The *only* way to prevent trojans that utilize social engineering to get installed is to take administrator privilegdes out of the users hands entirely, and keep them with a central entity. Like, say, Microsoft.
As long as a user can install software on their computer, a user can install malware on their computer.
Click on a file, and typing in your administrator password, and then having that script/application ruin your system is NOT an exploit or a OS problem.
Have a sign-up page. You could even make it automatic.
"You recognize X-Y-Z, and confirm that you will be held responsible in the case of abuse, and confirm that you will be responsible for your own security, yadda yadda"
Then, if abuse is detected, cut'em off, and force them to call in to get off the blacklist.
Personally, I don't really like this. Better to make OS manufacturers accountable, methinks.
If your car could be infected with a 'virus', via Bluetooth, which caused the cruise control to turn on all the time, and accelerate to max, your car manufacturer would get hit hard by the government.
Why should your OS manufacturer be any different. Hell, they control *all* aspects of the chain now:
OS, E-mail client, Virus scanner, and Spyware scanner.
They are your one-stop security vendor, computing-wise. Yet if anything goes wrong, its your problem, not theirs. Sounds like a jobs for the courts to me.
If you run Windows, you PC will be owned at some point. (Yes, yes, I know some of you out there are perfect, and haver *never* messed up *anything* security wise) This happens to me, this happens to less computer literate people, and this happens to large organizations with IT staffs, like the U of Chicago and Allstate.
The solution is the same as always. Switch OSs.
The hotfix is the same as always. Backup data, use your restore disk. Rinse, lather, repeat.
I don't understand why zombie networks are news. The only way that they should be news is when they are used to DDOS major targets. Then, someone should be held accountable. Software manufacturers? Zombie PC owners? ISPs?
If 1 billion consumers manage to migrate from Microsoft to an alternative, no matter how painfully, the amount of linux/mac software out there would sky rocket.
Game developers would release all their software with linux/mac versions.
Every major software house (adobe, etc, etc) would release linux/mac versions.
This would end the MS monopoly. Any talk of Microsoft pulling out of Europe is pure hogwash.
Even if Microsoft looses money every quarter because of fines, they *will not* pullout.
Microsoft never, ever, ever gives up marketshare. They are quite aware that if/when a competitive software 'eco-system' arises (i.e. linux/mac software), the whole Windows/Office house of cards will collapse.
They'd have to compete on merits alone, not vendor lock-in, and that would destroy the company.
The *primary* complaint with linux/mac these days is that you cannot get all your Windows software running correctly, or your windows compatible hardware.
Do you really think EA will ignore 1 billion customers?
Do you really think all the Taiwanese hardware manufactures will ignore 1 billion customers?
Do you really think American hardware manufacturers will ignore 1 billion customers?
What will Dell do? Dell has a lot of european sales. What will compaq do? Hp? Gateway?
Or the Asian manufacturers? Does anyone seriously believe that Acer will stop trying to sell computers in Europe because MS will not permit them to sell Windows in Europe?
Yeah, actually, I usually use that one, because SuSE automatically downloads it, which is nice.
The driverloader one will do all the fancy 125 mbps stuff that the windows drivers can do, however, and is 'feature-complete'.
Not that the 125 mbps stuff will make your transfers faster, but its good to show the PHBs, in order to say that Linux is feature complete with Windows.
Just nice to know, for TI users, you've got 3 free options, the GPL driver, ndiswrapper, or driverloader.
Only one is 'truly' free, but the others are avaliable, as well.
I know, *gasp*, it costs money, but thats *exactly* what the folks at linuxant sell.
You get a driver install. It's either an RPM (double click on in your distro), or a.sh script (either double click, or go to 'Run Command; sh./driverloader.sh')
It installs, then automatically pops up your webbrowser, asking you to A) Download the windows driver for your network card, and then B) Select the directory for the Windows XP driver for your network card.
Pure gui. Very easy.
