MS-Passport is inherently insecure
on
Passport to Nowhere
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· Score: 2, Insightful
MS Passport is inherently insecure and cannot be made secure, even in theory. To claim otherwise would be false advertising.
Not to mention that in the terms of service you hand over any privacy you once had, see the FTC link above again for an example of abuse.
I'd be especially wary of sites locked into ASP or.NET, not just for the inherent security problems. PayPal, for example,. is at potential risk, as it is owned by eBay. But read the changes to HotMail or other similarly MS-Passport encumbered services.
There are ways to do secure, platform independent, centralized authentication for web and other services, but MS-Passport isn't one of them. See Kerberos + LDAP instead. If you don't wish to experiment on *BSD or something else, all the major Linux distros include both clients and servers. There are even ways of scaling enourmously. Universities and libraries with electronic subscriptions should be able to get the most mileage out of Kerberos.
What I want to know is: where has all the outrage over nuclear weapons gone?
It seems that back in the USSR vs. America days, the West had an obsession with nuclear annihilation, despite the improbability of such an exchange between the big powers.
Or where is all the outrage over lack of accountability? Shortly after the former Soviet Union collapsed there seemed to be fissionables all over the black market, even isotopes capable of going supercritical. A worrisome number of warheads have also been 'unaccounted for'. Just one is enough. Yet there has been no outrage.
Combine even the existance of such a trade with the known number of 'mules' with radiation poisoning and empty tucks with hot cargo beds and it's possible that a large volume of trade has been encouraged by the profits. Those were just the ones caught/detected.
But as it stands now, several countries who either have or are attempting to obtain nuclear weapons just might be crazy enough to use them.
Forget countries, it's possible that some corporation or wannabe corporate tyrant has gotten hold of one since even U.S. business men were getting in on the action. Again, just one is enough.
It's too late to not make these weapons, but not too late to collect and disarm any materials or facilities for making such weapons. Nor is it too late for preventative measures: people that are healthy, well-fed, and gainfully employed don't go around blowing things up.
Real benefits of IPv6 include quality of service, security, improved routing, simplified headers, authentication and privacy capabilities, and provisions for autoconfiguration. I'm sure I forgot some, too.
The increased number of potential IP addresses is the least interesting and least relevant reason, though it is the most often mentioned in the press. Such a disproportionate amount of words is wasted on the IP range non-issue that I some times wonder if there isn't an intention to draw attention away from the real issues above.
Let's have a MS lawyer be in charge of all the anti-trust stuff. Yea, that makes perfect sense. Let's have the wolf make sure the hen house is safe too.
But what is your point, AC? In the U.S., the MS appointed lawyer is already chairman of the American Bar Association's antitrust section. Though this has hardly made the news, the section has already begun organizing opposition to a oversight by the courts of antitrust settlements, particularly those involving MS.
One solution would be for the U.S. to adopt a freedom of information policy more in line with the Nordic countries where public records are open by default, rather than the default of indefinite secrecy of UK and France. A lot of bad things vanish when exposed to sunlight.
As flawed as the government(s) may be, at least there are mechanisms in place to protect from abuse, at least in theory. In contrast, we have no such mechanisms, such as the Bill of Rights among other things, to protect from corporate abuse. This gets worse when you have a monopoly condition, even a local monopoly. Then it's even harder to vote with your feet or wallet.
Authority without accountability is a recipe for abuse which has been illustrated many times each year.
In the U.S. the corporate boards even lack representation from the employees, labor market or relevant union.
Laugh at the problems democracy is having now, but how many corporate officers or board members did you have the chance to elect or have the job of representing you or your interests?
Looks like it's more smoke to hide the growth of StarOffice/OpenOffice and to hide MS' foot dragging with other localizations like Icelandic and Hebrew.
MS-Windows and MS-Office are still MS' only two cash cows. MS' high market share is the result of choices made by hardware manufacturers, which make up 90% of Windows sales and 68% of Word and Excel sales.
