Zero return. Kind of like zero payments and zero percent interest on purchases, cash advances, and balance transfers through 3010. Uh, from Microsoft's point of view, that is.
I wonder if there is any correlation between Zero Return on Investment (ZROI), an innovative new marketing strategy by Microsoft, and the undisputed fact (according to Microsoft advertisements) that said ZROI is, in fact, less expensive, in terms of Total Cost of Ownership (er, Licenseship), than sofware from that competing multinational multiconglomerate semi-government quasi-empire organization that makes that GNU:\>Linux thing, or whatever it's called.
On the other hand, there probably isn't any correlation. It's just a coincidence that Microsoft is so incredibly innovative.
I think they should make a device (and pass a worldwide law requiring this) that gets implanted into each person's eyes and ears upon birth. This device would transmit full length video with stereo sound to Microsoft headquarters, where it would be compressed and saved in enormous data centers. Therein, enormous computers would analyze the information for anything suspicious. If any such thing is found, no matter how small, whether it be saying a bad word, or performing mass murder, or anything in between, it will be considered an automatic conviction. All of your property would be seized immediately, and you would be put on death row.
I think this is the most innovative way to implement true Digital Rights Management. Of course, Microsoft would have a patent on this innovative technology.
Sounds like an ant invasion rather than a h4x0r.
on
Security Warrior
·
· Score: 1
Close the doors and they come in the windows. Bar the windows and they slip through some cracks in the foundation. Seal those up and the find another way in through the door.
Sounds like you need to buy a can of RAID and spray it all over the place. Also, Home Depot sells those ant baits that are supposed to kill off the entire colony (the ants take the poison to their nest and kill all their relatives, including the queen). Other than that, I'd say get a professional pest control company to take care of it.
From the article: As a result of this newest court order, SCO now has another 45 days, or until April 17, to produce the disputed lines of code and explain them clearly to the court.
This is, of course, after they disobeyed the court's previous order to produce the code within 30 days. I'd almost be willing to bet a million bucks that when April 17 comes around, they'll motion for an extension, and repeat it upon termination of that extension, essentially putting off production of the evidence forever. (But I don't have a million bucks.)
In other news, Microsoft today announced their new flagship operating system, Microsoft Mozilla XP.
"We are excited to use Mozilla as our new operating system," exclaimed Steve Ballmer, jumping around like a monkey. "The recent inclusion of web browser functionality in Mozilla makes it the perfect operating system for modern users."
Or, shall we say, Emacs is a great operating system, it just lacks a decent editor.
They also have said that these first two lawsuits will be against companies that hold SCO Unix licenses.
It must be a new trend for companies to sue their customers. Perhaps in fifty years, someone will look at this from an historical point of view...
The organization which invented the strategy of suing its own customers was the RIAA. Some time later, SCO began to sue its customers. This innovative business strategy grew increasingly popular through the first decade of the 2000's. Today, nearly all organizations sue their customers, and increasingly, customers demand to be sued upon completion of each transaction. Photograph 1.9 shows customers swiping their "So Sue Me!" cards at the checkstand of their local grocery store.
By 2015, the volume of lawsuits climbed to hundreds of millions occuring every hour. To handle this load efficiently, the U.S. government shut down court houses, where cases were tried before a human judge, and the plaintiff and defendant had to make an appearance, either personally or through a human attorney, in a physical courthouse. Cases could take days, weeks, or many months to resolve, depending on their complexity. Today, lawsuits are carried out by computer, where software programs carry out the legal motions of each party, and the results are decided automatically by a computer program. Photograph 1.10 shows a government data center. At this center, cases which could have taken weeks under the old system are opened and closed within a few microseconds.
Payment of damages has also become convenient with the advancement of technology. Before, the winning party of a lawsuit had to expend additional time and effort in enforcing a judgment. Today, however, damages are automatically debited to the losing party's bank account upon completion of the trial. If the defendant is unable to pay, all property owned by that defendant is immediately seized by the government. Computer programs automatically lock defendants out of their cars, houses, or other properties they may own. All of this occurs quickly and conveniently, without the intervention of either plaintiff or defendant.
