I agree with you that this idea could be used to improve privacy, but I think your example is unfortunate: lawful authorities are always going to want to confirm who money in a bank account belongs to for legitimate reasons, such as to validate a tax return or to enforce a court order for damages. Hence it's likely that in your particular example, real world identity would be required.
Any WWW/Internet-ish global identity management system is gonna need a principle zero: All users are free to opt to retain their anonymity.
That's a one-sided bargain. You're always free not to use any service on the Internet and to retain your anonymity. Whether you should be able to retain your anonymity and still use the service is a different principle entirely.
OT note: Is Slashdot really allowing ads with pop-ups now? Firefox just told me it blocked a pop-up for some survey company, which matches the ad at the top of the page.:-(
This isn't from Microsoft PR, it's from one of their research groups, who are generally very clever people looking at technologies that might be used some way into the future. This isn't the next MS Passport, or something they'll put as bullet point on Longhorn/Vista/whatever it's called today.
It's fascinating that the parent AC supports the law of their land, and wants Microsoft to be held liable for their "crappy software". At the same time, the parent AC obviously opposes these ideas, which might mean many people who abuse the Internet's anonymity to break those same laws could be held liable for their actions, or be denied the ability to perform those actions in the first place if they didn't wish to accept that liability. That position is logically inconsistent...
Having skimmed the article (the PDF works fine for all you 404 moaners...) it seems to make a lot of reasonable arguments. The title isn't entirely clear: we're basically talking about prerequisites for an effective identity framework to exist. In this respect, it's good to be up-front in acknowledging principles like the first law:
Technical identity systems must only reveal information identifying a user with the user's consent.
Any hint of subterfuge will immediately harm any information-based system's credibility, so we might as well start by ruling out the most serious form.
I also like the claim-based approach. A claim needn't be "I am John Doe of 16 Some Street, Someville." It can be much more general, e.g., "I am a member of Group X, and therefore entitled to access Service Y." I think this sort of framework is far more likely to gain user acceptance and trust, and with good reason. The author clearly realises this as well; the second law is:
The solution which discloses the least amount of identifying information and best limits its use is the most stable long term solution.
All in all, given my stated views about complete anonymity on the Internet, this sort of research seems like useful progress, and a better compromise and basis for further research than much that I've seen before.
You're entitled to your tinfoil-wrapped opinion, of course, but as I always point out in these discussions, there would be a lot of advantages to having some form of confirmed identity connected with Internet-based activity, even if it's generally concealed or only anonymously verifiable except to suitable authorities.
If everything could ultimately be tracked back to you eventually, things like spamming, virus distribution, defamation, on-line fraud, and numerous other harmful behaviours would be dramatically reduced. You could improve a lot of people's lives here.
Of course, you also have to identify "suitable authorities" who should get the right to access this information. That might be relatively easy in the West -- we have court systems that most people would probably trust to issue such orders if and when necessary -- but the Internet is international and what's free speech to you might be illegal anti-government propaganda in certain other places.
Personally, I think most of the supposed advantages of anonymity on the Internet are illusory anyway. Does anyone really believe that all these people in China are happily speaking freely on the Internet as it stands today anyway?
Hence, on balance, a reliable identity system gets my conditional agreement, subject to the devil in the details of course.
Absolutely they can survive and indeed make a healthy profit on advertising alone. However, when they have about half the market already in web search, they can't possibly continue the astronomical growth they've enjoyed to date in that field, and that's what the speculative investors are (probably naively) expecting.
They will inevitably have to find other markets that can grow to the same sort of level to maintain the growth of their stock, and I doubt they're going to beat the number one web-based activity any time soon. I certainly can't see them finding such a golden egg about once every 2-3 years indefinitely!
The parent is spot on: you can gamble on the stock market with risky investments, or you can invest more soundly and be reasonably sure of a positive but potentially smaller return.