Not that ndiswrapper is much harder, but for those who like to have support, or are terribly afraid of the commandline, it works great.
I've since switched to ndiswrapper, but driverloader is a fine product.
Oh, and TI is an OEM licensor for driverloader, so the driver is *free* as in beer for an ACX100, ACX110, or ACX111 card.
Copyright infringement. What does this phrase mean?
Infringement. To impinge upon someone elses rights.
Copyright. Ability (right) to control the duplication of your intellecutal property (work).
The notion of intellectual property, that we have a 'right' to control 'copies', is not some kind of innate right, at least not under any of the ethical systems I know, and certainly not in the American legal system.
The U.S. legal system recognizes copyright because of its constitutional basis. Congress was given the power to establish copyright for the promotion of the arts and sciense.
This is not some inalienable right. This is not akin to free speech. This is something established by the constitution for the purpose of creating economic niches for artists, scientists, and engineers.
I believe this concept is outdated.
Oh, and by the way. It has jack shit to do with theft. At no point is copyright infringment considering by anyone 'in the know' to be theft.
Theft means depriving someone of their assests. This is different than infringing upon their rights.
Legally, morally, intellectual, P2P downloading has nothing to do with theft, and everything to do with copyright.
1. Prohibition, past (of alcohol). 2. Prohibition, current (of drugs). 3. Copyright violations in P2P terms.
All of these are bans on activities that are widely practiced.
Tens of millions of Americans download music from P2P. Tens of millions of Americans drink (and drank during the prohibition years). Tens of millions of Americans use drugs.
Strange, that non-violent activities that such a large portion of the population participate in should be illegal.
We are talking about a ban on substances you can (by choice) ingest, and the extension of an intellectual monopoly by the government onto content holders.
I do not see how either of these protect inalienable rights, and I do believe that all three of these activities would receive a 'thumbs' up in a pure democracy (i.e. nationwide referendum)
Most likely, you don't use virtual desktops, either.
Just because a window management device doesn't fit into your desktop metaphor doesn't mean that others (perhaps even MANY others) find it useful.
I tend to use tabbed browsing to group my browser windows by topic. I'll be researching a certain topic. I'll keep those 'tabs' in the same window. If I decide to take a look at slashdot, that'll be in a new window. Etc, Etc.
I'd miss tabbed browsing A LOT, and I've managed to instruct most of the non-nerd users in my life to use them as well (parents, sisters, girlfriend, family).
That's only if you don't care about performance (say, if you like to game occasionally).
Nothing newer than radeon 8500's has working free linux drivers that support OpenGl.
Their FireGL drivers are terribly for gaming, too.
I have several machines. They all run linux. I've got a smattering of builtin crap video cards, old ATI, and old Nvidia. But in my linux gaming box?
Nvidia all the way. Even though ATI is at a better price/theoretical performance ratio. Merely because ATI's closed source drivers (the only option for 3d on their newer cards) are siginificantly slower than Nvidia's closed source drivers.
So no, I cannot agree that ATI has surpassed Nvidia as the best 3D card to put in a Linux box. Especially if you want to think about either native linux gaming, or using wine/cedega.
In fact, I think implying that the newer ATI cards are even marginally acceptable for modern gaming is quite a bit of deception.
Most people think that linux gaming is hard, and you have to constantly mess with x.org options, or wine/cedega options. The people with the most problems are ATI users, without exception.
I know, because I'm one of those idiots that used to buy the latest card of every OTHER generation, until I switched to pure linux, and discovered that both my radeon 8500 and my 9800 pro were much more difficult and problematic than my geforce 3 and my geforce fx 5950.
Kind of, anyways. I use Cedega, Transgaming's not-totally-free wine branch focused on gaming.
It means I can play many of the Windows games I want to play on Linux.
I happily live in a MS free household. I still play games on my PC, games that wouldn't be possible on a console (RTS, and MMORPG).
