Whats the deal with this whole "lease" thing anyway? Here in australia, I only know of people that buy a car outright or people who hire one one from somewhere like Hertz or Avis, not people getting cars on a "lease" basis (ditto with those GM electric cars from a while back)
Dont forget the Super Gameboy and the Gameboy Player. The first one lets you play GB/GBC carts on a SNES and the second lets you play GBA (and GB/GBC?) carts on a GameCube (I would be VERY surprised if nintendo doesnt make one for the Revolution though)
Basicly, in order to use the computer, you need both a security card and a password. Anytime you remove the card, the computer locks. Then, when you come back, you put the card back in and type in the password.
Would be a good solution for increasing security at big corporations (because its much harder to get both the card and the password) and it would reduce the problem of people with post-it note passwords. Hopefully such a system would reduce the need to have manditory periodic password changing (allthough I still havent seen any evidence that it actually makes things more secure assuming you have good password rules in the first place)
You could also combine the security card for the PC with the card that is used to enter the building (my workplace has them and I am sure its not the only one)
Why dont we see groups on the other side of the coin making huge piles of noise too?
For example, we see the anti-gay movement making big noise about how gay relationships and gay marage and gay people adopting kids and stuff is all bad, why doesnt the other side make just as much noise arguing the opposite. Why dont we see the groups like the farmers here in australia being attacked by PETA for "mistreating" their sheep fighting back with just as much noise (i.e. getting out there into the media with just as much "no we are not mistreating these sheep" noise?
Why arent we seeing the euthanasia movements worldwide making big amounts of noise in support of voluntary euthanasia (which is something I support) Why arent we seeing as much noise from the pro-abortion groups (which I also support) as from the anti-abortion groups?
With respect to global warming, its simple, if the government says "global warming IS a problem" (which is what the scientists want, they want the governments of the world and the people of the world to recognize global warming as a problem), then everyone will start calling for solutions. The only solution thats worth considering is a reduction in the amount of polution we emit into the atmosphere. And, that means big $$$.
Basicly, its cheaper for the big companies that create all this polution to buy off the governments of the world (or at least in america) so they will pretend that all the polution they are creating isnt anywhere near as serious as the scientists say it is than it is for them to actually clean up and polute less.
Regardless of the actual science behind global warming and the whole debate about how serious it is etc etc, there arent too many scientists that would argue that reducing the amount of polution that we produce (e.g. all that smoke comming from all those factories, power plants etc) is a bad thing (and they are only paid to say that by the big companies who dont want to stop producing all that polution)
Would it be possible to do something similar to what they talk about in all the sci-fi novels where they grow various plants including alges in hydroponic tanks (or something similar) and then use the energy stored in the results as a fuel?
Why do banks and others continue to insist on support for such old browsers anyway? Does anyone have any actual evidence to support the theory of "We need to support version 4 browsers because our customers use them"? Is it not true that MORE people are using current-version alternatives (i.e. Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Konquer, Safari, Netsacpe 8, Camino etc) than are stuck with dinosaurs like Netscape Communicator and Internet Explorer 4?
Or if they do use email, they should use a digital signature that can be traced back to the bank and 100% verified.
A big education campaign would also help (i.e. "never trust emails claiming to be from this bank" or "only trust emails claiming to come from this bank if the digital signature was valid" along with "never follow links in any emails claiming to be from this bank" and "If the email is legitimate, the same information will be available by logging into the online banking and checking the messages")
If I got an email claiming to be from my bank, I would probobly delete it. If the information was geniune, it will appear on my online banking and/or a physical letter too.
I have never been with a bank that uses email for communication. All banks I have been with use physical mail or messages sent through the online banking.
Just teach copyright. Tell them why downloading a song you havent paid for is bad. Tell them why copying text from an article on the internet and pasting it into a school report (without permission from the creator of the article) is bad. etc. The copyright cartels are focusing too much on HOW copyright infringment happens (i.e. p2p etc) and not on the fact that ALL copyright infringment is illegal already and that focusing on p2p doesnt make it any more or less illegal.
From what I understand, the RSA patent has expired now. So, why havent we seen people working on a simple to use way to do encrypted email now that they dont have to pay RSA for the patent?
