First, no, the exit polls do not suggest that. They perfectly mirror the results.
Secondly, Diebold's CEO, Walden O'Dell, said that about only Ohio, because he lives and works in Ohio, and is a GOP backer.
Bad taste? Yes. "Interesting" that a CEO of a company is a Republican? Nope. Do I wish he would have had the scruples to stay out of politics since his company is making voting machines? Yep.
But please, take off your tinfoil hat. When he said he was committed to delivering Ohio to Bush, he meant that as a GOP campaigner, contributor, and backer. Not that he was going to secretly have a 13,000-employee company rig a presidential election.
Yep. Get ready for the Diebold conspiracy wackos to crawl out of the woodwork, because Diebold's chairman said in his capacity as a Republican party backer that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Really, really poor taste? Yep. Probably a fucking stupid thing to say when you're CEO of a company that makes electronic voting machines? For the *state* about which you're making those comments, no less? Yep. But don't forget one thing: the exit polls exactly and perfectly describe the 2% Bush margin. That's one thing you'll never see the Diebold conspiracy blogs mention. They'll just fantasize about how a 13,000 person company secretly rigged the election, and that somehow, the mainstream media is "hiding" the story because it's in bed with Bush. Ahh, conspiracy theorists. Gotta love 'em.
Interestingly, they showed footage on NBC's TODAY show of some of the polling places using electronic equipment in Ohio; some polling places had waits of over 9 hours with the last people voting at shortly before 4AM local time. Voting officials offered the alternative of paper ballots to move people through more quickly. Ironically, students and other members of the line were yelling "Do not use the paper ballots! Wait to use the machines!" explaining later that they felt their votes wouldn't be counted if they voted on paper...
And no, the exit polls didn't indicate a different winner.
- A 3.5 million vote (3%) margin - An absolute majority (51%), the first since 1988 - The most votes ever received in any presidential election (though that's not necessarily relevant)
in Ohio:
- A 136,000 vote (2%) margin - An absolute majority (51%) - 100% precincts reporting - Election results perfectly mirror exit polls (i.e., no tampering) - Approximately 140-150,000 provisional ballots outstanding (according to Ohio Secretary of State) - A statistically insurmountable lead
This time, it's clear.
Though, these campaigns are $300 million operations that have been going for almost two years, and when almost 60 million people vote for you, you have a duty to ensure that every vote counts - I won't fault anyone for that.
However, get ready for the Diebold conspiracy wackos to crawl out of the woodwork, because Diebold's chairman said in his capacity as a Republican party backer that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Really, really poor taste? Yep. Probably a fucking stupid thing to say when you're CEO of a company that makes electronic voting machines? For the *state* about which you're making those comments, no less? Yep. But don't forget one thing: the exit polls exactly and perfectly describe the 2% Bush margin. That's one thing you'll never see the Diebold conspiracy blogs mention. (In fact, somehow they're now saying that the some of the exit polls *don't* match...which will give further fodder to the Diebold tinfoil hat crowd.) They'll just fantasize about how a 13,000 person company secretly rigged the election, and that somehow, the mainstream media is "hiding" the story because it's in bed with Bush. Ahh, conspiracy theorists. Gotta love 'em.
I would hardly say that Apple trying to protect its relationship with the music content providers, which is the whole reason that the iTunes Music Store exists in the first place, not to mention the online store with by far the highest marketshare, is tantamount to Apple telling its customers to "eat shit and die".
His preemptive rebuttals are also complete bullshit. Yes, we're the "customers", not Sony/BMG. And he himself admits that the record companies are idiots; yes, those are the idiots that Apple has to deal with. A lot of people think it was a miracle Apple/Steve Jobs got them even to agree to this "crazy experiment" in the first place.
Additionally, getting music back off the iPod is not part of the advertised capabilities or features of the service, period, and never was. Remember iTunes 4.0b12? It let you go both ways between every iPod and iTunes under the sun, with no limits. You could two-way sync every iPod and iTunes library on earth. Remember iTunes 4.0, and its internet music sharing? The record industry might not be telling Apple *exactly* the specifics of how to implement the protections, but Apple is under pressure to not make it too "easy" to "share" music on a wide scale, while still making the DRM and protections as transparent as it possibly can.
Further, as long as the iPod is just a freaking disk, its contents will be able to be retrieved. But Apple CANNOT look as if it is passively ignoring things that are perceived by the music industry to be "dangerous", whether they are or not. Yes, Apple can try to help the music industry understand, and even pressure them in the right direction - and probably has, quite a bit, frankly. Remember, this whole online download thing is in its utter infancy.
If you want to hate or blame Apple for "selling out", and saying that they should just tell people like Sony/BMG to go fuck themselves, and if they lose them they lose them, fine...that's you call. And no one is forcing you to use or buy any of Apple's services. This is Apple's service and products, and they're running them how they feel they have to to ensure the iTunes Music Store's continued existence. Do you think they WANT to make things hard on customers? Quite the opposite! And maybe someday Apple will have the leverage to start pressing these things with the music industry - Jobs believes people should really be able to do what they want with their music. But people also want music from the major labels, so you can't piss them off right off the bat. What to do? Frankly, I think Apple is in the right here, and Cory Doctorow is the one who can eat shit and die.
