I was dope and fell for one of those "we have an invoice about a package that you ordered about to be delivered to your home" emails a month or two back. I downloaded the zip file, cracked it open, and ran the file before I noticed it was an exe, NOT a pdf as the icon suggested (this after me being one of those people who gets disgruntled about the system default in all the comp labs being to hide file extensions and telling multiple people about why this was a bad idea). After running a few different disinfectant programs on it, everything seemed to have cleared up and as far as I could tell my computer was back to normal.
Cut to this morning, when I booted up to have the thing suddenly reassert itself from out of the blue and start "scanning for infections" again. At that point, I said "fuck it" and reinstalled Windows. I'm a CS major, but I don't want to spend the time to find a definite way to prove to myself that my system is clean that's better than asking the other CSSE people what they use, running said program(s), and taking it on faith that when they tell me "you're clean," I actually am.
So to conclude my previous post, yes the situation sucks, but I don't see how it's particularly Apple's fault. As they like to say here on Slashdot, a lot of Macs' security isn't inherent, it's due to its smaller market size, and they've had articles about how they're being targeted more now, so hey...
Protip: Paragraphs with more than one sentence in them are nice to have occasionally. And before you start, the fourth one is two dependent clauses with one of them capitalized; even if they were both independent, you'd technically need a fourth period to make the second one a proper sentence.
Oh, and you blame Firefox for letting the user run random executables? WTF? Can I start blaming MS Office for letting you open.ODT's now? You have the same problem regardless of what browser you use. Hell, use FTP for all I care, because you still have the file that you can choose to execute.
Ironically, every time I've installed on my desktop machine, they enable all the wireless and power management features that I don't need. You'd think they'd have some automagic to detect such things.
I own one. Got it in 2007 for around $600. AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ 2.1GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB hard disk. Still going strong except for an occasional graphic panic every once in a blue moon that can be fixed with a slow power cycle.
I've found that the downside of this is that virtually every small program that I find to accomplish one specific purpose (say, transcoding audio or video, or concatenating flv files or something), when it's available for Windows, is usually shareware asking $30 for a program I could almost write myself most of the time. Whereas if you find it for Linux, it's almost always GPL'd and free. It's not like I need support for piddly little programs like this and I am sure as hell not paying $30 every time I want one.
I'm thinking of trying Linux Mint Debian XFCE. It's a rolling release but still pretty new so I'm sure there'll be some crippling Achilles' Heel in it.
(yes, as opposed to an Achilles' Heel that doesn't cripple you when it's cut)
Well sure, officially, but I seem to remember hearing that there were a couple programs that could sniff out a TC volume with a pretty good amount of certainty. And who fills their unused hard drive space with random data? If you make that claim, it pretty much sets you up as someone who would likely use TrueCrypt anyway.
....AFAIK, Dropbox has full support for Truecrypt volumes.
How would they have partial support for TrueCrypt? Either they a) look for a TC header and disallow you uploading that file (unlikely), b) don't let you upload a.tc file (easily avoided), or c) don't care at all.
Because you know, god forbid if something like a computer interface changes. If we followed that logic, we would still be using command line interfaces.
Realistically, we wouldn't be using Windows, as the whole point of it to begin with was a GUI change to said command line. So in a way, it would be better inasmuch as perhaps the PC world would be based on something more UNIX-y and better:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Because we couldn't just stay on topic, we just had to throw in a dig about anyone religious...
I was dope and fell for one of those "we have an invoice about a package that you ordered about to be delivered to your home" emails a month or two back. I downloaded the zip file, cracked it open, and ran the file before I noticed it was an exe, NOT a pdf as the icon suggested (this after me being one of those people who gets disgruntled about the system default in all the comp labs being to hide file extensions and telling multiple people about why this was a bad idea). After running a few different disinfectant programs on it, everything seemed to have cleared up and as far as I could tell my computer was back to normal.
