It doesn't make much difference for single player only games, but LAN & internet games will not allow installs using the same key to play together, but it still isn't that great a concept, as keygens seem to be widely available.
So you attribute your system security in part to software? How queer.. You should be able to use Microsoft Internet Explorer in a "clueful" manner and it would never have any security issues, right?
Well, yes, I guess I do use Internet Explorer in a clueful manner, because I don't actually use it. Mozilla Firebird is my browser of choice.
umm how about switching to a more secure OS so you don't have to put up with all that BS.
Your choice of OS doesn't make your system secure. What makes a system secure is a user that has a clue.
In the past 3 years I have only used linux at home. Never had to worry about viruses, nor spam (yeah, that's right, I averaged 2-3 peices a year), nor spyware (spam maker), nor adware (spam maker), nor web browsing issues (IE security flaws). Now I spend more time cleaning up all this crap then anything cause I have to have a winblows box at home so i can do.net crap
Like you, I've not had a Virus in countless years. I don't get spam, My system has no spyware, or adware or web browsing issues (Firebird rules!), and I run a Windows box (Prerequisite of being a Windows Sysadmin). Had I have been an uneducated user, I'm sure I would have fallen fowl of most (if not all) of the issues you have listed.
But at least I never had to reinstall my entire OS because a windows update failed (which just happened to my brother yesterday, and I have seen it several other times, too!)
There are aproximately 3000 Windows PC's on the university network that I admin, and I don't see Windows Update issues that you see. Occasionaly a patch will fail, but if you know what you doing it is quite simple to fix, without having to resort to a complete re-install. Reinstalls are for failed disks and compromised machines.
So, no, it is not just about educating users, it is about makeing a more secure system!
But who makes the system secure? Why _educated_ users do. - If a user is clueless, the odds are that they will be compromised, regardless of what OS they choose.
I think that it is great that less critical problems are being found now then with Windows 2000, and I hope the trend continues.
The quantity seems to have dropped, but the severity seems to keep increasing.
Just look at the havok caused by the recent RPC worms.
- I'm also in disbelief that Microsoft still haven't released a patch for the %00 bug in IE that allows spammers and malicious web admins to obscure the real URL the user is being directed to, perhaps Microsoft don't see a bug which could be used to trick people out of their hard earned cash as a Critical problem?
Well that's an easy answer. It's all about educating 'users'.
1. Don't open emails unless you are certain it is from a trusted source.
2. Keep your system patched
3. Ensure you have Anti Virus software installed, and up-to-date.
4. Use the firewall built into XP, or install one of the many free (for personal use) 3rd party firewalls, or even better look for an ISP that firewalls sensitive ports for you.
This is all basic stuff, but many home users don't really give a stuff if their machine is taking part in a DDoS attack, as long as they can still get to their email, view web pages, send instant messages and download pr0n (actually - forget the last one, that's us geeks)
Please Gentoo: lose the hubris, sort our the installation!
I'm no Linux newbie, but I'm not an expert either. I recently tried gentoo, and I love the manual install approach that Gentoo offers. I suspect that I have learned more about Linux during the past few months of installing and using Gentoo, than I have from using Redhat since version 5.2 was released. For people keen to learn more such as myself, I would highly recommend Gentoo.
It's not as easy to install as redhat/fedora/mandrake etc. etc. etc. but it's hardly difficult for anyone with nothing more than basic understanding. The documentation is excellent, and the community forums on the gentoo site seem to have some of the most helpful people.
Gentoo isn't meant to be a 'user' orientated distribution, and I think to make the installation procedure similar to other distributions would take more away from the distro than it added.
I received two audio CD's with so called 'copy protection' on them for christmas. I wasn't able to play the CDs on the PC without lots of skipping, but I was able to rip them (perfectly - as far as I can tell) without any problems or specialist software.
After reading about how copy protection works, I can only assume that I must be lucky enough to own a drive that can read these disks?
I've just donwloaded the ISO and booted my wifes Toshiba Satelite A30 laptop from the CD, and it correctly detected the graphics, sound, network card and USB mouse. The distro does everything that Windows XP does, and more besides.
You can tell that the creators of this distro have put a lot of work into the user interface. Just about everything is configurable through the configuration tools, allowing 'users' to fully configure their system without having to understand where the operating system keeps it's configuration files.
This distro looks like a real Windows beater on a home desktop system, and my wifes laptop will almost certainly be running this distro in the very near future.
I was simply higlighting the difference between the free PC and the non-free Television, just to highlight that you can't really compare this with television.