I know you're just joking, but for others who actually believe this, it bears repeating:
If that were true, then apache would have the most exploits of any web server, since it has the greatest market share. However, that is not the case: Microsoft IIS is by far the most exploited web server, with only around 20% marketshare.
Additionally, lesser marketshare does not automatically imply anything with regard to security. Sure, it's *targeted* less, and people might spend less time attacking it, but that does not mean it is less secure. In fact, there are numerous technical, design, and architectural reasons that, e.g., Mac OS X is more secure than Windows. A few examples would be: no ports or services open by default, services that are used are likely to be open source services like apache and OpenSSH which receive in intense scrutiny so that theoretical holes are closed before they become practical ones, there are more layers of abstraction between an email attachment and it actually becoming a meaningful exploit, prompting and notification for administrative-level or elevated privileges, less likelihood of standardization on a single email client reducing the exposure of a single point of attack, etc.
And sure, marketshare helps too, in terms of things like the statistical likelihood of the next host encountered/scanned by a piece of Mac OS X malware also being Mac OS X. But that's no where near the whole story.
...this study is talking about manual exploits, and says as much:
The study also reveals that Linux has become the most breached 24/7 online computing environment in terms of manual hacker attacks overall and accounts for 65.64% of all breaches recorded, with 154,846 successfully compromised Linux 24/7 online computers of all flavours.
This is likely because of the great number of Linux servers, and the wide variety of network services and ports open to the world on such servers.
And it does, in fact, make distinct reference to Windows malware (self-propagating worms, viruses, etc.):
Malware proliferation
The recent global malware epidemics have primarily targeted the Windows computing environment and have not caused any significant economic damage to environments running Open Source including Linux, BSD and Mac OS X. When taking the economic damage from malware into account over the last twelve months, including the impact of MyDoom, NetSky, SoBig, Klez and Sasser, Windows has become the most breached computing environment in the world accounting for most of the productivity losses associated with malware - virus, worm and trojan - proliferation. This is directly the result of very insignificant quantities of highly damaging mass-spreading malware being written for other computing environments like Linux, BSD and Mac OS X.
Also interesting:
For the record, neither mi2g Ltd nor the mi2g Intelligence Unit have a business relationship with Apple Computers and we do not own any shares in that corporation. Previously, the mi2g data for one month was considered to be too small a sample and not representative of the global environment within which different types of entities - micro, small, medium and large - exist. We have addressed those concerns in the new study. The critics were against the previous study which also came out in favour of Apple and BSD, because the entrenched supporters of Linux and Windows felt that mi2g was guilty of 'computing blasphemy'. In subsequent months, mi2g's reputation was damaged on search engines and bulletin boards. We would urge caution when reading negative commentary against mi2g, which may have been clandestinely funded, aided or abetted by a vendor or a special interest group.
There are a wide variety of reasons to expect that Mac OS X is a significantly more secure computing platform than Windows in a non-server/desktop setting; this study only further confirms that.
You're right; I didn't mention Israel, though I have in previous posts. And the situation is certainly a contentious one at best. However, my problem is as follows: if we did end support for Israel, it pains me to think of what might become of it. While the Israelis have not been, shall we say, very helpful in this situation, there are many on the opposing side who wish for Israel to cease to exist entirely, and exterminating all of the Jews might not be a bad idea either. I'm not saying everyone, even in some of the radical Islamic sects, believes that; just that there are a sizable number who do. Whether these feelings are rooted in radicalism or whether the radicalism was brought about by the Israelis and/or US policy is at this point academic. (Not to mention the fact that Israel is a shining star for us; an example that democracy can work in the region, religion notwithstanding.)
But as for saying something about the Israeli/Palestinian situation, I'll say this: Bush has been the first US president to suggest a completely autonomous and sovereign Palestinian state. Many say that's just talk; rhetoric with no teeth. Perhaps.
As to your last point: I'm not saying the PNAC crowd has the perfect solution here. But I do strongly believe in the idea that freedom - free flow of information, free governments, free markets, freedom of religion, free peoples - are manifestly "good" things, and have a way of silencing serious radicalism of the types espoused by al-Qaeda, the Wahhabists and the like. Sure, "radicals" exist in free states as well - but they are largely marginalized by the majority. The difference we may be dealing with now is the concept that radicals otherwise unable to do any statistically significant harm may come into possession of a weapon of mass destruction. It might be argued that even if they did, it is unjustified to live in fear of the result - I disagree. The terrorists actions are designed to instill terror; realizing that fact does not make the prospects any less frightening. Note that I am not saying people should continually live in crippling fear of what may or may not occur. Just that we want to prevent such an event from happening in the first place.
