MS is entering some interesting territory, they are COMPETING with their own customers.... One of the cardinal rules of business: Never take a product 'direct' to market, and compete with your customers with the product that they BUY FROM YOU.
MS has been doing this with software for years, and doing quite well, thank you. Any company that writes software for windows is a development partner, customer, and competitor of Microsoft, all at the same time!
Why should the hardware vendors miss out on all this fun?
The Xbox is the single-handedly most astonishingly brash thing MS is doing right now
Again, they've done some equally brash things in the past (RE: the stuff that prompted the very first consent decree, like charging PC vendors for Windows based on every box they ship, whether or not it actually shipped with Windows). We all just weren't paying as much attention back then.
I moved out of NYC years ago, (and am a registered voter in my new district near Rochester) and yet my name is STILL on file there!
I'd like a form to fill out that says "I moved away, please take me off not just your site, but the voter rolls as well."
Maybe then my parents will stop getting Jury Duty notices in my name....
Nigam also told me that if I told him my friend's IP address, he could find out exactly what had happened in his case. I told him I'd have to check with my friend first. Kutner then said that if my friend were truly innocent, he wouldn't have anything to hide.
The thing is, he didn't have anything to hide in the first place, and he was still accused.
I used to think that there was nothing wrong with the "if you're really innocent, you would have no problem with this" attitude. But now I see that it's a rather clever way to get people to give up their rights.
By that logic, since I'm really innocent, I should have no problem with letting the Goverment (or Time Warner) look at all the files on my hard drive whenever they want to. I do have a problem with that, not because I pirate music, but because I just don't want them in my hard drive, and I shouldn't have to cooperate with them if I don't want to. (Remember... I haven't even been charged in a court yet, and they're cutting off my access!)
I also have a problem with the "proprietary" techniques that are used to find copyright violators. How can you determine the difference between an illegal copy of "Titanic" and a two-hour streaming file of my dog on her floating raft in my pool named "Titanic"? The answer is that one has better acting, and the other has a bigger boat, but I can't believe that an algorithm can tell the difference between the two when they're all just bits anyway.
How would you feel if the cop pulled you over and said "You broke the law back there, but we can't tell you how we caught you because that's proprietary."? This is no different.
ATL Executive Director Jim Prendergast said those who agreed the prosecution was misguided were merely given suggestions about what to use in drafting their own letters.
Asked why some phrases were identical, Prendergast then conceded that the letters were written by his operation. "We'd write the letter and then send it to them," Prendergast said. "That's fairly common practice."
Sorry to burst your collective bubble, but he's right -- many, many groups do this sort of thing. They go out and find people who share their views on an important issue before congress, and give them suggestions. If you think that's evil, then all the real grass-roots political organizations must be evil, too!
In fact, I've seen plenty of "Dear Congresscritter: This is why the DMCA Sucks" sample letters posted here, with suggestions to pass them along.
All this article shows is that some MS supporters will just repeat whatever the company tells them to ("Innovation! Progress! XP!"), and do not have the capability to think for themselves, or at least phrase things in a different manner than what the company suggests, even when they agree.
And this, more than anything else, is why Microsoft is keeping their market share -- because they've managed to capture the automatic loyalty of millions, with what most slashdotters think is crapware. That's the really evil thing about this...
I think the Feds should fund the development of an operating system and office suite. The software would be released to the public, including source code.
Notice, he didn't say the government should WRITE the OS, he said they should FUND the OS.
I always thought that OS development would be best if it were done by a non-profit foundation. Sort of like a "PBS" for computers, except much more useful. It could put out a default platform and publish the source code. It would maintain a basic standardized structure for configuration files, etc. If the government gave it some funding, it could mandate that all government computers use this OS, giving developers a reasonable installed base to target.
Most of all, the government can take all the money it gives to MS, Sun, and the $3.50 it gives to Apple for OS licenses, and channel that directly toward OS development that meets its needs.
Of course, we'd all have to look forward to "If you like the way we just fsck'ed your boot drive, please contribute! For $1000, you become a Charter Member and get a free stuffed penguin!"
But delaying until after DVD rentals are available? Forget it. The service isn't bound to go anywhere.
Are you kidding? They don't want it to go anywhere. They want this to fail, to prove that serving *paid* content via the Internet is not profitable. Or, put another way, only Commies who don't like to pay for content are on the Internet. Oh, and pedophiles, too. Musn't forget them...
