It'll be another law in the book that can be used to harass people when "deemed necessary."
You're so right... just like Police cars stopping drivers of "questionable" cars to measure the amount of tread left on their tires.
I can see it now... "excuse me, we have a warrant to check your browser logs... a neighbor reported that he heard music playing that you didn't own... and that he saw you sitting at your computer. Please cooperate so we don't need to demand a list of streamed audio links from your ISP. If you cooperate, we may be able to reach an agreement with only a $3000 fine."
Sorry, I don't have your hard numbers, but subjectively, I can say that I was one of those "genuine intel" people who would have been afraid to buy non-Intel chips back in the 386/486/pentium days, and now nearly all my friends run AMD athlon or AMD64 systems.
If you go to a large computer parts mega-store like Fry's, you'll find almost equal motherboard / cpu / system floorspace for AMD and Intel systems.
Think about that... if display space in Fry's is a measure of interest and systems moved, then Intel's current 80% number is only going to fall as their old systems die and people go out to replace them.
Oh, and if your cell phone has a game on it, does that mean that you need to pay a game tax on your cell phone?... and if a business owner purchases a videogame for a retail location, does it get taxed?
If you load a webpage with a java applet that embeds a game in it, and you play it, would you need to voluntarily send in a your videogaming tax fee?
If a software vendor makes serious software that someone finds a way to use for gaming purposes (like tracking gaming odds in spreadsheets), does that software need to be taxed as it might be complicit in the playing of video games?
This is a totally absurd proposal. Next think you know, someone will want to tax information crossing state borders!
Yeah, I get Ubuntu versioning, but jeez... this version name sucks. The only suckier name I can remember is when SuSE named their Chamelion maskot "Geeko".
I initially thought Ubunutu was a bad name for a distro, but it's growing on me.
I thought Warty Warthog was a *GREAT* name for a "beta" or early release.
I thought Hoary Hedgehog was a dumb name - Hoary?!? Hoary???
Breezy Badger was a dumb name for a release. I mean... what end of the badger is the breeze coming from?!?
Dapper Drake was a less sucky name.
But... Edgy Eft! That's the worst yet! *NOBODY* knows what an eft is.
How many times are Ubuntu fans going to have to answer the following question: What the F___ is an EFT?
Has Linux *really* reached a point where stability is an issue, or is this a red herring misleading those that don't use it? If indeed it does have stability issues, how often does it crash? What are the chances of losing a filesystem?
You know, all this talk about Linux stability is really more related to the advancement of bloated desktop environments and poorly tested features and new versions.
Every distro is constantly rebuilding the latest KDE and GNOME with $NEW_FEATURE and sometimes it doesn't work well or isn't well tested.
I believe that you could disable X (or run twm) and run just about any Linux distro as a rock-solid server.
But... as time goes on, Linux users evolve (or should I say devolve?) and more people consider Linux-the-desktop-experience to be Linux. If you run a bleeding edge Linux distro and try Beagle, it might well crash. Does that make Linux unstable? Depends on your audience...
For those of you who wondered... this isn't new, just a new name. I'll never understand why their marketing chose to change the name to something nobody knew. Perhaps trying to re-launch it?
Sun has actually done a good job of fixing a lot of java bugs since they acquired Tarantella.
For those of you who don't know about how SGD/Tarantella work, it's a session server/screen scraper combo that allow you to have access to Windows and Linux apps or entire desktops that can be served from arrays of application servers.
It uses a protocol called AIP that adapts to the available bandwidth and can scale down well for low bandwidth links.
