This is so totally out of step with the Slashdot Zeitgeist that i shouldn't bother, but...
Do any of you work with people who live and breath video games? Play them afterwork and talk about their "roles" when ever possible? Have the limited, "good" vs "evil" scenarios found in so many games displaced our collective capacity for complex, passionate and meaningful storytelling?
Movies haven't killed off the novel as a vehicle for storytelling -- at least not yet. There have been countless great movies. I love movies! But I haven't seen a movie yet that can express the quantity or quality of ideas and meanings that are to be found in great books. So what do "interactive" games do? Maybe they just help chip away at the potential for powerful, shared stories, so that "users" can put themselves in the story to experience things their own way. Most interactive games pander completely to one of our key cultural imperatives: instant gratification. They reinforce our "do it your way", "cause you're worth it" world. Maybe when you always do it your own way, you never have to listen to other points of view. Whatever.
I don't believe that a world of teenagers who grew up on TA, Unreal Tournement and the like will necessarily want to kill or go to war, but when Uncle Sam calls, maybe those years of traing will come in handy. Or some will just be a little confused:
This is my joystick/rifle, This is my gun Which one's for killing? Which one's for fun?
I suspect that most drill instructors are pretty good at curing confusion, though!
The Next Step...
on
SCO.com Defaced
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· Score: 2, Interesting
...is for someone to post a site collecting all of the of screen captures of SCO's hacked site: "Where were you when SCO got hacked?" There must be hundreds of fools (like me) who snagged a copy. To complete the irony, once such a site was built, SCO would then hack that site, replacing thousands of hacked screen grabs with their "Webinar" banner. Oh what a mangled web we weave;-)
I've wondered about this also. Check out Dean Edward's stuff. He's created a nice Javascript library that "modifies" IE behaviour so that most of its CSS rendering bugs and incompatibilities disappear. Very cool work. Why can't Microsoft do it?
Well as usual, these "threads" just trail off into irrelevent nothingness. I _was_ talking about technical "failings" in Iraq. But if you want to talk about hard drives, there are environmental and fair trade issues that you have to gloss over because you "need" a new one. We all do it all the time. On the other hand, Slashdot _always_ links the technology of Windows with the "immoral" actions of Microsoft. We're just selective about these things.
Wrong... this should not be modded as flamebait. You can't have a discussion of technical "failings" without considering the political and moral problems of invading Iraq. Such an artifical "unbundling" would be akin to a President who insists on separating faith, principles and tactics within his own mind. A mind like that might just start a horrible, bloody, mindless war. Nevermind.
They received 3415 patents in 2003. If MS manages to keep up the "10 patent per day" rate, then of course, IBM will have to turn over the crown. But IBM is an Open Source darling, right?
Ok. Not a troll. I'll bite. There have been countless Slashdot posts telling us what the "General Public" or "Joe Six-pack" wants. The fact is NONE of you you know -- and neither do I. Surely that answer depends on income, nationality, job category, etc. So stop with the generalizations. At the same time, how many/. stories and posts have called for public or government investment in Open Source -- or laws requiring Open Source be considered in government RFPs? As soon as you go there, perhaps you have to care what the "public" thinks.
The original SATAN was introduced by Dan Farmer back in 1995.
The article reminds me of the furor over the original SATAN being released. H.D. Moore, who wrote it, rightly points out that there are commercial tools that do it better, and it's known that the kiddies have copies of those. Why pick on the open-source tool? I think Rob is being a bit provocative." Despite the headline ("Security tool more harmful than helpful?"), the article is actually pretty balanced.
Let it be known that I don't agree with some of MS's business practices... but, I think they have innovated over the years: ODBC, OLEDB, DirectX and a pile of other API's, driver development kits that enable countless hardware firms to support Windows. They worked with a number of companies to do Winsock (maybe not perfect, but much better than the tower of Babel of TCP/IP stacks that were produced for Win 3.1). I can't afford one, but I think Pocket PC's are pretty cool. Even if you find it a repulsive language, Visual Basic has spawned a huge 3rd party component industry and is responsible for millions of custom Windows apps. Dot Net seems to be gaining steam. We shall see. There are a few interesting projects at research.microsoft.com. I once read that MS employs more Phd's and publishes more computer science journal articles than any single university (don't know if that is still true).