I used to work with a guy who played the stock markets for fun, but consistently made a very good return on his investments as well. If there's one thing I picked up from the various instructive discussions we had on the subject, it's that all his investments were based on sound underlying principles. I doubt he'd ever consider buying Google, for example, with a P/E of something like 50(?) at the moment. He was out of tech stocks a bit early, but having made a good profit and comfortably before the bubble burst. The last investment he told me about was a company whose assets if they folded tomorrow were worth more than the current asking price in terms of shares, due to a superficially bad annual report that was completely explainable if you bothered to read more than page 1.
Sure, my colleague didn't make theoretically optimal results, but he was pretty much always the right side of 0, usually well ahead of the market, and certainly well ahead of most managed funds. Curiously enough, even the Warren Buffetts of this world seem to go for this sort of long-term investments rather than quick day-trading gambles -- IIRC he stayed well clear of Internet stocks during the boom and doom -- but what would he know about making money on the stock market anyway?
Having made sound investments, you also have to have the guts to stick with them, rather than running away at the first sign of a big drop. Some funds are naturally volatile, and of course you prefer to invest low and withdraw high, but the long run is what really counts. I invested in a fund this year that has seen very good returns lately, and according to my research is probably a good bet for another 2-3 years at least. It seemed to be on a bit of an unusual peak before my investment, and I'd have preferred to wait a while but had to go in then to gain certain tax advantages. Sure enough, it dropped some 15% in the month after I bought it, which looked like pretty bad news. Then again, it rose over 20% in the two months after that, so it's already ahead of the market as a whole. If I'd chickened out during the drop, I'd have lost out, but having stuck with it as a sound investment, I'm back up again now.
Of course, a smart day-trader could have beaten my returns here very effectively, but I don't have time to do the research and make the changes required on those timescales. So, I'm investing in sound funds for the long run with a level of risk I can stand, and (fingers crossed) common sense and smart-alec derivatives traders haven't beaten me yet.
There is far more to the law than whether you pay for something. Try asking a lawyer about promissory estoppel, and enjoy.
Microsoft no doubt have all kinds of disclaimers written into their EULAs about not being liable for more than the price paid for the software, etc. So do many other firms. I'm not aware of these ever being tested in court anywhere, which makes me suspect it's clear to lawyers that they are valid (given the obvious scope for massive damages if it weren't, and how long they've been routine for).
Now to comment on the rest of what you said. "Widely regarded as good practice" is probably among the weakest excuse I've ever heard. I would've accepted "I prefer it that way".
I'm not normally one to speak for others in on-line discussions; I automatically question any statement that begins with "Everybody knows that..." or something similar. However, in this case, I think the claim is justified: every book on good writing style I remember reading is consistent on this point.
Just as a heads-up, while that trailer played almost completely on my machine (WinXP, Firefox), it then took out the browser completely and rendered my system unstable for some time until I could kill Firefox. Something's not right...
I'm afraid my travelling companion was rather embarrassed by the fact that I'd suddenly (I was listening to audio with headphones) started laughing and could not stop myself.
If I had a companion travelling with me, I can think of things I'd rather be doing than watching Firefly!
I'm disappointed with the lack of a 1337 speak chapter. How can I explain myself to my colleagues on IRC?
I believe a strange language known as "English" is customary in this part of the world. You may find an ancient text known as a "dictionary" to be helpful. (It's like a paper spelling checker.)
Rumour has it that particularly skilled English speakers, sometimes called "five year olds", can even convey meaning clearly and precisely using a strange concept called a "sentence". This obviates the traditional IRC skill of replying "WTF?" to every other comment, and the occasional confusion arising from posts that were believed to be comments from a correspondent, but in fact were MD5 checksums inadvertently pasted into the chat window.
Since you're being picky, you should know that the use of apostrophes to pluralize letters of the alphabet is widely regarded as good practice. Omitting them allows the inappropriate formation of words like "as" and "is".
Hmmm... I just had a horrible dream, where I saw a screen that looked a bit like this:
Slashdot uses sensationalist headlines for EVERYTHING!
