Disasemblers and decompilers aren't exactly the same animal.
Disasmeblers bring the code back to asembly language. Decompilers bring the code back to the source code it was originally writen in.
Dosen't it make you feal old when not only do the names of the tools change but the tools themselfs so much so you can't keep up?
I'd be sympatheti but back in my day we called them machine language monitors and people today keep trying to correct me when I say "Machine Language" and they say "You mean Asembly".
Oh so he observed his friend demonstrating blaster?
Wow I didn't know Leo Laport was 18... (Just so everyone knows Leo is the old guy on Screen Savers and Call for help who's been with Tech TV like FOREVER and he demostrated blaster on TV)
And then there are those who actually like Microsoft GASP and yes Microsoft has it's own Zellots GASP HORROR.. They just want us to believe they aren't bies.
But back to the point.
Using header information is like locking a door. It's not a bad idea in itself.
"I don't want people walking into my home so I'll sue anyone who lists my home address." Sigh.. Dipstick LOCK YOUR DOOR.
But now what happends if someone starts locking OTHER PEOPLS doors. If some jerk adds a lock to your house in effectively locking you out. If you object your against locks? No your against the application of locking someone out of there own home.
But this is AoLs site so let's bring this more to reality.
If your landlord locks you out of the appartment your renting.... He hasn't kicked you out he is still collecting rent he just won't let you inside. Again not anti-landlord not anti-lock. In California you have to file a 30 day notice to evict a tenent so just locking them out is illegal. (Unless the tenent is a nusence then you get a 3 day notice) IANAL but was a landlord.
Now lets actually bring this entirely to reality. Landlord dosen't lock the tenent out.
The AoL landlords are dictating to the tentent/users that they can't invite friends from Livejernal.
In the real world that would get the city on your butt and ACLU.
Then then someone says "Well make up your minds are you pro-locks or anti-locks?"
I remember when someone was selling data keys that carried a 512k ERPOM.
I was thinking "Passcode"... Dude it's a key why not use it as the ultimate key. Hack hack got nothing on me.
Now with 512k you'd have not just enough room to ID everything but enough room to breath. Made it tight enough and someone will enter random codes just to get results.
And then there is the mistakes.. accadentally using the wrong code. It would be better if a defective ID tag gave an error than a false result.
There is also a possability they busted someone who was just discecting blaster not making a new varent.
To a techno neophite there isn't much diffrence. If the guy decompiled the code and his friend looked over his sholder his friend would see someone with the blaster source. Decompillers aren't so well known now a days so even an experenced programmer who might normally know what he is looking at might not recognise this as decompiler output and not original source code.
He might also not realise you generally can not recompile decompiled code.
Or the busted teen is an idiot who said "Hay watch this. I got blaster. Now I'm chaning it to penis32. Aren't I clever?"
I was comming back on Slashdot to post this becouse it only just occured to me... (About 3 hours ago...)
Wow SCOs getting better at this. It was taking 3 seconds before I figured them out now it's 3 whole hours.
Keep it up guys and maybe you'll fool people for 3 days.
But sereously folks it hit me... SCO..
When SCO names features Linux got from SCO code Linus easly discovers the true authors and in some cases it's Linus himself.
SCO lists example code turns out to be code the corts declared public domain. And it's code that has nothing to do with the features in question. And It's not in Linux anymore.
SCO says they have no plans to sue Linux companys.
Well I guess when you actually think about it, in a convoluted way it's true. SCO won't be suing a single company Linus ownes....
I would imagine its VBScript, actually. As would I.
Visual Basic like Perl is very easy to use BUT more techno experenced individuals tend to favor PERL while business execuitives favor visual basic.
They both work pritty reasonably well.
The key diffrence is in the person using it. Lacking the technical experence of perl counterparts visual basic code makes very dumb mistakes. Mistakes a more experenced programmer wouldn't make.
For example a perl programmer might not look up Microsoft FUD for things SCO could pull on Gnu/Linux users. But a less experended visual basic coder might not realise that gnu/linux users would much rather fight to the death than sell out to someone someone who spits out random slanderous clames.
Also a perl coder might omitt attacking Linux users all together as someone may realise it's a script and try to hack it just to get it to do something like having SCO issue threats against Caldera or Darl McBride.
And the Internet as I knew it is already dead. Usenet isn't very useful. I can't hunt down good FTP sites. Web site authors no longer support text based browsers let alone the W3 standards. There is no "standard" internet browser (unless you count MS-IE) e-mail viruses were a myth.. You'd be a fool to make e-mail clients that execute binarys or any sort of code. Windows didn't support networking yet. IRC and talk were the mainstream chat systems of the day with ICB for those who don't want to deal with the influx of newbies. Linux users still had a lot to learn and my 3B2/300 was still working.
Oh yeah and older computers (like the 3B2) weren't considered "obsolete" as much as "cute".
And breaking the socal laws of the internet meant losing your ISP account, getting your IP blocked or getting your computer hacked. All fail by the Internet rules.
Sense then we've had Spammer lawsutes, FUD, revised patent laws and software makers who break standards.
And let us not forget the CDA.
If the Internet as we know it dyes it will be as it evolves. E-mail is all but useless but hasn't been replaced yet. Eather we fix it or replace it.
IRC, talk and FTP has been replaced by Instant Messangers and p2p file shairing.