The fact is, the same people you laugh about "blue screens of death" (something I have not seen since since early Windows NT days) will think nothing of spending a day or a weekend tracking down obscure X problems or other Linux-related driver issues). MS is not the only purveyor of FUD;-)
I didn't see the Oscars, but did Jackson actually imply that LOTR is awkwardly written and "dead"? From the article:
"I especially just lastly want to thank our wonderful cast who just got their tongues around this rather awkward text and made it come to life with such devotion and passion and heart," said "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson...
I first read the trilogy almost 30 years ago and thought it stood up pretty damn nicely!
Re:Before you do *any* of this stuff.
on
DIY HVAC
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· Score: 1
Hmmmm... forgot "the windows", eh? You should look up the meaning of glazing in the parent post. Then all will be clear to you;-)
The issue isn't free-speech, it's deliberate misrepresentation and costs users money (forcing them to waste bandwidth downloading junk they don't want).
What if it was legal to register look-a-like names and phone numbers in telephone directories? Or in Yellow Pages? Navigating through 12 spelling variations to find the number for a pizza joint would just be annoying. Kinda like wading through the crap that appears in a Google search list. Maybe every web domain registration should include a description of what the site is FOR. It would be fraudulent to host a website that varied significantly from its stated purpose. Your free speech is preserved along with the public's right to avoid your free speech.
Glad you pointed this out. I had to re-remember how to do this a couple of weeks ago. I lucked out and got it working quickly, but it was not intuitive. On the otherhand, MS makes it easy for most of their users (who are probably just doing simple peer-to-peer resource sharing.
From the article: "A company executive confirmed to CNET News.com on Thursday that Microsoft is now discussing a product internally referred to as "Windows XP Reloaded."
So MS is DISCUSSING the POSSIBILITY of an XP re-release. Yup. If MS can add code and apps that they percieve will add value for a significant number of customers, they may package it up and sell it:
* Make software * Package it * Sell it * Support it * Profit
What a concept! That's what they do. Perhaps the extra revenue will come in handy since it looks like Longhorn will be delayed even longer. But look what happens when story is posted? 500+/. ppl spew forth with sad jokes about the lameness of MS' internal code name and the fact that they are a greedy corporate behemoth. 500 posts! All that time and energy taken away from making Linux's star shine even brighter! So if MS does come out with "XP Unloaded", by all means, DON'T UPGRADE. Use Linux, make it better. But PLEASE Slashdot editors: Stop seeding the site with these MS-related "stories". And Slashdot posters: Enough with the masterbatory carping over how STOOPID Microsoft is. We GET IT. NEXT!
"It's a myth that hackers find the holes," said Nigel Beighton, who runs a research project for security firm Symantec that attempts to predict which vulnerabilities will be exploited next. He said in many cases the appearance of a patch was the spur that kicked off activity around a particular vulnerability.
For the most part, I think this is true. Most Windows exploits DO "magically" appear a few days or weeks after a patch is available. Of course, hundreds of thousands of users never patch, or never patch in time. The "magic" lies in the symbiotic relationship between anti-virus software producers and malware creators.
None of this excuses MS from releasing Swiss cheese code, but it looks like a lot of malware gets created after a "proof of concept" has been released by "security researchers".
Well... the act of creating a virus and storing it on a publicly accessible web server _is_ tantamount to distributing it, is it not? Would you take a bag of loaded hand guns and leave them on the floor in the middle of a daycare? Would you park your unlocked, running Ferrari next to a bar and ask a group of drunken patrons to "watch" it for you? In some ways, a computer virus is to software as hate literature is to the printed word. I don't see a solution to either problem. At best, I would hope virus writers would "share" their code in a more responsible -- ie more restrictive -- way. Open, unauthenticated access to destructive software should not be legal. "Free expression" -- even if it is a piece of software -- should not be permitted to harm millions of people. Perhaps legal virus writers should be regulated -- much like companies who produce and ship hazardous materials.