And since writing paid laws is profitable for polititians, we'll see more laws that treat the Internet as a lawless free-for-all that must be regulated to stop the Red Menace.
We're not customers anymore. We're faceless consumers who will take what they are given.
We ceased to be customers a while ago. In particular, all Slashdot readers are criminals because we know more about technology (i.e. how lame DeCSS is at its job) than they do.
Instead of separating MS into an OS division and a software division, which just creates two monopolies, why doesn't the DOJ just break them into three identical companies.
Because the key problem is the fact that to foster "innovation", Microsoft claims that it's vitally important that they be able to bundle any application into their operating system, especially applications that compete with other companies' apps (who don't have the advantage of being able to get their apps on the desktops of all PC's in the universe, virtually for free, bundled with the OS).
By splitting it into three identical companies and giving them the same code base, you'll have three companies doing this, and not one. So the old Micros~1 had all the PC's in the universe, but the new Micros~[123] each has 1/3 pc the PCs in the universe. It's still a barrier to competition if you aren't a Microsoft.
And who says the user base gets divided into thirds, anyway? What if Microsoft puts the best third of their developers and marketing people in Micros~2? Within five years, most of the user base will gravitate toward that one, and we have the same problem.
Separating the OS development group from the Apps group, and putting strict rules on how the OS group can partner with Apps developers (perhaps even forcing MS to spin off the OS development into a not-for-profit research corporation or a consortium funded by the Apps Writers, but I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that idea) is the only way to insure that all MS Apps development is done on a level playing field.
The prob with compact flash and smart meida is the formats arent proprietary but the vendors write data in such a way that it is hard to interchange the cards
Don't know much about the Memory Stick or Smart Media, but Compact Flash has a simple ATA interface. I know Kodak cameras write to it like a regular disk, and I imagine Sony does as wel, so I don't see how it can be so hard to interchange them.
Besides, I'm pretty sure that all the CF in the world gets made by SanDisk anyway, and SanDisk sells them to everybody so they can put their own branding on. But I could be wrong...
Is the question really whether or not she can still type? Or is it whether or not her carpal tunnel has rendered her unable to work?
The court made the point that she is not injured to the point that her daily life activities are impared. And even though she may not be able to keep up with the pace of typing at her old job, there are ways to be employed in her field that don't involve so much typing. She's not shut out of her field the way that, say, a truck driver would be if he went blind.
Does anyone have a right to be able to keep working at the same job after they get injured? What about minor league baseball players that get career-ending injuries, even debilitating injuries? They can't engage in their chosen profession anymore, and they haven't made tons of money yet so they can retire, but none of them claim disability. The good ones become coaches, and the bad ones go into a totally diffenent field. Maybe that's a bad example, because baseball players don't expect to be playing until they're 55, but you get what I mean.
Now, the job likely caused the carpal tunnel, but that's a different issue altogether. Regardless of what caused it, she has it now, and unfortunately has to live with it now.
I'm certainly not trying to make light of this woman's problem, because it is serious. I'm just wondering where you draw the line that says that a person can or can't find work in their field due to their injuries or disabilities. If a person can't continue at their job, but can do a similar job, does that count as being "substantially limited" in your abilities?
If I'd been required to buy a laptop (typically, $1000's more than a desktop machine) upon arrival, that would have been an egregious financial burden on me.
For what it's worth, if any computer equipment is deemed required for your curriculum, including laptops, then you can usually get financial aid for it. Which means you won't get kicked until AFTER you graduate.
Re:Linux will be just as bad...discuss....
on
Windows in 2020
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· Score: 2
Posit: once Linux reaches a certain saturation, it will suffer the same security issues as Microsoft does.
I honestly think this won't be the case, for the following reasons:
Unix systems, having been multi-user systems for a number of years, have well-established guidelines for how much permission to give an application. Even simple things like access permissions and chroots would prevent really devastating worms from hosing your system, and perhaps even from spreading. (Even if Linux supports VBScript Attachments in the future, it's very unlikely that the attachment will be able to do much outside of that user's account...) Many Windows problems stem from giving applications too many permissions. The "tight integration" of Windows applications is done with only lip service to security. (this may be better in Win2K, I haven't done that much with it)...
