In the same way that MS centric establishments is always unbiased so should slashdot. *cough*
This is a biased web site for us who care about tech and computers. Windows Media PLayer IS infomous amongst most of us. Personally i compare it against mplayer and xine and find it a turd.
If only some of the successful worms would do something malicius like erasing the HD or frying the bios. Then and only then would MS take notice and securing their software.
The RIAA etc has succeded in stopping every possible way of sharing information. Carrying information storage objects is as unlawful as spreading antrax on the White House lawn.
Not a damn difference in sales of music, who the f*ck are they blaming then? The artists? Will we see RIAA sue their own artists for not making enough dough?
How can you own thaughts and arts? We live in a society made up of the selling and buying of invisable, made up objects called rights. Its pretty insane if you think outside our world and try to see it from an aliens perspective.
Then again, when was humanity not insane last time?
Compare Windows to BeOS, Amiga OS, Geos, MacOS and imagine where those would have been with a couple och billions in research money. Windows is a hack and has always been a hack. There is nothing novel stemming from Microsoft, every last bit and piece is traceable to some other company except maybe the TCPA. I would rather ask myself how would our computing be without Xerox, IBM, 3dfx, Compaq, Norton and the free internet (compared to MSN 1.0)?
I think computing would have been all ok without Microsoft because they arent sitting on any knowledge that is absent elsewhere.
The problem is a flaw in IE and web sites get the blame? It should be IE that doesnt read malicious content because how hard is it to just set up an evil web site and link to it in an email?
The EU already has a sanctioned embargo against teh US because of US tax reductions that Microsoft and other expporting companies from the US enjoys (contrary trade agreements). Any more from the US and the WTO will spank the US to oblivion.
I think Mono is a really nice way of putting gnome a bit to much in the way of the Microsoft Bulldozer.
Do ANYONE think that MS would let the oppurtunity to use a patent against OSS go by? Without a written consent from Microsoft openly stating they wont sue and slander i cannot give in to Mono. If gnome is built upon it i will go elsewhere with my business.
If this turns out to be true its a pretty backlashing move of Microsoft. Microsoft had almost got rid of the bad taste of the antitrust case and now this. If anything it hordes the open source crowd togheter and opens a unified front, Anything But Microsoft. I presume MS is really involved in some stage cause frankly, what kind of license to unix did they need costing 10 mil? They hadnt any chance of buying a second license since that would have been to obvious. A third party like Baystar funding MS makes perfekt sence.
The halloween docs have all proven themselves on the spot from start and the indices all points towards MS. Why else would this suit have been such a big publicity stunt against linux wich have been a third party in all cases so far that SCO has been starting?
This is hardware in software style and i dont like it, not one bit. Hardware have up until pretty recently been fairly free from these kinds of problems. If i buy a product i assume its tested and works. If it dont work i just return it and i wont spend any time fixing something that was broken when i bought it. I dont like to become an engineer on the behalf of the company that got my money.
Software has been sold with insane conditions that people take the responsibility off of the manufacturer but that is because software has been treated as art and not as real products. Hardware on the other hand do not have those conditions so when you buy something and it doesnt work, return it. The only way to remedy this problem is if enough people stay away from companies following the path of almost ready hardware. If its broke, they should fix it, not us.
Software is bound to be hard to use as long as the developers is making their interfaces. Its also very easy to be blinded since you work on the application a long time and you think things are easy because they are logical to you. KISS is not enough, there need to be a layer of logic ontop of the application in most cases, shielding the user from the computer logic and making things make sense.
Perhaps its time to invite designers into the developing process?
That said i dont really agree with Eric Raymond. I work as an admin all day and i more often find Windows harder to use than linux. Windows is very quirky and backwards in so many levels. Try installing a TCP/IP printer in Windows XP and you get the picture, not something for the mere mortals. Linux is in my opinion better than Windows but there are room for improvement. I dont think people should embrace usability Wizard style like windows. Make the apps easy enough from the start instead so you wont need a wizard to be able to do your stuff ey?
