People only call tech/customer support when they have a problem they can't solve.
No user can reasonably solve a problem with a NIC having a conflicting MAC address. (No, I don't think changing the MAC is the solution, complaining to the company and getting a valid MAC is the solution.).
Do people call you when they don't have problems? I sure didn't get many of those.
It is a self selecting sample and as such it is biased. Also, it is an 'impossible' problem. One which should not occur and is an obvious problem, as such it is a memorable problem.
It was very easy when I worked for AT&T Transtech doing technical support for various products to become very negative about the clients product. Why? Because all you hear about are the problems.
A dozen calls on any problem is a bloody rare call. I've had to deal with thousands of calls for particular problems. Even with those calls if you look at the same statistics for the number of users at the time they problems weren't all that significant.
I was bloody tired of dealing with the same problems all the time, but statisticly most weren't a major problem.
It used to be 'common', but its been significantly reduced in the last 5 years from what I've seen before.
I just think its very unlikely that there would be that many conflicts with his own network. It is much more likely somebody has sniffed the network and tweaked their mac address to try and use it.
I used to work tech support for AT&T WorldNet a number of years ago (seems like a lifetime!) and know how biased it is to be sitting on the end of technical support. If you've heard the problem a dozen times then yes, its happened quite a bit.
But if you ONLY heard it a dozen times it isn't very common. That probably works out to less and 0.001% of issues you've delt with.
(Even if the local Office Depot sold a dozen wireless cards with the same MAC address, I would expect there to be a virtually zero chance that one of those cards would get picked up by my network. They don't have that kind of range. (Based on the area of population they service).)
If someone has the same hardware address as your card, either: You've changed yours and your the one causing the conflict, or...
They are doing it on PURPOSE.
THe hardware address of all network cars are unique when they leave the factory. If there is a conflict it is likely someone changed theirs intentionally.
As for the 'batch of NICs', I know it happens, but it does NOT happen often any more. It is likely they are snooping yours. Do yourself a favour and enable encryption.
and, it's only entraptment if they are ACTIVELY encouraging you to commit the crime.
Now, the word "ACTIVELY" can be interpreted in many ways, but, simply having what someone is looking for (copyrighted files, car, etc.) isn't enticement to steal it.
Parking a Porche in a poor end of town is, in some cases, considered enticement. Silly, but true.
Taking posession of a car not registered in your name and not lent to you buy the owner IS stealing.
People steal cars here all the time with the keys in the ingition. Not unusual. It is still theft.
(While you, and I may think the owners are stupid it doesnot change the law.).
(Note: this is common here in the winter as it is -30C to -40C (-40f) and it can be difficult to start a car at such temperatures. Although, they do it because they are bloody lazy and don't want the interior to cool down.
Seriously, if you check into it you'll find they never qualified for it. They are not a regulated company covered by that.
Also, I suspect there would not be a problem as the originaization in question specificly stated their intent to take actions which are potentially detrimental to the ISP. They have a right, and expectation to protect their network from such users. (If it is a publicly held company their stock holders could sue if they did NOT take action to protect their assets (the network))
Some channels are compressed quite badly. It may be that an assumption was made they would be nothing more than episodes of Threes Company or something, but whatever, it seems to be highly dependant on the channel. Not just the action in a show.
Sometimes I notice a frame problem, the picture seems to lag on a frame, then gets the next, etc. I think, but don't know, it is due to the signal quality and it is errors causing the effect.
On the other hand, the analog signal in my area is significantly degraded and we have to get the cable company out to fix it. The digital channels come out on one of the digital boxes just fine, on the other it sometimes won't decode anything. (Not a big deal at the moment since the other digital box was given to me for free by a friend.)
A few extra channels, I get a better selection of movies and often watch a movie or two that I would not have rented, but often turns out to be worth watching.
My girlfriend signed up for digital cable, she wanted a cable modem anyway and due to the rate structure it was oretty much a zero lost/gain to toss in the digital cable. (digital box purchased used). Her mother tapes everything under the sun (ok, any sports & Law & Order), so instead of hooking up the VCR to the digital box we split the signal and hooked it up to the VCR so it gets the analog channels only. Works Fine for her.
(Easy enough in the future to hook the digital to the VCR as well with some RCA splitters. Signal quality would probably be ok.)
Course, my gf is never home to use the digital cable, but her mother does. (I'm amused, I tried to talk her out of it, I didn't see the point since I have both at my place and spend more time here. Ah well.)
I have a USB based LinkSys 802.11b network adapter. The antenna is attached using a MCX (?) connector and can therefor easily be extended to move the antenna atleast a few inches closer to the outside. Also, the antenna is quite small. If you painted it and blended it in with the stonework I doubt you would actually see it from 10ft away. It can easily transmit a couple hundred yards in the open. (I think it is rated for 250Meters, but there newer stuff is about 400 meters).
