There are now over 12 million Mac OS X systems in use (source: 23:40 of WWDC keynote). According to Apple, this eclipses shipments by all other UNIX/UNIX-like system vendors. Apple is the single largest vendor of "UNIX-based"[1] systems in the world. (Probably over 13 million now, according to sales since then.)
[1] Please, whether or not Mac OS X is or isn't "UNIX" or "Unix" or "UN*X" or "UNIX-based" or "UNIX-like" or "not UNIX", etc., etc., etc., is the subject of another discussion, and really derails the essential, widely accepted concept (by normal, sane people, anyway) that Mac OS X is "UNIX"-based.
Conspiracy theorists: there must be some neocon advantage! Figure out a way to spin this against the Bush administration, even though you were arguing mere days ago that Bush's space plan was bullshit and just talk because nothing would ever get funded!
...Microsoft would certainly tie it to payment methods (possibly creating a time when a Passport is REQUIRED to make online purchases from "partner sites"), and entrench itself everywhere, and use it as a method to hawk and secure market positions for its own products.
A hopefully open consortium of people doing universal identity (not saying this idea is necessarily it) would be doing it for the public good, not for greed or a mechanism to use a monopoly position to force its products on people.
Yes, a "trial balloon" might be normal, but how is this a trial balloon for anything? There is no substantive statement, and only generalities about how the internet and its infrastructure should be secured and protected from mass attack, since we so greatly depend on it, and frankly, I don't see how that's a bad idea. You're the ones making assumptions based on your own personal opinions of the administration that any protection of the infrastructure automatically equals egregious curtailing of rights and liberties. Please, I don't need any PATRIOT analogies - I understand the reasoning. But I don't see how relatively benign talk about something that we frankly should be doing equates to any meaningful "trial balloon" on any even remotely specific policy. You're reading WAY too much into this. This is a former government official stating his opinions. I highly doubt this is part of any concerted or coordinated effort to gauge reaction to major changes in the internet - people are freaking out elsewhere in this thread about how one person's opinion represents the "first step" to ending anonymity and curtailing online rights. Huh? Let's cut a tad back on the conspiracy cocktails. Nothing wrong with vigilance and awareness, but fuck.
it's hard not to jump to conclusions when they float trial balloons like this
So, you're saying that this was a coordinated effort? That it was part of a plan to float vague notions about securing the internet and internet infrastructure (which, frankly, is fundamentally a good idea) by a former administration official, to see what the response would be like?
All I see are calls for securing the critical infrastructure of the internet, since "the modernization of key industries in the United States is making them more vulnerable by connecting them with an Internet that is open to attack" and "establishing and enforcing security standards". And when it says "access to networks like the World Wide Web might need to be limited to those who can show they take security seriously," that doesn't mean INDIVIDUALS would have to "prove" something or register somewhere; that means that, collectively, computing manufacturers and ISPs need to take security responsibly. And frankly, this speaks volumes to things like Windows' horrendous string of vulnerabilities, and the literally hundreds of billions of dollars lost because of it.
There is absolutely no good argument against securing the "internet" at large, as we come to depend on it more and more, and as more business and government entities connect to it. The article talks about everything in vagaries, as Tenet himself probably did. So what? He has no position in government, no advisory position to government, and no capacity in the current administration. If the current director of the FBI or NIPC was saying this, sure, you'd say, uh, we need some more details. But when Tenet says it? Who gives a shit? He's saying the internet needs to be secured and can't be the fucking free-for-all it's been IF we want it to have some semblance of security and protection proportional to how much we depend on it. That's a true statement. How exactly that can be accomplished is up for debate.
You're assuming it will be done with exclusively privacy invasion, with no other benefit, even though that's diametrically opposed to what the article said. Also, since he says nothing of substance, I'm not sure how you can make a blanket statement that "his protection is no protection at all", while knowing no details about it at all since none were given and this was clearly a very generalized discussion, but then turn around and say that it's clearly privacy invasion. Huh? And on top of that, TENET HAS NO ROLE IN GOVERNMENT, as I already said. Seems that you're the "fuckwad" here.
A former government official, with no capacity in government or the current administration, says he thinks that the internet and its physical infrastructure should be secured to protect it from attack, and you twist it around to this?
Bravo.
And it gets modded up to +5, to boot. Only on slashdot.
A person who is not affiliated with the government or current administration in any official capacity says that it's his opinion that there needs to be accountability related to the internet and our networking infrastructure, since we greatly, greatly depend on it, so that it isn't a ridiculously easy point of attack, for which even short periods of massive outages can equate to billions of lost virtual dollars, and you're saying that this is "just the first step in limiting people's free speech rights"? Even as Congress just recently passed a law continuing the ban on taxing internet access for all, which should be viewed as a good thing?
...but my education is actually IN physics, and there's a plenty big enough hole in the outside of the Pentagon (I feel sorry for you, by the way, if you're basing any of what you said on that shitty flash video that's making the rounds).