And for what it's worth, you don't require a TV license to watch DVD's and Video's, unless you have any equipment capable (it has to be connected to be capable) of displaying, recording or processing broadcast material (terrestrial or other) in which case you do require a TV license. Note that the Copyright Law prevents you from watching 'borrowed' broadcast material.
In much the same way that they get TV shows in return for those shows being periodically interrupted by advertisements.
I paid for my TV set, I paid for my Satelite decoder. I pay a monthly subscription to recieve digital television broadcasts, I pay for terrestrial TV license (Yes, I live in the UK), Yet i still get adverts.
However as I own a TiVo, I never actually watch them.
The admins of large scale deployments have asked Microsoft to make patches more predictable so they can do planning for patch deployment.
Or so Microsoft say.
But what 'planning' is needed? Oh yes, let's 'plan' which admin gets to tick the box on the SUS server approval list this month! - Seriously - It's not planning that is required - it's testing. I'd rather get the patches sooner, so I can spend longer testing the patch on our typical machine config, then leave Microsoft sitting on their hands for up to a month.
It's not so much what their customers want, it more what Microsoft want their customers to think! (PHB thinks - "Patches released once a month, I remember when they where once a week. Microsoft are obviously taking more care with these security issues now. Let's switch to Microsoft!")
As others have stated, when a known vulnerability exists, or when sample code is publicly available, Microsoft will release the patch as soon as it's written.
If you RTFA, you would know that they didn't intend to release the patch. To quote the article: The company is still investigating why and how the patch was reissued.
...and of course you read the article didn't you? Please allow me to quote the first paragraph from the article for your benefit.
The company scrambled on Wednesday morning to figure out why a patch had been issued through its Windows Update service, when the software maker had declared on Tuesday that it would not issue any fixes in December.
In short, the update wasn't a 'zero-hour' patch, or a planned release.
Interestingly, this update has been mysteriously approved on our local SUS server without our knowledge. I really do hope that this patch has been thorougly tested by Microsoft, as they have just deployed it across our LAN without our consent.
In my opinion, this is one of the biggest problems with the Linux/Open source community as a whole. There are far too many inconsistant themes, widget sets, toolbars, layouts, too many different ways to perform what should be simple actions such as cut and paste, all within a single desktop enironment.
A lot of applications/Desktop Environments/Window Managers seem to have little or no thought put into the look, feel and consistancy of the overall user experience. Each developer seems to have their own idea of what is/works best, leaving the average Linux desktop looking/feeling like a horrible inconsistant mess.
Some distro's (RH) have tried (in vein) to correct this, but whilst mainstream apps don't play the consistancy game, Linux Desktop Vs Windows Desktop will be a one sided battle.
Sure there are plenty of things wrong with Windows too, but the user interface is light years ahead of Linux. At the end of the day, the user interface is what will put an operating system onto a 'users' desktop.
I don't use p2p myself, but I'd be interested to know where the MPAA & RIAA would stand if a huge worm hit 10,000's of windows systems and installed a p2p client, and then hosted infringing movie/music titles for others to download using any of the currently available p2p apps.
If the worm had a high propogation, surely this would make life very difficult for the MPAA & RIAA.
Come to think of it, if such a worm got into a computer system through a weakness in the operarting system, could the creators of the operating system be held responsible?
I often wonder what share of the desktop market Linux would have, if only Linux had the same choice and quality of games seen on Windows. Windows is my primary OS, games are the only thing preventing me from switching.
If IE blocks popups like Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror, and everyone else, then advertisers will just use much more invasive, hard-to-block ads.
I never used to block any ads, but then along came pop up ads. They overstepped the mark - too invasive for my liking, so they get blocked.
If ads don't get in the way, I don't bother blocking them. The banners sitting at the top or bottom of the page are fine. When ads get in the way of the content of the page (Where did my slashboxes go?) then the ads get blocked.
The more effort advertisers make to produce invasive ads, the more effort I use to block them. Have these advertisers ever heard of the term, "false economy"?
Slashdot Mirror
You've not used the image search with safesearch switched off then?
I make smart and conscious decisions, and have never had a virus on my computer for several years.
How do you know you haven't had a virus if you don't run a Virus checker? or is that just a smart and conscious guess?
I too am a gamer, and I don't see any overhead with NAV's realtime protection enabled.
It doesn't make much difference for single player only games, but LAN & internet games will not allow installs using the same key to play together, but it still isn't that great a concept, as keygens seem to be widely available.
So you attribute your system security in part to software? How queer.. You should be able to use Microsoft Internet Explorer in a "clueful" manner and it would never have any security issues, right?
Well, yes, I guess I do use Internet Explorer in a clueful manner, because I don't actually use it. Mozilla Firebird is my browser of choice.
