Re:Microsoft's most valuable soldier in Word Wars
on
The War Of The Word
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Clippy!
Much as I dislike alot of microsoft stuff, this is just over the top. There are two software areas that microsoft does fairly well - Office apps and RAD development (as opposed to high end server development enviroments).
My biggest gripe with microsoft is the abuse of monopoly powers - the fact that you cant for love nor money get office for linux (except via third party stuff like Wine projects). Thats abuse of a monopoly position of operating systems.
Office is, however, a reasonable suite. Its not the best at everything by any means, but you would be an idiot to suggest its the worst. In fact, some of the user interface stuff in office was genuinely innovative - like the background spell check with squiggly lines under misspelt words. Word 95 was the first to do this from memory, and certainly the first major word processor that could.
The killer app that microsoft makes is not windows, its office. And its with a good reason - its actually very good software. The number of people who run it under wine on linux or on OSX is a strong statement of its quality. If its an undocumented standard for file formats, well, thats because storing documents in HTML and then XML came way later than microsoft's office suite. It doesn't mean that its time to move to better standards for document storage, but at the time microsoft developed this software (Ie., in the days of word 3.0 onwards) pretty much nobody stored documents in XML (for space reasons alone - Hard drive capacities of 20-40 Megabytes were common).
Just my 2c worth, will be considered flamebait by some no doubt.
One of the things Asimov made perfectly clear in all his writings was the fact that whatever else the roboticists did they NEVER EVER EVER broke the 3 laws.
Well, they did learn to bend them alot. Up to learning that it was ok to kill people if it saved more lives than it cost, IIRC. (Although the robot in question had spend alot of time thinking about that one).
But I doubt that that complexity will make it into the movie
The United States constitution does not require that you get a phone call either. I think it is a part of the Miranda law or at least something similar. So while it is the law, it's not a part of the constitution.
Of course, the constitution is mostly a quite old document (in the US and even in Australia). Telephones didn't exist (at least as we understand them today) at the time that most countries constitutions were drafted.
I have problems mostly with the arbitrary way that microsoft licences stuff, and changes it with minimal notice. Internet explorer - first its for sale (I know, I bought a copy of IE 1.0 in the plus pack), then its free.
IE has always been available for free.
No, IE version 1 was an add on for windows 95 in the plus pack, for sale. Microsoft started giving it away later once they realised that netscape was winning the war. As I said, I have a purchased licence for IE version 1.0. If you have a copy of 1.0 that you didnt pay money for, its an illegal copy. If you have version 2.0 onwards, it was freely (as in beer, not speech) downloadable.
Licensing applies to physical CPUs. The problem is that earlier versions of Windows can't tell the difference between logical and physical CPUs. It's a technical issue, not a licensing one. You are licensed to use XP Pro on a dual HT CPU machine, even if it appears to the OS as four logical CPUs.
As stated elsewhere, windows 2000 cant tell one from the other. Whether or not this is legal is irrelevant, if the os wont install. I don't know if there is a work around from microsoft. Its interesting that microsoft dropped the number of cpu's from four to two in the progression from win NT 4.0 to Win2k. No apparent reason given.
I would have to disagree with this. In your example a license to use the music wasn't paid. In his he paid for a license to use Windows. He's paid for *3* licenses, to use on *3* PCs, not 4.
Except, if he had the OS installed on a removable hard drive and moved it from one PC to another. Lets assume we are talking about win 98 here to avoid product activation issues.
The point being is that he (presumably) doesn't ever use more than three computers at once.
If he does it one way (with a removable hdd) its probably ok(and maybe microsoft, with 3 licences, has had more licences than it should have), but if he does it another way (4 installs) he is breaking the law.
I have problems mostly with the arbitrary way that microsoft licences stuff, and changes it with minimal notice. Internet explorer - first its for sale (I know, I bought a copy of IE 1.0 in the plus pack), then its free. Hyperthreading CPU's - how many processor licences do you need? Remember that windows NT4.0 came with a 4 cpu licence, but a hyperthreaded P4 uses up all of XP's (2) processor licences, and if you want to run even a dual processor motherboard its deemed a server. Even if it was on the same hardware. Can you install a copy of office on your laptop as well as your office machine (Sometimes you can). Oh, and yes, lets not forget the debacle of licensing 6.0 for business users, or how open source software is making microsoft drop its prices for no apparent reason.
