Yer arguging with the wrong person:P I'm just telling you, its very likely the teenage customer service clerk isnt going to have the authorization to let you keep returning the same disc (or give you a refund as opposed to a same-title replacement), and the aging store manager who doesnt have a clue what DRM is is going to tell you 'sorry, store policy', and isnt going to give a fig when you threaten not to shop there anymore.
is this a good idea? So lets say someone invents something, doesnt have the money to produce it large scale and doesnt patent it and instead publishes it and tons of people use it and impplement it individually, then ten years later some megacorp patents it, now all of a sudden those tons of people are violating this corps patent? I call bullshit. Placing something in the public domain, or actually implementing it, should trump a later 'filing' of a patent on it.
Also patents shuld be for actual inventions, never for 'ideas' or 'methods'. Unless you have a prototype in-hand *and* no one else has already done what you are doing, no patent for you.
External modems require drivers? Really. Then explain how I can take my box, which has, say, an RS232 serial port (which the so-called 'drivers' for are part of the stock kernel). And lets say I have NEVER connected any sort of dialup modem to this machine.
Now lets say I go out and buy a brand new external hardware modem. I bring it home, plug it into the serial port, and fire up a terminal app and type ATDT12125551212. AMAZING! The modem is capable of dialing a number (and if there is a modem answering at that number, even handshaking and connecting to it) and I hever had to install any 'drivers'. All I had to do was send it ASCII codes over the RS232 lines. I didnt have to insert any CD's that came with the modem - I didnt have to download anything from the modem manufacturers site, certainly not anything proprietary. All I had to do was use a stock, free program to connect to the serial port and start typing.
This is how properly designed hardware should and does work. No vendor lock-in, no OS lock-in. No need for the hardware maker to waste time producing special 'drivers' and they whinge about having to 'support' different OS/platforms - all they have to do is conform to an existing well-known specification for interfacing a device of the type they make with another device, and the world is open to them.
The concept here is that a DVD that has DRM is 'faulty', and in this case they are designed to be 'faulty'. Plus, you have to take the one they replace your first 'faulty' one with home before you come back and say 'this one doesnt work either', and once you've come back twice, the store people are probably going to start saying your DVD player is defective and refuse to let you return it a second time.
So domains being used for http that didnt have a host with an http service would be...
Cant complete that, becuase a domain that doesnt have a host with an http service is a domain that isnt being used for http.
Also, it is entirely possible (and completely legitimate) to have a www.yourdomain.com that has an http service, that is used only for private access at something like:
and which either gives a 404 at the root or has either a blank page or some sort of placeholder there.
You dont have to specify what you are going to use a domain for (nor should you have to). A domain is simply a name, which you can assign hostnames in (which can include 'www', or 'fleeblebox' or whatever else you want).
What services those hosts do (or do not) provide isnt part of the registration of a domain, and can change as often and as frequently as the owner of the hosts and the registrant of the domain decide.
There is no legitmate way you can enforce what services and/or pages within an http service that someone does or does not host or offer at a domain they are the registrant of. Nor would it be really desirable to invite such regulation.
The problem is, having to have part of the 'hardware' be proprietary closed software that is secret and only available for one proprietary closed OS. I want the hardware to stand on its own. Envision the diffence between the so-called 'winmodems' and real modems (even internal ones). Or the difference between real printers, and the crap they pass off as printers that arent capable of printing without the windows 'drivers'.
A printer should understand some sort of known, documented printing language, that anything (a PC, a camera, or a toaster, should someone decide to make a toaster that can print) can speak and transmit to the printer over a standard, known interface (such as paralelle or USB).
Same thing for a wifi transceiver. Parts of its functionality shouldnt be locked into some proprietary closed software that runs on ANOTHER device, it should stand on its own.
We need to get away from every device having its own proprietary 'drivers', and have devices use existing documented interfaces. I know MS likes its monopolistic advantage of having the HW makers kowtow to them and provide them the programming info under NDA so that no one else can communicate with their hardware, but it oughta be illegal, and in a world where the PC/OS market had healthy competition they wouldnt be able to get away with it.
Vonage wasnt using Verizon DSL. The Verizon CUSTOMER was using their Verizon DSL, to access various parts of the Internet, which included Vonage VOIP servers. Also, I doubt that that many of Vonage's customers have Verizon DSL. Most VoIP customers go with cable broadband, to avoid being forced to pay for a phone line from the ILEC that they dont need in order to get DSL.
