The working patch for the vulnerability in question has been around for more than a year. Anyone who hasn't patched yet is just as retarded and just as at fault as someone who doesn't change their oil for a year or doesn't wear their seatbelt despite constant warnings and then blames the car manufacturer when they get hurt.
In the situation you describe, not patching is indeed the user's fault, and no one elses.
But let's compare that to reality.
1) Microsoft intentionally markets to consumers that they know are incapable of mildy difficult technical tasks.
Ever heard of Windows Automatic Update? All you have to do is read the directions on the popup and click "OK". How much easier can it get, unless they're illiterate?
2) Microsoft patches are incredibly perverse in their installation procedures, often break other things, and sometimes don't work at all.
Three letters: FUD. 99.9% of the time the patches work and don't have any side-effects. The installation procedure couldn't possibly be any simpler or more benign. Oh, god forbid you should have to restart before the OS patches take effect. What you said is completely false anti-windows propaganda
3) The sheer volume of Microsoft exploits means that a person would be compelled to spend the great majority of their waking hours applying the damn things, just to keep their head above water.
That's an utter distortion. The volume of known exploits is there primarily because there are 50 times more hackers trying to hack Windows than any other operating system. All operating systems have plenty of vulnerabilities and the rate at which they are found is a function of how many hackers with no lives are searching for vulnerabilities. But new exploits are only discovered at the rate of at worst once a week and Windows Automatic Update will keep you safe from all exploits older than a few days without the slightest bit effort or time spent by the user.
4) Microsoft hides news of their vulnerabilities in the Labyrinth of their website to the point that a person would be compelled to check a large list of other security websites just to remain aware of what the dangers were.
Bah Humbug. All major vulnerabilities/exploits are remedied within the week that they become public and then served via windows automatic update without the user having to exert the slightest bit of effort to keep track of anything.
5) Many of these exploits are the end result of bad coding practices, bad design philosophies and ill-concieved architectures, and not just obtuse, hard-to-recognize bugs that slip through *anyone's* quality control.
What the hell would you know about that? Have you ever seen the source code? Do you work for microsoft? Do you know anyone who does? Do you have any clue what you're talking about or are you just parroting another linux zealot's FUD?
And by the way, not updating windows for an entire year or more (that's how old the fix for the IE vulnerability in question is) Is about as idiotic as getting your stock advice from a tabloid and then suing the tabloid when you lose all your money.
"Most people are too stupid to download the updates to fix that vulnerability, so they should blame themselves. No, they should blame Microsoft. Like that article posted earlier about Slammer, the idea of blaming the victim for the crime is a little skewed. Microsoft needs to engineer better products. Because after all,
Every software and every operating system has vulnerabilities. Finding them is only a function of how many people are trying to find & exploit vulnerabilities. The dearth of Mac and Linux virii is solely attributable to the fact that 95% of hackers and other miscreants have no reason to target any OS other than Windows, because windows is overwhelmingly predominant. It's stupid to blame microsoft when someone breaks into your system using a very old and well-kown vulnerability that wouldn't exist if you had updated Windows in the last YEAR OR TWO.
isn't that the digital equivalent of mugging and rape?
Er, a bit dramatic, but yeah, kind of. You can't (shouldn't?) call someone 'stupid' for getting mugged or raped."
I wasn't implying that it's not Xupiter's creators' fault for being total assholes. I'm simply saying that it is stupid not to take the slightest precautionary beasures, like oh, say, updating windows every SIX MONTHS or so to get the security hotfixes. Not doing so is the digital equivalent of going to a party naked and stoned with money stuffed up your ass.
In earlier versions of IE for windows (like the ones that come bundled with windows 98 or ME and maybe 2000) there is a very well-known security flaw that allows malicious code on a website to make the computer download and execute arbitrary files without confirmation from the user. Most people are too stupid to download the updates to fix that vulnerability, so they should blame themselves. But that's how spamware trojans like Xupiter often spread.
And anyway, isn't that the digital equivalent of mugging and rape? I mean they either install the thing on your computer without permission and it totally fucks with everythig, or they trick you into installing it by outright lying about it and not telling you what a piece of shit spamware/spyware TROJAN HORSE it is. Couldn't they easily be sued for fraud and/or hacking people's computers?
Mix ammonium nitrate powder, ammonium chloride powder, and zinc powder.
One drop of water and after 3-4 seconds it will explode, but whether it's more like a gunpowder flare or a high explosive depends on how much you use and how spacially confined it is.
Or maybe just a professor who weights his grading in favor of classwork, homework, attendance, &c.; over exams?