The problem with HHGTG is that the humor in the books (and radio plays and TV series etc) is very much british. Unfortunatly, hollywood took the humor and tried to "americanize" it which resulted in the movie we got.
I hope that if they ever do a Red Dwarf movie, its done RIGHT (and not "americanized"
Look at Total Anhilation. It is one of the best RTS games of all time and has elements that were (and still are) groundbreaking. AND it was a hot seller (I believe). So, why hasnt anyone pinched all these good ideas from it yet?
Forget all that DRM stuff, just embed identifying details and personal marks into the media file. If its posted on kaazza, the media corps can find out who did it.
Well firstly, there was that Tetris game I had on my Casio CFX-9850G graphics calculator:) But there were also various games (Grannys Garden comes to mind) on the BBC micros they had at primary school. Then they got macs. Plus all the people playing Chuck Yeagers Air Combat on the macs at high school and the people playing a mario rip-off on the PCs.
If you had a big enough dish, you could probobly listen to, capture and decode the raw images from mars yourself (and because they are created by NASA, there is no copyright issues involved)
The earliest computer I can remember our family owning is an Olivetti of some sort. After that, we had various PCs like a 286 and stuff. The first machine I remember that was mine was a 486SLC33 (which I believe was a clone chip) and since then I have moved through a 486DX266, a HyperRace 586 upgrade chip, a Pentium 166 MMX, a clone 300MHz chip that was one of the worst computer-purchasing decisions I have ever made then on to a Pentium III 800, a Pentium IV 2.4 and now I have a Pentium IV 3.4 with HT technology.
My university had a site-licence for a bunch of MS products (including windows & office) and students/staff could get a cheap copy of that stuff as part of the licence (cheaper even than a normal academic copy)
They also had something called MSDNAA which meant that people doing certain units could get free copies of things like Visual Studio and Access and stuff (not sure the exact details though)
And, where I work, they have some kind of worldwide site licence for things like windows and office.
What you folks in the US need is a law similar to the Australian Trade Practices Act and an agency similar to the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission). Here in australia, if a store told you that you had to buy the bundle even though they were advertising the stand-alone unit, they would be hit by the ACCC for it. (if they sold the bundle and advertized only the bundle at the price of the bundle, thats fine since they never said you could buy the stand-alone unit from them)
If your car dealer told you you could only buy a new car if you also bought $x worth of fuel or servicing that were only valid at certain locations, you would have every right to complain.
Or if your supermarket told you you could only buy brand x milk if you also bought brand x bread too, you would have every right to complain. Same thing here.
Dont stop at Sega consoles, how about arcades (from Sega or otherwise) Imagine being able to play the arcade version of Outrun or Afterburner or Daytona USA directly through accurate emulation on the Revolution or XBOX 360 or PS3...
I challenge the CIA, DHS, FBI, ASIO, MI5, MI6, AFP etc etc etc to show one valid example or case study where having biometric passports, manditory ID cards or any of these other measures will stop a terrorist from getting into the country (be it USA, UK, AUS or wherever) and carrying out an attack. (i.e. an example where a terrorist would be caught because of these measures but would have gotten through without them)
My money goes directly into my bank account with no need to show ID or anything. Also, I can withdraw it from an ATM (again, no ID other than the bank card). I can also use EFTPOS which lets me take money out of my account directly without needing to show any ID. (or dont they have that in america) I did have to show ID when I opened the account though.
Basicly, the email addresses attatched to these phishing scams are one of 3 things: 1.An address comming from a domain name owned by target (i.e. bank etc) 2.An address comming from a domain name that looks like its owned by the target (e.g. www.paypalsupport.com) or 3.Something totally unrelated to the bank
If everyone (both the pishing targets and the email providers) implemented GOOD SPF record checking, it should stop point 1 Point 2 can be stopped by enforcing the trademark and forcing the domain name to be handed over to the trademark owner (who can then enforce SPF on it)
It wont stop all phishing scams (i.e. those that come from or something like that) but it will certainly help.