Unlike MS-Windows which gets 90% of its sales from OEMs, only 68% of MS-Office sales come from OEMs, presumably leaving 32% who buy it separately.
This 32% has a choice, at least in theory. Hardware sales have been flat for a while and if the U.S. does more outsourcing or tips into a full depression, then it will be flat for a while longer. There is the risk for MS - market choice and flat hardware sales.
If you look back at the 1980's and 1990's there where many options for productivity packages, even in different languages. These have all been crushed through various monkey business. For example, Quattro and Lotus 1-2-3 weakened after MS-Excel and MS-Word started being bundled together, though at the time both Quattro and 1-2-3 appear to have been much better products. So the choice since then whether you buy a different version depends on which versions you can read. Which in turn has pretty much limited which version of files you write... until recently.
OpenOffice.org not only has an open, well-documented file format, but also runs on multiple platforms and has full support for many languages. All of which means less work over time, which means lower cost over time, both of which are highly attractive to both businesses and public agencies.
The anonymous astroturfer seems to have forgotten that MySQL AB is a well-established, debt-free business with offices on several continents and clients around the world. Or perhaps, forgotten that a senior staff member of MySQL AB has been named Entrepreneur of the year.
Not only does MySQL AB do development, but also clients do as well since its product is available open source. For example, some additions forthcoming in version 5 have originated with the heavy weight Ericsson. That's a long cry from hobby developers, though there are some of those as well.
If you are truly that worried about support or can't / won't handle it in house, then buy a support contract.
MySQL is a far more certain payoff than MS-SQL Server. That and it runs on many, many platforms. So you can run it on whatever OS + hardware you have in the server room today and tomorrow.
Postgresql is another option. Likewise, so is Oracle. If you're going to be looking at the same price class as MS-SQL, then get the real thing and go with Oracle.
MS is just fiddling with the stats to try to avoid the number of critical patches, upgraded-to-critical will almost certainly be in a different category.
MS has listed many remote exploits as 'moderately' critical or less.
Given that its poor security has been hitting its customers in the pocket book for years and now finally hitting MS, this is just more spin. Just like when a few years ago it started bundling multiple issues into single announcements and then a year later, with much fanfare, proclaimed that the number of security announcements had gone down (while the number of actual issues and unresolved issues went up)
If people are serious about improving security, they'll put MSIE on the back shelf and use mozilla, drop MS-Outlook and use Eudora, Evolution, Squirrelmail, Pine, Mutt, Mozilla, Thunderbird or whatever. For OS's there are Linux, OS X, and QNX. Given that most Linux distros are now much easier to install, customize and, especially, maintain than MS-Windows variants, it seems like the obvious choice in these hard economic times since you can get more performance out of your existing hardware by dropping MS completely.
If you want ease of use, then OS X is the obvious choice. However, KDE on QNX or Linux is just as easy as MS-Windows XP, but more customizable.
Read you own link more closely. It's a "look, but don't touch" license. The Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas are most definitely *not* available free if you wish to actually use them, for example in writing your own tools:
There is a separate patent license available to parties interested in implementing software programs that can read and write files that conform to the Specification.
(See
Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas Licensing Legal Notice)
The actual license for writing a program has different conditions. What this effectively does is ensure that no one or group can make tools to use or interoperate with MS Office 2003 the way Samba has done so well.
So you could write a program to read/write MS Office 2003, but not transfer the rights. Nor could you transfer the source code.
In case the point was not obvious enough, the schemas are packed into an.EXE which can only be used on a MS-Windows encumbered computer. As average people are figuring out that Linux and OS X beats MS-Windows for security (among other things, immune to 99% of viruses and worms), price and ease of use these are now decreasing.
To top it off, MS-Office 2003 locks you not only into their DRM, but also into one of either MS-Passport or MS-Server 2003. That not only introduces single point of failure twice (network and authentication), but also has economic, privacy and long term preservation and access ramifications.