The two things I miss the most are the ISP sign up fee and no dynamic IPs.
Some jerk is being a jerk block the IP. With ISP sign up fees you have to pay for your net abuse. My first ISP actually did kick me off becouse I responded to a crossposting trool on Usenet. I was a newbie. The Sysadm was really sweet about it. She called me up on the phone and said "I'm very sorry we have to remove your account becouse you massively crossposted. But we can reactivate your account next month." There was a technicality in that she was canciing my trial account and I had already paid the full sign up and next month in advance. She explainned.. very nicely.. that if I did that again I'd have to wait a month and pay the sign up fee again. I understood. I made an honnest mistake but she dosen't know that and some people refuse to take responsability.
Back in the day people could lose jobs for pulling stunts such as spamming.
Today we have ISPs with sysadmin who aren't in charge of system policy. Managers who don't care about Internet culture (byond marketting). Etc
One typical trate of script kiddys is a short attention span.
A typical script kiddy would have gotten bord a long time ago.
Unless SCO hasn't bothered to contact the servers hosting the DoS it's very unlikely the DoS would still be active today. And that is presumming some very lazy Sysadm are behind those servers.
Something ALL users want be that Linux, Windows, or MacOs users is an annoyence free operating system. Here is the rub.. non exists. Or to make matters more confusing all operating systems are both annoyence free and flooded with annoyences.
It depends on how the user operates. Windows is one compleate user friendly GUI with a certan behavure. MacOs is a diffrent user friendly GUI with a slightly diffrent behavure and a totally diffrent os. Linux isn't user friendly for the most part. At least not untill you get it installed configured and running.
A standardised GUI is the wrong direction for Linux becouse not all GUIs fit all users. What Linux needs is a broud range of user friendly interfaces. It needs compleately user friendly configurations.
It needs a user friendly and totally automated way to update source code. (Gentoo I know I know... I was working on something myself but that seams moot now)
If I read the webpage right this patent extends back to 1994. Internet Explorer was at one time a liccensed version of Mosaic as maintained by Spyglass and 'enhanced' by Microsoft. I realise this isn't true anymore.
However it seams Microsoft dropped the ball on this one quite bad. Maybe suing Microsoft for intelectual property is Microsofts kryptonite.. no wait that makes them seam like good guys.. Microsofts dropped house... much better.
Microsoft has a bit of a history of losing intelectual property lawsutes. It's a long term blind spot for them.
Mosaic has had plugins for a while and with Interenet Explorer being just part of Windows now I wonder if this applys to web browsers or dose Microsofts own Windows explorer also qualify as prior art.
It was mentioned this could apply to Unix mime but that would make Unix mime prior art.
Someone suggested this could also apply to any method of matching an application to a document type even one implemented in the operating system.
Mac Os, Windows 286,386,2.xx,3.xx, OS/2, Geos [64/128/Apple], Geoworks [PC/PDA/Cell phone/wordprocessor], Amiga Os, Atari ST/TTs TOS, some interface programs for CP/M and some for Dos, GemOs, TI Explorer.
I'm sure you could find all kinds of software for all operating systems that could handle this.
That is presumming I got this right. That we are talking about is a patent on a program that recognises what a docment is and forwards it to an external handling program that was issued in 1994.
That is harsh.. but then so was the person your responding to.
Fighting spam is a very difficult task and spammers you stop will spread lies. It's something they do very well. That talent makes them think they'd be good in marketting. What a supprise it is when they fail in traditional marketting techniques.
But lies are always based on a truth. Big lies usally contain a small truth.
I have no doupt SPEWS has to tolerate a great many lies all of them having a droplet of truth and all backed by some form of evedence.
But it is becouse of those lies that spam hunters tend to become a slight warpped and considerably jaded. All spam hunters make mistakes. Why would SPEWS watch usenet for mistakes if they never happend? I'm sure SPEWS is careful but I'm reminded of annother spam hunting organisation that was not and ignored it's mistakes.
Usenet is an alternitive for people who can't reach SPEWS any other way. But that is not the best of options becouse as I said before not helpful if people don't know they can contact SPEWS this way or worse don't even know about Usenet.
Thats not helpful to people who don't know they can be reached by usenet (a very strange way to make contact with a single entity you must admit) and even worse for anyone who dosen't know what usenet is.
I forgot to add. While we patent thies trinkets many of them are insainly obveous and some were in the public domain. It's just today people file simple obveous patents by doing something in the form of... "Selling Donuts on the Internet" for example.
Nothing new or remarkably diffrent from what's already happening in the real world.
Many patents are nothing more than looking at market trends and figuring out what will come next and then patent it while some other poor slob actually makes the thing just to get sued.
You know with some forsite the RIAA could have patented digital sound files and sound file sharing and then sued on the basis of patents.
One reason so many of thies obveous patents do have prior art is that in many cases what your looking at is a trend. The prior art is the early work and the patent is on where that work is going. In the cases where the prior art is acceptable is when the patents were sloppy and broud.
It's dangerous to try and put out a new item becouse somebody else may have a patent on it already or worse may file a patent on hearing about the project to build it.
Patents were the idea of protecting a persons inventon so they could shop it around and sell it to a company for mass production.
