The lesson here, especially to investors, is: "Don't try to provide innovative service in a heavily regulated industry."
Regulation goes both ways. We all know how unscrupulous the telephone and cable companies are. Think how much more unscrupulous they'd be if they weren't subject to government regulation. A while back, a friend of mine got "slammed" (the practice of having your long distance provider changed without your knowledge). Verizon wanted to charge them like $5.00 to switch the provider back. They were decided unhelpful. My friend asked for a supervisor, and said "Can I have your name or number to call the DTE (the state agency that oversees Telecom and Energy utilites)?" and the supervisor suddenly said "Well, I think we can waive that fee."
I had a similar issue with Verizon. They signed me up for the wrong international plan, and I got a $200 phone bill (which normally should have been like $70). I had a letter when I signed up indicating I had specified that plan, but they never enrolled me. They claimed the letter didn't constitute proof, but they could switch me back, but it would be $20 and I'd still have the phone bill. I said the magic words "call the DTE", and suddenly they were able to retroactively sign me up for the international plan I was supposed to have been on in the first place with no switching fees.
Sure, everyone loves Vonage, they're the best company in the world, group hugs, blah blah, we know. But this is an entire industry. There exist plenty of POTS long distance providers who specialize in price gouging. The VoIP world is not going to stay pristine - we'll get crappy companies that seem to offer good deals, and then slam you with huge bills and hidden fees. And when that happens, you'll be upset, and call your state public utilties commission, and they'll say "Sorry, VoIP is unregulated. We sympathize with you, but we can't help you. Have a nice day." And you'll be SOL. You might have some recourse if pay via credit card, but that's about it.
Yes, regulation can be used to stifle competition. But it can also be used to protect consumers. That's what it was designed for - even before phones were invented, the railroads (another regulated group of monopolies) were screwing consumers and manufacturers. And the government stepped in the regulate them. If the government is using regulation to stifle competition unfairly, than it's up to the people to fix that. While eliminating regulation is often the knee-jerk reaction, it's not always the best idea.
Unfortunately, you may be creating a precedent so that method cannot be used to distribute any content.
That's going a little over the top. The lawsuit is about protecting their trademark. They are claiming that the ads are triggered by the phrase "LL Bean" which is in fact a trademark. And they are legally obligated to protect that trademark, or they lose it. And then any company can legally make clothes and put "LL Bean" on them.
The First Ammendment is not at issue here. Ever wonder why so many ads say "the next leading brand" and show a picture of a container similar to, but not identical to the brand they're referring to? It's because they're not allowed to use that brand's name in their ads. And in places where it is used, there's always a disclaimer that says "Product $foo is a trademark of company $bar".
It's about using a trademark in advertising and not acknowledging it. That's what LL Bean cares about. The spyware is a side issue.
That having been said, I don't think they stand a chance. The spyware will simply be modified to instead of look for "LL Bean" look for something like 'Outdoor clothing" and "Portland, Maine". Neither of which are trademarkable. And then LL Bean is SOL. I predict nothing useful will come of this.
The idea that a website owner should be able to dictate what other information is on a computer screen while you are visiting their webpage is ridiculous.
But the idea that a website owner can be able to dictate what other information is on a computer screen while you are visiting some other web page is a-okay? Because that's precisely what Gator (Claria) is doing. Some website owner (ie: Nordstrom) is dictating what information will be on your computer screen (ie: ads for Nordstrom) while visiting a website (www.llbean.com) It's not like Claria is doing it out of the goodness of their heart. Someone paid them to do that.
You need to think a bit harder about your argument, there. Why is it ok for Gator and Claria to do it, and not for LL Bean?
A D-Link port-80-only firewall can be had at any number of electronics stores (heck, probably at Walgreen's too) for $79. It isn't a total solution, but it will protect a personal machine long enough to get the Windows Updates installed.
Wow. Think of what you're saying. You're telling users that they need to shell out almost a hundred bucks for a device that will allow them to safely download updates. Has Microsoft security gotten so bad that we're just going to accept that you need to buy a firewall just keep your OS up to date? Does anyone else see a problem with this?
1) Switch on computer
2) Login
3) Wait until everything is loaded and the disk stops chunking
4) Plug in network
Is that really hard?
Try telling that to an end user. They don't want to be bothered with that. And also, people forget to do things sometimes. And the one time you forget, you'll get infected.
Yes, yes, we all know the most secure computer is the one that doesn't have a network connection. But really, providing firewall software, and loading it last in the startup sequence, instead of immediately following network device startup is sloppy and wrong.
People always complain about their computers getting infected before they are able to download the patches - but this is easy to prevent if you just switch on the included firewall software.