Microsoft. Where do you want to go today?
All properties are the property of their respective owners.
The above document is an excerpt from a book not yet published, brought to you compliments of time travel.
SCO OpenServer support updates. XFree86 4.4 now works on Release 5.0.7 with Maintenance Pack 1, or on prior releases through Release 5.0.4. Please consult the README.SCO file for details.
Why in the "F" word are people putting time and effort into supporting SCO rubbish?!?! The entire world should do everything it can to make its products INCOMPATIBLE with their stuff. Let every IT department in the world know that they should dump whatever SCO stuff they have in favor of other products, or they'll end up with outdated and incompatible stuff!
I thought this article was informative, though a bit heavy on the interviews... One or two people would have been sufficient, but I think they interviewed about five.
Other than that, this was a bit of nostalgia from the good ol' days. I really think the companies that produced adventure games back in the day should re-release them on an archive CD of sorts. I'd pay fifty bucks for that! (Of course, I say the same about the original Mission Impossible series, the original Star Trek series, and a lot of other things...)
Microsoft today announced a new version of their operating system slated for release in six years. Dubbed, "Windows XP Revolutions," the pervasive theme throughout the operating system is peace with Hackers, Crackers, Spammers, and other malicious users.
The terms of the peace agreement are as follows:
1. Windows will ship with everything set up for no security whatsoever. All security features will be permanently removed from the operating system so that it cannot be configured any other way. Any user can access all of your files through the Internet without any authorization or authentication of any kind.
2. Hackers, Crackers, Spammers, and other malicious users promise not to use this for evil purposes. If they do, Microsoft disclaims any responsibilities for damage or loss, even if Microsoft or its agents were informed of the possibility of such loss.
Yes... I think XP Revolutions will be the best OS yet!
This gives me an idea how to ultimately destroy the market for spam mails, thus eliminating this problem completely.
They should make up a device that can fill an entire house or business with ANY smell within a few microseconds of receiving the appropriate signals. The LAW would require the presence and activation of these devices in ALL devices that can accept email messages. The LAW would also require that all spam mails include putrid, disgusting, nasty, gross, reeking odors. These devices would be programmed to emit EXTREME amounts of these odors for a time greater than 1 hour for each spam mail. I think this will be the best spam fighting technique.
Next, they should route sewage pipes over the heads of all computer users, with spam-activated valves that dump SHIT on peoples' heads whenever they receive a spam message.
Furthermore, filtering software should be made illegal, as should legitimate uses of email.
Ultimately, these innovative new technologies will get people to use their computers less and get out more often, thus reducing their reliance on email, thus reducing the market for spam mail, thus killing off this industry altogether.
And then, people who DESERVE to use computers (i.e., people who don't pass all kinds of stupid laws that restrict how computers can be used; people who don't download shit, slowing down the whole internet; people who don't send spam; etc.) could do so without interference from all these assholes.
Hmmm... This sounds a lot like what we feared the Russians were gonna do back in the cold war or space race or whatever.
You know, I think that instead of having a space race with the Russians, we should have talked to them and tried to understand their feelings, and then they would have gone away and everyone would live happily ever after. We should do the same thing with terrorism in the middle east--talk to them and understand their feelings. That will make the whole world peaceful. Of course, that's what Sarah Conner should have done with the cyberborg from the future in The Terminator. Remember how Reese was saying that it has no feelings and no remorse, and that it won't stop, ever, until she's dead? Well, I don't believe that. I'm sure that they could have gone to a diner together, talked to each other, and understood each others' feelings... Because violence is NEVER the answer, even if it's against an enemy that WILL kill you and will NOT back down, no matter what.