I think you may be confusing the schema with the OASIS project which creates an XML schema for productivity software. Although, it is called Open Office XML Format, it is free (both free as in liberty and as in cost) to any and all who wish to use it. Less headache with the OASIS.
Of the OASIS members, M$ is the only one adopting a "wait and see" aproach to the OO.o schema. Everyone else is moving forward.
Now you can get ahead by monkeywrenching your competitors, even if you can't get ahead through better products or marketing. You only have to look at the difficulties that Steve Jackson Games had over ten years ago. Being able to cause that much economic damage to your (smaller) competitors through a simple phone call will be too much of a temptation.
It was bad enough that the directive slid in as a "fast track". The directive needs to be cancelled, perhaps so does the "fast track" program itself seeing as the woman who initiated this directive did so despite conflict of interest.
BTW While y'all are fussing about SCO and other MBA monkey business, there is an attempt to change how U.S. laws are interpreted, which is much more harmful that just changing the laws themselves.
Without qualification, Gimp is still not a drop in replacement for Photoshop and has miles to go.
But, where Gimp, IMHO, beats Photoshop is with making quick RGB graphics and logos for web pages. Within that narrow scope, most tasks take fewer steps and are faster. Bulk manipulations can be done with 'Fu. Gimp's great for on-screen work.
I still use Photoshop for most other graphics especially large, hi-res images (and all CMYK), but if I need a really quick icon or logo, then it's Gimp. That's for similar reasons to use OpenOffice.org for some things and Gnumeric or TextEdit alon for others. If Adobe announced Photoshop or Illustrator for Linux, I'd pre-order in a heartbeat.
You can even buy uncut sheets of them [$2 bills] from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
A lot of younger people have never seen or used $2 bills. The 1976 re-issue was a big deal, but even then a few people still had one of the old ones in their wallet or purse for luck.
A retired shop owner in one of my classes liked to exploit this and use them when leaving tips. Every so often he'd get 50 brand new $2 bills and bind them to a piece of cardboard just like a pad of paper or "stickies". After paying he'd get up, start to leave as if he were forgetting to tip the waitress. When he had her full attention, he'd "remember" the tip, pull out the pad and rip one or two bills of the top.
Which DTDs have you looked at already and what do you plan to use them for?
Just off the top of my head, I recall TEI and TEI-lite being in wide spread use. There are quite a few subsets of both. In general it's often easier to strip an existing DTD down to what you need than to try to make a new one from scratch.
Docbook, as others have mentioned, is good for simple documents, or ISO-12083 for more complex ones are additional options.
In response to the AC M$ apologist / troll, here are handful of OSS companies. Most offer dual licensing. All make money doing consulting, support and development. You can probably find more with a quick search.
I've had a long time to forget my antenna theory and general physics, but the only two methods I can think of generating a decent EMP would involve toxic waste (enourmous capacitors) or explosive (vaporizing a charged coil).
Thermite would be less dangerous, but a fire hazard as it melts your equipment. Though I could see selling tape / cd / harddrives with a thermite case enclosed in firebrick long before I could imagine a neighborhood degausser on the market. The thermite jacketed drive'd have to have a build-in fire supression system, too.
mSFT recognizes that they are a slowly sinking ship
Interestingly enough, one of the reasons to not let MS employees exercise all of their underwater options in 2003 and not permit further sales until 2005 is to try to reduce a mass exodus.
Yes, he could stay, but odds are with good F/OSS skills he can get a good job quickly.
In the situation where he can't quit this week, say because of family, debt, and so on, then it's definitely time to make finding a new job top priority. Staying would ensure a downward spiral into stress, job dissatisfaction and loss of IT skills. So the answer about how to make the transition? Make the transition to a new job.
Personally, I suspect the original post is probably a troll.
Eh, would the "IT security guide" distributed to all Helsingin Sanomat-reading households have anything to do with this?