Here is the problem. Software is already protected by copyrights the "inventions" of software are mearly an elegent solution to a problem and not the byproduct of research or hard work as much as the byproduct of a good nights sleep and waking up with a "Hay I got an idea"
Most inventions start with an idea but they end with labor and resorces. Software starts with an idea and ends with an idea only temporarly taking the form of 4 lines of code.
Then you have business method patents. The only thing more pathetic than a business protecting it's method of business as it's own intelectual property is a kid who identifys himself by a catch phrase and gets pissed when someone else uses the same combonation of words.
Back to classic inventions. The hard, fast and real devices. The lightbulb is an invention. It took research to figure out how to do it. The DC power plant is an invention. The AC power plant is annother invention. The AC power grid. Etc.
The reason for submitting a working device to the patent office is becouse the inventer had done real science. A practical aplication form of science but science never the less.
Todays true inventions are protected by trade secrets and non-discolsure agreements. Thies are far more powerful than patents.
Todays patents are much thess than great inventions but random trinketts. The patent system needs more than just an overhall. It needs a vacation.
I'm more inclined to believe this stat reflects the influx of NEW gammers rather than the reflection of existing gammers. Where did this statistic come from? Probably a card in the box of some new releases.
The exact problem with any give statistic gathering system is your going to warp your sample by your information gathering technique.
In this case new game sales are going to warp to new gammers. I myself won't be buying any NEW games for a while as I'm quite happy with the games I've already got.
If the fuction of this servay is to show where game marketters need to go then the warping effect is not an issue. Existing gammers happy with the games they have won't buy as many new games as new gammers who havn't found there happy place yet.
Maybe maybe he was just impressed by the 24 hour snapshot.
3 things to consider. Especally with a 24 hour snapshot.
1. Most hobby websites often use Linux. Most Windows servers are entirely business orented. 2. In a 24 hour snap shot no doupt it's the defaced websites themselfs that report. Often the tools a business uses are reflected in the way the business works. Open source: Open honnest and part of the community. Will report the defacement. Windows: Closed dishonnest and protecting stockholders. Will pretend defacements didn't happen.
3. 24 hours is a very short snapshot. What your seeing right now could easly be 100% Win 2K or 1 Win 2K reports being defaced and nothing else.
That explains why a 60% Linux at one point and a few days later 100% Windows... I've looked at web site defacement records showing days of no defacements.
Right now Windows admin are going to be more frightend than normal and are franticly downloading patches they've ignored for years while Linux admin are preticuarly smug.
Very true quite a few users run Linux and say "I'm an expert". They get told the same lie we are all told. The Linux is SOO hard you have to be a tech god to use it. If this were true I know two techno gods under the age of 10 and nither can write code.
So the avrage Linux newbie thinks he's great and thinks it's all easy to him. He can do anything.
Contrast this with an equally disterbing trend. Microsoft has people convenced that Windows is so user friendly you could even run a server and not be tech savy.
In contrast you have Linux hobbyists who think they are soo smart and brag vs Windows hobbyests who think they are tech dumbies and don't need to know anything.
The key here is that while the Linux newbie is most certanly not a tech god he dose know that there is much to learn. He made thousands of procedureal errors but he knows to learn and study and check and recheck.
As a result the avrage Windows newbie 6 years later will still know nothing. The avrage Linux newbie will grow up quickly and remember back when he thought he was a god just becouse he could install Linux.. 6 months ago.
Linux is more secure than Windows becouse we know it's not secure enough and never will be secure enough. Windows however knows for a fact that is secure enough as a direct result it's not secure at all.
The latest clame that Windows is insecure by design is basicly saying that Microsoft didn't even think about security when the first designed the operating system years ago and just folowed the basic philosophys behind Dos. At the time Dos was the only operating system to have viruses and people were crying fowl over this. That Microsoft could do better and if they do make a new operating system they should.
(It wouldn't be untill Apple adds multitasking that Macs would have any viruses)
To ferther the point a number of products entered the market to make Dos more secure. Password protection to keep users from using the computer and the ability to write protect hard disks were just two security features available from third partys.
All commertal network pacages I have had any experence with had quite a few security features to deal with the fact that they were missing from Dos. Yet people didn't use those features effectively and would leave systems open to virus infections passing over the lan. This would forshadow the Internet as it is today.
But in the end it's viglence not design that keeps Linux secure.
Becouse for as many windows worms we have seen lately and as many clames that BSD is the most secure Unix around.... The one and only BSD worm did the one thing no Windows worm could do. It took down the Internet. It flooded the network with billions of infections.
This could happen to Linux.
We can show Windows is insecure ground up. Viruses and e-mail worms need an insecure operating system to work. Viruses need to be able to infect other binarys once run under the user account. This simply won't happen under a secure operating system. Email worms need an e-mail client that will run programs attached to e-mail.
But normal non-email worms hack in from the outside. Look at that statistic again.. Even if only 1 Linux box is hacked that means a worm can do it. A worm can be made to hack into Linux systems just the same as a hacker could himself. Before you know it the worm has infected many systems. Millions of infected systems in the time it takes for one hacker to deface one Linux hosted website. It could happen... IF... If we sit on our butts. Worms take a while to write so it may be a month or so after 'discovery' that a worm is actually created. If we sit on our butts and not make a patch, Sit on our butts and not test the patch, Sit on our butts and not apply the patch. Then a worm could be released.
If we don't secure our systems. Applying patches and bug fixes is only the start. There are countless procedural errors that could be made. Get something to test your system for all the known ways someone could hack your system and test for them. Know if your safe.
