But a couple of my friends had Maxtor 80gb drives "fail" to the point where it was worth buying a new drive to avoid attempting to get assistance from Maxtor's tech support...
If this report had stated Windows was the more efficient platform and the report was created by a biased affiliate (see: no Unix, Windows only) of Microsoft, what would Slashdot be saying right now?
Something like this. It's unfortunate, but true. This topic is a flamewar (wait for the first Windows zealot to post) waiting to happen, as are (moreso) those topics on Slashdot which seem to represent Windows in a positive light.
Yeah, but people saavy enough to compile Mozilla from source are probably more likely to report a bug. Some of these people are the type that would even go so far as to create a patch.
Many IE users pass it off as "buggy Windows" and accept it as computer normalcy when it comes to the browser's flaws. IE's "three or four times the users" are usually those who use it only because it shipped with Windows and they don't know that there may be something that would be more appropriate for their use.
And you have to remember that these are four very critical security bugs, not just normal bugs such as, "The about window won't open after you look at it fifty times."
By the way, I'm fairly sure that Microsoft doesn't report all of the bugs it fixes between versions (CHANGELOGs); they only report those which are critical and require immediate upgrading, not the bugs that are minor inconveniences and aren't likely to be noticed. Hey, it's what I would do.
q279328 - allows execution of code through print templates or web forms
q286045 - allows someone to execute files and read files on your machine (using a combination of both exploits that patch fixed)
q286043 - allows someone to begin a telnet session and send data to your machine (as well as execute it) if you've installed Services for Unix
q273868 - sends your authentication information on every query as long as they're on the same hostname
Four major exploits in the last twelve months. Certainly, those aren't all of the exploits, erm, extra features that IE has had bundled with it lately, but they are a few that have readily accessible information from Microsoft.
One could imagine eternally why Microsoft designs such insecure products, but look at it this way:
Have you ever coded a product that was efficient and secure after being pushed for three days to meet a deadline? Don't you become somewhat exhausted and lazy, primarily because you want to sleep, no matter how much money you're going to be paid? There comes a point where caffeine just won't help you operate anymore and your health becomes more of a priority than a "higher-up"'s regime.
Microsoft developers (in the words of Ballmer) are only human as well -- and I'm sure they work just as hard as we do.
I cracked up when I read this. You moderators suck. All you want to do is bring people down. How about modding some gems up and having a sense of humor for a day? I'm tired of this crackhead moderating, personally.
Now, go ahead and mod me to -1, offtopic (or flamebait, whichever is "mod down excuse of the day") as well. I mean, obviously I'm as deservant as gusnz is.
It has been told that they were testing a version of the Shkval supercavitating torpedo. These torpedoes apparently operate by forming bubbles of gas around the torpedo, therefore reducing the amount of friction.
Many large retailers such as Best Buy will not accept a return of an opened product such as Windows XP because they believe that you probably took it home and burned it.
It sounds like they took everything for granted again as far as technology, a typical cliche in Star Trek (and all of those other futuristic sci-fi shows.)
Perhaps they could explain some of the aspects of.. eh.. the transporter for example:
If humans have 'souls', enter the transporter, and are regenerated at some other location, hasn't the original human been disposed of and the "instant clone" created, resulting in this being a different human and the other losing its life? If Star Trek explored the "spiritual ramifications" and beliefs (not all the time, it would get very boring) of the technology as it is coming into play...
... If I were an Apple executive, it'd seem like free advertising to me. Besides, they took his product, so the least they could do is allow him to continue development on it.
And since everyone in the open source 'movement' seems to believe that Apple supports them, why didn't Apple just offer to pay him for the project and make him one of their developers?
I want to make one thing clear: I'm not the typical "Slashbot" type that disagrees with everything that our government does. In fact, I support my government in almost everything they do, and I always support the brave men and women of our military. After all, our military is the only reason our nation has as much freedom as it does today.
