What do you mean Rambus *ALMOST* got away with it?
Here's a news story from 2 days ago: "Chipmaker Infineon Technologies and memory chip designer Rambus have reached a settlement in their closely watched patent infringement case.
Under the two-year agreement, announced Monday, Infineon will pay Rambus nearly $47 million for a global license to all existing and future Rambus patents and patent applications for use in Infineon products."
"Still, the wide-open Stallmanesque idea of non-ownership for all IP eliminates any chance of someone with an appreciable level of talent in, say, music, to be able to quit their day job and be able to provide for themselves and/or families by making music."
True, but that has nothing to do with DRM. The record companies sold non-DRM vinyl LPs for over 60 years and non-DRm CDs for over 20 years. Not only did the record companies make billions in profits but a lot of musicians got very rich as well.
DRM *IS NOT* about "fight piracy". It *IS NOT* about "protecting intellectual property". The sole purpose of DRM is to fundamentally change the ownership of property that you have legitimately purchased -- "you don't own it, you've merely purchased a license to use it -- but you can only use it in the way that we dictate".
"Ya know, while I'm not one to worship at the altar of free market and deregulation and all that crap, I really have to wonder at this statement. If people are stupid enough to pay money for something like this, maybe they deserve to loose their money."
I used to feel the same way. When you're dealing with something that is so obviously stupid and fraudulent it's very easy to say "if people are stupid enough to buy this crap then they deserve to get ripped off".
But what if it was something that was fraudulent but not so obvious? Should there be a difference in how they are handled? Obvious or not, fraud is fraud. These guys shouldn't be cut any slack just becasue their fraud is a little more obvious.
The Giant DUH! Award goes to VitalSecurity.org, quite possibly the dumbest security company ever.
At the end of his blog, the author says that the purpose of his article is NOT to point out the social-engineering aspects of this exploit, but to point out that "most spyware installs occur when someone clicks "yes" to something they shouldn't have."
DUH!!!! What a total maroon.
Let's review. The user is presented with a dialog box that warns them, 3 times, that this thing can't be trusted, but they click 'Yes' anyway.
This is not a Firefox exploit. It is not an IE or Java exploit. It is a USER STUPIDITY exploit.
What's the deal with all the IE 'Toolbars'? Yahoo, iSearch, yadda, yadda, yadda... one spyware scumware toolbar after another.
Why is everyone so hot to install another 'Toolbar'? My web browser displays web pages. That's all I need it to do. Never once have I thought to myself... "Gee, I'd really like another stupid pointless toolbar".
"Spyware" implies that the program is "spying" on you, which may or may not be true. In fact, this is the excuse that iSearch uses: the iSearch web site claims that their toolbar is not Spyware because it "in no way tracks you or the web sites that you visit."
This obscures the more important fact that there are many other harmful acts that software can do besides just "spying" on users. A more accurate and meaningful name needs to be used for these programs.
In the '80s Intel sued AMD, twice, for producing 80386 compatible chips. The second time was for trademark infringement, essentially claiming that Intel owned the number '386'. One of the people testifying on behalf of Intel was Michael Dell.
Having been previously burned by the Start Trek:Next Generation movies (ie, they sucked enormously) I have trouble getting excited about a B5 movie, no matter how great the original TV series may have been.
A typical 1 hour TV show minus commercials is about 42-45 minutes. And a typical movie is around 90 minutes. So, A B5 movie would be approximately the same length as a 2 part TV episode. So what is the point of 2 more B5 episodes?
Now, if he was trying to put together a 6-8 part TV mini-series, that would be pretty cool. With a TV series you can take your time and develope a story over several episodes, and if one of those episodes sucks, so what, you just move on to the next one.
But a B5 movie is pretty much guaranteed to suck simply because they have to try to cram as much as possible into this one movie, since there's no telling when there might be another one.
Let's suppose that you are Louis Vuitton. You've spent a lot of years and a lot of money building up your brand name. So now, someone is *PAYING* the sales person in that store to show customers products by Dior everytime they ask to see your products. If you were Louis Vuitton you would not be happy about that.
And to claim that people searching for 'Louis Vuitton' are merely doing a generic search for 'luxury good' is just plain stupid. If I search for 'Louis Vuitton' then I only want to see search results for Louis Vuitton. To display anything else is unethical.
To download security patches from Microsoft? There is a real chicken and egg situation here; you need to go online to patch your machine, but as soon as you are online you are hit by worms.
Sorry, wrong answer. I've been running XP since the day it was released and the number of worms/viruses I've had is exactly ZERO.
Yes, if you are running a 4 year old unpatched version of Windows, with no firewall and no AV software you're going to have problems. But only MORONS do that.