You could put it in the window as is and test 2 of them quite easily.
Re:nView is cool- but underpowered
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Thats funny, I have never noticed a significant problem... as long as I'm actually using nView and NOT Microsofts dual monitor support.
When it was configured for Microsofts dual monitor it was very poor and allowed only 1 screen to be updated at a time.
The most important thing is to determine how significant the bias is, and how it plays a roll in the decision process.
Mr. Carmack, for instance, may wish to get you to buy his latest game, but his bias is in presenting his game as good as possible with the special effects/speed etc.
This is different from a bias where a reviewer likes a particular company, instead of a product.
Not to say either is better, or worse, but there is always bias.
Re:Also, multi-monitor setups...
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Some particular combinations work fine, others do NOT. Me, I'd rather not have to try a half dozen or more cards to find a combination that works.
And to think I was laughing when Future Shop tried to sell me an extended warranty on the Ti-4600 I bought a couple months ago.
Oh well. May it not fail in the near future.
(I am actually wondering if it would be possible to sue them over it, but thats another story.).
Re:Also, multi-monitor setups...
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There are a number of boards based on nVidia's GPU that support dual monitors.
And, having previously worked with dual monitor support via 2 video cards I'll tell you that it SUCKED. It is much better to be using 2 monitors witha single card.
Why is it, every 6 months or so, I get into an argument with somebody over the fact Microsoft doesn't seem to have a clue what DLLs are for?
I have people try to convince me that the integration of Internet Explorer into the Operating System is a good thing.
Where the hell do these people get their training? Microsoft has a tendancy to put function calls where they are convenient for the programmer at hand (not necessarily any future programmers mine you), not in the most appropriate DLL. This isn't unusual, it happens. But why the hell do people justify it??
Why the hell am I using a Web Browser (something whos base design is to browse web pages!!) to manage files on a local computer? The old Windows Explorer worked better and had a more appropriate (although similar) interface.
And then, when I chalenge them on this they always retort: Can you write an OS?
Damnit, yes I can. I don't have the time to write one, but I -could- write one.
Even if I couldn't, Microsoft is very much an example of bad design in general. (They have some well desgiend aspects to a lot of programs too. But Clippy isn't one of those!)
I sure as hell could have implemented the API in question without this fuckup.
I could also patch the source code in about 10 minutes, then check the propgation of the error code and verify it is handled correctly, another 10 minutes. Longer if it isn't of course, but again, not the end of the world, other Certificate errors are already handled.
Send it off for 3rd party testing and have results back within what, an hour?
Add in the time to generate a certificate for testing, blah blah... Your not talking days. Regardless.
And no, Microsoft doesn't have a a god damn clue how to write an OS or divide functions up between appropriate DLLs.
By the way, go ahead and try to sue Microsoft based on the assumption that EULA won't stand up in court. You can't.
Because it takes Microsoft far longer to release a patch for an OS than an application.
By the way, read the article and you find out that according to Microsoft the bug only effects IE, yet it is contained in an OS level API.
Huh? Shouldn't that mean anything using that same API would have the problem? Unless of course this is just one piece of the IE code they toss in an in-appropriate DLL.
If this was developed in a business lab your right. No real argument there. Cracking the security on such a device makes an interesting paper to an academic. At no point was I intentionally masking the amount of work or effort required for the first person to do it.
If everybody had to do it from scratch it would not be feasable. My point is, it has been done. It can be duplicated, and/or, used to produce hardware to do it again, in a more commercial like setting. As opposed to academic.
And, in fact, it has been done.
As I am a programmer I understand that there is some hand waving involved. For me to put the tools (never mind knowledge) in place to pull off something like this, your right, would have cost me atleast $5-10K. (Even if I rented access to such equipment).
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I saw a documentary about 10 years ago where they used banana trees to harvest gold out of soil.
Don't know how cost effective it was, but I suppose you could sell either bananas or gold, whichever had a better proffit margin.
People only call tech/customer support when they have a problem they can't solve.
No user can reasonably solve a problem with a NIC having a conflicting MAC address. (No, I don't think changing the MAC is the solution, complaining to the company and getting a valid MAC is the solution.).
Do people call you when they don't have problems?
I sure didn't get many of those.
It is a self selecting sample and as such it is biased.
Also, it is an 'impossible' problem. One which should not occur and is an obvious problem, as such it is a memorable problem.
It was very easy when I worked for AT&T Transtech doing technical support for various products to become very negative about the clients product. Why? Because all you hear about are the problems.