The good things about SGD are: - Transportable workspaces - great for providing VERY LOW bandwidth links to console-based apps - enterprise authentication - ability to create and serve applications based on centrally managed user and application groupings - ability to manage many different OS sessions and mix of sessions from OSes in a single login session - pass-through printing to local printer - ability to connect local hard drive to remote systems - Client is trivial to install for users - a rich html application page can be created that can serve many of the requirements for previously locally installed apps - works very well for deployments that many many users to a few application set profiles that can load balance between arrays of application servers
The bad things about SGD are: - it's a 3-tier architecture and if/when you overload the server or hit an OS bug and need to restart it, UNIX users lose x-sessions - not ideal for mapping of many users to unique resources where sessions are very long lived - some java 2d and 3d stuff takes up a lot of bandwidth
It's worth checking out. Some users prefer vnc or NX, but SGD really is an enterprise solution - not just a machine a to machine b tool for a single user.
Instead of users being limited in their choices of rootkits, users now have many different rootkits that are community supported to choose from. *THIS* is exactly why opensource is so important.
Who wants to be stuck with a closed source rootkit when your IRC channel and server change and you have no way to update it? Opensource empowers the user to take the best features of different rootkits to ensure that they get the rootkit that meets their needs.
Users can strip down rootkits to run on older hardware that would otherwise be discarded, or they can enable many new features that make these rootkits competitive with all of the current commercial rootkits currently being used.... Seriously, though, all of this just means that security patches continue to become more critical and that deployment of patches on servers cannot wait for months or years like we used to do back in the good old days.
With the proliferation and expansion of UNIX desktop software that tries to emulate more and more windows (mis)-features, I think the rootkits and opensource actually do a lot to ensure that the basic applicatio n and OS security model in Linux and GNOME and KDE desktop environments remain secure.
Come on... What OSX user is going to be intrigued about running Windows so that they can experience *ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE*? Hello!?!
I'm trying to think about software that is *ONLY* available on Windows that a Mac user would want to use and aside from the obvious *GAMES*, and drivers for hardware that OSX doesn't support or where vendors don't provide a software or a conduit for OSX, what is there?
Google Earth is available on the Mac... Picasa is cool, but Mac people would probably prefer iPhoto You can run Windows MCE, but Mac users can run MythTV on OSX
The hacker in me thinks it's fun to be able to run different OSes. I bet many OSX users would like to tool around with the Windows destop, the control panel, and all the cool widget things - that's good for at least a week of fun for a new windows user.
The main thing I can think of that a MAC user would want to use Windows for would be "boring" things like being able to use corporate web conferencing software that uses activeX, being able to use corporate software IP phone, being able to use Visio, Outlook express with calendar plugins, or Microsoft Project. Maybe users would be intersted to use Visual Studio, and something like Nero cd burning software
Oh, and I guess I'd add Internet Explorer to the list... not saying Safari or Firefox aren't good, just that some dumb websites need Internet Explorer and Windows to be seen in their full glory (sic).
Many corporate users depend on windows-only tools that *REQUIRE* ActiveX to do their daily job. Until those tools change or no longer require ActiveX, it's an unreasonable solution to suggest disabling ActiveX for many corporate users.
Re:Denial of Service, abbreviated DoS
on
Sun Grid DOS'd
·
· Score: 1
Non-geeks see 'DOS', 'DoS', and 'DDoS" and have no idea what they mean.
Re:Denial of Service, abbreviated DoS
on
Sun Grid DOS'd
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, but let's be honest, what fraction of one percent of the world's population has ever used anything other than Microsoft's disk operating system that was actually called "DOS"?
I'll be damned if I'm going to watch commercials in the friggin' supermarket. I'll find another local market or... gasp... shop at costco. Somehow, I don't think costco's going to be putting 100's of TVs in their warehouses along each aisle just to spew advertising.
I don't view ads on my computer. I don't watch commercials on TV. I throw away all junk mail at my mailbox. All my numbers are on the do-not-call list. I don't subscribe to any magazines or newspapers.
When computers get good enough to do real-time visual adblocking, I'll be the first one wearing some VR headset that filters out billboards, logos, and everything else that's advertising related.
Denial of Service, abbreviated DoS
on
Sun Grid DOS'd
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Let's keep things straight - three are enough confusing three letter acronyms.
Denial of Service is still worth writing out. Most wanna-be geeks see the three letters "dos" in any capitalization combination and think of Microsoft Disk Operating system.