You can say that microsoft, as the owner of the software, can charge what it chooses. I suppose so. But doesn't this say something about the value of the software? If microsoft can change the price arbitrarily, what is the true production cost of windows? Alot less than they would care to admit, and probably not much more than the cost of a linux distro. In other words, very cheap.
So when you say that someone is a microsoft pirate, yes, that is true, but dont forget the underlying legal system is unable to deal with microsoft, a convicted monopolist, leaving the average user in a position of overwhelming inferiority.
The solution is simple - and its not about breaking copyright. Get an alternative, like mandrake linux, or bsd, or just buy a mac. If the law cant stop a monopoly, then the best solution is to stop it being a monopoly by using something else.
I have a Mac OS X system and a Windows XP system. The Windows XP shows black screens of death (which seem to have replaced blue screens) momentarily (the PC reboots automatically after one) from time to time, but they're mercifully rare since the service pack. Back when I was running Windows 2000, I saw frequent blue screens of death.
You will kindly note that the article is about Windows 2000, not Windows XP.
I do not run Linux. If I had a spare computer around, I might, but I don't.
If you have virtual PC for OSX, you could do a linux install on that...
I *thought* boot time was a bit faster, but I for some reason I thought it was just me. I guess it is a *bit* faster on boot. I honestly didn't see an appreciable increase in speed though. It just could be GNome:) (SMACK -1 troll, I know, but I don't use KDE)
P4 2.2, 768MB RAM. NO swapping:).
I think that your absense of a swap file may explain this. 2.6 works alot faster on disk I/O.
This suggests to me that older low memory machines that use alot of swap file access may be much faster. Which would be incredibly useful to legacy machines.
Anyone else using an older machine with smaller amounts of ram notice an improvement in 2.6?
OS X is far better than either "kernel". With OS X you get a better GUI, more apps, and an OS that is backed up by a fantastic corporation, rather than a bunch of hackers who have dubious backgrounds and sketchy credentials.
You aren't comparing like with like. I have windows, linux and OSX running on different laptops at home (ok, I have a problem with needing toys, but at least I have insight).
OSX is very nice - but you don't buy it for speed. In fact, the sort of people who buy it often gloat at how you don't need to worry about that sort of thing with a Mac. I don't doubt that for many windows users, they would be much better off with a mac, as they are pretty clueless, and Mac's are a very nice implementation of the BSD core.
However, this isn't what this post is about. It could be argued that any server that runs a GUI is wasting resources. It depends on what you are asking your server to do.
There are clear improvements in the 2.6 kernel, especially with regard to Disk access from what I can see in the article.
This is totally different to which OS provides the better GUI. In any case, OSX doesn't run on a vast amount of hardware out there, and your attitude is that all that intel stuff is only good for landfill. If you accept that there is alot of hardware out there that will NEVER run OSX, then you should also accept that for those people, its very useful to know if 2.6 is a better performer.
Its actuallly hard to believe that there is that much more improvement to be gained - it will leave the microsoft servers even further behind as I don't think that they are improving their kernel that fast.
One question:
Does this mean that we can see improvements in low end systems for desktop use, or is the benefit only for servers. Because if this helps low end machines, it extends further the number of machines that can move from (say) win 98 to a real OS, whose hardware has long been abandoned by microsoft.
Right. And every one knows that crossovers are an absolute necessity for good drama, rather than just a tired old cliche, used by writers who are totally out of ideas.
Ok, I'll bite.
I don't suppose you have ever watched Angel, by any chance? Just to prove that cross overs don't negate good writing, rather they add to it.
As May West would say, 'Too much of a good thing is still too much.' and that's where the Star Trek shows have ended up being- too much.
Yeah, I loved TNG and DS9. After that , it went downhill. They are just churning out the series to make more money. Plus, a few bad decisions on the last one.
Going back in time wasn't really a great choice for the fifth series - they always went forwards between series (TOS -> TNG -> DS9 -> Voyager). By going backwards it made it nearly impossible for cross overs.
I'm probalby just being bitsy here, but they didn't really need a theme song either - no other trek has singing in the intro.