Posted by CmdrTaco on Fri Jul 22, 4:00 AM
from the just-trying-to-be-fair dept.
An anonymous source at OSTG writes "It's a slow news day, but Slashdot has got to keep the ad revenue up, so here are some lovely dupes from yesterday!"
That depends who you ask. There are some critical bugs reported against recent versions, involving seriously messed up display and potentially loss of data. My home system suffers from some of these bugs, as it now has been for several upgrades, and is in danger of being switched to a different e-mail client as a result. My work system, running exactly the same versions of Thunderbird with similar but not identical feature use, has been solid as a rock (but is in danger of being switched anyway because it can't do a lot of things the Outlook+Exchange Server combination can). I'm hoping fixes will be forthcoming before circumstances force me to switch, because aside from the recent bugs and non-e-mail limitations, it's my favourite mail client.
I don't know about the US legal system, but here in the UK there's usually a scale of possible penalties for common traffic offences. Minor offences like routine speeding usually result in "fixed penalty notices" -- such and such costs you x amount of money and gets you y points, and if you pay up, it never goes to court.
Now, you don't have to accept the fixed penalty, and can challenge the case in court if you wish. However, if you do so, the magistrates have access to the full range of penalties, and a lot of discretion about how to apply them. If there are genuinely mitigating circumstances, and you can offer a reasonable explanation for your actions, then magistrates can often reduce or eliminate a penalty they see to be unfair. (For example, "I was on the way to hospital with a casualty in critical condition in my vehicle, there was no time to wait for an ambulance, and exceeding the speed limit resulted in saving his life without causing unusual danger to others, your honour" with supporting evidence from hospital and ambulance staff would probably go a long way.) However, if they feel that you're taking the piss, they will tend to hand down penalties at the upper end of the scale. That means more fines, more points, accelerated or possibly immediate disqualification, and potentially even jail time, depending on the offence.
It takes something like 4 routine speeding tickets in 3 years to get you a semi-automatic ban in this country; you'd have to demonstrate exceptional hardship of some sort to avoid it at that stage. However, annoy the police and magistrates, and you'll probably find yourself banned after two offences, and imprisoned for driving without a licence the third time they see you. It would take hundreds of people trying to block up the system to really bring it down, but in the meantime, you're still going to jail. Is that a smart plan, really?
I think we have to accept that realistically, police officers are going to check faster, sportier cars more often than small mum-mobiles, simply because there's a particularly strong correlation between people who drive that type of car and people who speed.
Personally, I'm a pretty law-abiding driver. I can't honestly claim I never drift above the limit for a moment, but I'm not the type who goes flying around town well over the limit all the time. I have strong feelings about certain traffic laws and the abuse of speed limits, which I make known to my representatives when the matter arises, but in the meantime I obey the law even if I don't really have much respect for it.
I bought a pretty distinctive, very fast car a year or so back. I've noticed since then that police cars will sometimes follow me along roads that are well known for speeding in my neighbourhood. It doesn't really bother me; since I'm not breaking the limit the police have no reason to pull me over. I'd rather they spent their time going after genuinely dangerous drivers -- drunks, idiots on mobile phones, etc. -- rather than someone driving a car like mine who breaks a needlessly low speed limit but is a threat to no-one, but it's not like my personal freedom is being unduly infringed.
You might try that, instead of the "I'll do whatever I like" attitude. You'll probably find you get fewer tickets, even in a Mustang, and you might just avoid being someone's bitch for a few months on account of upsetting too many LEOs, too.
This was one of my immediate reactions, too. If you look at the web sites I visit during work hours -- during long breaks or otherwise -- the vast majority are technical. I've picked up plenty of useful information about the software tools we use (or have since started using), coding techniques, and any number of other things that have increased the ability of myself and/or my colleagues to do the job we're paid for.