I agree it is intensely complex. But the simplicity of freedom is compelling. The notion that some people "don't want" freedom is very questionable to me. It's akin to saying that a battered wife doesn't "want" to leave her husband: she may literally believe that; that, however, does not mean it is the best thing. While installing democracies is risky business, I don't believe freedom is "imposed". Quite the contrary: I believe that freedom is the default state. Of course I don't believe anyone, including in free nations, has ultimate freedom. There are restrictions collectively decided upon by society. One might ask why, then, is someone in the Arab/Persian/northeast-African world not allowed to make those same judgments? First of all, that would be our aim. But second, and more importantly, they are not afforded those choices now. (If you have time, I would also urge you to read this document related to the subject at hand.)
And related to all of this is the fact that the region has a resource that is critical to the functioning of modern Western civilization. That cannot be denied. The "Bush doctrine" and the new strategy in the middle east is far from perfect. But there comes a time when you stop looking for perfection and start asking the question "When is it ok to protect ourselves and our interests?"
While you've indicated we've likely come to differing conclusions on some topics based upon the available data, I do agree with the core of what you're saying. I do think that Kerry (or ANYONE) would have a better chance at diplomacy if elected, both for reasons of skill and being a "new face". I'm even willing to give him a chance to do just that; however, my concern is more the reasons people claim to be voting Bush *out*; in other words, if Kerry's rhetoric on the war on terror, Iraq, and the military, some of which I referenced in my initial post, is even remotely true, these people who vote Bush out for Kerry may be in for a surprise.
I am thoroughly glad, however, that even though you might not agree with some or most of my positions and/or reasoning, you can at least understand that points I'm making and the reasons I claim to be making them.
...and is all original. The only reason I was so quick is because as soon as I found out that Tanenbaum was the votemaster, I started preparing this post. It took about a half hour to compile.
And yes, I did the same thing for Jon Stewart. It too went to +5, but then was modded down to -1 in about a half hour.
That's a very interesting phenomenon; I'd heard of it before, but still hadn't realized how pronounced it was.
Still, Tanenbaum doesn't really make reference to that on his site; he acts as if the mere act of running electoral-vote.com somehow helps the Democratic candidate. That's the part I don't understand.
As I imagine the replies to this post will mostly be drooling fawning over Andrew Tanenbaum, much like the Jon Stewart/Crossfire article, I'd like to actually ask some meaningful questions. (And please note that I have great respect for Tanenbaum, but don't understand a couple of his central points, described below.)
Why does running a statistical analysis website that gathers information on polls and aggregates them into something quasi-meaningful "support" the Democratic candidate?
Yes, yes, I'm well aware that while incognito he had said on numerous occasions that he was a Kerry supporter, and a Democrat. But he himself says:
Why Did You Do This?
In a nutshell, because I want to be proud of America again.
Meaning that Kerry can somehow make him proud again. Ok, fine, but what does running electoral-vote.com have to do with that? The question "Why Did You Do This?" implies that he is "do"ing something to influence people to vote in a particular way, which I simply don't see that website doing. In fact, other than the admittedly editorial sections of the site, I have found the site to be remarkedly unbiased.
He then goes on, at length, describing/proving that the world "hates" Bush/the administration/etc. This comes as absolutely no surprise to me. However - and FORGET about "Bush" for a second - how does "hating" someone have any logical correlation with whether their positions or courses of action are appropriate or inappropriate? That would seem antithetical to the viewpoints of most progressive persons. That's a serious question, but I doubt I'll get any serious answers. And this is an important question, because the fact that so many abroad "hate" Bush, and somehow getting more Americans to understand that, is central to Tanenbaum's multitude of statements on the topic. Why does "hating" someone mean what they're doing is wrong? (I will concede that a leader of a nation being hated probably makes it vastly more difficult to do diplomatic work, but that is somewhat tangential to my core question.)
The rest of this post amounts to what are essentially footnotes on this topic, but I believe are critical to the discussion of the belief that Kerry can somehow to a better job.
So let's address these things. The world "hates" Bush, and Kerry can somehow not only fight terrorism more effectively, but will also bring respect back to the US.
Sen McCain said it best yesterday on Face the Nation:
"I also believe that President Bush has a vision and a view that the war on terror is not going to be over until we have some democracy in the Middle East, and I don't think he means by imposing that at the point of a bayonet. But I do believe that he's correct that the issue of radical Islamic extremism is not going away until those countries have some kind of freedom and democracy, and I think that's his long-term goal."
Now, before you start spitting and sputtering about why the US is in "Iraq", then, well, reread that last statement. I'm not going to beat around the bush, as it were, any more: the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period. Not because Saddam tried to kill Bush's "daddy", not because Bush is an angry dry drunk, and not because Cheney has a secret plan to line his pockets and that of Halliburton. This isn't a black-and-white zero-sum game where there is only one reason the US is in Iraq. There are myriad reasons. But the prime one is that it is part of a comprehensive, omnibus strategy to bring free or quasi-free governments to the region, in the hopes that more of the same will be encouraged, even as organizations like al-Qaeda redouble their recruiting efforts. This strategy will make things worse in the meantime. Possibly a lot worse. People will hate us. Including some people who will ultimately be protected by our actions (i.e., Europe).