Too bad the firewall software loads *last* in the startup sequence, leaving a gaping hole of anywhere from 20 seconds to two minutes (on a slow machine) when your machine is on the net and unprotected. And during the height of worm activity, that's *more than enough* time to get infected.
A Windows XP computer hit by worms that couldn't stay on-line long enough to get patched.
This is a serious problem, actually. During the height of the worms last summer, we saw hundreds of machines that got infected while in the middle of downloading updates. It even got to the point that the WinXP "firewall" wasn't good enough, since it loaded *last* in the startup sequence, and there was a good 20 seconds to 2 minutes (depending on the speed of the machine) when the machine was on the net and unprotected, even if you had enabled the firewall settings.
It's the bigger problem of running services by default. The average user doesn't need half of the services that run. Linux figured that out years ago - most services are off these days, and those that are on are fairly secure (ie: sshd). Even if some of these services are required for system operation (like some folks have claimed), there's no reason for them to be listening on addresses other than 127.0.0.1.
Linus Torvalds should sue the author for libel and defamation of character (and extend it to slander if the author is making oral statements publicly).
If you RTFA, you'll see there's a whole lot of conditionals in there. AdTI might be a bunch of idiot sheep, but I bet they have a halfway competent legal department that would make them stop short of anything that could get them sued. And we don't know the sources. I mean, I could go find a bunch of conspiracy mags and websites and use them as a source to write a press release that says "Surgeon General might be controlling minds with flu shots". Heck, I have my "sources". And I didn't make any accusations, just threw the idea out there. I'm pretty sure the surgeon general can't sue me for that. (The government can throw me in Guantanamo Bay, but that's different).
What Linus _should_ do is write a well-thought-out rebuttal and get it into the major news outlets to let everyone know how ridiculous these claims are. This is one of the few times when something ridiculous does merit a response. If it was from some wacko on Usenet, sure, ignore it, no one will care. But rebutting their claim and providing solid proof will help publically discredit this istitute, which is exactly what is needed.
And the blind users tell what the randomized order is... how?
Braille. There exist Braille terminals that raise and lower dots under the fingers of the person using them. It would be possible (albeit expensive) to have a scramble pad where each button has little dots that can be raised and lowered, and the scramble pad does that, and then the user reads the keys with their fingers and enters the code. Of course, this is more prone to mechanical failure - if a single LED fails, you can probably still read the number. But it's possible.
Those already exist. They're called "scramble pads". We had one on the server room where I used to work. You press "start", and it displays the numbers in LEDs under the keys, and you enter the code. Every time you press start, the numbers are in a different position. And you can barely read them when staring right at the pad, let alone from the side.
Of course, it took about 5 times longer to get in than with a key or swipe card (since the code was 8 numbers), but there's always a trade-off.
Not so funny now, is it? Still, this is old news. Check the MD5sums when you download something. Or do forensics on it first. Or install it on a test machine. But, yes, it's easy to forge anything from mail to program icons - all the more reason to be careful.
Why was this under the "Apple" topic? Do we not have a "Darwin awards" topic?
While I agree the method in which 1-click was enforced was underhanded, I have to ask: If the concept of 1-click was so obvious, why hadn't anyone done it before amazon? Remember, it's not a shopping cart. It's keeping your info and specifying 1 address, 1 billing method, and 1 shipping address, and doing an entire order in one step. I don't recall seeing prior art for that. (I'm not saying 1-click is great, or that it should have been patented; just posing a question)
The only way to eliminate SPAM is to make it unprofitable. Since the world is full of fools, we can't count on them to just not respond to SPAM so we need to reduce the numbers of SPAM messages sent by the spammers.
While I agree that spam must be made unprofitable, I think some public awareness can happen. Personally, I'd like to see something like what the government (FTC?) did a while back - set up false pyramid scheme sites, and when people sign up, send them an e-mail explaining that they could have lost millions. Of course, that was a "pull" method. Doing that with spam would require sending out millions of spam mails to lure the idiots to get your message, and I'm not interested in discussing whether or not the ends justify the means.
I suppose they could do it through traditional mail. Or take out ads in newspapers. It's all about public awareness. And don't say the majority of people who buy this can't read. Remember, they have to have computers. Several articles showed that it was mostly white-collar workers getting suckered in by penis pills.
Regardless, people need to be informed that most offers are illegal and they'll end up being screwed. People need to undersand that chances are big software companies such as Micosoft and Network Associates have not endorsed resellers with the e-mail address "muffins@happyhangover.com" (I got that one yesterday, seriously)
Another solution I guess would be to make Viagra free and remove demand, but I bet that's a bad idea...
We need some sort of real-time, content-driven connection throttling on the mail servers of the world, so as to reduce the number of SPAM that can be sent in any given time. The inbound mail can be analysed on-the-fly and if the word pen1s or vi@gara is detected, throttle the connection so that mail takes 60 seconds to send.