Cut to this morning, when I booted up to have the thing suddenly reassert itself from out of the blue and start "scanning for infections" again. At that point, I said "fuck it" and reinstalled Windows. I'm a CS major, but I don't want to spend the time to find a definite way to prove to myself that my system is clean that's better than asking the other CSSE people what they use, running said program(s), and taking it on faith that when they tell me "you're clean," I actually am.
So to conclude my previous post, yes the situation sucks, but I don't see how it's particularly Apple's fault. As they like to say here on Slashdot, a lot of Macs' security isn't inherent, it's due to its smaller market size, and they've had articles about how they're being targeted more now, so hey...
Isn't it disingenuous to criticize Apple for putting you into a situation that you have decided is unfalsifiably dangerous?
I think you just won Slashdot.
Protip: Paragraphs with more than one sentence in them are nice to have occasionally. And before you start, the fourth one is two dependent clauses with one of them capitalized; even if they were both independent, you'd technically need a fourth period to make the second one a proper sentence.
.ODT's now? You have the same problem regardless of what browser you use. Hell, use FTP for all I care, because you still have the file that you can choose to execute.
Oh, and you blame Firefox for letting the user run random executables? WTF? Can I start blaming MS Office for letting you open
At some level: Yes. Nice to meet you, Mr. Oppenheimer.
Not much use if the teacher counts the number of lines per page...which one would hope they all do...
The "99 out of 100" was a bit trollish imho.
You get a lot more that 256 address for your home network if IPv6 is done the way it is suppose to be done.
Why do I get the feeling that was what they said about IPv4....Why in the hell should any average household get 256 addresses?
Subcutaneously-planted RFID MAC address chips? (xkcd)
Having it on a netbook and a desktop are two very different matters. Other than that, I agree it could be useful for experimentation.
the opposite from every other OS made.
Mac?
How insensitive of you to say "ubunto"! What about all the female users?* It could be "ubunta."
* Oh, wait...
functions all got flushed out the toilet.
Yikes! Sounds messy.
Ironically, every time I've installed on my desktop machine, they enable all the wireless and power management features that I don't need. You'd think they'd have some automagic to detect such things.
I own one. Got it in 2007 for around $600. AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ 2.1GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB hard disk. Still going strong except for an occasional graphic panic every once in a blue moon that can be fixed with a slow power cycle.
I've found that the downside of this is that virtually every small program that I find to accomplish one specific purpose (say, transcoding audio or video, or concatenating flv files or something), when it's available for Windows, is usually shareware asking $30 for a program I could almost write myself most of the time. Whereas if you find it for Linux, it's almost always GPL'd and free. It's not like I need support for piddly little programs like this and I am sure as hell not paying $30 every time I want one.
Except the whole problem was that he didn't want his default XFCE styles replaced...
I'm thinking of trying Linux Mint Debian XFCE. It's a rolling release but still pretty new so I'm sure there'll be some crippling Achilles' Heel in it.
(yes, as opposed to an Achilles' Heel that doesn't cripple you when it's cut)
The next, higher one than helium is going to be lithium? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict the next one after that will be beryllium.
Well sure, officially, but I seem to remember hearing that there were a couple programs that could sniff out a TC volume with a pretty good amount of certainty. And who fills their unused hard drive space with random data? If you make that claim, it pretty much sets you up as someone who would likely use TrueCrypt anyway.
"We encrypt your files" and "we will turn over" are not mutually-exclusive terms.
....AFAIK, Dropbox has full support for Truecrypt volumes.
How would they have partial support for TrueCrypt? Either they a) look for a TC header and disallow you uploading that file (unlikely), b) don't let you upload a .tc file (easily avoided), or c) don't care at all.
Piss is hot.
(I'll be waiting for my +5 Insightful like that other guy who posted something about licking buttholes.)
And some of the "above average" people seem to take a great deal of joy in pointing things like this out at every opportunity.
Because you know, god forbid if something like a computer interface changes. If we followed that logic, we would still be using command line interfaces.
Realistically, we wouldn't be using Windows, as the whole point of it to begin with was a GUI change to said command line. So in a way, it would be better inasmuch as perhaps the PC world would be based on something more UNIX-y and better :-)