Unfortunatly, even the biggest phishing targets like amazon, ebay, paypal etc dont implement proper SPF records that say "These machines are the only machines to send email for this domain" (they implement a default "permit all" and not a default "deny all" unfortunatly)
Also, banks need to actually implement better security, if banks had decent security, phishing would be useless. Here is a security model that would be very difficult for a phisher to defeat: You open the webpage of your bank and go to the login page. The banks computers then calculate a random number and store it along with the IP address that made the request. The login webpage displays a box for the username, a box for the password and another box for a hash. You enter the random number the bank computer generated into a little calculator like device that contains another random number generated by the bank and stored in the banks computers as well as the device. Then, the device uses a hash algorithim (one designed so that there is no value of that will result in an output value of or that if one exists, it is different for each value of ) to combine the login page number and the stored number. The result is entered into the login page along with the username and password.
The bank then pulls the secret device number from its database and checks that the hash matches. Also, if the IP address of the machine making the requests to the banks webpages doesnt match with the IP stored alongside the session ID, it will assume its fake and terminate.
Now, when you want to transfer money to someone not on your "approved payee" list or add someone to your "approved payee" list, you get another random hash which you have to enter into the little calculator. To prevent the phisher from simply tricking you into typing this second hash in (i.e. transfering all your money to them instead of transfering the amount you wanted to transfer to who you wanted to transfer it to), you would have to enter the amount being transfered into the calculator device too with it being used as part of the hash.
Anyone who is dumb enough to press "Funds Transfer" then then doesnt deserve to be using a computer, much less the internet.
A big education campaign by the banks would help too For example, include a phamphlet with the next bank statement or other junk mail that gives a clear warning about phishing scams and to never ever trust any email pretending to be from the bank no matter what. Also it would tell you to change your password or contact your bank if you think you have been hacked or phished. If the phamphlet said in big bold letters something like "Warning: Your money could be at risk from hackers, read this to find out how to prevent it" and was sent out to every bank customer (or every bank customer with online banking enabled on their account), people would probobly read it.
Slashdot Mirror
Whats the deal with this whole "lease" thing anyway?
Here in australia, I only know of people that buy a car outright or people who hire one one from somewhere like Hertz or Avis, not people getting cars on a "lease" basis (ditto with those GM electric cars from a while back)
Dont forget the Super Gameboy and the Gameboy Player.
The first one lets you play GB/GBC carts on a SNES and the second lets you play GBA (and GB/GBC?) carts on a GameCube (I would be VERY surprised if nintendo doesnt make one for the Revolution though)
Combine both a security card and a password.
Basicly, in order to use the computer, you need both a security card and a password. Anytime you remove the card, the computer locks. Then, when you come back, you put the card back in and type in the password.
Would be a good solution for increasing security at big corporations (because its much harder to get both the card and the password) and it would reduce the problem of people with post-it note passwords. Hopefully such a system would reduce the need to have manditory periodic password changing (allthough I still havent seen any evidence that it actually makes things more secure assuming you have good password rules in the first place)
You could also combine the security card for the PC with the card that is used to enter the building (my workplace has them and I am sure its not the only one)
Why dont we see groups on the other side of the coin making huge piles of noise too?
For example, we see the anti-gay movement making big noise about how gay relationships and gay marage and gay people adopting kids and stuff is all bad, why doesnt the other side make just as much noise arguing the opposite.
Why dont we see the groups like the farmers here in australia being attacked by PETA for "mistreating" their sheep fighting back with just as much noise (i.e. getting out there into the media with just as much "no we are not mistreating these sheep" noise?
Why arent we seeing the euthanasia movements worldwide making big amounts of noise in support of voluntary euthanasia (which is something I support)
Why arent we seeing as much noise from the pro-abortion groups (which I also support) as from the anti-abortion groups?
With respect to global warming, its simple, if the government says "global warming IS a problem" (which is what the scientists want, they want the governments of the world and the people of the world to recognize global warming as a problem), then everyone will start calling for solutions. The only solution thats worth considering is a reduction in the amount of polution we emit into the atmosphere. And, that means big $$$.
Basicly, its cheaper for the big companies that create all this polution to buy off the governments of the world (or at least in america) so they will pretend that all the polution they are creating isnt anywhere near as serious as the scientists say it is than it is for them to actually clean up and polute less.
