// I wouldn't run code that wasn't directly audited.
The only way to tell for sure if code has been properly audited, is to do it yourself.. By this reckoning, you wouldnt use windows atall, unless you work for microsoft.
For a single purpose system designed to be run by non technical personnel, the system should only provide the features required for the job, and it should actively prevent the user from doing anything else. They won`t get infected with a virus if theres no way to download or execute one...
And if you have no friends with internet access? Let`s say you just moved out to the country, most people don`t have computers, and theres highly unlikely to be a public access terminal. Aside from the fact that, it could cost you money to access a third party computer, gas to get there... usage costs... etc, dell should pay my gas usage so i can drive to a cybercafe (about 70 miles away) and lookup their licenses which they fail to provide.
Personally i refuse to use msn messenger on principle. A couple of years ago, noone used it atall, everyone used yahoo, aim or icq.. ms has been using ie, and later xp to ram this crap down people`s throats in their ongoing effort to control all aspects of the computing industry. Aside from the fact that msn has had more security issues than those other services put together, and i seem to remember not so long ago hearing about a week (yes, a whole week) of downtime.
I liked the AmigaOS style asl.library / arq.library.. A system library which contained the standard file requester, most system-friendly apps used the library, there were different versions of the library depending on wether you wanted speed, flexibility, low memory usage, pretty graphics etc, and your apps used whichever version you had installed... If you didnt like the default, you could always go and install a third party version. And thus we have a modular system, which promotes freedom of choice, while maintaining compatibility and offering reasonable defaults.
But by contrast, the mainstream media implies that __ALL__ computers are vulnerable to sobig and msblaster, atleast the news reports in the uk did.. Not once did they mention that only microsoft products were vulnerable, they used the generic term "computers" which is totally inaccurate and unfairly discredits linux, macs and other systems which are immune to these threats. They described sobig as "an email virus" - implying that email itself is flawed, when in reality it is "a windows virus which is distributed via email" I mean, remember the old bootsector viruses? they werent called "floppy viruses"
Not to mention people who pay for bandwidth usage, if your machine goes and downloads the huge ms patches without your knowlege, it could cause an unwelcome bandwidth charge. So, could MS be held responsible for this?
But then you`d still need to download a compiler, since windows doesn`t come with a compiler by default. I miss the good old days when every computer came with a BASIC interpreter and actually encouraged you to learn about it, windows seems to go out of it`s way to keep the users as clueless as possible.
In which case, the acceptance of cookies can be part of the signup process. Cookies have their uses, but in MANY cases they are abused.. a lot of sites store cookies on your machine for tracking how many times youve visited their site, which banner you saw last etc.. this is both intrusive and annoying. Even so, in the case you`ve described, cookies arent _REQUIRED_... there are ways to get round it
I noticed that too... Nowadays, i configure my browser to ask me before accepting a cookie, and i reject anything automatically, and later add it to the allowlist if the cookies will convenience me in some way (slashdot, ebay, etc...) I also tend to complain about sites which require cookies in order to work, especially sites where i dont even have a login/pass etc.. Such sites are often just being picky and trying to force you to use cookies for tracking purposes... or possibly theyre just very poorly coded, either way its not desireable.
//I send CD images back and forth to friends that are a 10 minute drive away, simply because it's easier.
Not to mention cheaper, 10 minutes there, plus 10 minutes back will cost you gas.. Whats more, assuming you stay for a while to talk to your friends etc, your car will cool down... cars use a lot more gas during the first few minutes to heat the engine to normal operating temperature.
Or use QoS systems.. ISP`s shouldnt over subscribe as much as they do for starters... Also, instead of charging for usage.. which people have been campaigning against for years, and which is often abused by crackers, at your expense... How about introducing priorities... what i mean is: allow say, 5 gig of traffic per month... after that, your placed in a low priority list and other users get priority of the bandwidth over you... if you pay for extra traffic, then you can have higher priority for longer, but its not mandatory to pay.. Otherwise, you have a lower priority, but still a guaranteed rate.. for instance if you order a 2mb dsl, your guaranteed rate may be 64kb...
Actually, piracy is one of the largest reasons people buy broadband.. If you could not download movies games and music for free, most people wouldnt have any use for broadband atall. And the money spent on broadband would instead be spent on buying pirated videos down the local market... If you had to pay extra to download movies, then people would opt to just rent them from the local video store instead..