The Open-Source nature of all the major Unix Services mean that any holes can be found more quickly, and be quickly made available. If someone is suspicious of a certain piece of code, they can LOOK AT IT and find out for themselves. You can't do that with IIS, and have to rely on MS to analyze the code and release patches, making the whole process shower and leaving computers vulernable for longer periods of time. By the time the patch comes out, the hysteria may have dies down, and the Admin may have moved on to other things. (Yes, this means that at least one Admin in an organization should know how to read code. I don't think this is unreasonable.)
Individual Open-Source programs are widely deployed (Apache and BIND, for example) and while they have their share of problems, they don't have nearly as many problems as Windows or IIS. Compare the number of Apache problems over the last five years with the number of IIS problems, relate that to market share, and please tell me if I'm wrong!
In short, if Linux had the same market share as Windows, there would certainly be more Linux nasties than there are now, but not nearly as serious and not nearly in the same proportion as currently affects MS products, for all the reasons I outlined above.
Re:W e didn't loose anything, look at what we gain
on
The End of Innovation?
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· Score: 2
You own the phsyical DVD, you DON'T OWN THE MOVIE TO DO WITH IT WHAT YOU WISH
No, but there have been certain liberties that you could take (and technically still can) with DVDs, such as taking quotes and excerpts from copyrighted work for scholarly or critical review purposes (the oft-cited fair use doctrine), or reselling YOUR ORIGINAL copy (and not keeping any copies) without having to compensate the copyright holders (first sale doctrine).
I say technically because the DMCA doesn't outlaw these things, it just outlaws posessing the tools you need to do these things. It's like making guns legal, and then making the technology needed to use guns (read: bullets) illegal. How long would the NRA let a law like that stand?
The whole point is that then you release a copyrighted work to the public, it immediately becomes a part of popular culture, and in a sense "owned" by the public, too. However, the copyright holder must be able to make a profit on these works, or else there is no incentive. Copyright law is an attempt to balance the rights of the holder with the rights of the public to access their popular culture. Current copyright law is balanced in facor of the copyright holder, at the expense of the public.
If you disagree, I'm sure you're already giving Fox a royalty everytime you say (or even think) "D'oh!" or "Mmmm.... Donuts". Because Fox owns that little bit of popular culture, and we have no right to do with it what we wish, according to your logic.
Does BASH check scripts to see if they are malicious? Do Perl scripts run in a sandbox?
Nope, but if you're running scripts with the proper permissions and unser the proper user in UNIX, it limits the amount of damage you can do. That's what I meant by the OS taking care of security. NT is better at this than Win9x, but not as good as most Unix distributions (assuming you don't run everything as root.)
Seems to me that VBScript is working just fine. Since when is it a scripting language's job to enforce security?
Ultimately, it's the user's job to make sure his system doesn't get hosed. But, since most users can't tell a good VBscript from a bad one, It's the job of the operating system (or failing that, the scripting languages' interpreter) to make sure scripts can't do anything malicious when accessed in normal mode. Since Windows and VBScript doesn't do this, I consider them broken.
If PDF allows mailicious script to run, it is PDF that is broken.
So Acrobat Reader should analyze VBScript and be able to tell us when an attachment is about to hose the system? In that case, why not build that functionality into Windows or VBScript? Then they wouldn't be broken.
Adobe said any popular software becomes a target for security attacks and Acrobat has crossed that threshold.
I'm convinced that software companies now WANT viruses to run on their software, because it "proves" the software is popular. If I were Adobe, I would distance myself from the virus by saying "PDF's can now carry VBScript viruses, but VBScript is still broken with respect to security, so blame Microsoft for any viruses!" After all, the problem is with the fact that VBScript can't be trusted, not with any inherent security problem in Acrobat.
Instead, Adobe seems to WANT to associate their software with the viruses, because Microsoft has conditioned the media into thinking that having a virus have its way with your software proves that you're the Market Share Leader.
After all, if nobody writes viruses for, say, UNIX platforms, it must mean that they aren't as popular!
Everyone knows that the only Good Endian is a Dead Endian!
"Fruitless" Argument
on
Mac Rants
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· Score: 5, Insightful
And rather than being one function of overall processor performance, clock frequencies have ceased to matter at all--low frequencies are a twisted badge of honor, an indicator of "real" performance.
I hate to break it to him, but clock frequencies are never a good indicator of overall processor performance when comparing against different processor families. There can be some truth to the claim that a G4 at a given MHz is faster than a P4 at the same MHz -- after all, when I took my Computer Architecture a few years back, the PPC 603 had a much shorter pipeline relative to the PPro, and from what I've read since then, nothing has changed in that respect.