Regardless of the actual science behind global warming and the whole debate about how serious it is etc etc, there arent too many scientists that would argue that reducing the amount of polution that we produce (e.g. all that smoke comming from all those factories, power plants etc) is a bad thing (and they are only paid to say that by the big companies who dont want to stop producing all that polution)
Would it be possible to do something similar to what they talk about in all the sci-fi novels where they grow various plants including alges in hydroponic tanks (or something similar) and then use the energy stored in the results as a fuel?
Why do banks and others continue to insist on support for such old browsers anyway?
Does anyone have any actual evidence to support the theory of "We need to support version 4 browsers because our customers use them"?
Is it not true that MORE people are using current-version alternatives (i.e. Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Konquer, Safari, Netsacpe 8, Camino etc) than are stuck with dinosaurs like Netscape Communicator and Internet Explorer 4?
Or if they do use email, they should use a digital signature that can be traced back to the bank and 100% verified.
A big education campaign would also help (i.e. "never trust emails claiming to be from this bank" or "only trust emails claiming to come from this bank if the digital signature was valid" along with "never follow links in any emails claiming to be from this bank" and "If the email is legitimate, the same information will be available by logging into the online banking and checking the messages")
If I got an email claiming to be from my bank, I would probobly delete it. If the information was geniune, it will appear on my online banking and/or a physical letter too.
I have never been with a bank that uses email for communication.
All banks I have been with use physical mail or messages sent through the online banking.
Just teach copyright.
Tell them why downloading a song you havent paid for is bad.
Tell them why copying text from an article on the internet and pasting it into a school report (without permission from the creator of the article) is bad.
etc.
The copyright cartels are focusing too much on HOW copyright infringment happens (i.e. p2p etc) and not on the fact that ALL copyright infringment is illegal already and that focusing on p2p doesnt make it any more or less illegal.
From what I understand, the RSA patent has expired now.
So, why havent we seen people working on a simple to use way to do encrypted email now that they dont have to pay RSA for the patent?
Why cant they just licence MSN, AIM, ICQ and Yahoo and put them on phones instead.
:)
Oh yeah, because they cant use those protocols as another way to suck money out of clueless users
The problem with HHGTG is that the humor in the books (and radio plays and TV series etc) is very much british.
Unfortunatly, hollywood took the humor and tried to "americanize" it which resulted in the movie we got.
I hope that if they ever do a Red Dwarf movie, its done RIGHT (and not "americanized"
Look at Total Anhilation. It is one of the best RTS games of all time and has elements that were (and still are) groundbreaking. AND it was a hot seller (I believe). So, why hasnt anyone pinched all these good ideas from it yet?
Forget all that DRM stuff, just embed identifying details and personal marks into the media file. If its posted on kaazza, the media corps can find out who did it.
Well firstly, there was that Tetris game I had on my Casio CFX-9850G graphics calculator :)
But there were also various games (Grannys Garden comes to mind) on the BBC micros they had at primary school. Then they got macs.
Plus all the people playing Chuck Yeagers Air Combat on the macs at high school and the people playing a mario rip-off on the PCs.
If you had a big enough dish, you could probobly listen to, capture and decode the raw images from mars yourself (and because they are created by NASA, there is no copyright issues involved)
The earliest computer I can remember our family owning is an Olivetti of some sort. After that, we had various PCs like a 286 and stuff.
The first machine I remember that was mine was a 486SLC33 (which I believe was a clone chip) and since then I have moved through a 486DX266, a HyperRace 586 upgrade chip, a Pentium 166 MMX, a clone 300MHz chip that was one of the worst computer-purchasing decisions I have ever made then on to a Pentium III 800, a Pentium IV 2.4 and now I have a Pentium IV 3.4 with HT technology.
My university had a site-licence for a bunch of MS products (including windows & office) and students/staff could get a cheap copy of that stuff as part of the licence (cheaper even than a normal academic copy)
They also had something called MSDNAA which meant that people doing certain units could get free copies of things like Visual Studio and Access and stuff (not sure the exact details though)
And, where I work, they have some kind of worldwide site licence for things like windows and office.
