Yep. The origional Fluffy Bunny rant. You can still find mirrors of the origional defaced page (complete with cute graphics and the above rant). The rant itself shows up in Slashdot archives and Google Groups often enough.
Nope, it should be as simple as gaining root on an unpatched Lunix box, like it happened to open source icons SourceForge and VIA a coupla years ago. Remember?
And while we're playing at "famous compromises", we can't forget the Microsoft corporate compromises either. Not that I would want to mimic your smug tone nor intrude on your own zealotry.
If Brazil remains a locus of "grayhat" activity, could this mean more resources will be put toward finding Linux exploits? Certainly on the whole Linux is more secure than Microsoft's offerings, but I imagine most would agree that its small userbase has played a part in limiting the number of exploits uncovered.
I'm amazed at how often this thought process is expressed. Its as if people think Linux doesn't have enough exposure on the desktop, or common enough in predominately Windows shops, therefore no its had appreciable exposure to infosec scrutiny. I would be interested in what leads people to this.
Linux has held a fairly decent percentage of public servers for years now. It has definitely been exposed to scrutiny. There are known vulnerabilities with older versions of software commonly found on Linux systems. There are exploits, rootkits, and whatnot. And there is a history of worms that have, to some extent, successfully attacked Linux systems. Mismanaged Linux servers get compromised.
In short, Linux already has a history. The question is why doesn't it matter.
Not under the DMCA. But almost assuredly under one of the new electronic crime "anti-hacker" laws.;)
Some of the neighborhood kids and I did roughly the same thing. One of the kid's household had gotten a new garagedoor system and the old stuff sat in a box. It wasn't long until we fished out the old control and had it open. And then it wasn't much longer until we had discovered how to twiddle with the settings and began doing circuits through the neighborhood seeing how many garagedoors we could open with what setting.
Thankfully, that was back in the innocent days of the 80's. Now days, we'd be facing jail time and steep fines based on the damage we would be doing to the entire garagedoor industry. We would be scourges to every soccermom who needed to get the groceries inside when it was raining. And Sears would be issuing large cash rewards for information on us to prove their commitment to security of everyone's garage doors.
The "dead" bit has been covered already so I'd like to address some of the other points from the parent post.
These 'Microsoft evil' stories do get somewhat tiresome. I think that it says more about the despreation of Va-linux than either Microsoft or the open-source community.
If the open source bullshit means anything then slashdot should try to be something better than the Fox News of the open source community. I am sure the editorial line pleases the Va-Linux directors, but how long the readers tolerate it is a different matter.
This is an interesting comment. First is the constant references to "va-linux". I'm not aware such an animal exists. They're called VA Software now days. It seems they gave up trying to compete with other commodity hardware outfits - especially when better-funded OEMs started shipping Linux too. So now they hock a software property and development process called Sourceforge. Doesn't look like they're in the Linux biz anymore.
Although I suppose that's not the whole story. VA Software also holds a collection of online media sites called OSDN, of which Slashdot is a part of. But then - Slashdot's bias and criticism of Microsoft (among other things) existed well before becoming a part of OSDN. This makes it awfully difficult to present a case of corporate influence affecting editorial bias.
That IS what you're implying, isn't it?
Five years ago what young people were interested was technology. Raise a political point on slashdot and you would get slapped down with offtopic.
Another interesting point. I would guess by "five years", we're comparing roughly some period in 1998. That's about the time period I started reading Slashdot.
Another assumption is that by "political point", the parent is referring to Microsoft criticism. This strikes me as rather odd since from day 1 of reading Slashdot, I saw a consistent critical bias towards Microsoft. Slashdot also had a healthy dose of Linux advocacy. Sure - technology is was always a big point. But so was aspects of technology business and politics.
What bothers me here is the implication that Slashdot has somehow strayed from its pure origins. That today we spend too much time worrying about the politics of IT and not enough time discussing technology. That instead of looking at business practices and legality, we should be focusing on press releases. And instead of looking at security issues, we should all nod in agreement with Ballmer when he says "I wish they would all just be quiet...".