"UK-based security firm mi2g has analyzed 17,074 successful digital attacks against servers and networks. The results are a bit surprising."
Note that the press release is not the "results" -- they only released a teaser in the hope that someone will purchase their research. Unless you pay for the study, there is almost nothing to be said about it. However, if you must speculate, please don't lump the millions of consumers running unpatches Windows desktops with professionals running patched, firewalled, locked-down Windows servers. I presume the breaches they analyzed were actual cases of information theft, defacement, etc -- not unwitting nodes in the distributed Win98/XP SPAM cluster.
Correction: there were about 2005 successful Microsoft Windows attacks once you ignore all the viruses and worms. Puts things into perspective, doesn't it?
Actually BY DEFINITION, I assume a production web server is one where Mail, IRC and other clients are not used. I doubt a significant number of Windows Servers have been infected with any of the recent worms. But you never know. I hope the full report includes all of the numbers, so someone can make more meaningful comparisons.
Here I go burning Karma again... Since we can't know the full details of this report unless one of us actually buys it, it is probably pointless to speculate on their methods. However... if you assume they didn't try to stack and that the following is more or less true:
* that most of these 17,074 were web servers * that all or most of these servers were production boxes (worthy of being investigated after a break-in) * that at least 20% of these were running Winodws/IIS (Netcraft
then all things being equal, there SHOULD have been at least 3400 Windows break-ins. Since there were about 2005 successful Windows attacks, MS and Windows admins must be doing something right. Many Windows admin ensure their boxes are patched. They follow NTBugTraq. They run lockdown tools or subscribe to security monitoring services. They are aware of potential breaches and most importantly THEY ARE NOT AS AROGANT AND SMUG as some of their Linux counterparts.
Mmmm -- nothing like the sweet smell of Karma burning on a cold February afternoon!
Ok -- I'll burn up a little more Karma:
What is Slashdot if it isn't "Speculation for Nerds. Stuff that the editors think matters." If you remove the anti-Microsoft slant, Slashdot's editorial policy will fall into boredom and oblivion. That's why the previous poster's story -- the one about MS announcing that a fix for these vulnerabilities will be out soon -- was rejected.
Actually Chaucer wrote in "Middle" English. You'd have to go back before the Norman conquest to get to Old English -- If you think Chaucer is difficult, try reading Beowulf -- or a cluser of them;-)
When you take the fact that IBM has been obtained more patents than any other company for 11 years running and the fact they doubled earnings during their last quarter, they must be doing something right. Since they don't have to pay the Microsoft tax when selling Open Source, they get to keep even more of the pie (I would guess they are not passing _all_ of the Open Source savings on to customers). This "System, method and program product for software development" patent is hilarious, though. It sounds more like an attempt to patent a business relationship between IBM and the coders the wish to exploit.
I wish you would login to post such "brave" comments. My son was diagnosed at 13 with Type I diabetes. There was a 2-year-old diagnosed at the same time. In case you haven't noticed, Type II diabetes is now common among American teenagers. Some are calling it an epidemic. Granted, much of Type II diabetes is caused by fast-food eating, sedentary lifestyles, but there are still millions of Type I diabetics trying to cope. As for "filling old useless folks full of pills", well, given the mortality rates and the state of the U.S. healthcare system, I wonder how many actually get treated. I hope to see the day when astronauts walk on Mars. I'd just rather see it funded with a "health dividend" instead of a tax.
There are a number of islet encapsulation techniques being worked on. They don't all require zero-gravity to work. I half-expected my rant to be modded down, but there IS a relationship between America's ridiculous health-care costs and its inability to pay for GOOD things like space exploration. A couple of years of concerted R&D to solve money/life draining diseases would free up significant resources.
