Depends on how the bank does authentication. But yes, if the bank is insecure enough that you can have a script log in for you with no human actions, its insecure enough that its vulnerable to phishing attempts.
The US needs to throw a bunch of money subsidizing manufacturing of stuff (toys, clothing, shoes, household goods etc) in Mexico.
Has several benifits: 1.More stuff being made in Mexico means more people are needed to make it which means more jobs for Mexicans and less Mexicans who want to cross the border into the US 2.Less dependance on China as a source for stuff 3.Less risk of "third shift" and IP violations (unlike China where the Chinese government and Chinese companies routienly use trade secrets, proprietary information, patented technology, copyrighted materials, trademarks etc with impunity either to produce bootleg products or to make the home-grown products better, those things dont happen in Mexico as far as I know) 4.The ability for retailers like Wal-Mart to play Chinese and Mexican manufacturers off against each other on pricing (i.e. they can use the price quoted to them from one factory in one country as a bargaining chip against another manufacturer in the other country) 5.Easy access to the US with faster shipping times and lower shipping costs.
Interoperabiliy is a big reason why people may not want Linux.
Many people need to run Outlook for work emails. None of the solutions on Linux that I am aware of support all of the features of Outlook in a way thats 100% compatible with it (and doesnt require the Exchange admin to enable things on the server). Outlook Web Access may be disabled by the admin (and it only works 100% on IE unless it changed last time I looked) leaving the only option being to run Outlook talking directly to the company Exchange server through the VPN.
I have heard statements from a family member who tried OpenOffice.Org (on Windows XP) and was unable to use it as the documents it created/loaded/saved/displayed did not come out the same as they do in Word and therefore Word is the only acceptable option. Many people who have to deal with Word documents are likely be in the same boat.
Other people may have other issues where they need to talk to software, servers and systems and the options for doing so just dont work on Linux as good as they do on Windows (or on Firefox as good as they do on IE)
Google already scans web pages for malware and bad stuff and warns people "this site could be dangerous". If they aren't already running the "bad sites" database against the ad database (and blocking any ads that link to or reference content from a bad page) then they should be. Any ad web site that starts serving malware (either deliberatly or because of a hack) would have their ads removed from display until they fix their site to stop serving malware.
Legitimate-but-hacked sites would therefore have an incentive to keep their sites malware free or risk being blocked from Google Ads.
Not having used anything beyond what comes with my all-in-one router, I wasnt aware of all the firewall options out there.
My specific point was that a dedicated firewall appliance (which might be *nix running on a dedicated PC) or a router with built-in firewall was better than a windows based program and that if you have such a dedicated firewall or router-based firewall, you dont need to run ZoneAlarm, Windows Firewall or any other PC firewall.
Yeah, linux has some good options. But even with Linux, its better to run a standalone firewall solution as a separate locked-down box if you can. (less attack surface if its just a firewall and nothing else)
The number of people who died from Lawn Darts is tiny compared to the total number of Lawn Darts games sold.
As the GP said, the statistics showed you were more likely to get hurt/killed from Horseshoes than from Lawn Darts yet Lawn Darts is banned and Horseshoes is not.
If you are on a small network, get a router with a built-in firewall (even a home all-in-one broadband router is good enough for this) If you are on a larger network, get a proper firewall (e.g CISCO PIX)
And in all cases, run a GOOD anti-virus (that means something OTHER than Norton or McAfee) and keep all your software patched.
If you DO feel the need to run a firewall e.g. if you are connecting over wireless broadband (where you cant put a hardware firewall between you and the network) or if you are on coffee shop or McDonalds WiFi, the windows firewall is good enough for the purpose and doesnt have any of the problems that 3rd party programs like ZoneAlarm or Norton Internet Security has.
Last time I tried a software firewall (Norton Internet Security), it worked GREAT. It did a great job of preventing my internet from working:)
There are already chips out there that can do HDMI with HDCP (e.g. Analog Devices AD9393) if you supply a key. So it should be a matter of using one of these plus a key derived from this intel master key.