And that's the real issue. Despite the flaws in Windows, the biggest problem is USER STUPIDITY
Xp has been in use for 4 1/2 years now. It's been poked and prodded extensively by the malware people. And yet people continue to write crap like this -- gee my 4 year old version of Windows that's never been updated just got 0wned. Micro$oft is the sux0r!
Over the past several years, I have experienced the same pattern, over and over.
Sign up with a new hosting company and everything is fine. Good service, good performance. Then, after 12-18 months things start to go bad. I finally get fed up and switch to a different company and the cycle repeats. Everything is fine for 12-18 months and then goes to hell.
Governments and businesses want service and support. They are unlikely to purchase any software without it. So take a look at Redhat for example. Their price charts are confusing and horribly laid out, but as near as I can figure, for Redhat Desktop Linux they are charging $13,500 (US) for '50 desktop entitlements'. That's $270 each. How does that represent a savings over Windows?
I guess they could hire a bunch of high school kids to download a free Linux package and then install it on 300,000 computers. But that seems unlikely.
There are so many things Microsoft needs to be concentrating on... like a modern, standards compliant browser that isn't full of security holes. Or an e-mail client that isn't the number one vector for speading viruses in the world.
Although I pay a much higher price for broadband -- $40 a month for 3mbps -- I don't have to live in a shit hole like India, so I consider that a fair trade-off.
For the past 15 years, one thing has remained constant -- the only people pushing for 'Thin Clients' or 'Network Computers' are:
a) Companies that stand to profit from it b) People who are too stupid to know any better (i.e., thay have never actually used a Thin Client)
The company I work for handles e-mail using a 'Network Computer' type of system. Even though I have a PC sitting on my desk, with all the usual applications, all e-mail is stored on the server, nothing is stored locally.
So you type up this big long really important e-mail, full of information that you've pulled in from various soucres, hit 'send' and -- sorry the server is down. OK. I'll save it and send it later. Hit 'Save as Draft' -- sorry the server is down. OK. While I'm waiting I'll look at that document that Fred e-mailed me yesterday. Sorry -- the server is down.
Slashdot Mirror
How is this a story?
Frist Ps0t!
What do you mean Rambus *ALMOST* got away with it?
Here's a news story from 2 days ago:
"Chipmaker Infineon Technologies and memory chip designer Rambus have reached a settlement in their closely watched patent infringement case.
Under the two-year agreement, announced Monday, Infineon will pay Rambus nearly $47 million for a global license to all existing and future Rambus patents and patent applications for use in Infineon products."
"Still, the wide-open Stallmanesque idea of non-ownership for all IP eliminates any chance of someone with an appreciable level of talent in, say, music, to be able to quit their day job and be able to provide for themselves and/or families by making music."
True, but that has nothing to do with DRM. The record companies sold non-DRM vinyl LPs for over 60 years and non-DRm CDs for over 20 years. Not only did the record companies make billions in profits but a lot of musicians got very rich as well.
DRM *IS NOT* about "fight piracy". It *IS NOT* about "protecting intellectual property". The sole purpose of DRM is to fundamentally change the ownership of property that you have legitimately purchased -- "you don't own it, you've merely purchased a license to use it -- but you can only use it in the way that we dictate".
Do a Google search for "biatch".
One of the top entries is Rabbi David Biatch.
Now *that's* funny.
But what if it was something that was fraudulent but not so obvious? Should there be a difference in how they are handled? Obvious or not, fraud is fraud. These guys shouldn't be cut any slack just becasue their fraud is a little more obvious.
The Giant DUH! Award goes to VitalSecurity.org, quite possibly the dumbest security company ever.
At the end of his blog, the author says that the purpose of his article is NOT to point out the social-engineering aspects of this exploit, but to point out that "most spyware installs occur when someone clicks "yes" to something they shouldn't have."
DUH!!!! What a total maroon.
Let's review. The user is presented with a dialog box that warns them, 3 times, that this thing can't be trusted, but they click 'Yes' anyway.
This is not a Firefox exploit. It is not an IE or Java exploit. It is a USER STUPIDITY exploit.
What's the deal with all the IE 'Toolbars'? Yahoo, iSearch, yadda, yadda, yadda ... one spyware scumware toolbar after another.
... "Gee, I'd really like another stupid pointless toolbar".
Why is everyone so hot to install another 'Toolbar'? My web browser displays web pages. That's all I need it to do. Never once have I thought to myself
"Spyware" implies that the program is "spying" on you, which may or may not be true. In fact, this is the excuse that iSearch uses: the iSearch web site claims that their toolbar is not Spyware because it "in no way tracks you or the web sites that you visit."