I think it is wonderful that people are given a few hours of lecture and a certification for some obscure software system. This indeed leads to some fabulous jobs, earning over $300,000 a year starting salary. This is because RESULTS DO NOT MATTER. What matters is that you show up to work on time and work for eight hours. It doesn't matter if you get anything done. It doesn't matter if the company meets its obligations. The important thing is that you have a certificate and you are there on time. Because businesses like to pay people for work, not for results. No business wants results.
And that is exactly why these schools are as successful as they are.
I think this is a splendid idea! But here's an even better one: The "rolling retest" feature should only activate when the driver is trying to concentrate on changing lanes, or making an emergency maneuver to avoid an accident, or some other situation in which a retest would be really dangerous. Upon activation of the rolling retest, the steering wheel would suddenly veer in some random direction while the throttle is opened all the way and the pedals and shifter are disabled and do not function. Also, explosives mounted under the car, as used in filming automotive stunts, would cause the car to flip over, especially if the driver was NOT drunk and had never, ever driven drunk. Yeah. That would make driving safer for everyone.
Email postage is a great idea! I think the rate should be set at 10 times whatever the snailmail postage happens to be, plus 10%.
To make sure that this actually accomplishes what it's meant to accomplish, spammers could file a form 10498-B with Microsoft. This would waive the spammer's postage fees, and instead cause the recipient to be billed for the incoming spam at a rate equal to twice the one in the first paragraph of this post. And all payments would go directly into Bill Gates' personal bank account.
The EU needs money and figures that taking 0.000000001% of the pocket change of Bill Gates that he uses for tipping at bars will help their situation. They figure it takes $$$ out of the United States (which, ironically, is called the EU in Spanish). So they kill two birds with one rock.
As much as I hate Microsoft's business practices, and as much as I dislike their fine defective software products, I think this is EU bullshit to get quick 'n' easy cash.
Bill Gates is very polite, I think the EU should give Microsoft a break and instead charge all kinds of outrageous taxes on their own people. Then we'll see how you Europeans feel.
Intel today announced its new 1024-hexabit microprocessor architecture technology. Named the Quantium, Intel's new processor core boasts powerful new technologies which will enable governments to better manage the rights (or lack thereof) of their subjects.
The Quantium has the following new features:
Intel (r) LightSpeed (tm) technology breaks the processing pipeline into 299,792,458 discreet steps. As there is no internal clock within the processor, all operations occur at the speed of light. Hence, one "cycle" represents the absolute cosmic measure unit of time and all operations occur in one cycle. While this will not increase the processor's performance--indeed, it will pale in comparison to that of the ancient 80286 processor of old folklore--the faster internal clock speed is expected to increase Intel's sales by 0.000001% within 180 quarters.
Intel (r) SingleAtom (tm) technology squeezes the entire processor into a single atom by modifying the universe at the M-theory level. Individual strings compose modified quarks and other subatomic structures, which combine to form a very heavy atom, one with approximately the same weight as 1 million protons. As the matter is extremely dense, the radioactive decay, combined with the gravity generated by itself causes the configuration of the subatomic particles to remain bonded at the subatomic level while realigning a nearly infinite number of times every second. This realignment constitutes the execution of instructions within the SingleAtom (tm) processor.
893,378,665,113 new operations have been added since the previous model, bringing the new total to over 18 googleplexes of instructions. All SCO intellectual property can be programmed in a single instruction, increasing SCO revenues. Corporations will have to pay $799 per processor instruction executed, or face serious legal action.
RAM has been depreciated. 4 billion exabytes of internal general-use registers allow software to make more efficient data access, providing a more compelling Internet experience over a 28k modem connection.
GPL Coder, a private individual, sues GPL Violator, a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation, for the theft of one hundred billion lines of code. No evidence of any kind will be presented, but we're telling the truth about the wrongdoing. Honest!
I'm glad a lot of new space exploration will take place. This will help all of humanity.
