As I pointed out numerous posts ago, financial motivation is only one small part of it.
The primary goal to defacements is to have it noticed. Clearly "Hi my name is Bob" website which is likely unvisited and unmaintained is not going to get much notice.
Defacing a commercial website which obtains many hits does get noticed. The vast majority of these use SSL.
In the past several months there have been a number of worms in the Linux and Solaris worlds which have gone through and defaced probably thousands of websites. Now in these cases, the worm is non-discrimanatory and attacks whatever it finds is open. In this situation, your understanding is correct.
As far as implying your stupid, I have no need to do that. You keep responding.
The quote from Microsoft... "You can't hand out free software here." was not referring to Free Software.
It could have been Oracle handing out copies of Oracle 8i and the quote would have still be applicable. The issue was that they didn't have a permit to hand out stuff in that location.
Microsoft at their Office XP demo was handing out thousands of boxes of free software. I have a copy of Mappoint 2002 from the event in Minneapolis. I also have trial versions of Sharepoint, Visio, etc.
They've given stuff aware for free in the past, and they will in the future. That's actually the reason most of us go to these Microsoft shows.
I think it's interesting that all the attention has gone to Microsoft's renting model. Especially considering it's a non-issue. You talk to the large companies and you'll find out they already do this with their Enterprise licensing.
No the most interesting issue, which is being ignored, is the regular pricing of Office XP. I think it's priced slightly higher to begin with.
But most importantly is read what is required to be eligible for an Upgrade.
An existing license to Office 97 or Office 2000.
Yep, that's right... No more competitive upgrades, no more upgrades for older product. It used to be if you owned WordPerfect or QuattroPro or Wordstar even you could upgrade to Microsoft Office.
Not any more. You can't even upgrade if you own Office 95.
That's the real story here, folks. Not this stupid renting crap that will never affect most people.
But at the Office XP demo in Minneapolis Microsoft gave away several thousand NFR copies of Mappoint 2002 as well as trial CD's for Sharepoint Portal Server, Visio, etc.
Actually that's one of the more insightful posts I've seen on slashdot in a long time.
But I think what was most interesting was the Microsoft comment at the bottom. This must be some sort of proof by example.
One could also call it karma whoring. You didn't think the rest of your article carried any weight, so you threw in a anti-Microsoft attack hoping that the polarized community of slashdot would see that and go "Ohhhh, he's insightful!" and mod you up.
There are many different issues that involve the term 'regulation', and the decision as to whether it is a good idea or not is going to depend on the specific issue.
Is it a good idea to regulate the distribution of child pornography on the internet? For this the answer is universally yes.
Is it a good idea to regulate the distribution of Mein Kampf? At least in the US it violates our 1st amendment, but in other countries it would be a violation to not regulate it.
It's a very complex issue, and just saying 'no regulation at all' won't get you far. I think this was one of Lessig's points last year.
When I first got into computing there was no GPL, there was no Shareware...
There was commercial software and there was public domain software. Commercial software was Microsoft BASIC, Infocom's Zork, Turbo Pascal. Public domain consisted of things such as Modem7, Hunt the Wumpus, etc.
You can't make public domain software disappear. Microsoft or Sun or any other "evil" corporation can't make the software vanish from the face of the earth by looking at it.
What they can do is take it, improve upon it, modify it, enhance it, and sell that new version.
They are not charging you for the original software, they are charging you solely for their enhancements.
God I am getting so sick of having to explain this point to mental midgets.
Remember the good old days when a magazine or newspaper would say something remotely negative about the Amiga? Or OS/2?
And how the zealots would flame them to death in a letter writing campaign.
It got to a point where journalists would either refuse to say anything about the products, or do it as a joke to see how much of a response they would get.
You can still buy cocaine in the United States, despite it being illegal.
But it's not easy. You have to go through some risks and effort to get it.
Of course the distributors of cocaine also face risks and effort and so they charge a lot for their product.
Now back to the music...
You will always be able to get copies of music.
But the RIAA is going to make it difficult for you to do so, at least on the internet.
Unlike Cocaine, the RIAA wins by making it difficult for you to do so because they can drive up the costs and risks of the "free" music such that it becomes anti competitive with the CD's that you can buy in any store on any street corner in any city of the US.
I've come to find people who use the term FUD are usually just stupid.:(
If your goal in life is to get music for free without compensating the content creators... in other words being leeches upon society. Then Napster is who you should support.
If your goal is to fight the chokehold that the RIAA has on copyright law as it applies to say things like DMCA, copyright extensions, etc. then you should be lobbying Congress.
If your goal is to fight the unfairness of RIAA contracts with music creators in terms of sharing profits fairly, control of copyrights, etc. Then you should be lobbying Congress on behalf of artists.
If your goal is to try to create a new grassroots music distribution system where new artists can distribute their content with low startup costs and no commitments. Then maybe you should have been supporting mp3.com.