P.S. Love your.sig (III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII V IIVIIIIIIVIII...) took me a while to work it out.
What we're gonna see with PVRs is obvious. The manufacturers will make deals with the media outlets to keep people watching commercials.
What the advertisers are doing now is incorporating the advertisements into the shows itself. Commonly seen on cartoons with merchandising (pokemon, etc) but more and more often in more mainstream show. Its an extension of the old James Bond Rolex watch thing.
On the other hand why don't you try Knoppix/Debian, I never had any problem installing Knoppix to a new computer.
Actually, I've finally found one that Knoppix cant handle - A sony VAIO laptop which uses A PCMCIA CDROM. You can boot the Knoppix CD, but then it fails to detect the same CD drive, and it fails.:(
Mandrake installed just fine on that system.... Cant wait to see if MandrakeMove actually handles it ok.
The significant thing about this distro is that there are alot of knoppix clones out there - nothing wrong with that - but this is a significant and faily independent effort not based on the debian distro. (I've grow to like debian thanks mostly to knoppix, but its nice to see an alternative being developed). This gives us two open source developments in self running CD's.
Still waiting for microsoft to develop a similar product.... I think I'd best not hold my breath on that one:)
The big advantage of measuring the fall in IIS vs Apache is that web servers are public, and easily counted.
I'm sure that the same thing is happening thoughout the open source movement, but its just alot harder to measure the number of (for example) Linux installs when there is no central body that really collects data on this (not that there is any need for this).
So its representing a victory for much more than Apache.
This is so painfully true. Don't forget entering fake registration information. If I had a dollar for every time I downloaded realplayer and used biteme@here.com....
was talking with a friend recently about some of the implications of memory erasure, and she said she'd recently discovered that for a number of medical procedures, it's already common practice to administer a drug (other than anaesthesia) that impairs the ability to form memories... she started digging for information about this because (1) resistance to anaesthesia (and therefore a nasty tendency to become partly to fully conscious partway through a procedure) runs in her family, and they'd been looking at the drugs they were given and (2) she's a para, and was interested in legal implications.
I guess I know a bit about anaesthesia. So, for what its worth.
The drug mentioned is almost certainly midazolam, a benzodiazepine. It is a sedative/hypnotic drug which produces both amnesia and anaesthesia. It is commonly added to many anaesthetics because of the amnestic qualities. Why? Well basically because we don't know why people are awake, or "asleep" with anaesthesia, or how to tell one state from another. Sorry if that doesn't sound that great, but that's the truth - there is definitely a less than complete scientific understanding of anaesthesia.
There are other drugs that she might be referring to, but midazolam (or similar drugs such as diazepam - "Valium" ) is the most common. All drugs that disrupt memory formation to my knowledge also disrupt consciousness to a degree, so none are used just to ablate recollection.
The only thing that could do that is ECT, and I have never heard of an anaesthetist using that to prevent awareness... although I have no idea how many people would choose it if they could choose between a single ECT or remembering waking up in the middle of a procedure....
You can erase about the last 5 minutes with various forms of treatment and trauma. This produces true retrograde amnesia, and is seen with electroconvulsive therapy.
This is probably because the memory is still stored in a short term electrical loop which can be disrupted before it is stored in some change in neural architecture.
Certain drugs produce antegrade amnesia (forward amnesia) including the benzodiazepines such as midazolam, and flunitrazepam (used as a "date rape" drug). You can actually look quite awake after taking these drugs, but not incorporate anything new into long term store. Although you live with a 5 minute memory span, its frightening how well people appear to function when they are like this, and can actually do fairly awake tasks. I don't think that they would be up to cracking hostile companies computer systems unless they really could function in their sleep, however.
but, at least here in the US, you CAN turn off GPS+ on your phone... even though it still works for 911..
If you don't want to be tracked, dont have your phone on. Divert it to a paging service and carry a pager, and ring back at your leisure. Mobile phones are rapidly becoming trackable whenever they are on, and there will be nothing that can be done to avoid this.
Are you kidding? The whole OSS philosophy is wrapped around release early release often. Maybe openssl doesn't follow this [though it has had it share of bugs] many other things [kernel for instance] follow this model.
