All the TVs in this house have off buttons on the front that power it off so that all it does is remember settings and a standby mode on the controler.
The Foxtel (Sattelite TV) box is always on and sucking juice. There is a "off" mode but all that really does is shuts down the video output, its still awake and listening to the sattelite (so it can download firmware updates, recieve encryption keys for the channels you are subscribed to and so on as well as notify the central server how much to bill you for PPV etc)
The rootkit (among other things) hides all files matching $sys$*.* (including itself) as well as various registry keys. It (via the DRM) installs (without telling you) a filter driver right deep into the windows CDROM drivers (they dont tell you how to uninstall it and if you remove it, it can screw up your CDROM drive) Plus, it reports to sony & co various things (naturally, sony wont tell you exactly what they are or why sony is collecting them).
In my book, this has all the properties of spyware/malware & should be identified as such (and removed properly) by anti-virus and anti-spyware programs.
The right way to avoid this kind of negative PR etc in the future is to: A.Dont attempt to hide any DRM or copy protection that is installed. B.Tell people upfront about it and give them the option to either install it and play the CD or not install it and not play the CD on their PC (something like "This CD is copy protected and requires software installed on your computer in order for it to function on a PC. The software does . If you do not wish to install the software, this CD can still be played on a regular CD player." with an ok/cancel button would work) C.Make it possible to uninstall the software completly and cleanly (with an attached "if you choose to uninstall this software, any copy protected audio CDs will no longer play on this computer" or something)
That way, people can see that its installing this software and exactly what the software does (e.g. "The software includes drivers designed to detect when an attempt is made to copy a copy protected CD with CD copying software." or whatever") and can uninstall it later if they like.
Anyone smart enough to know that you dont have to install the software in order to use the CD (and that not installing it allows you to rip it and defeat the copy protection) is smart enough to know how to bypass the installer (turn off autorun, hold down the shift key, terminate the installer before it installs anything, rip it using an alternative OS that doesnt install the protection software etc etc).
Anyone else (i.e. the people who dont know much about ripping CDs beoynd how to use the ripping program included with their fancy new MP3 player who the DRM is designed to thwart) is going to blindly click ok when the sony installer says "if you want to play the CD on your computer, you need this software" and get the DRM anyway.
The smart people know how to get around it and avoid it (and the rootkit does nothing to stop these people) and the dumb people will install it anyway no matter what it says. So there is no need for sony to use techniques to hide the program and drivers. Or to hide what the program does. Or to make it impossible to uninstall. (again, the smart people will be able to avoid installing it in the first place and the dumb people will believe the "if you remove this, the copy protected CDs wont work on this computer anymore" spiel from sony)
In any case, I havent bought any sony music products recently so I can feel good about not supporting this crap (or does buying sony DVDs mean you are supporting this crap too...?)
Firstly, having SPAM/DOS attacks going out of your network cant be good for PR or business. But more to the point, having this stuff on their network spewing data chews up bandwidth (and bandwidth isnt free)
A good place to start is for ISPs to block ports known to be used by these zombies (e.g. the port that the "owners" of the zombie network use to send commands/targets/spam messages etc to the zombies). Blocking these ports probobly wouldnt cost very much and would (in theory) stop the zombies from actually being given any instructions.
Thats just lame. Why cant we have a world where stupid laws like that dont exist and cool contests like this can be open to all the world instead of a chosen few.
Although I suppose if there were no laws whatsoever, there would be nothing to stop unscruplous companies from running contests and not giving any prizes. Or to stop companies moving to places like the bahamas or other tax havens to avoid paying the gambling/lottery taxes on their big prize payouts.
Just tax people based on the state the work took place in.
If someone is telecommuting from california to new york, they pay california income tax. And so on.
The downside to this is that anyone who is in a position to do so will try to find a way to telecommute from a state with no income tax (unless they are already working in such a state).
Australia has a much simpler tax system. We have a federal income tax and a federal GST thats applied to almost all goods and services.
The states get given money by the federal government (although how much each state should get is always a sore point:) and they dont have (or need) their own income taxes or consumption taxes.