I remember one Solarus zellot actually freaking out when she discovered an SGI system was being used to run a website. She pointed out that the machies were not designed to run websites.
In other words the operating system was "secure enough" for a stand alone workstation.
And I doubt you could sue. The service provider decides what services you get.
So the fact that he actually paid for the service dosn't mean anything?
I expect to get the full service I pay my ISP for at least most of the time. (I know I am not paying for reliable service and that reliable service is far more expensive that what I pay. I expect to take the brunt of network outages etc thats just part of what I'm paying for or in this case what I'm not paying for as I'm not paying for reliability)
If my ISP desides to cut off part of the service on purpous then my ISP is liable. if my ISP makes a mistake then I have to talk to my ISP and work things out.
What the grandparent post is saying is that if AoL is doing this on a regulare basis to all it's users then it's byond the scope of a misunderstanding and becomes negelect.
You mean Spocks tricorder or the TNG tricorder? Spocks tricorder is about the same size as the portable tape recorders available at the time.
TNG came out after the market had already been flooded with credit card sized devices and was now seeing slightly more bulky versions of those devices that were probably the insperation for the smaller tricorder.
Set wayback clock to 1980's. A book called "Outside the inner circle" points out that crackers want access to mainframes (like Unix systems). A text file "the dirty dozen" listed 12 well circulated trojens. All of them ran on dos. All of them were to attack BBSes. The file grew untill the 'script kiddys' of the day realised they could get more milage out of trojens.
One of the two major free tech mags (eather Computer Currents or Micro times I forget) printed an artical on how Dos is hopelessly insecure and Microsoft should make something new that was secure.
At the time I felt this was asking a bit much. See Dos was made to run on PCs. Those systems aren't powerful enough to run a secure operating system. They were only just powerful enough to run viruses.
However I also felt that the PC AT was powerful enough to run a secure operating system should one be made with it in mind. 386 even more so.
However the early pleas fell on deff ears and Microsoft instead chouse to use my excuses for the insecurity of Dos to continue to excuse the insecrity of Windows.
Microsoft continues to make excuses.
Viruses and worms could hack your admin password out of the password file if it wasn't for the fact that the passwords aren't actually needed.
Today virus and worm writers are just doing it to prove how fragle Windows is. In the past it was some sort of sick contest today I think worm writers are sloppy on purpous just to prove just how pathetic Windows security really is.
Early MacOs had the same problem but not a first. Apple desided to "keep up with the joneses" by giving MacOs the ability to multitask. The ability to run many background tasks (the primitive multitasking supported by dos) is all it takes to run a virus. That and be totally devoid of security.
Microsoft will quickly point out that they released patches for security problems months before any given worm is released yet they work. The reason? Windows admin do not trust the patches. Microsoft makes the same rooky mistake over and over again. I know this mistake becouse I made it. Deploying bug fixes and security patches BEFORE testing. I crashed a BBS once doing this. As a hobby programmer for a sysop this is excusable... ONCE. As a large corp servicing millions of users around the world making this mistake over and over again is bad enough and then to just make excuses is worse. (And when I made my one mistake I never heard the end of it)
Microsoft can't be held responsable if a printer driver is defective I'm told. True true but when that printer driver crashes the whole operating system it's time to stop blamming the driver and start blamming the person who designed the driver interface.
It's come so far that one worm is actually writen to try and download an update. Microsoft may be lazy but the rest of the world isn't so it failed.
It is known that for every invention there are many people who had the same idea and did nothing.
In filing your patent your protecting your compleated invention against being copied by others who have not gone through the hard work of making the idea work.
The patent office however dose not require a compleated invention anymore and people are abusing this.
The trend is to file patents and sit on them. In this case the patent was amazingly obveous. There were already a wide range of general purpous devices the size of credit cards. How much brain power dose it take to come up with the idea of a vertual credit card? Science fiction shows called them cread chips.
See Max Headrom a quazi dark future that rehased many of the commen theams in sifi in the 1980s.
All your credit information is recorded on a credit card sized device. But as most sifis don't spell that fact out it could be argued they were something completly diffrent.
So basicly it was a consept that had yet to be clearly defined. This company files a clearly defined patent and waits for the cred chip to be created. And waits, and waits.
But the networking world dosen't need cred chips. All your information is recorded in larg central databases all that is needed is a network to access that data. (One more secure than the Internet) such a network exsists.
Now that this device will not manifest itself the company has to try and sue the next closest device. The PDA. But the PDA is a full computer and not credit card sized. It's a generall function device of such recording credit cards is just one possable use.
Now for the typical:File this patent: comment.
Patent a GUI computer that has more ram, speed and disk storage than the current computers.
Then when such computers are made you have a ready made lawsute. Oh yeah with the obveous loophole of Linux based PCs being exempt.
I have an idea. Patent honnest spam. Any spammer who clames to be honnest is sued and must then prove in cort they are in fact lying theafing crooks.
Slashdot Mirror
Disasemblers and decompilers aren't exactly the same animal.
Disasmeblers bring the code back to asembly language.
Decompilers bring the code back to the source code it was originally writen in.
Dosen't it make you feal old when not only do the names of the tools change but the tools themselfs so much so you can't keep up?
I'd be sympatheti but back in my day we called them machine language monitors and people today keep trying to correct me when I say "Machine Language" and they say "You mean Asembly".