Slashdot story submitters should know the difference between DOS and DoS, but due to the stupid l33tsp33k crud, nobody takes capitalization seriously.
I think that outside of security or incident response venues, denial of service should be written in full and not abbreviated.
When I waste money registering misspelled domain names and register tons of word combinations while speculating on new product names, I need somewhere that can handle the strenuous demands of parking my domains.
I'm not stupid - I wouldn't trust the job of handling web redirects to any of that old legacy stuff like UNIX. That stuff was old back when I was using Windows 3.1... and Windows has gotten a lot better since then. When people try to access my domainnames, I expect the performance of Geniune Windows.
I know that sometimes domain names need to be rebooted too, like when critical updates get applied, but that's okay. I wouldn't want my domain names parked on an unpatched, so-called "highly available" server.
No sir, it's genuine-windows-advantage-plays-for-sure for me and my domain collection.
Great - no need to use my ATM card at strip clubs anymore.
Oh, wait... at least with my ATM card, I'm limited to *TWO* days maximum withdrawls for monetary damage (max out before midnight, max out after midnight).
she made her site compliant to the standards that blind computer users needed. Instead of being thanked for her efforts, she was ordered by her superiors to take down her page. They feared that her compliance would highlight the non-accessibility of the rest of the web site of the organization
The penalties for crimes are different depending on whether the crime was committed knowingly or not.
Therefore, your friend's website, while being done in best intentions brought into focus the fact that the rest of that company's web site *MIGHT NOT* be compliant (and should be).
I'm guessing that courts would look at the issue of people knowingly keeping a website inaccessible different than someone accused of having an inaccessible website.
Now, Dell can have a niche brand that uses AMD processors for anyone who demands them, while Dell can continue to sell Intel-only systems and keep Intel happy.
Oh, and Dell... I don't believe that selling bare AMD processors on your website that cannot be put in any motherboards you sell is a convincing way to prove that you're not an exclusively Intel shop.
in the case of your analogy, the DMCA equivalent would be that the store would now be encased in a chamber that made it impossible for the bum to throw a rock throught the window, and then everyone who goes to said store would also be forced to walk through a metal detector and security clearance station where national ID cards are checked.
My point is that a full XP install, once it stops being 100% functional as a traditional "fat client", is still an exceedingly good alternative for a thin client desktop.
Hence, if your IT strategy is to move to a thin client desktop, Windows XP capable hardware that doesn't get local apps upgraded makes a darn fine and already-paid-for alternative to any *new* thin client deployment.
Maybe you *don't* need to plan the next round of desktop computer OS/hardware upgrades...
The only way I can see Microsoft being able to have Vista succeed faster than just by licenses bundled with new hardware is to cut off patches and support and upgrades from Windows XP.
After working *so* hard to get corporations to upgrade from Windows 95,98, and Windows NT to Windows XP... It's going to be a hard sell to explain that Windows XP is no longer good enough and that corporations need to not only upgrade their OS, but also need to upgrade their *HARDWARE* to take advantage of Windows Vista.
Regardless of how you define "thin client", a desktop running Windows XP fits that bill quite nicely. IE6 is good, Firefox is available, everything is going browser based. Even *if* Microsoft tried to withhold a future version of Internet Explorer from Windows XP users, there will be Firefox and Opera. If microsoft tries to require non-portable components on the client side of their web components, they're going to cut off mobile users, OSX users, Linux, etc.
How exactly can Microsoft make Vista a compelling upgrade other than releasing new game titles that will not run on Windows XP?
Certainly, they cannot cut off security updates on Windows XP at least for the next decade or so.
Slashdot Mirror
It'll be another law in the book that can be used to harass people when "deemed necessary."
You're so right... just like Police cars stopping drivers of "questionable" cars to measure the amount of tread left on their tires.