If you have a Verizon DSL line, and you access www.ibm.com, should IBM have to pay Verizon for 'using' their DSL to send you packets containing the files making up their website? If you visit amazon.com and buy something, should Verison get a percentage? Its called the Internet stupid! The whole point is to INTER connect.
The point is, there are legitimate uses for domain names *other* than hosting websites.
There is no requirement (nor should there be) that www.domain.com exist for any particular domain or that there be an IP address for it (perhaps it only has an MX record), or even if there is a host, that it be a webserver.
ISDN/T1/OC3 'routers' do in fact connect to your PC via ethernet.
Dialup modem doesnt becuase modems predate ethernet, so they use serial (at least real modems do, crappy substandard ones connect(ed) to ISA/PCI/etc bus directly).
Basically the analogy is external vs internal 'modem'. You dont need special 'drivers' for an external modem, and you generally got a better modem. While I understand that most people want a PCMCIA card for their laptop, it seems like the 'external' wireless modem seems to be conspicuously missing.
As far as your security point, they have only created the illusion of security.
As far as formats, the sheeple who upgrade blindly are generally not bright enough to even have it occur that there might be a format problem or that they should do something other than just click the little icon that looks like a disk.
So why do we need to reinvent the wheel again? The point is that 'wifi' is essentially ethernet. There are many devices that have ethernet, but no PCMCIA or PCI. The point is that ethernet is the 'standard' for networking connectivity to a device, not PCI or PCMCIA.
Most stores wont do refund for an opened title - most will only exchange for the exact same title. However, you take the new one home, find it defective as well, then go back. If stores have to ship enough opened units back there will be some reaction, maybe. Assuming they dont just re-shrink wrap it and sell it again.
MS motivation behind not using an open format (or opening their own format *for real*) is sure as hell not security, I'd bet my last penny on it.
There is absolutely no reason that their 'newest' version of (Word/Excel/whatever) couldnt save *by default* in a format that the previous version(s) couldnt read, especially since the majority of crap people use it to type dont use any of the fancy bells and whistles they have anyway. T be honest, IMNSO, most things people type into MS-Word and then transmit through email could be saved as plain ascii text and lose nothing of importance. I do understand that for things that are intended for printing, people want fonts and margins and whatnot, and if you are going to paper, once its there it no longer matters what software you used, since ink-on-paper is a 'standard' format. The problem is all the idiots that type something in it that is intended for electronic distribution.
I dont currently work in IT (I did at the time I registered)
No, I dont use a single piece of MS software, not currently, and not when I was a network engineer. The ownership/management was clueful enough to recognize that MS was not the way to go for servers or critical network infrastructure. (For the record, I was also the senior engineer, but they didnt use Windows before I worked there, either) The tech support people used Windows and/or Linux, as they chose (since they did have to support customers who were obviously mostly using it). Our internal sites and email were standards based, not Windows based. (So I did _support_ Windows, in that they could get on the network, access email, etc; but I've never used an MS-based system as my workstation anywhere.)
Honestly, I wouldnt take an IT job at a company the force-fed Windows to its employees, or that used Windows for its servers or critical infrastructure.
Interesting. I wasnt aware anything like this existed. However, I looked at the Linksys one, and I dont understand why its so physically big. If they can fit a wifi device in a PCMCI card 3/8" thick, why cant they fit one in an enclosure the size of a USB flash drive/key (or comparable), only with an ethernet plug instead of USB? (And it isnt the power supply - it looks like it comes with the typical 'brick' that other Linksys gear uses, although it can optionally do POE as well)
I dont touch MS software with a ten foot pole, but for Vista I've ordered a 100 foot pole.
Even the MS fanb^H^H^H^Hapol^H^H^H^Hafficionados are saying to stay away from it, it must be bad.
Of course, one of the problems of using MS is that eventually, MS is going to force you to, either directly or indirectly. For the gamers, eventually new games wont run on anything but Vista, and for business folk, once a few businesses are conned into upgrading to it (and of course new versions of Word/etc, which will of course not open in earlier versions, that any business that interacts with them (that is stupid enough to consider MS-Word a good format to exchange data in) will have to ugprade too, and so on. And they call GPL software viral.
And of course, with Vista's build in 'calling home', when and if MS wants you to move to something else, they will just slowly tell every Vista that 'calls home' thats its obsolete, and it will slowly begin to lose functionaility, and eventually you'll be forced to upgrade again.
