First, executables are called executables because the computer interprets them. They are made of instructions, and unlike a document you cannot simply tamper with things because it will confuse the computer when it tries to run the executable.
Second, and most importantly, the size of the file is dependent on the size of the bytes within the file. Because the bytes in the file have differing values depending on the instructions they encode, altering the data will alter the size unless you're borrowing from one byte to inflate another -- and in this case, again, you run afoul of the first problem.
I'm surprised the editors didn't review this before approving it for posting. This is really pretty elementary to anyone who understands object code.
I don't keep much in Track 0 besides my partition table and boot sector, and I doubt they add up to 30 sectors. I guess I don't like the idea that the software doesn't migrate properly to another computer if you want to move it, but I thought they were pretty clear in the license agreement that the software was licensed to one system only.
Why do people keep buying this stuff when they're just going to complain about it? There's plenty of software out there that doesn't do this kind of stuff, and one does have options besides software for tax preparation. Use the alternatives, and quit funding the companies that don't have any respect for your property. Technically speaking, this is far more innocuous than monkeying in the Windows Registry.
They probably could have used more specific terminology than 'pulled into this lawsuit' (which gives the idea that they're being sued to the casual reader), but this should have been front paged in my opinion. The real story here is that nobody can assume that they can relax and chat on the Internet without the risk of getting served with papers or an investigation (the K5 incident) if they don't carefully watch what they say. This is dangerous as hell to the free exchange of public information over the best tool we've got to do it, but the public good hasn't a leg to stand on against private interests.
But a deposition, sucky as it is especially if you have to travel to give it, is still a far cry from being on the receiving end of the type of legal hurt the RIAA can deliver.
No doubt a large part of the problem is that it is illegal to redistribute your broadband to people that haven't paid for it, as it should be -- the terms by which cable/DSL are sold are necessary to keep the costs down and the service available to subscribers. The ISPs aren't budgeting for our slack times to be used by 'passers-by'.
I wouldn't touch it. From the article, it sounds like it's dropping a key that is only of importance to Intuit and the TurboTax software. If it's on their system, the damage is already done to whatever previously inhabited sector 33 (probably nothing important). It won't execute by itself, and it's probably data and not executable code anyway -- you've got more to worry about whatever Intuit is dumping into the Windows install.
At best, you can wipe something that will be indecipherable to anybody but Intuit (and break the TurboTax installation in the process) -- at worst, you could inadvertently clean out your partition table. I'd recommend ignoring it, but if you don't mind flirting with disaster you might be able to use the same Norton tool they mentioned in the article.
One possibility is that we haven't gotten our planet right yet; why should we tamper with one of the handful that are currently (and, barring vast increases in our scientific capability, will ever) be accessible to us?
There probably isn't much practical difference, but:
FTP takes longer to start and imposes slightly more overhead
FTP offers upload capability, which you don't need and may not want (thinking back to the packed FTP warez servers of yore where people would hijack the anonymous upload capability of edu servers to share hundreds of programs.) You may need to invest additional effort into disabling this.
HTTP makes it easier to add descriptions of the files.
HTTP is more likely to work properly across firewalls.
Rocks are porous. It's unlikely scientists are going to find a pigeon in the center of a meteorite, but anything dust particle or smaller could make it in.
Earth bourne bacteria could express pre-biotic proteins similar to those discovered in the presence of the right catalysts. Chirality studies can be misleading; nearly 50% of a random sampling of biotic material will confirm the existence of left-handed biotes without revealing anything at all about the total material. Additionally, I'd disagree with the position that the presence of light isotopes in the left-handed chiratic samples in and of itself discounts the possibility that the amino acids were created by Earth bacteria.
The point is simply that you cannot infer any biochemical 'facts' about extraterrestrial compounds once they've been exposed to Earth's lifeforms.
More likely someone will pick up the concept, add/remove things where appropriate, and design/code it for today's technology. It's reasonable to program for 256kb+ downstream now, which means that the networking code could probably be redone. DirectX has gone up five or six versions, so the video needs to be redone. WinXP is a standard gaming platform now, which opens a lot more options for the programmers who don't want to sign off on a dated interface.
I have little doubt that other people are working on a game design like this, but using the existing program design/code would probably be less efficient in terms of results than rethinking the project to use today's technology.