Read all of this post, and pay careful attention to each of the URLs I've cited. The evidence that flight 77 hit the Pentagon that day is overwhelming, but if it makes you feel all fuzzy inside to believe otherwise (and believe that flight 77 itself was shot down, or landed somewhere and its occupants all executed and hidden), go for it. (This, of course, ignores the fact that if the government WAS indeed behind it, it would have simply been easier to fly flight 77 into the Pentagon, if that is indeed to be the official story.)
Please, before you respond, read all of the post I mentioned, AND all of the content within (though I'll let the 9/11 Report itself slide).
If your PVR is intelligent enough, and a show begins at 7:59 and/or ends at 9:01 - and it is defined as such in the guide, OR you instruct it to begin X number of minutes before or stop X number of minutes after - it will record just fine. And your second tuner can record any other show on any other channel you wish that "conflicts" with the 1 minute discrepancies.
I know, because *I* do it all the time.
Sure, as some other posters said, you can't record 45 conflicting shows at once, but I'm just talking about two shows here. And if I want to watch another show at the same time, I either watch something that has been prerecorded OR watch directly off my cable connection (i.e., not through the PVR). This works just fine.
I have no idea where you get the idea that you need to record the next show. But since you said "what am I suppose (sic) to do" instead of "what am I supposed to do", I guess that answered my question.
As the article summary notes, this isn't a problem for dual-tuner PVRs.
Most PVRs offered by cable and satellite providers, such as Charter's Motorola BMC9012 offering, are just that. And, adding another tuner (or several tuners) to media PCs, such as those running MythTV or the surprisingly good Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, is a simple task (for a person so inclined to have a media PC in the first place).
So, yes, it's interesting to see this acknowledged, but the tactic does show up in the guides (e.g., ER starting at 8:59PM CT), and for multi-tuner PVRs it is not at all an issue.
What will be far more interesting to me is the networks' and content providers' handling and usage of the Broadcast Flag (more, more, more), which will probably be utilized to prevent digital and/or HD recording, and thus prevent (easy) skipping of ad content, of some "high value" shows altogether, as well as allowing the placement (force feeding?) of new shows to piggyback on existing "popular" shows.
Interesting that while the invention of the VCR has been recently lauded as releasing people from the prison of having to watch "prime time" TV in prime time, the Broadcast Flag may essentially shoot us back 20 years. And most consumers don't understand or know the rights that have already been granted them enough to know the difference.
(And why don't content providers understand that: 1. this won't stop pirates from pirating TV, and that 2. this only makes it harder on ordinary consumers?)
but it would be technologically very easy for the government to get four modern commercial airliners, paint them in airline colors, rig them for remote piloting or with a GPS autopilot from a military aircraft, and use them as cruise missiles.
Of course not, if they were so inclined.
But the evidence doesn't indicate that, for one thing, and for another, what would have become of the actual planes, and their passengers? As I said, the implication would be that the planes were landed and hidden, and their occupants murdered by their own government.
And if our "goal" was to warmonger in Iraq, wouldn't we "make it look like" Iraq did it, instead of Osama bin Laden?
First of all, it's not hidden that some vaccines contain a mercury based compound:
http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm
"Thimerosal is a mercury-containing organic compound (an organomercurial). Since the 1930s, it has been widely used as a preservative in a number of biological and drug products, including many vaccines, to help prevent potentially life threatening contamination with harmful microbes. Over the past several years, because of an increasing awareness of the theoretical potential for neurotoxicity of even low levels of organomercurials and because of the increased number of thimerosal containing vaccines that had been added to the infant immunization schedule, concerns about the use of thimerosal in vaccines and other products have been raised. Indeed, because of these concerns, the Food and Drug Administration has worked with, and continues to work with, vaccine manufacturers to reduce or eliminate thimerosal from vaccines."
No one said "mercury is good for the brain", but uh, this isn't used for "mind control", in any sense. I especially love how some Bush-hating-types blame Bush for the flu vaccine SHORTAGE, i.e., that it was some kind of conspiracy, and other Bush-hating-types actually believe that mercury-containing flu shots are an effort to "dumb down" the populace to keep them under control! If the latter were true, then wouldn't Bush and the evil neocons want as many flu shots as possible? Oh, wait, let me guess: they ARE for mind control (even though they've been that way since the 1930s), but the neocons staged the shortage to make it LOOK like they aren't trying to get it into as many peoples' systems as possible, thus diverting suspicion? I love it!
As for the Pentagon:
1. There were dozens upon dozens of eyewitness reports who say that a commercial jetliner was what crashed into the Pentagon. These were all just ordinary people, going about their business in the DC area, some affiliated with government and/or miltary, some not. Of the witnesses who say it "sounded" like a missile (note the word "sounded"): how is that even relevant? I ask because of the obvious: how many of these people even know what a missile "sounds" like? How many people have heard a commercial jetliner just hundreds of feet (and at some point, tens of feet) off the ground travelling at ~400-500mph? And to repeat, many, many, many people reported directly seeing an American Airlines commercial jetliner.
