... if virus authors are confident enough to use it as a mean to eradicate competition! This guy put enough faith in this AV to use it as defense on a compromised system. It kind of implicitly confess that, would the machine have been protected by Kaspersky, it couln't have been compromised.
Obligatory conspiracy theory: could it be a publicity stunt from Kaspersky themselves? Naaah, I'm certainly too paranoïd.
-- Arkan, who don't care anyway, as long as you can't patch DLL in-memory... on GNU/Linux
Would you have RTFineA, you'd have noted the following:
"A few months ago, Taylor became obsessed with tracking a rather unusual botnet consisting of computers running Mac OS X and Linux operating systems."
I bet that your plan for security through statistics isn't looking good.
The final and ultimate answer to bots, spyware and such is knowledgeable users. I've been called an extremist when advocating a few years ago for a mandatory licence to get the right to connect a home PC to Internet, and I still think that it should be implemented: given the pile of cash those frickin' viruses and worms cost us, it should no longer look like a stupid idea pretty soon.
Posting this from a powerbook 15", I'm a bit scared by the MacBook price I see on the different european site of Apple:
- Apple.com (US): starting US$1999
- France: starting 2699 (close to US$3250)
- Belgium: starting 2729 (that's more than US$3290!)
- UK/Ireland: 1429£ for UK so close to US$2520), and 2179 for Ireland (US$2630)
- Switzerland: 3699sFr (that US$4462,104!!!!)
WTF??? I mean, I'm french, so I'm definitly not going to purchase my MacBook on Switzerland, but come on: I'm not going to pay US$3000 for something that should cost 2000! Or is the european model comes with 18 carats case instead of the alu one?
Let me start by writing that I'm a player from the early hour: my account has been activated 2 days after the servers were put in operation - this delay being the consequence of my Frenchness.
I lived through all the changes you put on SWG, being the Combat Upgrade, the many balancing changes of the skill trees, the Jump to Lightspeed space extention, etc, etc...
What I'm currently wondering is how you would caracterize the NGE, considering the following facts:
- pre-NGE, the character you had on a server was free to be whatever the player wanted. The player could pick a little bit of everything, or choose THE one destiny for his character. Post-NGE, the "class" of the character will be fixed for the life of the character
- pre-NGE, and I'd even say pre-Combat Upgrade, the combat system was in line the RPG expectations of the players: a good slice of strategy, another good slice of knowledge of your character's strong points and weaknesses, a bit of luck and nice equipment. Post-NGE, it will be more like a good aiming, and a very, very low ping
- pre-NGE, crafting was something... crafty. An item could (and in the beginning of the tree, often did) failed to be crafted, and each and every item could be customized in a few specific attributes: fast or powerfull weapons, strong or long-lasting armors, etc... Post-NGE, only 4 trades are still available, with the aim of simplifying the game, I'm sure.
So, the MMO part of the game is definitly apropriate, but I doubt about the RPG part. The post-NGE Starwars Galaxies looks not completely unlike a themed Planetside (for the combat), with some chunks of World of Warcraft (for the classes).
Now, my question is: do you think that your current customers will be following you in this adventure, as it really looks like a dumbing-down of the game, making it more like the mainstream online games, and removing from it the parts that were making it unique?
Don't buy it. Show Sony that they're doing the wrong thing when suing right and left when people try to give them money. Tell them with the only thing they understand: money. Or the lack of, actually.
Is it just me, or are we again speaking about security through obscurity (albeit I have to admin that it's in a slightly different way, this time).
How long will it take for people involved in computers and networks security that "secret" has no virtually no meaning in the field?
A private key is the only exception I can see at the moment: it is kept secret because nobody has any use of it except its owner, a noone will ever need access to it.
But how long a "secret" early-warning network will remain so... when its primary function is to be contacted by the worms that try to evade it?
When they came and got some legislation to prevent any copy of copyrighted work, I didn't protest, 'cause after all I was buying my CDs.
When they came and pushed software patents in Europe, I didn't protest, 'cause I didn't care about patent as I'll never develop software by myself.