A lot of that in my case is simply 'stock advice' that amounts to setting up a pump-and-dump scheme for the stockholder sending or contracting someone to send the spam. Obviously in such a situation all the stockholder has to do is wait for the price of the stock to be artificially inflated by all the buyers then sell off everything he's got.
I don't know if this actually works for anybody trying the spam technique, as I'd hope most people getting these messages would either be too smart to fall for it or too afraid of the stock market to set up and manage their own account.
This adds more weight to my assessment of spam as being a technical problem with a need for a technical solution. Why are address spoofing and open mail relays still a problem after over a decade of spam-related problems?
Obviously, legislation isn't catching up and as evidenced by the junk fax law is useless when it does. Technical minds built the Internet, and I have little doubt that a solution could be found once we quit looking for the quick fix.
IMHO, the entire EULA concept is a scam. I'm no lawyer, but I see the same obvious flaw you do and another one: what am I getting in return for accepting the EULA? I already bought the software, and the law already gives me the right to use it. How can I be bound when it fails one of the most basic tests of a contract in contract law?
I've noticed companies are trying to get around this by putting a notice on the outside of the box that there are mystery conditions inside the box that I am agreeing to be bound by when I purchase the software. This seems similar to just about any service contract (ISP, bank, Paypal) today where when you agree you agree to not only the contract as written but anything they put into it in the future.
I greatly wish that there was a lawyer-type that could drop in here or someone who could point me to a thread that demonstrates whether or not such things are legally binding. I don't think there's been anything conclusive on the EULA issue yet.
Spam is a technical problem, so why can't we come up with a technical solution? For example, it should be impossible to forge headers, not illegal. Why rely on a legal solution from many of the people who have brought us such brilliant solutions as the DMCA and the CDA in the past when all that's required is what our community has always been good at: sitting down and thinking things out?
You have downloaded: SupAR WArEZ!!! $0.50c
You have downloaded warez, and and broken copyright laws: $5000
You have downloaded warez, and and broken copyright laws, and then found out the software was the wrong version to partition your 120GB drive: priceless
Like most people, I enjoy using the Internet on a daily basis but consider it a luxury I could live without. Taxing Internet access makes more sense than taxing phones or food or other staples of life because it is generally the well-off that can afford access to it.
Likewise, Internet sales taxes are desperately needed. Not only are the well-off more likely to purchase things online, but the fact that they can dodge sales tax by doing so while the poor must pay when they go to the local stores is nearly an insult: this is one of those 'rich getting richer' schemes that doesn't get much airplay, but it should.
I'll agree that it's been a pretty fun ride, but we've already discovered that the Internet isn't free. Now it's time for the tax collectors to catch up.
Most people understand our system as being "one person, one vote", where careful research of the issues and the candidates is supposed to lead us to choose someone who best represents our interests. This sort of barter system for votes I think demonstrates as well as anything the decadence that the left has brought to our country.
I spend a good deal of time before each election working cautiously to review information that is as non-partisan as possible in order to determine which candidates are the best, and it disturbs me when the so-called democrats and liberals stage sideshows like this to distract the American public from the task at hand. Issues like our right to bear arms and the economy are tossed to the wayside as we focus on things like stains on dresses and odd campaign contributions.
I know that my next visit to the polls will be a much more conservative one, and I hope yours will be too. We need to put the focus on what's important.
I'm not particularly happy living under our current operating system monopoly, but this article only bolsters my concern that we're on the brink of creating a new one.
Could the adoption of Linux go too quickly and be too widespread?
I know it seems a bit funny now, as it's still not very useful as a desktop environment and is going head-to-head with arguably better server software, but I think there's a menace lurking beneath the surface: companies may soon get to the point where they -expect- software to be produced for free. It's a bit ironic, I think, that the products of our success at programmers are in the position to undermine our ability to survive in our careers.
Already, programming jobs are being exported to places where they can be done almost for free. I'm starting to wonder if Linux and other open source projects are choking off what remains of our software economy. Is it too farfetched to think that some restrictions need to be put into place to protect workers?
I'll get in on this conversation to raise some important questions.
Why should you have to start shedding the conveniences of modern technology to retain your fundamental rights?
Why would they implement cellphone tracking if they're going to leave a loophole for the majority?
Why are people on here so eager to attack problems with technology control (whether copy protection or privacy issues) by saying "We'll always be able to get around that" instead of saying "This is wrong and should be addressed now before it gets worse"?