With MsSQL ontop of NTFS longhorn is promising to be even slower than past systems. The hybrid model that i have seen is just adding a layer ontop of NTFS. Not really a new filesystem like ReiserFS but another layer eating cpu cycles and memory. Hardware probably needs to catch up before it can be used in a grander scale.
Since Longhorn seems to be so long into the future and MS desperatly needs their upgrade fix an interim XP sounds possible. Think Windows Me and Windows 98 SE for a clue (lets hope that Longhorn stinks as bad as Windows Me did if that is humanly possible). MS has set themselves up on a 3 year upgrade sell and a step of that cycle is a significant blow to their earnings.
As a side note i dont deem Longhorn that much of an improvement over XP that it is worth waiting for. From what ive seen its just babysteps they have taken. And that is natural, any bigger changes is going to break a lot of applications in perspective of MS merry strife to lock applications to x86.
Java as open source has the potential to completely stifle.net in its childhood. Not that stopping.net is something to strive for in itself but im worried about the platform lockin Microsoft is driving towards. Java has the potential to conquer the world just as Apache and a move like this could very well let it free.
Maybe MS is mixing things up? If you count worms and viruses as exploits in the same category as real breakins then by far those and script kiddies who uses ready made exploits account for most breakins.
Any sane cracker wont report his latest exploit to bugtraq. He will continue to use it until someone else finds out about it. When it hits MS and they patch it the cracker will have found another hole to use. The most dangerous breakins is ofcourse corporate espionage and i think the ones doing those have a field day on Windows right now. They dont use common exploits that intrusion detection systems detect since they want in and out unnoticed, even if the systems in the target is unpatched.
What a peculiar move isnt it? If the problem lies in the underlying system why bolt some more services ontop of it? The solution should be to prevent virueses to propagate in the first place. A virus scanner is only an intermidiate solution to a problem in windows, its by no mesure any real solution. Why not be bold and use a sandbox to open attachements in? Bochs style anyone? I can come up with numerous things that would be better than a virus scanner ontop of my head, why cant they?
I am stunned by how incredibly good salesmen they are and at the same time such loosers come to technology.
Norton Commander lives on just nicely on all my linux boxes in the appearence of midnight commander, a clone on stereoids. I dont think Total Commander killed Norton Commander. It was more of the problem with the dos dir structure that didnt lend itself to using Norton Commander. Norton Commander was a blast on dos and still is on linux. Especially where you dont have a GUI as on servers.
I think this is a pretty nice aknowledgement to the AMD developed technology from Intel. I have yet to understand why AMD is so sparse on servers when the reliability is as good/bad as intels. Now that Intel is jumping in AMD's track perhaps we will se more AMD cpu's in servers.
I think this is a big thing since i cant recall one single thing that Intel has used their cross license for up until now. Maybe a turn in events who knows. Any torch in intels butt is good anyhow.
Proactive is very much warmongering. Where is the threat that would suggest that an even bigger military force is needed? The US is very much capable to defend themselves as it is today. The thing is that it looks like the US want to have a big offensive capability for some reason.
Most countries is NOT in a decent relationship with the US. Compare it with the kid at school whom you try to be friendly to because you know he will kick you in the balls if he even sniffs a tad bit of opposition against him? Be sure that many countries hate the US with a passion but they are to afraid to take a stand.
It is sad to watch the US turn into a terror state hellbent on ruling the world.
Im much more worried if the US have those kinds of weapons than if some broke desert shithole gets their hands on some mustard gas. What exactly is the US doing this arms race against? Aliens?
The US no doubt has the power to keep space off limits for anyone for military arms race. Why in gods name then do they push the envelope so that other countries has to follow?
Warmongers, thats what i see.
Lets hope the administration gets changed to something less warhappy and perhaps a it more interested in all US citizens than of enriching a few select people.
