I haven't thought this all the way through to it's logical conclusions, but it seems to me that the most benefit to blackhats these days is in getting CPU cycles to cause damage and steal information from more valuable or data rich systems...
Is there really that much benefit to expending effort to hack the SOHO WAP router, when most of the machines behind it are more likely the problem, since if the user has not re-config'ed their router then likely their machines aren't secured either?
For just purely evil fun it might be worth the effort to flash corrupted firmware to hundreds of thousands of WAP's out there...leaving a $100 monetary nuisance to many households out there that have to replace them.
Was gonna say something to the effect of 'and I welded the lock on my chastity belt and gave the key to {insert any right wing evangelical nutjob here}'
got caught by the html code brackets...it just loses the magic of the moment when you have to explain it and clarify
This is a much better/sarcasm post than the lazy post I was going to make...
Was gonna say something to the effect of 'and I welded the lock on my chastity belt and gave the key to '
Mod parent up, please...
And with respect to the grandparent, all sarcasm aside, I give you credit for the effort, even if doesn't prevent a sufficiently motivated individual from getting all up in yer network and stealin yer dirty pix of yerself. More effort than most would bother with, even if they know they should, hence the potential effectiveness of the theoretical hack.
Anyone who says that 'XP was just a GUI upgrade to Win2K' hasn't actually sat with the two OS'es side by side and A) watched them boot from POST through login (Win2K you can make the pot of coffee and pour yourself a cup, XP maybe just pour the cup) and B) used the OS for various tasks other than email and web browsing.
XP is actually a more stable OS, is actually more feature rich, performs faster pound for pound with comparative hardware, etc. ad nauseum.
All that being said, the debate in question here is XP vs. Vista. Vista requires a massive jump in hardware from XP for which you get in return less functionality, deeper and less intuitive menu structures, more DRM intrusion into sound/video that YOU paid good money for (methinks they actually want to drive people toward pirated content), and some eye-candy that you could likely have just downloaded for free from one of those lame sites out there that bored office workers fsck up all the office computers with.
That is not to dispute that under the hood there may be some coding improvements to services within Vista...but some of that should be (and possibly is) just service pack material for XP. Vista seems to be a poor attempt (that could be backfiring) to fill the MSFT coffers further.
Some are surmising that the purchase of Alienware is an attempt to 'get their feet wet' with AMD, aside from picking up revenue from the gaming market. Should be interesting to see how it works out.
"electing noted terrorist and torturer Moamar Qaddafi to the UN Human Rights Committee is just more proof of the anti Democratic"
It is interesting to note that you mentioned "electing" by a "anti-democratic" organization
"anti Christian and anti American bias in that agency."
The UN was put together mostly by Judeo-Christian backing, but as it has taken on more members would obviously take on a more well rounded reflection of racial, ethnic, religious, cultural and political views of the countries around the globe (since it is after a GLOBAL body, not an American institution)
"I take those figure with a grain of salt, and look for the political movement behind them."
Do you dispute that blind (keyword there) technological advancement causes massive destruction to our environment?
"I just ask you to compare the amounts of fossil fuel used to make this Pentium I'm using with the amounts I would need to go to each and every one of you and try to bring you back to the True Church [vatican.va], and ask you what is the better bargain for the world our Creator Above gave us."
"I just ask you" to stop proselytizing period, and then we won't have need of your environmentally destructive Pentium or your gas guzzling SUV. Thank you.
Apparently you did not get it when the Anonymous Coward stated that BOTH candidates are for the death penalty, which if we had a perfect justice system, might be alright. But we don't, and if you check your statistics on the Amnesty International page, the United States does have a horrible record as far as the death penalty is concerned. I do not believe the concept of a death penalty is inherently wrong, but I believe to just put one innocent man to death does not make it worth it for any number of criminals you might have executed for even the most heinous of crimes. Our justice system has put too many innocent people to death. To get it accurate, Bush is a criminal, and so is Gore, both of them on many more counts than just the death penalty. But I would not execute them for it.