However, I don't understand why only a few measly billions are being devoted to this. I think the budget should be more like, say, a trillion dollars a year for space stations, ten trillion dollars a year for the moon, and a hundred trillion dollars a year for Mars, and a quadrillion dollars a year to send manned missions to Pluto. All they have to do is cancel all the stupid government programs, like the health care bullshit, who cares about that anyway, and divert the money to space.
SCO wants to dismantle the entire Internet and everything else in the technology industry.
Hey, a mechanical Internet run by gears, pulleys, belts, chains, and cams, powered by one huge central steam engine in the mountains of New Mexico, would be better for the world anyway.
There are still many people out there who think the moon landings never occurred, and were only staged to fool the Russians. (I happen to know one of these people, by the way.)
Following the same theory, in which I don't believe, you would come to the conclusion that the Mars landings never took place, and were staged for some reason or another.
For example, you mean to tell me that since the last space shuttle crash, which was only a year ago, they had time to modify their Mars lander design to include that "In Memoriam" placard that's on there? They would have had to do it almost immediately after the crash because it takes time to get to Mars. A long time.
Hmmmmmm. Maybe there is a conspiracy theory. Nasa should have been good enough to make the color dials stay the same while the rest of the photo is altered... but I guess you can't think of everything.
Why would such a fake be done? To make other countries fear the U.S.'s technology? To jack billions of bucks from the taxpayers and funnel it into all sorts of secret government programs? I don't know.
Would OSS have to be [written] entirely by licensed developers to be considered secure?
As the past owner of two different businesses and the present manager of a mid size company, I can confidently say that the answer is no.
This is very simple. Over the years, I have hired a wide range of different people to work as programmers. I had everything from masters degree programmers with 20 years experience to kids out of school who do it as a hobby. In all cases, what determined the success or failure of the project was not the qualifications of the programmer. I had masters degree programmers write such gibberish that multi-hundred-thousand dollar projects were cancelled. I had masters degree programmers who did a marvelous job. I had some kids code up another product that worked so beautifully that it only made the company money. I also had kids who did a crappy job and the project failed. In other words, success or failure is determined by results, and nothing else.
Returning to the above question, software is considered secure if it is tested for vulnerabilities and is found to be strong against attempts to break in. If the programmer has a Ph.D., that's all nice and pretty, but it means exactly Jack Schitt. The results are the only thing that matter.
Therefore, I think this committee should not waste its time with issues like licensing, because that will only create more bureaucracy, more fees, and entire administrative efforts... and it provides no guarantees of success. They should figure out a way to measure the reliability of a piece of software (reliability is the parent category of security, because an insecurity reduces reliability). They should make up some guidelines for how mission critical systems should be judged and tested. Perhaps they should recommend that the government should hire its own crackers to constantly look for and help fix vulnerabilities. Because security isn't a one-time thing. "Let's license programmers and the problems will go away." It doesn't work like that. Like everything else related to management, in security, the only constant is change.
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I wonder if there is any correlation between Zero Return on Investment (ZROI), an innovative new marketing strategy by Microsoft, and the undisputed fact (according to Microsoft advertisements) that said ZROI is, in fact, less expensive, in terms of Total Cost of Ownership (er, Licenseship), than sofware from that competing multinational multiconglomerate semi-government quasi-empire organization that makes that GNU:\>Linux thing, or whatever it's called.
On the other hand, there probably isn't any correlation. It's just a coincidence that Microsoft is so incredibly innovative.
Get some hot chick to do some stuff inappropriate for discussion in this forum with him. That'll fix him real quick.
I think this is the most innovative way to implement true Digital Rights Management. Of course, Microsoft would have a patent on this innovative technology.
Sounds like you need to buy a can of RAID and spray it all over the place. Also, Home Depot sells those ant baits that are supposed to kill off the entire colony (the ants take the poison to their nest and kill all their relatives, including the queen). Other than that, I'd say get a professional pest control company to take care of it.
Ah, the joys of ant invasions.