Today what people are interested in is politics, there is a war going on out there which matters a damn sight more than what Hilary Rosen or Bill Gates might have said.
I would hardly wish to diminish the importance of international politics and war. But at the same time, I would hesitate to diminish the importance of technology issues either. In the history of mankind, there are defining points. Times where mankind takes a turn for the better or worse. Sometimes those turning points involve carnage and the associated geopolitical fallout. But other times, it is something as simple as a printing press.
This is the wrong forum for geopolitical discussion. After all, I would hazard to guess few of us are really qualified to have a meaningful conversation on those issues.
This is a forum for discussing technology and science - to include the business and politics involved. And it tends to attract those who actually do have some insight in those fields.
All the published MS quotes about Linux and open source are surprisingly positive. If anyone's inserting FUD here it's not MS, it's the author.
Sure. But one would expect the author to get the idea from somewhere. Again, the article reads:
That magpie attitude, according to Microsoft, is mutual. Red Hat's decision to end support for its free software and the Novell-SuSE link-up have put the last nail in the coffin of the free-software model, the Redmond behemoth believes -- even going so far as to speculate that the move from free to paid-for open-source software is a validation of Microsoft's way of doing business and the only way the open-source movement can survive.
Granted - its not a quote. But then, this is an article not an interview. It seems that the reporter is claiming at least one Microsoft rep. has made comments on these events - even if they're not quote worthy.
Did they say "Open Source is dead"? No. Are they implying that it might be a dead end business model? Sure looks like it.
So, in other words, what you're saying it you're one of those moron admins the penguin-heads are always laughing at? The kind of guy who knows where to clickity-click to restart IIS, and that's it? No idea how to SECURE IIS or change registry parameters to make it faster, or even know what the metabase is and it's purpose. There's a lot more to Windows than just what you see on the screen, little bunny, perhaps you should come back and take a look at the back side of the Windows mountain.
Its kind of amusing to read rants like this right next to this post in the same thread.
Why would another investor show their subpoena to Forbes?
Because the reporter is doing a piece on IBM's actions and has been interviewing some of the investers served with subpoenas? It wouldn't be suprising for the reporter to ask to see the subpoena... or for the interviewee to show it off unasked.
Meanwhile, the rational, quiet people whose opinions aren't voiced in boisterous +5 posts all the time just watch from the sidelines, shake their heads, and use the right tool for the job, whatever that may be.
I'm all for keeping everyone honest. After all, without some form of sanity checking, everyone is prone to getting a little carried away. Linux advocacy included.
But that sanity checking goes both ways.
Lines like this really make me chuckle. If I didn't know better, it would sound like Microsoft was the voice of reason. In fact, Microsoft is certainly capable of just as much, and often much more, hype in their own favor. They have a history of it. Furthermore, they often profit from pushing their technology in to every role whether it is "the right tool for the job" or not.
Yelling "black" doesn't make you any more insightful just because you're the kettle and not the pot.
Once you've published something on the internet, it's very hard to remove it. There are too many 'bots beavering away in the background. If I do a search for my name on google, I get info going all the way back to my post-grad days at college some 12 years ago....
That all depends on the content in question... and who you rely on to mirror it.
The first issue has to do with the sheer magnatude of content out there. There's a lot of stuff to mirror unless one was picky about what was mirror-worthy (unless one has unlimited resources). Then there's the fact that some things are removed before one has a chance to see it, much less mirror it.
Enter Google. Massive system - impressive resources. Wide-scale mirroring. But as much as I like Google, they've proven to be very succeptible to presure. Google has a history of removing content on request. Google's service is great. But one can't rely on Google to provide an immutable record.
And its not just Google. Other sources of possible mirrors also bow to external presure. Though before we get too critical of these organizatoins, one has to remember that the legal framework in which they operate tends to favor revisionists. Especially if they can claim copyright.
Esentially, its the standard game of whack-a-mole with "mole" being played by anybody willing to mirror the content.
This leads to grass-roots efforts to keep stuffing the system with moles / mirrors faster than revisionists can whack. Such a strategy can be fairly successful depending on the tenacity of the revisionist and the number of mirror participants. But then - this requires an initial copy of the content in question before its initial removal as well as a cause people are willing to support.