2. All of the "conspiracy" reports talk about how "no wreckage" was found at the scene. That is patently false. There was TONS of Boeing 757 wreckage recovered, in total, from the Pentagon. Ironically, here are even large pieces of 757 wreckage visible in the photos used to try to "prove" there was no wreckage! Not to mention that the air disaster photos picked for the video were no doubt picked because there WAS wreckage.
3. Remains 184 of 189 of the victims aboard flight 77 were identified AT THE SCENE from DNA: http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/stripe/6_48/nationa l_news/12279-1.html
4. The ONLY place I've EVER seen any claims about supposed video from the Sheraton, gas stations, etc., is in a flash video circulating on the internet. I have seen no reference or proof ANYWHERE else, from ANY source, that videos have supposedly been confiscated "minutes" later by the FBI.
5. Also, stop and think about this: where was the (visible) "wreckage" from the WTC towers? Is the only reason we even believe that commercial planes crashed into the towers is because we were able to see it with our own eyes? And even that isn't enough for the conspiracy theorists: they still claim that the WTC towers were *rigged with explosives*, such that they could be made to fall AFTER jetliners rammed into the buildings!
For a detailed analysis, see:
Detailed analysis of building, crash, and events: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/911_p entagon_7
Ummm, I hope you pretend to an ignorance you do not possess. I can think of any number of reasons why such information could be of use in such a situation, and why making it available on a website (security?) might have its issues.
I hate to tell you this, but your credit reports are already available on "a website".
One of many is TransUnion's TrueCredit. You can instantly get all three of your credit reports and scores, if you're willing to pay $35. Of course, you have to answer very specific questions that reasonably only you should know. No, not just things like your name and SSAN. But dates and times accounts were opened or closed. Addresses you might have lived at. And so on. It is considered a legally sufficient effort to establish your identity.
Currently, the law allows customers free access to their credit report from a credit reporting agency, but only if they have been turned down for credit, turned down for employment, etc., because of data contained in the report. There are also other convoluted ways to obtain a free credit report. Why should banks, employers, and other financial institutions be able to have access to your credit report virtually at will, when you - the consumer; the very person on whom the data is collected - cannot easily or inexpensively get routine access to your own reports??
The government's argument is that a consumer is entitled to access these reports for free, once a year. In a normal universe, this would be viewed as a good thing for the consumer, but in this crazy alternate reality some people live in now, it MUST be some kind of a neocon plot.
Be that as it may, many other countries impose legal requirements on credit reporting agencies to make their records available to the individuals concerned, and I see no reason why the US should be an exception.
The US is no exception. We've always had legal requirements surrounding the acquisition of credit reports, and still do. There is a level of muster that must be met for identification, distribution, and security. These reports are ALREADY DELIVERED ONLINE by all three agencies AND third party companies directly to the end customer. The information is already there and easily accessible. Additionally, there will no doubt be tracking to ensure each customer only obtains one report per year.
Is your assertion that now that there is a site that allows customers the right to view one free instance of their credit reports per year, that this system is somehow more prone to a large data collection conspiracy, even though the data has been collected and distributed in the same fashion for years?
I can't believe that this act actually does something GOOD for the consumer - something that customers can already do, but have to pay a virtual arm and leg for - and you twist it around into a conspiracy.
...that the vast majority of this spyware was installed by exploiting vulnerabilities (some overt, some more roundabout) in primarily Internet Explorer.
And once an ordinary user is compromised by one piece of spyware, it's usually a downhill battle.
Imagine how different the situation would be if, for the last several years, there had been real competition on the browser scene. Of course, there may never have been a way to solve the problem with the courts anyway: they DID decide that Microsoft illegally used its monopoly position to bundle IE, but Microsoft knew exactly what it was doing. By the time the slow wheels of justice had turned, Microsoft's browser takeover was virtually complete.
And during this entire time, IE fundamentally was stagnant. There were glaring, egregious security issues, and no new features that had already become pervasive and popular with alternative browsers (popup blocking, tabs, etc., not to mention a lack of horrible inattention to security). I imagine Firefox's recent uptick in usage illustrates, even after all that, just how bad IE sucks. But this will only be good for Microsoft, and for everyone: if Microsoft feels it has competition from things like Mac OS X in OSes and Firefox in browsers, we get developments like SP2. We get a new "commitment" to security. We'll ostensibly get new features in and an attention to security in IE. (Well, we can dream, right?)
I wonder how many dollars have been spent, or how many families have actually bought new computers (yes, it happens), once their PC slows down and/or crashes, hangs, or has other problems, to the point that it's virtually unusable. Yes. People really do this. They don't feel they can or know how to just wipe the machine and reinstall Windows, and even if they did, they don't know how to save everything they want to. So they just buy a new computer.