Throttling is great, but basing it on words is a bad idea. It won't work. Spammers will keep finding ways around it. That article a while back that showed how people recognize shapes of words proves that there are near limitless ways to "spell" a given word. You can't check for every possibility without putting undue load on a mail server. (This isn't your personal mail server we're talking about - some mail servers get literally thousands of pieces a mail per minute, often more).
Throttling, however, is great. I can't think of a legitimate reason to send more than, say, one or two mails per minute. (All these numbers are guidelines, obviously we'd have to figure out someting that works for most people, but still annoys spammers - don't waste your time flaming me saying you send 3.5 mails per minute). If you violate that, you don't get to talk to the mail server for 5 minutes. Violate it again within 30 minutes, and you don't get to talk to the mail server for an hour. Violate it more than, say, N times per day, and you don't get to talk to the mail server for 24 hours. This would put a huge damper on spamming runs. And if something really needs to get through but you're banned from the mail server, you can use your ISP's webmail service (most offer one), or go get a yahoo account temporarily or something), or maybe you can call your ISP and explain what happened (assuming there was a legitimate reason) and get yourself re-activated.
That's how most colleges deal with bandwidth hogs. (It's a shared resource, not a right, deal with it.) If you go over the bandwidth cap (which is publicized, unlike Comcast, and is quite generous (on the order of several GB/week) once, you get a warning. The next time, once you use up your bandwidth for the week, it's gone. You're SOL until Sunday. Some colleges provide a "reserve", which you can activate to get your work done, but if you go over that, too bad. You get to go to the library and do your research the old-fashioned way, or you get to go to a public cluster. Does this inconvenience students? Not really. The primary use of most college networks is for academics (check the AUP you
Are you detecting that a hiker passed a specific location, or that a specific hiker passed a specific location? If the former, it's no different from loop detectors in roads that count the number of cars. If the latter, well, it needs to be voluntary. Just like you can decide to take emergency flares and a radio with you hiking, you can decide to sign up for the tracking system or not.
Say it ain't so! Microsoft makes good consumer Wi-Fi equipment
It ain't so. Microsoft makes crappy WiFi equipment. It's totally non-configurable, you get to change maybe 3 settings. Compare against Linksys where you can change most anything. (yeah, yeah, GPL issues, we know). My personal favorite in the WiFi market is D-link. My DWL-900AP has been going strong for 3 years now, and is completely manageable via SNMP in any OS. I even was able to write a DHCP-auto-registration script for my router (running Linux) so users can open a web browser, get redirected to a registration page, and register, and get added to the MAC address ACL on the AP and be online. Try doing that with an Microsoft AP. (Disclaimer: I have not actually tried doing that with a Microsoft AP)
Miguel believes that poor countries will be the first that will adopt widely Linux
Unless of course MS makes a "donation" of Windows and x86 hardware to a few of these countries. Say, maybe, in the schools where the future generations are being trained. And they'll learn on Windows and get used to Office. And then they grow up and get jobs in government or public sector. And guess what OS they'll want to buy? (Hint: not Linux)
And we'll be powerless to stop them. Any objections will result in headlines of the form "Open Source Community against free computers for third-world schoolchildren". Which will really endear people to our cause. (Yes, yes, we all know what MS would be trying to do in this situation, but good luck getting the media to not twist any statements)
Of course, if IBM were clever (ha ha ha ha ha), they'd beat MS to the punch and donate a shitload of low-end (low-end being 1.3Ghz Celerons - not exactly crappy) ThinkCentres (as low as $399 with an educational discount, and I'm sure it actually costs them much less to make) pre-loaded with Linux and OpenOffice to schools in 3rd world countries. They could donate LCDs instead of CRTs for low power consumption. IBM has a good edge here, because they control the hardware, and they have a zero-cost OS available to them. Sure, MS can offer a "zero-cost" OS - they could even offer free upgrades for life (ha!), they even have enough cash to purchase the hardware for free. But probably not support contracts. Again, IBM can provide those for free if it wishes.
This would be an incredibly smart move. Microsoft will likely cry foul about not providing Windows, but IBM can come right back and say "These people can't afford to upgrade to the next version of Windows when it comes out. They can afford a free upgrade for Linux. And we're providing hardware and support free of charge. Explain how this is bad?"
and as long the EU won't adopt a similar system to US for patents, Europe will follow soon after,
Not the way the winds are blowing. Media interests are lobbying for the same laws the US has, with the usual "think of the children" and "piracy!" arguments. And no third world country is going to want to adopt a system that two large markets (US and Europe) don't like.
leaving no option to USA but to eventually adopt Linux as well in the long run (despite potential patent problems).
Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Right after they adopt the metric system, the DD/MM/YYYY date format, and the PAL video format. Because the U.S. has a great history of following Europe's lead.