Yes, the nature of the Internet makes revisionists' jobs more difficult. But not impossible.
Here's some more interesting things for the record.
The origional reply from Eric Deming ("a product manager for Belkin's LAN products and... very involved with the development of the Parental Control feature") to news.admin.net-abuse.email was removed. Oddly enough. However you can find mirrored copies re-inserted in to Google Groups thanks to:
And even a simple text mirror outside Google's domain provided by Steven J Sobol.
The removed message was replaced by a very familiar sounding post again from Eric Deming. Google Groups currently has its own copy available (at the time of this writing). But others have already began the process of burying the text - probably due to previous experience.
Of course - if all these sources fail you... you can always find the same text burried in reader comments from the initial Slashdot article mentioned in this article's submission.
Sure, among uber-geeks and/.'ers. John Q. Public who purchased these Routers was doubtless annoyed by it, but John Q. Public who is still in the market and who (likely) hasn't heard about it will still consider buying Belken products.
True. But look at their product line. There's a lot of stuff that seems to be more directed towards techies than the average John Q. Public consumer. I doubt Belkin wants to alienate that market.
Dude. You're supposed to say that to THEM when you apply, not here. Granted - with dialog like that, I'm sure you're a shoe-in. You're speaking their language.
The solution is to use an email provider that doesn't subscribe to spamhaus or other services, that way you won't be subjected to email outages. This doesn't solve the problems of folks you email _to_ not getting your email, but if those folks don't have good connectivity, theres not much you can do.
So you're saying your solution to handling ISPs that provide connectivity to spammers is to move to ISPs that do not block spam. Interesting.
How long have you been working in the spam industry?
I think a more important difference is that it costs them money to call you. So, basically, a Do Not Call list saves them money because they do not need to call people who hate telemarketing.
If a national Do Not Call list saves telemarketers money, why are they fighting it? Heck - why hasn't there been a private firm jumping on this niche?
Telemarketers WANT to call everyone - even those who would prefer not to get calls. One good reason for this seemingly odd behavior is that some of these people don't want sales calls because they're prone to sales pitches.
Don't get me wrong, I'm by no means spam-friendly, and I do support efforts to tackle it. I just think that some of those efforts are a little too wide-reaching. By all means block IPs, but specific ones, not whole ranges; it's not fair on the innocent bystanders that inevitably get caught in the crossfire.
Sure. Sounds great. Now - what do you do when the ISP in question just bumps the offending spammer to a new block of IPs? Or how about that one fast-burner marketing type at the ISP who's discovered that he can really pack his quota by tapping in to this market of "email-advertisers"? Do we all get another xK pieces of spam while everyone plays another round of whack-a-mole/spammer?
So the question presented by this article would be "WHY is blacklisting spammers a bad idea?" Unfortunately, it doesn't answer the question.
The blurb mentioned by the article submitter is the entire coverage of any such activity. The rest of the piece then goes on to complain about the user's ISP. Those who haven't RTFA'd can feel comfortable in skipping this one.
I'm sure this submission will provide nice fodder for expressing annoyance over spamming and horror stories of "collateral damage". But then - we've had plenty of those before. It would have been nice if an article had provided some framework around this kind of conversation.
In any multi-player game you'll find cheaters. They have different excuses for it - lacking time to put in to the game like other "losers", boredom with the existing rules, etc. But whatever the excuse may be, its the same sociopathic behavior. The rules shouldn't apply to this individual so they take great pains to run exploits, proxies, and other cheating tools to remove the restrictions of the game's rules.
This should sound familiar to fans of the Matrix movies. After all, the heroes esentially "cheat" the rules of the Matrix. A large part of this is simply realizing that the rules of the artificial environment only apply if one wishes them to. But there are also other bits such as having a friend directly anylizing Matrix signals and customized, user-controlled load programs. It can all be easily summerized by the fact that The Matrix is really about how Neo cheats.
And everyone wants to be Neo. Woa.