Well, it`s only XP that performs this reporting back, not only that.. but lets assume that not all XP installations are setup to report back, many users dont want to send crash information for instance. Whats more, its 5% that crash more than TWICE a day.. how about the systems that average a single crash a day? that`s still once too many. Also, windows doesnt always report a crash when one occurs, i have seen it boot back and try to report what library caused the crash etc, but i have also seen xp systems crash and then have no idea what happened, so their detection routine isnt exactly flawless. As for rogue software and viruses, well viruses shouldnt exist atall, and shouldnt be able to cause a system crash at the very least.. as for rogue software, it shouldnt be able to drop the whole os..
Albums are the music industry`s way of shovelling out the crap, they use one or two good songs to sell the album, and then give you 10 tracks of pure shit, the tracks that they couldnt sell as singles.. and you can guarantee that if they could make money on their own, thats how they would be sold.
Well, why dont you just compile it yourself? you cant rely on people precompiling binaries for your old OS for the few people who may still be using it... but the software can be compiled.
The linux or *BSD kernels are good examples of how to handle bloat/features too. Any features you dont want, you dont have to load.. AND you can compile a version which has absoloutely no support for something you dont want, which saves a little more space and memory than just having modules. Ofcourse, if you really want all those features immediately available to you... you can do that too.
Fans arent too reliable either, moving parts and all.. but nowadays the death of your fan can lead to death or damage for your cpu, graphics card or psu etc.. or whatever else may be fan cooled in your machine.
DEC drives are awesome.. i have a 104mb drive in a VAXstation here, It`s been running 24/7 for well over 10 years with no problems whatsoever, when it was bought 104mb was considered large. I wonder if today`s 200gb drives will still be working in 10-15 years time. I also have some 4 and 18gig DEC drives, all of which still work perfectly... despite having been mistreated at times (run with inadequate cooling in a room that was very hot already) During that period, i had the drives and machines lock up due to the heat.. but never suffered any data loss or physical damage to the drives.
And manufacturing devices have no place being on publicly routed IP`s, infact every manufacturing company has their own A-class block for their devices, 10/8 Putting manufacturing devices on routed IP`s is a stupid idea, what if someone hacks them and starts changing designs?
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// I wouldn't run code that wasn't directly audited.
The only way to tell for sure if code has been properly audited, is to do it yourself..
By this reckoning, you wouldnt use windows atall, unless you work for microsoft.
For a single purpose system designed to be run by non technical personnel, the system should only provide the features required for the job, and it should actively prevent the user from doing anything else.
They won`t get infected with a virus if theres no way to download or execute one...
And if you have no friends with internet access?
Let`s say you just moved out to the country, most people don`t have computers, and theres highly unlikely to be a public access terminal.
Aside from the fact that, it could cost you money to access a third party computer, gas to get there... usage costs... etc, dell should pay my gas usage so i can drive to a cybercafe (about 70 miles away) and lookup their licenses which they fail to provide.
Personally i refuse to use msn messenger on principle. A couple of years ago, noone used it atall, everyone used yahoo, aim or icq.. ms has been using ie, and later xp to ram this crap down people`s throats in their ongoing effort to control all aspects of the computing industry. Aside from the fact that msn has had more security issues than those other services put together, and i seem to remember not so long ago hearing about a week (yes, a whole week) of downtime.
It pretty much sucks on Alpha too.. the Compaq/DEC compiler can still beat it hands down most of the time, by 600% in some tests.
I liked the AmigaOS style asl.library / arq.library..
A system library which contained the standard file requester, most system-friendly apps used the library, there were different versions of the library depending on wether you wanted speed, flexibility, low memory usage, pretty graphics etc, and your apps used whichever version you had installed... If you didnt like the default, you could always go and install a third party version.
And thus we have a modular system, which promotes freedom of choice, while maintaining compatibility and offering reasonable defaults.
But by contrast, the mainstream media implies that __ALL__ computers are vulnerable to sobig and msblaster, atleast the news reports in the uk did..
Not once did they mention that only microsoft products were vulnerable, they used the generic term "computers" which is totally inaccurate and unfairly discredits linux, macs and other systems which are immune to these threats.
They described sobig as "an email virus" - implying that email itself is flawed, when in reality it is "a windows virus which is distributed via email"
I mean, remember the old bootsector viruses? they werent called "floppy viruses"
Actually, monopoly is based on the local market, the version sold in the UK is based on london for instance
Not to mention people who pay for bandwidth usage, if your machine goes and downloads the huge ms patches without your knowlege, it could cause an unwelcome bandwidth charge.
So, could MS be held responsible for this?
But then you`d still need to download a compiler, since windows doesn`t come with a compiler by default.