I can see it now... "excuse me, we have a warrant to check your browser logs... a neighbor reported that he heard music playing that you didn't own... and that he saw you sitting at your computer. Please cooperate so we don't need to demand a list of streamed audio links from your ISP. If you cooperate, we may be able to reach an agreement with only a $3000 fine."
Sorry, I don't have your hard numbers, but subjectively, I can say that I was one of those "genuine intel" people who would have been afraid to buy non-Intel chips back in the 386/486/pentium days, and now nearly all my friends run AMD athlon or AMD64 systems.
If you go to a large computer parts mega-store like Fry's, you'll find almost equal motherboard / cpu / system floorspace for AMD and Intel systems.
Think about that... if display space in Fry's is a measure of interest and systems moved, then Intel's current 80% number is only going to fall as their old systems die and people go out to replace them.
Oh, and if your cell phone has a game on it, does that mean that you need to pay a game tax on your cell phone? ... and if a business owner purchases a videogame for a retail location, does it get taxed?
If you load a webpage with a java applet that embeds a game in it, and you play it, would you need to voluntarily send in a your videogaming tax fee?
If a software vendor makes serious software that someone finds a way to use for gaming purposes (like tracking gaming odds in spreadsheets), does that software need to be taxed as it might be complicit in the playing of video games?
This is a totally absurd proposal. Next think you know, someone will want to tax information crossing state borders!
Yeah, I get Ubuntu versioning, but jeez... this version name sucks. The only suckier name I can remember is when SuSE named their Chamelion maskot "Geeko".
I initially thought Ubunutu was a bad name for a distro, but it's growing on me.
I thought Warty Warthog was a *GREAT* name for a "beta" or early release.
I thought Hoary Hedgehog was a dumb name - Hoary?!? Hoary???
Breezy Badger was a dumb name for a release. I mean... what end of the badger is the breeze coming from?!?
Dapper Drake was a less sucky name.
But... Edgy Eft! That's the worst yet! *NOBODY* knows what an eft is.
How many times are Ubuntu fans going to have to answer the following question: What the F___ is an EFT?
I agree too.
Ubuntu is based on Debian, but unlike Debian... I *WANT* to use Ubuntu.
queue the Ubunutu icon...
SGD proxies RDP sessions from Windows servers, or it can use Citrix.
Try remoting some chatty X11 apps across a 100 millisecond link.
Then introduce periodic link failures that make remoted X apps go "pop!"
Then constrain an entire office down to a few mbps of shared WAN bandwidth
Then introduce IP phones that suck up all the "extra" bandwidth.
Tarantella was around _way_ before NX.
So, to be accurate, SCO innovated (gasp!)
Has Linux *really* reached a point where stability is an issue, or is this a red herring misleading those that don't use it? If indeed it does have stability issues, how often does it crash? What are the chances of losing a filesystem?
You know, all this talk about Linux stability is really more related to the advancement of bloated desktop environments and poorly tested features and new versions.
Every distro is constantly rebuilding the latest KDE and GNOME with $NEW_FEATURE and sometimes it doesn't work well or isn't well tested.
I believe that you could disable X (or run twm) and run just about any Linux distro as a rock-solid server.
But... as time goes on, Linux users evolve (or should I say devolve?) and more people consider Linux-the-desktop-experience to be Linux. If you run a bleeding edge Linux distro and try Beagle, it might well crash. Does that make Linux unstable? Depends on your audience...
For those of you who wondered... this isn't new, just a new name. I'll never understand why their marketing chose to change the name to something nobody knew. Perhaps trying to re-launch it?
Sun has actually done a good job of fixing a lot of java bugs since they acquired Tarantella.
For those of you who don't know about how SGD/Tarantella work, it's a session server/screen scraper combo that allow you to have access to Windows and Linux apps or entire desktops that can be served from arrays of application servers.
It uses a protocol called AIP that adapts to the available bandwidth and can scale down well for low bandwidth links.