If there really was a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to get your personal credit information (?????), is the best way to do it really setting up a website under FACT for consumers to get free yearly credit reports?
For fuck's sake.
Please, tell me about how flu shots are for mind control and that a 757 really didn't crash into the Pentagon. Can't wait.
If it was worth a hackers time and money to turn a MAc box into a bot in under 4 minutes, it's a done deal, no questions asked.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Macs, by default, have NO open ports. None. Unless the user explicitly opens them. Which almost none do.
So even a completely unpatched Mac OS X 10.0.0 system in its default state will not be able to be remotely exploited, no matter how badly a "hacker" wants to. Period.
That's always been the difference with Windows. In its default state, because applications and the OS depended on it and expected it for various reasons, there were ports and services open. Mac OS X was never like this, and isn't now.
This is the version that's been shipping on new machines and sitting on store shelves for half a year now.
1. And this still doesn't represent a large portion of machines running XP.
2. There have been some major exploits, albeit not necessarily remote, that have still affected XP post-SP2.
Microsoft's almost criminally (considering how many billions of dollars and manhours that have been lost due to this) late sudden "awareness" of security does not change the basic premise of this article, nor what I said.
Oh yes, I'll include other UNIXes, Linux, BSDs, etc.
However, the article summary only mentioned Macs (which is why I did), and also, many of these other systems are used as servers, and do in fact have many more open ports than a typical Mac OS X system, which often has none. This isn't to say they're "insecure" because of it; just that there are channels of potential access.
Now, a Mac OS X (or Mac OS X Server) machine used in a "server" role is likely to share a similar level of exposure.
But my reference is to a typical consumer or desktop machine, which represents by far the largest proportion of machines out there, and which is primarily what this article is referring to. And in the cases of these machines, Windows has remote avenues of attack, and Mac OS X does not - at all.
Although Macs and PC's got hit with equal opportunity, the XP SP1 machine was hit with 5 LSASS and 4 DCOM exploits while the Mac remained clean
Yes, yes, we know this is not surprising, since the exploits in question target Windows specifically, and therefore obviously will not affect Macs.
But the larger points you should take away from this is twofold:
1. The simple fact of the matter is that, for whatever reason, Macs are clearly affected far less than PCs by all types of exploits. This is not because of just marketshare. But whatever the reason, it is true nonetheless. But this brings be to:
2. Even a completely unpatched Mac OS X 10.0.0 machine would not be vulnerable to any kind of remote attack, because no ports whatsoever are open to the outside world, and on most consumer Mac OS X systems, never will be. The fundamental and intrinsic security design and considerations of Mac OS X are just better, period. Even local exploits, such as might travel freely and easily on Windows via email, aren't as possible or practical on Mac OS X (e.g., a potential Mac exploit of this nature that spread via email would have to have its own MTA or a lot more complexity than a simple script on Windows where Outlook and the OS does all the work for you). Yes, marketshare, i.e., the chances of the next host encountered being a Mac, certainly doesn't hurt, but that is not the sole or primary reason Macs aren't vulnerable. No effective automatic vectors of infection or spread, either local or remote, exist, period. When external ports are opened, they usually represent open source services such as apache and OpenSSH, which as a matter of course are usually updated long before theoretical exploits become reality because of the intense scrutiny and peer review such products receive by the community.
When will people learn, that after three and a half years of Mac OS X, with the market growing, it's not just because of "marketshare" that Macs are rarely affected by these types of issues? Can people admit that it's possible that security decisions that were simply and fundamentally better than those of Microsoft were made? I get a kick out of articles that trumpet "MACS JUST AS INSECURE AS WINDOWS" when a text shell script is "discovered", one that must be run by someone with root or physical access no less, with no worthwhile vector or method of automated propagation of any kind![1] This is in the face of completely remote and automated exploits that can hit a Windows machine in minutes of being on the network, or exploits that own your machine by simply visiting a web page, or viewing an email message in Outlook (yes, these have continued to exist, some even very recently).
[1] For the nit-pickers out there, copying itself to other remote Mac OS X system volumes to which the local user has root-equivalent access and has manually connected to doesn't exactly rise to the level of the unprivileged, automatic propagation we see in the Windows world.
Slashdot Mirror
There are now over 12 million Mac OS X systems in use (source: 23:40 of WWDC keynote). According to Apple, this eclipses shipments by all other UNIX/UNIX-like system vendors. Apple is the single largest vendor of "UNIX-based"[1] systems in the world. (Probably over 13 million now, according to sales since then.)
"With the release of Mac OS X, Apple became the largest vendor of Unix in the world"
More...
[1] Please, whether or not Mac OS X is or isn't "UNIX" or "Unix" or "UN*X" or "UNIX-based" or "UNIX-like" or "not UNIX", etc., etc., etc., is the subject of another discussion, and really derails the essential, widely accepted concept (by normal, sane people, anyway) that Mac OS X is "UNIX"-based.