I've got many fond memories of that thing. Such as the game where you move a ship around the bottom of the screen while shooting pixels at moving bugs. Or the game where you move a firefighter around the bottom of the screen while shooting water at moving fires. Then there's the one where you're at a shooting gallery, moving your gun around the bottom of the screen while shooting at moving targets.
Those were the days. I kind of miss the difficulty switch too.
We could switch to a.com.us/.org.us/etc system to eliminate the confusion about nationality. Then hold everybody with a.us domain to US laws, and permit people to block the rest (and maybe whitelist in individual foreign addresses).
Given that almost all spam is already originating from overseas, this would clean up most of our problems. Let everybody else deal with their stuff on a country-by-country basis. If they agree to our standard and promise to prosecute spammers in their country that dump their stuff in ours, whitelist their nation.
While certain aspects of DRM irritate me, such as the inability to skip commercials on my DVDs or listen to compact discs in my computer's CD-ROM drive, there's no rational reason to worry computer video formats containing DRM.
We're on the brink of getting all sorts of content available through the Internet. It is not inconcievable that many of us will actually abandon TiVO, mini-satellite systems, and cable and hook our computers directly up to our televisions to get all of our video content within the next couple of years. DRM in no way hampers our ability to make and distribute video -- it's just a necessary step towards permitting the creators of such content to share their work with us on their terms.
Just as rules about driving are necessary to facilitate the sale of vehicles, so too rules are necessary to protect the investment of content creators that we may be able to experience their work without exploiting it. Rogue mpeg4 would just harm the acceptance of real mpeg4 by Hollywood because it would be seen as a simple way for pirates to ship a comparable movie experience without making sure everybody bought a ticket.
I'm not arguing this is right, but recent history would have a hard time proving this wrong.
My only question is that if this is so important, why do they banish it to parts unknown (pardon, the depths of their Technet site) rather than placing it in everybody's Start menu? Cheers to their security consciousness, jeers to their halfassed methods of information deployment.
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First, executables are called executables because the computer interprets them. They are made of instructions, and unlike a document you cannot simply tamper with things because it will confuse the computer when it tries to run the executable.
Second, and most importantly, the size of the file is dependent on the size of the bytes within the file. Because the bytes in the file have differing values depending on the instructions they encode, altering the data will alter the size unless you're borrowing from one byte to inflate another -- and in this case, again, you run afoul of the first problem.
I'm surprised the editors didn't review this before approving it for posting. This is really pretty elementary to anyone who understands object code.
For some reason, this reminds me of the commercials for news where they go, "There's something in the hamburger, news at 11".
Why do people keep buying this stuff when they're just going to complain about it? There's plenty of software out there that doesn't do this kind of stuff, and one does have options besides software for tax preparation. Use the alternatives, and quit funding the companies that don't have any respect for your property. Technically speaking, this is far more innocuous than monkeying in the Windows Registry.
But a deposition, sucky as it is especially if you have to travel to give it, is still a far cry from being on the receiving end of the type of legal hurt the RIAA can deliver.
No doubt a large part of the problem is that it is illegal to redistribute your broadband to people that haven't paid for it, as it should be -- the terms by which cable/DSL are sold are necessary to keep the costs down and the service available to subscribers. The ISPs aren't budgeting for our slack times to be used by 'passers-by'.
At best, you can wipe something that will be indecipherable to anybody but Intuit (and break the TurboTax installation in the process) -- at worst, you could inadvertently clean out your partition table. I'd recommend ignoring it, but if you don't mind flirting with disaster you might be able to use the same Norton tool they mentioned in the article.
One possibility is that we haven't gotten our planet right yet; why should we tamper with one of the handful that are currently (and, barring vast increases in our scientific capability, will ever) be accessible to us?
Rocks are porous. It's unlikely scientists are going to find a pigeon in the center of a meteorite, but anything dust particle or smaller could make it in.
The point is simply that you cannot infer any biochemical 'facts' about extraterrestrial compounds once they've been exposed to Earth's lifeforms.
I have little doubt that other people are working on a game design like this, but using the existing program design/code would probably be less efficient in terms of results than rethinking the project to use today's technology.
I don't know if this actually works for anybody trying the spam technique, as I'd hope most people getting these messages would either be too smart to fall for it or too afraid of the stock market to set up and manage their own account.