TransgamingWine relations are rocky sometimes, but I'm glad both communities are around. They make my life easier.
Sure, it'd be nice if all the developers built Linux versions of their games/apps. But if they find out a significant portion of the user base runs on Wine, they start trying to run their apps inside the company on Wine (some random developer almost always picks it up (Blizzard with World of Warcraft, and I know Secondlife developers have played with it).
Now there's talk of internal attempts to build native linux clients for both World of Warcraft (there was an early beta, but never a release), and Secondlife promises eventual linux support.
Using Windows games/apps on Linux, inside of Wine, demonstrates to developers that there is, indeed, a market for native versions.
Truly, its the best counter argument to "Linux is not a gaming platform, stick it Windows".
I do not believe that it makes developers lazy, and only code for Windows. They were only coding for Windows before; Linux efforts have one way to go, up.
The FSF will defend your project if you sign over some rights to them. I'm not exactly sure how that works, I believe they become 'party' to your copyright, but I'm not certain.
Not that its always the best option, but its a decent option for a small group of developers working on a small project.
What would the world look like if MS figured out that they might be able to produce Linux apps, and have their Windows monopoly, too.
MS Desktop Environment. An X window manager, and the ONLY way to run MS Office and MS Visual Studio on Linux.
MS GUI for Samba. Runs in MS Desktop Environment. Opensource backend, closed source front end. Heck, if it runs on a proprietary MSDE, it could even be opensourced!
Same for IE. Maybe even an IIS than runs on Linux.
Weird thoughts. Not sure if they make business sense, or the traditionally sociopathic MS could think such thoughts.
I could see them doing it, and somehow managing to maintain a 'detente' with the open-source world. All-in-all, it might be a good thing for the market, and for consumers. You can get Windows (whatever edition), or you can get Linux, and run an interface on top of it that looks and acts like Windows.
Both will cost you $199. Both will run your MS apps. Pick and choose whatever you like.
Feels like an MS strategy to me, and you know what?
I can live with it. Just make sure it still uses some Opensource stuff as backends (CUPS, SANE, SAMBA), and I'll even buy it;
Especially if MS would use its immense market power to force Adobe and other top vendors to release their apps for the MSDE Linux environment.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm ready to buy an X86 Mac.
Think of WINE!
The END of MS.
x86 Mac=Apple should pour money into their own branch of the wine project.
End of Windows. Locked and Shut.
Windows Apps, Windows Games, running in the beauty of Mac OS X, at native x86 speeds, with full hardware support, on sexy apple hardware.
Tears in my eyes!
To get my amd64 running os x.
Probably need a new motherboard, new bios, new chipset.
But...I want I want I want I want I want!!!!
WINE ON MAC OS X ON X86 NIRVANA HERE I COME!!!
AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
No, a large part of the Apple 'experience' is the OS.
Allowing Windows on their machines as a primary OS would dilute the brand.
The *only* way to prevent trojans that utilize social engineering to get installed is to take administrator privilegdes out of the users hands entirely, and keep them with a central entity. Like, say, Microsoft.
As long as a user can install software on their computer, a user can install malware on their computer.
Click on a file, and typing in your administrator password, and then having that script/application ruin your system is NOT an exploit or a OS problem.
I prefer to call that a stupidity problem.
They said Apple, of which, in the IT reporting world, OS-X is the main subset.
Two steps.
1. ISPs and targets of said botnets should hold the zombie lusers accountable.
2. Federal legislation requiring that OS vendors indemnify customers versus certain types of security problems.
I think it would be fine to move to OpenBSD, and keep all your settings on 'paranoid'.
:)
It does ship *secure* out of the box. No remote exploits.
Don't open any ports until you get the hang of it.
Either way, it won't be *more* dangerous than Windows
Don't even have to have them call-in.
Have a sign-up page. You could even make it automatic.