Oh so he observed his friend demonstrating blaster?
Wow I didn't know Leo Laport was 18...
(Just so everyone knows Leo is the old guy on Screen Savers and Call for help who's been with Tech TV like FOREVER and he demostrated blaster on TV)
if Slashdot were one entity with one opinion but it's not - Slashdot is a wide variety of differing viewpoints from individuals
Funniest. Post. Ever.
I take it you have a diffrent opinion?
And then there are those who actually like Microsoft GASP and yes Microsoft has it's own Zellots GASP HORROR.. They just want us to believe they aren't bies.
But back to the point.
Using header information is like locking a door. It's not a bad idea in itself.
"I don't want people walking into my home so I'll sue anyone who lists my home address."
Sigh.. Dipstick LOCK YOUR DOOR.
But now what happends if someone starts locking OTHER PEOPLS doors.
If some jerk adds a lock to your house in effectively locking you out. If you object your against locks? No your against the application of locking someone out of there own home.
But this is AoLs site so let's bring this more to reality.
If your landlord locks you out of the appartment your renting.... He hasn't kicked you out he is still collecting rent he just won't let you inside.
Again not anti-landlord not anti-lock. In California you have to file a 30 day notice to evict a tenent so just locking them out is illegal.
(Unless the tenent is a nusence then you get a 3 day notice)
IANAL but was a landlord.
Now lets actually bring this entirely to reality.
Landlord dosen't lock the tenent out.
The AoL landlords are dictating to the tentent/users that they can't invite friends from Livejernal.
In the real world that would get the city on your butt and ACLU.
Then then someone says "Well make up your minds are you pro-locks or anti-locks?"
I remember when someone was selling data keys that carried a 512k ERPOM.
I was thinking "Passcode"... Dude it's a key why not use it as the ultimate key. Hack hack got nothing on me.
Now with 512k you'd have not just enough room to ID everything but enough room to breath.
Made it tight enough and someone will enter random codes just to get results.
And then there is the mistakes.. accadentally using the wrong code. It would be better if a defective ID tag gave an error than a false result.
There is also a possability they busted someone who was just discecting blaster not making a new varent.
To a techno neophite there isn't much diffrence. If the guy decompiled the code and his friend looked over his sholder his friend would see someone with the blaster source.
Decompillers aren't so well known now a days so even an experenced programmer who might normally know what he is looking at might not recognise this as decompiler output and not original source code.
He might also not realise you generally can not recompile decompiled code.
Or the busted teen is an idiot who said "Hay watch this. I got blaster. Now I'm chaning it to penis32. Aren't I clever?"
I was comming back on Slashdot to post this becouse it only just occured to me...
(About 3 hours ago...)
Wow SCOs getting better at this. It was taking 3 seconds before I figured them out now it's 3 whole hours.
Keep it up guys and maybe you'll fool people for 3 days.
But sereously folks it hit me... SCO..
When SCO names features Linux got from SCO code Linus easly discovers the true authors and in some cases it's Linus himself.
SCO lists example code turns out to be code the corts declared public domain.
And it's code that has nothing to do with the features in question.
And It's not in Linux anymore.
SCO says they have no plans to sue Linux companys.
Well I guess when you actually think about it, in a convoluted way it's true.
SCO won't be suing a single company Linus ownes....
I would imagine its VBScript, actually.
As would I.
Visual Basic like Perl is very easy to use BUT more techno experenced individuals tend to favor PERL while business execuitives favor visual basic.
They both work pritty reasonably well.
The key diffrence is in the person using it. Lacking the technical experence of perl counterparts visual basic code makes very dumb mistakes. Mistakes a more experenced programmer wouldn't make.
For example a perl programmer might not look up Microsoft FUD for things SCO could pull on Gnu/Linux users.
But a less experended visual basic coder might not realise that gnu/linux users would much rather fight to the death than sell out to someone someone who spits out random slanderous clames.
Also a perl coder might omitt attacking Linux users all together as someone may realise it's a script and try to hack it just to get it to do something like having SCO issue threats against Caldera or Darl McBride.
And the Internet as I knew it is already dead.
Usenet isn't very useful. I can't hunt down good FTP sites. Web site authors no longer support text based browsers let alone the W3 standards. There is no "standard" internet browser (unless you count MS-IE) e-mail viruses were a myth.. You'd be a fool to make e-mail clients that execute binarys or any sort of code. Windows didn't support networking yet. IRC and talk were the mainstream chat systems of the day with ICB for those who don't want to deal with the influx of newbies. Linux users still had a lot to learn and my 3B2/300 was still working.
Oh yeah and older computers (like the 3B2) weren't considered "obsolete" as much as "cute".
And breaking the socal laws of the internet meant losing your ISP account, getting your IP blocked or getting your computer hacked. All fail by the Internet rules.
Sense then we've had Spammer lawsutes, FUD, revised patent laws and software makers who break standards.
And let us not forget the CDA.
If the Internet as we know it dyes it will be as it evolves. E-mail is all but useless but hasn't been replaced yet. Eather we fix it or replace it.
IRC, talk and FTP has been replaced by Instant Messangers and p2p file shairing.
The two things I miss the most are the ISP sign up fee and no dynamic IPs.
Some jerk is being a jerk block the IP.
