In some cases their support costs look lower than they are...
Here is an example of that, a unix guy spending hours cleaning up after M$.
A friend of mine hired a linux guy to handle machines for several sites. About 100% of his time spent doing any kind of technical work (maintenance or repair) is spent on repairing the MS-Windows machines, which another group is actually contracted to maintain and repair. However, if he doesn't do it, then it doesn't get done. The linux machines, fortunately outnumber the MS-Windows machines significantly at those sites and he only has to touch them when he wants to try a new distro. He's always got one machine for 'experiments' at each site, to get feedback from customers on new programs, distros, or configurations.
Fortunately for my friend this fellow doesn't mind too much and has nerves of steel, a necessity since he rose up from a MS-Windows background.
Why is/. suddently pimping so many M$ infomercials these days?
That into can't have honestly been written by someone who knows anything at all about DiDio's history. What's next? Another TCO comparison written by Enderle to support DiDio?
I'm sure they do. Otherwise, they'd force an iBook on him.
Think about it. It gives them a sense of purpose and a familiar task to deal with. What's more they're heroes for then working extra to put out the MS-viruses. What's not to like? If they had chosen a system that was immune or at least resistant, then they'd have none of that satisfaction or recognition. How many IT folk hear a thanks for 100% uptime on servers OR workstations?
Microsoft wants something specific from Apple and is using this as a lever.
Perhaps to assume The Position and integrate MS-based DRM into OS X?
I know Apple recently rejected some kind of DRM deal, but haven't gotten the details yet.
consumer is sovereign == doctrine of first sale
on
Textbooks With EULAs
·
· Score: 2, Informative
One phrase I haven't heard in a long time is "the consumer is sovereign". Meaning that if you buy a car, you can junk it or paint it or destroy it or sell it and nobody can tell you what to do with your purchase.
This is, I think, usually referred to as the Doctrine of First Sale. Vendors of electronic resources, especially those involved with peddling resources or technology encumbered by Digital Restrictions Management would like this to go away. You'd be surprised at the number of people who are old enough and well educated enough that they should know otherwise, yet fall for the 'digital is different' crap.
DRM means handing control of both access and the life cycle of your data over to a third party and depending on their continued good will for both.
So you are having untouchable multinational corporations walking all over nations and governments and carrying out a new form of gunboat diplomacy with armadas of lawyers instead of armadas of ships. You see this all the time when so-called realestate 'developers' stop some small city council or zoning commission into the ground to be allowed to slap together a few hundred pressboard McMansions.
The question comes up again about rights. The Bill of Rights was drafted in an age when governments were the most powerful entities. Now they have been exceeded by the corporations (even the US post office is a private corp) but with no corresponding protection. In many counties, government agencies have a lot of responsibilities, including record keeping and privacy standards. However, the moment those same functions are privatized or outsourced, those same responsibilities no longer apply.
It's time for a modernized Bill of Rights to keep the corporations in check.
The short answer is, yes, the patent is invalid and will probably be over turned.
The long answer is that it takes a shit load of money (usually millions) and time to overturn even obviously bad patents. Thus they are hobbling Apple for a bit and presumably generating a bit of fear, uncertainty and doubt as to iPod. It's basically like a nuisance lawsuit to tie up resources. Everyone, especially MS, knows that MS can't compete on technical mertis so it's been doing everything possible to ensure that no one else can either.
Take this as a warning as to what will happen if MS is able to force software patents into Europe and no longer has to play nice on either side of the Atlantic.
True. The truck bomb which destroyed the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.
And for that one, like a good number of similar attacks, the brass had received intel in advance warning specifying darn near every key detail of who, what, when, where, why and how. And like other similar attacks, they ordered the guards to a less ready state and left a drive, clear of obstacles, through from the gate to the lobby.
It was probably in the interest of someone's domestic political agenda to let that one happen. Just like on the 10th of September 2001 in Europe, flights and flight paths were locked down tight though not in the US. Hey if nothing happens then fine. However, if the attack goes through, then you have the perfect excuse to ram through the Patriot Act and other anti-American treachery.
the ones that actually set up the botnets on peoples' MS-Windows boxes and churn out millions of spam message
the ones that hire the above to advertise their product or scam
It is the latter group that is easier to track down and take out. For example, if they are falsifying any contact information or even any message headers, they are breaking the law (in the US). But there are probably many other laws that can be drawn in.