That's what I like about a default(?) gentoo installas opposed to the default install of most other distros
umm how about switching to a more secure OS so you don't have to put up with all that BS.
.net crap
Your choice of OS doesn't make your system secure. What makes a system secure is a user that has a clue.
In the past 3 years I have only used linux at home. Never had to worry about viruses, nor spam (yeah, that's right, I averaged 2-3 peices a year), nor spyware (spam maker), nor adware (spam maker), nor web browsing issues (IE security flaws). Now I spend more time cleaning up all this crap then anything cause I have to have a winblows box at home so i can do
Like you, I've not had a Virus in countless years. I don't get spam, My system has no spyware, or adware or web browsing issues (Firebird rules!), and I run a Windows box (Prerequisite of being a Windows Sysadmin). Had I have been an uneducated user, I'm sure I would have fallen fowl of most (if not all) of the issues you have listed.
But at least I never had to reinstall my entire OS because a windows update failed (which just happened to my brother yesterday, and I have seen it several other times, too!)
There are aproximately 3000 Windows PC's on the university network that I admin, and I don't see Windows Update issues that you see. Occasionaly a patch will fail, but if you know what you doing it is quite simple to fix, without having to resort to a complete re-install. Reinstalls are for failed disks and compromised machines.
So, no, it is not just about educating users, it is about makeing a more secure system!
But who makes the system secure? Why _educated_ users do. - If a user is clueless, the odds are that they will be compromised, regardless of what OS they choose.
Windows is crap,when will the world realize this?
I'm beginning to think you are a troll.
Microsoft don't see a bug which could be used to trick people out of their hard earned cash as a Critical problem?
They wouldn't see it as a bug, heck that's exactly what Microsoft have been doing to their customers for years!
I think that it is great that less critical problems are being found now then with Windows 2000, and I hope the trend continues.
The quantity seems to have dropped, but the severity seems to keep increasing.
Just look at the havok caused by the recent RPC worms.
- I'm also in disbelief that Microsoft still haven't released a patch for the %00 bug in IE that allows spammers and malicious web admins to obscure the real URL the user is being directed to, perhaps Microsoft don't see a bug which could be used to trick people out of their hard earned cash as a Critical problem?
Microsoft Security. What's it all about?
Well that's an easy answer. It's all about educating 'users'.
1. Don't open emails unless you are certain it is from a trusted source.
2. Keep your system patched
3. Ensure you have Anti Virus software installed, and up-to-date.
4. Use the firewall built into XP, or install one of the many free (for personal use) 3rd party firewalls, or even better look for an ISP that firewalls sensitive ports for you.
This is all basic stuff, but many home users don't really give a stuff if their machine is taking part in a DDoS attack, as long as they can still get to their email, view web pages, send instant messages and download pr0n (actually - forget the last one, that's us geeks)
Interception of communications sounds pretty scary. I've nothing to worry about though, no way would they be interested in monitoring my communi.....
NO CARRIER
Of course, you need Windows installed (or at least a copy of ntfs.sys) for this to work.
Which of course it would be. If the file wasn't there, what use would NTFS read or write be on the system anyway?
A Hyperlink patent?
D'oh!
Please Gentoo: lose the hubris, sort our the installation!
I'm no Linux newbie, but I'm not an expert either. I recently tried gentoo, and I love the manual install approach that Gentoo offers. I suspect that I have learned more about Linux during the past few months of installing and using Gentoo, than I have from using Redhat since version 5.2 was released. For people keen to learn more such as myself, I would highly recommend Gentoo.
It's not as easy to install as redhat/fedora/mandrake etc. etc. etc. but it's hardly difficult for anyone with nothing more than basic understanding. The documentation is excellent, and the community forums on the gentoo site seem to have some of the most helpful people.
Gentoo isn't meant to be a 'user' orientated distribution, and I think to make the installation procedure similar to other distributions would take more away from the distro than it added.
I received two audio CD's with so called 'copy protection' on them for christmas. I wasn't able to play the CDs on the PC without lots of skipping, but I was able to rip them (perfectly - as far as I can tell) without any problems or specialist software.
After reading about how copy protection works, I can only assume that I must be lucky enough to own a drive that can read these disks?
I've just donwloaded the ISO and booted my wifes Toshiba Satelite A30 laptop from the CD, and it correctly detected the graphics, sound, network card and USB mouse. The distro does everything that Windows XP does, and more besides.
You can tell that the creators of this distro have put a lot of work into the user interface. Just about everything is configurable through the configuration tools, allowing 'users' to fully configure their system without having to understand where the operating system keeps it's configuration files.