Just like the drug pusher, MS cannot make money unless you keep buying more. To borrow a phrase from another war: 'Just say No' to MS. Now is the time to get off their drugs.
Get rid of wifi cards (PCI as well as PCMCIA), and instead implement the wifi 'client' side with an ETHERNET jack to connect.. well, anything that has or can have an ethernet port. Have a 'router' build in that is accesible and configurable via HTTP and/or telnet. Include a 'bridge mode' where, once configured, the router steps out of the way for cases where you are on a known network where you trust its security, or for 'public' untrusted networks you leave the build-in router enabled, isolating you from unexpected inbound connections.
Then, you dont need specific 'drivers' for wifi hardware (you just need to support ethernet)
Note: Classful IP assignment (the Class A/B/C you refer to) has been obsolete for over 10 years. Google for 'CIDR'. There are of course some legacy assignments from when it was not obsolete, but they simply are not being handed out that way anymore. Go visit arin.net to see how its done these days.
to do, would be to find a way to provide high-speed wired access to the existing Internet, without having to deal with either the monopoly phonecompany or the monopoly cablecompany.
Either that or a major breakthrough in wireless tech that eliminates the line-of-sight requirement, increases the range and bandwidth, and doesnt increase the cost.
And no, I'm not holding my breath on either of those.
I should have noted, my post is specifically US-centric. I know that many other countries are light-years ahead of us in this regard, mostly due to the efforts of our entrenched telecom monopolies.
3) Cross out all the cable providers and telephone monopolies.
Unfortunately, when you do this, you are very often left with the empty set. (Unless you are looking for 56k dialup)
Ways to get access faster than 56k:
1. Over the cable monopoly's cable. 2. Over the telephone monopoly's copper loop. (wether you are paying them directly, or wether you are paying a 3rd party DSL provider who pays them for you) 3. Fixed wireless, if you should be so lucky to be in range, and want to pay a whole lot up front (or sign a long contract). 4. Satellite, if you want to pay a whole lot up front (or sign a long contract) and get so-so access. 5. Happen to be so lucky to live in or next to the same building as an independent ISP, or within WIFI range of same (if they are clueful and cooperative enough to give you access over WIFI)
If its says 'paperweight' You printer is only half a printer, and its other half is implemented as proprietary microsoft-only software. Otherwise, instructions on how to print to this printer using modern Free Software should be found there.
If not, I'd be really curious to know what specific printer you are trying to use.
Other than as an anti-competitive measure preventing people from using the most competitive provider of a given service (such as phone calls), why exactly should VoIP be prohibited? Are they going to block 'well known' VoIP ports? What if I use an encrypted VPN to tunnel packets? Or is this going to be 'not really' IP connectivity that only offers access to an HTTP proxy? (Which, with my own server on the 'real' net, and appropriate software I could *still* tunnel over to get full IP connectivity)
"Hardware" firewall means the firewall is a different piece of hardware than the one it is trying to protect.
So-called 'software' firewalls that run on the same machine they are protecting are crap.
A properly configured bsd or linux box doesnt need a seperate firewall.
No comptetent person with any clue whatsoever would ever consider putting a Windows box on the net without a seperate ("hardware") firewall protecting it, assuming they have any reason to run a Windows box to begin with. (Eg their boss/spouse/SO/chilren demand it, they want to use it as a wintendo, etc)
Indeed. Not only does Joe Sixpack needs some education, so do the financial institutions.
1. People need to know that they should not trust links in email. 2. Banks/etc need to never expect their customers to trust links in even authentic messages. 3. Customers should make an effort to find out, and Banks/etc should make an effort to inform (NOT through email) them, of the correct and legitimate address they should hand-enter into their browser to access the banks real site. 4. The guts of communications, anything sensitive, should be done *within* the site itself, an email should only serve to notify that 'you have a message - log into the site to read it' (and fight the urge to include a link - it specifically needs to be a little less friendly to force the customer to be aware of where they are going) 5. None of this is effective against the crapware, spyware, trojans, etc that Windows and MSIE are, and will always be, vulnerable to. Banks/etc should encourage customers to use alternatives to MSIE, at the very least by ensuring theirs sites are 100% standards compliant and work with those alternatives (eg FireFox) (Paypal violates this one in that it *requires* Windows/MSIE for its 'virtual debit card' function, and I'm sure many banks optimize their sites for MSIE)
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Yer arguging with the wrong person :P I'm just telling you, its very likely the teenage customer service clerk isnt going to have the authorization to let you keep returning the same disc (or give you a refund as opposed to a same-title replacement), and the aging store manager who doesnt have a clue what DRM is is going to tell you 'sorry, store policy', and isnt going to give a fig when you threaten not to shop there anymore.
is this a good idea? So lets say someone invents something, doesnt have the money to produce it large scale and doesnt patent it and instead publishes it and tons of people use it and impplement it individually, then ten years later some megacorp patents it, now all of a sudden those tons of people are violating this corps patent? I call bullshit. Placing something in the public domain, or actually implementing it, should trump a later 'filing' of a patent on it.