See, everyone says this, but all the anecdotes are particularly short on details. I've visited paypalsucks.com several times, and have yet to see a definitive instance where paypal screwed someone over. I've seen lots of "I shipped item $foo, and the seller claimed he never received it, and PayPal stole my money". Of course, they probably didn't read PayPal's TOS which says if you want seller protection, you ship via a method that provides tracking.
Personally, I find that feature useful. I bought an item which never arrived. The seller tried to claim he didn't have to provide proof to me that he mailed it, since I didn't pay for insurance. So after two months, I filed a claim with PayPal and got my money back, since he failed to abide by their TOS. Then in retaliation he tried to report me as a non-paying bidder. It was later revealed that the item was returned to him for insufficient postage.
Personally, I find the biggest problem on eBay is the users, not PayPal. However, I agree that if another suction service comes along that does a better job for the same price, yes, eBay will suffer. But I think that'll turn out to be difficult.
I know this will not be popular, but there is a reason for the FCC to be around and to control the spectrum.
Indeed there is. The only problem is that the FCC was originally supposed to be a bunch of Joe Citizens. It was not supposed to cave to media interests and fuck over the end users. It was not intended to give its blessings to allow media monopolies.
I'm all in favor of regulation and control of the spectrum - otherwise, my neighbor next door would be able to broadcast porn on the same frequency as the local PBS station so 5 year olds would see that instead of Sesame Street. Or a guy walking down the street would be allowed to jam my cellphone signals. (Yes, cell phone users can be annoying, and you have every right to ask them to STFU, but not to terminate their conversation). Or some competing phone company would prevent me from dialing 911 if I didn't pay them money.
The FCC needs to exist, and the spectrum needs to be regulated. But it needs to be regulated fairly, and needs to favor consumers over big media companies (after all, there are more of us than them). And the current incarnation of the FCC has shown that they suck at doing that.
So does flawed thinking. This is not a Windows-only issue.
Where did I say it was? You're missing the entire point. Gartner was not including poor security in TCO. Now they are. And because of this, Linux will have a lower TCO than Windows. Because there are fewer viruses, worms, etc for linux. Not zero. But fewer. And thus Windows will have a higher TCO.
(Yes, yes, now we'll hear the "Linux only has less worms because no one uses it" arguments that the anti-Mac zealots use. Go find someone who cares.)
This is news? This wasn't included in TCO estimates before?
Yes, this is news. And it's good news. In case people missed it, this is from the Gartner group. This is the holy tome of PHBs. The way and the light. Gartner says jump, and the PHBs jump, you better believe it. And after years of saying the Windows is the way and the light, they're finally acknowledging that poor security costs money. It's recommendations like this, more than anything else, that will move companies from Windows to Linux.
The AFS vulnerability, which is the only process in the whole list which runs under root privs, would require someone be running AFS (the Apple equiv of NFS) over the Internet. It has been known for a very long time that NFS is *ONLY* for internal trusted networks. AFS is turned off by default on Macs, and the vast majority of users (certainly almost all home users) would never need to enable it.
You mean AFP (Apple Filing Protocol). Apple:AFP::Windows:SMB. AFS is something completely different.
Meaning you have to have an iPod if you want your iTunes to go
Or a portable CD player, but again, only Apple makes those. Sony, Aiwa, Panasonic, etc certainly don't.
or you have to buy from the iTMS if you have an iPod and purchase music online
If you want to use a portable MP3 player, yes. But plenty of people have portable CD players, or CD players in their car, or at work. And a CD burner costs about $40 these days - a hell of a lot cheaper than an iPod. So, yeah, if you go out and buy an iPod, and do not own any CDs to rip (to regular non-DRM MP3 or AAC), and only want to purchase musc online, you get to use iTMS. However, if you don't need an iPod, but are interested in using iTMS, it's actually cheaper. For the cost of a CD burner and media, you can listen to your music anywhere there's a CD player.
I'm sure someone will point out that some discmen don't play burned CDs, and that's true - the really old ones don't, no matter what software they were burned with.
OK, this one has DRM and vendor lock-in etc. But it's still a competition for Apple. And unless Sony and Apple get into a cartel, that's a good thing. Because at the very least, Sony can generate an environment where prices may even drop. Remember, you wouldn't see any sale prices on your favorite food if there was only one supermarket chain in existence.
Are you people really such sad, ignorant elitists?
But it's not competition for Apple. That's precisely the thing. Yes, competition is good. But Sony's service is hardly competition. Imagine if you tried to open a fast food franchise that sold a mediocre burger for the same price as McDonalds, but didn't offer fries, or shakes, or McFlurrys, and you could only eat the burger in the restaurant - you couldn't get it to go. That's not competition for mcDonalds. Nothing will change in the market. If, on the other hand, you produced Grade-A burgers, for the same price as McDonalds, and had counter-staff who were intelligent, then that would be competition. I don't think anyone is saying Sony _shouldn't_ compete with Apple. Just that what they're doing will not be competition.