This distro looks like a real Windows beater on a home desktop system, and my wifes laptop will almost certainly be running this distro in the very near future.
I don't know where you got that from, but here it is straight from the horses mouth.
This letter from TVLA confirms exactly what I have already said.
As does this, this and this
I was simply higlighting the difference between the free PC and the non-free Television, just to highlight that you can't really compare this with television.
And for what it's worth, you don't require a TV license to watch DVD's and Video's, unless you have any equipment capable (it has to be connected to be capable) of displaying, recording or processing broadcast material (terrestrial or other) in which case you do require a TV license. Note that the Copyright Law prevents you from watching 'borrowed' broadcast material.
In much the same way that they get TV shows in return for those shows being periodically interrupted by advertisements.
I paid for my TV set, I paid for my Satelite decoder. I pay a monthly subscription to recieve digital television broadcasts, I pay for terrestrial TV license (Yes, I live in the UK), Yet i still get adverts.
However as I own a TiVo, I never actually watch them.
Actually, I think Finuvir was referring to the general use of '@' in a URL, rather than the use of unescaped %01.
Seems like a damn fine idea to me. If all browsers already had this functionality, It would have prevented this from happening.
The admins of large scale deployments have asked Microsoft to make patches more predictable so they can do planning for patch deployment.
Or so Microsoft say.
But what 'planning' is needed? Oh yes, let's 'plan' which admin gets to tick the box on the SUS server approval list this month! - Seriously - It's not planning that is required - it's testing. I'd rather get the patches sooner, so I can spend longer testing the patch on our typical machine config, then leave Microsoft sitting on their hands for up to a month.
It's not so much what their customers want, it more what Microsoft want their customers to think! (PHB thinks - "Patches released once a month, I remember when they where once a week. Microsoft are obviously taking more care with these security issues now. Let's switch to Microsoft!")
As others have stated, when a known vulnerability exists, or when sample code is publicly available, Microsoft will release the patch as soon as it's written.
If you RTFA, you would know that they didn't intend to release the patch. To quote the article: The company is still investigating why and how the patch was reissued.
...and of course you read the article didn't you? Please allow me to quote the first paragraph from the article for your benefit.
The company scrambled on Wednesday morning to figure out why a patch had been issued through its Windows Update service, when the software maker had declared on Tuesday that it would not issue any fixes in December.
In short, the update wasn't a 'zero-hour' patch, or a planned release.
Interestingly, this update has been mysteriously approved on our local SUS server without our knowledge. I really do hope that this patch has been thorougly tested by Microsoft, as they have just deployed it across our LAN without our consent.
Trustworthy computing? pftttt.
It's not just Java!
In my opinion, this is one of the biggest problems with the Linux/Open source community as a whole. There are far too many inconsistant themes, widget sets, toolbars, layouts, too many different ways to perform what should be simple actions such as cut and paste, all within a single desktop enironment.
A lot of applications/Desktop Environments/Window Managers seem to have little or no thought put into the look, feel and consistancy of the overall user experience. Each developer seems to have their own idea of what is/works best, leaving the average Linux desktop looking/feeling like a horrible inconsistant mess.
Some distro's (RH) have tried (in vein) to correct this, but whilst mainstream apps don't play the consistancy game, Linux Desktop Vs Windows Desktop will be a one sided battle.
Sure there are plenty of things wrong with Windows too, but the user interface is light years ahead of Linux. At the end of the day, the user interface is what will put an operating system onto a 'users' desktop.
I don't use p2p myself, but I'd be interested to know where the MPAA & RIAA would stand if a huge worm hit 10,000's of windows systems and installed a p2p client, and then hosted infringing movie/music titles for others to download using any of the currently available p2p apps.
If the worm had a high propogation, surely this would make life very difficult for the MPAA & RIAA.
Come to think of it, if such a worm got into a computer system through a weakness in the operarting system, could the creators of the operating system be held responsible?
because we're game starved
I often wonder what share of the desktop market Linux would have, if only Linux had the same choice and quality of games seen on Windows. Windows is my primary OS, games are the only thing preventing me from switching.
If IE blocks popups like Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror, and everyone else, then advertisers will just use much more invasive, hard-to-block ads.
I never used to block any ads, but then along came pop up ads. They overstepped the mark - too invasive for my liking, so they get blocked.
If ads don't get in the way, I don't bother blocking them. The banners sitting at the top or bottom of the page are fine. When ads get in the way of the content of the page (Where did my slashboxes go?) then the ads get blocked.
The more effort advertisers make to produce invasive ads, the more effort I use to block them. Have these advertisers ever heard of the term, "false economy"?