Also patents shuld be for actual inventions, never for 'ideas' or 'methods'. Unless you have a prototype in-hand *and* no one else has already done what you are doing, no patent for you.
External modems require drivers? Really. Then explain how I can take my box, which has, say, an RS232 serial port (which the so-called 'drivers' for are part of the stock kernel). And lets say I have NEVER connected any sort of dialup modem to this machine.
Now lets say I go out and buy a brand new external hardware modem. I bring it home, plug it into the serial port, and fire up a terminal app and type ATDT12125551212. AMAZING! The modem is capable of dialing a number (and if there is a modem answering at that number, even handshaking and connecting to it) and I hever had to install any 'drivers'. All I had to do was send it ASCII codes over the RS232 lines. I didnt have to insert any CD's that came with the modem - I didnt have to download anything from the modem manufacturers site, certainly not anything proprietary. All I had to do was use a stock, free program to connect to the serial port and start typing.
This is how properly designed hardware should and does work. No vendor lock-in, no OS lock-in. No need for the hardware maker to waste time producing special 'drivers' and they whinge about having to 'support' different OS/platforms - all they have to do is conform to an existing well-known specification for interfacing a device of the type they make with another device, and the world is open to them.
The concept here is that a DVD that has DRM is 'faulty', and in this case they are designed to be 'faulty'. Plus, you have to take the one they replace your first 'faulty' one with home before you come back and say 'this one doesnt work either', and once you've come back twice, the store people are probably going to start saying your DVD player is defective and refuse to let you return it a second time.
So domains being used for http that didnt have a host with an http service would be ...
t -only-insiders-know/
Cant complete that, becuase a domain that doesnt have a host with an http service is a domain that isnt being used for http.
Also, it is entirely possible (and completely legitimate) to have a www.yourdomain.com that has an http service, that is used only for private access at something like:
http://www.yourdomain.com/an-unpublished-path-tha
and which either gives a 404 at the root or has either a blank page or some sort of placeholder there.
You dont have to specify what you are going to use a domain for (nor should you have to). A domain is simply a name, which you can assign hostnames in (which can include 'www', or 'fleeblebox' or whatever else you want).
What services those hosts do (or do not) provide isnt part of the registration of a domain, and can change as often and as frequently as the owner of the hosts and the registrant of the domain decide.
There is no legitmate way you can enforce what services and/or pages within an http service that someone does or does not host or offer at a domain they are the registrant of. Nor would it be really desirable to invite such regulation.
The problem is, having to have part of the 'hardware' be proprietary closed software that is secret and only available for one proprietary closed OS. I want the hardware to stand on its own. Envision the diffence between the so-called 'winmodems' and real modems (even internal ones). Or the difference between real printers, and the crap they pass off as printers that arent capable of printing without the windows 'drivers'.
A printer should understand some sort of known, documented printing language, that anything (a PC, a camera, or a toaster, should someone decide to make a toaster that can print) can speak and transmit to the printer over a standard, known interface (such as paralelle or USB).
Same thing for a wifi transceiver. Parts of its functionality shouldnt be locked into some proprietary closed software that runs on ANOTHER device, it should stand on its own.
We need to get away from every device having its own proprietary 'drivers', and have devices use existing documented interfaces. I know MS likes its monopolistic advantage of having the HW makers kowtow to them and provide them the programming info under NDA so that no one else can communicate with their hardware, but it oughta be illegal, and in a world where the PC/OS market had healthy competition they wouldnt be able to get away with it.
Your argument is utter bullshit.
Vonage wasnt using Verizon DSL. The Verizon CUSTOMER was using their Verizon DSL, to access various parts of the Internet, which included Vonage VOIP servers. Also, I doubt that that many of Vonage's customers have Verizon DSL. Most VoIP customers go with cable broadband, to avoid being forced to pay for a phone line from the ILEC that they dont need in order to get DSL.
