You don't have to "reach out" to a group by talking to the leaders. You can host open conferences, web-based forums, newsgroups, mailing lists, tour round user groups (or similar), etc, all without ever once needing to speak to a "leader".
a) previous versions were less secure b) once you crack IIS, you can run all your ready-made Windows attack scripts; no need to write new ones for another platform
But we digress; what does attempting to find a hole in a server have to do with writing trojans and convincing people to install them? Most malware installs require user intervention (ie the user has to click the "yes" button)
There's nothing stopping anyone from writing software to turn a Linux or OS X machine into a spam relay, or to spy on user browsing habits. No-one bothers because it's not worth the time and effort as there are relatively very few users. Change that, and people will start to think that it is worth the effort.
That's because most people run Windows. Migrate enough people to another platform and the crapware authors will follow. Security through obscurity is no security at all.
There is one difference, of course - most of the spyware that affects end users is installed by the user, with the user's permission (yes, I *know* it's buried deep in the EULA that no-one reads, but it often is there). It's arguably fraud/misuse of computer facilities/deception or whatever, but it's a greyer area. In contrast, actively breaking into a network is definitely illegal, and easily prosecuted.
Now, I'm not trying to defend the practice, I'm just putting forward my point of view, that it's a lot harder to prosecute this sort of thing than one may think.
Oh, and I say this every time, so it's nothing personal - but give up the cracker/hacker distinction, that fight's been lost. Words change their meaning, whether people like it or not.
Yes; the statement "resistence is independent of length" suggests to me that there is a resistance at either (or both) end(s) - ie a resistance to getting the electrons in and/or out of the wire. Once they're in, however, there's no resistance.
Note that I have no idea what I'm talking about; we didn't cover nanotubes in my degree:-)
Not all spyware uses exploits to install without the user's knowledge or permission; some pretends to be stuff you actually want, while really being spyware (as well, or instead of what you expect)
Write some spyware, claim it'll make the internet faster or give you free porn or whatever, and people will install it. That's not specific to Firefox (of course!), but can certainly be written as a FF extension, and there's nothing that can be done about that by the FF developers.
understand that when I was "your age", I had to install linux by hand with more than 70 floppy disks
My first ever linux install was Slackware (3?), which I downloaded at university, and took home on floppies. Ah, the "joy" of finding that disk 8/10 (or whatever) of this set was corrupt...
It's next to x, c and v, meaning you have undo ("no, no, paste *there*, not there!"), cut, copy and paste all in a line, all right next to the control key.
What would you have undo as? ctrl-u? That's a fair stretch, especially if you have small hands... Besides, I suspect that the idea was to have commands that are commonly used together, placed together. Once you've chosen ctrl-c for copy, the rest are just a matter of choosing keys near to c.
(As for intuitive, you're talking to a vi user now;-) )
so whack they're virtually unknown and unused
Any application that supports a keyboard shortcut for an operation, and does not have that shortcut listed against the appropriate menu option is poorly designed. They're "unknown and unused" simply because people don't look, not because they're hidden away out of sight.
You got one thing right - you *are* going to rub a lot of feathers the wrong way saying that. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the idea, but understand that having lots (and lots) of little tools that do one thing only, that can be chained together is the "Unix way".
For a lot of people, that's a lot of the appeal of Unix and Unix-like systems.
Yes, it could, if it really starts to become a problem. I can't see MS allowing it to get to that stage though - if there's one thing they are undeniably good at, it's making money. Pissing your customers off so much that they stop buying your products doesn't make you any money.
Besides which, I think the average user still tends to watch movies on their TV (with a DVD player, etc), listen to CDs on their hifis, etc. *If* it happens, it'll piss off people like you an me, but people like you and me are most decidedly not the average user.
if MS attempts to "lock down" digital "rights", then people will be sprinting towards the Mac platform just as fast as they can
Sure - sprinting to buy a whole new computer, new set of applications, new games, etc just so something that they don't understand or even know about isn't part of their OS.
That's a rather pedantic distinction; Java's two most common uses are mobile phones (for Symbian apps) and server-side apps in J2EE.
If you say "Java" to most techies, I think they'd probably think of the latter. If you prefer, however, modify my original statement to "C# is plenty enough competition for Java (and.net for J2EE)"
However, for a server -- especially a public one -- you'd be a complete fool to put anything less secure than a Linux box on the net.
And if the game you want to host doesn't have a Linux server? Windows doesn't have "the edge" in gaming, it utterly *owns* PC gaming. That's changing - I still remember when Quake 3 pretty much was the only real game for Linux* - but it's a very slow change.
* No, TuxRacer does *not* count.
(Besides, what's wrong with putting the server behind a firewall?)
The idea of the free software movement is a different economy where everybody can live well, and share what they know, and create.