Not quite a slam dunk, but the next best thing. It's a case of following the money. They have to have a legit contact datum somewhere in order to collect money...
The iPod was released prior to the patent applications. According to TFA:
"Apple invented and publicly released the iPod interface before the Microsoft patent application cited by the (patent) examiner was filed,"
I think what we see here is an attempt by M$ to throw a little sand, or even a wrench, into the gears of a competitor. It is also indicative as to how the will use sw patents if Europe falls for US-style sw patents. The only thing holding them back is that going all out with patents right now would wake Europeans up to the problem and make them less complacent.
It's been ages since I've studied any biology / geology, but if I recall correctly, there was another major climate change about the time of the spread of grasses across the surface. They would change the composition of the atmosphere over time as well as change how heat is absorbed or retained.
Maybe your not trolling, but "patched" Windows boxes can get cracked by worms or other automated attacks. There are several examples every year.
Also, there are many problems with MS software which have been unaddressed for years and have no patch yet. You can find them if you are willing to look. These mean that even a patched machine can be exploited.
Patched merely means that some of the known problems are repaired. However, given the combination of poor quality control for the patches and the demonstrated willingness to bundle non-security related changes into patches, it occurs from time to time that the MS patches can occasionally break more than they fix. The latter is worse, patches should only repair what is broken nothing more. Save "upgrades" and re-configurations for a separate download. In reality most of what MS calls patches are really sneaky upgrades and or reconfigurations. That's fraud and perhaps grounds for a class-action suit.
But, to continue the car analogy, one could say Windows is like the Model T of operating systems. Not the best, but the first one that started making it feasible to get one in everybody's house.
It's not just the poor quality of it's antiquated software that puts people on edge about Microsoft. It's been the king of predatory marketing supplemented by illegal and unethical maneuvers. In essence, it's business model since the 80's has been to leverage the desktop monopoly handed to it by IBM.
A timely case in point is how it broke into and gained dominance in the web browser market: it is a fact well documented in court records that this was purely because of being able to leverage it's desktop monopoly into control of the newly established web browser market. Yeah, both MSIE and Netscape sucked, but MSIE wouldn't have gone anywhere without the desktop monopoly and, oh yeah, ripping code from Mosaic.
Then there has been the strong arm tactics it has used, and still uses, with OEMs and partners. BeOS fell to that one. It won the right to distribution, but MS ensured that even when it came on OEM machines, it was not in the boot loader.
There has been sabotage. The AARD code against DR-DOS was one, but broken implementations of HTTP, TCP/IP and Kerberos make problems, too.
There have been smear campaigns spreading misinformation about competitors and their products (esp. Novel Netware) MS has also used its partner the BSA to raid businesses using competing products and negotiate contracts with an MS-only infrastructure in their place. There have been forged video evidence in US courts, but no charges of perjury. There were cases where the executives either perjured themselves or committed treason, no middle ground: they did this by swearing in court that their products were so shoddy that national security would be threatened by releasing the source code, yet they turned around and showed the source code to China.
Currently, there are problems with MS trying to use the WMA and WMP formats to break into the audio and video market. The EU has found them guilty of illegal, anti-competitive behaviour, but has been waffling on actually enforcing any punishment.
Currently, the licenses for 2000 SP3, XP SP 2 and later even give MS administrative rights to the machine. That's a back door by another name.
The list of ethical / legal problems could go on for pages. Why is Slashdot suddenly pushing so much stuff from MS apologists? How about more article about companies with a future, like Opera, Apple, IBM, etc. Or tools like OpenOffice, or codecs like Vorbis, Dirac, or Theora, which anyone could use.
Shoot, such a big deal was made about Greasemonkey having some minor flaws, yet nothing has been said about greasemonkey being patched. How about an article on that and a moratorium on doing marketing for MS?
By realistic, I mean that the headers are now mostly RFC compliant. In 1999, nearly 100% of the spam I filtered had malformed headers. However, the filler in the body is getting more realistic too, or at least difficult to filter automagically.
