Yes it is surprising. Traditionally spam has come from mail servers that were setup as open relays (by accident or design) but nowadays its coming from Windows desktop machines with viruses which setup their own mail servers. Combine that with the growing prevalence of broadband home connections and spam is just getting worse and worse.
a) Oracle moved from SUN to Linux and not from MS, so there is no loss there.
b) MS still gets licensing fees from OEMs so anytime a big company buys a few thousand Intel based workstations, MS still get a stack of cash regardless of what OS you run on them.
I honestly think the whole Intel/MS licensing thing is the biggest thing holding back Linux from gaining acceptance in the small to mid size firm (at least in the desktop market). There just isn't any financial incentive to not run MS operating systems when you get it free with every system you buy and financial reasons are the only ones that are going to persuade businesses to change.
Admittedly Linux will continue to gain market share in areas such as file and print serving where Samba is both cheaper than a Windows Server license and also performs better but MS got where it is today by having its desktop as the de-facto choice. Every chimp (manager) used it on the desktop so assumed that it was the way to go for servers.
As people have mentioned, the Idiot guides etc can make a useful starting point in learning things like spreadsheets or slightly more advanced wordprocessing and another useful avenue can be community learning classes, but ultimately if they don't have a reason to make use of what they've learned (and I mean at least weekly use, preferably daily), they simply won't retain the knowledge.
If you can come up with something they could do that would a) make their life easier than it presently is and b) makes use of spreadsheets or advanced wordprocessing or whatever, then thats the way to do it.
When it comes to improving their browsing/web searching skills, I recommend setting up their browser with a default page of a random Wikipedia search. The layout is simple, there's interesting information to take in and there is plenty of opportunity for them to click-through to other pages. I find its a great way to teach beginners about the weblike nature of the web now that most commercial site are so flash-heavy or with more complex navigation systems.
So the long and the short is that they have to make use of the skills they learn and to make use of the skills, there has to be a reason to do so, not simply a desire to 'learn more'.
Next question. Where are they scraping the tv guide data from? Currently the only tvgrab_au that I know of is scraping from yahoo without any permission to do so. What happens when yahoo realise this and do something about preventing it?
Suddenly you've got a PVR box that cost AU$2,000 with no guide data to program from. I presume that the market for these things is someone who can't setup their own MythTV box and so couldn't hookup a new tvgrab_au. Do they send out a whole new distro, do they setup the box to give themselves remote access so they can go and fix the things? Either way, its going to be a nightmare supporting them, especially if you sell a bunch of the boxes. (Not to mention the fun of defending yourself against consumers who don't having a working PVR (they were sold a PVR, not a computer) and against the Australian content providers who are on the verge of bringing out their own PVR hardware and who really aren't too keen on copyright breaches (well thats the grounds by which they'll crush the company by keeping them in litigation for the next 10 years)
I was honestly considering building and selling home-brew MythTV boxes like these (here in Australia) but MythTV is just too unstable/changing to put it in the hands of the complete novice. I envisage one or more of the following things happening; 1) They sell a few of them and the spend countless hours (and dollars) supporting them and then go bankrupt slowly. 2) Sell a stack of them and go bankrupt quickly when they can't support their userbase. 3) Get tied up in litigation and go bankrupt slowly.
A desktop computer.....hey, that gives me a great idea!
I'm taking a picture of that thing and submitting it to the case-mod community. Noone's coming close to that level of modification!! (Though it probably wouldn't rate so well with lan party crowd...)
Fact of the matter is that Singapore became a contracting party of the Berne Union in 1998 and so is bound by the same basic standard of copyright as the good ole US (or even Switzerland) and they're bound by the TRIPS agreement too.
So we've established that the right is enforceable in Singapore. The question then becomes are there any barriers to actually enforcing that right? Well Singapore used to be a former British colony with a common law system so you've got pretty much the same chance of enforcement there as in any common law country (UK, Canada, Australia etc). Up until just a few years ago the highest court of appeal for Singapore was England's Privy Council so with any case potentially going there for the final decision, the nature of Singapore's law has been influenced greatly by any legal developments in the UK and the nature of legal proceedings is substantially the same.