I am certainly willing to let quite a few things slide in the wake of this terrible tragedy that has befallen our nation if it means we could prevent this from occuring a second time; my only request is that our plans are implemented intelligently, not out of fear and panic on behalf of our elected officials.
I've been hearing a lot lately about the upcoming restrictions that are set to be imposed on strong (or weak) encryption.
Here are my opinions on a few of them:
1) Backdoors
The terrorists aren't about to use your weak, intentionally flawed encryption. It is my personal belief that Bin Laden and many other terrorist groups will stick with their secure method that they've observed working successfully. You don't repair what isn't broken. bin Laden (as it is reported) used strong encryption embedded in images or a man with a note in a 'secret language.') The terrorists even used plain-text Hotmail, the text being something our government couldn't retrieve due to the fact Hotmail doesn't store deleted messages.
2) Complete restrictions on encryption
With these laws, we would no longer have the ability to conduct secure transactions, SSH sessions, etc. because our government is afraid (read: terrorism) of not being able to intercept and read the messages. It would most likely cripple e-commerce.
3) Restrictions on encryption for the public, but not for large companies (e.g. Microsoft) or organizations
Obviously, some large companies will have a say in the new laws because, well, they fund the politicians. Also, in the government's eyes, they have a decent reputation. Maybe Microsoft (or other "approved companies") will be allowed to implement 'government approved encryption.' I sincerely hope that Bush does not decide to treat countries that refuse to inject the backdoor into their encryption applications the same way as those who harbor terrorists.
4) Key Escrow
This idea is actually not so bad, but, most likely a terrorist will give the key to a friend; this individual will most likely elect to remain on his friend's side and "lose the key" if the police request it.
In Conclusion
Obviously, all four of these plans possess fundamental flaws, rendering each of them incapable of securing our nation from attack.
Bin Laden (et al) already know the methods that work and will most likely fail to change. The only change these laws will have is on the people: we'll feel even more insecure than we already do. This is exactly the effect that the terrorists desired to be had on our general population and our government. We can only hope that our government officials are intelligent enough to observe the flaws inherent in their plans...
"If encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption."
You know, most terrorists aren't going to bother 'upgrading' their encryption software to the new versions with backdoors.
Methinks they'll stick with their "old", non-US secure products.
Oh, and by the way, major news stations are reporting that the terrorists that were responsible for the World Trade Center were using plain-text Hotmail.
Since Hotmail doesn't save messages, it seems that our law enforcement agencies are out of luck... It would seem as though plain text is "secure" enough for most of the terrorists in this world, unfortunately.
It's obscure enough not to be tracked down by the FBI or other government agencies, at least...
How exactly is my reply offtopic? Moderators on crack again, I suppose. My point was this:
Someone will write a worm that attacks not only Windows, but all variants of Unix as well. It will keep a database (or even download the information temporarily from a website) of exploits.
My point was that it would be a big (as in file size) worm, and then I added a little bit of humor at the end.
Slashdot Mirror
According to Corona's Coming Attractions, Gloria Foster (a.k.a. The Oracle) passed away last weekend at the age of 64.
That will most likely hamper production.
But a couple of my friends had Maxtor 80gb drives "fail" to the point where it was worth buying a new drive to avoid attempting to get assistance from Maxtor's tech support...
If this report had stated Windows was the more efficient platform and the report was created by a biased affiliate (see: no Unix, Windows only) of Microsoft, what would Slashdot be saying right now?
Something like this. It's unfortunate, but true. This topic is a flamewar (wait for the first Windows zealot to post) waiting to happen, as are (moreso) those topics on Slashdot which seem to represent Windows in a positive light.
Just a little something I noticed.
Well I guess thats one way to make Unix insecure. Can anyone actually confirm this since it looks kinda sketchy.
Slashdot wanting to confirm news that could damage Microsoft's reputation? Pshaw!