If you have a Verizon DSL line, and you access www.ibm.com, should IBM have to pay Verizon for 'using' their DSL to send you packets containing the files making up their website? If you visit amazon.com and buy something, should Verison get a percentage? Its called the Internet stupid! The whole point is to INTER connect.
The point is, there are legitimate uses for domain names *other* than hosting websites.
There is no requirement (nor should there be) that www.domain.com exist for any particular domain or that there be an IP address for it (perhaps it only has an MX record), or even if there is a host, that it be a webserver.
Basically, Domain Name != Web Site
ISDN/T1/OC3 'routers' do in fact connect to your PC via ethernet.
Dialup modem doesnt becuase modems predate ethernet, so they use serial (at least real modems do, crappy substandard ones connect(ed) to ISA/PCI/etc bus directly).
Basically the analogy is external vs internal 'modem'. You dont need special 'drivers' for an external modem, and you generally got a better modem. While I understand that most people want a PCMCIA card for their laptop, it seems like the 'external' wireless modem seems to be conspicuously missing.
As far as your security point, they have only created the illusion of security.
As far as formats, the sheeple who upgrade blindly are generally not bright enough to even have it occur that there might be a format problem or that they should do something other than just click the little icon that looks like a disk.
So why do we need to reinvent the wheel again? The point is that 'wifi' is essentially ethernet. There are many devices that have ethernet, but no PCMCIA or PCI. The point is that ethernet is the 'standard' for networking connectivity to a device, not PCI or PCMCIA.
Most stores wont do refund for an opened title - most will only exchange for the exact same title. However, you take the new one home, find it defective as well, then go back. If stores have to ship enough opened units back there will be some reaction, maybe. Assuming they dont just re-shrink wrap it and sell it again.
MS motivation behind not using an open format (or opening their own format *for real*) is sure as hell not security, I'd bet my last penny on it.
There is absolutely no reason that their 'newest' version of (Word/Excel/whatever) couldnt save *by default* in a format that the previous version(s) couldnt read, especially since the majority of crap people use it to type dont use any of the fancy bells and whistles they have anyway. T be honest, IMNSO, most things people type into MS-Word and then transmit through email could be saved as plain ascii text and lose nothing of importance. I do understand that for things that are intended for printing, people want fonts and margins and whatnot, and if you are going to paper, once its there it no longer matters what software you used, since ink-on-paper is a 'standard' format. The problem is all the idiots that type something in it that is intended for electronic distribution.
I dont currently work in IT (I did at the time I registered)
No, I dont use a single piece of MS software, not currently, and not when I was a network engineer. The ownership/management was clueful enough to recognize that MS was not the way to go for servers or critical network infrastructure. (For the record, I was also the senior engineer, but they didnt use Windows before I worked there, either) The tech support people used Windows and/or Linux, as they chose (since they did have to support customers who were obviously mostly using it). Our internal sites and email were standards based, not Windows based. (So I did _support_ Windows, in that they could get on the network, access email, etc; but I've never used an MS-based system as my workstation anywhere.)
Honestly, I wouldnt take an IT job at a company the force-fed Windows to its employees, or that used Windows for its servers or critical infrastructure.
Interesting. I wasnt aware anything like this existed. However, I looked at the Linksys one, and I dont understand why its so physically big. If they can fit a wifi device in a PCMCI card 3/8" thick, why cant they fit one in an enclosure the size of a USB flash drive/key (or comparable), only with an ethernet plug instead of USB? (And it isnt the power supply - it looks like it comes with the typical 'brick' that other Linksys gear uses, although it can optionally do POE as well)
I dont touch MS software with a ten foot pole, but for Vista I've ordered a 100 foot pole.
Even the MS fanb^H^H^H^Hapol^H^H^H^Hafficionados are saying to stay away from it, it must be bad.
Of course, one of the problems of using MS is that eventually, MS is going to force you to, either directly or indirectly. For the gamers, eventually new games wont run on anything but Vista, and for business folk, once a few businesses are conned into upgrading to it (and of course new versions of Word/etc, which will of course not open in earlier versions, that any business that interacts with them (that is stupid enough to consider MS-Word a good format to exchange data in) will have to ugprade too, and so on. And they call GPL software viral.
And of course, with Vista's build in 'calling home', when and if MS wants you to move to something else, they will just slowly tell every Vista that 'calls home' thats its obsolete, and it will slowly begin to lose functionaility, and eventually you'll be forced to upgrade again.