While you might have been one of the first countries to sign the convention, don't knock the latecomers! I might begin to think that you're sig might apply to the Swiss instead of Americans.
[The representative] said the stolen servers did not contain sensitive information.
Because you'd expect them to say anything different? Hell, the theft took place on the 27th of last month and since then the very woman whose job it is to ensure physical security of the site has been involved in a Parliamentary review of National security. She managed to appear a few times and didn't mention the theft once.
The short answer is that they'll tell you nothing if they think they can get away with it, then tell a lie when caught out telling nothing and then when caught lying, they'll claim they had to lie for the protection of "National Security".
The big question has to be; what have they left behind? The guys who knicked the servers were floating around the Customs building for the better part of 5 hours. I'd bet a penny to a pound that they left backdoors open to get back in when they feel like it.
From my perspective as a former sysadmin/security guy, how could someone not notice that 2 main fileservers were suddenly offline? Alarm bells should have been ringing the second they came offline. Where's the monitoring? I suppose at the very least that its a kick in the ass to anyone who thinks that physical security and good procedures are any less important than firewalls and network intrusion detection.
Well you could use Accpac for example. They've got full Linux support. In my last job I migrated a client's smallish business from a pure Windows shop to pure Linux (they ran Accpac on Win before moving to Accpac on Linux). Its honestly getting to the point where you can do it unless you have specific software requirements. With Evolution, StarOffice and the other drop in replacements for MS software retraining is relatively minimal. My boss was ultimately annoyed though because we lost a fair bit of revenue from the client which used to come from the Windows desktop support.
Seeing as its such a small community, I would be guessing that communal internet access would have been the first step, followed two years later with dialup for all.
With just 2000 people on the island, you'd think that it wouldn't be too hard to get a little time on the computers at the library or community centre, for instance, to check your email. So no it didn't strike me as strange, just that with a small community and relatively small location, communal access would be both cheap and effective.
The answer is that without the publicity and promotion that the major labels provide, you simply can't get the exposure necessary to really 'make it big'.
Sure you could go direct to Apple and many people do go direct to MP3.com but you just won't get the downloads without the exposure. I am involved with a few bands in Australia, some signed to big labels and some going it alone and without fail, the servicing that the signed bands get is the difference between the success of the bands. The major factor being that if you aren't signed, you simply don't get airplay on the radio. Even on Australia's 'indie' radio station TripleJ, the DJs themselves get the option to play 3 tracks of their choice in a 3 hour shift. The rest is dictated to them by managament, which in turn is dictated by how much the labels are willing to pay the station. Payola is well and truly still alive.
So despite the fact that its eminently possible to record your own album at home in small recording studio and produce a product that the 'unwashed masses' couldn't tell from a studio recorded album, you just won't make it big without label backing.
Cost of OSS is not zero, and the cost of the specialist Linux admin you have to hire needs to be considered against the easier to use Windows box that just about anyone can use...
Every study ever done on the topic has shown that 1 *nix administrator is able to administer more systems than 1 Windows admin and even though you might pay more for each administrator, you employ fewer people (with resultant savings in superannuation, holiday pay etc). Add to this that government contracts tend to deal with a lot of seats and I'm sure you get the picture.
Then there's the risk factor - a support contract is perpetual, but if your specialist Linux/OSS techie quits or encounters the proverbial bus you're in a big hole.
That is such a tired old argument. You think there aren't more than a couple of people who can administer a linux system? This is where standards come into play and so long as standards are followed (and work is documented) any reasonable unix admin (and I mean an administrator of any *nix) can pick up how any linux system works. It really isn't that hard. In my experience (my job involves going into firms when the IT shit has hit the fan), the simple fact that most *nix shops actually document their systems and work practices makes walking in blind SO much easier than in Windows shops where the generally poor quality of admin means that nothing is documented.
