Most of the security community already follows common-sense rules that ensure that security vulnerabilities are handled appropriately. When they find a security vulnerability, they inform the vendor and work with it while the patch is being developed. When the patch is complete, they publish information discussing what products are affected by the vulnerability, what the effect of the vulnerability is - that is, the type and extent of damage that an attacker could cause through it - and what users can do to protect their systems.
There's a huge problem with this. If a person discovers an exploit, and shares it with only the vendor of the software, the exploit is never a high priority to fix. Very few people would know of it, and the company would have little incentive to correct the problem. Since this calls for a notice of the security vulnerability only after a patch has been released, only a select few people would have any idea that their security has a way of being compromised by a blackhat or script kiddie. What most companies would do is ignore, or even completely deny the vulnerability, until years later a patch is released. And sadly, even if the corporation was responsible in releasing limited information, it would not be enough for those who need the security fixes immediately. Not to mention, most of the times this occurs, the company laces the vulnerability announcement with such PR crap, that any information to be gleaned is virutally nonexistant.
This is most definately not in the best concern for the consumer. Only when detailed information is released to the public do security issues get fixed. Hell, that's even what the DEF CON convention is all about. Unfortunately, some companies have no interest in their consumer, only a fattening wallet, and object to any release showing imperfections in their software; no names mentioned, Adobe.
This type of information protects users by giving them the information they need to decide whether to apply the fix, but it doesn't put them at risk.
What he meant to say was, "This lack of information makes users more vulnerable by preventing them from acquiring the information they need to fix a security hole, and puts all users at a much greater risk."
Every time the tech world comes out with a new toy (e.g. the internet, T.V.), people who barely understand the technology themselves have an incredible desire to regulate it and control it.
The internet is the epitome of free speech; that's it's greatest quality. Anyone can say or show anything that they please. This is what free speech is all about: the expression of thoughts and ideas. I don't understand what is so wrong with this kind of ethos that parents and government officials who know approximately "how to turn on a computer" scream for regulation.
If we regulate the internet, we condemn it to oblivion. This amazing new world which has functioned completely fine by its own, without regulation, suddenly has recieved a surge of the technlogically incompetent. These people, whose internet skills roughly equate to knowing how to click on their AOL buttons, suddenly stumble across something they don't like. "Oh no! That kind of stuff is on the world wide internet world web thing! This is evil and terrible! I must find a way to take it off so that other people aren't exposed to this horrid filth!" Has anyone else noticed that the only people who complain are those who just started using "that web thing"?
Guess what? The internet is the way it is because it came there naturally. Enough people laugh at things on College Humor to allow that website to survive. Enough people look at porn to make it a profitable business. Enough people find Something Awful's Awful Link of the Day stupid enough to keep going every day. The internet isn't THEIR world; it's yours, it's ours, it's everyone's.
These people don't understand that the internet survived simply because it was an unlimited and unrestricted venue of the freedom of speech. They don't understand that voluntary ratings, governmental regulations, emailing with threats to sue, and any other measure won't work due to the decentralized structure of the internet. It won't work because they have no idea how the internet even truly functions. It won't work because they have no idea of the history of the internet, and how it came to be how it is. This is a Good Thing(TM).
When the internet becomes as heavily regulated as T.V., it will be the incarnation of the true evil in this world that keeps showing it's face over and over again: human beings telling other human beings exactly what they can and can't fucking do.
Then you guys have been really lucky. From mine own, and several other friends/coworkers of mine's experiences, Maxtor makes the AOL of hard drives. Except unlike AOL, they don't cost you an arm and a leg.
From what I've seen, Maxtors generally have a life span of a year at max. I've seen a few go over, but only one (a 30Gb one) is still even functional. And that one is, according to ScanDisk, having congestive heart failure right now and getting bad sectors fast.
Perhaps the circumstances are different, but from what I've seen...buying Maxtors are a good investment only if you've got a hell of a lot of stock in the company.