Given that the DRM solutions used by most publishers (such as SecuROM, StarForce, Safedisk etc) are produced by third parties, one assumes that producing a game with DRM is more expensive than producing the same game without DRM (both the costs to buy the DRM from a third party and the costs to integrate the DRM). Companies dont usually have teams of guys working on DRM integration (and in fact, companies like Sony probably go out of their way to make the DRM solution EASIER for publishers to integrate in the hope of getting the publishers to use their soltuion vs the other guys solution)
I think publishers like DRM because: 1.It lets them continue to push towards a world where all content requires DRM (no more small guys, only big guys who can get licenses for the DRM) 2.DRM can (and does) make games harder to reverse engineer (which helps with stopping cheaters and in some cases modders) and can allow the games company to use the DMCA as a stick against people cracking their copy protection to get at game data files. 3.Newer DRM solutions are increasingly being aimed at stopping not just piracy but unauthorized resale of ghames (no more second hand games market)
That doesn't explain the Australian cellphone market. We have 3 carriers, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone/3. (We used to have 4 before Vodafone and 3 merged)
Yet we have vigorous competition between the players with carriers offering all kinds of bundles, cheap-on-contract handsets, "free calls to anyone on our network" and other great stuff.
I know one MVNO (who I am likely switching to after my current contract runs out) who will give me $300 worth of value that I can use on everything except international calls, international roaming, premium numbers and up-charge carrier content (yes that includes data) all for $20 per month.
I am Aussie and local calls cost anywhere from 15c on up depending on which carrier and plan you are with (there are some higher end plans that give you unlimited local calls though)
There will always be newer (and still in copyright) pieces of music for orchestras to play. Ask any good film director how important a good orchestra is to his films. Also, just because there is now a copyright-free version of (say) Beethoven's 9th doesn't mean that no orchestra will ever play it again. They havent invented a digital sound recording process that is good enough to replace the glory that is hearing good classical music performed live.
It DOES mean that companies like Naxos who make money selling CDs of classical music will loose sales (not that that's a bad thing IMO)
Unlike a bank (where you have to show proof of ID when you join up) PayPal does not have verified identity information for most of its customers (there are ways to verify and send in photocopies of ID documents etc but its a pain in the ass and usually only done when PayPal says "do it or you wont get your money".
Now, there are laws in the US and elsewhere that force banks to look for suspicious transactions and report them. These laws are designed to detect money laundering and related crimes.
Banks do this by having flags to detect the suspicious transactions (exactly what constitutes a "suspicious transaction" varies from country to country and possibly bank to bank) and then reporting the transaction to the relavent authority using the ID details provided to the bank when the customer signed up for the account.
Because PayPal has no verified identity record for the customer (in the usual case), they cant simply report the "suspicious activity". So they freeze the account until they can verify that it was legit and/or verify the identity of the account holder (so they then have ID details to give to the relavent authorities if required by law)
Why PayPal considers "receiving a small amount of money from a large number of different accounts in a short space of time" as suspicious (and this isn't the first time I have heard of such activity being considered suspicious) and whether any laws in the US, Sweden or elsewhere list such activity as a "suspicious transaction" I dont know but it clearly happens.
Come to Australia. We dont have the civil-liberties violations of the US and EU. And we are building a lightning fast broadband network. With the changes to our government recently, the filter system and mandatory data logging plans are essentially dead. Plus, if you have 3+ years of commercial experience with ASP.NET, J2EE, Oracle, C#, JavaScript and similar web technologies, you should have no problems finding a job (based on all the job ads I see everywhere)
To my mind, if the drivers include source for all the host-side x86 bits including the bit that downloads the blob to the card and the blob in question is suitably licenced then the source code to the secret bits that run on seperate CPUs on the card itself is not required.