Apple is most certainly not tying digital identity to the computer.
Your Keychain, in ~/Library/Keychains, is perfectly portable, and designed to be moved from computer to computer, or stored on a device for storing such tokens, such as a USB flash drive.
Further, that certificates are even in your keychain at all implies that you should have access to the original source certificate files, which clearly remain portable.
And finally, rumor has it that Tiger will include much more advanced features for managing, importing, and exporting certificates and CAs.
...that this story called the agency the "Secret Service", instead of the "Department of Homeland Security" like the last article did (since the Secret Service, and myriad other law enforcement and protective agencies are now a part of DHS), otherwise we might have even more than the normal level of utterly useless paranoid police state drivel.
But hey, the Rubik's Cube case was a hell of a lot more scary when you invoke the name of the evil, Nazi-like "DHS" and sensationalize it like that!
The Bush-haters talk about how it's not possible to win a war against a noun.
Then Bush admits on a the Today show that he doesn't think you can actually completely "win" a war on "terror", but that we can certainly do a good job making many regions unfriendly to terrorists.
Then the Bush-haters - the same ones who said we can't win - go apeshit because Bush says just that.
The Kerry has even harsher rhetoric about how we are going to find, hunt down, and kill all of the terrorists, that we CAN AND WILL *win* the war on "terror", that we should be fighting and winning against Al Qaeda in all sixty nations they're operating in, and that he wants to greatly expand the US military, and talks about terror in terms that would require an even greater escalation than anything we've seen under Bush (unless, of course, he's egregiously lying).[1]
And those same Bush-haters apparently have no problem with this head-spinning contradiction.
Please, explain this to me, because I can't fucking keep up.
But their page never threw any errors if you didn't put the right stuff in...it turns out you can't set CID name, only the 10-digit number. They've now added some text to their page to that effect, and the service does indeed work.
They don't have my credit card. PayPal does. I DEFINITELY wouldn't have given it directly to them. (When I posted the first message, I assumed they had a credit card payment method too; in reality, the only way they "accept" a credit card is via PayPal.)
Figured $5 through PayPal (and yes, it really was PayPal, not some spoofed tab or scam site) was worthwhile.
However, even though their FAQ said it would be ready in 30 seconds, my account still shows zero minutes. Don't know if that's because PayPal takes a while to do the transfer, but I wasn't about to use a credit card with them.
For what it's worth, their "Privacy Guard" service page looks like this:
Camophone.com Home | Login to Privacy Guard | Frequently Asked Questions | Signup for Service
Logged in: das Time Remaining in Seconds: 0 Time Remaining in Minutes: 0 Recharge Account
Enter all phone numbers without a leading "1" and with no dashes or spaces. Example: 9095551212 Caller ID must be ten digits to be passed properly through the telephone network. When the system calls you, the caller ID you set will be sent to you as well. number to call [recipient]: (format: NPANXXXXXX) your number [caller]: (format: NPANXXXXXX) caller ID to send:
I can't believe how much you apparently grossly misunderstand this issue.
This is a POLITICAL CAMPAIGN SITE for a POLITICAL CANDIDATE.
It is NOT a government site, and therefore has zero to do with "governments" being open, or the US being a "business".
This is not whitehouse.gov, or any other US government site.
I didn't say Bush was "running low on cash". But the whole site is one big advertisement, and they want to insure that eyes that can actually vote see it. In the week that remains before the end of the election, the've even gotten Akamai on board. There is no reason to waste money on paying Akamai to serve non-US customers with a non-governmental political campaign site.
And Ralph Nader's site probably will get the same amount of traffic, in sum total, than Bush's site gets in a day, or likely even a matter of hours. So that argument is also BS.
"...54 percent [of Iraqis] said a parliamentary democracy would be acceptable, 42 percent said they would accept a council of elders and 20 percent said they would accept an Islamic theocracy. One percent said a Taliban-style regime would be acceptable." [1]
"...73 percent of respondents said a new government should have freedom of religion..." [1]
Also:
"57 percent of [Iraqis] said life was better now than under Saddam, against 19 percent who said it was worse and 23 percent who said it was about the same." [2]
"When asked what Iraq needs in five years, people were more likely to say an Iraqi democracy, 42 percent, followed by "a single strong leader," 35 percent." [2]
Slashdot Mirror
First, no, the exit polls do not suggest that. They perfectly mirror the results.
Secondly, Diebold's CEO, Walden O'Dell, said that about only Ohio, because he lives and works in Ohio, and is a GOP backer.
Bad taste? Yes. "Interesting" that a CEO of a company is a Republican? Nope. Do I wish he would have had the scruples to stay out of politics since his company is making voting machines? Yep.
But please, take off your tinfoil hat. When he said he was committed to delivering Ohio to Bush, he meant that as a GOP campaigner, contributor, and backer. Not that he was going to secretly have a 13,000-employee company rig a presidential election.