Corel shares; 24,000,000 Series A preferred shares 91,840,000 common shares.
VC bought 22,890,000 Series A shares at $0.5625=$12.876 Million. They now offer $1.05 per share for the remaining 1,110,000 Series A and 91,840,000 common shares=$97.6 Million.
So all up your looking at about $110 Million for Corel, 'lock, stock and barrel'.
Check out their end of quarter financial report up to 28th Feb '03 for the lowdown on their financial position. The long and the short is; $50 Million in cash/liquid assets, posting losses but with very few liabilities.
The post isnt actually accurate. Vector Capital purchased 22,890,000 Series A shares from Microsoft on March 10th or thereabouts at $0.5625. They are now offering $1.05 per share for the remaining stock. The board of directors has recommended that shareholders take the offer. It "represents a premium of 42% to the market immediately prior to our announcement that Vector had entered into a non-disclosure and standstill agreement with Corel," said James Baillie, Chairman of Corel's Board of Directors.
So from the point of view of the shareholders, its probably not a bad deal.
Its really nothing huge, but you also need to consider the cost involved. AU$1.7 million is about US$1.1 million. So for about a million US$1 you could get in the top 100 supercomputers in the world.
Looking at the latest top 500 list this would put it as the third most powerful 'self-made' system in the world. For that reason I think it deserves at least a mention and add the relatively low cost and you've got a/. story.
I guess Steve Ballmer was right when he said that the open-source movement stifles innovation. I mean now Microsoft has to spend all that money telling us their products are great instead of coming up with the next Clippy.
Yeah, and typical Microsoft went and broke the standard associating.nfo with System Info files in Win2k. Those guys just never stick to the standards...
The problem with proactive auditing is that it takes time, and as well know, time is money. Personally I think its harsh to put the blame on the coders as I've been involved in alpha and beta testing quite a few apps over the years and almost without exception, the bean counters force the release of a product before the coders are happy with it.
Typically the bean counters want the cash rolling in as soon as possible on a new product (as they've seen nothing but a cash outflow) and in the software industry, they know that bugs are both inevitable, and unfortunately, for the most part, accepted so they're happy to release an incomplete product knowing that it won't stop people buying it. We won't see substantially bug-free code until software developers are held to the same standards of product reliability that we see in just about every other industry. Until then, there really isn't any reason to thoroughly audit your code. Just release it buggy as all hell and release Service Packs and Hotfixes. It works for the biggest software company on earth, so why shouldn't it for anyone else?
Do they actually have a procedure to inform them when things are broken?
As far as i'm aware, they have a guy who just keeps clicking reload on the/. front page waiting for a new MS vulnerability story to pop up. They tried the same thing with Bugtraq but there were just way too many vulnerabilities for the poor guy to keep up.
Re:When you think about it...
on
Searching Sound
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The big problem with this sort of technology is that in the past when you wanted to tap someone, you had to have a good reason (good enough to persuade a judge anyway) and you had limits on what you could and could not record/listen to. Now with technology like this and Echelon etc, it becomes possible to monitor every person who makes a phone call or sends an email. In effect you are presumed guilty and have to prove your innocence by not discussing or commiting a crime. One of the fundamental tenets of the western legal tradition is that you're presumed innocent until proven guilty and technology like Echelon turns that right on its head. Its just another example of fundamental rights being subjugated for the purpose of protecting us from 'evil-doers' who will just end up using other methods of communication. Meanwhile its you and I who end up losing our rights.
Its similar in some ways to the mass DNA testing of populations to find a rapist for instance. Every person submits a sample, but is it likely that the perpetrator is going to submit their's? Every member of the population is presumed guilty until they prove themselves innocent, while the guilty simply refuses the test, and anyone who refuses the test, regardless of grounds, is tarred with the brush.