And when they came and took my job to India, I didn't protest, 'cause after all people in India have to feed their family too.
And now, would you want fries with that?
N.B.: I'm a fscking IT conslutant, the evilest race to roam this earth, and certainly one with the lawyers that will be taken last to India. But believe me: one day it will happen, as this trade, and more and more trades with it are only dealt with an eye on money, not on customer satisfaction.
One last thing: before doing some consulting by myself, I was an employee of a little company making software. The package was sold for around US$200,000, and my mere presence in the customer premises was billed a whole US$1,200 a day (which is my any mean quite cheap for an IT company). And my salary at the end of the month was a huge US$2000 excluding taxes! Now, I'm billing US$700 to my customers, and I get around US$6000 per month. The difference? The villa of my ex-boss.
The day we'll pay people for what they're worth, instead of trying to screw them at any cost, everything will be far better. -- Arkan
I won't repeat the advice already given about the level job you can aim at: it's pretty well covered by now by other posts.
As a engineer coming to his 6th year (I'm no longer fresh, then not really a "pro" neither) I can give you this advice: forget absolutly everything you have learned to date:
- you were not supposed to work with others, share or even reuse their work... now you _must-!
- you were working for an assignment, then moving to the next. Now you have to take responsability in your work. Always work as if you'll have to support the software you write or design for the next 10 years: it will be easier this way
- to date, ethics was at best a nice thought, at worst a boring class. Now, it's should be your way of life: work with proud, and be proud of your work. If you feel uneasy with what you're doing (like, oh, I don't know, maybe writing a quick hack when the customer has been promised a well thought solution?), then tell it to your supervisor, and if his answer doesn't please you, leave the job.
Or ignore all of this, and become a PHB.
Good luck anyhow, nice to see new face in the trade!
I had this problem too. I commented out the sockets options, and the performance problem disappeared. I did't took the time to fiddle around to determine what was the exact option that was causing the grief, but HTH.
The article author should have checked the relevant URL: http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/message.html
It says, black on white, that the company "(...)called JasperSoft (http://www.jaspersoft.com) has formed to invest in JasperReports(...)". "Has formed to invest in". Not "has bought the project". The project has spawned a company, that it.
Again, a wannabee journalist spinning some "news" on the basis that its brainwashed readers won't read the original announcement.
Could some please teach those guys how to read, and how to report unpartially?
I'd like to comment on this one: even though it indeed is a case of "cultural" incursion into politics, it should be taken with a grain of salt: just think about the whole french policy regarding Iraq: we (yeah, I'm one of those damn socialist frenchies) did, are doing, and surely will do everything possible to piss Bush and his followers. IMHO, this palme is just a way for the french artistic community to take part in the general boohooing of USA.
Not that USians had anything to do with the policy of their government (c.f. a few post above regarding the comment of Goering). Not that frenchies agree with their government either. Not that Iraquian had anything to do with Saddam, and will have anything to do with what's coming their way.
I'm pretty sure (and it's a notHO) that should people have a real voice in this mess, nobody would have been killed, murdered or raped. But it has been a long time since the People is not in charge anymore.
Just a few question for you Slashdot crowd:
- why computer industry has to cope with such incredible decisions such as choosing between producing something good, or producing something quickly?
- why computer industry has a so special place in our business world that practices that will be judged and punished as criminal (such as releasing a hazardous product, boast inexistent features, etc...) are so common that even Joe User doesn't care anymore?
- finally, shoudln't we IT workers (from code-monkeys to gurus) throw PHBs, bean-counters and marketroids through the 100th floor windows?
Maybe an beginning of the answer to the above question: other arts, craftmanships and industries have been around sometimes for centuries, and people working in this fields inherit the respect due to such ancient arts. But computer industries (both software and hardware) were born in an age dominated by money, where quality comes second to profit, and never had a chance to win the required respect to such critical appliances.
Just create a batch job to decode/reencode all your mp3s, and you're done. As for the "infection" of any executable, and provided that you're running Linux as standard user (you're not running as root, aren't you?), you're safe. And install, rtfm and USE something like tripwire, it always pays in the long run.