Obviously, legislation isn't catching up and as evidenced by the junk fax law is useless when it does. Technical minds built the Internet, and I have little doubt that a solution could be found once we quit looking for the quick fix.
I've noticed companies are trying to get around this by putting a notice on the outside of the box that there are mystery conditions inside the box that I am agreeing to be bound by when I purchase the software. This seems similar to just about any service contract (ISP, bank, Paypal) today where when you agree you agree to not only the contract as written but anything they put into it in the future.
I greatly wish that there was a lawyer-type that could drop in here or someone who could point me to a thread that demonstrates whether or not such things are legally binding. I don't think there's been anything conclusive on the EULA issue yet.
Spam is a technical problem, so why can't we come up with a technical solution? For example, it should be impossible to forge headers, not illegal. Why rely on a legal solution from many of the people who have brought us such brilliant solutions as the DMCA and the CDA in the past when all that's required is what our community has always been good at: sitting down and thinking things out?
You have downloaded: SupAR WArEZ!!! $0.50c
You have downloaded warez, and and broken copyright laws: $5000
You have downloaded warez, and and broken copyright laws, and then found out the software was the wrong version to partition your 120GB drive: priceless
Likewise, Internet sales taxes are desperately needed. Not only are the well-off more likely to purchase things online, but the fact that they can dodge sales tax by doing so while the poor must pay when they go to the local stores is nearly an insult: this is one of those 'rich getting richer' schemes that doesn't get much airplay, but it should.
I'll agree that it's been a pretty fun ride, but we've already discovered that the Internet isn't free. Now it's time for the tax collectors to catch up.
I spend a good deal of time before each election working cautiously to review information that is as non-partisan as possible in order to determine which candidates are the best, and it disturbs me when the so-called democrats and liberals stage sideshows like this to distract the American public from the task at hand. Issues like our right to bear arms and the economy are tossed to the wayside as we focus on things like stains on dresses and odd campaign contributions.
I know that my next visit to the polls will be a much more conservative one, and I hope yours will be too. We need to put the focus on what's important.
Could the adoption of Linux go too quickly and be too widespread?
I know it seems a bit funny now, as it's still not very useful as a desktop environment and is going head-to-head with arguably better server software, but I think there's a menace lurking beneath the surface: companies may soon get to the point where they -expect- software to be produced for free. It's a bit ironic, I think, that the products of our success at programmers are in the position to undermine our ability to survive in our careers.
Already, programming jobs are being exported to places where they can be done almost for free. I'm starting to wonder if Linux and other open source projects are choking off what remains of our software economy. Is it too farfetched to think that some restrictions need to be put into place to protect workers?
Why should you have to start shedding the conveniences of modern technology to retain your fundamental rights?
Why would they implement cellphone tracking if they're going to leave a loophole for the majority?
Why are people on here so eager to attack problems with technology control (whether copy protection or privacy issues) by saying "We'll always be able to get around that" instead of saying "This is wrong and should be addressed now before it gets worse"?
Those were the days. I kind of miss the difficulty switch too.
Given that almost all spam is already originating from overseas, this would clean up most of our problems. Let everybody else deal with their stuff on a country-by-country basis. If they agree to our standard and promise to prosecute spammers in their country that dump their stuff in ours, whitelist their nation.
We're on the brink of getting all sorts of content available through the Internet. It is not inconcievable that many of us will actually abandon TiVO, mini-satellite systems, and cable and hook our computers directly up to our televisions to get all of our video content within the next couple of years. DRM in no way hampers our ability to make and distribute video -- it's just a necessary step towards permitting the creators of such content to share their work with us on their terms.
Just as rules about driving are necessary to facilitate the sale of vehicles, so too rules are necessary to protect the investment of content creators that we may be able to experience their work without exploiting it. Rogue mpeg4 would just harm the acceptance of real mpeg4 by Hollywood because it would be seen as a simple way for pirates to ship a comparable movie experience without making sure everybody bought a ticket.
I'm not arguing this is right, but recent history would have a hard time proving this wrong.
It's the result of a terrible incident involving a strange polynomial and an unusual quantity of alcohol. Best just to not bring it up in the future.
My only question is that if this is so important, why do they banish it to parts unknown (pardon, the depths of their Technet site) rather than placing it in everybody's Start menu? Cheers to their security consciousness, jeers to their halfassed methods of information deployment.