However, that doesn't mean that I think the G4 really is faster now, even if Intel's push for more MHz is mostly about marketing. After all, back when I took that class, we all thought RISC chips would eat CISC chips for lunch because the simpler instruction core for RISC chips would let them be run faster. Meanwhile, Intel figured out a way to engineer themselves out of that hole (using a form of microcode on the Pentium Pro, if I remember correctly), while Motorola couldn't engineer itself out of a paper bag (with 500 MHz written on it) for quite a while, as he mentions.
Anyway, as a proud new iBook owner (and an NT and Solaris user at work), I don't care who is faster, as long as I can do what I need to do.
I managed to deselect them last night when I was stoned as fuck...
The way to avoid things like toptext is to always do custom installs, and always check through what you are installing.
Apparently, the real way to avoid things like this is to get stoned. Let's put that in the manual!
After a recent trip to Japan, I've concluded the way to Make Money Fast is to bring a suitcase full of Melons over there and sell them, and bring a suitcase full of Japanese PS2 games back and sell them here. I'd probably make more money on the Melons, I saw some selling for 4000 Yen!
I wonder what Mr. Customs Guy has to say about my scheme...
Do you think the head honchos from CBS's Entertainment division and News division get together for strategy sessions on what the worst way to portray the Internet is?
I suppose it's possible that there's some big corporate edict to portray the Internet as a haven for unsavory characters so that people choose to get all their entertainment from the major TV networks.
But being that CBS is so huge that one division probably has no clue what the other is doing, it's more likely that while CBS news sees the Internet as a threat (especially to children), CBS's Reality TV dividion sees it as a cash cow, and will gladly take money from children in they can get away with it.
As long as there have been computers, there has been platform envy. Some people always feel the need to let you know why their platform is superior and why yours is inferior.
I've used many platforms over the years, but prefer the Macintosh and Linux, for different reasons. I learned early on that each platform has its advantages, and that advocating one platform for everybody above all else is a pointless exercise.
However, quite a few people don't get it. Either they're too young to know anything else, or too immature to take a large view of things. These people are always the loudest, so it is assumed that they make up the bulk of that platform's user base, even if they don't.
This is a problem that has existed on every platform. (How many MAc zealots do you know?) However, it is even more of a problem for Linux because of the nature of Linux Development. Since Linux development depends (for the most part) on open code written by volunteers, the community is much more dependant on the good graces of software and hardware vendors to support Linux.
Mac developers only have to deal with Apple on a regular basis. (Of course, they may not be the most mature people either..). But Linux developers have to deal with the entire community, and the morons shout loudest. Many companies may decide that it's not worth listening to all the morons to find the one or two people who are really interested in working with them. Others may decide (as many people have done with the Mac) that since you can only hear the morons, the entire user base must (by default) be morons.
So I guess that this is a problem that won't go away, because it happens on every platform. But the open nature of the Linux community makes it much more visible. Let's hope that in the future, a rising Linux user base leads companies to want to ignore the morons, or at least just mod them down....
Slashdot Mirror
I've tried calling the Red Cross's national numbers, but they're flooded with calls. Area hospitals here aren't set up to recieve blood donations yet.
I'm sure they'll have information in the paper tomorrow, and my blood will be just as useful then.
MS has been doing this with software for years, and doing quite well, thank you. Any company that writes software for windows is a development partner, customer, and competitor of Microsoft, all at the same time!
Why should the hardware vendors miss out on all this fun?
The Xbox is the single-handedly most astonishingly brash thing MS is doing right now
Again, they've done some equally brash things in the past (RE: the stuff that prompted the very first consent decree, like charging PC vendors for Windows based on every box they ship, whether or not it actually shipped with Windows). We all just weren't paying as much attention back then.
I moved out of NYC years ago, (and am a registered voter in my new district near Rochester) and yet my name is STILL on file there! I'd like a form to fill out that says "I moved away, please take me off not just your site, but the voter rolls as well." Maybe then my parents will stop getting Jury Duty notices in my name....
The thing is, he didn't have anything to hide in the first place, and he was still accused.
I used to think that there was nothing wrong with the "if you're really innocent, you would have no problem with this" attitude. But now I see that it's a rather clever way to get people to give up their rights.