I miss the good old days when every computer came with a BASIC interpreter and actually encouraged you to learn about it, windows seems to go out of it`s way to keep the users as clueless as possible.
In which case, the acceptance of cookies can be part of the signup process.
Cookies have their uses, but in MANY cases they are abused.. a lot of sites store cookies on your machine for tracking how many times youve visited their site, which banner you saw last etc.. this is both intrusive and annoying.
Even so, in the case you`ve described, cookies arent _REQUIRED_... there are ways to get round it
I noticed that too...
Nowadays, i configure my browser to ask me before accepting a cookie, and i reject anything automatically, and later add it to the allowlist if the cookies will convenience me in some way (slashdot, ebay, etc...)
I also tend to complain about sites which require cookies in order to work, especially sites where i dont even have a login/pass etc.. Such sites are often just being picky and trying to force you to use cookies for tracking purposes...
or possibly theyre just very poorly coded, either way its not desireable.
//I send CD images back and forth to friends that are a 10 minute drive away, simply because it's easier.
Not to mention cheaper, 10 minutes there, plus 10 minutes back will cost you gas..
Whats more, assuming you stay for a while to talk to your friends etc, your car will cool down... cars use a lot more gas during the first few minutes to heat the engine to normal operating temperature.
Or use QoS systems..
ISP`s shouldnt over subscribe as much as they do for starters...
Also, instead of charging for usage.. which people have been campaigning against for years, and which is often abused by crackers, at your expense...
How about introducing priorities... what i mean is:
allow say, 5 gig of traffic per month... after that, your placed in a low priority list and other users get priority of the bandwidth over you...
if you pay for extra traffic, then you can have higher priority for longer, but its not mandatory to pay..
Otherwise, you have a lower priority, but still a guaranteed rate.. for instance if you order a 2mb dsl, your guaranteed rate may be 64kb...
Actually, piracy is one of the largest reasons people buy broadband.. If you could not download movies games and music for free, most people wouldnt have any use for broadband atall. And the money spent on broadband would instead be spent on buying pirated videos down the local market...
If you had to pay extra to download movies, then people would opt to just rent them from the local video store instead..
Well, it`s only XP that performs this reporting back, not only that.. but lets assume that not all XP installations are setup to report back, many users dont want to send crash information for instance.
Whats more, its 5% that crash more than TWICE a day.. how about the systems that average a single crash a day? that`s still once too many.
Also, windows doesnt always report a crash when one occurs, i have seen it boot back and try to report what library caused the crash etc, but i have also seen xp systems crash and then have no idea what happened, so their detection routine isnt exactly flawless.
As for rogue software and viruses, well viruses shouldnt exist atall, and shouldnt be able to cause a system crash at the very least.. as for rogue software, it shouldnt be able to drop the whole os..
Albums are the music industry`s way of shovelling out the crap, they use one or two good songs to sell the album, and then give you 10 tracks of pure shit, the tracks that they couldnt sell as singles.. and you can guarantee that if they could make money on their own, thats how they would be sold.
Because mil and gov are supposed to be international domains, and not just restricted to american agencies
technically gov and mil are, but the us hoardes them anyway
Why does the US have 3, .us .gov .mil ?
Well, why dont you just compile it yourself? you cant rely on people precompiling binaries for your old OS for the few people who may still be using it... but the software can be compiled.
The linux or *BSD kernels are good examples of how to handle bloat/features too.
Any features you dont want, you dont have to load.. AND you can compile a version which has absoloutely no support for something you dont want, which saves a little more space and memory than just having modules.
Ofcourse, if you really want all those features immediately available to you... you can do that too.
Fans arent too reliable either, moving parts and all.. but nowadays the death of your fan can lead to death or damage for your cpu, graphics card or psu etc.. or whatever else may be fan cooled in your machine.
DEC drives are awesome.. i have a 104mb drive in a VAXstation here, It`s been running 24/7 for well over 10 years with no problems whatsoever, when it was bought 104mb was considered large.
I wonder if today`s 200gb drives will still be working in 10-15 years time.
I also have some 4 and 18gig DEC drives, all of which still work perfectly... despite having been mistreated at times (run with inadequate cooling in a room that was very hot already)
During that period, i had the drives and machines lock up due to the heat.. but never suffered any data loss or physical damage to the drives.
And manufacturing devices have no place being on publicly routed IP`s, infact every manufacturing company has their own A-class block for their devices, 10/8
Putting manufacturing devices on routed IP`s is a stupid idea, what if someone hacks them and starts changing designs?