Even the warez channels suck (assuming you can find something to download, you end up in a queue with about 5000 other people). At least with p2p, you can just leave it running and it will download eventually. Plus with p2p, you can pause it (and shut down the PC, reboot, close the program, whatever) and come back later and it will continue where you left off.
Oh and does anyone know of an IRC client for windows that is open source and which has good DCC functionality including DCC resume?
These days on most channels (for example #C, #C++ and #winprog on efnet) people paste their code (and things like error messages, output dumps etc) using a paste server like http://www.rafb.net/paste/
I am in australia and (at the time) had my own phone line with Telstra. I wanted to change it to AAPT because AAPT were cheaper. Due to some issue somewhere the phone number was mixed up so I ended up recieving bills for someone elses phone number. (what tipped me off was that it listed calls to 13 numbers even though at the time it was only used for internet dialup and had never had a phone plugged into it) In this case, its AAPTs fault for not checking that all the pieces of ID provided to them match up (phone number, address, telstra customer number or whatever it is etc)
Remember that Tengen were actually part of Atari and as such, the Tetris and Gauntlet ports for the NES were actually direcly ported from the atari arcade machines.
Firstly, I would use economic incentives to encourage people not to drive (for example tolls and licence fees like singapore has) And also subsidies to provide even more incentive for people to use alternatives (e.g. make public transport cheaper)
I would also invest in more public transport options including more trains and busses to the places people actually live, work and go to.
But even given this, there are people who will drive a car. So, the trick is also to get them to drive more fuel efficient cars. The answer is to have a fuel tax or emissions tax so that cars that use more fuel and spit out more emissions have higher tax (e.g. vehicle registration). And make these rules apply to the big tank SUVs and pickups just like they do to all the other cars.
Firstly, I would hold SUVs and pickups to much stricter standards for emission and fuel economy. (people are driving SUVs instead of station wagons, vans and people movers because SUVs dont have the emissions and fuel economy taxes and rules as the station wagons etc). I am not a car designer so I dont know if this would actually be possible or how much good it would do but getting people to buy more fuel-efficient cars (via making the less fuel-efficient SUVs more expensive) has gotta have some benifit. I dont know whats out there in the market right now but I am sure detroit can come up with cars that have enough cargo and passenger space for the "soccer moms" AND fuel-efficent engines.
Secondly, I would encourage people to use alternatives to cars as much as possible. Such as: Walking Riding a bicycle Riding a motorcycle Riding a scooter (either the foot powered kind or the motorised kind they drive in italy etc) Riding a Segway Using other foot powered or motorised car alternatives (such as rollerskates/blades) Taking busses Taking trains or other forms of public transport (e.g. monorail, subway etc)
Thirdly, I would encourage more people (and businesses) to use more telecommuning and working from home (which means people dont need to drive their poluting cars to work as much).
Microsoft wants people using IIS so they can lock people (and their web apps) into things like ASP and ASP.NET.
If they supported Apache, people could use the new windows Apache now and then move to the linux Apache later when they feel comfortable enough.
As for packamge management, something based on the sucessfull Microsoft Windows Installer (i.e. *.msi files) would probobly work.
So you would download a.msi file with the right special settings and options and it could install itself (without too much user interaction) similar to how a RPM or other such package installs on linux.
Our government seens to be copying everything from america these days (cf FTA etc) so hopefully they will follow suit and require finantial institutions here in oz to do this.
Although in any case, my new account is with an insititution thats probobly too small to be worth trying to phish (Police & Nurses Credit Society)
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The same is true of australian TVs.
All the TVs in this house have off buttons on the front that power it off so that all it does is remember settings and a standby mode on the controler.
The Foxtel (Sattelite TV) box is always on and sucking juice.
There is a "off" mode but all that really does is shuts down the video output, its still awake and listening to the sattelite (so it can download firmware updates, recieve encryption keys for the channels you are subscribed to and so on as well as notify the central server how much to bill you for PPV etc)
Something similar happened with the Sony PSP.
Sony put manufacturing focus onto the slimline PS2 initally and deliberatly underproduced PSPs.
The rootkit (among other things) hides all files matching $sys$*.* (including itself) as well as various registry keys.