NO sane person in the OSS community is even poking at that pile of spaghetti with a stick! Doing that is a one way ticket to problems down the road. Be aware that script kiddies and virii writers and MS Windows security companies is the ones doing all the checking.
Blackhats like CIA, KGB, China intelligence etc have had access to this code for much longer no doubt. Anybody think that MS delivering of the code to china hasnt been propagated to their intelligence agency? This only shows that there are no security in hiding security mechanisms. A quick glance at the crypto industry should be pretty revalating to MS.
MS i in for a ride and it should be hammered around that most of theese exploits would NOT be stopped by Palladium. Palladium is just a buzzword and does not stop errors in protocols or implementations of them. Thats not going to stop MS from marketing palladium as a tool to stop errors in their code.
They should have waited until XML had gotten off ground. There are IMHO much better ways of storing information than garbling it toghether in a flat file. XML is just a buzzword like.net or web services.
They just killed off XML as most sane people will seek open formats and solutions instead.
In this case the point should be that people who bought into the MS security concept will feel screwed. The ones on other systems will be able to do their business as usual while crazed windows admins run around firefighting for their lives.
I cant imagine how this could have a bad effect on linux at all. A big boost for ABM and the industry as a whole would survive just fine without MS. It isnt like MS has really truly made something significant other than piggybacking and marketing.
Since XP isnt such a big rewrite of the NT codebase a significant number of holes found in the NT/2000 code will most probably also be lurking in XP/2003.
If this really is true the ramifications on the security of windows is really big. In contrast linux is getting SELinux functionality implemented as we speak.
I hope this isnt true because it would turn the world of computers totally upside down and have big impact on innocent bystanders who bought into the MS marketing lies.
If i recall it Microsoft gave out enormous rebates. Munich did take into account that these rebates wouldnt last longer than to the next upgrade of their Windows systems and they would be at square one again. With linux they know they can move money from paying Microsoft to pay local companies to tailor linux in ways that is impossible with Windows.
MS is just trying to keep customers in their treadmill'o'upgrades.
Slashdot Mirror
Why yes!
In the same way that MS centric establishments is always unbiased so should slashdot.
*cough*
This is a biased web site for us who care about tech and computers. Windows Media PLayer IS infomous amongst most of us. Personally i compare it against mplayer and xine and find it a turd.
If only some of the successful worms would do something malicius like erasing the HD or frying the bios. Then and only then would MS take notice and securing their software.
Imagine this:
The RIAA etc has succeded in stopping every possible way of sharing information.
Carrying information storage objects is as unlawful as spreading antrax on the White House lawn.
Not a damn difference in sales of music, who the f*ck are they blaming then? The artists? Will we see RIAA sue their own artists for not making enough dough?
How can you own thaughts and arts? We live in a society made up of the selling and buying of invisable, made up objects called rights. Its pretty insane if you think outside our world and try to see it from an aliens perspective.
Then again, when was humanity not insane last time?
Compare Windows to BeOS, Amiga OS, Geos, MacOS and imagine where those would have been with a couple och billions in research money. Windows is a hack and has always been a hack. There is nothing novel stemming from Microsoft, every last bit and piece is traceable to some other company except maybe the TCPA. I would rather ask myself how would our computing be without Xerox, IBM, 3dfx, Compaq, Norton and the free internet (compared to MSN 1.0)?
I think computing would have been all ok without Microsoft because they arent sitting on any knowledge that is absent elsewhere.
The problem is a flaw in IE and web sites get the blame? It should be IE that doesnt read malicious content because how hard is it to just set up an evil web site and link to it in an email?
Viola, problem not solved!
The EU already has a sanctioned embargo against teh US because of US tax reductions that Microsoft and other expporting companies from the US enjoys (contrary trade agreements). Any more from the US and the WTO will spank the US to oblivion.
I think Mono is a really nice way of putting gnome a bit to much in the way of the Microsoft Bulldozer.