With ISP sign up fees you have to pay for your net abuse. My first ISP actually did kick me off becouse I responded to a crossposting trool on Usenet. I was a newbie. The Sysadm was really sweet about it. She called me up on the phone and said "I'm very sorry we have to remove your account becouse you massively crossposted. But we can reactivate your account next month."
There was a technicality in that she was canciing my trial account and I had already paid the full sign up and next month in advance.
She explainned.. very nicely.. that if I did that again I'd have to wait a month and pay the sign up fee again.
I understood. I made an honnest mistake but she dosen't know that and some people refuse to take responsability.
Back in the day people could lose jobs for pulling stunts such as spamming.
Today we have ISPs with sysadmin who aren't in charge of system policy. Managers who don't care about Internet culture (byond marketting). Etc
One typical trate of script kiddys is a short attention span.
A typical script kiddy would have gotten bord a long time ago.
Unless SCO hasn't bothered to contact the servers hosting the DoS it's very unlikely the DoS would still be active today.
And that is presumming some very lazy Sysadm are behind those servers.
Something ALL users want be that Linux, Windows, or MacOs users is an annoyence free operating system.
Here is the rub.. non exists. Or to make matters more confusing all operating systems are both annoyence free and flooded with annoyences.
It depends on how the user operates.
Windows is one compleate user friendly GUI with a certan behavure.
MacOs is a diffrent user friendly GUI with a slightly diffrent behavure and a totally diffrent os.
Linux isn't user friendly for the most part. At least not untill you get it installed configured and running.
A standardised GUI is the wrong direction for Linux becouse not all GUIs fit all users.
What Linux needs is a broud range of user friendly interfaces. It needs compleately user friendly configurations.
It needs a user friendly and totally automated way to update source code.
(Gentoo I know I know... I was working on something myself but that seams moot now)
If I read the webpage right this patent extends back to 1994.
Internet Explorer was at one time a liccensed version of Mosaic as maintained by Spyglass and 'enhanced' by Microsoft. I realise this isn't true anymore.
However it seams Microsoft dropped the ball on this one quite bad. Maybe suing Microsoft for intelectual property is Microsofts kryptonite.. no wait that makes them seam like good guys.. Microsofts dropped house... much better.
Microsoft has a bit of a history of losing intelectual property lawsutes. It's a long term blind spot for them.
Mosaic has had plugins for a while and with Interenet Explorer being just part of Windows now I wonder if this applys to web browsers or dose Microsofts own Windows explorer also qualify as prior art.
It was mentioned this could apply to Unix mime but that would make Unix mime prior art.
Someone suggested this could also apply to any method of matching an application to a document type even one implemented in the operating system.
Mac Os, Windows 286,386,2.xx,3.xx, OS/2, Geos [64/128/Apple], Geoworks [PC/PDA/Cell phone/wordprocessor], Amiga Os, Atari ST/TTs TOS, some interface programs for CP/M and some for Dos, GemOs, TI Explorer.
I'm sure you could find all kinds of software for all operating systems that could handle this.
That is presumming I got this right.
That we are talking about is a patent on a program that recognises what a docment is and forwards it to an external handling program that was issued in 1994.
That is harsh.. but then so was the person your responding to.
Fighting spam is a very difficult task and spammers you stop will spread lies. It's something they do very well. That talent makes them think they'd be good in marketting. What a supprise it is when they fail in traditional marketting techniques.
But lies are always based on a truth. Big lies usally contain a small truth.
I have no doupt SPEWS has to tolerate a great many lies all of them having a droplet of truth and all backed by some form of evedence.
But it is becouse of those lies that spam hunters tend to become a slight warpped and considerably jaded.
All spam hunters make mistakes. Why would SPEWS watch usenet for mistakes if they never happend? I'm sure SPEWS is careful but I'm reminded of annother spam hunting organisation that was not and ignored it's mistakes.
Usenet is an alternitive for people who can't reach SPEWS any other way. But that is not the best of options becouse as I said before not helpful if people don't know they can contact SPEWS this way or worse don't even know about Usenet.
Thats not helpful to people who don't know they can be reached by usenet (a very strange way to make contact with a single entity you must admit) and even worse for anyone who dosen't know what usenet is.
I forgot to add.
While we patent thies trinkets many of them are insainly obveous and some were in the public domain.
It's just today people file simple obveous patents by doing something in the form of...
"Selling Donuts on the Internet" for example.
Nothing new or remarkably diffrent from what's already happening in the real world.
Many patents are nothing more than looking at market trends and figuring out what will come next and then patent it while some other poor slob actually makes the thing just to get sued.
You know with some forsite the RIAA could have patented digital sound files and sound file sharing and then sued on the basis of patents.
One reason so many of thies obveous patents do have prior art is that in many cases what your looking at is a trend. The prior art is the early work and the patent is on where that work is going. In the cases where the prior art is acceptable is when the patents were sloppy and broud.
It's dangerous to try and put out a new item becouse somebody else may have a patent on it already or worse may file a patent on hearing about the project to build it.
Patents were the idea of protecting a persons inventon so they could shop it around and sell it to a company for mass production.
Here is the problem. Software is already protected by copyrights the "inventions" of software are mearly an elegent solution to a problem and not the byproduct of research or hard work as much as the byproduct of a good nights sleep and waking up with a "Hay I got an idea"
Most inventions start with an idea but they end with labor and resorces. Software starts with an idea and ends with an idea only temporarly taking the form of 4 lines of code.