No. The idea of the Free Software movement is a world in which there is no restriction on software - everyone has access to the source and can do with it what they wish. Modify it, give it away, print it out and eat it, whatever.
Economics don't come into it *at all*, other than there being no interdiction on selling software or related services. There *is* an interdiction on preventing others from giving away the software you've sold, however, which would tend to reduce its value to the cost of reproduction and distribution, which is vanishingly small.
Merely having access to the source of the software you use does not automatically lead to everyone living well.
But you can't prevent your first customer from undercutting you (perhaps by giving it away for free).
Realistically, all you can hope to do is sell support services - custom modifications, bug fixes, etc. Even then the GPL is designed to do away with the need for that, as there's nothing preventing your customers from doing it themselves (other than lack of skill or money to hire a full-time programmer).
No, the GPL doesn't say that you can't sell software - but realistically, when anyone can give it away for free, how much do you expect to sell?
Blinded by their attraction to the language, they overlook the issue of dependencies, and they fall into the Java Trap.
Blinded? No, some of us just genuinely don't care.
Sure, it would be nice if all software was free and Free; it would be nice if everything was free and Free. Some of us are just trying to make a living and pay the bills, support a family, etc. Whatever I may personally believe, I don't have the luxury of "fighting for what's right". Don't get me wrong, I'll not stand in his way, but I'll not join in, either. If that makes me The Enemy, then so be it.
Information wants to be free, mortgage wants to be paid...
Every time there's an X article on slashdot there is a stream of +5 Insightful posts basically saying "trite, banal thing that's said every time".
You're not going to stop it by complaining about it. You think dupe articles are bad? You should try taking notice of the comments. So polarised you could script it.
Water conducts heat more readily than air, so you lose body heat quicker in water than you do normally. That's part of the reason why a room at 20C feels more comfortable than water at 20C (eg the water in a glass of water that's been left out in a room for a while will be at room temperature, but will *feel* colder)
Slashdot Mirror
You don't have to "reach out" to a group by talking to the leaders. You can host open conferences, web-based forums, newsgroups, mailing lists, tour round user groups (or similar), etc, all without ever once needing to speak to a "leader".
The hackers attack IIS because
a) previous versions were less secure
b) once you crack IIS, you can run all your ready-made Windows attack scripts; no need to write new ones for another platform
But we digress; what does attempting to find a hole in a server have to do with writing trojans and convincing people to install them? Most malware installs require user intervention (ie the user has to click the "yes" button)
There's nothing stopping anyone from writing software to turn a Linux or OS X machine into a spam relay, or to spy on user browsing habits. No-one bothers because it's not worth the time and effort as there are relatively very few users. Change that, and people will start to think that it is worth the effort.
Islam has the goal of world domination
Listened to many evangelical Christians recently?
That's because most people run Windows. Migrate enough people to another platform and the crapware authors will follow. Security through obscurity is no security at all.
That's a really horrible example, since Mozilla isn't embedded in the freaking Linux kernel
You appear to be implying that IE is embedded in the Windows kernel. Please supply some proof of this assertion.
There is one difference, of course - most of the spyware that affects end users is installed by the user, with the user's permission (yes, I *know* it's buried deep in the EULA that no-one reads, but it often is there). It's arguably fraud/misuse of computer facilities/deception or whatever, but it's a greyer area. In contrast, actively breaking into a network is definitely illegal, and easily prosecuted.
Now, I'm not trying to defend the practice, I'm just putting forward my point of view, that it's a lot harder to prosecute this sort of thing than one may think.
Oh, and I say this every time, so it's nothing personal - but give up the cracker/hacker distinction, that fight's been lost. Words change their meaning, whether people like it or not.
Yes; the statement "resistence is independent of length" suggests to me that there is a resistance at either (or both) end(s) - ie a resistance to getting the electrons in and/or out of the wire. Once they're in, however, there's no resistance.
:-)
Note that I have no idea what I'm talking about; we didn't cover nanotubes in my degree
Two words: social engineering.
Not all spyware uses exploits to install without the user's knowledge or permission; some pretends to be stuff you actually want, while really being spyware (as well, or instead of what you expect)
Write some spyware, claim it'll make the internet faster or give you free porn or whatever, and people will install it. That's not specific to Firefox (of course!), but can certainly be written as a FF extension, and there's nothing that can be done about that by the FF developers.
understand that when I was "your age", I had to install linux by hand with more than 70 floppy disks
My first ever linux install was Slackware (3?), which I downloaded at university, and took home on floppies. Ah, the "joy" of finding that disk 8/10 (or whatever) of this set was corrupt...
what about CTL-Z?
;-) )
It's next to x, c and v, meaning you have undo ("no, no, paste *there*, not there!"), cut, copy and paste all in a line, all right next to the control key.
