I think that some more "mainstream" journalists have written articles on topics after seeing her coverage. It seems like a lot of the tech writers in big media don't bother doing the type of digging that PJ is known for and instead wait for her to do a most of the real work before they decide whether or not to voice their own opinions.
Am I the only one whose jaw just about hit the floor when reading this asinine comment? It absolutely amazes me that ANYBODY would make such a suggestion. I could see identity thieves salivating at the thought of this. (Yes, I know you would need more than just the number to really do anything with it)
That guy should see if the job of CEO at Sony is available...
Precisely what I have done with my last few phones and I've never had any problems using it on AT&T/Cingular. I also used to have a RAZR that was locked with AT&T but needed it unlocked when I went to New Zealand & Australia. There are two things you can do to get your phone unlocked. Simply call your carrier and lean on them a bit and they may simply send you the unlock code. Or you can spend $20 or so with a service that will unlock your phone for you. It's typically a matter of having a cable that will connect your phone to your PC and some software that you run. You can find all sorts of unlock services on the internet - just search for your carrier & phone model.
Considering that the US Navy in conjunction with the CIA was tapping Soviet copper phone cables as far back as the 1970's I wouldn't find it all that unlikely that they now have the technology to tap fiber cables. Yes, I know that splicing into fiber is extremely difficult in the best of situations, but if braniacs could figure out how to locate and tap underwater copper cables almost 30-40 years ago then I wouldn't hold it against modern-day braniacs to figure out a way to tap fiber cables in this day and age.
Microsoft suing Sun for violating patents for MS Office 'inventions'. You know it's coming.
I doubt MS wants to legitimize OOo in that way. Even more importantly, I don't think MS wants to risk having their dubious patents nullified in a court. They'd much rather rely on their expertise as FUDsters and the threat of patent litigation to try to derail OOo. Actually going through with that threat is a huge gamble that MS probably doesn't want to risk unless absolutely necessary.
People really think they're going to track down a laptop based on an IP address? While this might get you close to the city that they're in, its definitely not going to give you their home phone number and street address.
Then explain the success stories posted on Orbicules website. They were able to work in conjunction with both the police and the ISP's in question to track down stolen laptops within a day or two of the laptops being reported stolen.
If they can't get past the firmware password, then they'll just destroy the laptop.
Are you speaking from experience or just blowing crap out your *ss? Lots of laptop thefts are crimes of convenience. Somebody sees a laptop left alone in a library or breaks into a home or office just looking for things to steal that they can get money for. If they can boot it up then they may use it for a while. If they can't, or don't care to then they'll try to sell it. I seriously doubt many people would steal a laptop and then destroy it if they can't boot it up. They're much more likely to try to get any amount of money they can for it. Whoever buys it also isn't likely to destroy it unless they're the type of person who gets violent when they get frustrated. They spent good money for the laptop so they're not going to want it to go to waste.
I would argue that the cost of any tracking solutions is bound to be more than (the chance of laptop being stolen x value of laptop itself).
I bought Orbicule's Undercover for my MacBook Pro for all of $59. The license covers up to 5 Macs so I can install it on other Macs as well. There's no monthly costs for their service. I consider that money well spent for protecting my laptop. The success stories posted on their website demonstrate that laptops can be recovered within a couple of days in close to the same condition as when they were stolen.
First thing that happens is the laptop gets wiped.
Not if it's a properly configured MacBook laptop. If you set a firmware password then they can't simply wipe & re-install. That, combined with a product like Undercover from Orbicule can make recovery of a stolen MacBook much more likely.
Go check out Undercover from Orbicule. Even if you don't have a Mac you should go read the success stories that they have posted (complete with photos of the perps taken from the Macbooks built-in camera).
How many times will it take the various media conglomerates to finally learn that any DRM they try to shove down the throats of their customers will be broken fairly quickly by those same customers? They create some digital lock to protect their content, but they have to provide the keys somehow to the end-user so that they can access the content, and there are plenty of very intelligent people all over the world willing to work on breaking those locks with the provided keys.
Sorry we got caught, we'll try not to let it happen again.
More like:
Sorry we got caught. We've hung a low-level peon out to dry in an attempt to make it look like this was the work of one individual acting alone and not corporate policy. We'll try harder to hide our under-the-table dealings even better in the future.
As far as Microsoft is concerned an abstention is as good as a yes vote
I'm not so sure about this. This has pretty much blown up in MS's face thanks to all the publicity its generated. Keep in mind that MS is still facing anti-trust charges in the EU, and behavior like this won't help with that. On top of that it'll likely focus a lot of attention on all the other ISO member votes. Every single vote will likely be scrutinized closely by the press & public to look for even the slightest possibility of involvement by MS.