Yes, most spam is probably sent via zombies, but that's not who I recommend going after. (Though a blanket ban on MS-Windows by all ISPs would help there.) Who I do recommend going after in my earlier post are the businesses advertising via spam. If they want your money for whatever purpose, they have to provide some contact information there. I'm sure even with a small group of say 150 employees, you would even get some repeat violators of the do not spam list.
However, no one is willing to stick their neck out and instead sit passively by as the spam problem gets worse.
I commonly get 3-4 pieces of fax spam a week, despite all my phone numbers being on the federal "do not call" list. And the station numbers always lead to disconnected lines.
Then you can start collecting money from them, if you're both in the US. Junk fax is illegal according to 47USC227, so look into "(b) Restrictions on use of automated telephone equipment". IANAL, but maybe small claims court is the way to go. If they don't show up, you win by default.
The chip is in *some* of the dev kits. That's all we know for sure. The rest is rumour.
Is it on all dev kits?
Is it enabled?
Is it enforced if enabled?
Will it make it onto the released kit?
Only the first and the last questions are relevant there. If it's there and can be used, then it is only a question of when it is turned on. Remember that MS / Intel had to appear to back off on digital restrictions technology due to the backlash against what was then called Palladium. It's not something people will accept all at once. First, it will be disabled and optional. Then it will be disabled and required, then enabled by default with the option to disable, then mandatory enabled.
So, unless the answer is a clear "No, DRM will not be in the spec" then they are merely stalling to prevent confrontation.
#1. The sending address is on a blacklist because that address sent a message to a spam trap.
It's not so simple since many return addresses are forged. And unless the spam gets bounced to the forged return address, the owner is likely unaware that their address is being forged and can't pursue corrective measures.
#4. See #3, but key words can be classified as "spammy" content. The easy way around this is to use the "this is not spam" function that should be available to you.
All this filtering does is selectively breed spam generators with more realistic content, sort of like a slow, manually operated genetic algorithm. Already most spam uses well formed headers and fully standards compliant messages. As unpopular as it is to say, you have to go after the source of the spam: those advertising via spam.
It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States...
to use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device
to send an unsolicited advertisement to a telephone facsimile
machine...
That stopped the junk fax problem which some here may be old enough to recall. Spam costs. It costs schools, it costs businesses and it costs individuals. Sure electrons are 'cheaper' than fax paper, but time costs and weeding spam or messages lost due to false positives cost lots of time, especially the latter.
Voting systems need to be auditible whether that occurs through paper or some other methods, the goal is that the authenticity and origin of votes be verifiable with 100% certainty. Anything else is just missing the point.
Jumping for specific technologies and methods is still putting things bassackwards.
That said, I do suspect that the current US voting methods do not meet the requirements set out for an open and fair election by both the UN and the US when they go about observing elections. Invited UN inspectors were actually denied access during the 2004 election. Perhaps the US should take Castro up on his offer to oversee the elections if the UN isn't good enough.
In the 2000 and 2004 elections some people claim that there is no evidence of voting fraud or errors on a large scale in the current machines. However, on the other
hand, there is no way to provide evidence to the contrary either. i.e. there is not way to prove the votes are valid and/or authentic. And,
regardless of whether there was or not, the fact that the authenticity
of
large numbers of votes cannot be proved or disproved is a terrible and ridiculous situation for any country to find itself in.
Until such time as voting machines can be proven to provide an audit trail (whether paper or not) with 100% certainty as to both the authenticity and accuracy of the votes, the machines should be disallowed. The current ones used for both voting and tallying votes clearly lack the ability for authenticating either
the veracity and origin of the votes and tallies, and should be banned
and replaced with other methods until then.
Since we're talking lots of paper if the insistence is on a paper trail, why not just go for plain old hand counts. Canada, though smaller than the US, can do it. Either way, get rid of the defective machines and punish their vendors.
We can probably never get to the bottom of what really happened in the 2000 and 2004 elections, but we can take proactive steps NOW to ensure that such problems cannot and do not occur again.
When the proposed move to Intel was first announced, I suspected this might be the case and therefore asked in my comment about what role DRM would play. Though I didn't elaborate on it, the tip off was the "Roadmap" being more "interesting". It's a shame that Apple is heading that way. However, it's still possible for a more enlightened move from Apple's management.