Slashdot Mirror
If we have another 900 years you may be right.
This is so totally out of step with the Slashdot Zeitgeist that i shouldn't bother, but...
Do any of you work with people who live and breath video games? Play them afterwork and talk about their "roles" when ever possible? Have the limited, "good" vs "evil" scenarios found in so many games displaced our collective capacity for complex, passionate and meaningful storytelling?
Movies haven't killed off the novel as a vehicle for storytelling -- at least not yet. There have been countless great movies. I love movies! But I haven't seen a movie yet that can express the quantity or quality of ideas and meanings that are to be found in great books. So what do "interactive" games do? Maybe they just help chip away at the potential for powerful, shared stories, so that "users" can put themselves in the story to experience things their own way. Most interactive games pander completely to one of our key cultural imperatives: instant gratification. They reinforce our "do it your way", "cause you're worth it" world. Maybe when you always do it your own way, you never have to listen to other points of view. Whatever.
I don't believe that a world of teenagers who grew up on TA, Unreal Tournement and the like will necessarily want to kill or go to war, but when Uncle Sam calls, maybe those years of traing will come in handy. Or some will just be a little confused:
This is my joystick/rifle,
This is my gun
Which one's for killing?
Which one's for fun?
I suspect that most drill instructors are pretty good at curing confusion, though!
...is for someone to post a site collecting all of the of screen captures of SCO's hacked site: "Where were you when SCO got hacked?" There must be hundreds of fools (like me) who snagged a copy. To complete the irony, once such a site was built, SCO would then hack that site, replacing thousands of hacked screen grabs with their "Webinar" banner. Oh what a mangled web we weave ;-)
I've wondered about this also. Check out Dean Edward's stuff. He's created a nice Javascript library that "modifies" IE behaviour so that most of its CSS rendering bugs and incompatibilities disappear. Very cool work. Why can't Microsoft do it?
Well as usual, these "threads" just trail off into irrelevent nothingness. I _was_ talking about technical "failings" in Iraq. But if you want to talk about hard drives, there are environmental and fair trade issues that you have to gloss over because you "need" a new one. We all do it all the time. On the other hand, Slashdot _always_ links the technology of Windows with the "immoral" actions of Microsoft. We're just selective about these things.
Wrong... this should not be modded as flamebait. You can't have a discussion of technical "failings" without considering the political and moral problems of invading Iraq. Such an artifical "unbundling" would be akin to a President who insists on separating faith, principles and tactics within his own mind. A mind like that might just start a horrible, bloody, mindless war. Nevermind.
They received 3415 patents in 2003. If MS manages to keep up the "10 patent per day" rate, then of course, IBM will have to turn over the crown. But IBM is an Open Source darling, right?
Ok. Not a troll. I'll bite. There have been countless Slashdot posts telling us what the "General Public" or "Joe Six-pack" wants. The fact is NONE of you you know -- and neither do I. Surely that answer depends on income, nationality, job category, etc. So stop with the generalizations. At the same time, how many /. stories and posts have called for public or government investment in Open Source -- or laws requiring Open Source be considered in government RFPs? As soon as you go there, perhaps you have to care what the "public" thinks.
The original SATAN was introduced by Dan Farmer back in 1995.
The article reminds me of the furor over the original SATAN being released. H.D. Moore, who wrote it, rightly points out that there are commercial tools that do it better, and it's known that the kiddies have copies of those. Why pick on the open-source tool? I think Rob is being a bit provocative." Despite the headline ("Security tool more harmful than helpful?"), the article is actually pretty balanced.
Let it be known that I don't agree with some of MS's business practices... but, I think they have innovated over the years: ODBC, OLEDB, DirectX and a pile of other API's, driver development kits that enable countless hardware firms to support Windows. They worked with a number of companies to do Winsock (maybe not perfect, but much better than the tower of Babel of TCP/IP stacks that were produced for Win 3.1). I can't afford one, but I think Pocket PC's are pretty cool. Even if you find it a repulsive language, Visual Basic has spawned a huge 3rd party component industry and is responsible for millions of custom Windows apps. Dot Net seems to be gaining steam. We shall see. There are a few interesting projects at research.microsoft.com. I once read that MS employs more Phd's and publishes more computer science journal articles than any single university (don't know if that is still true).