Vote Nader/LaDuke on Nov. 7
"ummm...actually, Gore would probably favor this. It seems to me that getting rid of a plurality would mean that he could still (easily?) defeat Bush in spite of people voting for Nader."
umm...actually, if you have been reading your newspaper....it would be bad for Gore if the vote was not based on the electoral system we currently have, because that may be the only way he wins this presidency that neither of the major party candidates deserve. The popular vote is actually tipping in favor Bush, but Gore may win enough of the major states to win the electoral college votes. Anyways, if you are NOT for democracy and the truly democratic process, vote for Gore or vote for Bush, which is a vote for your nearest large corporation that is polluting the air you breathe and stealing your tax dollars.
Vote Nader/LaDuke on Nov. 7
"While Nader will never win, his supporters would likely have voted for Gore if they had to vote for one of the big two..."
"HAD" to vote for one of the big two? I thought we lived in a democracy, a government made up by choices made by intelligent, informed citizens. You are obviously not an informed citizen. Even if you do use the argument that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush, which is mathematically inaccurate, then what you still don't understand is that the message sent out by voting for someone like Nader is that change NEEDS to come even at the cost of four years of an administration run by a bumbling, corporate-backed, right-wing moron which would not be far from a conniving, calculated, ecologically hypocritical, near right-wing anyways, administration run by the GoreBot. Wake up, and drag yourself out of the morass of the corporate funded, strong two party system that drags the political atmosphere of this country through the mud.
Slashdot Mirror
I haven't thought this all the way through to it's logical conclusions, but it seems to me that the most benefit to blackhats these days is in getting CPU cycles to cause damage and steal information from more valuable or data rich systems...
Is there really that much benefit to expending effort to hack the SOHO WAP router, when most of the machines behind it are more likely the problem, since if the user has not re-config'ed their router then likely their machines aren't secured either?
For just purely evil fun it might be worth the effort to flash corrupted firmware to hundreds of thousands of WAP's out there...leaving a $100 monetary nuisance to many households out there that have to replace them.
aha, caught by the laziness of not previewing....
line was supposed to be:
Was gonna say something to the effect of 'and I welded the lock on my chastity belt and gave the key to {insert any right wing evangelical nutjob here}'
got caught by the html code brackets...it just loses the magic of the moment when you have to explain it and clarify
sheesh
This is a much better /sarcasm post than the lazy post I was going to make...
Was gonna say something to the effect of 'and I welded the lock on my chastity belt and gave the key to '
Mod parent up, please...
And with respect to the grandparent, all sarcasm aside, I give you credit for the effort, even if doesn't prevent a sufficiently motivated individual from getting all up in yer network and stealin yer dirty pix of yerself. More effort than most would bother with, even if they know they should, hence the potential effectiveness of the theoretical hack.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."
Seems to apply so often to legislation discussed on Slashdot, and elsewhere...
Too bad Senators, MP's, et al don't seem to get it.
Anyone who says that 'XP was just a GUI upgrade to Win2K' hasn't actually sat with the two OS'es side by side and A) watched them boot from POST through login (Win2K you can make the pot of coffee and pour yourself a cup, XP maybe just pour the cup) and B) used the OS for various tasks other than email and web browsing.
XP is actually a more stable OS, is actually more feature rich, performs faster pound for pound with comparative hardware, etc. ad nauseum.
All that being said, the debate in question here is XP vs. Vista. Vista requires a massive jump in hardware from XP for which you get in return less functionality, deeper and less intuitive menu structures, more DRM intrusion into sound/video that YOU paid good money for (methinks they actually want to drive people toward pirated content), and some eye-candy that you could likely have just downloaded for free from one of those lame sites out there that bored office workers fsck up all the office computers with.
That is not to dispute that under the hood there may be some coding improvements to services within Vista...but some of that should be (and possibly is) just service pack material for XP. Vista seems to be a poor attempt (that could be backfiring) to fill the MSFT coffers further.
There has been a seemingly inexplicable decrease in plane collisions across North America...