Alright, maybe not everyone. But this Neo complex fits right in with our cheating friends who are incapable of playing multi-player games without going to great lengths to provide themselves with an unfair advantage. They want to be Neo too.
Now they can be. Enter the Matrix MMORPG. Be Neo. Or a Neo-a-like. And cheat. After all, that's what The Matrix is all about. How could anybody object?
Security failures are beginning to hit Microsoft hard not because of the enterprise, but because of home/personal installations.
Whereas a competent MCSE or IT director will have properly secured a corporation's machines against remote exploits (a properly designed network, even if none of the machines had been patched, should've been able to stay free of worms like Blaster and Welchia, for example), home users have been thrust into the unfortunate situation of running an enterprise OS (anything from the NT family), with no experience on securing it, and often, no knowledge that it needs to be secured at all.
Windows NT-based operating systems listen on so many ports, and are designed so wide open, because they are meant to sit inside a secured corporate network.
This is why, though NT-based OSes have had widely publicized security flaws for years, their flaws are now in the spotlight.
You've hit on an interesting observation - but ultimately are wrong in your assessment of what it means.
First - I have to question the assertion that WinNT-based systems are designed to be behind a secured corporate network. I suspect the strategy employed by Microsoft has more to do with making a default system usable with as little configuration and actual technical knowledge as possible. There's an inverse relationship between functionality and security. When Microsoft has been faced with this in the past, they have tended to favor functionality rather strongly. This is not a suprise to most infosec types. After all, information security was not driving the market in the past.
The second point is the concept of a "properly designed network" mitigating these issues. You're absolutely wrong on this point. What we're dealing with is often linked with fundimental pieces of Windows architecture. Even if one wanted to go to the expense of trying to cordon off an enterprise's network in to many, many insulated cells, the strategy would ultimately fail to prevent this exposure. Firewalls are very usefull. But they're not a panacea.
So why are malware stories gaining increased public exposure? There are many reasons. Let's touch on three.
First, the public is becoming educated. They are discovering that computers should have a certain level of performance - that failures are not just something to live with. They are finding out that there are alternatives - albiet few and far between. And they're beginning to see these particular instances as "Microsoft worms" or "Microsoft viruses". And rightly so. After all, these instances of malware do prey on Windows issues.
Secondly, "security" has become news-worthy. 9/11 had that affect on the American, if not international, psyche. To many there is little difference between physical security and information security (so-called "cyber-warfare" aside). Which is not always a good thing. Unless you're selling infosec snake-oil. In any case, it causes anything with "security" in it to catch people's attention.
Finally, more people are being affected by malware outbreaks. Desktops are almost ambigious thanks to the killer app - the Internet (which is probably better broken down to email, web, and IM in questionably that order). And thanks to the Internet, those desktops are reachable. Now - this may sound a lot like the parent's point. But remember - malware is affecting both corporate and consumer desktops. The possible half-point that was touched on is... the desktop. Desktops are being targeted more often these days. And there are some interesting possiblities for this.
Its a given an attacker gets something out of the attack - the question is what. Sure - there are the usual reasons of discovery, challenge, and power-trips. On rare occasion, the attacker might even be after the information on the host itself - although this is usually targeted by very hand-crafted attacks and not fast waves of malware (its easier to scoop up
What's more interesting is that it appears that the mentioned post was retracted from Google Groups and a new post shows up that reads (edited to show only Eric Deming's text):
We at Belkin apologize for the recent trouble our customers have experienced with the wireless router/browser redirect issue. We unintentionally overlooked the effect this feature would have. We never intended to compromise the trust of our customers, and we never intend to do so in the future.
We are taking responsibility for this, and we will be offering firmware fixes early next week. We do not have exact details yet as we are still working on them, and will continue to work on them over the weekend. What we can tell you now is that each Router's firmware that incorporates Parental Control as an option will be changed.
I'll keep posting as things develop. Stay tuned...
This is a common responce to this type of criticism. Even George Lucas himself uses it to dismiss criticism of his recent Star Wars films. The arugment esentially claims that any fondness of the older series over the new is simply due to nostalgia. I don't buy it.