What you folks in the US need is a law similar to the Australian Trade Practices Act and an agency similar to the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission). Here in australia, if a store told you that you had to buy the bundle even though they were advertising the stand-alone unit, they would be hit by the ACCC for it. (if they sold the bundle and advertized only the bundle at the price of the bundle, thats fine since they never said you could buy the stand-alone unit from them)
If your car dealer told you you could only buy a new car if you also bought $x worth of fuel or servicing that were only valid at certain locations, you would have every right to complain.
Or if your supermarket told you you could only buy brand x milk if you also bought brand x bread too, you would have every right to complain.
Same thing here.
Dont stop at Sega consoles, how about arcades (from Sega or otherwise)
Imagine being able to play the arcade version of Outrun or Afterburner or Daytona USA directly through accurate emulation on the Revolution or XBOX 360 or PS3...
I challenge the CIA, DHS, FBI, ASIO, MI5, MI6, AFP etc etc etc to show one valid example or case study where having biometric passports, manditory ID cards or any of these other measures will stop a terrorist from getting into the country (be it USA, UK, AUS or wherever) and carrying out an attack. (i.e. an example where a terrorist would be caught because of these measures but would have gotten through without them)
My money goes directly into my bank account with no need to show ID or anything.
Also, I can withdraw it from an ATM (again, no ID other than the bank card).
I can also use EFTPOS which lets me take money out of my account directly without needing to show any ID. (or dont they have that in america)
I did have to show ID when I opened the account though.
Basicly, the email addresses attatched to these phishing scams are one of 3 things:
1.An address comming from a domain name owned by target (i.e. bank etc)
2.An address comming from a domain name that looks like its owned by the target (e.g. www.paypalsupport.com)
or 3.Something totally unrelated to the bank
If everyone (both the pishing targets and the email providers) implemented GOOD SPF record checking, it should stop point 1
Point 2 can be stopped by enforcing the trademark and forcing the domain name to be handed over to the trademark owner (who can then enforce SPF on it)
It wont stop all phishing scams (i.e. those that come from or something like that) but it will certainly help.
Unfortunatly, even the biggest phishing targets like amazon, ebay, paypal etc dont implement proper SPF records that say "These machines are the only machines to send email for this domain" (they implement a default "permit all" and not a default "deny all" unfortunatly)
Also, banks need to actually implement better security, if banks had decent security, phishing would be useless.
Here is a security model that would be very difficult for a phisher to defeat:
You open the webpage of your bank and go to the login page. The banks computers then calculate a random number and store it along with the IP address that made the request. The login webpage displays a box for the username, a box for the password and another box for a hash. You enter the random number the bank computer generated into a little calculator like device that contains another random number generated by the bank and stored in the banks computers as well as the device. Then, the device uses a hash algorithim (one designed so that there is no value of that will result in an output value of or that if one exists, it is different for each value of ) to combine the login page number and the stored number.
The result is entered into the login page along with the username and password.
The bank then pulls the secret device number from its database and checks that the hash matches. Also, if the IP address of the machine making the requests to the banks webpages doesnt match with the IP stored alongside the session ID, it will assume its fake and terminate.
Now, when you want to transfer money to someone not on your "approved payee" list or add someone to your "approved payee" list, you get another random hash which you have to enter into the little calculator. To prevent the phisher from simply tricking you into typing this second hash in (i.e. transfering all your money to them instead of transfering the amount you wanted to transfer to who you wanted to transfer it to), you would have to enter the amount being transfered into the calculator device too with it being used as part of the hash.
Anyone who is dumb enough to press "Funds Transfer" then then doesnt deserve to be using a computer, much less the internet.
A big education campaign by the banks would help too For example, include a phamphlet with the next bank statement or other junk mail that gives a clear warning about phishing scams and to never ever trust any email pretending to be from the bank no matter what. Also it would tell you to change your password or contact your bank if you think you have been hacked or phished.
If the phamphlet said in big bold letters something like "Warning: Your money could be at risk from hackers, read this to find out how to prevent it" and was sent out to every bank customer (or every bank customer with online banking enabled on their account), people would probobly read it.