No, that's absurd. That's the opposite of fairness and equity. Grades in all courses except english composition should be based primarily, if not exclusively, on tests. Homework assignments are irrelevant. Some people don't need to do them because they already know the material, and some people do them for points and still don't understand the material. People who already know the material shouldn't have to do pointless asignments, and should be able to just take the test proving that they know what they know and get on with it. Likewise, people shouldn't be able to get a good grade in a class unless they know enough to ace the tests, no matter how hard they work on the assignments and whatnot.
That's part of what bothers me about college admissions. They care so much about class rank and GPA despite the fact that those are poor indicators of true performance because of the wide variability in schools. A student at one school with a 3.0 and a 50th percentile rank might be better than a student at a crappy school with a 3.9 in the top 5%. At some schools, a C is average and the average student there is in the 90th percentile nationwide, and an A student at the average high school would get Ds there. That's why GPA and class rank alone are almost worthless indicators of real performance when taken out of context. If the class rank were indexed with the distribution of standardized test scores at the school, it might actually be worth something.
That's where standardized tests come in, but all the ones currently used are worthless because they only test the speed at which you can complete large volumes of extremely easy problems that don't contain anything more advanced than the high school freshman curriculum. And they scores are greatly affected by coaching and familiarity with the test itself. Any idiot who takes a good test prep course and can work quickly can get a 1450 or higher on the SAT. The SAT and ACT are worthless for measuring intelligence or knowledge or any other useful trait because the speed at which you solve extremely easy problems has little or nothing to do with any of those, and that's all the standardized tests test. The SAT II tests tend to be worthless too. The History one is 90 paragraph-long multiple choice questions in an hour, which makes it more of a speed-test-taking test than anything else, because the questions are easy. Since when does test-taking speed have anything to do with knowledge of history? I can understand having tight time limits on math tests, but doing that on other kinds of tests is ridiculous.
And no, I'm not just whining because I got a bad score on the SAT. I got 760 math (b/c I missed one question since I was in such a frenzied hurry because of the time control) and 720 verbal (primarily because I can't do the reading comprehension sections quickly enough. Given sufficient time I would have gotten nearly all of the factually objective questions correct because they were easy as hell).
First, a third goes to income tax. Then, 8% goes to sales tax on something you baught on vacation in another state. And now, Taxachusetts wants to take 8% more on top of that, leaving even the middle class with less than half their money left over after all taxes are accounted for.
Anyone with a quick scanner and a bit of good software could make book pages into formatted text at the rate of 10ppm or more. The question is, are there many good programs out there for doing that?
I think rolling over while your sleeping and cutting off the circulation to various appendages or compressing internal organs that way is probably much more harmful that sitting at your computer for 3 hours straight playing UT.
Since DirectX and OpenGL are the only widely supported standards for PC game programming, there's no point in learning any other standard if that's your goal. I would go with OpenGL because it's less bloated and simpler than DirectX. But then again, it would probably be more useful to know DirectX if you want to get a job in the industry.
But they can put the server anywhere on earth, or in international waters, so there's no way the RIAA/MPAA can shut it down without resorting to vigilante tactics.
I wouldn't be suprised if the RIAA/MPAA IP Nazis actually hired some mercenaries to go into estonia or vanatu and kick pirates' asses. Who's going to stop them, the UN? *laugh*
There's no way in hell the US will take military action against a country because people in that country are violating US copyright laws. That would be like sending the DEA into Amsterdam to arrest people who smoke pot (legally) there. Our laws do not apply to other countries, and attempting to enforce our laws in other countries completely denies the sovreignty of other countries. If the US did that, it would in effect be a global tyrant, ruling other nations from afar without giving them any representation in congress. Rather like what Britain did to the colonies. Forcing other countries to pay the Microsoft Tax, etc, would in effect be taxation without representation, because they didn't have any say in the US laws governing microsoft, and they don't have much choice but to use Mindows.
Even if they lose every single lawsuit, they can't be shut down. The US or Australia have no way of enforcing anything in Vanatu or Estonia. Besides, Kazaalite can continue to operate even if Sharman were nuked off the face of the earth.
Hell, BearShare and other gnutella clients are even more decentralised than Kazaa. What they're doing is like trying to kill a fungus by killing the cell that started it.
Going after the companies that make the software is useless, because people will continue to use and distribute the software long after the parent company is gone. Eventually, they'll realize that the ONLY way to stop piracy is to go after individuals and use scare tactics, so the RIAA/MPAA will go on a reign of terror arresting college students who share too many MP3s, movies, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
The working patch for the vulnerability in question has been around for more than a year. Anyone who hasn't patched yet is just as retarded and just as at fault as someone who doesn't change their oil for a year or doesn't wear their seatbelt despite constant warnings and then blames the car manufacturer when they get hurt.
In the situation you describe, not patching is indeed the user's fault, and no one elses.
But let's compare that to reality.