By that logic, since I'm really innocent, I should have no problem with letting the Goverment (or Time Warner) look at all the files on my hard drive whenever they want to. I do have a problem with that, not because I pirate music, but because I just don't want them in my hard drive, and I shouldn't have to cooperate with them if I don't want to. (Remember... I haven't even been charged in a court yet, and they're cutting off my access!)
I also have a problem with the "proprietary" techniques that are used to find copyright violators. How can you determine the difference between an illegal copy of "Titanic" and a two-hour streaming file of my dog on her floating raft in my pool named "Titanic"? The answer is that one has better acting, and the other has a bigger boat, but I can't believe that an algorithm can tell the difference between the two when they're all just bits anyway.
How would you feel if the cop pulled you over and said "You broke the law back there, but we can't tell you how we caught you because that's proprietary."? This is no different.
Asked why some phrases were identical, Prendergast then conceded that the letters were written by his operation. "We'd write the letter and then send it to them," Prendergast said. "That's fairly common practice."
Sorry to burst your collective bubble, but he's right -- many, many groups do this sort of thing. They go out and find people who share their views on an important issue before congress, and give them suggestions. If you think that's evil, then all the real grass-roots political organizations must be evil, too!
In fact, I've seen plenty of "Dear Congresscritter: This is why the DMCA Sucks" sample letters posted here, with suggestions to pass them along.
All this article shows is that some MS supporters will just repeat whatever the company tells them to ("Innovation! Progress! XP!"), and do not have the capability to think for themselves, or at least phrase things in a different manner than what the company suggests, even when they agree.
And this, more than anything else, is why Microsoft is keeping their market share -- because they've managed to capture the automatic loyalty of millions, with what most slashdotters think is crapware. That's the really evil thing about this...
Notice, he didn't say the government should WRITE the OS, he said they should FUND the OS.
I always thought that OS development would be best if it were done by a non-profit foundation. Sort of like a "PBS" for computers, except much more useful. It could put out a default platform and publish the source code. It would maintain a basic standardized structure for configuration files, etc. If the government gave it some funding, it could mandate that all government computers use this OS, giving developers a reasonable installed base to target.
Most of all, the government can take all the money it gives to MS, Sun, and the $3.50 it gives to Apple for OS licenses, and channel that directly toward OS development that meets its needs.
Of course, we'd all have to look forward to "If you like the way we just fsck'ed your boot drive, please contribute! For $1000, you become a Charter Member and get a free stuffed penguin!"
OK, maybe the concept needs work...
my bad... I meant to say CSS, not DeCSS, as you pointed out. I apparently needed more coffee this morning.
Are you kidding? They don't want it to go anywhere. They want this to fail, to prove that serving *paid* content via the Internet is not profitable. Or, put another way, only Commies who don't like to pay for content are on the Internet. Oh, and pedophiles, too. Musn't forget them...
And since writing paid laws is profitable for polititians, we'll see more laws that treat the Internet as a lawless free-for-all that must be regulated to stop the Red Menace.
We're not customers anymore. We're faceless consumers who will take what they are given.
We ceased to be customers a while ago. In particular, all Slashdot readers are criminals because we know more about technology (i.e. how lame DeCSS is at its job) than they do.
Because the key problem is the fact that to foster "innovation", Microsoft claims that it's vitally important that they be able to bundle any application into their operating system, especially applications that compete with other companies' apps (who don't have the advantage of being able to get their apps on the desktops of all PC's in the universe, virtually for free, bundled with the OS).
By splitting it into three identical companies and giving them the same code base, you'll have three companies doing this, and not one. So the old Micros~1 had all the PC's in the universe, but the new Micros~[123] each has 1/3 pc the PCs in the universe. It's still a barrier to competition if you aren't a Microsoft.
And who says the user base gets divided into thirds, anyway? What if Microsoft puts the best third of their developers and marketing people in Micros~2? Within five years, most of the user base will gravitate toward that one, and we have the same problem.
Separating the OS development group from the Apps group, and putting strict rules on how the OS group can partner with Apps developers (perhaps even forcing MS to spin off the OS development into a not-for-profit research corporation or a consortium funded by the Apps Writers, but I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that idea) is the only way to insure that all MS Apps development is done on a level playing field.