A dozen calls on any problem is a bloody rare call. I've had to deal with thousands of calls for particular problems. Even with those calls if you look at the same statistics for the number of users at the time they problems weren't all that significant.
I was bloody tired of dealing with the same problems all the time, but statisticly most weren't a major problem.
I have seen it.
It used to be 'common', but its been significantly reduced in the last 5 years from what I've seen before.
I just think its very unlikely that there would be that many conflicts with his own network. It is much more likely somebody has sniffed the network and tweaked their mac address to try and use it.
I used to work tech support for AT&T WorldNet a number of years ago (seems like a lifetime!) and know how biased it is to be sitting on the end of technical support. If you've heard the problem a dozen times then yes, its happened quite a bit.
But if you ONLY heard it a dozen times it isn't very common. That probably works out to less and 0.001% of issues you've delt with.
(Even if the local Office Depot sold a dozen wireless cards with the same MAC address, I would expect there to be a virtually zero chance that one of those cards would get picked up by my network. They don't have that kind of range. (Based on the area of population they service).)
And this is a problem why? :)
IBM being what they are they would use anything that might show an advantage, even if it was from their competition.
IBM eats its own young. Sometimes thats a good thing, sometimes it doesn't matter with a company that large, and sometimes it's a big mistake.
They keep doing it though.
I've been sitting here thinking there might be another solution.
Does Starbucks typically have an outdoor patio? (They don't here, but thats because they aren't real Starbucks...)
If they don't then the solution is simple. Metallic window tint.
They should filter enough of the signal as to make it a non-issue.
A full 11mbit connection is plenty fast for browsing the Internet. Even copying a large amount of files on my home lan on occasion.
(over 2 gigs of mapping data & 2+ gigs of mp3 files...)
If someone has the same hardware address as your card, either: You've changed yours and your the one causing the conflict, or...
They are doing it on PURPOSE.
THe hardware address of all network cars are unique when they leave the factory. If there is a conflict it is likely someone changed theirs intentionally.
As for the 'batch of NICs', I know it happens, but it does NOT happen often any more. It is likely they are snooping yours. Do yourself a favour and enable encryption.
and, it's only entraptment if they are ACTIVELY encouraging you to commit the crime.
Now, the word "ACTIVELY" can be interpreted in many ways, but, simply having what someone is looking for (copyrighted files, car, etc.) isn't enticement to steal it.
Parking a Porche in a poor end of town is, in some cases, considered enticement. Silly, but true.
Taking posession of a car not registered in your name and not lent to you buy the owner IS stealing.
People steal cars here all the time with the keys in the ingition. Not unusual. It is still theft.
(While you, and I may think the owners are stupid it doesnot change the law.).
(Note: this is common here in the winter as it is -30C to -40C (-40f) and it can be difficult to start a car at such temperatures. Although, they do it because they are bloody lazy and don't want the interior to cool down.
It never had common carrier status.
Seriously, if you check into it you'll find they never qualified for it. They are not a regulated company covered by that.
Also, I suspect there would not be a problem as the originaization in question specificly stated their intent to take actions which are potentially detrimental to the ISP. They have a right, and expectation to protect their network from such users. (If it is a publicly held company their stock holders could sue if they did NOT take action to protect their assets (the network))
Personally, I like digital cable.
But it does have it's drawbacks.
Some channels are compressed quite badly. It may be that an assumption was made they would be nothing more than episodes of Threes Company or something, but whatever, it seems to be highly dependant on the channel. Not just the action in a show.
Sometimes I notice a frame problem, the picture seems to lag on a frame, then gets the next, etc. I think, but don't know, it is due to the signal quality and it is errors causing the effect.
On the other hand, the analog signal in my area is significantly degraded and we have to get the cable company out to fix it. The digital channels come out on one of the digital boxes just fine, on the other it sometimes won't decode anything. (Not a big deal at the moment since the other digital box was given to me for free by a friend.)
A few extra channels, I get a better selection of movies and often watch a movie or two that I would not have rented, but often turns out to be worth watching.
My girlfriend signed up for digital cable, she wanted a cable modem anyway and due to the rate structure it was oretty much a zero lost/gain to toss in the digital cable. (digital box purchased used). Her mother tapes everything under the sun (ok, any sports & Law & Order), so instead of hooking up the VCR to the digital box we split the signal and hooked it up to the VCR so it gets the analog channels only. Works Fine for her.
(Easy enough in the future to hook the digital to the VCR as well with some RCA splitters. Signal quality would probably be ok.)
Course, my gf is never home to use the digital cable, but her mother does. (I'm amused, I tried to talk her out of it, I didn't see the point since I have both at my place and spend more time here. Ah well.)