Yep. Get ready for the Diebold conspiracy wackos to crawl out of the woodwork, because Diebold's chairman said in his capacity as a Republican party backer that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Really, really poor taste? Yep. Probably a fucking stupid thing to say when you're CEO of a company that makes electronic voting machines? For the *state* about which you're making those comments, no less? Yep. But don't forget one thing: the exit polls exactly and perfectly describe the 2% Bush margin. That's one thing you'll never see the Diebold conspiracy blogs mention. They'll just fantasize about how a 13,000 person company secretly rigged the election, and that somehow, the mainstream media is "hiding" the story because it's in bed with Bush. Ahh, conspiracy theorists. Gotta love 'em.
Interestingly, they showed footage on NBC's TODAY show of some of the polling places using electronic equipment in Ohio; some polling places had waits of over 9 hours with the last people voting at shortly before 4AM local time. Voting officials offered the alternative of paper ballots to move people through more quickly. Ironically, students and other members of the line were yelling "Do not use the paper ballots! Wait to use the machines!" explaining later that they felt their votes wouldn't be counted if they voted on paper...
And no, the exit polls didn't indicate a different winner.
Bush has...
Nationally:
- A 3.5 million vote (3%) margin
- An absolute majority (51%), the first since 1988
- The most votes ever received in any presidential election (though that's not necessarily relevant)
in Ohio:
- A 136,000 vote (2%) margin
- An absolute majority (51%)
- 100% precincts reporting
- Election results perfectly mirror exit polls (i.e., no tampering)
- Approximately 140-150,000 provisional ballots outstanding (according to Ohio Secretary of State)
- A statistically insurmountable lead
This time, it's clear.
Though, these campaigns are $300 million operations that have been going for almost two years, and when almost 60 million people vote for you, you have a duty to ensure that every vote counts - I won't fault anyone for that.
However, get ready for the Diebold conspiracy wackos to crawl out of the woodwork, because Diebold's chairman said in his capacity as a Republican party backer that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Really, really poor taste? Yep. Probably a fucking stupid thing to say when you're CEO of a company that makes electronic voting machines? For the *state* about which you're making those comments, no less? Yep. But don't forget one thing: the exit polls exactly and perfectly describe the 2% Bush margin. That's one thing you'll never see the Diebold conspiracy blogs mention. (In fact, somehow they're now saying that the some of the exit polls *don't* match...which will give further fodder to the Diebold tinfoil hat crowd.) They'll just fantasize about how a 13,000 person company secretly rigged the election, and that somehow, the mainstream media is "hiding" the story because it's in bed with Bush. Ahh, conspiracy theorists. Gotta love 'em.
And I didn't vote for Bush.
I would hardly say that Apple trying to protect its relationship with the music content providers, which is the whole reason that the iTunes Music Store exists in the first place, not to mention the online store with by far the highest marketshare, is tantamount to Apple telling its customers to "eat shit and die".
.
His preemptive rebuttals are also complete bullshit. Yes, we're the "customers", not Sony/BMG. And he himself admits that the record companies are idiots; yes, those are the idiots that Apple has to deal with. A lot of people think it was a miracle Apple/Steve Jobs got them even to agree to this "crazy experiment" in the first place.
Additionally, getting music back off the iPod is not part of the advertised capabilities or features of the service, period, and never was. Remember iTunes 4.0b12? It let you go both ways between every iPod and iTunes under the sun, with no limits. You could two-way sync every iPod and iTunes library on earth. Remember iTunes 4.0, and its internet music sharing? The record industry might not be telling Apple *exactly* the specifics of how to implement the protections, but Apple is under pressure to not make it too "easy" to "share" music on a wide scale, while still making the DRM and protections as transparent as it possibly can.
The proponents of things like iPod Download, and even the linked article, talk about things like stolen computers and hard drive failures. Well, in fairness, Apple does have a recommendation. You might hate it, and you might think it sucks, but it's to have your music library backed up somewhere other than your computer, and other than your iPod
Further, as long as the iPod is just a freaking disk, its contents will be able to be retrieved. But Apple CANNOT look as if it is passively ignoring things that are perceived by the music industry to be "dangerous", whether they are or not. Yes, Apple can try to help the music industry understand, and even pressure them in the right direction - and probably has, quite a bit, frankly. Remember, this whole online download thing is in its utter infancy.
If you want to hate or blame Apple for "selling out", and saying that they should just tell people like Sony/BMG to go fuck themselves, and if they lose them they lose them, fine...that's you call. And no one is forcing you to use or buy any of Apple's services. This is Apple's service and products, and they're running them how they feel they have to to ensure the iTunes Music Store's continued existence. Do you think they WANT to make things hard on customers? Quite the opposite! And maybe someday Apple will have the leverage to start pressing these things with the music industry - Jobs believes people should really be able to do what they want with their music. But people also want music from the major labels, so you can't piss them off right off the bat. What to do? Frankly, I think Apple is in the right here, and Cory Doctorow is the one who can eat shit and die.