I'm having a hard time buying these arguments of community and public good on behalf of Napster. All I see is parasites and leeches.
Yes a large number of sites have been defaced in the past couple of months do the the worms on Linux and Solaris.
Honestly I think this discussion is rather pointless in this forum. We're not talking about the quality of software, but rather sociological issues. The typical/. geek seems to be incapable of understanding such issues.
The point I made was that the higher percentage of SSL enabled IIS sites provided a much more attractive attack target.
Calling the point irrelevant has no bearing on the discussion. It may be irrelevant to you but that is only because you are either incapable or unwilling to understand the point.
Well of course you choose the statistics to fit the argument.
My point was essentionally, what offers a juicier target to most hackers? Little known "Hi my name is Joe" sites, or various commercial ops?
As such in the grand scheme of things, there are far more IIS websites running commercial ops than there are Apache, so it makes since they would be a more likely target.
It all depends on so many factors. I also suspect the script kiddies tend to be more familiar with Windows.
Re:the rant that CmdrTaco mentioned ....
on
Themes.org Cracked
·
· Score: 1
I wonder if there is any way to confirm what this guy is claiming?
Did he seriously have full access to these systems for the past 5 months?
Well I'm not sure what you mean by small percentage.
Microsoft has around 50% of the commercial web server space according to the Netcraft SSL survey. That's a fairly large chunk considering the next competitor is Apache with 30%.
Apache is certainly used for a lot of hosted web sites... you know the routine "Hi my name is Joe and this is my website!"
Now one could probably argue that it's easier to knock off the small websites. After all they probably aren't maintained frequently.
But on the other hand, they also aren't accessed frequently so who would notice?
Much more fun to hit the high profile sites. Especially if there are some juicy credit card numbers to be had because of poor site design.
Slashdot Mirror
"expected lackluster uptake of XP"
Would this be anything like the expected lackluster uptake of Win95 or Win98 which completely dominated after being released?
There is no expected lackluster uptake of Windows XP. The expectation is everyone will upgrade to it.
You are confusing Office XP with Windows XP. The two are not the same product.
As I pointed out numerous posts ago, financial motivation is only one small part of it.
The primary goal to defacements is to have it noticed. Clearly "Hi my name is Bob" website which is likely unvisited and unmaintained is not going to get much notice.
Defacing a commercial website which obtains many hits does get noticed. The vast majority of these use SSL.
In the past several months there have been a number of worms in the Linux and Solaris worlds which have gone through and defaced probably thousands of websites. Now in these cases, the worm is non-discrimanatory and attacks whatever it finds is open. In this situation, your understanding is correct.
As far as implying your stupid, I have no need to do that. You keep responding.
The quote from Microsoft... "You can't hand out free software here." was not referring to Free Software.
It could have been Oracle handing out copies of Oracle 8i and the quote would have still be applicable. The issue was that they didn't have a permit to hand out stuff in that location.
Microsoft at their Office XP demo was handing out thousands of boxes of free software. I have a copy of Mappoint 2002 from the event in Minneapolis. I also have trial versions of Sharepoint, Visio, etc.
They've given stuff aware for free in the past, and they will in the future. That's actually the reason most of us go to these Microsoft shows.
I think it's interesting that all the attention has gone to Microsoft's renting model. Especially considering it's a non-issue. You talk to the large companies and you'll find out they already do this with their Enterprise licensing.
No the most interesting issue, which is being ignored, is the regular pricing of Office XP. I think it's priced slightly higher to begin with.
But most importantly is read what is required to be eligible for an Upgrade.
An existing license to Office 97 or Office 2000.
Yep, that's right... No more competitive upgrades, no more upgrades for older product. It used to be if you owned WordPerfect or QuattroPro or Wordstar even you could upgrade to Microsoft Office.
Not any more. You can't even upgrade if you own Office 95.
That's the real story here, folks. Not this stupid renting crap that will never affect most people.
Don't know about this show...
But at the Office XP demo in Minneapolis Microsoft gave away several thousand NFR copies of Mappoint 2002 as well as trial CD's for Sharepoint Portal Server, Visio, etc.
Actually that's one of the more insightful posts I've seen on slashdot in a long time.
But I think what was most interesting was the Microsoft comment at the bottom. This must be some sort of proof by example.
One could also call it karma whoring. You didn't think the rest of your article carried any weight, so you threw in a anti-Microsoft attack hoping that the polarized community of slashdot would see that and go "Ohhhh, he's insightful!" and mod you up.
There are many different issues that involve the term 'regulation', and the decision as to whether it is a good idea or not is going to depend on the specific issue.
Is it a good idea to regulate the distribution of child pornography on the internet? For this the answer is universally yes.
Is it a good idea to regulate the distribution of Mein Kampf? At least in the US it violates our 1st amendment, but in other countries it would be a violation to not regulate it.