Yeah, but people saavy enough to compile Mozilla from source are probably more likely to report a bug. Some of these people are the type that would even go so far as to create a patch.
Many IE users pass it off as "buggy Windows" and accept it as computer normalcy when it comes to the browser's flaws. IE's "three or four times the users" are usually those who use it only because it shipped with Windows and they don't know that there may be something that would be more appropriate for their use.
And you have to remember that these are four very critical security bugs, not just normal bugs such as, "The about window won't open after you look at it fifty times."
By the way, I'm fairly sure that Microsoft doesn't report all of the bugs it fixes between versions (CHANGELOGs); they only report those which are critical and require immediate upgrading, not the bugs that are minor inconveniences and aren't likely to be noticed. Hey, it's what I would do.
IE Exploits:
q279328 - allows execution of code through print templates or web forms
q286045 - allows someone to execute files and read files on your machine (using a combination of both exploits that patch fixed)
q286043 - allows someone to begin a telnet session and send data to your machine (as well as execute it) if you've installed Services for Unix
q273868 - sends your authentication information on every query as long as they're on the same hostname
Four major exploits in the last twelve months. Certainly, those aren't all of the exploits, erm, extra features that IE has had bundled with it lately, but they are a few that have readily accessible information from Microsoft.
One could imagine eternally why Microsoft designs such insecure products, but look at it this way:
Have you ever coded a product that was efficient and secure after being pushed for three days to meet a deadline? Don't you become somewhat exhausted and lazy, primarily because you want to sleep, no matter how much money you're going to be paid? There comes a point where caffeine just won't help you operate anymore and your health becomes more of a priority than a "higher-up"'s regime.
Microsoft developers (in the words of Ballmer) are only human as well -- and I'm sure they work just as hard as we do.
Actually, I think it does have something to do with backdoors:
Enigma -> Encryption -> United States Government Regulations
Makes enough sense to me... And that's what is strange about Slashdot, nobody can make an exception to something utterly humorous.
Oops.
I misread the article and thought that Telstra maintained a blacklist and had listed Optus. Dur.
Hmm, I read the article quickly, but it appears that they're blacklisting the ISP for not cracking down on spammers.
:)
This could not only be a pretty decent PR stunt, but a nice excuse for blocking the competition off as well.
[inserting some text here to kill the lameness filter]
I cracked up when I read this. You moderators suck. All you want to do is bring people down. How about modding some gems up and having a sense of humor for a day? I'm tired of this crackhead moderating, personally.
Now, go ahead and mod me to -1, offtopic (or flamebait, whichever is "mod down excuse of the day") as well. I mean, obviously I'm as deservant as gusnz is.
It has been told that they were testing a version of the Shkval supercavitating torpedo. These torpedoes apparently operate by forming bubbles of gas around the torpedo, therefore reducing the amount of friction.
More on supercavitation here.
... but that doesn't matter anymore, because the site is Slashdotted and inaccessible.
:)
Maybe Apple figured that Slashdot had taken care of it for them.
Heh heh.
Many large retailers such as Best Buy will not accept a return of an opened product such as Windows XP because they believe that you probably took it home and burned it.
It sounds like they took everything for granted again as far as technology, a typical cliche in Star Trek (and all of those other futuristic sci-fi shows.)
.. eh .. the transporter for example:
Perhaps they could explain some of the aspects of
If humans have 'souls', enter the transporter, and are regenerated at some other location, hasn't the original human been disposed of and the "instant clone" created, resulting in this being a different human and the other losing its life? If Star Trek explored the "spiritual ramifications" and beliefs (not all the time, it would get very boring) of the technology as it is coming into play...
Exploring paradoxes = fun.
Out of curiousity, they didn't somehow coax James Cromwell into playing Cochran again, did they?
... If I were an Apple executive, it'd seem like free advertising to me. Besides, they took his product, so the least they could do is allow him to continue development on it.
