Dude, they've spent a lot of time building that brand. There is no good reason why you should be able to call your product the same as another product. If anyone could use the term 'for dummies' then it would be worthless to IDG.
Trademarks are a nessisary thing, how would you know what CD player to buy if every company was called 'Sony' (assuming that sony makes good stuff). How would you feel if Microsoft called there next operating system 'Linux' without including any of linus's code? My guess is not happy.
"x for dummies" is a valied trademark, and I see nothing wrong in there actions. They were very polite, and I don't see why the people had a problem with it.
Think about it. The script sends itself to people in your outlook mailing list. How could it get the list if outlook wasn't running? The fact that it still worked when you started it from Eudora should prove that it isn't Microsoft's fault, at least any more then Quallcom's(sp?).
VBS is a scripting language, just like anything else. Java, C/C++, Perl, anything. Perhaps the outlook shouldn't run program/script files when you click on them, but it's no different then any other mail program for windows/Mac
Regardless of the rest of your content, you said The problem is the receiver having no choice as to whether or not the code is run on their system,. That is not true, and that was what I was pointing out.
Being able to send bad code isn't the issue. The problem is the receiver having no choice as to whether or not the code is run on their system, hence providing (potentially malicious) third parties the opportunity to do as they wish.
The code in the ILOVEYOU virus is not run by default.
I know how outlook works, and I know a little about how this trojen works. It is not run when you look at the email, but rather when you run the program that was attached with the file.
you need to explicitly run the program by for it to do anything. Just looking at the email does not run the code!
Is someone else responsible for their piss-poor OS design?
This has absolutly nothing to do with the OS design, but rather with there applications. If Outlook exspress ran on linux, the exact same thing would happen.
Ask yourself this, what constructive purpose can there be for an email client that can change system files? Why should an email client be caused to generate messages by another message?
There isn't, but then, there isn't an email client that can do that on its own. ILOVEYOU is a script that is sent, allong with some text telling the user to run the script. The exact same thing could happen in Linux or any other system with scripting capablities (I could send you a shell script in an email and tell you to run it, if you were stupid, I could do basicaly anything I wanted. In fact, thats exactly what happend here)
Point being, if you make software that enables a fscking email to access/erase files on your disks, and automaticly send itself onward to everyone in your address book isnt the prime cause of this? Come ON.
No, they made a scripting language that does this. Just like you can put an rm -rf * in a bash script file. It isn't hard. In order for ILOVEYOU to run, the user spesificaly needs to run the file themselves There isn't much MS can do about this, is there?
Wrong. A user clicks on an email message, and their email client automatically starts running an attached file
NO NO NO and I'm using my +2 for this. the ILOVEYOU virus requires direct user interaction. They see an icon and some text telling them to click it, it dosn't start running untill they do.
The 'feature or bug' allows third parties the opportunity to wreak havoc with the users' system - in a corporate environment that's unacceptable.
Um, no. The feature or bug lets you send bad code to somone, not run it. They have to run it themselves. This is no diffrent from any other computer system in the world. Why don't you try to understand whats going on before blindly bashing MS.
The fact that ILOVEYOU requires a windows machine as host, dosn't mean that the fact that it exsists is a bug. You actualy need to run the attachment, I mean what's the problem, the fact that you can run programs in microsoft sofware? OH MY GOD!
If anyone here found those 5k websites interesting (and I'm sure you did) you should check out some of the stuff that was done in the demosceen with 4k (and smaller) Intros. I've seen bump aping done in 256bytes before. I wish there was some good references for links, but check out the old Hornet.org and scene.org for more info. Sadly the sites don't have good layouts for finding stuff:(. Most of the intros are MS-DOS programs, that should run on win9x machines and under DOS-EMU in Linux (I think)
Well, first of all while a 'fuck with you' type virus would be much more interesting then a hard drive reformater, I think hard drive reformatting would still be interesting enough to a brainless script kiddy.
What I always thought would be cool would be a system where the viruses keep in contact with there 'children' through the network. Some of the viruses would be removed, but the code would try to stay unnoticed. The viruses would 'grow up' on the systems to test the amount of size they can take up without being noticed. Eventually, the larger nodes would contain resource files for the greater whole, IE implementations for other platforms, etc. The theory was, eventually, you'd have a huge computer system at your disposal, if people didn't find out about it. More powerful even then distributed.net. Not that I'd have any idea what to do with it.