Ugh...Maxtor has always made low-quality drives in my opinion. Almost every Maxtor my company has gotten has failed within 6 months to a year. Thankfully, I was able to convince them to buy IBMs and Seagates. I'll make sure they don't get any 75GXPs.
If you're going to be needing hard drives for anything critical, or are storing huge amounts of data (excess of 15Gb), I would definately suggest avoiding any Maxtor product, or you run the risk of losing important data.
Don't use Norton. I have personally seen it cause so many problems, it isn't even worth the protection it offers.
The best AV software I have seen currently is McAfee. One possible solution with McAfee is to just register on the website, and you can run the virus scan right off their website.
...go with Klipsh Promedia 5.1 speakers. If you're an audiophile, these things will satisfy any need you could want: music, games, DVDs, or anything else.
With a 113dB max volume, these things can crank up to the volume of a jet taking off next to your house. It has an incredible 25Hz-20kHz frequency response and sounds absolutely beautiful.
Once again, if you have the money, these are the absolute best you can buy. Nothing else comes close, and at $399.00, it has a fairly low price tag for what you get.
Yes, that Hsieh link is fairly old, but I find it a good primer for those who haven't really paid attention to the debate.
As someone who's worked with both DirectX and OpenGL, I can honestly say that it is much simpler to work with OpenGL. Direct3D took me weeks to even begin to get the hang of, while OpenGL was intuitive enough to be fairly straightforward to learn. Not to mention, most of the programs I write are faster in OpenGL. This might, however, reflect the fact that I spend more time on OpenGL, or that the OpenGL drivers on GeForces are spectacular.
Any tool that makes it easier for a developer to do 3D rendering, is easier to debug because of simplicity, and just plain looks better in my opinion is a good thing.
I can't see any logical reason why nVidia would start to make games. They're good at making graphics processors. Why dilute their resources and create a huge department to make games when they could pump those resources into making better cards so they can continue to dominate the market, and make people like us happy?
Direct3D? You mean that horribly inefficient, overly complex, counterintutive API wrapper? Spend a day learning OpenGL, and a day learning Direct3D. By the end of the first day, you'll be creating whirling, swirling explosions of color and light with OpenGL, and you'll still be trying to figure out how to get Direct3D to display in 8-bit color.
Not to mention, OpenGL makes much more efficient use of your processor. Go here for more information about this.
OpenGL is THE API wrapper of choice if you want ease of use, power, flexibility, and compatibility. Try a game in Direct3D and a game in OpenGL on a GeForce-based card (all the other cards have crap OpenGL drivers, IMHO). OpenGL will not only run faster, but look smoother as well. Direct3D, while having been improved over the years, is still utter trash.
Go here for a good source of information and history over the D3D vs. OpenGL debate.
Great...I can be labeled a "terrorist" when some idiot even *thinks* I'm cracking. Even if you're cleared of a crime, there are still those who think you may have committed it, even years later.
For instance, two years ago, I was on a school computer in the classroom I was in. I was at a webpage and was learning JavaScript at the time, so I opened up the source to take a glance. A minute later, my teacher walks up behind me and starts yelling at me about how I'm "hacking" and she's going to take away my computer privelages. She then asks me to show her how I got there, so I showed her exactly how. She still wouldn't believe me (Yes, folks, hacking is a built-in feature of Netscape!), and to this day still thinks I was trying to hax0r the internet or something stupid.
Use SuSE. It has great Spanish support from what I've seen. As for setting it up, you can change the language *after* installation, too, I believe. If not, just have him there to translate for you.
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Most of the security community already follows common-sense rules that ensure that security vulnerabilities are handled appropriately. When they find a security vulnerability, they inform the vendor and work with it while the patch is being developed. When the patch is complete, they publish information discussing what products are affected by the vulnerability, what the effect of the vulnerability is - that is, the type and extent of damage that an attacker could cause through it - and what users can do to protect their systems.