This is, of course, after they disobeyed the court's previous order to produce the code within 30 days. I'd almost be willing to bet a million bucks that when April 17 comes around, they'll motion for an extension, and repeat it upon termination of that extension, essentially putting off production of the evidence forever. (But I don't have a million bucks.)
"We are excited to use Mozilla as our new operating system," exclaimed Steve Ballmer, jumping around like a monkey. "The recent inclusion of web browser functionality in Mozilla makes it the perfect operating system for modern users."
Or, shall we say, Emacs is a great operating system, it just lacks a decent editor.
It must be a new trend for companies to sue their customers. Perhaps in fifty years, someone will look at this from an historical point of view...
The above document is an excerpt from a book not yet published, brought to you compliments of time travel.Why in the "F" word are people putting time and effort into supporting SCO rubbish?!?! The entire world should do everything it can to make its products INCOMPATIBLE with their stuff. Let every IT department in the world know that they should dump whatever SCO stuff they have in favor of other products, or they'll end up with outdated and incompatible stuff!
That reminds me of the old joke back in the Navy... I think it went: There are more airplanes in the oceans than submarines in the sky.
I guess that's no longer true. :-)
Other than that, this was a bit of nostalgia from the good ol' days. I really think the companies that produced adventure games back in the day should re-release them on an archive CD of sorts. I'd pay fifty bucks for that! (Of course, I say the same about the original Mission Impossible series, the original Star Trek series, and a lot of other things...)
The terms of the peace agreement are as follows:
1. Windows will ship with everything set up for no security whatsoever. All security features will be permanently removed from the operating system so that it cannot be configured any other way. Any user can access all of your files through the Internet without any authorization or authentication of any kind.
2. Hackers, Crackers, Spammers, and other malicious users promise not to use this for evil purposes. If they do, Microsoft disclaims any responsibilities for damage or loss, even if Microsoft or its agents were informed of the possibility of such loss.
Yes... I think XP Revolutions will be the best OS yet!
They should make up a device that can fill an entire house or business with ANY smell within a few microseconds of receiving the appropriate signals. The LAW would require the presence and activation of these devices in ALL devices that can accept email messages. The LAW would also require that all spam mails include putrid, disgusting, nasty, gross, reeking odors. These devices would be programmed to emit EXTREME amounts of these odors for a time greater than 1 hour for each spam mail. I think this will be the best spam fighting technique.
Next, they should route sewage pipes over the heads of all computer users, with spam-activated valves that dump SHIT on peoples' heads whenever they receive a spam message.
Furthermore, filtering software should be made illegal, as should legitimate uses of email.
Ultimately, these innovative new technologies will get people to use their computers less and get out more often, thus reducing their reliance on email, thus reducing the market for spam mail, thus killing off this industry altogether.
And then, people who DESERVE to use computers (i.e., people who don't pass all kinds of stupid laws that restrict how computers can be used; people who don't download shit, slowing down the whole internet; people who don't send spam; etc.) could do so without interference from all these assholes.
You know, I think that instead of having a space race with the Russians, we should have talked to them and tried to understand their feelings, and then they would have gone away and everyone would live happily ever after. We should do the same thing with terrorism in the middle east--talk to them and understand their feelings. That will make the whole world peaceful. Of course, that's what Sarah Conner should have done with the cyberborg from the future in The Terminator. Remember how Reese was saying that it has no feelings and no remorse, and that it won't stop, ever, until she's dead? Well, I don't believe that. I'm sure that they could have gone to a diner together, talked to each other, and understood each others' feelings... Because violence is NEVER the answer, even if it's against an enemy that WILL kill you and will NOT back down, no matter what.
Stupid liberals.
And that is exactly why these schools are as successful as they are.
Or, is today opposite day?