But, combine that Idea with yours, about the viruses inserting themselves into the actual lives of the people who use the computers by messing with email etc, and you get some interesting results. If your great AI network could parse through email, etc, and actually figure out what was going on in the world (and send you summaries), you could give it commands as to what you wanted it to do and it would alter the key information to make it happen. If the thing was smart enough, it wouldn't really need to change much.
After a while, you'd be one of the most powerful people on the planet. You could hardly say that that isn't interesting:P Of course, I doubt that there are any more then a hand full of people in the would who would be capable of coding something like that, if any. But, in theory it could be possible. You wouldn't want to use an email clicker as a transport, though but system level exploits. If a bug crops up in NT attack before it gets patched (or even better, search for bugs in all the major OS's yourself, and then don't make them public. Or hack into Microsoft and insert a hole in the next service pack:)
Oh well, this is the stuff of Sci-Fi stories, for now anyway:P
Well, given that this particular worm is dependant on the user actually running the script, I'd say the writer probably didn't think that server admins would actually do it.
If I were to write a program like that, I certainly wouldn't put any malicious code in it, and I certainly wouldn't expect anyone who knows anything about computers to run it...
What a thrill it must be to type a dozen commands at the console and cross your fingers to sync your Palm instead of just pressing the cradle's Sync button like Windows and Mac users do. Pure comedy.
First of all Washington has not passed the UCITA as far as I know, so this case really doesn't have that much to do with it.
I followed a link in one of the comments to some statements by RMS:
You see, UCITA says that by default a software developer or distributor is completely liable for flaws in a program; but it also allows a shrink-wrap license to override the default. Sophisticated software companies that make proprietary software will use shrink-wrap licenses to avoid liability entirely. But amateurs, and self-employed contractors who develop software for others, will be often be shafted because they didn't know about this problem. And we free software developers won't have any reliable way to avoid the problem.
Why exactly isn't the GPL a 'shrink-wrap' license? Does anyone know? Is it just the click-through thing? Why can't the GPL disclaim warrantees?
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Dude, they've spent a lot of time building that brand. There is no good reason why you should be able to call your product the same as another product. If anyone could use the term 'for dummies' then it would be worthless to IDG.
Trademarks are a nessisary thing, how would you know what CD player to buy if every company was called 'Sony' (assuming that sony makes good stuff). How would you feel if Microsoft called there next operating system 'Linux' without including any of linus's code? My guess is not happy.
"x for dummies" is a valied trademark, and I see nothing wrong in there actions. They were very polite, and I don't see why the people had a problem with it.
I seriously doubt that, the file got sent as an attached vbs script. An external program that didn't run in outlook at all.
Beacuse that's what I'm talking about. I've seen it. I'm not trolling. idiot.
Think about it. The script sends itself to people in your outlook mailing list. How could it get the list if outlook wasn't running? The fact that it still worked when you started it from Eudora should prove that it isn't Microsoft's fault, at least any more then Quallcom's(sp?).
VBS is a scripting language, just like anything else. Java, C/C++, Perl, anything. Perhaps the outlook shouldn't run program/script files when you click on them, but it's no different then any other mail program for windows/Mac
so what. it comes from "trusted" people because it went through outlook's address book. what's you point?
how does that make it more microsofts fault?
Regardless of the rest of your content, you said The problem is the receiver having no choice as to whether or not the code is run on their system,. That is not true, and that was what I was pointing out.
The email is oppend by default, but opening the message dosn't run the script. The script needs to be run by the user.
Being able to send bad code isn't the issue. The problem is the receiver having no choice as to whether or not the code is run on their system, hence providing (potentially malicious) third parties the opportunity to do as they wish.
The code in the ILOVEYOU virus is not run by default.
I know how outlook works, and I know a little about how this trojen works. It is not run when you look at the email, but rather when you run the program that was attached with the file.
you need to explicitly run the program by for it to do anything. Just looking at the email does not run the code!
No graphic designer would use .jpg files for anything but the final output. Work files would probably be in .psd, or whatever.
Is someone else responsible for their piss-poor OS design?
This has absolutly nothing to do with the OS design, but rather with there applications. If Outlook exspress ran on linux, the exact same thing would happen.
Ask yourself this, what constructive purpose can there be for an email client that can change system files? Why should an email client be caused to generate messages by another message?
There isn't, but then, there isn't an email client that can do that on its own. ILOVEYOU is a script that is sent, allong with some text telling the user to run the script. The exact same thing could happen in Linux or any other system with scripting capablities (I could send you a shell script in an email and tell you to run it, if you were stupid, I could do basicaly anything I wanted. In fact, thats exactly what happend here)
Point being, if you make software that enables a fscking email to access/erase files on your disks, and automaticly send itself onward to everyone in your address book isnt the prime cause of this? Come ON.