What I want to know is why Apple hasn't modified things so that iPhones/iPod touches/iPads will refuse to connect to the App Store unless its running the latest version. And make iTunes refuse to talk to a phone not running the latest version unless its to do an update.
For the original iPhone that cant be upgraded to 4.x, you can detect that phone specifically and refuse to load unless the latest version that runs on it is installed.
Basically force the latest version on everyone no matter what and deny them features if they dont have it. (like how games for PSP wont run unless you have the latest firmware)
If it can be done via the dongle with extra hardware or USB tricks, there is no reason you couldn't presumably make the PS3Jailbreak clones for Palm Pre, N900 etc do whatever this missing piece is.
The officials dont pay attention even when it IS election time (remember the US mid-term elections are comming up soon).
Heck, even if GOD himself came down from heaven, stood in front of congress and asked for an end to draconian copyright and IP policies, the congressmen and senators would STILL favor the large briefcases full of money they get from Disney, Fox, Warner, Paramount, Sony, Universal etc.
But will anyone actually bother to try and implement any solutions?
Answers to childhood obesity: 1.Let the children get more excercise. Kids dont get excercise because all the things kids used to do (and want to do) that would get them more excercise are no longer options. Parents wont let their kids go down to the park anymore (there might be a pedophile hanging around). Parents wont let their kids play organized sport (parents have no time to take the kids to practice in the modern 2-income household). Schools wont let their kids run around and play during breaks (too much risk of the kids injuring themselves and the parents suing the school for $$$).
Gym/PE classes still exist but there is less time devoted to them (and more time devoted to studying for useless standardized tests) Kids WANT to get more excercise by riding skateboards, scooters and the like but everyone has a negative images of skateboarders as "skate punks" (the popular media doesn't help here BTW) and so kids who want to skateboard and have fun have nowhere they can do it without getting in trouble. Kids used to walk to school (or ride bikes) but these days even when they live close to the school, the parents would rather drive them in their car or have them take the school bus.
Back in my day when I was in Primary School, we had mandatory physical excercise every day before school started (the exact form of the excercise varied from day to day). I also walked/rode my bike to school. Thats part of why my generation didnt get fat as kids.
2.Stop feeding the kids junk. There is no reason healthy food has to be hard to buy/make, expensive or "yucky" (as the kids would put it). There are plenty of ways to make cheap healthy food that kids will eat. And it doesn't have to be things that take forever to prepare either.
Around here you can get McDonalds for a family of 4 (burgers, fries, drinks, nuggets) for around AU$20. I can get pasta, mince and sauce for 4 big servings of Spaghetti Bolognese (easy to make, healthier than the McDonalds and something kids are likely to eat) for around AU$15. And there are other options for healthy food that the kids will eat that are even cheaper than that.
3.Ditch the corn (i.e. HFCS). It seems to be almost impossible to live in the US these days and not eat corn products. Corn is in everything. Its in sodas. Its in bread. Its in breakfast cereals. Its in sauces. Heck, its even in various forms of processed meat (so that Hot Dog would contain corn in the bun, corn in the sauce AND corn in the sausage. Plus corn in the XXL soda that goes with it).
There is a lot of evidence from various studies that the use of HFCS has a bigger impact on obesity than the use of sugar (but like the tobacco lobby and tobacco studies, the corn lobby tries to suppress such studies or counter them with FUD)
Microsoft's problem is that unlike OSX where apps generally put things in one place (documents in a documents folder, settings in settings files etc), on Windows, its impossible to know where apps may have put things.
Some apps put their settings in the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER Some apps put their settings in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Some apps put their settings in a config file in the windows or my documents folders. Some apps put their settings in a config file in their own folder. Some do all of the above. Not to mention all the apps that do things like register COM objects, install system services and who knows what else.
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Depends on how the bank does authentication.
But yes, if the bank is insecure enough that you can have a script log in for you with no human actions, its insecure enough that its vulnerable to phishing attempts.