I do check my personal web mail maybe every hour or so, which takes all of about five seconds if I'm not stopping to read something, and I do check the BBC News site occasionally, but just about everything else is potentially advantageous to my employer as well as interesting to me.
This wasn't the case for 1.05. Soon after 1.05 was released they realized a 1.06 would be needed so they never made it available via 'auto-update'.
Thanks for that; my immediate reaction to this story was "Huh? What happened to 1.0.5?"
Given that 1.0.5 contained security updates, a couple of which sound quite serious, it sounds like something went pretty badly wrong here. Did a release incorporating security patches really break compatibility with extensions, and somehow get through testing and get released anyway, or am I misunderstanding? Does anyone know when 1.0.5 was released?
I wish they'd stop messing around with Thunderbird as well, BTW. My current installation at home has some horrific bugs, which would certainly mean instant uninstallation and dumping of the software if I were trying Thunderbird for the first time. (In case anyone else has the same: mine isn't checking for new mail at the configured interval; the display gets corrupted to show trees featuring the same message many times with no other messages in the thread shown; whitespace in both e-mail and newsgroup messages is being randomly collected together, leaving other words running into each other; the new message count is completely screwed; and those are just the ones off the top of my head. This all started after installing 1.0. I'm using the global inbox with several accounts, and also briefly used a saved search folder for the first time, the which has since been deleted.) How bugs as obvious and serious as this made it through even basic testing is beyond me. It would take some pretty serious and wide-ranging architectural flaws to get these results, and until recently I thought the Mozilla family's code review processes seemed pretty good.
I've been waiting for auto-updating to tell me a new version was ready in the hope that this would fix the problems and restore Thunderbird to its previous, wonderful self. Apparently I've been waiting in vain, since I've just discovered that unlike Firefox, Thunderbird doesn't support auto-updates yet. Moreover, they keep jumping version numbers around and the release notes are sketchy about what "stability improvements" have been made, so it's hard to tell what has been changed and whether I should try a new version off the web site.
I hope they fix this soon, or the reputation Firefox and Thunderbird have earned for usability and robustness is going to disappear very fast, while Microsoft PR has a field day.:-(
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you that this idea could be used to improve privacy, but I think your example is unfortunate: lawful authorities are always going to want to confirm who money in a bank account belongs to for legitimate reasons, such as to validate a tax return or to enforce a court order for damages. Hence it's likely that in your particular example, real world identity would be required.
That's a one-sided bargain. You're always free not to use any service on the Internet and to retain your anonymity. Whether you should be able to retain your anonymity and still use the service is a different principle entirely.
OT note: Is Slashdot really allowing ads with pop-ups now? Firefox just told me it blocked a pop-up for some survey company, which matches the ad at the top of the page. :-(
This isn't from Microsoft PR, it's from one of their research groups, who are generally very clever people looking at technologies that might be used some way into the future. This isn't the next MS Passport, or something they'll put as bullet point on Longhorn/Vista/whatever it's called today.
It's fascinating that the parent AC supports the law of their land, and wants Microsoft to be held liable for their "crappy software". At the same time, the parent AC obviously opposes these ideas, which might mean many people who abuse the Internet's anonymity to break those same laws could be held liable for their actions, or be denied the ability to perform those actions in the first place if they didn't wish to accept that liability. That position is logically inconsistent...
Having skimmed the article (the PDF works fine for all you 404 moaners...) it seems to make a lot of reasonable arguments. The title isn't entirely clear: we're basically talking about prerequisites for an effective identity framework to exist. In this respect, it's good to be up-front in acknowledging principles like the first law:
Any hint of subterfuge will immediately harm any information-based system's credibility, so we might as well start by ruling out the most serious form.
I also like the claim-based approach. A claim needn't be "I am John Doe of 16 Some Street, Someville." It can be much more general, e.g., "I am a member of Group X, and therefore entitled to access Service Y." I think this sort of framework is far more likely to gain user acceptance and trust, and with good reason. The author clearly realises this as well; the second law is:
All in all, given my stated views about complete anonymity on the Internet, this sort of research seems like useful progress, and a better compromise and basis for further research than much that I've seen before.