Don't get me wrong - I'm a sucker for nostalgia myself. I wouldn't be watching VH1's "I Love the 80's" series so much if I were immune to it. But I do recognize it and its affects.
One example is The A-Team. Loved the show as a kid. I was amused to see it show up on late-night TV and caught an episode. Nostalgia is the only reason I bothered to sit through more than a sampling of it. If nostalgia blinded as much as Lucas claims - I would still love the show. I don't.
I've managed to stumble on to Star Wars on TV a few times. I'll end up parking on the station to watch the origional series. And while I notice many more imperfections now that I am older, I still find it enjoyable.
In comparison, I stumbled on to the latest Star Wars installment. I stayed to watch. But I walked away with a somewhat empty feeling. There is simply something missing from Lucas' most recent films.
Star Wars may or may not deserve the adolation it gets in today's popular culture. The series may be nothing more than fun. But in any case, Lucas has lost touch with something that made his earlier works better. And no amount of nostalgia has managed to cover that up.
Everything has a price. In this case, what is being described as a successful strategy also has a price: public perception. CNN's bit touches on this:
A related NPD survey of consumer perception, however, found that consumers' overall opinion of the recording industry is suffering due to the RIAA's move to sue hundreds of people alleged to have illegally shared music online.
Which makes sense. But it misses some subtle and interesting points highlighted by NPD's press release:
A MusicLab survey fielded by NPD in September noted that consumers' overall impressions of the recording industry were negatively affected by threats of litigation. Two-thirds of consumers who had recently shared files on P2P networks reported that the lawsuits caused them to have a "much more" or "somewhat more" negative opinion of record companies in general. Just over 40 percent of consumers who had not downloaded music in the previous four weeks felt similarly.
It should not be a shock to anyone that file traders might find the RIAA's actions distastefull. After all - they're the ones either directly affected or threatned by it. But what's interesting is that it appears that the same negative reaction is being expressed by those who are either casual traders or not involved in file trading at all.
This aludes to the often-expressed opinion that it is dangerous to sue one's customer base. It will be interesting to see if the Industry is able to manage this increasingly negative opinion and, if not, if it will affect the bottom line.
Personally, I think google is doing it right with ads based on the context of the site and by going all text.
It might be worth pointing out that not only does Google do all this right - but they have always plainly labled their ads. Some site's ideas of text ads were to mix it in to the search content. I believe everyone is pretty straight forward now - but it took legal threats to get some on board. Google was there from day one.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep. The origional Fluffy Bunny rant. You can still find mirrors of the origional defaced page (complete with cute graphics and the above rant). The rant itself shows up in Slashdot archives and Google Groups often enough.
I suppose October, 2000 is a good place to start. You had a point?
And while we're playing at "famous compromises", we can't forget the Microsoft corporate compromises either. Not that I would want to mimic your smug tone nor intrude on your own zealotry.
Apparently, the Matrix is a later revision of
I'm amazed at how often this thought process is expressed. Its as if people think Linux doesn't have enough exposure on the desktop, or common enough in predominately Windows shops, therefore no its had appreciable exposure to infosec scrutiny. I would be interested in what leads people to this.
Linux has held a fairly decent percentage of public servers for years now. It has definitely been exposed to scrutiny. There are known vulnerabilities with older versions of software commonly found on Linux systems. There are exploits, rootkits, and whatnot. And there is a history of worms that have, to some extent, successfully attacked Linux systems. Mismanaged Linux servers get compromised.
In short, Linux already has a history. The question is why doesn't it matter.
Not under the DMCA. But almost assuredly under one of the new electronic crime "anti-hacker" laws.
Some of the neighborhood kids and I did roughly the same thing. One of the kid's household had gotten a new garagedoor system and the old stuff sat in a box. It wasn't long until we fished out the old control and had it open. And then it wasn't much longer until we had discovered how to twiddle with the settings and began doing circuits through the neighborhood seeing how many garagedoors we could open with what setting.