... some archives are "reinterpreted" so that Watergate never happened, first A-Bomb scientists never disagree with its use, and Bush never choked on a pretzel.
Welcome to 1984... well, actually 2003, but short term previsions are always optimistics.
Sorry to bother you, but ISO9000 is not by any mean a solution. It's a tool, even in some way a grant of repeatability, but it was, is, and will never be a way to make better code.
I know from experience that you can design complete shit, produce complete shit, and document complete shit, and claim it to be iso900x... and it's still complete shit.
If you really want to promote code reuse, then have people work together, give them some time to design a carefully thought base API, and maybe they'll be able to reuse it in the next program you want them to make.
You're right when writing that code reuse requires thought and documentation, but you can't give a direction, as you can't be sure what kind of problems your next program will have to solve.
Anyway, cost-wize, coding well is too expensive. Just recruit some monkeys, preferably an infinite amount, and put them at task. The only thing you need is a good sales and marketing team to sell the crap produced, and good accounting department to falsify numbers.
Slashdot Mirror
You should all have a look at this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
THIS is how it gonna end.
--
Arkan
... but it's another reason to use (really) open source software. No such thing whould happen with GPL/BSD/OSI...'ed code.
Time to join Haiku, I think...
--
Arkan
Can we please stop employing sub-par developers who only know of memory management as something the garbage collector deals with?
--
Arkan
... if virus authors are confident enough to use it as a mean to eradicate competition! This guy put enough faith in this AV to use it as defense on a compromised system. It kind of implicitly confess that, would the machine have been protected by Kaspersky, it couln't have been compromised.
Obligatory conspiracy theory: could it be a publicity stunt from Kaspersky themselves? Naaah, I'm certainly too paranoïd.
--
Arkan, who don't care anyway, as long as you can't patch DLL in-memory... on GNU/Linux
Would you have RTFineA, you'd have noted the following:
"A few months ago, Taylor became obsessed with tracking a rather unusual botnet consisting of computers running Mac OS X and Linux operating systems."
I bet that your plan for security through statistics isn't looking good.
The final and ultimate answer to bots, spyware and such is knowledgeable users. I've been called an extremist when advocating a few years ago for a mandatory licence to get the right to connect a home PC to Internet, and I still think that it should be implemented: given the pile of cash those frickin' viruses and worms cost us, it should no longer look like a stupid idea pretty soon.
--
Arkan
An update: now the price is down to 2149 for the entry MacBook, so around US$2600, and 2179 in Belgium. Germany is even cheaper at 2099.
In other news, it seems all the European governments dropped their social protection plan .
--
[Arkan]
Of course, you know that those computers will be mostly manufactured in China, whatever their final customer destination might be, right?
--
[Arkan]
Posting this from a powerbook 15", I'm a bit scared by the MacBook price I see on the different european site of Apple:
- Apple.com (US): starting US$1999
- France: starting 2699 (close to US$3250)
- Belgium: starting 2729 (that's more than US$3290!)
- UK/Ireland: 1429£ for UK so close to US$2520), and 2179 for Ireland (US$2630)
- Switzerland: 3699sFr (that US$4462,104!!!!)
WTF??? I mean, I'm french, so I'm definitly not going to purchase my MacBook on Switzerland, but come on: I'm not going to pay US$3000 for something that should cost 2000! Or is the european model comes with 18 carats case instead of the alu one?
--
[Arkan]
I see your "national security" for a "totalitarian government", and raises a "privacy protection". Take that!
--
Arkan, fed up of people ready to give away freedom for security
Seconded: given that MaxDB was formerly SapDB, formerly the SAP database module, they'd have much trouble explaining such a change of opinion...
Or is it again a case of CEO telling what business partners' CEOs want to hear, and underlings doing what's best for the company?
--
Arkan
Hi John,
Let me start by writing that I'm a player from the early hour: my account has been activated 2 days after the servers were put in operation - this delay being the consequence of my Frenchness.