Yeah, that's my biggest gripe with Apple and iTMS. I mean, iTMS only works on Windows and Mac. Yeesh. Talk about vendor lock in - what about non-Apple machines?
*whispering off camera*
Huh? Apple doesn't make i386 machines? And they don't make Windows? Oh, uh ok. Well, still, it sucks that you can only burn CDs on Apple computers.
*more whispering*
Wait, you can burn CDs on any machine with iTunes and a CD burner? Oh, well, OK, it still sucks that you can only burn them on Apple media and then only play them back on Apple CD players.
*whispering, louder this time*
Wait, they're regular audio CDs that you can play back in your car or home stereo? Red-Book compliant? No Apple computer required? And you can burn them to any CD-R media? Hrm. Well, there's still vendor lock-in because of the, uh, hrm, let me get back to you on this one...
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Regulation goes both ways. We all know how unscrupulous the telephone and cable companies are. Think how much more unscrupulous they'd be if they weren't subject to government regulation. A while back, a friend of mine got "slammed" (the practice of having your long distance provider changed without your knowledge). Verizon wanted to charge them like $5.00 to switch the provider back. They were decided unhelpful. My friend asked for a supervisor, and said "Can I have your name or number to call the DTE (the state agency that oversees Telecom and Energy utilites)?" and the supervisor suddenly said "Well, I think we can waive that fee."
I had a similar issue with Verizon. They signed me up for the wrong international plan, and I got a $200 phone bill (which normally should have been like $70). I had a letter when I signed up indicating I had specified that plan, but they never enrolled me. They claimed the letter didn't constitute proof, but they could switch me back, but it would be $20 and I'd still have the phone bill. I said the magic words "call the DTE", and suddenly they were able to retroactively sign me up for the international plan I was supposed to have been on in the first place with no switching fees.
Sure, everyone loves Vonage, they're the best company in the world, group hugs, blah blah, we know. But this is an entire industry. There exist plenty of POTS long distance providers who specialize in price gouging. The VoIP world is not going to stay pristine - we'll get crappy companies that seem to offer good deals, and then slam you with huge bills and hidden fees. And when that happens, you'll be upset, and call your state public utilties commission, and they'll say "Sorry, VoIP is unregulated. We sympathize with you, but we can't help you. Have a nice day." And you'll be SOL. You might have some recourse if pay via credit card, but that's about it.
Yes, regulation can be used to stifle competition. But it can also be used to protect consumers. That's what it was designed for - even before phones were invented, the railroads (another regulated group of monopolies) were screwing consumers and manufacturers. And the government stepped in the regulate them. If the government is using regulation to stifle competition unfairly, than it's up to the people to fix that. While eliminating regulation is often the knee-jerk reaction, it's not always the best idea.
That's going a little over the top. The lawsuit is about protecting their trademark. They are claiming that the ads are triggered by the phrase "LL Bean" which is in fact a trademark. And they are legally obligated to protect that trademark, or they lose it. And then any company can legally make clothes and put "LL Bean" on them.
The First Ammendment is not at issue here. Ever wonder why so many ads say "the next leading brand" and show a picture of a container similar to, but not identical to the brand they're referring to? It's because they're not allowed to use that brand's name in their ads. And in places where it is used, there's always a disclaimer that says "Product $foo is a trademark of company $bar".
It's about using a trademark in advertising and not acknowledging it. That's what LL Bean cares about. The spyware is a side issue.
That having been said, I don't think they stand a chance. The spyware will simply be modified to instead of look for "LL Bean" look for something like 'Outdoor clothing" and "Portland, Maine". Neither of which are trademarkable. And then LL Bean is SOL. I predict nothing useful will come of this.
But the idea that a website owner can be able to dictate what other information is on a computer screen while you are visiting some other web page is a-okay? Because that's precisely what Gator (Claria) is doing. Some website owner (ie: Nordstrom) is dictating what information will be on your computer screen (ie: ads for Nordstrom) while visiting a website (www.llbean.com) It's not like Claria is doing it out of the goodness of their heart. Someone paid them to do that.
You need to think a bit harder about your argument, there. Why is it ok for Gator and Claria to do it, and not for LL Bean?
Wow. Think of what you're saying. You're telling users that they need to shell out almost a hundred bucks for a device that will allow them to safely download updates. Has Microsoft security gotten so bad that we're just going to accept that you need to buy a firewall just keep your OS up to date? Does anyone else see a problem with this?
1) Switch on computer
2) Login
3) Wait until everything is loaded and the disk stops chunking
4) Plug in network
Is that really hard?