I know you're just joking, but for others who actually believe this, it bears repeating:
If that were true, then apache would have the most exploits of any web server, since it has the greatest market share. However, that is not the case: Microsoft IIS is by far the most exploited web server, with only around 20% marketshare.
Additionally, lesser marketshare does not automatically imply anything with regard to security. Sure, it's *targeted* less, and people might spend less time attacking it, but that does not mean it is less secure. In fact, there are numerous technical, design, and architectural reasons that, e.g., Mac OS X is more secure than Windows. A few examples would be: no ports or services open by default, services that are used are likely to be open source services like apache and OpenSSH which receive in intense scrutiny so that theoretical holes are closed before they become practical ones, there are more layers of abstraction between an email attachment and it actually becoming a meaningful exploit, prompting and notification for administrative-level or elevated privileges, less likelihood of standardization on a single email client reducing the exposure of a single point of attack, etc.
And sure, marketshare helps too, in terms of things like the statistical likelihood of the next host encountered/scanned by a piece of Mac OS X malware also being Mac OS X. But that's no where near the whole story.
...this study is talking about manual exploits, and says as much:
The study also reveals that Linux has become the most breached 24/7 online computing environment in terms of manual hacker attacks overall and accounts for 65.64% of all breaches recorded, with 154,846 successfully compromised Linux 24/7 online computers of all flavours.
This is likely because of the great number of Linux servers, and the wide variety of network services and ports open to the world on such servers.
And it does, in fact, make distinct reference to Windows malware (self-propagating worms, viruses, etc.):
Malware proliferation
The recent global malware epidemics have primarily targeted the Windows computing environment and have not caused any significant economic damage to environments running Open Source including Linux, BSD and Mac OS X. When taking the economic damage from malware into account over the last twelve months, including the impact of MyDoom, NetSky, SoBig, Klez and Sasser, Windows has become the most breached computing environment in the world accounting for most of the productivity losses associated with malware - virus, worm and trojan - proliferation. This is directly the result of very insignificant quantities of highly damaging mass-spreading malware being written for other computing environments like Linux, BSD and Mac OS X.
Also interesting:
For the record, neither mi2g Ltd nor the mi2g Intelligence Unit have a business relationship with Apple Computers and we do not own any shares in that corporation. Previously, the mi2g data for one month was considered to be too small a sample and not representative of the global environment within which different types of entities - micro, small, medium and large - exist. We have addressed those concerns in the new study. The critics were against the previous study which also came out in favour of Apple and BSD, because the entrenched supporters of Linux and Windows felt that mi2g was guilty of 'computing blasphemy'. In subsequent months, mi2g's reputation was damaged on search engines and bulletin boards. We would urge caution when reading negative commentary against mi2g, which may have been clandestinely funded, aided or abetted by a vendor or a special interest group.
There are a wide variety of reasons to expect that Mac OS X is a significantly more secure computing platform than Windows in a non-server/desktop setting; this study only further confirms that.
You're right; I didn't mention Israel, though I have in previous posts. And the situation is certainly a contentious one at best. However, my problem is as follows: if we did end support for Israel, it pains me to think of what might become of it. While the Israelis have not been, shall we say, very helpful in this situation, there are many on the opposing side who wish for Israel to cease to exist entirely, and exterminating all of the Jews might not be a bad idea either. I'm not saying everyone, even in some of the radical Islamic sects, believes that; just that there are a sizable number who do. Whether these feelings are rooted in radicalism or whether the radicalism was brought about by the Israelis and/or US policy is at this point academic. (Not to mention the fact that Israel is a shining star for us; an example that democracy can work in the region, religion notwithstanding.)
But as for saying something about the Israeli/Palestinian situation, I'll say this: Bush has been the first US president to suggest a completely autonomous and sovereign Palestinian state. Many say that's just talk; rhetoric with no teeth. Perhaps.
As to your last point: I'm not saying the PNAC crowd has the perfect solution here. But I do strongly believe in the idea that freedom - free flow of information, free governments, free markets, freedom of religion, free peoples - are manifestly "good" things, and have a way of silencing serious radicalism of the types espoused by al-Qaeda, the Wahhabists and the like. Sure, "radicals" exist in free states as well - but they are largely marginalized by the majority. The difference we may be dealing with now is the concept that radicals otherwise unable to do any statistically significant harm may come into possession of a weapon of mass destruction. It might be argued that even if they did, it is unjustified to live in fear of the result - I disagree. The terrorists actions are designed to instill terror; realizing that fact does not make the prospects any less frightening. Note that I am not saying people should continually live in crippling fear of what may or may not occur. Just that we want to prevent such an event from happening in the first place.
I agree it is intensely complex. But the simplicity of freedom is compelling. The notion that some people "don't want" freedom is very questionable to me. It's akin to saying that a battered wife doesn't "want" to leave her husband: she may literally believe that; that, however, does not mean it is the best thing. While installing democracies is risky business, I don't believe freedom is "imposed". Quite the contrary: I believe that freedom is the default state. Of course I don't believe anyone, including in free nations, has ultimate freedom. There are restrictions collectively decided upon by society. One might ask why, then, is someone in the Arab/Persian/northeast-African world not allowed to make those same judgments? First of all, that would be our aim. But second, and more importantly, they are not afforded those choices now. (If you have time, I would also urge you to read this document related to the subject at hand.)