;-)
The fact is, the same people you laugh about "blue screens of death" (something I have not seen since since early Windows NT days) will think nothing of spending a day or a weekend tracking down obscure X problems or other Linux-related driver issues). MS is not the only purveyor of FUD
So yup -- I think Windows is worth $99.
I didn't see the Oscars, but did Jackson actually imply that LOTR is awkwardly written and "dead"? From the article:
"I especially just lastly want to thank our wonderful cast who just got their tongues around this rather awkward text and made it come to life with such devotion and passion and heart," said "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson...
I first read the trilogy almost 30 years ago and thought it stood up pretty damn nicely!
Hmmmm... forgot "the windows", eh? You should look up the meaning of glazing in the parent post. Then all will be clear to you ;-)
The issue isn't free-speech, it's deliberate misrepresentation and costs users money (forcing them to waste bandwidth downloading junk they don't want).
What if it was legal to register look-a-like names and phone numbers in telephone directories? Or in Yellow Pages? Navigating through 12 spelling variations to find the number for a pizza joint would just be annoying. Kinda like wading through the crap that appears in a Google search list. Maybe every web domain registration should include a description of what the site is FOR. It would be fraudulent to host a website that varied significantly from its stated purpose. Your free speech is preserved along with the public's right to avoid your free speech.
Glad you pointed this out. I had to re-remember how to do this a couple of weeks ago. I lucked out and got it working quickly, but it was not intuitive. On the otherhand, MS makes it easy for most of their users (who are probably just doing simple peer-to-peer resource sharing.
From the article: "A company executive confirmed to CNET News.com on Thursday that Microsoft is now discussing a product internally referred to as "Windows XP Reloaded."
/. ppl spew forth with sad jokes about the lameness of MS' internal code name and the fact that they are a greedy corporate behemoth. 500 posts! All that time and energy taken away from making Linux's star shine even brighter! So if MS does come out with "XP Unloaded", by all means, DON'T UPGRADE. Use Linux, make it better. But PLEASE Slashdot editors: Stop seeding the site with these MS-related "stories". And Slashdot posters: Enough with the masterbatory carping over how STOOPID Microsoft is. We GET IT. NEXT!
So MS is DISCUSSING the POSSIBILITY of an XP re-release. Yup. If MS can add code and apps that they percieve will add value for a significant number of customers, they may package it up and sell it:
* Make software
* Package it
* Sell it
* Support it
* Profit
What a concept! That's what they do. Perhaps the extra revenue will come in handy since it looks like Longhorn will be delayed even longer. But look what happens when story is posted? 500+
From the article:
"It's a myth that hackers find the holes," said Nigel Beighton, who runs a research project for security firm Symantec that attempts to predict which vulnerabilities will be exploited next.
He said in many cases the appearance of a patch was the spur that kicked off activity around a particular vulnerability.
For the most part, I think this is true. Most Windows exploits DO "magically" appear a few days or weeks after a patch is available. Of course, hundreds of thousands of users never patch, or never patch in time. The "magic" lies in the symbiotic relationship between anti-virus software producers and malware creators.
None of this excuses MS from releasing Swiss cheese code, but it looks like a lot of malware gets created after a "proof of concept" has been released by "security researchers".
Well... the act of creating a virus and storing it on a publicly accessible web server _is_ tantamount to distributing it, is it not? Would you take a bag of loaded hand guns and leave them on the floor in the middle of a daycare? Would you park your unlocked, running Ferrari next to a bar and ask a group of drunken patrons to "watch" it for you? In some ways, a computer virus is to software as hate literature is to the printed word. I don't see a solution to either problem. At best, I would hope virus writers would "share" their code in a more responsible -- ie more restrictive -- way. Open, unauthenticated access to destructive software should not be legal. "Free expression" -- even if it is a piece of software -- should not be permitted to harm millions of people. Perhaps legal virus writers should be regulated -- much like companies who produce and ship hazardous materials.