I still think the problems raised by DRM are greater and more severe than those it purports to fix. Obviously, fair use and doctrine of first sale are the first to disappear. But also, common carriage is at risk, and if DRM gets into routers and switches then it will be possible to make the Internet into the same mess the telecommunications network is in.
The nature of DRM and the clumsy attempts we have seen so far also indicate that there is great potential for human rights abuse, too. There is of course the ability to monitor who is interacting with whom, the DRM software has to track this to work. There is also the ability to block or censor communications. After all, restricting access or dissemination is what DRM is all about. And that directly affects both the right to free speech and the right to peaceably assemble -- after all what can be published or organized without the Internet or the Web these days, without them you're shut off.
Doesn't MS Windows and it's applications track a lot of your activities and communications? Don't 2000 SP3 and XP SP1 grant remote admin rights for Redmond? Admin rights -- that translates to the potential to install/remove, re-configure things and read or copy files.
Don't DRM-encumbered applications and systems allow tracking of activities on the computer and interactions between individuals? As it's been described so far, DRM relies on external services for authentication and authorization. External services mean the information can be tracked and is probably logged by default. Whether the logs are deleted or read by someone else is a separate question but the potential is there, especially given the problem of remote admin rights...
Yeah, mobile phone tracking can give a lot of information, but so can being able to track computer usage and interaction.
2. Under the patriot act rules the House is currently renewing, if the government wants to put a tap on your phone records, they don't have to explain to a judge what they're doing. They just have to say "we are going to seize some records, but we aren't going to tell you which ones".
Ok. Here's something else to think about: The Senate is still making it's decision. A presidential veto is most unlikely to occur, so the only option is to convince your senator to vote NO. It can be done. However, sitting on your ass and not writing will probably guarantee that things will go badly.
Your elected representatives can't read minds. You have to tell them explicitly how they can best represent you. Big business sure does, why not even private citizens?;)
Since the texts in Project Gutenberg (and others such as Projekt Runeberg) are public domain, anyone could take the time to produce an audio version.
I could think that producing an audio book or two would be an excellent term project for high school or junior college level drama students. All you'd need is a comfortable, sound proof room, a good microphone (or two) connected to a computer, and a simple audio editor and a text to read. If the local library does not have an old public domain book, something can be printed out from Project Gutenberg.
September is still far enough away that an audio book project could be planned easily. There are far fewer technical distractions in producting audio than with video.
Probably not going down hill. They've never made great products. Good products, over priced products, but not great.
Expectations are rising, however, and there is starting to be some competition in the router / switch market nowadays. Juniper is the first that comes to mind.
Slashdot Mirror
A friend of mine hired a linux guy to handle machines for several sites. About 100% of his time spent doing any kind of technical work (maintenance or repair) is spent on repairing the MS-Windows machines, which another group is actually contracted to maintain and repair. However, if he doesn't do it, then it doesn't get done. The linux machines, fortunately outnumber the MS-Windows machines significantly at those sites and he only has to touch them when he wants to try a new distro. He's always got one machine for 'experiments' at each site, to get feedback from customers on new programs, distros, or configurations.
Fortunately for my friend this fellow doesn't mind too much and has nerves of steel, a necessity since he rose up from a MS-Windows background.
That into can't have honestly been written by someone who knows anything at all about DiDio's history. What's next? Another TCO comparison written by Enderle to support DiDio?
Ok. Here's one: Ernie Ball Guitars.
Think about it. It gives them a sense of purpose and a familiar task to deal with. What's more they're heroes for then working extra to put out the MS-viruses. What's not to like? If they had chosen a system that was immune or at least resistant, then they'd have none of that satisfaction or recognition. How many IT folk hear a thanks for 100% uptime on servers OR workstations?
I know Apple recently rejected some kind of DRM deal, but haven't gotten the details yet.
DRM means handing control of both access and the life cycle of your data over to a third party and depending on their continued good will for both.
The question comes up again about rights. The Bill of Rights was drafted in an age when governments were the most powerful entities. Now they have been exceeded by the corporations (even the US post office is a private corp) but with no corresponding protection. In many counties, government agencies have a lot of responsibilities, including record keeping and privacy standards. However, the moment those same functions are privatized or outsourced, those same responsibilities no longer apply.
It's time for a modernized Bill of Rights to keep the corporations in check.