And related to all of this is the fact that the region has a resource that is critical to the functioning of modern Western civilization. That cannot be denied. The "Bush doctrine" and the new strategy in the middle east is far from perfect. But there comes a time when you stop looking for perfection and start asking the question "When is it ok to protect ourselves and our interests?"
Thanks very much for your thoughtful reply.
While you've indicated we've likely come to differing conclusions on some topics based upon the available data, I do agree with the core of what you're saying. I do think that Kerry (or ANYONE) would have a better chance at diplomacy if elected, both for reasons of skill and being a "new face". I'm even willing to give him a chance to do just that; however, my concern is more the reasons people claim to be voting Bush *out*; in other words, if Kerry's rhetoric on the war on terror, Iraq, and the military, some of which I referenced in my initial post, is even remotely true, these people who vote Bush out for Kerry may be in for a surprise.
I am thoroughly glad, however, that even though you might not agree with some or most of my positions and/or reasoning, you can at least understand that points I'm making and the reasons I claim to be making them.
...and is all original. The only reason I was so quick is because as soon as I found out that Tanenbaum was the votemaster, I started preparing this post. It took about a half hour to compile.
And yes, I did the same thing for Jon Stewart. It too went to +5, but then was modded down to -1 in about a half hour.
...for actually providing a reasoned answer.
That's a very interesting phenomenon; I'd heard of it before, but still hadn't realized how pronounced it was.
Still, Tanenbaum doesn't really make reference to that on his site; he acts as if the mere act of running electoral-vote.com somehow helps the Democratic candidate. That's the part I don't understand.
As I imagine the replies to this post will mostly be drooling fawning over Andrew Tanenbaum, much like the Jon Stewart/Crossfire article, I'd like to actually ask some meaningful questions. (And please note that I have great respect for Tanenbaum, but don't understand a couple of his central points, described below.)
Why does running a statistical analysis website that gathers information on polls and aggregates them into something quasi-meaningful "support" the Democratic candidate?
Yes, yes, I'm well aware that while incognito he had said on numerous occasions that he was a Kerry supporter, and a Democrat. But he himself says:
Why Did You Do This?
In a nutshell, because I want to be proud of America again.
Meaning that Kerry can somehow make him proud again. Ok, fine, but what does running electoral-vote.com have to do with that? The question "Why Did You Do This?" implies that he is "do"ing something to influence people to vote in a particular way, which I simply don't see that website doing. In fact, other than the admittedly editorial sections of the site, I have found the site to be remarkedly unbiased.
He then goes on, at length, describing/proving that the world "hates" Bush/the administration/etc. This comes as absolutely no surprise to me. However - and FORGET about "Bush" for a second - how does "hating" someone have any logical correlation with whether their positions or courses of action are appropriate or inappropriate? That would seem antithetical to the viewpoints of most progressive persons. That's a serious question, but I doubt I'll get any serious answers. And this is an important question, because the fact that so many abroad "hate" Bush, and somehow getting more Americans to understand that, is central to Tanenbaum's multitude of statements on the topic. Why does "hating" someone mean what they're doing is wrong? (I will concede that a leader of a nation being hated probably makes it vastly more difficult to do diplomatic work, but that is somewhat tangential to my core question.)
The rest of this post amounts to what are essentially footnotes on this topic, but I believe are critical to the discussion of the belief that Kerry can somehow to a better job.
So let's address these things. The world "hates" Bush, and Kerry can somehow not only fight terrorism more effectively, but will also bring respect back to the US.
Sen McCain said it best yesterday on Face the Nation:
"I also believe that President Bush has a vision and a view that the war on terror is not going to be over until we have some democracy in the Middle East, and I don't think he means by imposing that at the point of a bayonet. But I do believe that he's correct that the issue of radical Islamic extremism is not going away until those countries have some kind of freedom and democracy, and I think that's his long-term goal."
Now, before you start spitting and sputtering about why the US is in "Iraq", then, well, reread that last statement. I'm not going to beat around the bush, as it were, any more: the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period. Not because Saddam tried to kill Bush's "daddy", not because Bush is an angry dry drunk, and not because Cheney has a secret plan to line his pockets and that of Halliburton. This isn't a black-and-white zero-sum game where there is only one reason the US is in Iraq. There are myriad reasons. But the prime one is that it is part of a comprehensive, omnibus strategy to bring free or quasi-free governments to the region, in the hopes that more of the same will be encouraged, even as organizations like al-Qaeda redouble their recruiting efforts. This strategy will make things worse in the meantime. Possibly a lot worse. People will hate us. Including some people who will ultimately be protected by our actions (i.e., Europe).
Panislamic radicalism will not go away on its own
Apple is most certainly not tying digital identity to the computer.
Your Keychain, in ~/Library/Keychains, is perfectly portable, and designed to be moved from computer to computer, or stored on a device for storing such tokens, such as a USB flash drive.