Try telling that to an end user. They don't want to be bothered with that. And also, people forget to do things sometimes. And the one time you forget, you'll get infected.
Yes, yes, we all know the most secure computer is the one that doesn't have a network connection. But really, providing firewall software, and loading it last in the startup sequence, instead of immediately following network device startup is sloppy and wrong.
Too bad the firewall software loads *last* in the startup sequence, leaving a gaping hole of anywhere from 20 seconds to two minutes (on a slow machine) when your machine is on the net and unprotected. And during the height of worm activity, that's *more than enough* time to get infected.
This is a serious problem, actually. During the height of the worms last summer, we saw hundreds of machines that got infected while in the middle of downloading updates. It even got to the point that the WinXP "firewall" wasn't good enough, since it loaded *last* in the startup sequence, and there was a good 20 seconds to 2 minutes (depending on the speed of the machine) when the machine was on the net and unprotected, even if you had enabled the firewall settings.
It's the bigger problem of running services by default. The average user doesn't need half of the services that run. Linux figured that out years ago - most services are off these days, and those that are on are fairly secure (ie: sshd). Even if some of these services are required for system operation (like some folks have claimed), there's no reason for them to be listening on addresses other than 127.0.0.1.
If you RTFA, you'll see there's a whole lot of conditionals in there. AdTI might be a bunch of idiot sheep, but I bet they have a halfway competent legal department that would make them stop short of anything that could get them sued. And we don't know the sources. I mean, I could go find a bunch of conspiracy mags and websites and use them as a source to write a press release that says "Surgeon General might be controlling minds with flu shots". Heck, I have my "sources". And I didn't make any accusations, just threw the idea out there. I'm pretty sure the surgeon general can't sue me for that. (The government can throw me in Guantanamo Bay, but that's different).
What Linus _should_ do is write a well-thought-out rebuttal and get it into the major news outlets to let everyone know how ridiculous these claims are. This is one of the few times when something ridiculous does merit a response. If it was from some wacko on Usenet, sure, ignore it, no one will care. But rebutting their claim and providing solid proof will help publically discredit this istitute, which is exactly what is needed.
Braille. There exist Braille terminals that raise and lower dots under the fingers of the person using them. It would be possible (albeit expensive) to have a scramble pad where each button has little dots that can be raised and lowered, and the scramble pad does that, and then the user reads the keys with their fingers and enters the code. Of course, this is more prone to mechanical failure - if a single LED fails, you can probably still read the number. But it's possible.
Of course, it took about 5 times longer to get in than with a key or swipe card (since the code was 8 numbers), but there's always a trade-off.
here's a picutre of one.
s/Word 2004/new release/g
s/Limewire/BitTorrent/g
s/public beta/ISO image/g
Not so funny now, is it? Still, this is old news. Check the MD5sums when you download something. Or do forensics on it first. Or install it on a test machine. But, yes, it's easy to forge anything from mail to program icons - all the more reason to be careful.
Why was this under the "Apple" topic? Do we not have a "Darwin awards" topic?
While I agree the method in which 1-click was enforced was underhanded, I have to ask: If the concept of 1-click was so obvious, why hadn't anyone done it before amazon? Remember, it's not a shopping cart. It's keeping your info and specifying 1 address, 1 billing method, and 1 shipping address, and doing an entire order in one step. I don't recall seeing prior art for that. (I'm not saying 1-click is great, or that it should have been patented; just posing a question)
While I agree that spam must be made unprofitable, I think some public awareness can happen. Personally, I'd like to see something like what the government (FTC?) did a while back - set up false pyramid scheme sites, and when people sign up, send them an e-mail explaining that they could have lost millions. Of course, that was a "pull" method. Doing that with spam would require sending out millions of spam mails to lure the idiots to get your message, and I'm not interested in discussing whether or not the ends justify the means.
I suppose they could do it through traditional mail. Or take out ads in newspapers. It's all about public awareness. And don't say the majority of people who buy this can't read. Remember, they have to have computers. Several articles showed that it was mostly white-collar workers getting suckered in by penis pills.
Regardless, people need to be informed that most offers are illegal and they'll end up being screwed. People need to undersand that chances are big software companies such as Micosoft and Network Associates have not endorsed resellers with the e-mail address "muffins@happyhangover.com" (I got that one yesterday, seriously)
Another solution I guess would be to make Viagra free and remove demand, but I bet that's a bad idea...
We need some sort of real-time, content-driven connection throttling on the mail servers of the world, so as to reduce the number of SPAM that can be sent in any given time. The inbound mail can be analysed on-the-fly and if the word pen1s or vi@gara is detected, throttle the connection so that mail takes 60 seconds to send.