I honestly think we're at the beginning of a massive degredation of human rights (particularly privacy) as a result of both technological and global factors. Unless we do something to ensure our fundamental rights, it really won't be that long till 1984.
* snap to attention at your presence and stand at ease when you've passed
And they'd have Genuine People Personalities? It'd be a door's pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done?
I'm not too sure if its all a good idea. Don't forget that history has shown the marketing division who came up with GPP to be a bunch of mindless jerks who were first up against the wall when the revolution came.
Well the Register is running with it, but it seems more like she is just helping draft the legislation and keeping on with her wenchery at the RIAA.
First its Cheney's pals, then the GSM thing, now the RIAA gets a look-in. I just hope Australia gets something out of being in the Coalition of the Willing. I wouldn't like to think that i'm a terrorist target on the global scene now without my country at least getting a few tenders!
Well you'd better tell that to all the justices over the years who've awarded exemplary damages.
Exemplary damages are awarded in addition to general damages, where the court wishes not only to compensate the victim of a tort, but to punish the defendant. They are also known as punitive damages or retributive damages. The court is more than happy to award retributive damages and cares not a whit for the motivation of the applicant.
The knee-jerk reaction is to consider this Messenger service spamming as a hack, but you have to stop and consider the wider implications of calling it 'hacking'.
If we are to make this sort of thing illegal, its a very small step to consider any connection to an open port that isn't what the recipient (ie server operator) expected to receive as hacking. This is likely to lead to even less of a focus on delivering a secure software product, rather relying on the threat of legal action to secure systems, much like the DMCA. Its using the sledgehammer of the law to crack a small nut that technology is already more than capable to dealing with.
If you really feel the need to write to somebody, write to Microsoft and tell them that the default state of a system following an install is insecure and that you will stop purchasing their products if they can't provide something secure enough to put on the internet.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes it is surprising. Traditionally spam has come from mail servers that were setup as open relays (by accident or design) but nowadays its coming from Windows desktop machines with viruses which setup their own mail servers. Combine that with the growing prevalence of broadband home connections and spam is just getting worse and worse.
A couple of things;
a) Oracle moved from SUN to Linux and not from MS, so there is no loss there.
b) MS still gets licensing fees from OEMs so anytime a big company buys a few thousand Intel based workstations, MS still get a stack of cash regardless of what OS you run on them.
I honestly think the whole Intel/MS licensing thing is the biggest thing holding back Linux from gaining acceptance in the small to mid size firm (at least in the desktop market). There just isn't any financial incentive to not run MS operating systems when you get it free with every system you buy and financial reasons are the only ones that are going to persuade businesses to change.
Admittedly Linux will continue to gain market share in areas such as file and print serving where Samba is both cheaper than a Windows Server license and also performs better but MS got where it is today by having its desktop as the de-facto choice. Every chimp (manager) used it on the desktop so assumed that it was the way to go for servers.
As people have mentioned, the Idiot guides etc can make a useful starting point in learning things like spreadsheets or slightly more advanced wordprocessing and another useful avenue can be community learning classes, but ultimately if they don't have a reason to make use of what they've learned (and I mean at least weekly use, preferably daily), they simply won't retain the knowledge.
If you can come up with something they could do that would a) make their life easier than it presently is and b) makes use of spreadsheets or advanced wordprocessing or whatever, then thats the way to do it.
When it comes to improving their browsing/web searching skills, I recommend setting up their browser with a default page of a random Wikipedia search. The layout is simple, there's interesting information to take in and there is plenty of opportunity for them to click-through to other pages. I find its a great way to teach beginners about the weblike nature of the web now that most commercial site are so flash-heavy or with more complex navigation systems.
So the long and the short is that they have to make use of the skills they learn and to make use of the skills, there has to be a reason to do so, not simply a desire to 'learn more'.
OK, so they are planning to be GPL compliant.