Conspiracy theorists: there must be some neocon advantage! Figure out a way to spin this against the Bush administration, even though you were arguing mere days ago that Bush's space plan was bullshit and just talk because nothing would ever get funded!
...Microsoft would certainly tie it to payment methods (possibly creating a time when a Passport is REQUIRED to make online purchases from "partner sites"), and entrench itself everywhere, and use it as a method to hawk and secure market positions for its own products.
A hopefully open consortium of people doing universal identity (not saying this idea is necessarily it) would be doing it for the public good, not for greed or a mechanism to use a monopoly position to force its products on people.
I'm seeing non-Beta as the default interface at groups.google.com, but I'm seeing date search capability on the advanced search page of both:
h l= en
http://groups-beta.google.com/advanced_search
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?
There must be "some neocon advantage"!
(From a previous story about the government mandating that all US residents be entitled to one free credit report per year from the major credit reporting agencies.)
Yes, a "trial balloon" might be normal, but how is this a trial balloon for anything? There is no substantive statement, and only generalities about how the internet and its infrastructure should be secured and protected from mass attack, since we so greatly depend on it, and frankly, I don't see how that's a bad idea. You're the ones making assumptions based on your own personal opinions of the administration that any protection of the infrastructure automatically equals egregious curtailing of rights and liberties. Please, I don't need any PATRIOT analogies - I understand the reasoning. But I don't see how relatively benign talk about something that we frankly should be doing equates to any meaningful "trial balloon" on any even remotely specific policy. You're reading WAY too much into this. This is a former government official stating his opinions. I highly doubt this is part of any concerted or coordinated effort to gauge reaction to major changes in the internet - people are freaking out elsewhere in this thread about how one person's opinion represents the "first step" to ending anonymity and curtailing online rights. Huh? Let's cut a tad back on the conspiracy cocktails. Nothing wrong with vigilance and awareness, but fuck.
it's hard not to jump to conclusions when they float trial balloons like this
So, you're saying that this was a coordinated effort? That it was part of a plan to float vague notions about securing the internet and internet infrastructure (which, frankly, is fundamentally a good idea) by a former administration official, to see what the response would be like?
So where is this "privacy invasion" you see?
All I see are calls for securing the critical infrastructure of the internet, since "the modernization of key industries in the United States is making them more vulnerable by connecting them with an Internet that is open to attack" and "establishing and enforcing security standards". And when it says "access to networks like the World Wide Web might need to be limited to those who can show they take security seriously," that doesn't mean INDIVIDUALS would have to "prove" something or register somewhere; that means that, collectively, computing manufacturers and ISPs need to take security responsibly. And frankly, this speaks volumes to things like Windows' horrendous string of vulnerabilities, and the literally hundreds of billions of dollars lost because of it.
There is absolutely no good argument against securing the "internet" at large, as we come to depend on it more and more, and as more business and government entities connect to it. The article talks about everything in vagaries, as Tenet himself probably did. So what? He has no position in government, no advisory position to government, and no capacity in the current administration. If the current director of the FBI or NIPC was saying this, sure, you'd say, uh, we need some more details. But when Tenet says it? Who gives a shit? He's saying the internet needs to be secured and can't be the fucking free-for-all it's been IF we want it to have some semblance of security and protection proportional to how much we depend on it. That's a true statement. How exactly that can be accomplished is up for debate.
You're assuming it will be done with exclusively privacy invasion, with no other benefit, even though that's diametrically opposed to what the article said. Also, since he says nothing of substance, I'm not sure how you can make a blanket statement that "his protection is no protection at all", while knowing no details about it at all since none were given and this was clearly a very generalized discussion, but then turn around and say that it's clearly privacy invasion. Huh? And on top of that, TENET HAS NO ROLE IN GOVERNMENT, as I already said. Seems that you're the "fuckwad" here.
A former government official, with no capacity in government or the current administration, says he thinks that the internet and its physical infrastructure should be secured to protect it from attack, and you twist it around to this?
Bravo.
And it gets modded up to +5, to boot. Only on slashdot.
A person who is not affiliated with the government or current administration in any official capacity says that it's his opinion that there needs to be accountability related to the internet and our networking infrastructure, since we greatly, greatly depend on it, so that it isn't a ridiculously easy point of attack, for which even short periods of massive outages can equate to billions of lost virtual dollars, and you're saying that this is "just the first step in limiting people's free speech rights"? Even as Congress just recently passed a law continuing the ban on taxing internet access for all, which should be viewed as a good thing?
...but my education is actually IN physics, and there's a plenty big enough hole in the outside of the Pentagon (I feel sorry for you, by the way, if you're basing any of what you said on that shitty flash video that's making the rounds).