"You recognize X-Y-Z, and confirm that you will be held responsible in the case of abuse, and confirm that you will be responsible for your own security, yadda yadda"
Then, if abuse is detected, cut'em off, and force them to call in to get off the blacklist.
Personally, I don't really like this. Better to make OS manufacturers accountable, methinks.
If your car could be infected with a 'virus', via Bluetooth, which caused the cruise control to turn on all the time, and accelerate to max, your car manufacturer would get hit hard by the government.
Why should your OS manufacturer be any different. Hell, they control *all* aspects of the chain now:
OS, E-mail client, Virus scanner, and Spyware scanner.
They are your one-stop security vendor, computing-wise. Yet if anything goes wrong, its your problem, not theirs. Sounds like a jobs for the courts to me.
... Bringing us this information.
0 .asp), someone needs to be held accountable, or no-one will fix their behavior.
Bah. Big Deal!
If you run Windows, you PC will be owned at some point. (Yes, yes, I know some of you out there are perfect, and haver *never* messed up *anything* security wise) This happens to me, this happens to less computer literate people, and this happens to large organizations with IT staffs, like the U of Chicago and Allstate.
The solution is the same as always. Switch OSs.
The hotfix is the same as always. Backup data, use your restore disk. Rinse, lather, repeat.
I don't understand why zombie networks are news. The only way that they should be news is when they are used to DDOS major targets. Then, someone should be held accountable. Software manufacturers? Zombie PC owners? ISPs?
I'm not sure. But just like the guy with the TV that summoned the coast guard, (http://www.syncmag.com/article2/0,1759,1781135,0
Ahh... The salient point.
If 1 billion consumers manage to migrate from Microsoft to an alternative, no matter how painfully, the amount of linux/mac software out there would sky rocket.
Game developers would release all their software with linux/mac versions.
Every major software house (adobe, etc, etc) would release linux/mac versions.
This would end the MS monopoly. Any talk of Microsoft pulling out of Europe is pure hogwash.
Even if Microsoft looses money every quarter because of fines, they *will not* pullout.
Microsoft never, ever, ever gives up marketshare. They are quite aware that if/when a competitive software 'eco-system' arises (i.e. linux/mac software), the whole Windows/Office house of cards will collapse.
They'd have to compete on merits alone, not vendor lock-in, and that would destroy the company.
The *primary* complaint with linux/mac these days is that you cannot get all your Windows software running correctly, or your windows compatible hardware.
Do you really think EA will ignore 1 billion customers?
Do you really think all the Taiwanese hardware manufactures will ignore 1 billion customers?
Do you really think American hardware manufacturers will ignore 1 billion customers?
What will Dell do? Dell has a lot of european sales. What will compaq do? Hp? Gateway?
Or the Asian manufacturers? Does anyone seriously believe that Acer will stop trying to sell computers in Europe because MS will not permit them to sell Windows in Europe?
Bwahaha.
Yeah, actually, I usually use that one, because SuSE automatically downloads it, which is nice.
The driverloader one will do all the fancy 125 mbps stuff that the windows drivers can do, however, and is 'feature-complete'.
Not that the 125 mbps stuff will make your transfers faster, but its good to show the PHBs, in order to say that Linux is feature complete with Windows.
Just nice to know, for TI users, you've got 3 free options, the GPL driver, ndiswrapper, or driverloader.
Only one is 'truly' free, but the others are avaliable, as well.
I know, *gasp*, it costs money, but thats *exactly* what the folks at linuxant sell.
.sh script (either double click, or go to 'Run Command; sh ./driverloader.sh')
You get a driver install. It's either an RPM (double click on in your distro), or a
It installs, then automatically pops up your webbrowser, asking you to A) Download the windows driver for your network card, and then B) Select the directory for the Windows XP driver for your network card.
Pure gui. Very easy.
Not that ndiswrapper is much harder, but for those who like to have support, or are terribly afraid of the commandline, it works great.