Thankfully, that was back in the innocent days of the 80's. Now days, we'd be facing jail time and steep fines based on the damage we would be doing to the entire garagedoor industry. We would be scourges to every soccermom who needed to get the groceries inside when it was raining. And Sears would be issuing large cash rewards for information on us to prove their commitment to security of everyone's garage doors.
This is an interesting comment. First is the constant references to "va-linux". I'm not aware such an animal exists. They're called VA Software now days. It seems they gave up trying to compete with other commodity hardware outfits - especially when better-funded OEMs started shipping Linux too. So now they hock a software property and development process called Sourceforge. Doesn't look like they're in the Linux biz anymore.
Although I suppose that's not the whole story. VA Software also holds a collection of online media sites called OSDN, of which Slashdot is a part of. But then - Slashdot's bias and criticism of Microsoft (among other things) existed well before becoming a part of OSDN. This makes it awfully difficult to present a case of corporate influence affecting editorial bias.
That IS what you're implying, isn't it?
Another interesting point. I would guess by "five years", we're comparing roughly some period in 1998. That's about the time period I started reading Slashdot.
Another assumption is that by "political point", the parent is referring to Microsoft criticism. This strikes me as rather odd since from day 1 of reading Slashdot, I saw a consistent critical bias towards Microsoft. Slashdot also had a healthy dose of Linux advocacy. Sure - technology is was always a big point. But so was aspects of technology business and politics.
What bothers me here is the implication that Slashdot has somehow strayed from its pure origins. That today we spend too much time worrying about the politics of IT and not enough time discussing technology. That instead of looking at business practices and legality, we should be focusing on press releases. And instead of looking at security issues, we should all nod in agreement with Ballmer when he says "I wish they would all just be quiet...".
I would hardly wish to diminish the importance of international politics and war. But at the same time, I would hesitate to diminish the importance of technology issues either. In the history of mankind, there are defining points. Times where mankind takes a turn for the better or worse. Sometimes those turning points involve carnage and the associated geopolitical fallout. But other times, it is something as simple as a printing press.
This is the wrong forum for geopolitical discussion. After all, I would hazard to guess few of us are really qualified to have a meaningful conversation on those issues.
This is a forum for discussing technology and science - to include the business and politics involved. And it tends to attract those who actually do have some insight in those fields.
Sure. But one would expect the author to get the idea from somewhere. Again, the article reads:
Granted - its not a quote. But then, this is an article not an interview. It seems that the reporter is claiming at least one Microsoft rep. has made comments on these events - even if they're not quote worthy.
Did they say "Open Source is dead"? No. Are they implying that it might be a dead end business model? Sure looks like it.
Its kind of amusing to read rants like this right next to this post in the same thread.
Because the reporter is doing a piece on IBM's actions and has been interviewing some of the investers served with subpoenas? It wouldn't be suprising for the reporter to ask to see the subpoena... or for the interviewee to show it off unasked.
I'm all for keeping everyone honest. After all, without some form of sanity checking, everyone is prone to getting a little carried away. Linux advocacy included.
But that sanity checking goes both ways.
Lines like this really make me chuckle. If I didn't know better, it would sound like Microsoft was the voice of reason. In fact, Microsoft is certainly capable of just as much, and often much more, hype in their own favor. They have a history of it. Furthermore, they often profit from pushing their technology in to every role whether it is "the right tool for the job" or not.
Yelling "black" doesn't make you any more insightful just because you're the kettle and not the pot.
That all depends on the content in question... and who you rely on to mirror it.
The first issue has to do with the sheer magnatude of content out there. There's a lot of stuff to mirror unless one was picky about what was mirror-worthy (unless one has unlimited resources). Then there's the fact that some things are removed before one has a chance to see it, much less mirror it.
Enter Google. Massive system - impressive resources. Wide-scale mirroring. But as much as I like Google, they've proven to be very succeptible to presure. Google has a history of removing content on request. Google's service is great. But one can't rely on Google to provide an immutable record.
And its not just Google. Other sources of possible mirrors also bow to external presure. Though before we get too critical of these organizatoins, one has to remember that the legal framework in which they operate tends to favor revisionists. Especially if they can claim copyright.