And since everyone in the open source 'movement' seems to believe that Apple supports them, why didn't Apple just offer to pay him for the project and make him one of their developers?
It's what I would have done.
I suppose the next one could be titled "Star Trek: The Former Generation".
I want to make one thing clear: I'm not the typical "Slashbot" type that disagrees with everything that our government does. In fact, I support my government in almost everything they do, and I always support the brave men and women of our military. After all, our military is the only reason our nation has as much freedom as it does today.
I am certainly willing to let quite a few things slide in the wake of this terrible tragedy that has befallen our nation if it means we could prevent this from occuring a second time; my only request is that our plans are implemented intelligently, not out of fear and panic on behalf of our elected officials.
I've been hearing a lot lately about the upcoming restrictions that are set to be imposed on strong (or weak) encryption.
Here are my opinions on a few of them:
1) Backdoors
The terrorists aren't about to use your weak, intentionally flawed encryption. It is my personal belief that Bin Laden and many other terrorist groups will stick with their secure method that they've observed working successfully. You don't repair what isn't broken. bin Laden (as it is reported) used strong encryption embedded in images or a man with a note in a 'secret language.') The terrorists even used plain-text Hotmail, the text being something our government couldn't retrieve due to the fact Hotmail doesn't store deleted messages.
2) Complete restrictions on encryption
With these laws, we would no longer have the ability to conduct secure transactions, SSH sessions, etc. because our government is afraid (read: terrorism) of not being able to intercept and read the messages. It would most likely cripple e-commerce.
3) Restrictions on encryption for the public, but not for large companies (e.g. Microsoft) or organizations
Obviously, some large companies will have a say in the new laws because, well, they fund the politicians. Also, in the government's eyes, they have a decent reputation. Maybe Microsoft (or other "approved companies") will be allowed to implement 'government approved encryption.' I sincerely hope that Bush does not decide to treat countries that refuse to inject the backdoor into their encryption applications the same way as those who harbor terrorists.
4) Key Escrow
This idea is actually not so bad, but, most likely a terrorist will give the key to a friend; this individual will most likely elect to remain on his friend's side and "lose the key" if the police request it.
In Conclusion
Obviously, all four of these plans possess fundamental flaws, rendering each of them incapable of securing our nation from attack.
Bin Laden (et al) already know the methods that work and will most likely fail to change. The only change these laws will have is on the people: we'll feel even more insecure than we already do. This is exactly the effect that the terrorists desired to be had on our general population and our government. We can only hope that our government officials are intelligent enough to observe the flaws inherent in their plans...
"If encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption."
According to MSNBC, the United States has denied the Taliban's claim of shooting down our spy drone.
See story here.
You know, most terrorists aren't going to bother 'upgrading' their encryption software to the new versions with backdoors.
Methinks they'll stick with their "old", non-US secure products.
Oh, and by the way, major news stations are reporting that the terrorists that were responsible for the World Trade Center were using plain-text Hotmail.
Since Hotmail doesn't save messages, it seems that our law enforcement agencies are out of luck... It would seem as though plain text is "secure" enough for most of the terrorists in this world, unfortunately.
It's obscure enough not to be tracked down by the FBI or other government agencies, at least...
How exactly is my reply offtopic? Moderators on crack again, I suppose. My point was this:
Someone will write a worm that attacks not only Windows, but all variants of Unix as well. It will keep a database (or even download the information temporarily from a website) of exploits.
My point was that it would be a big (as in file size) worm, and then I added a little bit of humor at the end.
I'm waiting for someone to write a worm that's cross-platform and exploits just about everything.
That'd be a big worm, though. And it's about time that Microsoft stops hogging the worm marketshare!
You know, they say that freedom of press is available only to those that have one. He was just getting one the old fashioned way -- by stealing it!
Of course, all good terrorists are going to use or upgrade to United States, backdoored encryption software.
But what terrorists are good, exactly?