Then you have business method patents. The only thing more pathetic than a business protecting it's method of business as it's own intelectual property is a kid who identifys himself by a catch phrase and gets pissed when someone else uses the same combonation of words.
Back to classic inventions. The hard, fast and real devices. The lightbulb is an invention. It took research to figure out how to do it. The DC power plant is an invention. The AC power plant is annother invention. The AC power grid. Etc.
The reason for submitting a working device to the patent office is becouse the inventer had done real science. A practical aplication form of science but science never the less.
Todays true inventions are protected by trade secrets and non-discolsure agreements. Thies are far more powerful than patents.
Todays patents are much thess than great inventions but random trinketts. The patent system needs more than just an overhall. It needs a vacation.
I'm more inclined to believe this stat reflects the influx of NEW gammers rather than the reflection of existing gammers.
Where did this statistic come from? Probably a card in the box of some new releases.
The exact problem with any give statistic gathering system is your going to warp your sample by your information gathering technique.
In this case new game sales are going to warp to new gammers. I myself won't be buying any NEW games for a while as I'm quite happy with the games I've already got.
If the fuction of this servay is to show where game marketters need to go then the warping effect is not an issue. Existing gammers happy with the games they have won't buy as many new games as new gammers who havn't found there happy place yet.
Maybe maybe he was just impressed by the 24 hour snapshot.
3 things to consider. Especally with a 24 hour snapshot.
1. Most hobby websites often use Linux. Most Windows servers are entirely business orented.
2. In a 24 hour snap shot no doupt it's the defaced websites themselfs that report.
Often the tools a business uses are reflected in the way the business works.
Open source: Open honnest and part of the community. Will report the defacement.
Windows: Closed dishonnest and protecting stockholders. Will pretend defacements didn't happen.
3. 24 hours is a very short snapshot. What your seeing right now could easly be 100% Win 2K or 1 Win 2K reports being defaced and nothing else.
That explains why a 60% Linux at one point and a few days later 100% Windows...
I've looked at web site defacement records showing days of no defacements.
Right now Windows admin are going to be more frightend than normal and are franticly downloading patches they've ignored for years while Linux admin are preticuarly smug.
Very true quite a few users run Linux and say "I'm an expert".
They get told the same lie we are all told. The Linux is SOO hard you have to be a tech god to use it. If this were true I know two techno gods under the age of 10 and nither can write code.
So the avrage Linux newbie thinks he's great and thinks it's all easy to him. He can do anything.
Contrast this with an equally disterbing trend. Microsoft has people convenced that Windows is so user friendly you could even run a server and not be tech savy.
In contrast you have Linux hobbyists who think they are soo smart and brag vs Windows hobbyests who think they are tech dumbies and don't need to know anything.
The key here is that while the Linux newbie is most certanly not a tech god he dose know that there is much to learn. He made thousands of procedureal errors but he knows to learn and study and check and recheck.
As a result the avrage Windows newbie 6 years later will still know nothing.
The avrage Linux newbie will grow up quickly and remember back when he thought he was a god just becouse he could install Linux.. 6 months ago.
Linux is more secure than Windows becouse we know it's not secure enough and never will be secure enough.
Windows however knows for a fact that is secure enough as a direct result it's not secure at all.
The latest clame that Windows is insecure by design is basicly saying that Microsoft didn't even think about security when the first designed the operating system years ago and just folowed the basic philosophys behind Dos.
At the time Dos was the only operating system to have viruses and people were crying fowl over this. That Microsoft could do better and if they do make a new operating system they should.
(It wouldn't be untill Apple adds multitasking that Macs would have any viruses)
To ferther the point a number of products entered the market to make Dos more secure. Password protection to keep users from using the computer and the ability to write protect hard disks were just two security features available from third partys.
All commertal network pacages I have had any experence with had quite a few security features to deal with the fact that they were missing from Dos. Yet people didn't use those features effectively and would leave systems open to virus infections passing over the lan. This would forshadow the Internet as it is today.
But in the end it's viglence not design that keeps Linux secure.
Becouse for as many windows worms we have seen lately and as many clames that BSD is the most secure Unix around....
The one and only BSD worm did the one thing no Windows worm could do. It took down the Internet. It flooded the network with billions of infections.
This could happen to Linux.
We can show Windows is insecure ground up. Viruses and e-mail worms need an insecure operating system to work.
Viruses need to be able to infect other binarys once run under the user account. This simply won't happen under a secure operating system.
Email worms need an e-mail client that will run programs attached to e-mail.
But normal non-email worms hack in from the outside. Look at that statistic again.. Even if only 1 Linux box is hacked that means a worm can do it. A worm can be made to hack into Linux systems just the same as a hacker could himself. Before you know it the worm has infected many systems. Millions of infected systems in the time it takes for one hacker to deface one Linux hosted website.
It could happen... IF...
If we sit on our butts. Worms take a while to write so it may be a month or so after 'discovery' that a worm is actually created.
If we sit on our butts and not make a patch,
Sit on our butts and not test the patch,
Sit on our butts and not apply the patch.
Then a worm could be released.
If we don't secure our systems.
Applying patches and bug fixes is only the start. There are countless procedural errors that could be made. Get something to test your system for all the known ways someone could hack your system and test for them. Know if your safe.