The good things about SGD are:
- Transportable workspaces
- great for providing VERY LOW bandwidth links to console-based apps
- enterprise authentication
- ability to create and serve applications based on centrally managed user and application groupings
- ability to manage many different OS sessions and mix of sessions from OSes in a single login session
- pass-through printing to local printer
- ability to connect local hard drive to remote systems
- Client is trivial to install for users
- a rich html application page can be created that can serve many of the requirements for previously locally installed apps
- works very well for deployments that many many users to a few application set profiles that can load balance between arrays of application servers
The bad things about SGD are:
- it's a 3-tier architecture and if/when you overload the server or hit an OS bug and need to restart it, UNIX users lose x-sessions
- not ideal for mapping of many users to unique resources where sessions are very long lived
- some java 2d and 3d stuff takes up a lot of bandwidth
It's worth checking out. Some users prefer vnc or NX, but SGD really is an enterprise solution - not just a machine a to machine b tool for a single user.
Instead of users being limited in their choices of rootkits, users now have many different rootkits that are community supported to choose from. *THIS* is exactly why opensource is so important.
... Seriously, though, all of this just means that security patches continue to become more critical and that deployment of patches on servers cannot wait for months or years like we used to do back in the good old days.
Who wants to be stuck with a closed source rootkit when your IRC channel and server change and you have no way to update it? Opensource empowers the user to take the best features of different rootkits to ensure that they get the rootkit that meets their needs.
Users can strip down rootkits to run on older hardware that would otherwise be discarded, or they can enable many new features that make these rootkits competitive with all of the current commercial rootkits currently being used.
With the proliferation and expansion of UNIX desktop software that tries to emulate more and more windows (mis)-features, I think the rootkits and opensource actually do a lot to ensure that the basic applicatio n and OS security model in Linux and GNOME and KDE desktop environments remain secure.
... and require that all government computers run RedFlag on redSPARK.
Please post your comments with your Redberry.
Come on... What OSX user is going to be intrigued about running Windows so that they can experience *ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE*? Hello!?!
I'm trying to think about software that is *ONLY* available on Windows that a Mac user would want to use and aside from the obvious *GAMES*, and drivers for hardware that OSX doesn't support or where vendors don't provide a software or a conduit for OSX, what is there?
Google Earth is available on the Mac...
Picasa is cool, but Mac people would probably prefer iPhoto
You can run Windows MCE, but Mac users can run MythTV on OSX
The hacker in me thinks it's fun to be able to run different OSes. I bet many OSX users would like to tool around with the Windows destop, the control panel, and all the cool widget things - that's good for at least a week of fun for a new windows user.
The main thing I can think of that a MAC user would want to use Windows for would be "boring" things like being able to use corporate web conferencing software that uses activeX, being able to use corporate software IP phone, being able to use Visio, Outlook express with calendar plugins, or Microsoft Project. Maybe users would be intersted to use Visual Studio, and something like Nero cd burning software
Oh, and I guess I'd add Internet Explorer to the list... not saying Safari or Firefox aren't good, just that some dumb websites need Internet Explorer and Windows to be seen in their full glory (sic).
Many corporate users depend on windows-only tools that *REQUIRE* ActiveX to do their daily job. Until those tools change or no longer require ActiveX, it's an unreasonable solution to suggest disabling ActiveX for many corporate users.
Non-geeks see 'DOS', 'DoS', and 'DDoS" and have no idea what they mean.
Yeah, but let's be honest, what fraction of one percent of the world's population has ever used anything other than Microsoft's disk operating system that was actually called "DOS"?
TRS-DOS? Amiga DOS? ProDOS? CP/M DOS? DR-DOS? FreeDOS?
As disk became ubiquitous, DOS became OS
I'll be damned if I'm going to watch commercials in the friggin' supermarket. I'll find another local market or... gasp... shop at costco. Somehow, I don't think costco's going to be putting 100's of TVs in their warehouses along each aisle just to spew advertising.
I don't view ads on my computer. I don't watch commercials on TV. I throw away all junk mail at my mailbox. All my numbers are on the do-not-call list. I don't subscribe to any magazines or newspapers.