The US needs to throw a bunch of money subsidizing manufacturing of stuff (toys, clothing, shoes, household goods etc) in Mexico.
Has several benifits:
1.More stuff being made in Mexico means more people are needed to make it which means more jobs for Mexicans and less Mexicans who want to cross the border into the US
2.Less dependance on China as a source for stuff
3.Less risk of "third shift" and IP violations (unlike China where the Chinese government and Chinese companies routienly use trade secrets, proprietary information, patented technology, copyrighted materials, trademarks etc with impunity either to produce bootleg products or to make the home-grown products better, those things dont happen in Mexico as far as I know)
4.The ability for retailers like Wal-Mart to play Chinese and Mexican manufacturers off against each other on pricing (i.e. they can use the price quoted to them from one factory in one country as a bargaining chip against another manufacturer in the other country)
5.Easy access to the US with faster shipping times and lower shipping costs.
Interoperabiliy is a big reason why people may not want Linux.
Many people need to run Outlook for work emails. None of the solutions on Linux that I am aware of support all of the features of Outlook in a way thats 100% compatible with it (and doesnt require the Exchange admin to enable things on the server). Outlook Web Access may be disabled by the admin (and it only works 100% on IE unless it changed last time I looked) leaving the only option being to run Outlook talking directly to the company Exchange server through the VPN.
I have heard statements from a family member who tried OpenOffice.Org (on Windows XP) and was unable to use it as the documents it created/loaded/saved/displayed did not come out the same as they do in Word and therefore Word is the only acceptable option. Many people who have to deal with Word documents are likely be in the same boat.
Other people may have other issues where they need to talk to software, servers and systems and the options for doing so just dont work on Linux as good as they do on Windows (or on Firefox as good as they do on IE)
Google already scans web pages for malware and bad stuff and warns people "this site could be dangerous".
If they aren't already running the "bad sites" database against the ad database (and blocking any ads that link to or reference content from a bad page) then they should be. Any ad web site that starts serving malware (either deliberatly or because of a hack) would have their ads removed from display until they fix their site to stop serving malware.
Legitimate-but-hacked sites would therefore have an incentive to keep their sites malware free or risk being blocked from Google Ads.
Not having used anything beyond what comes with my all-in-one router, I wasnt aware of all the firewall options out there.
My specific point was that a dedicated firewall appliance (which might be *nix running on a dedicated PC) or a router with built-in firewall was better than a windows based program and that if you have such a dedicated firewall or router-based firewall, you dont need to run ZoneAlarm, Windows Firewall or any other PC firewall.
Yeah, linux has some good options. But even with Linux, its better to run a standalone firewall solution as a separate locked-down box if you can. (less attack surface if its just a firewall and nothing else)
The number of people who died from Lawn Darts is tiny compared to the total number of Lawn Darts games sold.
As the GP said, the statistics showed you were more likely to get hurt/killed from Horseshoes than from Lawn Darts yet Lawn Darts is banned and Horseshoes is not.
well an IBM Zseries IS the only computer powerfull enough to run Crysis with all the options set to maximum...
If you are on a small network, get a router with a built-in firewall (even a home all-in-one broadband router is good enough for this)
If you are on a larger network, get a proper firewall (e.g CISCO PIX)
And in all cases, run a GOOD anti-virus (that means something OTHER than Norton or McAfee) and keep all your software patched.
If you DO feel the need to run a firewall e.g. if you are connecting over wireless broadband (where you cant put a hardware firewall between you and the network) or if you are on coffee shop or McDonalds WiFi, the windows firewall is good enough for the purpose and doesnt have any of the problems that 3rd party programs like ZoneAlarm or Norton Internet Security has.
Last time I tried a software firewall (Norton Internet Security), it worked GREAT. It did a great job of preventing my internet from working :)
There are already chips out there that can do HDMI with HDCP (e.g. Analog Devices AD9393) if you supply a key.
So it should be a matter of using one of these plus a key derived from this intel master key.