Read all of this post, and pay careful attention to each of the URLs I've cited. The evidence that flight 77 hit the Pentagon that day is overwhelming, but if it makes you feel all fuzzy inside to believe otherwise (and believe that flight 77 itself was shot down, or landed somewhere and its occupants all executed and hidden), go for it. (This, of course, ignores the fact that if the government WAS indeed behind it, it would have simply been easier to fly flight 77 into the Pentagon, if that is indeed to be the official story.)
Please, before you respond, read all of the post I mentioned, AND all of the content within (though I'll let the 9/11 Report itself slide).
What the hell are you talking about?
You don't have to record the next show.
If your PVR is intelligent enough, and a show begins at 7:59 and/or ends at 9:01 - and it is defined as such in the guide, OR you instruct it to begin X number of minutes before or stop X number of minutes after - it will record just fine. And your second tuner can record any other show on any other channel you wish that "conflicts" with the 1 minute discrepancies.
I know, because *I* do it all the time.
Sure, as some other posters said, you can't record 45 conflicting shows at once, but I'm just talking about two shows here. And if I want to watch another show at the same time, I either watch something that has been prerecorded OR watch directly off my cable connection (i.e., not through the PVR). This works just fine.
I have no idea where you get the idea that you need to record the next show. But since you said "what am I suppose (sic) to do" instead of "what am I supposed to do", I guess that answered my question.
As the article summary notes, this isn't a problem for dual-tuner PVRs.
Most PVRs offered by cable and satellite providers, such as Charter's Motorola BMC9012 offering, are just that. And, adding another tuner (or several tuners) to media PCs, such as those running MythTV or the surprisingly good Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, is a simple task (for a person so inclined to have a media PC in the first place).
So, yes, it's interesting to see this acknowledged, but the tactic does show up in the guides (e.g., ER starting at 8:59PM CT), and for multi-tuner PVRs it is not at all an issue.
What will be far more interesting to me is the networks' and content providers' handling and usage of the Broadcast Flag (more, more, more), which will probably be utilized to prevent digital and/or HD recording, and thus prevent (easy) skipping of ad content, of some "high value" shows altogether, as well as allowing the placement (force feeding?) of new shows to piggyback on existing "popular" shows.
Interesting that while the invention of the VCR has been recently lauded as releasing people from the prison of having to watch "prime time" TV in prime time, the Broadcast Flag may essentially shoot us back 20 years. And most consumers don't understand or know the rights that have already been granted them enough to know the difference.
(And why don't content providers understand that: 1. this won't stop pirates from pirating TV, and that 2. this only makes it harder on ordinary consumers?)
Do you have some kind of obsession with Twirlip of the Mists?
...and over, and over, and over?
You sure like to respond to his posts.
Does it make you feel good when you repeat "Twirp" over, and over, and over, and over, and over...
but it would be technologically very easy for the government to get four modern commercial airliners, paint them in airline colors, rig them for remote piloting or with a GPS autopilot from a military aircraft, and use them as cruise missiles.
Of course not, if they were so inclined.
But the evidence doesn't indicate that, for one thing, and for another, what would have become of the actual planes, and their passengers? As I said, the implication would be that the planes were landed and hidden, and their occupants murdered by their own government.
And if our "goal" was to warmonger in Iraq, wouldn't we "make it look like" Iraq did it, instead of Osama bin Laden?
I trust you know what I'm getting at, here...
Let's take a step back for a moment:
First of all, it's not hidden that some vaccines contain a mercury based compound:
http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm
"Thimerosal is a mercury-containing organic compound (an organomercurial). Since the 1930s, it has been widely used as a preservative in a number of biological and drug products, including many vaccines, to help prevent potentially life threatening contamination with harmful microbes. Over the past several years, because of an increasing awareness of the theoretical potential for neurotoxicity of even low levels of organomercurials and because of the increased number of thimerosal containing vaccines that had been added to the infant immunization schedule, concerns about the use of thimerosal in vaccines and other products have been raised. Indeed, because of these concerns, the Food and Drug Administration has worked with, and continues to work with, vaccine manufacturers to reduce or eliminate thimerosal from vaccines."
No one said "mercury is good for the brain", but uh, this isn't used for "mind control", in any sense. I especially love how some Bush-hating-types blame Bush for the flu vaccine SHORTAGE, i.e., that it was some kind of conspiracy, and other Bush-hating-types actually believe that mercury-containing flu shots are an effort to "dumb down" the populace to keep them under control! If the latter were true, then wouldn't Bush and the evil neocons want as many flu shots as possible? Oh, wait, let me guess: they ARE for mind control (even though they've been that way since the 1930s), but the neocons staged the shortage to make it LOOK like they aren't trying to get it into as many peoples' systems as possible, thus diverting suspicion? I love it!