Its the difference in approach that I see as the major point between microsoft and say openssl.
Microsoft has spent years releasing fast and furiously with a big sales pitch on their products. Even stuff that they don't "sell" such as internet explorer has this release philosophy.
Version numbers become sales pitches in their own right, and new features become the prime reason for release.
Compare that with my favourite browser, Firebird. Its still on a 0.6.1 release, and it is more stable than IE. It feels as though it has more features than IE, but it actually has less - especially in terms of features that are exploitable such as scripting.
This is because microsoft has had a "stuff on a new feature charge customers for it" mentality for as long as I can remember. It worked well for a while for them, but its left them with fundamentally insecure code (such as the whole windows messenger service) and a fundamentally insecure approach to their system (such as default administrator logon's with blank passwords in XP).
I don't believe that it is fair to compare the underlying approach of windows to alot of the open source code - as I said above and I still stand by it.
By your logic we should not use openssl, kde, etc, o the many many other OSS projects that are in the upgrade windmill.
Are you seriously suggesting that openssl has a philosophy of putting code out as fast as possible in order to gain sales? There is no comparison between the quality of openssl and that of windows, and at best I would presume that you are trolling here.
Your rhetoric is old and mine is new, haha! Go to back to your master and learn new tricks, haha! Stop posting crap on slashdot, haha!
This is hardly news in a sense. Its not the first, last or only time that windows has a flaw. There is probably a thousand of these exploits hidden in the closed source.
On top of that, there is the prevailing attitude at microsoft that a quick sale for ease of use is better than a later sale with security. Until now that approach has always left them in the money.
I'm hoping that the level of attacks that we have seen in the last few months will finally produce the uprising against this "quick release" security through obscurity model that microsoft has done so well with.
Slashdot Mirror
Clippy!
Much as I dislike alot of microsoft stuff, this is just over the top. There are two software areas that microsoft does fairly well - Office apps and RAD development (as opposed to high end server development enviroments).
My biggest gripe with microsoft is the abuse of monopoly powers - the fact that you cant for love nor money get office for linux (except via third party stuff like Wine projects). Thats abuse of a monopoly position of operating systems.
Office is, however, a reasonable suite. Its not the best at everything by any means, but you would be an idiot to suggest its the worst. In fact, some of the user interface stuff in office was genuinely innovative - like the background spell check with squiggly lines under misspelt words. Word 95 was the first to do this from memory, and certainly the first major word processor that could.
The killer app that microsoft makes is not windows, its office. And its with a good reason - its actually very good software. The number of people who run it under wine on linux or on OSX is a strong statement of its quality. If its an undocumented standard for file formats, well, thats because storing documents in HTML and then XML came way later than microsoft's office suite. It doesn't mean that its time to move to better standards for document storage, but at the time microsoft developed this software (Ie., in the days of word 3.0 onwards) pretty much nobody stored documents in XML (for space reasons alone - Hard drive capacities of 20-40 Megabytes were common).
Just my 2c worth, will be considered flamebait by some no doubt.
Michael
One of the things Asimov made perfectly clear in all his writings was the fact that whatever else the roboticists did they NEVER EVER EVER broke the 3 laws.
Well, they did learn to bend them alot. Up to learning that it was ok to kill people if it saved more lives than it cost, IIRC. (Although the robot in question had spend alot of time thinking about that one).
But I doubt that that complexity will make it into the movie
Michael
The United States constitution does not require that you get a phone call either. I think it is a part of the Miranda law or at least something similar. So while it is the law, it's not a part of the constitution.
Of course, the constitution is mostly a quite old document (in the US and even in Australia). Telephones didn't exist (at least as we understand them today) at the time that most countries constitutions were drafted.
Michael
I have problems mostly with the arbitrary way that microsoft licences stuff, and changes it with minimal notice. Internet explorer - first its for sale (I know, I bought a copy of IE 1.0 in the plus pack), then its free.
IE has always been available for free.
No, IE version 1 was an add on for windows 95 in the plus pack, for sale. Microsoft started giving it away later once they realised that netscape was winning the war. As I said, I have a purchased licence for IE version 1.0. If you have a copy of 1.0 that you didnt pay money for, its an illegal copy. If you have version 2.0 onwards, it was freely (as in beer, not speech) downloadable.