Further, that certificates are even in your keychain at all implies that you should have access to the original source certificate files, which clearly remain portable.
And finally, rumor has it that Tiger will include much more advanced features for managing, importing, and exporting certificates and CAs.
Corsaire Ltd has an excellent practical OS X security whitepaper in this same vein.
It's a direct quote from here.
"US has made no territorial claim in Antarctica (but has reserved the right to do so) and does not recognize the claims of any other state"
...that this story called the agency the "Secret Service", instead of the "Department of Homeland Security" like the last article did (since the Secret Service, and myriad other law enforcement and protective agencies are now a part of DHS), otherwise we might have even more than the normal level of utterly useless paranoid police state drivel.
But hey, the Rubik's Cube case was a hell of a lot more scary when you invoke the name of the evil, Nazi-like "DHS" and sensationalize it like that!
The war is not meant to be won....
0 04_0924.html
Please.
Bush says we're going to "win the war on terror".
The Bush-haters talk about how it's not possible to win a war against a noun.
Then Bush admits on a the Today show that he doesn't think you can actually completely "win" a war on "terror", but that we can certainly do a good job making many regions unfriendly to terrorists.
Then the Bush-haters - the same ones who said we can't win - go apeshit because Bush says just that.
The Kerry has even harsher rhetoric about how we are going to find, hunt down, and kill all of the terrorists, that we CAN AND WILL *win* the war on "terror", that we should be fighting and winning against Al Qaeda in all sixty nations they're operating in, and that he wants to greatly expand the US military, and talks about terror in terms that would require an even greater escalation than anything we've seen under Bush (unless, of course, he's egregiously lying).[1]
And those same Bush-haters apparently have no problem with this head-spinning contradiction.
Please, explain this to me, because I can't fucking keep up.
[1] http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2
But their page never threw any errors if you didn't put the right stuff in...it turns out you can't set CID name, only the 10-digit number. They've now added some text to their page to that effect, and the service does indeed work.
This site is a scam, fyi. So don't sign up for it, anyone who might be reading this.
They don't have my credit card. PayPal does. I DEFINITELY wouldn't have given it directly to them. (When I posted the first message, I assumed they had a credit card payment method too; in reality, the only way they "accept" a credit card is via PayPal.)
So, I decided to see if a credit card paypal transaction would be any "faster".
:-)
It did indeed show my account credited with 100 minutes.
But the service did not work.
I *really* *don't care* about the $10 I've now wasted; just wanted to see if it worked or not.
Anyway, there ya go.
Figured $5 through PayPal (and yes, it really was PayPal, not some spoofed tab or scam site) was worthwhile.
However, even though their FAQ said it would be ready in 30 seconds, my account still shows zero minutes. Don't know if that's because PayPal takes a while to do the transfer, but I wasn't about to use a credit card with them.
For what it's worth, their "Privacy Guard" service page looks like this:
Camophone.com Home | Login to Privacy Guard | Frequently Asked Questions | Signup for Service
Logged in: das
Time Remaining in Seconds: 0
Time Remaining in Minutes: 0
Recharge Account
Enter all phone numbers without a leading "1" and with no dashes or spaces. Example: 9095551212
Caller ID must be ten digits to be passed properly through the telephone network. When the system calls you, the caller ID you set will be sent to you as well.
number to call [recipient]: (format: NPANXXXXXX)
your number [caller]: (format: NPANXXXXXX)
caller ID to send:
I can't believe how much you apparently grossly misunderstand this issue.
This is a POLITICAL CAMPAIGN SITE for a POLITICAL CANDIDATE.
It is NOT a government site, and therefore has zero to do with "governments" being open, or the US being a "business".
This is not whitehouse.gov, or any other US government site.
I didn't say Bush was "running low on cash". But the whole site is one big advertisement, and they want to insure that eyes that can actually vote see it. In the week that remains before the end of the election, the've even gotten Akamai on board. There is no reason to waste money on paying Akamai to serve non-US customers with a non-governmental political campaign site.
And Ralph Nader's site probably will get the same amount of traffic, in sum total, than Bush's site gets in a day, or likely even a matter of hours. So that argument is also BS.
"...54 percent [of Iraqis] said a parliamentary democracy would be acceptable, 42 percent said they would accept a council of elders and 20 percent said they would accept an Islamic theocracy. One percent said a Taliban-style regime would be acceptable." [1]
"...73 percent of respondents said a new government should have freedom of religion..." [1]
Also:
"57 percent of [Iraqis] said life was better now than under Saddam, against 19 percent who said it was worse and 23 percent who said it was about the same." [2]
"When asked what Iraq needs in five years, people were more likely to say an Iraqi democracy, 42 percent, followed by "a single strong leader," 35 percent." [2]
[1] Source [cnn.com]
[2] Source [cnn.com] Oxford Research International National Survey of Iraq [bbc.co.uk]
Yeah, and this story broke in April 2003.
I wonder why it's being dredged up again now? Hmm...