As for the Pentagon:
1. There were dozens upon dozens of eyewitness reports who say that a commercial jetliner was what crashed into the Pentagon. These were all just ordinary people, going about their business in the DC area, some affiliated with government and/or miltary, some not. Of the witnesses who say it "sounded" like a missile (note the word "sounded"): how is that even relevant? I ask because of the obvious: how many of these people even know what a missile "sounds" like? How many people have heard a commercial jetliner just hundreds of feet (and at some point, tens of feet) off the ground travelling at ~400-500mph? And to repeat, many, many, many people reported directly seeing an American Airlines commercial jetliner.
2. All of the "conspiracy" reports talk about how "no wreckage" was found at the scene. That is patently false. There was TONS of Boeing 757 wreckage recovered, in total, from the Pentagon. Ironically, here are even large pieces of 757 wreckage visible in the photos used to try to "prove" there was no wreckage! Not to mention that the air disaster photos picked for the video were no doubt picked because there WAS wreckage.
3. Remains 184 of 189 of the victims aboard flight 77 were identified AT THE SCENE from DNA: http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/stripe/6_48/nationa l_news/12279-1.html
4. The ONLY place I've EVER seen any claims about supposed video from the Sheraton, gas stations, etc., is in a flash video circulating on the internet. I have seen no reference or proof ANYWHERE else, from ANY source, that videos have supposedly been confiscated "minutes" later by the FBI.
5. Also, stop and think about this: where was the (visible) "wreckage" from the WTC towers? Is the only reason we even believe that commercial planes crashed into the towers is because we were able to see it with our own eyes? And even that isn't enough for the conspiracy theorists: they still claim that the WTC towers were *rigged with explosives*, such that they could be made to fall AFTER jetliners rammed into the buildings!
For a detailed analysis, see:
Detailed analysis of building, crash, and events:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/911_p entagon_7
Google Groups Beta contact/support
Please, contact Google and complain.
Searching by date and linking to an individual post were the two most useful things about Google Groups (other than it existing in the first place).
Let Google know that you don't like the changes.
Ummm, I hope you pretend to an ignorance you do not possess. I can think of any number of reasons why such information could be of use in such a situation, and why making it available on a website (security?) might have its issues.
I hate to tell you this, but your credit reports are already available on "a website".
One of many is TransUnion's TrueCredit. You can instantly get all three of your credit reports and scores, if you're willing to pay $35. Of course, you have to answer very specific questions that reasonably only you should know. No, not just things like your name and SSAN. But dates and times accounts were opened or closed. Addresses you might have lived at. And so on. It is considered a legally sufficient effort to establish your identity.
Currently, the law allows customers free access to their credit report from a credit reporting agency, but only if they have been turned down for credit, turned down for employment, etc., because of data contained in the report. There are also other convoluted ways to obtain a free credit report. Why should banks, employers, and other financial institutions be able to have access to your credit report virtually at will, when you - the consumer; the very person on whom the data is collected - cannot easily or inexpensively get routine access to your own reports??
The government's argument is that a consumer is entitled to access these reports for free, once a year. In a normal universe, this would be viewed as a good thing for the consumer, but in this crazy alternate reality some people live in now, it MUST be some kind of a neocon plot.
Be that as it may, many other countries impose legal requirements on credit reporting agencies to make their records available to the individuals concerned, and I see no reason why the US should be an exception.
The US is no exception. We've always had legal requirements surrounding the acquisition of credit reports, and still do. There is a level of muster that must be met for identification, distribution, and security. These reports are ALREADY DELIVERED ONLINE by all three agencies AND third party companies directly to the end customer. The information is already there and easily accessible. Additionally, there will no doubt be tracking to ensure each customer only obtains one report per year.
Is your assertion that now that there is a site that allows customers the right to view one free instance of their credit reports per year, that this system is somehow more prone to a large data collection conspiracy, even though the data has been collected and distributed in the same fashion for years?
I can't believe that this act actually does something GOOD for the consumer - something that customers can already do, but have to pay a virtual arm and leg for - and you twist it around into a conspiracy.
...that the vast majority of this spyware was installed by exploiting vulnerabilities (some overt, some more roundabout) in primarily Internet Explorer.
And once an ordinary user is compromised by one piece of spyware, it's usually a downhill battle.
Imagine how different the situation would be if, for the last several years, there had been real competition on the browser scene. Of course, there may never have been a way to solve the problem with the courts anyway: they DID decide that Microsoft illegally used its monopoly position to bundle IE, but Microsoft knew exactly what it was doing. By the time the slow wheels of justice had turned, Microsoft's browser takeover was virtually complete.
And during this entire time, IE fundamentally was stagnant. There were glaring, egregious security issues, and no new features that had already become pervasive and popular with alternative browsers (popup blocking, tabs, etc., not to mention a lack of horrible inattention to security). I imagine Firefox's recent uptick in usage illustrates, even after all that, just how bad IE sucks. But this will only be good for Microsoft, and for everyone: if Microsoft feels it has competition from things like Mac OS X in OSes and Firefox in browsers, we get developments like SP2. We get a new "commitment" to security. We'll ostensibly get new features in and an attention to security in IE. (Well, we can dream, right?)