What I think will be more important in the long run is how the ISO handles this. If they implement procedures to prevent this sort of abuse in the future then it'll help the ISO process. If they don't do anything then it just reinforces the belief by many that the ISO process can simply be bought & co-opted by companies like MS.
Chicago has an underground network of freight tunnels
Aren't those the tunnels that got flooded a couple years ago when a construction crew working in a nearby channel accidentally drilled in the wrong place? IIRC, it basically shut down most of the downtown Chicago area for a week or so because the basements of virtually every building in the area got flooded out.
Internet providers like Comcast will simply do what they've been doing. They've been throttling bittorrent because of the bandwidth it can take up. They'll simply throttle or block any internet TV that they don't specifically provide since it would be considered competitive to their cable TV offerings.
I see plenty of cases where documents are put on the web. I just recently filled out an application for a grant for a non-profit organization I'm involved with. They had an application form that we had to fill out and made it available as both a MS Word and PDF file.
Re:Novell to Open Source Unix?
on
SCO Loses
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
While Novell owns the copyrights they are still in that pesky exclusive contract for SCO to administer the licensing
IANAL, and I don't know all the gory details of the contract, but here's a thought: Since this finding now affirms that SCO owes Novell the license fees for the SVRX licenses sold to Microsoft and Sun (whatever that percentage is) I believe it brings SCO very close to bankruptcy. If SCO is unable to come up with these fees then Novell could use that as grounds for termination of the whole contract. Heck, the contract may have an escape clause for Novell if SCO fails to stand up to its side of the agreement, and this decision could be enough for Novell to terminate immediately.
And how will ATI ensure that all people using the flawed drivers upgrade to the newest ones? How will the average Vista/ATI user even know that they are at risk of this flaw? Unless all those flawed systems are patched this will remain a fairly big hole to be exploited by the unscrupulous.
Google is your friend. All of about 30 seconds of searching came up with this article as well as others. Although I didn't watch them I also found a few videos posted on YouTube that claim to demonstrate how to do it.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that some more "mainstream" journalists have written articles on topics after seeing her coverage. It seems like a lot of the tech writers in big media don't bother doing the type of digging that PJ is known for and instead wait for her to do a most of the real work before they decide whether or not to voice their own opinions.
Am I the only one whose jaw just about hit the floor when reading this asinine comment? It absolutely amazes me that ANYBODY would make such a suggestion. I could see identity thieves salivating at the thought of this. (Yes, I know you would need more than just the number to really do anything with it)
That guy should see if the job of CEO at Sony is available...
In the US, you can easily buy an unlocked phone
Precisely what I have done with my last few phones and I've never had any problems using it on AT&T/Cingular. I also used to have a RAZR that was locked with AT&T but needed it unlocked when I went to New Zealand & Australia. There are two things you can do to get your phone unlocked. Simply call your carrier and lean on them a bit and they may simply send you the unlock code. Or you can spend $20 or so with a service that will unlock your phone for you. It's typically a matter of having a cable that will connect your phone to your PC and some software that you run. You can find all sorts of unlock services on the internet - just search for your carrier & phone model.
Considering that the US Navy in conjunction with the CIA was tapping Soviet copper phone cables as far back as the 1970's I wouldn't find it all that unlikely that they now have the technology to tap fiber cables. Yes, I know that splicing into fiber is extremely difficult in the best of situations, but if braniacs could figure out how to locate and tap underwater copper cables almost 30-40 years ago then I wouldn't hold it against modern-day braniacs to figure out a way to tap fiber cables in this day and age.
It's nice to see at least some journalists out there in this day and age are willing to publicly admit when they are wrong.
Microsoft suing Sun for violating patents for MS Office 'inventions'. You know it's coming.
I doubt MS wants to legitimize OOo in that way. Even more importantly, I don't think MS wants to risk having their dubious patents nullified in a court. They'd much rather rely on their expertise as FUDsters and the threat of patent litigation to try to derail OOo. Actually going through with that threat is a huge gamble that MS probably doesn't want to risk unless absolutely necessary.
Other than being a very satisfied customer I have no affiliation with them whatsoever.
People really think they're going to track down a laptop based on an IP address? While this might get you close to the city that they're in, its definitely not going to give you their home phone number and street address.
Then explain the success stories posted on Orbicules website. They were able to work in conjunction with both the police and the ISP's in question to track down stolen laptops within a day or two of the laptops being reported stolen.
If they can't get past the firmware password, then they'll just destroy the laptop.