I've since switched to ndiswrapper, but driverloader is a fine product.
Oh, and TI is an OEM licensor for driverloader, so the driver is *free* as in beer for an ACX100, ACX110, or ACX111 card.
That's really cool, in my mind.
Well, they have this one:t _id=3504708
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?produc
It happens to me too.... ... Mostly when I'm really stressed out.
If I can't shut-off the inner monologue, or at least tone it down, I find myself unable to direct my attention.
Classical ADD, or perhaps ADHD.
You either need to find a way to relax, and find focus, or get stimulants (no, not illegal ones, either coffee/caffeine, or prescription).
Copyright infringement. What does this phrase mean?
Infringement. To impinge upon someone elses rights.
Copyright. Ability (right) to control the duplication of your intellecutal property (work).
The notion of intellectual property, that we have a 'right' to control 'copies', is not some kind of innate right, at least not under any of the ethical systems I know, and certainly not in the American legal system.
The U.S. legal system recognizes copyright because of its constitutional basis. Congress was given the power to establish copyright for the promotion of the arts and sciense.
This is not some inalienable right. This is not akin to free speech. This is something established by the constitution for the purpose of creating economic niches for artists, scientists, and engineers.
I believe this concept is outdated.
Oh, and by the way. It has jack shit to do with theft. At no point is copyright infringment considering by anyone 'in the know' to be theft.
Theft means depriving someone of their assests. This is different than infringing upon their rights.
Legally, morally, intellectual, P2P downloading has nothing to do with theft, and everything to do with copyright.
This is no big deal. We have plenty of America-only requirements in U.S. government contracts. Not all of them, just many.
If you want to get all upset about chinese trade policy, you should get upset about the yuan being pegged to the dollar.
This inflicts far more damage than the chinese government insisting all government purchases should be home-grown software.
1. Prohibition, past (of alcohol).
2. Prohibition, current (of drugs).
3. Copyright violations in P2P terms.
All of these are bans on activities that are widely practiced.
Tens of millions of Americans download music from P2P.
Tens of millions of Americans drink (and drank during the prohibition years).
Tens of millions of Americans use drugs.
Strange, that non-violent activities that such a large portion of the population participate in should be illegal.
We are talking about a ban on substances you can (by choice) ingest, and the extension of an intellectual monopoly by the government onto content holders.
I do not see how either of these protect inalienable rights, and I do believe that all three of these activities would receive a 'thumbs' up in a pure democracy (i.e. nationwide referendum)
Most likely, you don't use virtual desktops, either.
Just because a window management device doesn't fit into your desktop metaphor doesn't mean that others (perhaps even MANY others) find it useful.
I tend to use tabbed browsing to group my browser windows by topic. I'll be researching a certain topic. I'll keep those 'tabs' in the same window. If I decide to take a look at slashdot, that'll be in a new window. Etc, Etc.
I'd miss tabbed browsing A LOT, and I've managed to instruct most of the non-nerd users in my life to use them as well (parents, sisters, girlfriend, family).
That's only if you don't care about performance (say, if you like to game occasionally).
Nothing newer than radeon 8500's has working free linux drivers that support OpenGl.
Their FireGL drivers are terribly for gaming, too.
I have several machines. They all run linux. I've got a smattering of builtin crap video cards, old ATI, and old Nvidia. But in my linux gaming box?
Nvidia all the way. Even though ATI is at a better price/theoretical performance ratio. Merely because ATI's closed source drivers (the only option for 3d on their newer cards) are siginificantly slower than Nvidia's closed source drivers.
So no, I cannot agree that ATI has surpassed Nvidia as the best 3D card to put in a Linux box. Especially if you want to think about either native linux gaming, or using wine/cedega.
In fact, I think implying that the newer ATI cards are even marginally acceptable for modern gaming is quite a bit of deception.
Most people think that linux gaming is hard, and you have to constantly mess with x.org options, or wine/cedega options. The people with the most problems are ATI users, without exception.