No, they made a scripting language that does this. Just like you can put an rm -rf * in a bash script file. It isn't hard. In order for ILOVEYOU to run, the user spesificaly needs to run the file themselves There isn't much MS can do about this, is there?
Wrong. A user clicks on an email message, and their email client automatically starts running an attached file
NO NO NO and I'm using my +2 for this.
the ILOVEYOU virus requires direct user interaction. They see an icon and some text telling them to click it, it dosn't start running untill they do.
The 'feature or bug' allows third parties the opportunity to wreak havoc with the users' system - in a corporate environment that's unacceptable.
Um, no. The feature or bug lets you send bad code to somone, not run it. They have to run it themselves. This is no diffrent from any other computer system in the world. Why don't you try to understand whats going on before blindly bashing MS.
The fact that ILOVEYOU requires a windows machine as host, dosn't mean that the fact that it exsists is a bug. You actualy need to run the attachment, I mean what's the problem, the fact that you can run programs in microsoft sofware? OH MY GOD!
If anyone here found those 5k websites interesting (and I'm sure you did) you should check out some of the stuff that was done in the demosceen with 4k (and smaller) Intros. I've seen bump aping done in 256bytes before. I wish there was some good references for links, but check out the old Hornet.org and scene.org for more info. Sadly the sites don't have good layouts for finding stuff :(. Most of the intros are MS-DOS programs, that should run on win9x machines and under DOS-EMU in Linux (I think)
Well, first of all while a 'fuck with you' type virus would be much more interesting then a hard drive reformater, I think hard drive reformatting would still be interesting enough to a brainless script kiddy.
:P Of course, I doubt that there are any more then a hand full of people in the would who would be capable of coding something like that, if any. But, in theory it could be possible. You wouldn't want to use an email clicker as a transport, though but system level exploits. If a bug crops up in NT attack before it gets patched (or even better, search for bugs in all the major OS's yourself, and then don't make them public. Or hack into Microsoft and insert a hole in the next service pack :)
:P
What I always thought would be cool would be a system where the viruses keep in contact with there 'children' through the network. Some of the viruses would be removed, but the code would try to stay unnoticed. The viruses would 'grow up' on the systems to test the amount of size they can take up without being noticed. Eventually, the larger nodes would contain resource files for the greater whole, IE implementations for other platforms, etc. The theory was, eventually, you'd have a huge computer system at your disposal, if people didn't find out about it. More powerful even then distributed.net. Not that I'd have any idea what to do with it.
But, combine that Idea with yours, about the viruses inserting themselves into the actual lives of the people who use the computers by messing with email etc, and you get some interesting results. If your great AI network could parse through email, etc, and actually figure out what was going on in the world (and send you summaries), you could give it commands as to what you wanted it to do and it would alter the key information to make it happen. If the thing was smart enough, it wouldn't really need to change much.
After a while, you'd be one of the most powerful people on the planet. You could hardly say that that isn't interesting
Oh well, this is the stuff of Sci-Fi stories, for now anyway
Well, given that this particular worm is dependant on the user actually running the script, I'd say the writer probably didn't think that server admins would actually do it.
If I were to write a program like that, I certainly wouldn't put any malicious code in it, and I certainly wouldn't expect anyone who knows anything about computers to run it...
My guess is that it will probably be First Post...
What a thrill it must be to type a dozen commands at the console and cross your fingers to sync your Palm instead of just pressing the cradle's Sync button like Windows and Mac users do. Pure comedy.
Why would you need to type more then one command?
(See subject)
First of all Washington has not passed the UCITA as far as I know, so this case really doesn't have that much to do with it.
I followed a link in one of the comments to some statements by RMS:
You see, UCITA says that by default a software developer or distributor is completely liable for flaws in a program; but it also allows a shrink-wrap license to override the default. Sophisticated software companies that make proprietary software will use shrink-wrap licenses to avoid liability entirely. But amateurs, and self-employed contractors who develop software for others, will be often be shafted because they didn't know about this problem. And we free software developers won't have any reliable way to avoid the problem.
Why exactly isn't the GPL a 'shrink-wrap' license? Does anyone know? Is it just the click-through thing? Why can't the GPL disclaim warrantees?
The true intelectuals spell everything correctly
I laugh at your naivety
I remember seeing ads for D-VHS years ago. A cool idea, but I wish they'd use smaller tapes. VHS tapes are so unweildly, really.