Do ANYONE think that MS would let the oppurtunity to use a patent against OSS go by?
Without a written consent from Microsoft openly stating they wont sue and slander i cannot give in to Mono. If gnome is built upon it i will go elsewhere with my business.
Call it damage control in advance.
If this turns out to be true its a pretty backlashing move of Microsoft. Microsoft had almost got rid of the bad taste of the antitrust case and now this. If anything it hordes the open source crowd togheter and opens a unified front, Anything But Microsoft. I presume MS is really involved in some stage cause frankly, what kind of license to unix did they need costing 10 mil? They hadnt any chance of buying a second license since that would have been to obvious. A third party like Baystar funding MS makes perfekt sence.
The halloween docs have all proven themselves on the spot from start and the indices all points towards MS. Why else would this suit have been such a big publicity stunt against linux wich have been a third party in all cases so far that SCO has been starting?
It just reekes of MS "business practices".
This is hardware in software style and i dont like it, not one bit. Hardware have up until pretty recently been fairly free from these kinds of problems. If i buy a product i assume its tested and works. If it dont work i just return it and i wont spend any time fixing something that was broken when i bought it. I dont like to become an engineer on the behalf of the company that got my money.
Software has been sold with insane conditions that people take the responsibility off of the manufacturer but that is because software has been treated as art and not as real products. Hardware on the other hand do not have those conditions so when you buy something and it doesnt work, return it. The only way to remedy this problem is if enough people stay away from companies following the path of almost ready hardware. If its broke, they should fix it, not us.
Software is bound to be hard to use as long as the developers is making their interfaces. Its also very easy to be blinded since you work on the application a long time and you think things are easy because they are logical to you. KISS is not enough, there need to be a layer of logic ontop of the application in most cases, shielding the user from the computer logic and making things make sense.
Perhaps its time to invite designers into the developing process?
That said i dont really agree with Eric Raymond. I work as an admin all day and i more often find Windows harder to use than linux. Windows is very quirky and backwards in so many levels. Try installing a TCP/IP printer in Windows XP and you get the picture, not something for the mere mortals. Linux is in my opinion better than Windows but there are room for improvement. I dont think people should embrace usability Wizard style like windows. Make the apps easy enough from the start instead so you wont need a wizard to be able to do your stuff ey?
Well there is always the possibility to use linux or some other 64 bit capable OS. Then again what are you doing that benefit from 64 bit computing?
Games sure wont and not most other applications either.
With MsSQL ontop of NTFS longhorn is promising to be even slower than past systems. The hybrid model that i have seen is just adding a layer ontop of NTFS. Not really a new filesystem like ReiserFS but another layer eating cpu cycles and memory. Hardware probably needs to catch up before it can be used in a grander scale.
Since Longhorn seems to be so long into the future and MS desperatly needs their upgrade fix an interim XP sounds possible. Think Windows Me and Windows 98 SE for a clue (lets hope that Longhorn stinks as bad as Windows Me did if that is humanly possible). MS has set themselves up on a 3 year upgrade sell and a step of that cycle is a significant blow to their earnings.
As a side note i dont deem Longhorn that much of an improvement over XP that it is worth waiting for. From what ive seen its just babysteps they have taken. And that is natural, any bigger changes is going to break a lot of applications in perspective of MS merry strife to lock applications to x86.
Java as open source has the potential to completely stifle .net in its childhood. Not that stopping .net is something to strive for in itself but im worried about the platform lockin Microsoft is driving towards. Java has the potential to conquer the world just as Apache and a move like this could very well let it free.
Maybe MS is mixing things up? If you count worms and viruses as exploits in the same category as real breakins then by far those and script kiddies who uses ready made exploits account for most breakins.
