greater profits than they would be entitled in a competitive market.
No-one is entitled to profits in a capitalist system. I'm sure you meant to say "profits that they could make".
As far as outlawing CD burners or taxing media, don't see it happening. Even lackey states like Australia haven't got around to "updating" their copyright laws to match the latest USA perpetual protection version, so I can't see places like China even bothering to think about it. And if the drives and media are freely available outside the US all a ban inside the US would achieve is a higher price on the black market.
yeah, and any patch from MS is not going to present stability issues, and of course it will be compatible with all the existing software on the machine.
The worst thing about a lot of sites is the lack of a way to either back out an "upgrade" if it trashes stuff, or a duplicate machine to test that on. I spent a happy 36 hours once trying to undo an "urgent security patch" to MS_SQL Server that made the thing secure all right, the fscking thing wouldn't run at all it was so secure. Never let PHB have root, it just blows your availability out the window(tm)
The article link is a promise of vulnerability stuff next week (week? I'll have forgotten this within days).
More amusingly, the possibility of remote shutdown of someone's network using this appears to be no worse than with any other Micro$oft product. It doesn't seem to do anything more than irritate existing users.
I have the "trial" version of Office on this machine and the anonymity thing seems to be nonsense - I had a look at the packet and it clearly says "product xxx, registration key YYY", which as we all know lets them link it to anything you expose on the net. Like, say, your email address in Outleak, or the "owned by" details that most corps helpfully make you fill out with your name and so on in Word. It's a good way to provide enhanced traceability of anyone using M$ products to access the net.
And of course, sniffing those details lets you point the finger at anyone you choose. The worry is that M$ will try to claim positive ID based on this stuff, and that the id is non-copyable and secure, since forging or altering it is an offence under the DCMA.
A PC is basically never the cheapest or best way to do the single thing you want to do right now. But most people look at it and go - it does this ok, and that ok, and twenty other things ok, and the four hundred gadgets that I'd need to replace all the things I use it for would cost a lot more, as well as filling up my garage.
I tried to get my (computer illiterate) sister a couple of gadgets to to word processing and email on, but it was cheaper to buy a low end PC. And even factoring in the support costs ("all my text has gone green") it's cheaper and easier to have the PC sitting there. For $20 they even bought a "fax machine" (software) that uses no power or space (that wasn't already used). Can't beat that in dedicated hardware.
For true joy, read risks digest about the guy who couldn't connect his PDA to anything, then one day... oopsie, no more data. Imagine that when you own a network appliance, a smart phone, a pda, a smartass fridge-freezer that talks to the microwave but not the toaster oven, yadda yadda, then one day you sync (of course, they all have to sync together, otherwise what's the point), and get multilateral data destruction. All your data are belong to us!
Make the arena reasonably RF tight and set up microcell transceivers on the ceiling that accept emergency calls and reject all others
Ever seen a Faraday cage? Want one at your place? Bwahahaha
What I assumed they were talking about is "silent cells" - a "fake" cellphone node that you install locally that captures any cellphone close enough and does not do anything eles. Your phone thinks it's connected to the network, your cell knows otherwise. Jamming (esp CDMA) would be tricky and loud (read lots-o-watts)
That sort of thing can be low power and not obtrusive, and you could possibly even make one that was battery powered and portable. The problem of accepting calls to emergency services is, IMO, a dead herring. Require users to tell people about the dead zone and leave it at that. Anyone stupid enough to forget is SOL.
With GSM etc you can even display the location as "jammed" or "silenced".
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No-one is entitled to profits in a capitalist system. I'm sure you meant to say "profits that they could make".
As far as outlawing CD burners or taxing media, don't see it happening. Even lackey states like Australia haven't got around to "updating" their copyright laws to match the latest USA perpetual protection version, so I can't see places like China even bothering to think about it. And if the drives and media are freely available outside the US all a ban inside the US would achieve is a higher price on the black market.
yeah, and any patch from MS is not going to present stability issues, and of course it will be compatible with all the existing software on the machine.
The worst thing about a lot of sites is the lack of a way to either back out an "upgrade" if it trashes stuff, or a duplicate machine to test that on. I spent a happy 36 hours once trying to undo an "urgent security patch" to MS_SQL Server that made the thing secure all right, the fscking thing wouldn't run at all it was so secure. Never let PHB have root, it just blows your availability out the window(tm)
More amusingly, the possibility of remote shutdown of someone's network using this appears to be no worse than with any other Micro$oft product. It doesn't seem to do anything more than irritate existing users.
I have the "trial" version of Office on this machine and the anonymity thing seems to be nonsense - I had a look at the packet and it clearly says "product xxx, registration key YYY", which as we all know lets them link it to anything you expose on the net. Like, say, your email address in Outleak, or the "owned by" details that most corps helpfully make you fill out with your name and so on in Word. It's a good way to provide enhanced traceability of anyone using M$ products to access the net.
And of course, sniffing those details lets you point the finger at anyone you choose. The worry is that M$ will try to claim positive ID based on this stuff, and that the id is non-copyable and secure, since forging or altering it is an offence under the DCMA.
I tried to get my (computer illiterate) sister a couple of gadgets to to word processing and email on, but it was cheaper to buy a low end PC. And even factoring in the support costs ("all my text has gone green") it's cheaper and easier to have the PC sitting there. For $20 they even bought a "fax machine" (software) that uses no power or space (that wasn't already used). Can't beat that in dedicated hardware.
For true joy, read risks digest about the guy who couldn't connect his PDA to anything, then one day... oopsie, no more data. Imagine that when you own a network appliance, a smart phone, a pda, a smartass fridge-freezer that talks to the microwave but not the toaster oven, yadda yadda, then one day you sync (of course, they all have to sync together, otherwise what's the point), and get multilateral data destruction. All your data are belong to us!
Ever seen a Faraday cage? Want one at your place? Bwahahaha
What I assumed they were talking about is "silent cells" - a "fake" cellphone node that you install locally that captures any cellphone close enough and does not do anything eles. Your phone thinks it's connected to the network, your cell knows otherwise. Jamming (esp CDMA) would be tricky and loud (read lots-o-watts)
That sort of thing can be low power and not obtrusive, and you could possibly even make one that was battery powered and portable. The problem of accepting calls to emergency services is, IMO, a dead herring. Require users to tell people about the dead zone and leave it at that. Anyone stupid enough to forget is SOL.
With GSM etc you can even display the location as "jammed" or "silenced".