"UK-based security firm mi2g has analyzed 17,074 successful digital attacks against servers and networks. The results are a bit surprising."
Note that the press release is not the "results" -- they only released a teaser in the hope that someone will purchase their research. Unless you pay for the study, there is almost nothing to be said about it. However, if you must speculate, please don't lump the millions of consumers running unpatches Windows desktops with professionals running patched, firewalled, locked-down Windows servers. I presume the breaches they analyzed were actual cases of information theft, defacement, etc -- not unwitting nodes in the distributed Win98/XP SPAM cluster.
Correction: there were about 2005 successful Microsoft Windows attacks once you ignore all the viruses and worms.
Puts things into perspective, doesn't it?
Actually BY DEFINITION, I assume a production web server is one where Mail, IRC and other clients are not used. I doubt a significant number of Windows Servers have been infected with any of the recent worms. But you never know. I hope the full report includes all of the numbers, so someone can make more meaningful comparisons.
Here I go burning Karma again... Since we can't know the full details of this report unless one of us actually buys it, it is probably pointless to speculate on their methods. However... if you assume they didn't try to stack and that the following is more or less true:
* that most of these 17,074 were web servers
* that all or most of these servers were production boxes (worthy of being investigated after a break-in)
* that at least 20% of these were running Winodws/IIS (Netcraft
then all things being equal, there SHOULD have been at least 3400 Windows break-ins. Since there were about 2005 successful Windows attacks, MS and Windows admins must be doing something right. Many Windows admin ensure their boxes are patched. They follow NTBugTraq. They run lockdown tools or subscribe to security monitoring services. They are aware of potential breaches and most importantly THEY ARE NOT AS AROGANT AND SMUG as some of their Linux counterparts.
Mmmm -- nothing like the sweet smell of Karma burning on a cold February afternoon!
Ok -- I'll burn up a little more Karma: What is Slashdot if it isn't "Speculation for Nerds. Stuff that the editors think matters." If you remove the anti-Microsoft slant, Slashdot's editorial policy will fall into boredom and oblivion. That's why the previous poster's story -- the one about MS announcing that a fix for these vulnerabilities will be out soon -- was rejected.
Actually Chaucer wrote in "Middle" English. You'd have to go back before the Norman conquest to get to Old English -- If you think Chaucer is difficult, try reading Beowulf -- or a cluser of them ;-)
When you take the fact that IBM has been obtained more patents than any other company for 11 years running and the fact they doubled earnings during their last quarter, they must be doing something right. Since they don't have to pay the Microsoft tax when selling Open Source, they get to keep even more of the pie (I would guess they are not passing _all_ of the Open Source savings on to customers). This "System, method and program product for software development" patent is hilarious, though. It sounds more like an attempt to patent a business relationship between IBM and the coders the wish to exploit.
I wish you would login to post such "brave" comments. My son was diagnosed at 13 with Type I diabetes. There was a 2-year-old diagnosed at the same time. In case you haven't noticed, Type II diabetes is now common among American teenagers. Some are calling it an epidemic. Granted, much of Type II diabetes is caused by fast-food eating, sedentary lifestyles, but there are still millions of Type I diabetics trying to cope. As for "filling old useless folks full of pills", well, given the mortality rates and the state of the U.S. healthcare system, I wonder how many actually get treated. I hope to see the day when astronauts walk on Mars. I'd just rather see it funded with a "health dividend" instead of a tax.
There are a number of islet encapsulation techniques being worked on. They don't all require zero-gravity to work. I half-expected my rant to be modded down, but there IS a relationship between America's ridiculous health-care costs and its inability to pay for GOOD things like space exploration. A couple of years of concerted R&D to solve money/life draining diseases would free up significant resources.