It's all about Windows... funny when it's about IT security.
It might be related, or it might not. Either way, it got more distribution than that just Helsingin-Sanomat.
It sure comes accross as a scam. 8 pages of panic-mode pro-Windows tripe, not a mention about proactive security nor even a whisper about more secure applications -- dressed up as an official public service.
Shoot, the guide wasn't even logical. It opens with about how an unprotected [MS-Windows] home computer will be cracked within a minute or two of being connected to the Internet. Then it goes on to say that [MS-Windows victims] should connect download the latest patches, a process which can take hours over a phone line or even slow ADSL.
You can see the Finnish version of the M$ propaganda or, if you can't read Finnish, then there is also a translation.;)
One of the consumer groups or FSF groups could come out with a neutral explanation of more secure options (Mozilla, Opera, Firfox, Eudora, OS X, Linux + KDE/Gnome, etc.)
Apple, especially, should get in on the act. They make a robust and secure OS, in effect immune to the types of exploits that pull M$ pants down every week. Yet the press ignores it. WTF?
Actually, there are several ways to save a limiter like -site:example.com for search engines.
One, you could pass it as part of the URL (i.e. using GET) in your book mark. Like this.
Two, you could roll a search engine plug-in and pass the limiter as part of the form (i.e. using PUT) with <input type="hidden"..., or add it to an existing plug-in.
At least many seem to belive it does. As I've said and a few others have pointed out, every thing except MS-Windows and MS-Office loses money and no matter how you slice it, the market share for those two are going down. There is even a good possibility of Enron/Tycho/WorldCom/Microsoft style book cooking, for example it ran loss of $18 billion when proper accounting procedures are used. Since then, Bill Gates himself has stepped down and become Chairman Bill, Ballmer has dumped an enormous load of stock for the first time in 12 years, the top execs have been dumping stock, and just over half of the employees exercised their underwater stock options. Nowadays the U.S. gov. is forcing MS to pay their employees with money not options. All the large players are out, as are the high profile small ones. In short, the money may not be anything more than marketing campaign.
Likewise, users, especially governments and NGOs may walk en masse to other solutions to avoid Palladium encumbered file formats, BIOS, CPUs, OS, and apps.
Over the last few years, it's becoming increasingly common practice for MS to hire insiders to plug MS products and protocols. For example, since Bob Garfield was hired from NPR, NPR has begun not only rebroadcasting content from MS, but also increasing product mentions on air as well as soft pedaling (MS-only) security and anti-trust issues. Moles have also been hired by MS and then restored to government positions in the U.S., Finland, and Norway, just to name a few.
I chalk it up to a need to replace old revenue streams before they dry up, or before security and anti-trust penalties take it down for the count, before the company gets a proper audit...
'Course all that's moot if Joe Sixpack figures out that Windows is not ready for the Internet, but that Linux, BSD and OS X are, plus cost effective and easy to use.
I suspect that this is due to jealousy overy recent high profile wxWindows usage. IIRC it was on the recent mars mission. At least the screen shots accidentally on TV showed no visible MS products.
It is stupid and assinine to change the name of the product. All the name recognition goes out with the name change. However, in the long term it will be useful for the general public to learn that there are more advanced systems than MS-Windows.
Yes that is how it has been trying to force new purchases. However, in most cases even if you are using that company's products you can simply form an agreement at the beginning of the project to use a specific version of the file format or, better yet, RTF. With RTF you at least avoid the viruses.
My solution on and off has been to set up procmail to auto-reply to messages infected with those kinds of attachments and instruct the user how to use a different format and why.
When I really did not feel like messing with it, I simply returned a similarly sized and named files generated by dd and/dev/urandom
Of course none of those are solutions in the longer term. The only practical way is to use an open format like the one used by OO.o, KWord and others (or semi-open like RTF). Some businesses and public agencies are required by law to keep records for a number of years and based on past problems, an open format is the only currently available way to go, even without applying Murphy's law to MS-DRM + MS-Office 2003.
there's no evidence that in the 42 months between May 1971 and the time he officially discharged on Nov. 21, 1974, Bush ever took an Air Force physical.