Esentially, its the standard game of whack-a-mole with "mole" being played by anybody willing to mirror the content.
This leads to grass-roots efforts to keep stuffing the system with moles / mirrors faster than revisionists can whack. Such a strategy can be fairly successful depending on the tenacity of the revisionist and the number of mirror participants. But then - this requires an initial copy of the content in question before its initial removal as well as a cause people are willing to support.
Yes, the nature of the Internet makes revisionists' jobs more difficult. But not impossible.
Here's some more interesting things for the record.
... very involved with the development of the Parental Control feature") to news.admin.net-abuse.email was removed. Oddly enough. However you can find mirrored copies re-inserted in to Google Groups thanks to:
The origional reply from Eric Deming ("a product manager for Belkin's LAN products and
Malev
Clifton T. Sharp Jr.
dave
And even a simple text mirror outside Google's domain provided by Steven J Sobol.
The removed message was replaced by a very familiar sounding post again from Eric Deming. Google Groups currently has its own copy available (at the time of this writing). But others have already began the process of burying the text - probably due to previous experience.
Of course - if all these sources fail you... you can always find the same text burried in reader comments from the initial Slashdot article mentioned in this article's submission.
True. But look at their product line. There's a lot of stuff that seems to be more directed towards techies than the average John Q. Public consumer. I doubt Belkin wants to alienate that market.
Dude. You're supposed to say that to THEM when you apply, not here. Granted - with dialog like that, I'm sure you're a shoe-in. You're speaking their language.
So you're saying your solution to handling ISPs that provide connectivity to spammers is to move to ISPs that do not block spam. Interesting.
How long have you been working in the spam industry?
If a national Do Not Call list saves telemarketers money, why are they fighting it? Heck - why hasn't there been a private firm jumping on this niche?
Telemarketers WANT to call everyone - even those who would prefer not to get calls. One good reason for this seemingly odd behavior is that some of these people don't want sales calls because they're prone to sales pitches.
Sure. Sounds great. Now - what do you do when the ISP in question just bumps the offending spammer to a new block of IPs? Or how about that one fast-burner marketing type at the ISP who's discovered that he can really pack his quota by tapping in to this market of "email-advertisers"? Do we all get another xK pieces of spam while everyone plays another round of whack-a-mole/spammer?
So the question presented by this article would be "WHY is blacklisting spammers a bad idea?" Unfortunately, it doesn't answer the question.
The blurb mentioned by the article submitter is the entire coverage of any such activity. The rest of the piece then goes on to complain about the user's ISP. Those who haven't RTFA'd can feel comfortable in skipping this one.
I'm sure this submission will provide nice fodder for expressing annoyance over spamming and horror stories of "collateral damage". But then - we've had plenty of those before. It would have been nice if an article had provided some framework around this kind of conversation.
This article doesn't.
In any multi-player game you'll find cheaters. They have different excuses for it - lacking time to put in to the game like other "losers", boredom with the existing rules, etc. But whatever the excuse may be, its the same sociopathic behavior. The rules shouldn't apply to this individual so they take great pains to run exploits, proxies, and other cheating tools to remove the restrictions of the game's rules.
This should sound familiar to fans of the Matrix movies. After all, the heroes esentially "cheat" the rules of the Matrix. A large part of this is simply realizing that the rules of the artificial environment only apply if one wishes them to. But there are also other bits such as having a friend directly anylizing Matrix signals and customized, user-controlled load programs. It can all be easily summerized by the fact that The Matrix is really about how Neo cheats.
And everyone wants to be Neo. Woa.
Alright, maybe not everyone. But this Neo complex fits right in with our cheating friends who are incapable of playing multi-player games without going to great lengths to provide themselves with an unfair advantage. They want to be Neo too.
Now they can be. Enter the Matrix MMORPG. Be Neo. Or a Neo-a-like. And cheat. After all, that's what The Matrix is all about. How could anybody object?
You've hit on an interesting observation - but ultimately are wrong in your assessment of what it means.