There's a huge problem with this. If a person discovers an exploit, and shares it with only the vendor of the software, the exploit is never a high priority to fix. Very few people would know of it, and the company would have little incentive to correct the problem. Since this calls for a notice of the security vulnerability only after a patch has been released, only a select few people would have any idea that their security has a way of being compromised by a blackhat or script kiddie. What most companies would do is ignore, or even completely deny the vulnerability, until years later a patch is released. And sadly, even if the corporation was responsible in releasing limited information, it would not be enough for those who need the security fixes immediately. Not to mention, most of the times this occurs, the company laces the vulnerability announcement with such PR crap, that any information to be gleaned is virutally nonexistant.
This is most definately not in the best concern for the consumer. Only when detailed information is released to the public do security issues get fixed. Hell, that's even what the DEF CON convention is all about. Unfortunately, some companies have no interest in their consumer, only a fattening wallet, and object to any release showing imperfections in their software; no names mentioned, Adobe.
This type of information protects users by giving them the information they need to decide whether to apply the fix, but it doesn't put them at risk.
What he meant to say was, "This lack of information makes users more vulnerable by preventing them from acquiring the information they need to fix a security hole, and puts all users at a much greater risk."
...of course we suck at it. Open source doesn't have bugs, remember?
Every time the tech world comes out with a new toy (e.g. the internet, T.V.), people who barely understand the technology themselves have an incredible desire to regulate it and control it.
The internet is the epitome of free speech; that's it's greatest quality. Anyone can say or show anything that they please. This is what free speech is all about: the expression of thoughts and ideas. I don't understand what is so wrong with this kind of ethos that parents and government officials who know approximately "how to turn on a computer" scream for regulation.
If we regulate the internet, we condemn it to oblivion. This amazing new world which has functioned completely fine by its own, without regulation, suddenly has recieved a surge of the technlogically incompetent. These people, whose internet skills roughly equate to knowing how to click on their AOL buttons, suddenly stumble across something they don't like. "Oh no! That kind of stuff is on the world wide internet world web thing! This is evil and terrible! I must find a way to take it off so that other people aren't exposed to this horrid filth!" Has anyone else noticed that the only people who complain are those who just started using "that web thing"?
Guess what? The internet is the way it is because it came there naturally. Enough people laugh at things on College Humor to allow that website to survive. Enough people look at porn to make it a profitable business. Enough people find Something Awful's Awful Link of the Day stupid enough to keep going every day. The internet isn't THEIR world; it's yours, it's ours, it's everyone's.
These people don't understand that the internet survived simply because it was an unlimited and unrestricted venue of the freedom of speech. They don't understand that voluntary ratings, governmental regulations, emailing with threats to sue, and any other measure won't work due to the decentralized structure of the internet. It won't work because they have no idea how the internet even truly functions. It won't work because they have no idea of the history of the internet, and how it came to be how it is. This is a Good Thing(TM).
When the internet becomes as heavily regulated as T.V., it will be the incarnation of the true evil in this world that keeps showing it's face over and over again: human beings telling other human beings exactly what they can and can't fucking do.
Then you guys have been really lucky. From mine own, and several other friends/coworkers of mine's experiences, Maxtor makes the AOL of hard drives. Except unlike AOL, they don't cost you an arm and a leg.
From what I've seen, Maxtors generally have a life span of a year at max. I've seen a few go over, but only one (a 30Gb one) is still even functional. And that one is, according to ScanDisk, having congestive heart failure right now and getting bad sectors fast.
Perhaps the circumstances are different, but from what I've seen...buying Maxtors are a good investment only if you've got a hell of a lot of stock in the company.
Ugh...Maxtor has always made low-quality drives in my opinion. Almost every Maxtor my company has gotten has failed within 6 months to a year. Thankfully, I was able to convince them to buy IBMs and Seagates. I'll make sure they don't get any 75GXPs.
