than providing a product / service people actually want. Business as usual really. This time round they may not want all of Yahoo, but only cherry pick parts of it. The part that I'd draw attention to is Zimbra. We all know how Microsoft love competition to their flagship earners, so any Yahoo deal will involve the destruction of Zimbra as we know it. Does anyone know offhand how well placed Zimbra is license wise to fork if / when the hammer of Redmond strikes?
Actually it occurs to me if she's referring to the cat, who is also called Spartacus.
Is it possible the first part the OS looks at, with the index of everything on the drive has failed and shows nothing when in fact the data is there. Not unlike a dual booting Windows overwriting a previous Linux MBR and "forgetting" to add the already installed Linux to the list of boot options. Linux is still there although there is nothing in the first part pointing to it. I dunno how flash works at this level so it may be bullshit, but I thought I'd throw it out there; you never know.
I'm Spartacus & so is my wife.
You could try vobcopy from the CLI with the command vobcopy -l which looks at the single largest title which tends to be the movie, and copies it to the HD as a single .vob which can then be opened in either Avidmux, OGM, AcidRip or Handbrake. Some can work direct from the DVD but it is slower. I've noticed some copy protection like parts of chapters repeating on the Matrix, and the ONLY application to spot th movie is 2:10 correctly is OGM, all the rest fell for the copy protection and gave files at 2:20mins. I have not tried Handbrake yet but AcidRip is certainly poor, OGM is simple but produces good results and Avidmux is a much bigger toolbox than I'd ever need. Avidmux is damn handy for resizing video files.
Yep.
I'm guessing that'd pretty much sum up Hank Hill's reaction to this monstrous melding of beloved mower and new fangled gadgetry things. Mowers are a lifestyle I tell you what.
Corporations look at growth from the previous year, greed demands that they make more this year than last; otherwise they are failing. They have been able to ream vast amounts of cash due to their monopolies and lobbying. This can't continue indefinitely. In part because some people are sick of their exploitation and are turning away from them, in part because they don't have the money to keep handing over to Microsoft for new versions of software they don't need. The recession in general means people in all sectors are having to question their expenses and make changes in spending they previously wouldn't have even considered. Microsoft licenses are one extravagant expense if your needs can be met with free software. If that wasn't enough, like any company Microsoft have had a lot of time to build a reputation and has gained many disgruntled ex-customers who now would like to see it fail.
Even allowing for no negative self inflicted Microsoft damage to their profit levels, the recession alone will make it impossible for them to reach their targets for several years to come. They will have several years of "missed last years profits by X%". Shareholders don't care how the money is made, all they want is a return on their investment. Shareholders turn a blind eye to a lot of practices as long as the money rolls in. The bright side in this for Microsoft is that while the recession continues, most companies will also miss their targets. Long term is the key.
The recession will force a lot of people to find cheaper or free alternatives to expensive licenses. This alone will draw many to Linux / FOSS software. After that upheaval and retraining, after seeing that it can do what they need, how many will be receptive to a Microsoft sales rep offering them more upheaval with a multi-million dollar price tag attached to change back? They will lose customers to both Linux and bankruptcy during the recession. They long term question surrounding Microsoft is how many they can win back afterwards, and how many they can convince to just hold off in the meantime.
People will always look out for themselves first. Do Microsoft shareholders really believe the CEO of a small business is going to favor giving Microsoft money than investing that same money into his own company to keep it afloat? Are they really that arrogant? They will do everything to save their business, customers and their jobs. If that means being forced to cut ties with an expensive software license, then so be it.
I stand corrected, I should have said "one of the richest". Several years ago I thought they were the richest, maybe I was mistaken then, or maybe karma has caught up with them to some degree. The point is still valid however.
Microsoft are the richest corporation on the planet (to my knowledge) but their income is fading. They are losing money hand over fist for all sorts of reasons. Their monopolies in various sectors are being challenged by competitors, their influence is ebbing away like a cut they can't stem the blood flow from.
For many years they've been able to demand a high Windows fee on pre-installed PCs, with hardware costs falling so much, then netbooks they can't demand such a high price.
Yes they have a lot of money now, but don't assume a fine like this is just small change to them. It'll hurt because their ability to recoup it quickly is diminished.