Next question. Where are they scraping the tv guide data from? Currently the only tvgrab_au that I know of is scraping from yahoo without any permission to do so. What happens when yahoo realise this and do something about preventing it?
Suddenly you've got a PVR box that cost AU$2,000 with no guide data to program from. I presume that the market for these things is someone who can't setup their own MythTV box and so couldn't hookup a new tvgrab_au. Do they send out a whole new distro, do they setup the box to give themselves remote access so they can go and fix the things? Either way, its going to be a nightmare supporting them, especially if you sell a bunch of the boxes. (Not to mention the fun of defending yourself against consumers who don't having a working PVR (they were sold a PVR, not a computer) and against the Australian content providers who are on the verge of bringing out their own PVR hardware and who really aren't too keen on copyright breaches (well thats the grounds by which they'll crush the company by keeping them in litigation for the next 10 years)
I was honestly considering building and selling home-brew MythTV boxes like these (here in Australia) but MythTV is just too unstable/changing to put it in the hands of the complete novice. I envisage one or more of the following things happening;
1) They sell a few of them and the spend countless hours (and dollars) supporting them and then go bankrupt slowly.
2) Sell a stack of them and go bankrupt quickly when they can't support their userbase.
3) Get tied up in litigation and go bankrupt slowly.
A desktop computer.....hey, that gives me a great idea!
I'm taking a picture of that thing and submitting it to the case-mod community. Noone's coming close to that level of modification!!
(Though it probably wouldn't rate so well with lan party crowd...)
Nice generalisation.
Fact of the matter is that Singapore became a contracting party of the Berne Union in 1998 and so is bound by the same basic standard of copyright as the good ole US (or even Switzerland) and they're bound by the TRIPS agreement too.
So we've established that the right is enforceable in Singapore. The question then becomes are there any barriers to actually enforcing that right? Well Singapore used to be a former British colony with a common law system so you've got pretty much the same chance of enforcement there as in any common law country (UK, Canada, Australia etc). Up until just a few years ago the highest court of appeal for Singapore was England's Privy Council so with any case potentially going there for the final decision, the nature of Singapore's law has been influenced greatly by any legal developments in the UK and the nature of legal proceedings is substantially the same.
While you might have been one of the first countries to sign the convention, don't knock the latecomers! I might begin to think that you're sig might apply to the Swiss instead of Americans.
[The representative] said the stolen servers did not contain sensitive information.
Because you'd expect them to say anything different? Hell, the theft took place on the 27th of last month and since then the very woman whose job it is to ensure physical security of the site has been involved in a Parliamentary review of National security. She managed to appear a few times and didn't mention the theft once.
The short answer is that they'll tell you nothing if they think they can get away with it, then tell a lie when caught out telling nothing and then when caught lying, they'll claim they had to lie for the protection of "National Security".
The big question has to be; what have they left behind? The guys who knicked the servers were floating around the Customs building for the better part of 5 hours. I'd bet a penny to a pound that they left backdoors open to get back in when they feel like it.
From my perspective as a former sysadmin/security guy, how could someone not notice that 2 main fileservers were suddenly offline? Alarm bells should have been ringing the second they came offline. Where's the monitoring? I suppose at the very least that its a kick in the ass to anyone who thinks that physical security and good procedures are any less important than firewalls and network intrusion detection.
Well you could use Accpac for example. They've got full Linux support. In my last job I migrated a client's smallish business from a pure Windows shop to pure Linux (they ran Accpac on Win before moving to Accpac on Linux). Its honestly getting to the point where you can do it unless you have specific software requirements. With Evolution, StarOffice and the other drop in replacements for MS software retraining is relatively minimal. My boss was ultimately annoyed though because we lost a fair bit of revenue from the client which used to come from the Windows desktop support.
Seeing as its such a small community, I would be guessing that communal internet access would have been the first step, followed two years later with dialup for all.
