Whether slashdot readers and many other Open Source advocates like it or not, the Free Market System works and our government should protect it. Without it, we'd be living in the stone ages like Russia, or China. So, for crying out loud, if you don't like the Borland license, stop bitching about it, just DON'T USE IT.
Your points are correct, but your conclusion is not. We have a free market, and the way it works is exactly the way this is working -- people make a fuss to pressure a company to change. Lots of people could have installed those products without carefully reading the license -- lord knows I never read them. (Perhaps I should start.) Raising this kind of fuss is exactly what we need. Just because Borland has the right to put just about anything they want in their license (and they do have that right) doesn't mean we shouldn't bitch and moan when we don't like what they do.
Someone said: Another virus that doesn't affect web-based email (not to mention pine or MacOS or whatever). Seems pretty clear that Outlook will continue to be exploited in new ways for the forseeable future.
And then someone else replied:
I don't know enough about it to determine the extent to which it can affect non-Outlook clients. I do know that, according to CNET, it does try other means of spreading as well.
Although many virii and worms do rely on Outlook's crappy design and implementation of security issues, this one does not. (There doesn't seem to be any agreement between virus experts (I'm not one) whether SirCam is a worm or a virus. To me, it looks like a hybrid.)
SirCam harvests e-mail addresses through two methods:
It will search through temporary HTML files (from your Internet Explorer cache only) and use any e-mail addresses it finds.
It will harvest addresses from *.WAB (Windows Address Book) files on your HD. (I'm not clear on what program uses *.WAB files. I use Eudora for my e-mail on my Windows computer, and although there is a *.WAB file on my system, it is empty.)
According to the Symantec web site, the virus "contains its own SMTP server which is used for the email routine." It's not dependent on Outlook at all.
Don't they actually have to figure out what.NET does before they can challenge it? As far as I can tell, the definition of.NET changes depending on which marketing droid is speaking at the time. (And has anyone figured out what it can do that's different from what we can already do with Windows 2000 or any Linux or Unix server? Besides hold onto our data and then sell it back to us, I mean.)
My problem is I don't know what strength I want, and I don't know how much sugar I want and I don't know how much milk I want. My wife makes me the perfect cup of coffee, but that's because she spent years trying different combinations and thereby adjusting her own internal feedback loop, until she got a "feel" for how much of each setting made for the best cup of coffee.
So since your wife spent years tweaking your brew, you spent years drinking experimental coffee? It's simple -- add cream and sugar, then taste and adjust. This is either a troll or the most pathetic example of kitchen ineptitude I've seen since my father asked where we keep the ice.
I must be missing something here. If I put in a small amount of coffee grinds, and dial in strong coffee, how in the hell is pouring more water over the grinds going to ever make the coffee sufficiently strong? Coffee makers only extract so much from the grinds
Exactly, my friend. If you put less coffee in, it will cut off the water supply earlier, giving you LESS coffee, but of the desired strength. It pours less water through the grounds, not more.
It would seem to me that using this might make you a highly visible target for piracy investigation. If someone is patrolling for these card servers, it could lead someone to your IP, could it not?
I'm more worried about the partnership between Tivo and DirecTV. How difficult would it be for Tivo to give DirecTV a list of the channels you watch regularly, and for DirecTV to see that you don't subscribe to all those?
Even though I pay for DirecTV and am pretty much a fan of what Tivo has done, I can see how the Tivo Brass could construe this is defensible.
Slashdot Mirror
Whether slashdot readers and many other Open Source advocates like it or not, the Free Market System works and our government should protect it. Without it, we'd be living in the stone ages like Russia, or China. So, for crying out loud, if you don't like the Borland license, stop bitching about it, just DON'T USE IT.
Your points are correct, but your conclusion is not. We have a free market, and the way it works is exactly the way this is working -- people make a fuss to pressure a company to change. Lots of people could have installed those products without carefully reading the license -- lord knows I never read them. (Perhaps I should start.) Raising this kind of fuss is exactly what we need. Just because Borland has the right to put just about anything they want in their license (and they do have that right) doesn't mean we shouldn't bitch and moan when we don't like what they do.
Someone said: Another virus that doesn't affect web-based email (not to mention pine or MacOS or whatever). Seems pretty clear that Outlook will continue to be exploited in new ways for the forseeable future.
And then someone else replied: I don't know enough about it to determine the extent to which it can affect non-Outlook clients. I do know that, according to CNET, it does try other means of spreading as well.
Although many virii and worms do rely on Outlook's crappy design and implementation of security issues, this one does not. (There doesn't seem to be any agreement between virus experts (I'm not one) whether SirCam is a worm or a virus. To me, it looks like a hybrid.)
SirCam harvests e-mail addresses through two methods:
- It will search through temporary HTML files (from your Internet Explorer cache only) and use any e-mail addresses it finds.
- It will harvest addresses from *.WAB (Windows Address Book) files on your HD. (I'm not clear on what program uses *.WAB files. I use Eudora for my e-mail on my Windows computer, and although there is a *.WAB file on my system, it is empty.)
According to the Symantec web site, the virus "contains its own SMTP server which is used for the email routine." It's not dependent on Outlook at all.References:. worm@mm.html.
http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sircam
Don't they actually have to figure out what .NET does before they can challenge it? As far as I can tell, the definition of .NET changes depending on which marketing droid is speaking at the time. (And has anyone figured out what it can do that's different from what we can already do with Windows 2000 or any Linux or Unix server? Besides hold onto our data and then sell it back to us, I mean.)
My problem is I don't know what strength I want, and I don't know how much sugar I want and I don't know how much milk I want. My wife makes me the perfect cup of coffee, but that's because she spent years trying different combinations and thereby adjusting her own internal feedback loop, until she got a "feel" for how much of each setting made for the best cup of coffee.
So since your wife spent years tweaking your brew, you spent years drinking experimental coffee? It's simple -- add cream and sugar, then taste and adjust. This is either a troll or the most pathetic example of kitchen ineptitude I've seen since my father asked where we keep the ice.
I must be missing something here. If I put in a small amount of coffee grinds, and dial in strong coffee, how in the hell is pouring more water over the grinds going to ever make the coffee sufficiently strong? Coffee makers only extract so much from the grinds
Exactly, my friend. If you put less coffee in, it will cut off the water supply earlier, giving you LESS coffee, but of the desired strength. It pours less water through the grounds, not more.
It would seem to me that using this might make you a highly visible target for piracy investigation. If someone is patrolling for these card servers, it could lead someone to your IP, could it not?
I'm more worried about the partnership between Tivo and DirecTV. How difficult would it be for Tivo to give DirecTV a list of the channels you watch regularly, and for DirecTV to see that you don't subscribe to all those?
Even though I pay for DirecTV and am pretty much a fan of what Tivo has done, I can see how the Tivo Brass could construe this is defensible.
Schof