When computers get good enough to do real-time visual adblocking, I'll be the first one wearing some VR headset that filters out billboards, logos, and everything else that's advertising related.
Let's keep things straight - three are enough confusing three letter acronyms.
Denial of Service is still worth writing out. Most wanna-be geeks see the three letters "dos" in any capitalization combination and think of Microsoft Disk Operating system.
Slashdot story submitters should know the difference between DOS and DoS, but due to the stupid l33tsp33k crud, nobody takes capitalization seriously.
I think that outside of security or incident response venues, denial of service should be written in full and not abbreviated.
When I waste money registering misspelled domain names and register tons of word combinations while speculating on new product names, I need somewhere that can handle the strenuous demands of parking my domains.
I'm not stupid - I wouldn't trust the job of handling web redirects to any of that old legacy stuff like UNIX. That stuff was old back when I was using Windows 3.1... and Windows has gotten a lot better since then. When people try to access my domainnames, I expect the performance of Geniune Windows.
I know that sometimes domain names need to be rebooted too, like when critical updates get applied, but that's okay. I wouldn't want my domain names parked on an unpatched, so-called "highly available" server.
No sir, it's genuine-windows-advantage-plays-for-sure for me and my domain collection.
Great - no need to use my ATM card at strip clubs anymore.
Oh, wait... at least with my ATM card, I'm limited to *TWO* days maximum withdrawls for monetary damage (max out before midnight, max out after midnight).
she made her site compliant to the standards that blind computer users needed. Instead of being thanked for her efforts, she was ordered by her superiors to take down her page. They feared that her compliance would highlight the non-accessibility of the rest of the web site of the organization
The penalties for crimes are different depending on whether the crime was committed knowingly or not.
Therefore, your friend's website, while being done in best intentions brought into focus the fact that the rest of that company's web site *MIGHT NOT* be compliant (and should be).
I'm guessing that courts would look at the issue of people knowingly keeping a website inaccessible different than someone accused of having an inaccessible website.
Now, Dell can have a niche brand that uses AMD processors for anyone who demands them, while Dell can continue to sell Intel-only systems and keep Intel happy.
Oh, and Dell... I don't believe that selling bare AMD processors on your website that cannot be put in any motherboards you sell is a convincing way to prove that you're not an exclusively Intel shop.
in the case of your analogy, the DMCA equivalent would be that the store would now be encased in a chamber that made it impossible for the bum to throw a rock throught the window, and then everyone who goes to said store would also be forced to walk through a metal detector and security clearance station where national ID cards are checked.
My point is that a full XP install, once it stops being 100% functional as a traditional "fat client", is still an exceedingly good alternative for a thin client desktop.
Hence, if your IT strategy is to move to a thin client desktop, Windows XP capable hardware that doesn't get local apps upgraded makes a darn fine and already-paid-for alternative to any *new* thin client deployment.
Maybe you *don't* need to plan the next round of desktop computer OS/hardware upgrades...
The only way I can see Microsoft being able to have Vista succeed faster than just by licenses bundled with new hardware is to cut off patches and support and upgrades from Windows XP.
After working *so* hard to get corporations to upgrade from Windows 95,98, and Windows NT to Windows XP... It's going to be a hard sell to explain that Windows XP is no longer good enough and that corporations need to not only upgrade their OS, but also need to upgrade their *HARDWARE* to take advantage of Windows Vista.
Regardless of how you define "thin client", a desktop running Windows XP fits that bill quite nicely. IE6 is good, Firefox is available, everything is going browser based. Even *if* Microsoft tried to withhold a future version of Internet Explorer from Windows XP users, there will be Firefox and Opera. If microsoft tries to require non-portable components on the client side of their web components, they're going to cut off mobile users, OSX users, Linux, etc.
How exactly can Microsoft make Vista a compelling upgrade other than releasing new game titles that will not run on Windows XP?
Certainly, they cannot cut off security updates on Windows XP at least for the next decade or so.