I lived through all the changes you put on SWG, being the Combat Upgrade, the many balancing changes of the skill trees, the Jump to Lightspeed space extention, etc, etc...
What I'm currently wondering is how you would caracterize the NGE, considering the following facts:
- pre-NGE, the character you had on a server was free to be whatever the player wanted. The player could pick a little bit of everything, or choose THE one destiny for his character. Post-NGE, the "class" of the character will be fixed for the life of the character
- pre-NGE, and I'd even say pre-Combat Upgrade, the combat system was in line the RPG expectations of the players: a good slice of strategy, another good slice of knowledge of your character's strong points and weaknesses, a bit of luck and nice equipment. Post-NGE, it will be more like a good aiming, and a very, very low ping
- pre-NGE, crafting was something... crafty. An item could (and in the beginning of the tree, often did) failed to be crafted, and each and every item could be customized in a few specific attributes: fast or powerfull weapons, strong or long-lasting armors, etc... Post-NGE, only 4 trades are still available, with the aim of simplifying the game, I'm sure.
So, the MMO part of the game is definitly apropriate, but I doubt about the RPG part. The post-NGE Starwars Galaxies looks not completely unlike a themed Planetside (for the combat), with some chunks of World of Warcraft (for the classes).
Now, my question is: do you think that your current customers will be following you in this adventure, as it really looks like a dumbing-down of the game, making it more like the mainstream online games, and removing from it the parts that were making it unique?
Thanks,
Arkan
Don't buy it. Show Sony that they're doing the wrong thing when suing right and left when people try to give them money. Tell them with the only thing they understand: money. Or the lack of, actually.
--
Arkan
Is it just me, or are we again speaking about security through obscurity (albeit I have to admin that it's in a slightly different way, this time).
How long will it take for people involved in computers and networks security that "secret" has no virtually no meaning in the field?
A private key is the only exception I can see at the moment: it is kept secret because nobody has any use of it except its owner, a noone will ever need access to it.
But how long a "secret" early-warning network will remain so... when its primary function is to be contacted by the worms that try to evade it?
--
Arkan
When they came and got some legislation to prevent any copy of copyrighted work, I didn't protest, 'cause after all I was buying my CDs.
When they came and pushed software patents in Europe, I didn't protest, 'cause I didn't care about patent as I'll never develop software by myself.
And when they came and took my job to India, I didn't protest, 'cause after all people in India have to feed their family too.
And now, would you want fries with that?
N.B.: I'm a fscking IT conslutant, the evilest race to roam this earth, and certainly one with the lawyers that will be taken last to India. But believe me: one day it will happen, as this trade, and more and more trades with it are only dealt with an eye on money, not on customer satisfaction.
One last thing: before doing some consulting by myself, I was an employee of a little company making software. The package was sold for around US$200,000, and my mere presence in the customer premises was billed a whole US$1,200 a day (which is my any mean quite cheap for an IT company). And my salary at the end of the month was a huge US$2000 excluding taxes!
Now, I'm billing US$700 to my customers, and I get around US$6000 per month.
The difference? The villa of my ex-boss.
The day we'll pay people for what they're worth, instead of trying to screw them at any cost, everything will be far better.
--
Arkan
I won't repeat the advice already given about the level job you can aim at: it's pretty well covered by now by other posts.
As a engineer coming to his 6th year (I'm no longer fresh, then not really a "pro" neither) I can give you this advice: forget absolutly everything you have learned to date:
- you were not supposed to work with others, share or even reuse their work... now you _must-!
- you were working for an assignment, then moving to the next. Now you have to take responsability in your work. Always work as if you'll have to support the software you write or design for the next 10 years: it will be easier this way
- to date, ethics was at best a nice thought, at worst a boring class. Now, it's should be your way of life: work with proud, and be proud of your work. If you feel uneasy with what you're doing (like, oh, I don't know, maybe writing a quick hack when the customer has been promised a well thought solution?), then tell it to your supervisor, and if his answer doesn't please you, leave the job.
Or ignore all of this, and become a PHB.