Don't know much about the Memory Stick or Smart Media, but Compact Flash has a simple ATA interface. I know Kodak cameras write to it like a regular disk, and I imagine Sony does as wel, so I don't see how it can be so hard to interchange them.
Besides, I'm pretty sure that all the CF in the world gets made by SanDisk anyway, and SanDisk sells them to everybody so they can put their own branding on. But I could be wrong...
The court made the point that she is not injured to the point that her daily life activities are impared. And even though she may not be able to keep up with the pace of typing at her old job, there are ways to be employed in her field that don't involve so much typing. She's not shut out of her field the way that, say, a truck driver would be if he went blind.
Does anyone have a right to be able to keep working at the same job after they get injured? What about minor league baseball players that get career-ending injuries, even debilitating injuries? They can't engage in their chosen profession anymore, and they haven't made tons of money yet so they can retire, but none of them claim disability. The good ones become coaches, and the bad ones go into a totally diffenent field. Maybe that's a bad example, because baseball players don't expect to be playing until they're 55, but you get what I mean.
Now, the job likely caused the carpal tunnel, but that's a different issue altogether. Regardless of what caused it, she has it now, and unfortunately has to live with it now.
I'm certainly not trying to make light of this woman's problem, because it is serious. I'm just wondering where you draw the line that says that a person can or can't find work in their field due to their injuries or disabilities. If a person can't continue at their job, but can do a similar job, does that count as being "substantially limited" in your abilities?
I hope I never have to find out.
For what it's worth, if any computer equipment is deemed required for your curriculum, including laptops, then you can usually get financial aid for it. Which means you won't get kicked until AFTER you graduate.
I honestly think this won't be the case, for the following reasons:
Unix systems, having been multi-user systems for a number of years, have well-established guidelines for how much permission to give an application. Even simple things like access permissions and chroots would prevent really devastating worms from hosing your system, and perhaps even from spreading. (Even if Linux supports VBScript Attachments in the future, it's very unlikely that the attachment will be able to do much outside of that user's account...) Many Windows problems stem from giving applications too many permissions. The "tight integration" of Windows applications is done with only lip service to security. (this may be better in Win2K, I haven't done that much with it)...
The Open-Source nature of all the major Unix Services mean that any holes can be found more quickly, and be quickly made available. If someone is suspicious of a certain piece of code, they can LOOK AT IT and find out for themselves. You can't do that with IIS, and have to rely on MS to analyze the code and release patches, making the whole process shower and leaving computers vulernable for longer periods of time. By the time the patch comes out, the hysteria may have dies down, and the Admin may have moved on to other things. (Yes, this means that at least one Admin in an organization should know how to read code. I don't think this is unreasonable.)
Individual Open-Source programs are widely deployed (Apache and BIND, for example) and while they have their share of problems, they don't have nearly as many problems as Windows or IIS. Compare the number of Apache problems over the last five years with the number of IIS problems, relate that to market share, and please tell me if I'm wrong!
In short, if Linux had the same market share as Windows, there would certainly be more Linux nasties than there are now, but not nearly as serious and not nearly in the same proportion as currently affects MS products, for all the reasons I outlined above.
No, but there have been certain liberties that you could take (and technically still can) with DVDs, such as taking quotes and excerpts from copyrighted work for scholarly or critical review purposes (the oft-cited fair use doctrine), or reselling YOUR ORIGINAL copy (and not keeping any copies) without having to compensate the copyright holders (first sale doctrine).
I say technically because the DMCA doesn't outlaw these things, it just outlaws posessing the tools you need to do these things. It's like making guns legal, and then making the technology needed to use guns (read: bullets) illegal. How long would the NRA let a law like that stand?
The whole point is that then you release a copyrighted work to the public, it immediately becomes a part of popular culture, and in a sense "owned" by the public, too. However, the copyright holder must be able to make a profit on these works, or else there is no incentive. Copyright law is an attempt to balance the rights of the holder with the rights of the public to access their popular culture. Current copyright law is balanced in facor of the copyright holder, at the expense of the public.
If you disagree, I'm sure you're already giving Fox a royalty everytime you say (or even think) "D'oh!" or "Mmmm.... Donuts". Because Fox owns that little bit of popular culture, and we have no right to do with it what we wish, according to your logic.
Does BASH check scripts to see if they are malicious? Do Perl scripts run in a sandbox? Nope, but if you're running scripts with the proper permissions and unser the proper user in UNIX, it limits the amount of damage you can do. That's what I meant by the OS taking care of security. NT is better at this than Win9x, but not as good as most Unix distributions (assuming you don't run everything as root.)