The long answer is that it takes a shit load of money (usually millions) and time to overturn even obviously bad patents. Thus they are hobbling Apple for a bit and presumably generating a bit of fear, uncertainty and doubt as to iPod. It's basically like a nuisance lawsuit to tie up resources. Everyone, especially MS, knows that MS can't compete on technical mertis so it's been doing everything possible to ensure that no one else can either.
Take this as a warning as to what will happen if MS is able to force software patents into Europe and no longer has to play nice on either side of the Atlantic.
It was probably in the interest of someone's domestic political agenda to let that one happen. Just like on the 10th of September 2001 in Europe, flights and flight paths were locked down tight though not in the US. Hey if nothing happens then fine. However, if the attack goes through, then you have the perfect excuse to ram through the Patriot Act and other anti-American treachery.
- the ones that actually set up the botnets on peoples' MS-Windows boxes and churn out millions of spam message
- the ones that hire the above to advertise their product or scam
It is the latter group that is easier to track down and take out. For example, if they are falsifying any contact information or even any message headers, they are breaking the law (in the US). But there are probably many other laws that can be drawn in.Not quite a slam dunk, but the next best thing. It's a case of following the money. They have to have a legit contact datum somewhere in order to collect money...
I think what we see here is an attempt by M$ to throw a little sand, or even a wrench, into the gears of a competitor. It is also indicative as to how the will use sw patents if Europe falls for US-style sw patents. The only thing holding them back is that going all out with patents right now would wake Europeans up to the problem and make them less complacent.
It's been ages since I've studied any biology / geology, but if I recall correctly, there was another major climate change about the time of the spread of grasses across the surface. They would change the composition of the atmosphere over time as well as change how heat is absorbed or retained.
Also, there are many problems with MS software which have been unaddressed for years and have no patch yet. You can find them if you are willing to look. These mean that even a patched machine can be exploited.
Patched merely means that some of the known problems are repaired. However, given the combination of poor quality control for the patches and the demonstrated willingness to bundle non-security related changes into patches, it occurs from time to time that the MS patches can occasionally break more than they fix. The latter is worse, patches should only repair what is broken nothing more. Save "upgrades" and re-configurations for a separate download. In reality most of what MS calls patches are really sneaky upgrades and or reconfigurations. That's fraud and perhaps grounds for a class-action suit.
A timely case in point is how it broke into and gained dominance in the web browser market: it is a fact well documented in court records that this was purely because of being able to leverage it's desktop monopoly into control of the newly established web browser market. Yeah, both MSIE and Netscape sucked, but MSIE wouldn't have gone anywhere without the desktop monopoly and, oh yeah, ripping code from Mosaic.
Then there has been the strong arm tactics it has used, and still uses, with OEMs and partners. BeOS fell to that one. It won the right to distribution, but MS ensured that even when it came on OEM machines, it was not in the boot loader.
There has been sabotage. The AARD code against DR-DOS was one, but broken implementations of HTTP, TCP/IP and Kerberos make problems, too.
There have been smear campaigns spreading misinformation about competitors and their products (esp. Novel Netware) MS has also used its partner the BSA to raid businesses using competing products and negotiate contracts with an MS-only infrastructure in their place. There have been forged video evidence in US courts, but no charges of perjury. There were cases where the executives either perjured themselves or committed treason, no middle ground: they did this by swearing in court that their products were so shoddy that national security would be threatened by releasing the source code, yet they turned around and showed the source code to China.
Currently, there are problems with MS trying to use the WMA and WMP formats to break into the audio and video market. The EU has found them guilty of illegal, anti-competitive behaviour, but has been waffling on actually enforcing any punishment.
Currently, the licenses for 2000 SP3, XP SP 2 and later even give MS administrative rights to the machine. That's a back door by another name.
The list of ethical / legal problems could go on for pages. Why is Slashdot suddenly pushing so much stuff from MS apologists? How about more article about companies with a future, like Opera, Apple, IBM, etc. Or tools like OpenOffice, or codecs like Vorbis, Dirac, or Theora, which anyone could use. Shoot, such a big deal was made about Greasemonkey having some minor flaws, yet nothing has been said about greasemonkey being patched. How about an article on that and a moratorium on doing marketing for MS?