Are you speaking from experience or just blowing crap out your *ss? Lots of laptop thefts are crimes of convenience. Somebody sees a laptop left alone in a library or breaks into a home or office just looking for things to steal that they can get money for. If they can boot it up then they may use it for a while. If they can't, or don't care to then they'll try to sell it. I seriously doubt many people would steal a laptop and then destroy it if they can't boot it up. They're much more likely to try to get any amount of money they can for it. Whoever buys it also isn't likely to destroy it unless they're the type of person who gets violent when they get frustrated. They spent good money for the laptop so they're not going to want it to go to waste.
I would argue that the cost of any tracking solutions is bound to be more than (the chance of laptop being stolen x value of laptop itself).
I bought Orbicule's Undercover for my MacBook Pro for all of $59. The license covers up to 5 Macs so I can install it on other Macs as well. There's no monthly costs for their service. I consider that money well spent for protecting my laptop. The success stories posted on their website demonstrate that laptops can be recovered within a couple of days in close to the same condition as when they were stolen.
Go to Orbicule and read the success stories about their Undercover product for Macs.
First thing that happens is the laptop gets wiped.
Not if it's a properly configured MacBook laptop. If you set a firmware password then they can't simply wipe & re-install. That, combined with a product like Undercover from Orbicule can make recovery of a stolen MacBook much more likely.
Go check out Undercover from Orbicule. Even if you don't have a Mac you should go read the success stories that they have posted (complete with photos of the perps taken from the Macbooks built-in camera).
How many times will it take the various media conglomerates to finally learn that any DRM they try to shove down the throats of their customers will be broken fairly quickly by those same customers? They create some digital lock to protect their content, but they have to provide the keys somehow to the end-user so that they can access the content, and there are plenty of very intelligent people all over the world willing to work on breaking those locks with the provided keys.
Sorry we got caught, we'll try not to let it happen again.
More like:
Sorry we got caught. We've hung a low-level peon out to dry in an attempt to make it look like this was the work of one individual acting alone and not corporate policy. We'll try harder to hide our under-the-table dealings even better in the future.
As far as Microsoft is concerned an abstention is as good as a yes vote
I'm not so sure about this. This has pretty much blown up in MS's face thanks to all the publicity its generated. Keep in mind that MS is still facing anti-trust charges in the EU, and behavior like this won't help with that. On top of that it'll likely focus a lot of attention on all the other ISO member votes. Every single vote will likely be scrutinized closely by the press & public to look for even the slightest possibility of involvement by MS.
What I think will be more important in the long run is how the ISO handles this. If they implement procedures to prevent this sort of abuse in the future then it'll help the ISO process. If they don't do anything then it just reinforces the belief by many that the ISO process can simply be bought & co-opted by companies like MS.
From the looks of those pictures his head is a little too big, just like his ego undoubtedly must be.
Chicago has an underground network of freight tunnels
Aren't those the tunnels that got flooded a couple years ago when a construction crew working in a nearby channel accidentally drilled in the wrong place? IIRC, it basically shut down most of the downtown Chicago area for a week or so because the basements of virtually every building in the area got flooded out.
Internet providers like Comcast will simply do what they've been doing. They've been throttling bittorrent because of the bandwidth it can take up. They'll simply throttle or block any internet TV that they don't specifically provide since it would be considered competitive to their cable TV offerings.
The Israeli airline has been profiling passengers all sorts of ways for decades. This sounds a lot like one of the methods they employ.
I see plenty of cases where documents are put on the web. I just recently filled out an application for a grant for a non-profit organization I'm involved with. They had an application form that we had to fill out and made it available as both a MS Word and PDF file.
While Novell owns the copyrights they are still in that pesky exclusive contract for SCO to administer the licensing
IANAL, and I don't know all the gory details of the contract, but here's a thought: Since this finding now affirms that SCO owes Novell the license fees for the SVRX licenses sold to Microsoft and Sun (whatever that percentage is) I believe it brings SCO very close to bankruptcy. If SCO is unable to come up with these fees then Novell could use that as grounds for termination of the whole contract. Heck, the contract may have an escape clause for Novell if SCO fails to stand up to its side of the agreement, and this decision could be enough for Novell to terminate immediately.
You know ATI will patch it.
And how will ATI ensure that all people using the flawed drivers upgrade to the newest ones? How will the average Vista/ATI user even know that they are at risk of this flaw? Unless all those flawed systems are patched this will remain a fairly big hole to be exploited by the unscrupulous.
when they can figure out how to build those artificial gravity doohickeys used on the USS Enterprise and other spaceships.
Google is your friend. All of about 30 seconds of searching came up with this article as well as others. Although I didn't watch them I also found a few videos posted on YouTube that claim to demonstrate how to do it.