Just like the drug pusher, MS cannot make money unless you keep buying more. To borrow a phrase from another war: 'Just say No' to MS. Now is the time to get off their drugs.
Get rid of wifi cards (PCI as well as PCMCIA), and instead implement the wifi 'client' side with an ETHERNET jack to connect .. well, anything that has or can have an ethernet port. Have a 'router' build in that is accesible and configurable via HTTP and/or telnet. Include a 'bridge mode' where, once configured, the router steps out of the way for cases where you are on a known network where you trust its security, or for 'public' untrusted networks you leave the build-in router enabled, isolating you from unexpected inbound connections.
Then, you dont need specific 'drivers' for wifi hardware (you just need to support ethernet)
Note: Classful IP assignment (the Class A/B/C you refer to) has been obsolete for over 10 years. Google for 'CIDR'. There are of course some legacy assignments from when it was not obsolete, but they simply are not being handed out that way anymore. Go visit arin.net to see how its done these days.
to do, would be to find a way to provide high-speed wired access to the existing Internet, without having to deal with either the monopoly phonecompany or the monopoly cablecompany.
Either that or a major breakthrough in wireless tech that eliminates the line-of-sight requirement, increases the range and bandwidth, and doesnt increase the cost.
And no, I'm not holding my breath on either of those.
I should have noted, my post is specifically US-centric. I know that many other countries are light-years ahead of us in this regard, mostly due to the efforts of our entrenched telecom monopolies.
3) Cross out all the cable providers and telephone monopolies.
Unfortunately, when you do this, you are very often left with the empty set. (Unless you are looking for 56k dialup)
Ways to get access faster than 56k:
1. Over the cable monopoly's cable.
2. Over the telephone monopoly's copper loop. (wether you are paying them directly, or wether you are paying a 3rd party DSL provider who pays them for you)
3. Fixed wireless, if you should be so lucky to be in range, and want to pay a whole lot up front (or sign a long contract).
4. Satellite, if you want to pay a whole lot up front (or sign a long contract) and get so-so access.
5. Happen to be so lucky to live in or next to the same building as an independent ISP, or within WIFI range of same (if they are clueful and cooperative enough to give you access over WIFI)
printer "driver" is a windows concept, really.
Look your printer up at http://openprinting.org/printer_list.cgi
If its says 'paperweight' You printer is only half a printer, and its other half is implemented as proprietary microsoft-only software. Otherwise, instructions on how to print to this printer using modern Free Software should be found there.
If not, I'd be really curious to know what specific printer you are trying to use.
Other than as an anti-competitive measure preventing people from using the most competitive provider of a given service (such as phone calls), why exactly should VoIP be prohibited? Are they going to block 'well known' VoIP ports? What if I use an encrypted VPN to tunnel packets? Or is this going to be 'not really' IP connectivity that only offers access to an HTTP proxy? (Which, with my own server on the 'real' net, and appropriate software I could *still* tunnel over to get full IP connectivity)
"Hardware" firewall means the firewall is a different piece of hardware than the one it is trying to protect.
So-called 'software' firewalls that run on the same machine they are protecting are crap.
A properly configured bsd or linux box doesnt need a seperate firewall.
No comptetent person with any clue whatsoever would ever consider putting a Windows box on the net without a seperate ("hardware") firewall protecting it, assuming they have any reason to run a Windows box to begin with. (Eg their boss/spouse/SO/chilren demand it, they want to use it as a wintendo, etc)
Indeed. Not only does Joe Sixpack needs some education, so do the financial institutions.
1. People need to know that they should not trust links in email.
2. Banks/etc need to never expect their customers to trust links in even authentic messages.
3. Customers should make an effort to find out, and Banks/etc should make an effort to inform (NOT through email) them, of the correct and legitimate address they should hand-enter into their browser to access the banks real site.
4. The guts of communications, anything sensitive, should be done *within* the site itself, an email should only serve to notify that 'you have a message - log into the site to read it' (and fight the urge to include a link - it specifically needs to be a little less friendly to force the customer to be aware of where they are going)
5. None of this is effective against the crapware, spyware, trojans, etc that Windows and MSIE are, and will always be, vulnerable to. Banks/etc should encourage customers to use alternatives to MSIE, at the very least by ensuring theirs sites are 100% standards compliant and work with those alternatives (eg FireFox) (Paypal violates this one in that it *requires* Windows/MSIE for its 'virtual debit card' function, and I'm sure many banks optimize their sites for MSIE)