Yes, most spam is probably sent via zombies, but that's not who I recommend going after. (Though a blanket ban on MS-Windows by all ISPs would help there.) Who I do recommend going after in my earlier post are the businesses advertising via spam. If they want your money for whatever purpose, they have to provide some contact information there. I'm sure even with a small group of say 150 employees, you would even get some repeat violators of the do not spam list.
However, no one is willing to stick their neck out and instead sit passively by as the spam problem gets worse.
So, unless the answer is a clear "No, DRM will not be in the spec" then they are merely stalling to prevent confrontation.
Mostly it looks like an issue of enforcing and/or clarifying United States Code, Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, Part I, Sec. 227:
That stopped the junk fax problem which some here may be old enough to recall. Spam costs. It costs schools, it costs businesses and it costs individuals. Sure electrons are 'cheaper' than fax paper, but time costs and weeding spam or messages lost due to false positives cost lots of time, especially the latter.That said, I do suspect that the current US voting methods do not meet the requirements set out for an open and fair election by both the UN and the US when they go about observing elections. Invited UN inspectors were actually denied access during the 2004 election. Perhaps the US should take Castro up on his offer to oversee the elections if the UN isn't good enough.
In the 2000 and 2004 elections some people claim that there is no evidence of voting fraud or errors on a large scale in the current machines. However, on the other hand, there is no way to provide evidence to the contrary either. i.e. there is not way to prove the votes are valid and/or authentic. And, regardless of whether there was or not, the fact that the authenticity of large numbers of votes cannot be proved or disproved is a terrible and ridiculous situation for any country to find itself in.
Until such time as voting machines can be proven to provide an audit trail (whether paper or not) with 100% certainty as to both the authenticity and accuracy of the votes, the machines should be disallowed. The current ones used for both voting and tallying votes clearly lack the ability for authenticating either the veracity and origin of the votes and tallies, and should be banned and replaced with other methods until then.
Since we're talking lots of paper if the insistence is on a paper trail, why not just go for plain old hand counts. Canada, though smaller than the US, can do it. Either way, get rid of the defective machines and punish their vendors. We can probably never get to the bottom of what really happened in the 2000 and 2004 elections, but we can take proactive steps NOW to ensure that such problems cannot and do not occur again.
I still think the problems raised by DRM are greater and more severe than those it purports to fix. Obviously, fair use and doctrine of first sale are the first to disappear. But also, common carriage is at risk, and if DRM gets into routers and switches then it will be possible to make the Internet into the same mess the telecommunications network is in.
The nature of DRM and the clumsy attempts we have seen so far also indicate that there is great potential for human rights abuse, too. There is of course the ability to monitor who is interacting with whom, the DRM software has to track this to work. There is also the ability to block or censor communications. After all, restricting access or dissemination is what DRM is all about. And that directly affects both the right to free speech and the right to peaceably assemble -- after all what can be published or organized without the Internet or the Web these days, without them you're shut off.
Doesn't MS Windows and it's applications track a lot of your activities and communications? Don't 2000 SP3 and XP SP1 grant remote admin rights for Redmond? Admin rights -- that translates to the potential to install/remove, re-configure things and read or copy files.
Don't DRM-encumbered applications and systems allow tracking of activities on the computer and interactions between individuals? As it's been described so far, DRM relies on external services for authentication and authorization. External services mean the information can be tracked and is probably logged by default. Whether the logs are deleted or read by someone else is a separate question but the potential is there, especially given the problem of remote admin rights...
Yeah, mobile phone tracking can give a lot of information, but so can being able to track computer usage and interaction.
Your elected representatives can't read minds. You have to tell them explicitly how they can best represent you. Big business sure does, why not even private citizens? ;)
I could think that producing an audio book or two would be an excellent term project for high school or junior college level drama students. All you'd need is a comfortable, sound proof room, a good microphone (or two) connected to a computer, and a simple audio editor and a text to read. If the local library does not have an old public domain book, something can be printed out from Project Gutenberg.
September is still far enough away that an audio book project could be planned easily. There are far fewer technical distractions in producting audio than with video.
Expectations are rising, however, and there is starting to be some competition in the router / switch market nowadays. Juniper is the first that comes to mind.
Should caution, though, that there are occupational health concerns, and field operatives receive more than their share of (9mm) brain hemorrhages.