It (via the DRM) installs (without telling you) a filter driver right deep into the windows CDROM drivers (they dont tell you how to uninstall it and if you remove it, it can screw up your CDROM drive)
Plus, it reports to sony & co various things (naturally, sony wont tell you exactly what they are or why sony is collecting them).
In my book, this has all the properties of spyware/malware & should be identified as such (and removed properly) by anti-virus and anti-spyware programs.
The right way to avoid this kind of negative PR etc in the future is to:
A.Dont attempt to hide any DRM or copy protection that is installed.
B.Tell people upfront about it and give them the option to either install it and play the CD or not install it and not play the CD on their PC (something like "This CD is copy protected and requires software installed on your computer in order for it to function on a PC. The software does . If you do not wish to install the software, this CD can still be played on a regular CD player." with an ok/cancel button would work)
C.Make it possible to uninstall the software completly and cleanly (with an attached "if you choose to uninstall this software, any copy protected audio CDs will no longer play on this computer" or something)
That way, people can see that its installing this software and exactly what the software does (e.g. "The software includes drivers designed to detect when an attempt is made to copy a copy protected CD with CD copying software." or whatever") and can uninstall it later if they like.
Anyone smart enough to know that you dont have to install the software in order to use the CD (and that not installing it allows you to rip it and defeat the copy protection) is smart enough to know how to bypass the installer (turn off autorun, hold down the shift key, terminate the installer before it installs anything, rip it using an alternative OS that doesnt install the protection software etc etc).
Anyone else (i.e. the people who dont know much about ripping CDs beoynd how to use the ripping program included with their fancy new MP3 player who the DRM is designed to thwart) is going to blindly click ok when the sony installer says "if you want to play the CD on your computer, you need this software" and get the DRM anyway.
The smart people know how to get around it and avoid it (and the rootkit does nothing to stop these people) and the dumb people will install it anyway no matter what it says. So there is no need for sony to use techniques to hide the program and drivers. Or to hide what the program does.
Or to make it impossible to uninstall. (again, the smart people will be able to avoid installing it in the first place and the dumb people will believe the "if you remove this, the copy protected CDs wont work on this computer anymore" spiel from sony)
In any case, I havent bought any sony music products recently so I can feel good about not supporting this crap (or does buying sony DVDs mean you are supporting this crap too...?)
Firstly, having SPAM/DOS attacks going out of your network cant be good for PR or business.
But more to the point, having this stuff on their network spewing data chews up bandwidth (and bandwidth isnt free)
A good place to start is for ISPs to block ports known to be used by these zombies (e.g. the port that the "owners" of the zombie network use to send commands/targets/spam messages etc to the zombies). Blocking these ports probobly wouldnt cost very much and would (in theory) stop the zombies from actually being given any instructions.
Oh and by the way, this is a Bsc in Computer Science (for all those who dont think computer science is real science)
I have done a computer science degree and I never had to do any actual science courses (there was a maths course but thats about it).
Although I am in australia so that might be different to the US system.
Thats just lame.
Why cant we have a world where stupid laws like that dont exist and cool contests like this can be open to all the world instead of a chosen few.
Although I suppose if there were no laws whatsoever, there would be nothing to stop unscruplous companies from running contests and not giving any prizes.
Or to stop companies moving to places like the bahamas or other tax havens to avoid paying the gambling/lottery taxes on their big prize payouts.
WTF? Chocolate in a health food store? I thought chocolate was unhealthy...
What about Cadbury and Mars (who make mars, m&m, snickers and other things I think). Both are (at least in australia) quite large.
Just tax people based on the state the work took place in.
:) and they dont have (or need) their own income taxes or consumption taxes.
If someone is telecommuting from california to new york, they pay california income tax. And so on.
The downside to this is that anyone who is in a position to do so will try to find a way to telecommute from a state with no income tax (unless they are already working in such a state).
Australia has a much simpler tax system. We have a federal income tax and a federal GST thats applied to almost all goods and services.
The states get given money by the federal government (although how much each state should get is always a sore point
mirc is not Open Source (which is what I said in my original post)
Even the warez channels suck (assuming you can find something to download, you end up in a queue with about 5000 other people). At least with p2p, you can just leave it running and it will download eventually.