What would you have undo as? ctrl-u? That's a fair stretch, especially if you have small hands... Besides, I suspect that the idea was to have commands that are commonly used together, placed together. Once you've chosen ctrl-c for copy, the rest are just a matter of choosing keys near to c.
(As for intuitive, you're talking to a vi user now
so whack they're virtually unknown and unused
Any application that supports a keyboard shortcut for an operation, and does not have that shortcut listed against the appropriate menu option is poorly designed. They're "unknown and unused" simply because people don't look, not because they're hidden away out of sight.
You got one thing right - you *are* going to rub a lot of feathers the wrong way saying that. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the idea, but understand that having lots (and lots) of little tools that do one thing only, that can be chained together is the "Unix way".
For a lot of people, that's a lot of the appeal of Unix and Unix-like systems.
Yes, it could, if it really starts to become a problem. I can't see MS allowing it to get to that stage though - if there's one thing they are undeniably good at, it's making money. Pissing your customers off so much that they stop buying your products doesn't make you any money.
Besides which, I think the average user still tends to watch movies on their TV (with a DVD player, etc), listen to CDs on their hifis, etc. *If* it happens, it'll piss off people like you an me, but people like you and me are most decidedly not the average user.
but beta with MS = pretty close to the real thing
Surely, beta should be pretty close to the real thing whoever you are? Alpha is for "don't trust this, it's nowhere near stable or feature complete".
(Yes, yes, there are release candidates too, but I see them as being "if you don't scream bloody murder about something, it isn't changing")
if MS attempts to "lock down" digital "rights", then people will be sprinting towards the Mac platform just as fast as they can
Sure - sprinting to buy a whole new computer, new set of applications, new games, etc just so something that they don't understand or even know about isn't part of their OS.
That's a rather pedantic distinction; Java's two most common uses are mobile phones (for Symbian apps) and server-side apps in J2EE.
.net for J2EE)"
If you say "Java" to most techies, I think they'd probably think of the latter. If you prefer, however, modify my original statement to "C# is plenty enough competition for Java (and
Oracle is a beast to install on any platform.
Not so; I've not done anything serious with it, but I've certainly had it installed and running on Win2k and Win XP.
However, for a server -- especially a public one -- you'd be a complete fool to put anything less secure than a Linux box on the net.
And if the game you want to host doesn't have a Linux server? Windows doesn't have "the edge" in gaming, it utterly *owns* PC gaming. That's changing - I still remember when Quake 3 pretty much was the only real game for Linux* - but it's a very slow change.
* No, TuxRacer does *not* count.
(Besides, what's wrong with putting the server behind a firewall?)
So, in other words, use the tool that is right for the job, not the tool that happens to be cheapest.
As would an XP ATM with the auto-reboot on system failure option selected (which is the default); what's your point?
The idea of the free software movement is a different economy where everybody can live well, and share what they know, and create.
No. The idea of the Free Software movement is a world in which there is no restriction on software - everyone has access to the source and can do with it what they wish. Modify it, give it away, print it out and eat it, whatever.
Economics don't come into it *at all*, other than there being no interdiction on selling software or related services. There *is* an interdiction on preventing others from giving away the software you've sold, however, which would tend to reduce its value to the cost of reproduction and distribution, which is vanishingly small.
Merely having access to the source of the software you use does not automatically lead to everyone living well.
But you can't prevent your first customer from undercutting you (perhaps by giving it away for free).
Realistically, all you can hope to do is sell support services - custom modifications, bug fixes, etc. Even then the GPL is designed to do away with the need for that, as there's nothing preventing your customers from doing it themselves (other than lack of skill or money to hire a full-time programmer).
No, the GPL doesn't say that you can't sell software - but realistically, when anyone can give it away for free, how much do you expect to sell?
Blinded by their attraction to the language, they overlook the issue of dependencies, and they fall into the Java Trap.
Blinded? No, some of us just genuinely don't care.
Sure, it would be nice if all software was free and Free; it would be nice if everything was free and Free. Some of us are just trying to make a living and pay the bills, support a family, etc. Whatever I may personally believe, I don't have the luxury of "fighting for what's right". Don't get me wrong, I'll not stand in his way, but I'll not join in, either. If that makes me The Enemy, then so be it.
Information wants to be free, mortgage wants to be paid...
Just wait for there to be no competition to Java
.net isn't going away, and it's plenty enough competition for Java.
You're going to have a very long wait. Love it or loathe it,
Every time there's an X article on slashdot there is a stream of +5 Insightful posts basically saying "trite, banal thing that's said every time".
You're not going to stop it by complaining about it. You think dupe articles are bad? You should try taking notice of the comments. So polarised you could script it.
Water conducts heat more readily than air, so you lose body heat quicker in water than you do normally. That's part of the reason why a room at 20C feels more comfortable than water at 20C (eg the water in a glass of water that's been left out in a room for a while will be at room temperature, but will *feel* colder)