It's a very complex issue, and just saying 'no regulation at all' won't get you far. I think this was one of Lessig's points last year.
"Do you believe that Microsoft, et all, have some RIGHT to code that they had no part in writing? "
If it was funded by tax payer dollars...
The answer is YES.
This is what Ballmer said in the article we're discussing.
When I first got into computing there was no GPL, there was no Shareware...
There was commercial software and there was public domain software. Commercial software was Microsoft BASIC, Infocom's Zork, Turbo Pascal. Public domain consisted of things such as Modem7, Hunt the Wumpus, etc.
You can't make public domain software disappear. Microsoft or Sun or any other "evil" corporation can't make the software vanish from the face of the earth by looking at it.
What they can do is take it, improve upon it, modify it, enhance it, and sell that new version.
They are not charging you for the original software, they are charging you solely for their enhancements.
God I am getting so sick of having to explain this point to mental midgets.
Remember the good old days when a magazine or newspaper would say something remotely negative about the Amiga? Or OS/2?
And how the zealots would flame them to death in a letter writing campaign.
It got to a point where journalists would either refuse to say anything about the products, or do it as a joke to see how much of a response they would get.
Hmm, seems to me that if you have both Windows 2000 and Linux crashing on your box... you may just have a hardware problem.
I don't think you quite understand the point.
:(
You can still buy cocaine in the United States, despite it being illegal.
But it's not easy. You have to go through some risks and effort to get it.
Of course the distributors of cocaine also face risks and effort and so they charge a lot for their product.
Now back to the music...
You will always be able to get copies of music.
But the RIAA is going to make it difficult for you to do so, at least on the internet.
Unlike Cocaine, the RIAA wins by making it difficult for you to do so because they can drive up the costs and risks of the "free" music such that it becomes anti competitive with the CD's that you can buy in any store on any street corner in any city of the US.
I've come to find people who use the term FUD are usually just stupid.
How have you been censored?
By not being able to copy the latest Britany Spears song from some guy in Vermont?
This is censorship?
Since when? you didn't create the song, you don't own the rights to the song.
It's amazing how bloody stupid people can be these days.
Well we live in a universe of scarcity of resources, so your arguments are only theoretical.
If you are giving away music which you didn't create yourself or have distribution rights for... it's called piracy or theft.
Ok, what war are you trying to win?
If your goal in life is to get music for free without compensating the content creators... in other words being leeches upon society. Then Napster is who you should support.
If your goal is to fight the chokehold that the RIAA has on copyright law as it applies to say things like DMCA, copyright extensions, etc. then you should be lobbying Congress.
If your goal is to fight the unfairness of RIAA contracts with music creators in terms of sharing profits fairly, control of copyrights, etc. Then you should be lobbying Congress on behalf of artists.
If your goal is to try to create a new grassroots music distribution system where new artists can distribute their content with low startup costs and no commitments. Then maybe you should have been supporting mp3.com.
I'm having a hard time buying these arguments of community and public good on behalf of Napster. All I see is parasites and leeches.
Your positive of that?
None of the other reasons described in the web page apply?
If you want, I can verify on my Solaris box.
Yes a large number of sites have been defaced in the past couple of months do the the worms on Linux and Solaris.
/. geek seems to be incapable of understanding such issues.
Honestly I think this discussion is rather pointless in this forum. We're not talking about the quality of software, but rather sociological issues. The typical
The point I made was that the higher percentage of SSL enabled IIS sites provided a much more attractive attack target.
Calling the point irrelevant has no bearing on the discussion. It may be irrelevant to you but that is only because you are either incapable or unwilling to understand the point.
You don't think Microsoft performs offsite backups?
Yes it is interesting...
Notice how I said SSL survey?
You missed that part, didn't you?
Well of course you choose the statistics to fit the argument.
My point was essentionally, what offers a juicier target to most hackers? Little known "Hi my name is Joe" sites, or various commercial ops?
As such in the grand scheme of things, there are far more IIS websites running commercial ops than there are Apache, so it makes since they would be a more likely target.
It all depends on so many factors. I also suspect the script kiddies tend to be more familiar with Windows.
I wonder if there is any way to confirm what this guy is claiming?
Did he seriously have full access to these systems for the past 5 months?
I doubt Microsoft even cares...
But on a positive note, at least it will keep the Linux zealots quiet for a week or two about how superior they think Open Source is.
Well I'm not sure what you mean by small percentage.
Microsoft has around 50% of the commercial web server space according to the Netcraft SSL survey. That's a fairly large chunk considering the next competitor is Apache with 30%.
Apache is certainly used for a lot of hosted web sites... you know the routine "Hi my name is Joe and this is my website!"
Now one could probably argue that it's easier to knock off the small websites. After all they probably aren't maintained frequently.
But on the other hand, they also aren't accessed frequently so who would notice?
Much more fun to hit the high profile sites. Especially if there are some juicy credit card numbers to be had because of poor site design.