I know, I know, it is the FAA, not air traffic controllers. Cut me some slack, it's Thursday afternoon.
Some are surmising that the purchase of Alienware is an attempt to 'get their feet wet' with AMD, aside from picking up revenue from the gaming market. Should be interesting to see how it works out.
the end of 'donuts' as we know them??
Because according to the story they are getting a 25% discount from the Five Finger Afghan Market Stall...can't beat that!
follow a similar trajectory to many companies that have come before it, including some that it is currently competing with (i.e. Microsoft).
It is experiencing a rapid upward trajectory in it's growth, but this will slow as the company grows in size.
I think we can continue to expect good things from Google, but there is really nothing new under the sun.
"Because you're a hopeless nerd who has trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality, and is prone to exaggeration and paranoia?"
/.?
The question becomes then, what are YOU doing on
News For Nerds. Stuff that matters. Remember?
Do you think 90% of desktop hardware was born yesterday?
Of course they have to support legacy hardware.
"electing noted terrorist and torturer Moamar Qaddafi to the UN Human Rights Committee is just more proof of the anti Democratic"
It is interesting to note that you mentioned "electing" by a "anti-democratic" organization
"anti Christian and anti American bias in that agency."
The UN was put together mostly by Judeo-Christian backing, but as it has taken on more members would obviously take on a more well rounded reflection of racial, ethnic, religious, cultural and political views of the countries around the globe (since it is after a GLOBAL body, not an American institution)
"I take those figure with a grain of salt, and look for the political movement behind them."
Do you dispute that blind (keyword there) technological advancement causes massive destruction to our environment?
"I just ask you to compare the amounts of fossil fuel used to make this Pentium I'm using with the amounts I would need to go to each and every one of you and try to bring you back to the True Church [vatican.va], and ask you what is the better bargain for the world our Creator Above gave us."
"I just ask you" to stop proselytizing period, and then we won't have need of your environmentally destructive Pentium or your gas guzzling SUV. Thank you.
Can I get this with a Quake 3 front end?
Apparently you did not get it when the Anonymous Coward stated that BOTH candidates are for the death penalty, which if we had a perfect justice system, might be alright. But we don't, and if you check your statistics on the Amnesty International page, the United States does have a horrible record as far as the death penalty is concerned. I do not believe the concept of a death penalty is inherently wrong, but I believe to just put one innocent man to death does not make it worth it for any number of criminals you might have executed for even the most heinous of crimes. Our justice system has put too many innocent people to death. To get it accurate, Bush is a criminal, and so is Gore, both of them on many more counts than just the death penalty. But I would not execute them for it. Vote Nader/LaDuke on Nov. 7
"ummm...actually, Gore would probably favor this. It seems to me that getting rid of a plurality would mean that he could still (easily?) defeat Bush in spite of people voting for Nader." umm...actually, if you have been reading your newspaper....it would be bad for Gore if the vote was not based on the electoral system we currently have, because that may be the only way he wins this presidency that neither of the major party candidates deserve. The popular vote is actually tipping in favor Bush, but Gore may win enough of the major states to win the electoral college votes. Anyways, if you are NOT for democracy and the truly democratic process, vote for Gore or vote for Bush, which is a vote for your nearest large corporation that is polluting the air you breathe and stealing your tax dollars. Vote Nader/LaDuke on Nov. 7
"While Nader will never win, his supporters would likely have voted for Gore if they had to vote for one of the big two..." "HAD" to vote for one of the big two? I thought we lived in a democracy, a government made up by choices made by intelligent, informed citizens. You are obviously not an informed citizen. Even if you do use the argument that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush, which is mathematically inaccurate, then what you still don't understand is that the message sent out by voting for someone like Nader is that change NEEDS to come even at the cost of four years of an administration run by a bumbling, corporate-backed, right-wing moron which would not be far from a conniving, calculated, ecologically hypocritical, near right-wing anyways, administration run by the GoreBot. Wake up, and drag yourself out of the morass of the corporate funded, strong two party system that drags the political atmosphere of this country through the mud.