His failure to take the physical in 1972, and his subsequent loss of his flying status, should have triggered a disciplinary review, copies of which would be contained in Bush's military file. But none exists. Where are they?
And why, after the government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach him how to fly, did he apply to be transferred to an Alabama postal unit?
What's that sound? That's the sound of AWOL.
That would have been during a period of active military conflict and is long enough that it could just as easily be called desertion rather than AWOL. Two options seem likely "Desertion with intent to remain away permanently" and / or "Desertion with intent to avoid hazardous duty or to shirk important service". He'll be remembered as the ex president punished for desertion. Maybe it'd be karma for all the executions in Texas under his tenure.
Or for those who enjoy conspiracies, maybe the CP finally did succeed in running a mole to the very top cloaked as a conservative to collapse the country, like they'd been planning in the late 50's early 60's.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd be especially wary of sites locked into ASP or .NET, not just for the inherent security problems. PayPal, for example,. is at potential risk, as it is owned by eBay. But read the changes to HotMail or other similarly MS-Passport encumbered services.
There are ways to do secure, platform independent, centralized authentication for web and other services, but MS-Passport isn't one of them. See Kerberos + LDAP instead. If you don't wish to experiment on *BSD or something else, all the major Linux distros include both clients and servers. There are even ways of scaling enourmously. Universities and libraries with electronic subscriptions should be able to get the most mileage out of Kerberos.
Combine even the existance of such a trade with the known number of 'mules' with radiation poisoning and empty tucks with hot cargo beds and it's possible that a large volume of trade has been encouraged by the profits. Those were just the ones caught/detected.
Forget countries, it's possible that some corporation or wannabe corporate tyrant has gotten hold of one since even U.S. business men were getting in on the action. Again, just one is enough.It's too late to not make these weapons, but not too late to collect and disarm any materials or facilities for making such weapons. Nor is it too late for preventative measures: people that are healthy, well-fed, and gainfully employed don't go around blowing things up.
The increased number of potential IP addresses is the least interesting and least relevant reason, though it is the most often mentioned in the press. Such a disproportionate amount of words is wasted on the IP range non-issue that I some times wonder if there isn't an intention to draw attention away from the real issues above.
One solution would be for the U.S. to adopt a freedom of information policy more in line with the Nordic countries where public records are open by default, rather than the default of indefinite secrecy of UK and France. A lot of bad things vanish when exposed to sunlight.
Authority without accountability is a recipe for abuse which has been illustrated many times each year. In the U.S. the corporate boards even lack representation from the employees, labor market or relevant union. Laugh at the problems democracy is having now, but how many corporate officers or board members did you have the chance to elect or have the job of representing you or your interests?
MS-Windows and MS-Office are still MS' only two cash cows. MS' high market share is the result of choices made by hardware manufacturers, which make up 90% of Windows sales and 68% of Word and Excel sales. Unlike MS-Windows which gets 90% of its sales from OEMs, only 68% of MS-Office sales come from OEMs, presumably leaving 32% who buy it separately. This 32% has a choice, at least in theory. Hardware sales have been flat for a while and if the U.S. does more outsourcing or tips into a full depression, then it will be flat for a while longer. There is the risk for MS - market choice and flat hardware sales.
If you look back at the 1980's and 1990's there where many options for productivity packages, even in different languages. These have all been crushed through various monkey business. For example, Quattro and Lotus 1-2-3 weakened after MS-Excel and MS-Word started being bundled together, though at the time both Quattro and 1-2-3 appear to have been much better products. So the choice since then whether you buy a different version depends on which versions you can read. Which in turn has pretty much limited which version of files you write ... until recently.