1) Microsoft intentionally markets to consumers that they know are incapable of mildy difficult technical tasks.
Ever heard of Windows Automatic Update? All you have to do is read the directions on the popup and click "OK". How much easier can it get, unless they're illiterate?
2) Microsoft patches are incredibly perverse in their installation procedures, often break other things, and sometimes don't work at all.
Three letters: FUD. 99.9% of the time the patches work and don't have any side-effects. The installation procedure couldn't possibly be any simpler or more benign. Oh, god forbid you should have to restart before the OS patches take effect. What you said is completely false anti-windows propaganda
3) The sheer volume of Microsoft exploits means that a person would be compelled to spend the great majority of their waking hours applying the damn things, just to keep their head above water.
That's an utter distortion. The volume of known exploits is there primarily because there are 50 times more hackers trying to hack Windows than any other operating system. All operating systems have plenty of vulnerabilities and the rate at which they are found is a function of how many hackers with no lives are searching for vulnerabilities. But new exploits are only discovered at the rate of at worst once a week and Windows Automatic Update will keep you safe from all exploits older than a few days without the slightest bit effort or time spent by the user.
4) Microsoft hides news of their vulnerabilities in the Labyrinth of their website to the point that a person would be compelled to check a large list of other security websites just to remain aware of what the dangers were.
Bah Humbug. All major vulnerabilities/exploits are remedied within the week that they become public and then served via windows automatic update without the user having to exert the slightest bit of effort to keep track of anything.
5) Many of these exploits are the end result of bad coding practices, bad design philosophies and ill-concieved architectures, and not just obtuse, hard-to-recognize bugs that slip through *anyone's* quality control.
What the hell would you know about that? Have you ever seen the source code? Do you work for microsoft? Do you know anyone who does? Do you have any clue what you're talking about or are you just parroting another linux zealot's FUD?
And by the way, not updating windows for an entire year or more (that's how old the fix for the IE vulnerability in question is) Is about as idiotic as getting your stock advice from a tabloid and then suing the tabloid when you lose all your money.
"Most people are too stupid to download the updates to fix that vulnerability, so they should blame themselves.
No, they should blame Microsoft. Like that article posted earlier about Slammer, the idea of blaming the victim for the crime is a little skewed. Microsoft needs to engineer better products. Because after all,
Every software and every operating system has vulnerabilities. Finding them is only a function of how many people are trying to find & exploit vulnerabilities. The dearth of Mac and Linux virii is solely attributable to the fact that 95% of hackers and other miscreants have no reason to target any OS other than Windows, because windows is overwhelmingly predominant. It's stupid to blame microsoft when someone breaks into your system using a very old and well-kown vulnerability that wouldn't exist if you had updated Windows in the last YEAR OR TWO. isn't that the digital equivalent of mugging and rape? Er, a bit dramatic, but yeah, kind of. You can't (shouldn't?) call someone 'stupid' for getting mugged or raped. " I wasn't implying that it's not Xupiter's creators' fault for being total assholes. I'm simply saying that it is stupid not to take the slightest precautionary beasures, like oh, say, updating windows every SIX MONTHS or so to get the security hotfixes. Not doing so is the digital equivalent of going to a party naked and stoned with money stuffed up your ass.
In earlier versions of IE for windows (like the ones that come bundled with windows 98 or ME and maybe 2000) there is a very well-known security flaw that allows malicious code on a website to make the computer download and execute arbitrary files without confirmation from the user. Most people are too stupid to download the updates to fix that vulnerability, so they should blame themselves. But that's how spamware trojans like Xupiter often spread.
And anyway, isn't that the digital equivalent of mugging and rape? I mean they either install the thing on your computer without permission and it totally fucks with everythig, or they trick you into installing it by outright lying about it and not telling you what a piece of shit spamware/spyware TROJAN HORSE it is. Couldn't they easily be sued for fraud and/or hacking people's computers?
Mix ammonium nitrate powder, ammonium chloride powder, and zinc powder. One drop of water and after 3-4 seconds it will explode, but whether it's more like a gunpowder flare or a high explosive depends on how much you use and how spacially confined it is.
Or maybe just a professor who weights his grading in favor of classwork, homework, attendance, &c.; over exams? No, that's absurd. That's the opposite of fairness and equity. Grades in all courses except english composition should be based primarily, if not exclusively, on tests. Homework assignments are irrelevant. Some people don't need to do them because they already know the material, and some people do them for points and still don't understand the material. People who already know the material shouldn't have to do pointless asignments, and should be able to just take the test proving that they know what they know and get on with it. Likewise, people shouldn't be able to get a good grade in a class unless they know enough to ace the tests, no matter how hard they work on the assignments and whatnot.