This obscures the more important fact that there are many other harmful acts that software can do besides just "spying" on users. A more accurate and meaningful name needs to be used for these programs.
Scumware immediately comes to mind.
"He's not saying the trademark is without merit. He's saying Mr Dell is deep in Intel's pocket, and wont be cooperating with AMD any time soon."
Actually, the trademark *IS* without merit. The PTO ruled that a number is not a valid trademark and Intel lost the case.
In the '80s Intel sued AMD, twice, for producing 80386 compatible chips. The second time was for trademark infringement, essentially claiming that Intel owned the number '386'. One of the people testifying on behalf of Intel was Michael Dell.
Having been previously burned by the Start Trek:Next Generation movies (ie, they sucked enormously) I have trouble getting excited about a B5 movie, no matter how great the original TV series may have been.
A typical 1 hour TV show minus commercials is about 42-45 minutes. And a typical movie is around 90 minutes. So, A B5 movie would be approximately the same length as a 2 part TV episode. So what is the point of 2 more B5 episodes?
Now, if he was trying to put together a 6-8 part TV mini-series, that would be pretty cool. With a TV series you can take your time and develope a story over several episodes, and if one of those episodes sucks, so what, you just move on to the next one.
But a B5 movie is pretty much guaranteed to suck simply because they have to try to cram as much as possible into this one movie, since there's no telling when there might be another one.
Season 2? Where's the rest of Season 1? They've only broadcast 13 episodes. That's all of Season 1? WTF?
http://www.dashslot.co.uk/
This proves, of course, that Windows is inferior, since 'root kits' have never existed for *nix. Right?
Is that where white-trash aliens live?
fr1st ps0t
All others are invalid
You're missing the point.
Let's suppose that you are Louis Vuitton. You've spent a lot of years and a lot of money building up your brand name. So now, someone is *PAYING* the sales person in that store to show customers products by Dior everytime they ask to see your products. If you were Louis Vuitton you would not be happy about that.
And to claim that people searching for 'Louis Vuitton' are merely doing a generic search for 'luxury good' is just plain stupid. If I search for 'Louis Vuitton' then I only want to see search results for Louis Vuitton. To display anything else is unethical.
Yes, if you are running a 4 year old unpatched version of Windows, with no firewall and no AV software you're going to have problems. But only MORONS do that.
And that's the real issue. Despite the flaws in Windows, the biggest problem is USER STUPIDITY
Xp has been in use for 4 1/2 years now. It's been poked and prodded extensively by the malware people. And yet people continue to write crap like this -- gee my 4 year old version of Windows that's never been updated just got 0wned. Micro$oft is the sux0r!
Give me a break.
Take off and nuke 'em from orbit.
Just to be sure.
Over the past several years, I have experienced the same pattern, over and over.
Sign up with a new hosting company and everything is fine. Good service, good performance. Then, after 12-18 months things start to go bad. I finally get fed up and switch to a different company and the cycle repeats. Everything is fine for 12-18 months and then goes to hell.
Governments and businesses want service and support. They are unlikely to purchase any software without it. So take a look at Redhat for example. Their price charts are confusing and horribly laid out, but as near as I can figure, for Redhat Desktop Linux they are charging $13,500 (US) for '50 desktop entitlements'. That's $270 each. How does that represent a savings over Windows?
I guess they could hire a bunch of high school kids to download a free Linux package and then install it on 300,000 computers. But that seems unlikely.
Microsoft really has their priorities screwed up.
... like a modern, standards compliant browser that isn't full of security holes. Or an e-mail client that isn't the number one vector for speading viruses in the world.
There are so many things Microsoft needs to be concentrating on
Instead, they give us this crap.
How nice.
Although I pay a much higher price for broadband -- $40 a month for 3mbps -- I don't have to live in a shit hole like India, so I consider that a fair trade-off.
For the past 15 years, one thing has remained constant -- the only people pushing for 'Thin Clients' or 'Network Computers' are:
a) Companies that stand to profit from it
b) People who are too stupid to know any better (i.e., thay have never actually used a Thin Client)
The company I work for handles e-mail using a 'Network Computer' type of system. Even though I have a PC sitting on my desk, with all the usual applications, all e-mail is stored on the server, nothing is stored locally.
So you type up this big long really important e-mail, full of information that you've pulled in from various soucres, hit 'send' and -- sorry the server is down. OK. I'll save it and send it later. Hit 'Save as Draft' -- sorry the server is down. OK. While I'm waiting I'll look at that document that Fred e-mailed me yesterday. Sorry -- the server is down.
That's network computing.
Maybe this is too simple and obvious, but how about, Don't go to websites that install spuware/adware!!