Throttling is great, but basing it on words is a bad idea. It won't work. Spammers will keep finding ways around it. That article a while back that showed how people recognize shapes of words proves that there are near limitless ways to "spell" a given word. You can't check for every possibility without putting undue load on a mail server. (This isn't your personal mail server we're talking about - some mail servers get literally thousands of pieces a mail per minute, often more).
Throttling, however, is great. I can't think of a legitimate reason to send more than, say, one or two mails per minute. (All these numbers are guidelines, obviously we'd have to figure out someting that works for most people, but still annoys spammers - don't waste your time flaming me saying you send 3.5 mails per minute). If you violate that, you don't get to talk to the mail server for 5 minutes. Violate it again within 30 minutes, and you don't get to talk to the mail server for an hour. Violate it more than, say, N times per day, and you don't get to talk to the mail server for 24 hours. This would put a huge damper on spamming runs. And if something really needs to get through but you're banned from the mail server, you can use your ISP's webmail service (most offer one), or go get a yahoo account temporarily or something), or maybe you can call your ISP and explain what happened (assuming there was a legitimate reason) and get yourself re-activated.
That's how most colleges deal with bandwidth hogs. (It's a shared resource, not a right, deal with it.) If you go over the bandwidth cap (which is publicized, unlike Comcast, and is quite generous (on the order of several GB/week) once, you get a warning. The next time, once you use up your bandwidth for the week, it's gone. You're SOL until Sunday. Some colleges provide a "reserve", which you can activate to get your work done, but if you go over that, too bad. You get to go to the library and do your research the old-fashioned way, or you get to go to a public cluster. Does this inconvenience students? Not really. The primary use of most college networks is for academics (check the AUP you
Are you detecting that a hiker passed a specific location, or that a specific hiker passed a specific location? If the former, it's no different from loop detectors in roads that count the number of cars. If the latter, well, it needs to be voluntary. Just like you can decide to take emergency flares and a radio with you hiking, you can decide to sign up for the tracking system or not.
It ain't so. Microsoft makes crappy WiFi equipment. It's totally non-configurable, you get to change maybe 3 settings. Compare against Linksys where you can change most anything. (yeah, yeah, GPL issues, we know). My personal favorite in the WiFi market is D-link. My DWL-900AP has been going strong for 3 years now, and is completely manageable via SNMP in any OS. I even was able to write a DHCP-auto-registration script for my router (running Linux) so users can open a web browser, get redirected to a registration page, and register, and get added to the MAC address ACL on the AP and be online. Try doing that with an Microsoft AP. (Disclaimer: I have not actually tried doing that with a Microsoft AP)
Unless of course MS makes a "donation" of Windows and x86 hardware to a few of these countries. Say, maybe, in the schools where the future generations are being trained. And they'll learn on Windows and get used to Office. And then they grow up and get jobs in government or public sector. And guess what OS they'll want to buy? (Hint: not Linux)
And we'll be powerless to stop them. Any objections will result in headlines of the form "Open Source Community against free computers for third-world schoolchildren". Which will really endear people to our cause. (Yes, yes, we all know what MS would be trying to do in this situation, but good luck getting the media to not twist any statements)
Of course, if IBM were clever (ha ha ha ha ha), they'd beat MS to the punch and donate a shitload of low-end (low-end being 1.3Ghz Celerons - not exactly crappy) ThinkCentres (as low as $399 with an educational discount, and I'm sure it actually costs them much less to make) pre-loaded with Linux and OpenOffice to schools in 3rd world countries. They could donate LCDs instead of CRTs for low power consumption. IBM has a good edge here, because they control the hardware, and they have a zero-cost OS available to them. Sure, MS can offer a "zero-cost" OS - they could even offer free upgrades for life (ha!), they even have enough cash to purchase the hardware for free. But probably not support contracts. Again, IBM can provide those for free if it wishes.
This would be an incredibly smart move. Microsoft will likely cry foul about not providing Windows, but IBM can come right back and say "These people can't afford to upgrade to the next version of Windows when it comes out. They can afford a free upgrade for Linux. And we're providing hardware and support free of charge. Explain how this is bad?"
and as long the EU won't adopt a similar system to US for patents, Europe will follow soon after,
Not the way the winds are blowing. Media interests are lobbying for the same laws the US has, with the usual "think of the children" and "piracy!" arguments. And no third world country is going to want to adopt a system that two large markets (US and Europe) don't like.
leaving no option to USA but to eventually adopt Linux as well in the long run (despite potential patent problems).
Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Right after they adopt the metric system, the DD/MM/YYYY date format, and the PAL video format. Because the U.S. has a great history of following Europe's lead.