I have a USB based LinkSys 802.11b network adapter. The antenna is attached using a MCX (?) connector and can therefor easily be extended to move the antenna atleast a few inches closer to the outside. Also, the antenna is quite small. If you painted it and blended it in with the stonework I doubt you would actually see it from 10ft away. It can easily transmit a couple hundred yards in the open. (I think it is rated for 250Meters, but there newer stuff is about 400 meters).
You could put it in the window as is and test 2 of them quite easily.
Thats funny, I have never noticed a significant problem... as long as I'm actually using nView and NOT Microsofts dual monitor support.
When it was configured for Microsofts dual monitor it was very poor and allowed only 1 screen to be updated at a time.
All opinions are biased.
All of them.
The most important thing is to determine how significant the bias is, and how it plays a roll in the decision process.
Mr. Carmack, for instance, may wish to get you to buy his latest game, but his bias is in presenting his game as good as possible with the special effects/speed etc.
This is different from a bias where a reviewer likes a particular company, instead of a product.
Not to say either is better, or worse, but there is always bias.
Some particular combinations work fine, others do NOT. Me, I'd rather not have to try a half dozen or more cards to find a combination that works.
And to think I was laughing when Future Shop tried to sell me an extended warranty on the Ti-4600 I bought a couple months ago.
Oh well. May it not fail in the near future.
(I am actually wondering if it would be possible to sue them over it, but thats another story.).
There are a number of boards based on nVidia's GPU that support dual monitors.
And, having previously worked with dual monitor support via 2 video cards I'll tell you that it SUCKED. It is much better to be using 2 monitors witha single card.
Too many driver issues with 2 cards otherwise.
Thats the fantasic part of all this:
If they take it to court and the RIAA loses they lose BIG TIME.
They would never be allowed to take a similar approach.
As a programmer I'm fully aware of that. BUt the specific case that came up is downright embarasing. A simple test case would have caught it.
I hope the programmers working on Konquerer pay attention, not just to the bug, but why they missed it.
I expect better of them than I do Microsoft.
Why is it, every 6 months or so, I get into an argument with somebody over the fact Microsoft doesn't seem to have a clue what DLLs are for?
I have people try to convince me that the integration of Internet Explorer into the Operating System is a good thing.
Where the hell do these people get their training? Microsoft has a tendancy to put function calls where they are convenient for the programmer at hand (not necessarily any future programmers mine you), not in the most appropriate DLL. This isn't unusual, it happens. But why the hell do people justify it??
Why the hell am I using a Web Browser (something whos base design is to browse web pages!!) to manage files on a local computer? The old Windows Explorer worked better and had a more appropriate (although similar) interface.
And then, when I chalenge them on this they always retort: Can you write an OS?
Damnit, yes I can. I don't have the time to write one, but I -could- write one.
Even if I couldn't, Microsoft is very much an example of bad design in general. (They have some well desgiend aspects to a lot of programs too. But Clippy isn't one of those!)
I sure as hell could have implemented the API in question without this fuckup.
I could also patch the source code in about 10 minutes, then check the propgation of the error code and verify it is handled correctly, another 10 minutes. Longer if it isn't of course, but again, not the end of the world, other Certificate errors are already handled.
Send it off for 3rd party testing and have results back within what, an hour?
Add in the time to generate a certificate for testing, blah blah... Your not talking days. Regardless.
And no, Microsoft doesn't have a a god damn clue how to write an OS or divide functions up between appropriate DLLs.
By the way, go ahead and try to sue Microsoft based on the assumption that EULA won't stand up in court. You can't.
Thats funny.
According to the EULA Microsoft Isn't responsible for the code either.
I'm a programmer by trade.
Microsoft doesn't have a fucking clue.
Because it takes Microsoft far longer to release a patch for an OS than an application.
By the way, read the article and you find out that according to Microsoft the bug only effects IE, yet it is contained in an OS level API.
Huh? Shouldn't that mean anything using that same API would have the problem? Unless of course this is just one piece of the IE code they toss in an in-appropriate DLL.
No, can't be. Microsoft wouldn't do that.
If this was developed in a business lab your right. No real argument there. Cracking the security on such a device makes an interesting paper to an academic. At no point was I intentionally masking the amount of work or effort required for the first person to do it.
If everybody had to do it from scratch it would not be feasable. My point is, it has been done. It can be duplicated, and/or, used to produce hardware to do it again, in a more commercial like setting. As opposed to academic.
And, in fact, it has been done.
As I am a programmer I understand that there is some hand waving involved. For me to put the tools (never mind knowledge) in place to pull off something like this, your right, would have cost me atleast $5-10K. (Even if I rented access to such equipment).