You're entitled to your tinfoil-wrapped opinion, of course, but as I always point out in these discussions, there would be a lot of advantages to having some form of confirmed identity connected with Internet-based activity, even if it's generally concealed or only anonymously verifiable except to suitable authorities.
If everything could ultimately be tracked back to you eventually, things like spamming, virus distribution, defamation, on-line fraud, and numerous other harmful behaviours would be dramatically reduced. You could improve a lot of people's lives here.
Of course, you also have to identify "suitable authorities" who should get the right to access this information. That might be relatively easy in the West -- we have court systems that most people would probably trust to issue such orders if and when necessary -- but the Internet is international and what's free speech to you might be illegal anti-government propaganda in certain other places.
Personally, I think most of the supposed advantages of anonymity on the Internet are illusory anyway. Does anyone really believe that all these people in China are happily speaking freely on the Internet as it stands today anyway?
Hence, on balance, a reliable identity system gets my conditional agreement, subject to the devil in the details of course.
Absolutely they can survive and indeed make a healthy profit on advertising alone. However, when they have about half the market already in web search, they can't possibly continue the astronomical growth they've enjoyed to date in that field, and that's what the speculative investors are (probably naively) expecting.
They will inevitably have to find other markets that can grow to the same sort of level to maintain the growth of their stock, and I doubt they're going to beat the number one web-based activity any time soon. I certainly can't see them finding such a golden egg about once every 2-3 years indefinitely!
The parent is spot on: you can gamble on the stock market with risky investments, or you can invest more soundly and be reasonably sure of a positive but potentially smaller return.
I used to work with a guy who played the stock markets for fun, but consistently made a very good return on his investments as well. If there's one thing I picked up from the various instructive discussions we had on the subject, it's that all his investments were based on sound underlying principles. I doubt he'd ever consider buying Google, for example, with a P/E of something like 50(?) at the moment. He was out of tech stocks a bit early, but having made a good profit and comfortably before the bubble burst. The last investment he told me about was a company whose assets if they folded tomorrow were worth more than the current asking price in terms of shares, due to a superficially bad annual report that was completely explainable if you bothered to read more than page 1.
Sure, my colleague didn't make theoretically optimal results, but he was pretty much always the right side of 0, usually well ahead of the market, and certainly well ahead of most managed funds. Curiously enough, even the Warren Buffetts of this world seem to go for this sort of long-term investments rather than quick day-trading gambles -- IIRC he stayed well clear of Internet stocks during the boom and doom -- but what would he know about making money on the stock market anyway?
Having made sound investments, you also have to have the guts to stick with them, rather than running away at the first sign of a big drop. Some funds are naturally volatile, and of course you prefer to invest low and withdraw high, but the long run is what really counts. I invested in a fund this year that has seen very good returns lately, and according to my research is probably a good bet for another 2-3 years at least. It seemed to be on a bit of an unusual peak before my investment, and I'd have preferred to wait a while but had to go in then to gain certain tax advantages. Sure enough, it dropped some 15% in the month after I bought it, which looked like pretty bad news. Then again, it rose over 20% in the two months after that, so it's already ahead of the market as a whole. If I'd chickened out during the drop, I'd have lost out, but having stuck with it as a sound investment, I'm back up again now.
Of course, a smart day-trader could have beaten my returns here very effectively, but I don't have time to do the research and make the changes required on those timescales. So, I'm investing in sound funds for the long run with a level of risk I can stand, and (fingers crossed) common sense and smart-alec derivatives traders haven't beaten me yet.
Of course. You don't own software from Microsoft, you license it, silly.
There have been about half a dozen major attacks in the last couple of years that suggest otherwise.
Wow. Just wow.
There is far more to the law than whether you pay for something. Try asking a lawyer about promissory estoppel, and enjoy.