I wonder how many dollars have been spent, or how many families have actually bought new computers (yes, it happens), once their PC slows down and/or crashes, hangs, or has other problems, to the point that it's virtually unusable. Yes. People really do this. They don't feel they can or know how to just wipe the machine and reinstall Windows, and even if they did, they don't know how to save everything they want to. So they just buy a new computer.
...to +4, Insightful??
If there really was a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to get your personal credit information (?????), is the best way to do it really setting up a website under FACT for consumers to get free yearly credit reports?
For fuck's sake.
Please, tell me about how flu shots are for mind control and that a 757 really didn't crash into the Pentagon. Can't wait.
If it was worth a hackers time and money to turn a MAc box into a bot in under 4 minutes, it's a done deal, no questions asked.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Macs, by default, have NO open ports. None. Unless the user explicitly opens them. Which almost none do.
So even a completely unpatched Mac OS X 10.0.0 system in its default state will not be able to be remotely exploited, no matter how badly a "hacker" wants to. Period.
That's always been the difference with Windows. In its default state, because applications and the OS depended on it and expected it for various reasons, there were ports and services open. Mac OS X was never like this, and isn't now.
This is the version that's been shipping on new machines and sitting on store shelves for half a year now.
1. And this still doesn't represent a large portion of machines running XP.
2. There have been some major exploits, albeit not necessarily remote, that have still affected XP post-SP2.
Microsoft's almost criminally (considering how many billions of dollars and manhours that have been lost due to this) late sudden "awareness" of security does not change the basic premise of this article, nor what I said.
...that it's clearly not, even now.
There have been numerous exploits that have affected XP post-SP2.
And Microsoft's new, extremely belated focus on security notwithstanding, this does not change what I said.
Nice try, though.
Oh yes, I'll include other UNIXes, Linux, BSDs, etc.
However, the article summary only mentioned Macs (which is why I did), and also, many of these other systems are used as servers, and do in fact have many more open ports than a typical Mac OS X system, which often has none. This isn't to say they're "insecure" because of it; just that there are channels of potential access.
Now, a Mac OS X (or Mac OS X Server) machine used in a "server" role is likely to share a similar level of exposure.
But my reference is to a typical consumer or desktop machine, which represents by far the largest proportion of machines out there, and which is primarily what this article is referring to. And in the cases of these machines, Windows has remote avenues of attack, and Mac OS X does not - at all.
Although Macs and PC's got hit with equal opportunity, the XP SP1 machine was hit with 5 LSASS and 4 DCOM exploits while the Mac remained clean
Yes, yes, we know this is not surprising, since the exploits in question target Windows specifically, and therefore obviously will not affect Macs.
But the larger points you should take away from this is twofold:
1. The simple fact of the matter is that, for whatever reason, Macs are clearly affected far less than PCs by all types of exploits. This is not because of just marketshare. But whatever the reason, it is true nonetheless. But this brings be to:
2. Even a completely unpatched Mac OS X 10.0.0 machine would not be vulnerable to any kind of remote attack, because no ports whatsoever are open to the outside world, and on most consumer Mac OS X systems, never will be. The fundamental and intrinsic security design and considerations of Mac OS X are just better, period. Even local exploits, such as might travel freely and easily on Windows via email, aren't as possible or practical on Mac OS X (e.g., a potential Mac exploit of this nature that spread via email would have to have its own MTA or a lot more complexity than a simple script on Windows where Outlook and the OS does all the work for you). Yes, marketshare, i.e., the chances of the next host encountered being a Mac, certainly doesn't hurt, but that is not the sole or primary reason Macs aren't vulnerable. No effective automatic vectors of infection or spread, either local or remote, exist, period. When external ports are opened, they usually represent open source services such as apache and OpenSSH, which as a matter of course are usually updated long before theoretical exploits become reality because of the intense scrutiny and peer review such products receive by the community.
When will people learn, that after three and a half years of Mac OS X, with the market growing, it's not just because of "marketshare" that Macs are rarely affected by these types of issues? Can people admit that it's possible that security decisions that were simply and fundamentally better than those of Microsoft were made? I get a kick out of articles that trumpet "MACS JUST AS INSECURE AS WINDOWS" when a text shell script is "discovered", one that must be run by someone with root or physical access no less, with no worthwhile vector or method of automated propagation of any kind![1] This is in the face of completely remote and automated exploits that can hit a Windows machine in minutes of being on the network, or exploits that own your machine by simply visiting a web page, or viewing an email message in Outlook (yes, these have continued to exist, some even very recently).
[1] For the nit-pickers out there, copying itself to other remote Mac OS X system volumes to which the local user has root-equivalent access and has manually connected to doesn't exactly rise to the level of the unprivileged, automatic propagation we see in the Windows world.