That's part of what bothers me about college admissions. They care so much about class rank and GPA despite the fact that those are poor indicators of true performance because of the wide variability in schools. A student at one school with a 3.0 and a 50th percentile rank might be better than a student at a crappy school with a 3.9 in the top 5%. At some schools, a C is average and the average student there is in the 90th percentile nationwide, and an A student at the average high school would get Ds there. That's why GPA and class rank alone are almost worthless indicators of real performance when taken out of context. If the class rank were indexed with the distribution of standardized test scores at the school, it might actually be worth something. That's where standardized tests come in, but all the ones currently used are worthless because they only test the speed at which you can complete large volumes of extremely easy problems that don't contain anything more advanced than the high school freshman curriculum. And they scores are greatly affected by coaching and familiarity with the test itself. Any idiot who takes a good test prep course and can work quickly can get a 1450 or higher on the SAT. The SAT and ACT are worthless for measuring intelligence or knowledge or any other useful trait because the speed at which you solve extremely easy problems has little or nothing to do with any of those, and that's all the standardized tests test. The SAT II tests tend to be worthless too. The History one is 90 paragraph-long multiple choice questions in an hour, which makes it more of a speed-test-taking test than anything else, because the questions are easy. Since when does test-taking speed have anything to do with knowledge of history? I can understand having tight time limits on math tests, but doing that on other kinds of tests is ridiculous. And no, I'm not just whining because I got a bad score on the SAT. I got 760 math (b/c I missed one question since I was in such a frenzied hurry because of the time control) and 720 verbal (primarily because I can't do the reading comprehension sections quickly enough. Given sufficient time I would have gotten nearly all of the factually objective questions correct because they were easy as hell).
First, a third goes to income tax. Then, 8% goes to sales tax on something you baught on vacation in another state. And now, Taxachusetts wants to take 8% more on top of that, leaving even the middle class with less than half their money left over after all taxes are accounted for.
Anyone with a quick scanner and a bit of good software could make book pages into formatted text at the rate of 10ppm or more. The question is, are there many good programs out there for doing that?
I think rolling over while your sleeping and cutting off the circulation to various appendages or compressing internal organs that way is probably much more harmful that sitting at your computer for 3 hours straight playing UT.
LDAP
PADL
angry nun
catholic schoolgirl
sex
orgasm
Since DirectX and OpenGL are the only widely supported standards for PC game programming, there's no point in learning any other standard if that's your goal. I would go with OpenGL because it's less bloated and simpler than DirectX. But then again, it would probably be more useful to know DirectX if you want to get a job in the industry.
But unfortunately, this adopt-a-geek program could cause my investment in parents' basement futures to become worthless.
But did they pull a Quake/Quack type of trick?
Well, It's good to see we're getting help from other parts of the animal kingdom. I'll be careful not to step on it.
How do you do the "wide" posts? I've been attempting to duplicate Klerk's recent one, but it looks like they've adapted already.
The ascii-art version of the CSS-auth code: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/Pooshee bla-dvd.html
But they can put the server anywhere on earth, or in international waters, so there's no way the RIAA/MPAA can shut it down without resorting to vigilante tactics.
I wouldn't be suprised if the RIAA/MPAA IP Nazis actually hired some mercenaries to go into estonia or vanatu and kick pirates' asses. Who's going to stop them, the UN? *laugh*
There's no way in hell the US will take military action against a country because people in that country are violating US copyright laws. That would be like sending the DEA into Amsterdam to arrest people who smoke pot (legally) there. Our laws do not apply to other countries, and attempting to enforce our laws in other countries completely denies the sovreignty of other countries. If the US did that, it would in effect be a global tyrant, ruling other nations from afar without giving them any representation in congress. Rather like what Britain did to the colonies. Forcing other countries to pay the Microsoft Tax, etc, would in effect be taxation without representation, because they didn't have any say in the US laws governing microsoft, and they don't have much choice but to use Mindows.
Even if they lose every single lawsuit, they can't be shut down. The US or Australia have no way of enforcing anything in Vanatu or Estonia. Besides, Kazaalite can continue to operate even if Sharman were nuked off the face of the earth. Hell, BearShare and other gnutella clients are even more decentralised than Kazaa. What they're doing is like trying to kill a fungus by killing the cell that started it. Going after the companies that make the software is useless, because people will continue to use and distribute the software long after the parent company is gone. Eventually, they'll realize that the ONLY way to stop piracy is to go after individuals and use scare tactics, so the RIAA/MPAA will go on a reign of terror arresting college students who share too many MP3s, movies, etc.
I'm still waiting for an "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" crop circle. Why hasn't anybody done it yet?
Next thing you know they'll try wearing pants in space instead of those silly jumpsuits.
Then they'd sue you for discriminatory denial of service or somesuch nonsense.
A DOS-based game console is like a kerosine-based beverage.