Ultimately, it's the user's job to make sure his system doesn't get hosed. But, since most users can't tell a good VBscript from a bad one, It's the job of the operating system (or failing that, the scripting languages' interpreter) to make sure scripts can't do anything malicious when accessed in normal mode. Since Windows and VBScript doesn't do this, I consider them broken.
If PDF allows mailicious script to run, it is PDF that is broken.
So Acrobat Reader should analyze VBScript and be able to tell us when an attachment is about to hose the system? In that case, why not build that functionality into Windows or VBScript? Then they wouldn't be broken.
Thanks for the info. Slashdot was the last place I thought I'd get a useful spelling and grammar lesson!
Adobe said any popular software becomes a target for security attacks and Acrobat has crossed that threshold.
I'm convinced that software companies now WANT viruses to run on their software, because it "proves" the software is popular. If I were Adobe, I would distance myself from the virus by saying "PDF's can now carry VBScript viruses, but VBScript is still broken with respect to security, so blame Microsoft for any viruses!" After all, the problem is with the fact that VBScript can't be trusted, not with any inherent security problem in Acrobat.
Instead, Adobe seems to WANT to associate their software with the viruses, because Microsoft has conditioned the media into thinking that having a virus have its way with your software proves that you're the Market Share Leader.
After all, if nobody writes viruses for, say, UNIX platforms, it must mean that they aren't as popular!
Everyone knows that the only Good Endian is a Dead Endian!
I hate to break it to him, but clock frequencies are never a good indicator of overall processor performance when comparing against different processor families. There can be some truth to the claim that a G4 at a given MHz is faster than a P4 at the same MHz -- after all, when I took my Computer Architecture a few years back, the PPC 603 had a much shorter pipeline relative to the PPro, and from what I've read since then, nothing has changed in that respect.
However, that doesn't mean that I think the G4 really is faster now, even if Intel's push for more MHz is mostly about marketing. After all, back when I took that class, we all thought RISC chips would eat CISC chips for lunch because the simpler instruction core for RISC chips would let them be run faster. Meanwhile, Intel figured out a way to engineer themselves out of that hole (using a form of microcode on the Pentium Pro, if I remember correctly), while Motorola couldn't engineer itself out of a paper bag (with 500 MHz written on it) for quite a while, as he mentions.
Anyway, as a proud new iBook owner (and an NT and Solaris user at work), I don't care who is faster, as long as I can do what I need to do.
The way to avoid things like toptext is to always do custom installs, and always check through what you are installing.
Apparently, the real way to avoid things like this is to get stoned. Let's put that in the manual!
I wonder what Mr. Customs Guy has to say about my scheme...
Do you think the head honchos from CBS's Entertainment division and News division get together for strategy sessions on what the worst way to portray the Internet is? I suppose it's possible that there's some big corporate edict to portray the Internet as a haven for unsavory characters so that people choose to get all their entertainment from the major TV networks. But being that CBS is so huge that one division probably has no clue what the other is doing, it's more likely that while CBS news sees the Internet as a threat (especially to children), CBS's Reality TV dividion sees it as a cash cow, and will gladly take money from children in they can get away with it.
Sorry... I should have said, "Vax Sux!"
However, quite a few people don't get it. Either they're too young to know anything else, or too immature to take a large view of things. These people are always the loudest, so it is assumed that they make up the bulk of that platform's user base, even if they don't.
This is a problem that has existed on every platform. (How many MAc zealots do you know?) However, it is even more of a problem for Linux because of the nature of Linux Development. Since Linux development depends (for the most part) on open code written by volunteers, the community is much more dependant on the good graces of software and hardware vendors to support Linux.
Mac developers only have to deal with Apple on a regular basis. (Of course, they may not be the most mature people either..). But Linux developers have to deal with the entire community, and the morons shout loudest. Many companies may decide that it's not worth listening to all the morons to find the one or two people who are really interested in working with them. Others may decide (as many people have done with the Mac) that since you can only hear the morons, the entire user base must (by default) be morons.
So I guess that this is a problem that won't go away, because it happens on every platform. But the open nature of the Linux community makes it much more visible. Let's hope that in the future, a rising Linux user base leads companies to want to ignore the morons, or at least just mod them down....