First - I have to question the assertion that WinNT-based systems are designed to be behind a secured corporate network. I suspect the strategy employed by Microsoft has more to do with making a default system usable with as little configuration and actual technical knowledge as possible. There's an inverse relationship between functionality and security. When Microsoft has been faced with this in the past, they have tended to favor functionality rather strongly. This is not a suprise to most infosec types. After all, information security was not driving the market in the past.
The second point is the concept of a "properly designed network" mitigating these issues. You're absolutely wrong on this point. What we're dealing with is often linked with fundimental pieces of Windows architecture. Even if one wanted to go to the expense of trying to cordon off an enterprise's network in to many, many insulated cells, the strategy would ultimately fail to prevent this exposure. Firewalls are very usefull. But they're not a panacea.
So why are malware stories gaining increased public exposure? There are many reasons. Let's touch on three.
First, the public is becoming educated. They are discovering that computers should have a certain level of performance - that failures are not just something to live with. They are finding out that there are alternatives - albiet few and far between. And they're beginning to see these particular instances as "Microsoft worms" or "Microsoft viruses". And rightly so. After all, these instances of malware do prey on Windows issues.
Secondly, "security" has become news-worthy. 9/11 had that affect on the American, if not international, psyche. To many there is little difference between physical security and information security (so-called "cyber-warfare" aside). Which is not always a good thing. Unless you're selling infosec snake-oil. In any case, it causes anything with "security" in it to catch people's attention.
Finally, more people are being affected by malware outbreaks. Desktops are almost ambigious thanks to the killer app - the Internet (which is probably better broken down to email, web, and IM in questionably that order). And thanks to the Internet, those desktops are reachable. Now - this may sound a lot like the parent's point. But remember - malware is affecting both corporate and consumer desktops. The possible half-point that was touched on is... the desktop. Desktops are being targeted more often these days. And there are some interesting possiblities for this.
Its a given an attacker gets something out of the attack - the question is what. Sure - there are the usual reasons of discovery, challenge, and power-trips. On rare occasion, the attacker might even be after the information on the host itself - although this is usually targeted by very hand-crafted attacks and not fast waves of malware (its easier to scoop up
Wow. That was quick.
This is a common responce to this type of criticism. Even George Lucas himself uses it to dismiss criticism of his recent Star Wars films. The arugment esentially claims that any fondness of the older series over the new is simply due to nostalgia. I don't buy it.
Don't get me wrong - I'm a sucker for nostalgia myself. I wouldn't be watching VH1's "I Love the 80's" series so much if I were immune to it. But I do recognize it and its affects.
One example is The A-Team. Loved the show as a kid. I was amused to see it show up on late-night TV and caught an episode. Nostalgia is the only reason I bothered to sit through more than a sampling of it. If nostalgia blinded as much as Lucas claims - I would still love the show. I don't.
I've managed to stumble on to Star Wars on TV a few times. I'll end up parking on the station to watch the origional series. And while I notice many more imperfections now that I am older, I still find it enjoyable.
In comparison, I stumbled on to the latest Star Wars installment. I stayed to watch. But I walked away with a somewhat empty feeling. There is simply something missing from Lucas' most recent films.
Star Wars may or may not deserve the adolation it gets in today's popular culture. The series may be nothing more than fun. But in any case, Lucas has lost touch with something that made his earlier works better. And no amount of nostalgia has managed to cover that up.
Which makes sense. But it misses some subtle and interesting points highlighted by NPD's press release:
It should not be a shock to anyone that file traders might find the RIAA's actions distastefull. After all - they're the ones either directly affected or threatned by it. But what's interesting is that it appears that the same negative reaction is being expressed by those who are either casual traders or not involved in file trading at all.
This aludes to the often-expressed opinion that it is dangerous to sue one's customer base. It will be interesting to see if the Industry is able to manage this increasingly negative opinion and, if not, if it will affect the bottom line.
It might be worth pointing out that not only does Google do all this right - but they have always plainly labled their ads. Some site's ideas of text ads were to mix it in to the search content. I believe everyone is pretty straight forward now - but it took legal threats to get some on board. Google was there from day one.