If you're going to be needing hard drives for anything critical, or are storing huge amounts of data (excess of 15Gb), I would definately suggest avoiding any Maxtor product, or you run the risk of losing important data.
Don't use Norton. I have personally seen it cause so many problems, it isn't even worth the protection it offers.
The best AV software I have seen currently is McAfee. One possible solution with McAfee is to just register on the website, and you can run the virus scan right off their website.
...go with Klipsh Promedia 5.1 speakers. If you're an audiophile, these things will satisfy any need you could want: music, games, DVDs, or anything else.
With a 113dB max volume, these things can crank up to the volume of a jet taking off next to your house. It has an incredible 25Hz-20kHz frequency response and sounds absolutely beautiful. Once again, if you have the money, these are the absolute best you can buy. Nothing else comes close, and at $399.00, it has a fairly low price tag for what you get.
Yes, that Hsieh link is fairly old, but I find it a good primer for those who haven't really paid attention to the debate.
As someone who's worked with both DirectX and OpenGL, I can honestly say that it is much simpler to work with OpenGL. Direct3D took me weeks to even begin to get the hang of, while OpenGL was intuitive enough to be fairly straightforward to learn. Not to mention, most of the programs I write are faster in OpenGL. This might, however, reflect the fact that I spend more time on OpenGL, or that the OpenGL drivers on GeForces are spectacular.
Any tool that makes it easier for a developer to do 3D rendering, is easier to debug because of simplicity, and just plain looks better in my opinion is a good thing.
This isn't a 3DLabs initiative. This is headed by several companies in the video card manufacturing industry, nVidia being one of them.
I can't see any logical reason why nVidia would start to make games. They're good at making graphics processors. Why dilute their resources and create a huge department to make games when they could pump those resources into making better cards so they can continue to dominate the market, and make people like us happy?
True, but with the support that OpenGL has garnered over the years, I wouldn't be surprised to discover a larger API wrapper in the works by someone.
By the way, post suggestions for questions I can ask him tomorrow. I'll pick the 10 best ones and include them in my interview.
Direct3D? You mean that horribly inefficient, overly complex, counterintutive API wrapper? Spend a day learning OpenGL, and a day learning Direct3D. By the end of the first day, you'll be creating whirling, swirling explosions of color and light with OpenGL, and you'll still be trying to figure out how to get Direct3D to display in 8-bit color. Not to mention, OpenGL makes much more efficient use of your processor. Go here for more information about this. OpenGL is THE API wrapper of choice if you want ease of use, power, flexibility, and compatibility. Try a game in Direct3D and a game in OpenGL on a GeForce-based card (all the other cards have crap OpenGL drivers, IMHO). OpenGL will not only run faster, but look smoother as well. Direct3D, while having been improved over the years, is still utter trash. Go here for a good source of information and history over the D3D vs. OpenGL debate.
Going to be interviewing a friend of mine at nVidia about this tomorrow morning, after he clears it. Will submit the story tomorrow if he gets the OK.
Great...I can be labeled a "terrorist" when some idiot even *thinks* I'm cracking. Even if you're cleared of a crime, there are still those who think you may have committed it, even years later. For instance, two years ago, I was on a school computer in the classroom I was in. I was at a webpage and was learning JavaScript at the time, so I opened up the source to take a glance. A minute later, my teacher walks up behind me and starts yelling at me about how I'm "hacking" and she's going to take away my computer privelages. She then asks me to show her how I got there, so I showed her exactly how. She still wouldn't believe me (Yes, folks, hacking is a built-in feature of Netscape!), and to this day still thinks I was trying to hax0r the internet or something stupid.
Would you rather supply your own insight, oh Great One?
Use SuSE. It has great Spanish support from what I've seen. As for setting it up, you can change the language *after* installation, too, I believe. If not, just have him there to translate for you.