See, everyone says this, but all the anecdotes are particularly short on details. I've visited paypalsucks.com several times, and have yet to see a definitive instance where paypal screwed someone over. I've seen lots of "I shipped item $foo, and the seller claimed he never received it, and PayPal stole my money". Of course, they probably didn't read PayPal's TOS which says if you want seller protection, you ship via a method that provides tracking.
Personally, I find that feature useful. I bought an item which never arrived. The seller tried to claim he didn't have to provide proof to me that he mailed it, since I didn't pay for insurance. So after two months, I filed a claim with PayPal and got my money back, since he failed to abide by their TOS. Then in retaliation he tried to report me as a non-paying bidder. It was later revealed that the item was returned to him for insufficient postage.
Personally, I find the biggest problem on eBay is the users, not PayPal. However, I agree that if another suction service comes along that does a better job for the same price, yes, eBay will suffer. But I think that'll turn out to be difficult.
Indeed there is. The only problem is that the FCC was originally supposed to be a bunch of Joe Citizens. It was not supposed to cave to media interests and fuck over the end users. It was not intended to give its blessings to allow media monopolies.
I'm all in favor of regulation and control of the spectrum - otherwise, my neighbor next door would be able to broadcast porn on the same frequency as the local PBS station so 5 year olds would see that instead of Sesame Street. Or a guy walking down the street would be allowed to jam my cellphone signals. (Yes, cell phone users can be annoying, and you have every right to ask them to STFU, but not to terminate their conversation). Or some competing phone company would prevent me from dialing 911 if I didn't pay them money.
The FCC needs to exist, and the spectrum needs to be regulated. But it needs to be regulated fairly, and needs to favor consumers over big media companies (after all, there are more of us than them). And the current incarnation of the FCC has shown that they suck at doing that.
Where did I say it was? You're missing the entire point. Gartner was not including poor security in TCO. Now they are. And because of this, Linux will have a lower TCO than Windows. Because there are fewer viruses, worms, etc for linux. Not zero. But fewer. And thus Windows will have a higher TCO.
(Yes, yes, now we'll hear the "Linux only has less worms because no one uses it" arguments that the anti-Mac zealots use. Go find someone who cares.)
Yes, this is news. And it's good news. In case people missed it, this is from the Gartner group. This is the holy tome of PHBs. The way and the light. Gartner says jump, and the PHBs jump, you better believe it. And after years of saying the Windows is the way and the light, they're finally acknowledging that poor security costs money. It's recommendations like this, more than anything else, that will move companies from Windows to Linux.
You mean AFP (Apple Filing Protocol). Apple:AFP::Windows:SMB. AFS is something completely different.
Or a portable CD player, but again, only Apple makes those. Sony, Aiwa, Panasonic, etc certainly don't.
or you have to buy from the iTMS if you have an iPod and purchase music online
If you want to use a portable MP3 player, yes. But plenty of people have portable CD players, or CD players in their car, or at work. And a CD burner costs about $40 these days - a hell of a lot cheaper than an iPod. So, yeah, if you go out and buy an iPod, and do not own any CDs to rip (to regular non-DRM MP3 or AAC), and only want to purchase musc online, you get to use iTMS. However, if you don't need an iPod, but are interested in using iTMS, it's actually cheaper. For the cost of a CD burner and media, you can listen to your music anywhere there's a CD player.
I'm sure someone will point out that some discmen don't play burned CDs, and that's true - the really old ones don't, no matter what software they were burned with.
Are you people really such sad, ignorant elitists?
But it's not competition for Apple. That's precisely the thing. Yes, competition is good. But Sony's service is hardly competition. Imagine if you tried to open a fast food franchise that sold a mediocre burger for the same price as McDonalds, but didn't offer fries, or shakes, or McFlurrys, and you could only eat the burger in the restaurant - you couldn't get it to go. That's not competition for mcDonalds. Nothing will change in the market. If, on the other hand, you produced Grade-A burgers, for the same price as McDonalds, and had counter-staff who were intelligent, then that would be competition. I don't think anyone is saying Sony _shouldn't_ compete with Apple. Just that what they're doing will not be competition.
Yeah, that's my biggest gripe with Apple and iTMS. I mean, iTMS only works on Windows and Mac. Yeesh. Talk about vendor lock in - what about non-Apple machines?
*whispering off camera*
Huh? Apple doesn't make i386 machines? And they don't make Windows? Oh, uh ok. Well, still, it sucks that you can only burn CDs on Apple computers.
*more whispering*
Wait, you can burn CDs on any machine with iTunes and a CD burner? Oh, well, OK, it still sucks that you can only burn them on Apple media and then only play them back on Apple CD players.
*whispering, louder this time*
Wait, they're regular audio CDs that you can play back in your car or home stereo? Red-Book compliant? No Apple computer required? And you can burn them to any CD-R media? Hrm. Well, there's still vendor lock-in because of the, uh, hrm, let me get back to you on this one...