Given that the DRM solutions used by most publishers (such as SecuROM, StarForce, Safedisk etc) are produced by third parties, one assumes that producing a game with DRM is more expensive than producing the same game without DRM (both the costs to buy the DRM from a third party and the costs to integrate the DRM). Companies dont usually have teams of guys working on DRM integration (and in fact, companies like Sony probably go out of their way to make the DRM solution EASIER for publishers to integrate in the hope of getting the publishers to use their soltuion vs the other guys solution)
I think publishers like DRM because:
1.It lets them continue to push towards a world where all content requires DRM (no more small guys, only big guys who can get licenses for the DRM)
2.DRM can (and does) make games harder to reverse engineer (which helps with stopping cheaters and in some cases modders) and can allow the games company to use the DMCA as a stick against people cracking their copy protection to get at game data files.
3.Newer DRM solutions are increasingly being aimed at stopping not just piracy but unauthorized resale of ghames (no more second hand games market)
Tell that to NVIDIA and their binary blob.
That doesn't explain the Australian cellphone market. We have 3 carriers, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone/3. (We used to have 4 before Vodafone and 3 merged)
Yet we have vigorous competition between the players with carriers offering all kinds of bundles, cheap-on-contract handsets, "free calls to anyone on our network" and other great stuff.
I know one MVNO (who I am likely switching to after my current contract runs out) who will give me $300 worth of value that I can use on everything except international calls, international roaming, premium numbers and up-charge carrier content (yes that includes data) all for $20 per month.
I am Aussie and local calls cost anywhere from 15c on up depending on which carrier and plan you are with (there are some higher end plans that give you unlimited local calls though)
There will always be newer (and still in copyright) pieces of music for orchestras to play.
Ask any good film director how important a good orchestra is to his films.
Also, just because there is now a copyright-free version of (say) Beethoven's 9th doesn't mean that no orchestra will ever play it again. They havent invented a digital sound recording process that is good enough to replace the glory that is hearing good classical music performed live.
It DOES mean that companies like Naxos who make money selling CDs of classical music will loose sales (not that that's a bad thing IMO)
The USAF and their LGM-30 Minuteman missiles would like to disagree with you there.
Unlike a bank (where you have to show proof of ID when you join up) PayPal does not have verified identity information for most of its customers (there are ways to verify and send in photocopies of ID documents etc but its a pain in the ass and usually only done when PayPal says "do it or you wont get your money".
Now, there are laws in the US and elsewhere that force banks to look for suspicious transactions and report them. These laws are designed to detect money laundering and related crimes.
Banks do this by having flags to detect the suspicious transactions (exactly what constitutes a "suspicious transaction" varies from country to country and possibly bank to bank) and then reporting the transaction to the relavent authority using the ID details provided to the bank when the customer signed up for the account.
Because PayPal has no verified identity record for the customer (in the usual case), they cant simply report the "suspicious activity". So they freeze the account until they can verify that it was legit and/or verify the identity of the account holder (so they then have ID details to give to the relavent authorities if required by law)
Why PayPal considers "receiving a small amount of money from a large number of different accounts in a short space of time" as suspicious (and this isn't the first time I have heard of such activity being considered suspicious) and whether any laws in the US, Sweden or elsewhere list such activity as a "suspicious transaction" I dont know but it clearly happens.
Here in Australia I can transfer money to any other .au bank account and it costs me nothing. The other guy doesn't have to pay a cent either.
Sending money internationally is still expensive and difficult though :(
Come to Australia. We dont have the civil-liberties violations of the US and EU. And we are building a lightning fast broadband network.
With the changes to our government recently, the filter system and mandatory data logging plans are essentially dead.
Plus, if you have 3+ years of commercial experience with ASP.NET, J2EE, Oracle, C#, JavaScript and similar web technologies, you should have no problems finding a job (based on all the job ads I see everywhere)
To my mind, if the drivers include source for all the host-side x86 bits including the bit that downloads the blob to the card and the blob in question is suitably licenced then the source code to the secret bits that run on seperate CPUs on the card itself is not required.