I think this is a splendid idea! But here's an even better one: The "rolling retest" feature should only activate when the driver is trying to concentrate on changing lanes, or making an emergency maneuver to avoid an accident, or some other situation in which a retest would be really dangerous. Upon activation of the rolling retest, the steering wheel would suddenly veer in some random direction while the throttle is opened all the way and the pedals and shifter are disabled and do not function. Also, explosives mounted under the car, as used in filming automotive stunts, would cause the car to flip over, especially if the driver was NOT drunk and had never, ever driven drunk. Yeah. That would make driving safer for everyone.
That's, what, 25 million per year? I'd work my ass off for four years if it meant I'd get 100 million afterwards.
To make sure that this actually accomplishes what it's meant to accomplish, spammers could file a form 10498-B with Microsoft. This would waive the spammer's postage fees, and instead cause the recipient to be billed for the incoming spam at a rate equal to twice the one in the first paragraph of this post. And all payments would go directly into Bill Gates' personal bank account.
As much as I hate Microsoft's business practices, and as much as I dislike their fine defective software products, I think this is EU bullshit to get quick 'n' easy cash.
Bill Gates is very polite, I think the EU should give Microsoft a break and instead charge all kinds of outrageous taxes on their own people. Then we'll see how you Europeans feel.
The Quantium has the following new features:
However, I don't understand why only a few measly billions are being devoted to this. I think the budget should be more like, say, a trillion dollars a year for space stations, ten trillion dollars a year for the moon, and a hundred trillion dollars a year for Mars, and a quadrillion dollars a year to send manned missions to Pluto. All they have to do is cancel all the stupid government programs, like the health care bullshit, who cares about that anyway, and divert the money to space.
People who punch the wrong command into a computer should be put on death row, next to murderers and rapists.
Hey, a mechanical Internet run by gears, pulleys, belts, chains, and cams, powered by one huge central steam engine in the mountains of New Mexico, would be better for the world anyway.
Following the same theory, in which I don't believe, you would come to the conclusion that the Mars landings never took place, and were staged for some reason or another.
For example, you mean to tell me that since the last space shuttle crash, which was only a year ago, they had time to modify their Mars lander design to include that "In Memoriam" placard that's on there? They would have had to do it almost immediately after the crash because it takes time to get to Mars. A long time.
Hmmmmmm. Maybe there is a conspiracy theory. Nasa should have been good enough to make the color dials stay the same while the rest of the photo is altered... but I guess you can't think of everything.
Why would such a fake be done? To make other countries fear the U.S.'s technology? To jack billions of bucks from the taxpayers and funnel it into all sorts of secret government programs? I don't know.
As the past owner of two different businesses and the present manager of a mid size company, I can confidently say that the answer is no.
This is very simple. Over the years, I have hired a wide range of different people to work as programmers. I had everything from masters degree programmers with 20 years experience to kids out of school who do it as a hobby. In all cases, what determined the success or failure of the project was not the qualifications of the programmer. I had masters degree programmers write such gibberish that multi-hundred-thousand dollar projects were cancelled. I had masters degree programmers who did a marvelous job. I had some kids code up another product that worked so beautifully that it only made the company money. I also had kids who did a crappy job and the project failed. In other words, success or failure is determined by results, and nothing else.
Returning to the above question, software is considered secure if it is tested for vulnerabilities and is found to be strong against attempts to break in. If the programmer has a Ph.D., that's all nice and pretty, but it means exactly Jack Schitt. The results are the only thing that matter.
Therefore, I think this committee should not waste its time with issues like licensing, because that will only create more bureaucracy, more fees, and entire administrative efforts... and it provides no guarantees of success. They should figure out a way to measure the reliability of a piece of software (reliability is the parent category of security, because an insecurity reduces reliability). They should make up some guidelines for how mission critical systems should be judged and tested. Perhaps they should recommend that the government should hire its own crackers to constantly look for and help fix vulnerabilities. Because security isn't a one-time thing. "Let's license programmers and the problems will go away." It doesn't work like that. Like everything else related to management, in security, the only constant is change.