I remember one Solarus zellot actually freaking out when she discovered an SGI system was being used to run a website. She pointed out that the machies were not designed to run websites.
In other words the operating system was "secure enough" for a stand alone workstation.
And I doubt you could sue. The service provider decides what services you get.
So the fact that he actually paid for the service dosn't mean anything?
I expect to get the full service I pay my ISP for at least most of the time.
(I know I am not paying for reliable service and that reliable service is far more expensive that what I pay. I expect to take the brunt of network outages etc thats just part of what I'm paying for or in this case what I'm not paying for as I'm not paying for reliability)
If my ISP desides to cut off part of the service on purpous then my ISP is liable.
if my ISP makes a mistake then I have to talk to my ISP and work things out.
What the grandparent post is saying is that if AoL is doing this on a regulare basis to all it's users then it's byond the scope of a misunderstanding and becomes negelect.
Under that yes users can sue AoL.
You mean Spocks tricorder or the TNG tricorder?
Spocks tricorder is about the same size as the portable tape recorders available at the time.
TNG came out after the market had already been flooded with credit card sized devices and was now seeing slightly more bulky versions of those devices that were probably the insperation for the smaller tricorder.
Absolutly nothing. My box is a desktop not a server.
I am tired of having to make sure and remove sendmail (or prevent it from being installed in the first pace) every time I reinstall Linux.
Set wayback clock to 1980's.
A book called "Outside the inner circle" points out that crackers want access to mainframes (like Unix systems).
A text file "the dirty dozen" listed 12 well circulated trojens. All of them ran on dos. All of them were to attack BBSes.
The file grew untill the 'script kiddys' of the day realised they could get more milage out of trojens.
One of the two major free tech mags (eather Computer Currents or Micro times I forget) printed an artical on how Dos is hopelessly insecure and Microsoft should make something new that was secure.
At the time I felt this was asking a bit much. See Dos was made to run on PCs. Those systems aren't powerful enough to run a secure operating system. They were only just powerful enough to run viruses.
However I also felt that the PC AT was powerful enough to run a secure operating system should one be made with it in mind.
386 even more so.
However the early pleas fell on deff ears and Microsoft instead chouse to use my excuses for the insecurity of Dos to continue to excuse the insecrity of Windows.
Microsoft continues to make excuses.
Viruses and worms could hack your admin password out of the password file if it wasn't for the fact that the passwords aren't actually needed.
Today virus and worm writers are just doing it to prove how fragle Windows is.
In the past it was some sort of sick contest today I think worm writers are sloppy on purpous just to prove just how pathetic Windows security really is.
Early MacOs had the same problem but not a first. Apple desided to "keep up with the joneses" by giving MacOs the ability to multitask. The ability to run many background tasks (the primitive multitasking supported by dos) is all it takes to run a virus. That and be totally devoid of security.
Microsoft will quickly point out that they released patches for security problems months before any given worm is released yet they work. The reason? Windows admin do not trust the patches. Microsoft makes the same rooky mistake over and over again. I know this mistake becouse I made it. Deploying bug fixes and security patches BEFORE testing. I crashed a BBS once doing this. As a hobby programmer for a sysop this is excusable... ONCE. As a large corp servicing millions of users around the world making this mistake over and over again is bad enough and then to just make excuses is worse.
(And when I made my one mistake I never heard the end of it)
Microsoft can't be held responsable if a printer driver is defective I'm told. True true but when that printer driver crashes the whole operating system it's time to stop blamming the driver and start blamming the person who designed the driver interface.
It's come so far that one worm is actually writen to try and download an update. Microsoft may be lazy but the rest of the world isn't so it failed.
It is known that for every invention there are many people who had the same idea and did nothing.
:File this patent: comment.
In filing your patent your protecting your compleated invention against being copied by others who have not gone through the hard work of making the idea work.
The patent office however dose not require a compleated invention anymore and people are abusing this.
The trend is to file patents and sit on them. In this case the patent was amazingly obveous. There were already a wide range of general purpous devices the size of credit cards. How much brain power dose it take to come up with the idea of a vertual credit card? Science fiction shows called them cread chips.
See Max Headrom a quazi dark future that rehased many of the commen theams in sifi in the 1980s.
All your credit information is recorded on a credit card sized device. But as most sifis don't spell that fact out it could be argued they were something completly diffrent.
So basicly it was a consept that had yet to be clearly defined.
This company files a clearly defined patent and waits for the cred chip to be created.
And waits, and waits.
But the networking world dosen't need cred chips. All your information is recorded in larg central databases all that is needed is a network to access that data. (One more secure than the Internet) such a network exsists.
Now that this device will not manifest itself the company has to try and sue the next closest device. The PDA. But the PDA is a full computer and not credit card sized. It's a generall function device of such recording credit cards is just one possable use.
Now for the typical
Patent a GUI computer that has more ram, speed and disk storage than the current computers.
Then when such computers are made you have a ready made lawsute. Oh yeah with the obveous loophole of Linux based PCs being exempt.
I have an idea. Patent honnest spam. Any spammer who clames to be honnest is sued and must then prove in cort they are in fact lying theafing crooks.
And you know there is no prior art for that.
Actually no. In the 1950's computers were expected to always be large in size.
Actually the idea of credit card sized devices was not forseen in sifi. However the 1980's saw a flood of such devices.