OpenOffice.org not only has an open, well-documented file format, but also runs on multiple platforms and has full support for many languages. All of which means less work over time, which means lower cost over time, both of which are highly attractive to both businesses and public agencies.
Not only does MySQL AB do development, but also clients do as well since its product is available open source. For example, some additions forthcoming in version 5 have originated with the heavy weight Ericsson. That's a long cry from hobby developers, though there are some of those as well.
If you are truly that worried about support or can't / won't handle it in house, then buy a support contract.
MySQL is a far more certain payoff than MS-SQL Server. That and it runs on many, many platforms. So you can run it on whatever OS + hardware you have in the server room today and tomorrow.
Postgresql is another option. Likewise, so is Oracle. If you're going to be looking at the same price class as MS-SQL, then get the real thing and go with Oracle.
MS has listed many remote exploits as 'moderately' critical or less. Given that its poor security has been hitting its customers in the pocket book for years and now finally hitting MS, this is just more spin. Just like when a few years ago it started bundling multiple issues into single announcements and then a year later, with much fanfare, proclaimed that the number of security announcements had gone down (while the number of actual issues and unresolved issues went up)
If people are serious about improving security, they'll put MSIE on the back shelf and use mozilla, drop MS-Outlook and use Eudora, Evolution, Squirrelmail, Pine, Mutt, Mozilla, Thunderbird or whatever. For OS's there are Linux, OS X, and QNX. Given that most Linux distros are now much easier to install, customize and, especially, maintain than MS-Windows variants, it seems like the obvious choice in these hard economic times since you can get more performance out of your existing hardware by dropping MS completely.
If you want ease of use, then OS X is the obvious choice. However, KDE on QNX or Linux is just as easy as MS-Windows XP, but more customizable.
In case the point was not obvious enough, the schemas are packed into an .EXE which can only be used on a MS-Windows encumbered computer. As average people are figuring out that Linux and OS X beats MS-Windows for security (among other things, immune to 99% of viruses and worms), price and ease of use these are now decreasing.
To top it off, MS-Office 2003 locks you not only into their DRM, but also into one of either MS-Passport or MS-Server 2003. That not only introduces single point of failure twice (network and authentication), but also has economic, privacy and long term preservation and access ramifications.
I think you may be confusing the schema with the OASIS project which creates an XML schema for productivity software. Although, it is called Open Office XML Format, it is free (both free as in liberty and as in cost) to any and all who wish to use it. Less headache with the OASIS.
Of the OASIS members, M$ is the only one adopting a "wait and see" aproach to the OO.o schema. Everyone else is moving forward.
It was bad enough that the directive slid in as a "fast track". The directive needs to be cancelled, perhaps so does the "fast track" program itself seeing as the woman who initiated this directive did so despite conflict of interest.
BTW While y'all are fussing about SCO and other MBA monkey business, there is an attempt to change how U.S. laws are interpreted, which is much more harmful that just changing the laws themselves.
But, where Gimp, IMHO, beats Photoshop is with making quick RGB graphics and logos for web pages. Within that narrow scope, most tasks take fewer steps and are faster. Bulk manipulations can be done with 'Fu. Gimp's great for on-screen work.
I still use Photoshop for most other graphics especially large, hi-res images (and all CMYK), but if I need a really quick icon or logo, then it's Gimp. That's for similar reasons to use OpenOffice.org for some things and Gnumeric or TextEdit alon for others. If Adobe announced Photoshop or Illustrator for Linux, I'd pre-order in a heartbeat.
A retired shop owner in one of my classes liked to exploit this and use them when leaving tips. Every so often he'd get 50 brand new $2 bills and bind them to a piece of cardboard just like a pad of paper or "stickies". After paying he'd get up, start to leave as if he were forgetting to tip the waitress. When he had her full attention, he'd "remember" the tip, pull out the pad and rip one or two bills of the top.