Licensing applies to physical CPUs. The problem is that earlier versions of Windows can't tell the difference between logical and physical CPUs. It's a technical issue, not a licensing one. You are licensed to use XP Pro on a dual HT CPU machine, even if it appears to the OS as four logical CPUs.
As stated elsewhere, windows 2000 cant tell one from the other. Whether or not this is legal is irrelevant, if the os wont install. I don't know if there is a work around from microsoft. Its interesting that microsoft dropped the number of cpu's from four to two in the progression from win NT 4.0 to Win2k. No apparent reason given.
Michael
I would have to disagree with this. In your example a license to use the music wasn't paid. In his he paid for a license to use Windows.
He's paid for *3* licenses, to use on *3* PCs, not 4.
Except, if he had the OS installed on a removable hard drive and moved it from one PC to another. Lets assume we are talking about win 98 here to avoid product activation issues.
The point being is that he (presumably) doesn't ever use more than three computers at once.
If he does it one way (with a removable hdd) its probably ok(and maybe microsoft, with 3 licences, has had more licences than it should have), but if he does it another way (4 installs) he is breaking the law.
I have problems mostly with the arbitrary way that microsoft licences stuff, and changes it with minimal notice. Internet explorer - first its for sale (I know, I bought a copy of IE 1.0 in the plus pack), then its free. Hyperthreading CPU's - how many processor licences do you need? Remember that windows NT4.0 came with a 4 cpu licence, but a hyperthreaded P4 uses up all of XP's (2) processor licences, and if you want to run even a dual processor motherboard its deemed a server. Even if it was on the same hardware. Can you install a copy of office on your laptop as well as your office machine (Sometimes you can). Oh, and yes, lets not forget the debacle of licensing 6.0 for business users, or how open source software is making microsoft drop its prices for no apparent reason.
You can say that microsoft, as the owner of the software, can charge what it chooses. I suppose so. But doesn't this say something about the value of the software? If microsoft can change the price arbitrarily, what is the true production cost of windows? Alot less than they would care to admit, and probably not much more than the cost of a linux distro. In other words, very cheap.
So when you say that someone is a microsoft pirate, yes, that is true, but dont forget the underlying legal system is unable to deal with microsoft, a convicted monopolist, leaving the average user in a position of overwhelming inferiority.
The solution is simple - and its not about breaking copyright. Get an alternative, like mandrake linux, or bsd, or just buy a mac. If the law cant stop a monopoly, then the best solution is to stop it being a monopoly by using something else.
My 2c
Michael
Remote tracking
Its one thing to know that your laptop is being stolen, and another to be able to track it down.
Something with a GPS would be more useful.
Michael
considering the source of the study, I wouldn't give it a lot of credence.
This is an extremely useful post - Moderators - check out the parent links before you pass by this post - its one of the most informative ones so far
Michael
I have a Mac OS X system and a Windows XP system. The Windows XP shows black screens of death (which seem to have replaced blue screens) momentarily (the PC reboots automatically after one) from time to time, but they're mercifully rare since the service pack. Back when I was running Windows 2000, I saw frequent blue screens of death.
...
You will kindly note that the article is about Windows 2000, not Windows XP.
I do not run Linux. If I had a spare computer around, I might, but I don't.
If you have virtual PC for OSX, you could do a linux install on that
Michael
I *thought* boot time was a bit faster, but I for some reason I thought it was just me. I guess it is a *bit* faster on boot. I honestly didn't see an appreciable increase in speed though. It just could be GNome :) (SMACK -1 troll, I know, but I don't use KDE)
:).
P4 2.2, 768MB RAM. NO swapping
I think that your absense of a swap file may explain this. 2.6 works alot faster on disk I/O.
This suggests to me that older low memory machines that use alot of swap file access may be much faster. Which would be incredibly useful to legacy machines.
Anyone else using an older machine with smaller amounts of ram notice an improvement in 2.6?
Michael
OS X is far better than either "kernel". With OS X you get a better GUI, more apps, and an OS that is backed up by a fantastic corporation, rather than a bunch of hackers who have dubious backgrounds and sketchy credentials.
You aren't comparing like with like. I have windows, linux and OSX running on different laptops at home (ok, I have a problem with needing toys, but at least I have insight).