They have shareholder dissent, with people demanding better returns, so an almost $400m fine going OUT is not good for the shareholders who want that $400m going IN to the company.
Personally I'm waiting on the class action suit against Microsoft in every country on the planet for damage due to botnets / malware / spam. That one would REALLY hurt them.
If Microsoft are stopping supporting XP on 14 April 2009 as reported, is it moral to sell netbooks with an unsupported (after that date) XP pre-installed? Yes they will do security fixes but will they insist on sales staff telling customers they are buying an unsupported system before they hand over cash? They like to hide the cost of the Windows license in the total purchase so the customer thinks it's free, so I don't hold much hope for their honesty.
At that point Linux (either official like RedHat or Novell, or a community Ubuntu / Feodra / Debian / Mandriva) becomes better supported than the XP version by default. Is it legal to sell an unsupported PC? Or will Microsoft be responsible and withdraw all XP netbooks from the market on April 15th? Will they be forced to?
It does show a company in desperation to make money, regardless of their customers wishes. When the carrot (advertising and shill PR) won't work use the stick. Any company behaving like this does not deserve any customers, and will eventually bring that to pass by it's own actions.
In theory patents are supposed to promote innovation. In reality they are used by incumbents to pull up the ladder and avoid new competition. Where a group of players can all cross-license with each other it means any new competitor would have to pay a fortune to everyone else just to play, which means they stand zero chance of growing into a threat.
I'm not against the general principle of patents on certain things but it seems logical to have provisos like:
1 - You must be the inventor of something to apply for a patent on it.
2 - You must have that product on the market, stopping production invalidates the patent.
3 - The patent must be short term to allow you to recoup your costs in inventing it and profiting from it.
4 - It must not inhibit innovation.
5 - It must not be obvious.
6 - It must be declared to any partner who may choose to implement it BEFORE they decide to start work implementing it.
7 - If it's not declared or pointed out at the first opportunity, the patent cannot be legally enforced on that product.
8 - Any accepted ISO standard should be patent free, with the patent holder waving rights to the patent in the application. Failure to declare / wave those rights nulls the application.
You can think of plenty more sensible conditions that should apply. Those spilled over to ISO stuff too. They were also about patents in general rather than software patents. I don't see any advantage to customers or the innovation of software to software or business method patents.
In part this is also about submarine patents which I think are VERY bogus and need addressed. Microsoft KNEW they held the FAT patents before it became a standard and didn't declare it until YEARS later when it was everywhere. Whether or not their FAT patents will hold scrutiny in court is beside the point here. The point here is that they INTENTIONALLY didn't say a word while it was spreading. Patent laws should FORCE a patent holder to declare their ownership early on, giving the other parties the chance to either pay a license or choose a different option. If they stay shtumm the patents involved should be null, regardless of their initial validity. It also applies to MONO, Silverlight, OOXML etc.
Until I saw a doctor on a morning TV show explaining that you CAN overdose on caffeine (a feat I previously thought impossible) I never considered quitting. On that same interview he explained the ratios of caffeine in regular instant / espresso / cappuccino etc After that I have resisted the urge to buy a coffee maker on the grounds that it'd probably kill me. I apply the same logic for resisting the urge to buy a deep fat fryer as I LOVE fried chip-shop-style chips which are soaked with fat. Too much of a good thing can be very dangerous to your health.
I wonder how many people have really experienced a caffeine hit, compared to how many just think they have. I've been a heavy coffee drinker for over half my life, with an average of between 20 - 25 mugs (not cups) per day depending on what I'm doing and have only ever had ONE single caffeine hit.
After a long day at college (I think I was awake all the previous day and night before) I had a mug of coffee when I got home, went to the bathroom and my eyes suddenly sprung open. I mean WIDE open, Frodo Baggins open.....for about maybe 15 seconds I was the most awake I'd been in a long time, which then wore off very quick and my eyelids drooped back to very tired. I went from being overtired but still awake to WIDE awake and back to tired in the space of about 20 seconds. This was about maybe 12 years ago so some of the details are hazy. It was either a caffeine hit, or I was temporarily possessed by something; personally I'd put money on the caffeine.