Just off the top of my head, I recall TEI and TEI-lite being in wide spread use. There are quite a few subsets of both. In general it's often easier to strip an existing DTD down to what you need than to try to make a new one from scratch.
Docbook, as others have mentioned, is good for simple documents, or ISO-12083 for more complex ones are additional options.
- Apple - Darwin and Safari
- IBM - Linux kernel
- Novell - Netware, NDS, eDirectory
- Trolltech - creators of Qt
- MySQL - major SQL database
- IndexData - networked information retreival
- RedHat
- Sleepycat - dbms
- Google
Note that all of the above did and still do top notch work before, during and after the dot-bomb hysteria.So if you want to know how to make money, look at the experts.
Thermite would be less dangerous, but a fire hazard as it melts your equipment. Though I could see selling tape / cd / harddrives with a thermite case enclosed in firebrick long before I could imagine a neighborhood degausser on the market. The thermite jacketed drive'd have to have a build-in fire supression system, too.
I think the lesson is to have two offsite backups
In the situation where he can't quit this week, say because of family, debt, and so on, then it's definitely time to make finding a new job top priority. Staying would ensure a downward spiral into stress, job dissatisfaction and loss of IT skills. So the answer about how to make the transition? Make the transition to a new job.
Personally, I suspect the original post is probably a troll.
It sure comes accross as a scam. 8 pages of panic-mode pro-Windows tripe, not a mention about proactive security nor even a whisper about more secure applications -- dressed up as an official public service.
Shoot, the guide wasn't even logical. It opens with about how an unprotected [MS-Windows] home computer will be cracked within a minute or two of being connected to the Internet. Then it goes on to say that [MS-Windows victims] should connect download the latest patches, a process which can take hours over a phone line or even slow ADSL.
You can see the Finnish version of the M$ propaganda or, if you can't read Finnish, then there is also a translation. ;)
One of the consumer groups or FSF groups could come out with a neutral explanation of more secure options (Mozilla, Opera, Firfox, Eudora, OS X, Linux + KDE/Gnome, etc.)
Apple, especially, should get in on the act. They make a robust and secure OS, in effect immune to the types of exploits that pull M$ pants down every week. Yet the press ignores it. WTF?
One, you could pass it as part of the URL (i.e. using GET) in your book mark. Like this.
Two, you could roll a search engine plug-in and pass the limiter as part of the form (i.e. using PUT) with <input type="hidden" ..., or add it to an existing plug-in.
Or, three, you could make your own extensions to the tool bar of the browser, if there isn't already one to do the trick.
Likewise, users, especially governments and NGOs may walk en masse to other solutions to avoid Palladium encumbered file formats, BIOS, CPUs, OS, and apps.
Correction, the name should have been Andy Bowers, not Bob Garfield. Apologies.
I chalk it up to a need to replace old revenue streams before they dry up, or before security and anti-trust penalties take it down for the count, before the company gets a proper audit...
'Course all that's moot if Joe Sixpack figures out that Windows is not ready for the Internet, but that Linux, BSD and OS X are, plus cost effective and easy to use.
It is stupid and assinine to change the name of the product. All the name recognition goes out with the name change. However, in the long term it will be useful for the general public to learn that there are more advanced systems than MS-Windows.
My solution on and off has been to set up procmail to auto-reply to messages infected with those kinds of attachments and instruct the user how to use a different format and why.
When I really did not feel like messing with it, I simply returned a similarly sized and named files generated by dd and /dev/urandom
Of course none of those are solutions in the longer term. The only practical way is to use an open format like the one used by OO.o, KWord and others (or semi-open like RTF). Some businesses and public agencies are required by law to keep records for a number of years and based on past problems, an open format is the only currently available way to go, even without applying Murphy's law to MS-DRM + MS-Office 2003.
Or for those who enjoy conspiracies, maybe the CP finally did succeed in running a mole to the very top cloaked as a conservative to collapse the country, like they'd been planning in the late 50's early 60's.