OSX is very nice - but you don't buy it for speed. In fact, the sort of people who buy it often gloat at how you don't need to worry about that sort of thing with a Mac. I don't doubt that for many windows users, they would be much better off with a mac, as they are pretty clueless, and Mac's are a very nice implementation of the BSD core.
However, this isn't what this post is about. It could be argued that any server that runs a GUI is wasting resources. It depends on what you are asking your server to do.
There are clear improvements in the 2.6 kernel, especially with regard to Disk access from what I can see in the article.
This is totally different to which OS provides the better GUI. In any case, OSX doesn't run on a vast amount of hardware out there, and your attitude is that all that intel stuff is only good for landfill. If you accept that there is alot of hardware out there that will NEVER run OSX, then you should also accept that for those people, its very useful to know if 2.6 is a better performer.
Michael
These are impressive improvements.
Its actuallly hard to believe that there is that much more improvement to be gained - it will leave the microsoft servers even further behind as I don't think that they are improving their kernel that fast.
One question:
Does this mean that we can see improvements in low end systems for desktop use, or is the benefit only for servers. Because if this helps low end machines, it extends further the number of machines that can move from (say) win 98 to a real OS, whose hardware has long been abandoned by microsoft.
Michael
I am not a NASA Engineer?
I am not a Network Engineer?
Michael
Right. And every one knows that crossovers are an absolute necessity for good drama, rather than just a tired old cliche, used by writers who are totally out of ideas.
Ok, I'll bite.
I don't suppose you have ever watched Angel, by any chance? Just to prove that cross overs don't negate good writing, rather they add to it.
Michael
As May West would say, 'Too much of a good thing is still too much.' and that's where the Star Trek shows have ended up being- too much.
.sig (III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII V IIVIIIIIIVIII...) took me a while to work it out.
Yeah, I loved TNG and DS9. After that , it went downhill. They are just churning out the series to make more money. Plus, a few bad decisions on the last one.
Going back in time wasn't really a great choice for the fifth series - they always went forwards between series (TOS -> TNG -> DS9 -> Voyager). By going backwards it made it nearly impossible for cross overs.
I'm probalby just being bitsy here, but they didn't really need a theme song either - no other trek has singing in the intro.
P.S. Love your
What we're gonna see with PVRs is obvious. The manufacturers will make deals with the media outlets to keep people watching commercials.
What the advertisers are doing now is incorporating the advertisements into the shows itself. Commonly seen on cartoons with merchandising (pokemon, etc) but more and more often in more mainstream show. Its an extension of the old James Bond Rolex watch thing.
Can't fast forward over that.
Michael
On the other hand why don't you try Knoppix/Debian, I never had any problem installing Knoppix to a new computer.
:(
.... Cant wait to see if MandrakeMove actually handles it ok.
.... I think I'd best not hold my breath on that one :)
Actually, I've finally found one that Knoppix cant handle - A sony VAIO laptop which uses A PCMCIA CDROM. You can boot the Knoppix CD, but then it fails to detect the same CD drive, and it fails.
Mandrake installed just fine on that system
The significant thing about this distro is that there are alot of knoppix clones out there - nothing wrong with that - but this is a significant and faily independent effort not based on the debian distro. (I've grow to like debian thanks mostly to knoppix, but its nice to see an alternative being developed). This gives us two open source developments in self running CD's.
Still waiting for microsoft to develop a similar product
Michael
The big advantage of measuring the fall in IIS vs Apache is that web servers are public, and easily counted.
I'm sure that the same thing is happening thoughout the open source movement, but its just alot harder to measure the number of (for example) Linux installs when there is no central body that really collects data on this (not that there is any need for this).
So its representing a victory for much more than Apache.
Michael
This is so painfully true. Don't forget entering fake registration information. If I had a dollar for every time I downloaded realplayer and used biteme@here.com ....
....
Mine was "real@real.com"
Michael
was talking with a friend recently about some of the implications of memory erasure, and she said she'd recently discovered that for a number of medical procedures, it's already common practice to administer a drug (other than anaesthesia) that impairs the ability to form memories... she started digging for information about this because (1) resistance to anaesthesia (and therefore a nasty tendency to become partly to fully conscious partway through a procedure) runs in her family, and they'd been looking at the drugs they were given and (2) she's a para, and was interested in legal implications.