Microsoft no doubt have all kinds of disclaimers written into their EULAs about not being liable for more than the price paid for the software, etc. So do many other firms. I'm not aware of these ever being tested in court anywhere, which makes me suspect it's clear to lawyers that they are valid (given the obvious scope for massive damages if it weren't, and how long they've been routine for).
I'm not normally one to speak for others in on-line discussions; I automatically question any statement that begins with "Everybody knows that..." or something similar. However, in this case, I think the claim is justified: every book on good writing style I remember reading is consistent on this point.
Just as a heads-up, while that trailer played almost completely on my machine (WinXP, Firefox), it then took out the browser completely and rendered my system unstable for some time until I could kill Firefox. Something's not right...
FWIW, it's been used in the UK for quite a while.
I think the first time I heard it may have been in a computer game: "Oooooh, shiny!"
If I had a companion travelling with me, I can think of things I'd rather be doing than watching Firefly!
I believe a strange language known as "English" is customary in this part of the world. You may find an ancient text known as a "dictionary" to be helpful. (It's like a paper spelling checker.)
Rumour has it that particularly skilled English speakers, sometimes called "five year olds", can even convey meaning clearly and precisely using a strange concept called a "sentence". This obviates the traditional IRC skill of replying "WTF?" to every other comment, and the occasional confusion arising from posts that were believed to be comments from a correspondent, but in fact were MD5 checksums inadvertently pasted into the chat window.
Since you're being picky, you should know that the use of apostrophes to pluralize letters of the alphabet is widely regarded as good practice. Omitting them allows the inappropriate formation of words like "as" and "is".
Hmmm... I just had a horrible dream, where I saw a screen that looked a bit like this:
Slashdot uses sensationalist headlines for EVERYTHING!
Posted by CmdrTaco on Fri Jul 22, 4:00 AM
from the just-trying-to-be-fair dept.
An anonymous source at OSTG writes "It's a slow news day, but Slashdot has got to keep the ad revenue up, so here are some lovely dupes from yesterday!"
That depends who you ask. There are some critical bugs reported against recent versions, involving seriously messed up display and potentially loss of data. My home system suffers from some of these bugs, as it now has been for several upgrades, and is in danger of being switched to a different e-mail client as a result. My work system, running exactly the same versions of Thunderbird with similar but not identical feature use, has been solid as a rock (but is in danger of being switched anyway because it can't do a lot of things the Outlook+Exchange Server combination can). I'm hoping fixes will be forthcoming before circumstances force me to switch, because aside from the recent bugs and non-e-mail limitations, it's my favourite mail client.
It seems to be working for me now, but I believe they block direct links from Slashdot for some reason.
Blockquoth the second smart-ass AC this post:
For me, it says I posted at 12:12pm, which is when I posted.
No, I'm not in the US.
I don't know about the US legal system, but here in the UK there's usually a scale of possible penalties for common traffic offences. Minor offences like routine speeding usually result in "fixed penalty notices" -- such and such costs you x amount of money and gets you y points, and if you pay up, it never goes to court.
Now, you don't have to accept the fixed penalty, and can challenge the case in court if you wish. However, if you do so, the magistrates have access to the full range of penalties, and a lot of discretion about how to apply them. If there are genuinely mitigating circumstances, and you can offer a reasonable explanation for your actions, then magistrates can often reduce or eliminate a penalty they see to be unfair. (For example, "I was on the way to hospital with a casualty in critical condition in my vehicle, there was no time to wait for an ambulance, and exceeding the speed limit resulted in saving his life without causing unusual danger to others, your honour" with supporting evidence from hospital and ambulance staff would probably go a long way.) However, if they feel that you're taking the piss, they will tend to hand down penalties at the upper end of the scale. That means more fines, more points, accelerated or possibly immediate disqualification, and potentially even jail time, depending on the offence.