With just 2000 people on the island, you'd think that it wouldn't be too hard to get a little time on the computers at the library or community centre, for instance, to check your email. So no it didn't strike me as strange, just that with a small community and relatively small location, communal access would be both cheap and effective.
Why don't artists skip the labels?
The answer is that without the publicity and promotion that the major labels provide, you simply can't get the exposure necessary to really 'make it big'.
Sure you could go direct to Apple and many people do go direct to MP3.com but you just won't get the downloads without the exposure. I am involved with a few bands in Australia, some signed to big labels and some going it alone and without fail, the servicing that the signed bands get is the difference between the success of the bands. The major factor being that if you aren't signed, you simply don't get airplay on the radio. Even on Australia's 'indie' radio station TripleJ, the DJs themselves get the option to play 3 tracks of their choice in a 3 hour shift. The rest is dictated to them by managament, which in turn is dictated by how much the labels are willing to pay the station. Payola is well and truly still alive.
So despite the fact that its eminently possible to record your own album at home in small recording studio and produce a product that the 'unwashed masses' couldn't tell from a studio recorded album, you just won't make it big without label backing.
Cost of OSS is not zero, and the cost of the specialist Linux admin you have to hire needs to be considered against the easier to use Windows box that just about anyone can use...
Every study ever done on the topic has shown that 1 *nix administrator is able to administer more systems than 1 Windows admin and even though you might pay more for each administrator, you employ fewer people (with resultant savings in superannuation, holiday pay etc). Add to this that government contracts tend to deal with a lot of seats and I'm sure you get the picture.
Then there's the risk factor - a support contract is perpetual, but if your specialist Linux/OSS techie quits or encounters the proverbial bus you're in a big hole.
That is such a tired old argument. You think there aren't more than a couple of people who can administer a linux system? This is where standards come into play and so long as standards are followed (and work is documented) any reasonable unix admin (and I mean an administrator of any *nix) can pick up how any linux system works. It really isn't that hard. In my experience (my job involves going into firms when the IT shit has hit the fan), the simple fact that most *nix shops actually document their systems and work practices makes walking in blind SO much easier than in Windows shops where the generally poor quality of admin means that nothing is documented.
The maths for anyone who cares;
Corel shares;
24,000,000 Series A preferred shares
91,840,000 common shares.
VC bought 22,890,000 Series A shares at $0.5625=$12.876 Million.
They now offer $1.05 per share for the remaining 1,110,000 Series A and 91,840,000 common shares=$97.6 Million.
So all up your looking at about $110 Million for Corel, 'lock, stock and barrel'.
Check out their end of quarter financial report up to 28th Feb '03 for the lowdown on their financial position.
The long and the short is; $50 Million in cash/liquid assets, posting losses but with very few liabilities.
The post isnt actually accurate. Vector Capital purchased 22,890,000 Series A shares from Microsoft on March 10th or thereabouts at $0.5625. They are now offering $1.05 per share for the remaining stock. The board of directors has recommended that shareholders take the offer. It "represents a premium of 42% to the market immediately prior to our announcement that Vector had entered into a non-disclosure and standstill agreement with Corel," said James Baillie, Chairman of Corel's Board of Directors.
So from the point of view of the shareholders, its probably not a bad deal.
Its really nothing huge, but you also need to consider the cost involved. AU$1.7 million is about US$1.1 million. So for about a million US$1 you could get in the top 100 supercomputers in the world.
/. story.
Looking at the latest top 500 list this would put it as the third most powerful 'self-made' system in the world. For that reason I think it deserves at least a mention and add the relatively low cost and you've got a
I guess Steve Ballmer was right when he said that the open-source movement stifles innovation. I mean now Microsoft has to spend all that money telling us their products are great instead of coming up with the next Clippy.
Yeah, and typical Microsoft went and broke the standard associating .nfo with System Info files in Win2k. Those guys just never stick to the standards...
Well I won't be impressed until I see an Apple case mod with a worm farm inside.
:ducks
You know, worms in an Apple, bugs in a PC?