... although I have no idea how many people would choose it if they could choose between a single ECT or remembering waking up in the middle of a procedure ....
I guess I know a bit about anaesthesia. So, for what its worth.
The drug mentioned is almost certainly midazolam, a benzodiazepine. It is a sedative/hypnotic drug which produces both amnesia and anaesthesia. It is commonly added to many anaesthetics because of the amnestic qualities. Why? Well basically because we don't know why people are awake, or "asleep" with anaesthesia, or how to tell one state from another. Sorry if that doesn't sound that great, but that's the truth - there is definitely a less than complete scientific understanding of anaesthesia.
There are other drugs that she might be referring to, but midazolam (or similar drugs such as diazepam - "Valium" ) is the most common. All drugs that disrupt memory formation to my knowledge also disrupt consciousness to a degree, so none are used just to ablate recollection.
The only thing that could do that is ECT, and I have never heard of an anaesthetist using that to prevent awareness
Hope this helps,
Michel
You can erase about the last 5 minutes with various forms of treatment and trauma. This produces true retrograde amnesia, and is seen with electroconvulsive therapy.
This is probably because the memory is still stored in a short term electrical loop which can be disrupted before it is stored in some change in neural architecture.
Certain drugs produce antegrade amnesia (forward amnesia) including the benzodiazepines such as midazolam, and flunitrazepam (used as a "date rape" drug). You can actually look quite awake after taking these drugs, but not incorporate anything new into long term store. Although you live with a 5 minute memory span, its frightening how well people appear to function when they are like this, and can actually do fairly awake tasks. I don't think that they would be up to cracking hostile companies computer systems unless they really could function in their sleep, however.
Just for your information.
Michael
but, at least here in the US, you CAN turn off GPS+ on your phone... even though it still works for 911..
If you don't want to be tracked, dont have your phone on. Divert it to a paging service and carry a pager, and ring back at your leisure. Mobile phones are rapidly becoming trackable whenever they are on, and there will be nothing that can be done to avoid this.
Michael
Are you kidding? The whole OSS philosophy is wrapped around release early release often. Maybe openssl doesn't follow this [though it has had it share of bugs] many other things [kernel for instance] follow this model.
Its the difference in approach that I see as the major point between microsoft and say openssl.
Microsoft has spent years releasing fast and furiously with a big sales pitch on their products. Even stuff that they don't "sell" such as internet explorer has this release philosophy.
Version numbers become sales pitches in their own right, and new features become the prime reason for release.
Compare that with my favourite browser, Firebird. Its still on a 0.6.1 release, and it is more stable than IE. It feels as though it has more features than IE, but it actually has less - especially in terms of features that are exploitable such as scripting.
This is because microsoft has had a "stuff on a new feature charge customers for it" mentality for as long as I can remember. It worked well for a while for them, but its left them with fundamentally insecure code (such as the whole windows messenger service) and a fundamentally insecure approach to their system (such as default administrator logon's with blank passwords in XP).
I don't believe that it is fair to compare the underlying approach of windows to alot of the open source code - as I said above and I still stand by it.
Michael
Ok, I'll bite on the troll.
By your logic we should not use openssl, kde, etc, o the many many other OSS projects that are in the upgrade windmill.
Are you seriously suggesting that openssl has a philosophy of putting code out as fast as possible in order to gain sales? There is no comparison between the quality of openssl and that of windows, and at best I would presume that you are trolling here.
Your rhetoric is old and mine is new, haha! Go to back to your master and learn new tricks, haha! Stop posting crap on slashdot, haha!
Yep, definitely trolling here
Michael
This is hardly news in a sense. Its not the first, last or only time that windows has a flaw. There is probably a thousand of these exploits hidden in the closed source.
On top of that, there is the prevailing attitude at microsoft that a quick sale for ease of use is better than a later sale with security. Until now that approach has always left them in the money.
I'm hoping that the level of attacks that we have seen in the last few months will finally produce the uprising against this "quick release" security through obscurity model that microsoft has done so well with.
My 2c worth
Michael
Just for life time suffering from spam....
Michael