I know, because I'm one of those idiots that used to buy the latest card of every OTHER generation, until I switched to pure linux, and discovered that both my radeon 8500 and my 9800 pro were much more difficult and problematic than my geforce 3 and my geforce fx 5950.
I use Wine all the time.
Kind of, anyways. I use Cedega, Transgaming's not-totally-free wine branch focused on gaming.
It means I can play many of the Windows games I want to play on Linux.
I happily live in a MS free household. I still play games on my PC, games that wouldn't be possible on a console (RTS, and MMORPG).
TransgamingWine relations are rocky sometimes, but I'm glad both communities are around. They make my life easier.
Sure, it'd be nice if all the developers built Linux versions of their games/apps. But if they find out a significant portion of the user base runs on Wine, they start trying to run their apps inside the company on Wine (some random developer almost always picks it up (Blizzard with World of Warcraft, and I know Secondlife developers have played with it).
Now there's talk of internal attempts to build native linux clients for both World of Warcraft (there was an early beta, but never a release), and Secondlife promises eventual linux support.
Using Windows games/apps on Linux, inside of Wine, demonstrates to developers that there is, indeed, a market for native versions.
Truly, its the best counter argument to "Linux is not a gaming platform, stick it Windows".
I do not believe that it makes developers lazy, and only code for Windows. They were only coding for Windows before; Linux efforts have one way to go, up.
That's the problem with most law.
Think about how many copyright violations of business software are in *businesses* out there.
Think about how we have a group of storm troopers (the BSA) dedicated to eradicate that, who have almost unlimited budgets.
The GPL is enforcable. Much like most other licenses.
The problem is that nearly anything is difficult to enforce in the legal system, EVEN IF you are a huge company.
Let alone a small group (or solo) of underfunded developers.
The FSF will defend your project if you sign over some rights to them. I'm not exactly sure how that works, I believe they become 'party' to your copyright, but I'm not certain.
Not that its always the best option, but its a decent option for a small group of developers working on a small project.
That *IS* innovation.
And this is coming from one of the biggest Microsoft haters out there.
Similar in the way that Dell provides *innovation* in the computer industry, MS is *innovative* in the software industry.
They just aren't technically innovative, they have innovative business models.
Note, however, you can be immoral and unethical, but still innovative.
MS is a very innovative company. They pull tricks no one else has ever thought of.
What would the world look like if MS figured out that they might be able to produce Linux apps, and have their Windows monopoly, too.
MS Desktop Environment. An X window manager, and the ONLY way to run MS Office and MS Visual Studio on Linux.
MS GUI for Samba. Runs in MS Desktop Environment. Opensource backend, closed source front end. Heck, if it runs on a proprietary MSDE, it could even be opensourced!
Same for IE. Maybe even an IIS than runs on Linux.
Weird thoughts. Not sure if they make business sense, or the traditionally sociopathic MS could think such thoughts.
I could see them doing it, and somehow managing to maintain a 'detente' with the open-source world. All-in-all, it might be a good thing for the market, and for consumers. You can get Windows (whatever edition), or you can get Linux, and run an interface on top of it that looks and acts like Windows.
Both will cost you $199. Both will run your MS apps. Pick and choose whatever you like.
Feels like an MS strategy to me, and you know what?
I can live with it. Just make sure it still uses some Opensource stuff as backends (CUPS, SANE, SAMBA), and I'll even buy it;
Especially if MS would use its immense market power to force Adobe and other top vendors to release their apps for the MSDE Linux environment.
Don't listen to this Son of a Bitch.
:)
Outsourced tech support is exactly the same as domestic tech support, at least in the U.S.
I have a great deal of experience on this, I assure you, and most companies continue to outsource it more and more because it works just fine.
Truely, most of us are not like this guy.
Though, you probably should be avoiding Pizza Hut anyways. Health reasons