What I want to know is why Apple hasn't modified things so that iPhones/iPod touches/iPads will refuse to connect to the App Store unless its running the latest version. And make iTunes refuse to talk to a phone not running the latest version unless its to do an update.
For the original iPhone that cant be upgraded to 4.x, you can detect that phone specifically and refuse to load unless the latest version that runs on it is installed.
Basically force the latest version on everyone no matter what and deny them features if they dont have it. (like how games for PSP wont run unless you have the latest firmware)
If it can be done via the dongle with extra hardware or USB tricks, there is no reason you couldn't presumably make the PS3Jailbreak clones for Palm Pre, N900 etc do whatever this missing piece is.
The officials dont pay attention even when it IS election time (remember the US mid-term elections are comming up soon).
Heck, even if GOD himself came down from heaven, stood in front of congress and asked for an end to draconian copyright and IP policies, the congressmen and senators would STILL favor the large briefcases full of money they get from Disney, Fox, Warner, Paramount, Sony, Universal etc.
But will anyone actually bother to try and implement any solutions?
Answers to childhood obesity:
1.Let the children get more excercise.
Kids dont get excercise because all the things kids used to do (and want to do) that would get them more excercise are no longer options. Parents wont let their kids go down to the park anymore (there might be a pedophile hanging around). Parents wont let their kids play organized sport (parents have no time to take the kids to practice in the modern 2-income household). Schools wont let their kids run around and play during breaks (too much risk of the kids injuring themselves and the parents suing the school for $$$).
Gym/PE classes still exist but there is less time devoted to them (and more time devoted to studying for useless standardized tests) Kids WANT to get more excercise by riding skateboards, scooters and the like but everyone has a negative images of skateboarders as "skate punks" (the popular media doesn't help here BTW) and so kids who want to skateboard and have fun have nowhere they can do it without getting in trouble. Kids used to walk to school (or ride bikes) but these days even when they live close to the school, the parents would rather drive them in their car or have them take the school bus.
Back in my day when I was in Primary School, we had mandatory physical excercise every day before school started (the exact form of the excercise varied from day to day). I also walked/rode my bike to school. Thats part of why my generation didnt get fat as kids.
2.Stop feeding the kids junk. There is no reason healthy food has to be hard to buy/make, expensive or "yucky" (as the kids would put it). There are plenty of ways to make cheap healthy food that kids will eat. And it doesn't have to be things that take forever to prepare either.
Around here you can get McDonalds for a family of 4 (burgers, fries, drinks, nuggets) for around AU$20. I can get pasta, mince and sauce for 4 big servings of Spaghetti Bolognese (easy to make, healthier than the McDonalds and something kids are likely to eat) for around AU$15. And there are other options for healthy food that the kids will eat that are even cheaper than that.
3.Ditch the corn (i.e. HFCS). It seems to be almost impossible to live in the US these days and not eat corn products. Corn is in everything. Its in sodas. Its in bread. Its in breakfast cereals. Its in sauces. Heck, its even in various forms of processed meat (so that Hot Dog would contain corn in the bun, corn in the sauce AND corn in the sausage. Plus corn in the XXL soda that goes with it).
There is a lot of evidence from various studies that the use of HFCS has a bigger impact on obesity than the use of sugar (but like the tobacco lobby and tobacco studies, the corn lobby tries to suppress such studies or counter them with FUD)
Microsoft's problem is that unlike OSX where apps generally put things in one place (documents in a documents folder, settings in settings files etc), on Windows, its impossible to know where apps may have put things.
Some apps put their settings in the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Some apps put their settings in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Some apps put their settings in a config file in the windows or my documents folders.
Some apps put their settings in a config file in their own folder.
Some do all of the above.
Not to mention all the apps that do things like register COM objects, install system services and who knows what else.