It takes something like 4 routine speeding tickets in 3 years to get you a semi-automatic ban in this country; you'd have to demonstrate exceptional hardship of some sort to avoid it at that stage. However, annoy the police and magistrates, and you'll probably find yourself banned after two offences, and imprisoned for driving without a licence the third time they see you. It would take hundreds of people trying to block up the system to really bring it down, but in the meantime, you're still going to jail. Is that a smart plan, really?
I think we have to accept that realistically, police officers are going to check faster, sportier cars more often than small mum-mobiles, simply because there's a particularly strong correlation between people who drive that type of car and people who speed.
Personally, I'm a pretty law-abiding driver. I can't honestly claim I never drift above the limit for a moment, but I'm not the type who goes flying around town well over the limit all the time. I have strong feelings about certain traffic laws and the abuse of speed limits, which I make known to my representatives when the matter arises, but in the meantime I obey the law even if I don't really have much respect for it.
I bought a pretty distinctive, very fast car a year or so back. I've noticed since then that police cars will sometimes follow me along roads that are well known for speeding in my neighbourhood. It doesn't really bother me; since I'm not breaking the limit the police have no reason to pull me over. I'd rather they spent their time going after genuinely dangerous drivers -- drunks, idiots on mobile phones, etc. -- rather than someone driving a car like mine who breaks a needlessly low speed limit but is a threat to no-one, but it's not like my personal freedom is being unduly infringed.
You might try that, instead of the "I'll do whatever I like" attitude. You'll probably find you get fewer tickets, even in a Mustang, and you might just avoid being someone's bitch for a few months on account of upsetting too many LEOs, too.
This was one of my immediate reactions, too. If you look at the web sites I visit during work hours -- during long breaks or otherwise -- the vast majority are technical. I've picked up plenty of useful information about the software tools we use (or have since started using), coding techniques, and any number of other things that have increased the ability of myself and/or my colleagues to do the job we're paid for.
I do check my personal web mail maybe every hour or so, which takes all of about five seconds if I'm not stopping to read something, and I do check the BBC News site occasionally, but just about everything else is potentially advantageous to my employer as well as interesting to me.
I'm reading this during my lunch break, at which time reasonable personal use of the Internet is explicitly allowed by our local management.
I wonder if I count as "lost productivitiy"?
Thanks for that; my immediate reaction to this story was "Huh? What happened to 1.0.5?"
Given that 1.0.5 contained security updates, a couple of which sound quite serious, it sounds like something went pretty badly wrong here. Did a release incorporating security patches really break compatibility with extensions, and somehow get through testing and get released anyway, or am I misunderstanding? Does anyone know when 1.0.5 was released?
I wish they'd stop messing around with Thunderbird as well, BTW. My current installation at home has some horrific bugs, which would certainly mean instant uninstallation and dumping of the software if I were trying Thunderbird for the first time. (In case anyone else has the same: mine isn't checking for new mail at the configured interval; the display gets corrupted to show trees featuring the same message many times with no other messages in the thread shown; whitespace in both e-mail and newsgroup messages is being randomly collected together, leaving other words running into each other; the new message count is completely screwed; and those are just the ones off the top of my head. This all started after installing 1.0. I'm using the global inbox with several accounts, and also briefly used a saved search folder for the first time, the which has since been deleted.) How bugs as obvious and serious as this made it through even basic testing is beyond me. It would take some pretty serious and wide-ranging architectural flaws to get these results, and until recently I thought the Mozilla family's code review processes seemed pretty good.
I've been waiting for auto-updating to tell me a new version was ready in the hope that this would fix the problems and restore Thunderbird to its previous, wonderful self. Apparently I've been waiting in vain, since I've just discovered that unlike Firefox, Thunderbird doesn't support auto-updates yet. Moreover, they keep jumping version numbers around and the release notes are sketchy about what "stability improvements" have been made, so it's hard to tell what has been changed and whether I should try a new version off the web site.
I hope they fix this soon, or the reputation Firefox and Thunderbird have earned for usability and robustness is going to disappear very fast, while Microsoft PR has a field day. :-(