Good luck anyhow, nice to see new face in the trade!
--
Arkan
I had this problem too. I commented out the sockets options, and the performance problem disappeared. I did't took the time to fiddle around to determine what was the exact option that was causing the grief, but HTH.
Cheers,
--
Arkan
The article author should have checked the relevant URL: http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/message.html
It says, black on white, that the company "(...)called JasperSoft (http://www.jaspersoft.com) has formed to invest in JasperReports(...)". "Has formed to invest in". Not "has bought the project". The project has spawned a company, that it.
Again, a wannabee journalist spinning some "news" on the basis that its brainwashed readers won't read the original announcement.
Could some please teach those guys how to read, and how to report unpartially?
--
Arkan
I'd like to comment on this one: even though it indeed is a case of "cultural" incursion into politics, it should be taken with a grain of salt: just think about the whole french policy regarding Iraq: we (yeah, I'm one of those damn socialist frenchies) did, are doing, and surely will do everything possible to piss Bush and his followers. IMHO, this palme is just a way for the french artistic community to take part in the general boohooing of USA.
Not that USians had anything to do with the policy of their government (c.f. a few post above regarding the comment of Goering). Not that frenchies agree with their government either. Not that Iraquian had anything to do with Saddam, and will have anything to do with what's coming their way.
I'm pretty sure (and it's a notHO) that should people have a real voice in this mess, nobody would have been killed, murdered or raped. But it has been a long time since the People is not in charge anymore.
--
Arkan
"... and socialism is not distribution at all, 'cause everybody's on strike"
Me
--
Arkan
I'm french, yay, I know.
Just a few question for you Slashdot crowd:
- why computer industry has to cope with such incredible decisions such as choosing between producing something good, or producing something quickly?
- why computer industry has a so special place in our business world that practices that will be judged and punished as criminal (such as releasing a hazardous product, boast inexistent features, etc...) are so common that even Joe User doesn't care anymore?
- finally, shoudln't we IT workers (from code-monkeys to gurus) throw PHBs, bean-counters and marketroids through the 100th floor windows?
Maybe an beginning of the answer to the above question: other arts, craftmanships and industries have been around sometimes for centuries, and people working in this fields inherit the respect due to such ancient arts. But computer industries (both software and hardware) were born in an age dominated by money, where quality comes second to profit, and never had a chance to win the required respect to such critical appliances.
--
Arkan
Just create a batch job to decode/reencode all your mp3s, and you're done. As for the "infection" of any executable, and provided that you're running Linux as standard user (you're not running as root, aren't you?), you're safe.
And install, rtfm and USE something like tripwire, it always pays in the long run.
--
Arkan
French for this is babyfoot. Don't ask.
--
Arkan
... some archives are "reinterpreted" so that Watergate never happened, first A-Bomb scientists never disagree with its use, and Bush never choked on a pretzel.
Welcome to 1984... well, actually 2003, but short term previsions are always optimistics.
--
Arkan
Sorry to bother you, but ISO9000 is not by any mean a solution. It's a tool, even in some way a grant of repeatability, but it was, is, and will never be a way to make better code.
I know from experience that you can design complete shit, produce complete shit, and document complete shit, and claim it to be iso900x... and it's still complete shit.
If you really want to promote code reuse, then have people work together, give them some time to design a carefully thought base API, and maybe they'll be able to reuse it in the next program you want them to make.
You're right when writing that code reuse requires thought and documentation, but you can't give a direction, as you can't be sure what kind of problems your next program will have to solve.
Anyway, cost-wize, coding well is too expensive. Just recruit some monkeys, preferably an infinite amount, and put them at task. The only thing you need is a good sales and marketing team to sell the crap produced, and good accounting department to falsify numbers.
--
Arkan
... for a ridiculous fee of just 9.99$, we'll let you camcord you're very own wife/gf/SO near this highly touristic monument*...
And if you make it 14.99$, you may add one of your childs*.
*: this service is provided as is, you may find that your tape has been erased by a gigantic magnet at the exit. Thanks, have a nice day.
--
Arkan