Plus with p2p, you can pause it (and shut down the PC, reboot, close the program, whatever) and come back later and it will continue where you left off.
Oh and does anyone know of an IRC client for windows that is open source and which has good DCC functionality including DCC resume?
These days on most channels (for example #C, #C++ and #winprog on efnet) people paste their code (and things like error messages, output dumps etc) using a paste server like http://www.rafb.net/paste/
I am in australia and (at the time) had my own phone line with Telstra.
I wanted to change it to AAPT because AAPT were cheaper.
Due to some issue somewhere the phone number was mixed up so I ended up recieving bills for someone elses phone number. (what tipped me off was that it listed calls to 13 numbers even though at the time it was only used for internet dialup and had never had a phone plugged into it)
In this case, its AAPTs fault for not checking that all the pieces of ID provided to them match up (phone number, address, telstra customer number or whatever it is etc)
Both Mac (through aliases) and Unix had symbolic links since forever. Why did it take microsoft so long to catch up?
Was it just microsoft not seeing the need to implement this or was there some technical/usability issue involved?
Here in australia, I see Speedy Gonzalez cartoons all the time on Boomerang.
What happened is that the licenced gauntlett was released before Tengen decided to break away, go unlicenced and clone the 10NES chip.
Remember that Tengen were actually part of Atari and as such, the Tetris and Gauntlet ports for the NES were actually direcly ported from the atari arcade machines.
I am going to treat this as vaporware just like every other "shuttle replacement" NASA has come up.
Is that or ? (capital Alpha or small Alpha)
Firstly, I would use economic incentives to encourage people not to drive (for example tolls and licence fees like singapore has)
And also subsidies to provide even more incentive for people to use alternatives (e.g. make public transport cheaper)
I would also invest in more public transport options including more trains and busses to the places people actually live, work and go to.
But even given this, there are people who will drive a car. So, the trick is also to get them to drive more fuel efficient cars. The answer is to have a fuel tax or emissions tax so that cars that use more fuel and spit out more emissions have higher tax (e.g. vehicle registration). And make these rules apply to the big tank SUVs and pickups just like they do to all the other cars.
Firstly, I would hold SUVs and pickups to much stricter standards for emission and fuel economy. (people are driving SUVs instead of station wagons, vans and people movers because SUVs dont have the emissions and fuel economy taxes and rules as the station wagons etc).
I am not a car designer so I dont know if this would actually be possible or how much good it would do but getting people to buy more fuel-efficient cars (via making the less fuel-efficient SUVs more expensive) has gotta have some benifit.
I dont know whats out there in the market right now but I am sure detroit can come up with cars that have enough cargo and passenger space for the "soccer moms" AND fuel-efficent engines.
Secondly, I would encourage people to use alternatives to cars as much as possible.
Such as:
Walking
Riding a bicycle
Riding a motorcycle
Riding a scooter (either the foot powered kind or the motorised kind they drive in italy etc)
Riding a Segway
Using other foot powered or motorised car alternatives (such as rollerskates/blades)
Taking busses
Taking trains or other forms of public transport (e.g. monorail, subway etc)
Thirdly, I would encourage more people (and businesses) to use more telecommuning and working from home (which means people dont need to drive their poluting cars to work as much).
Microsoft wants people using IIS so they can lock people (and their web apps) into things like ASP and ASP.NET.
.msi file with the right special settings and options and it could install itself (without too much user interaction) similar to how a RPM or other such package installs on linux.
If they supported Apache, people could use the new windows Apache now and then move to the linux Apache later when they feel comfortable enough.
As for packamge management, something based on the sucessfull Microsoft Windows Installer (i.e. *.msi files) would probobly work.
So you would download a
Our government seens to be copying everything from america these days (cf FTA etc) so hopefully they will follow suit and require finantial institutions here in oz to do this.
Although in any case, my new account is with an insititution thats probobly too small to be worth trying to phish (Police & Nurses Credit Society)
And one that wouldnt require all this new extra effort is to just require that all games rated by the ESRB as M or AO are not available to minors.
Problem solved WITHOUT the need to stick big "adults only" stickers on the boxes.