The problem with proactive auditing is that it takes time, and as well know, time is money. Personally I think its harsh to put the blame on the coders as I've been involved in alpha and beta testing quite a few apps over the years and almost without exception, the bean counters force the release of a product before the coders are happy with it.
Typically the bean counters want the cash rolling in as soon as possible on a new product (as they've seen nothing but a cash outflow) and in the software industry, they know that bugs are both inevitable, and unfortunately, for the most part, accepted so they're happy to release an incomplete product knowing that it won't stop people buying it. We won't see substantially bug-free code until software developers are held to the same standards of product reliability that we see in just about every other industry. Until then, there really isn't any reason to thoroughly audit your code. Just release it buggy as all hell and release Service Packs and Hotfixes. It works for the biggest software company on earth, so why shouldn't it for anyone else?
Do they actually have a procedure to inform them when things are broken?
/. front page waiting for a new MS vulnerability story to pop up. They tried the same thing with Bugtraq but there were just way too many vulnerabilities for the poor guy to keep up.
As far as i'm aware, they have a guy who just keeps clicking reload on the
The big problem with this sort of technology is that in the past when you wanted to tap someone, you had to have a good reason (good enough to persuade a judge anyway) and you had limits on what you could and could not record/listen to. Now with technology like this and Echelon etc, it becomes possible to monitor every person who makes a phone call or sends an email. In effect you are presumed guilty and have to prove your innocence by not discussing or commiting a crime. One of the fundamental tenets of the western legal tradition is that you're presumed innocent until proven guilty and technology like Echelon turns that right on its head. Its just another example of fundamental rights being subjugated for the purpose of protecting us from 'evil-doers' who will just end up using other methods of communication. Meanwhile its you and I who end up losing our rights.
Its similar in some ways to the mass DNA testing of populations to find a rapist for instance. Every person submits a sample, but is it likely that the perpetrator is going to submit their's? Every member of the population is presumed guilty until they prove themselves innocent, while the guilty simply refuses the test, and anyone who refuses the test, regardless of grounds, is tarred with the brush.
I honestly think we're at the beginning of a massive degredation of human rights (particularly privacy) as a result of both technological and global factors. Unless we do something to ensure our fundamental rights, it really won't be that long till 1984.
* snap to attention at your presence and stand at ease when you've passed
And they'd have Genuine People Personalities? It'd be a door's pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done?
I'm not too sure if its all a good idea. Don't forget that history has shown the marketing division who came up with GPP to be a bunch of mindless jerks who were first up against the wall when the revolution came.
Well the Register is running with it, but it seems more like she is just helping draft the legislation and keeping on with her wenchery at the RIAA.
First its Cheney's pals, then the GSM thing, now the RIAA gets a look-in. I just hope Australia gets something out of being in the Coalition of the Willing. I wouldn't like to think that i'm a terrorist target on the global scene now without my country at least getting a few tenders!
Law is not supposed to grant retribution.
Well you'd better tell that to all the justices over the years who've awarded exemplary damages.
Exemplary damages are awarded in addition to general damages, where the court wishes not only to compensate the victim of a tort, but to punish the defendant. They are also known as punitive damages or retributive damages. The court is more than happy to award retributive damages and cares not a whit for the motivation of the applicant.
The knee-jerk reaction is to consider this Messenger service spamming as a hack, but you have to stop and consider the wider implications of calling it 'hacking'.
If we are to make this sort of thing illegal, its a very small step to consider any connection to an open port that isn't what the recipient (ie server operator) expected to receive as hacking. This is likely to lead to even less of a focus on delivering a secure software product, rather relying on the threat of legal action to secure systems, much like the DMCA. Its using the sledgehammer of the law to crack a small nut that technology is already more than capable to dealing with.
If you really feel the need to write to somebody, write to Microsoft and tell them that the default state of a system following an install is insecure and that you will stop purchasing their products if they can't provide something secure enough to put on the internet.