Any sane cracker wont report his latest exploit to bugtraq. He will continue to use it until someone else finds out about it. When it hits MS and they patch it the cracker will have found another hole to use. The most dangerous breakins is ofcourse corporate espionage and i think the ones doing those have a field day on Windows right now. They dont use common exploits that intrusion detection systems detect since they want in and out unnoticed, even if the systems in the target is unpatched.
What a peculiar move isnt it? If the problem lies in the underlying system why bolt some more services ontop of it? The solution should be to prevent virueses to propagate in the first place. A virus scanner is only an intermidiate solution to a problem in windows, its by no mesure any real solution. Why not be bold and use a sandbox to open attachements in? Bochs style anyone? I can come up with numerous things that would be better than a virus scanner ontop of my head, why cant they?
I am stunned by how incredibly good salesmen they are and at the same time such loosers come to technology.
Norton Commander lives on just nicely on all my linux boxes in the appearence of midnight commander, a clone on stereoids. I dont think Total Commander killed Norton Commander. It was more of the problem with the dos dir structure that didnt lend itself to using Norton Commander. Norton Commander was a blast on dos and still is on linux. Especially where you dont have a GUI as on servers.
I think this is a pretty nice aknowledgement to the AMD developed technology from Intel. I have yet to understand why AMD is so sparse on servers when the reliability is as good/bad as intels. Now that Intel is jumping in AMD's track perhaps we will se more AMD cpu's in servers.
I think this is a big thing since i cant recall one single thing that Intel has used their cross license for up until now. Maybe a turn in events who knows. Any torch in intels butt is good anyhow.
Proactive is very much warmongering. Where is the threat that would suggest that an even bigger military force is needed? The US is very much capable to defend themselves as it is today. The thing is that it looks like the US want to have a big offensive capability for some reason.
Most countries is NOT in a decent relationship with the US. Compare it with the kid at school whom you try to be friendly to because you know he will kick you in the balls if he even sniffs a tad bit of opposition against him? Be sure that many countries hate the US with a passion but they are to afraid to take a stand.
It is sad to watch the US turn into a terror state hellbent on ruling the world.
Im much more worried if the US have those kinds of weapons than if some broke desert shithole gets their hands on some mustard gas. What exactly is the US doing this arms race against? Aliens?
The US no doubt has the power to keep space off limits for anyone for military arms race. Why in gods name then do they push the envelope so that other countries has to follow?
Warmongers, thats what i see.
Lets hope the administration gets changed to something less warhappy and perhaps a it more interested in all US citizens than of enriching a few select people.
NO sane person in the OSS community is even poking at that pile of spaghetti with a stick! Doing that is a one way ticket to problems down the road. Be aware that script kiddies and virii writers and MS Windows security companies is the ones doing all the checking.
Go away you troll!
Blackhats like CIA, KGB, China intelligence etc have had access to this code for much longer no doubt. Anybody think that MS delivering of the code to china hasnt been propagated to their intelligence agency? This only shows that there are no security in hiding security mechanisms. A quick glance at the crypto industry should be pretty revalating to MS.
MS i in for a ride and it should be hammered around that most of theese exploits would NOT be stopped by Palladium. Palladium is just a buzzword and does not stop errors in protocols or implementations of them. Thats not going to stop MS from marketing palladium as a tool to stop errors in their code.
They should have waited until XML had gotten off ground. There are IMHO much better ways of storing information than garbling it toghether in a flat file. XML is just a buzzword like .net or web services.
They just killed off XML as most sane people will seek open formats and solutions instead.
In this case the point should be that people who bought into the MS security concept will feel screwed. The ones on other systems will be able to do their business as usual while crazed windows admins run around firefighting for their lives.
I cant imagine how this could have a bad effect on linux at all. A big boost for ABM and the industry as a whole would survive just fine without MS. It isnt like MS has really truly made something significant other than piggybacking and marketing.
Since XP isnt such a big rewrite of the NT codebase a significant number of holes found in the NT/2000 code will most probably also be lurking in XP/2003.
If this really is true the ramifications on the security of windows is really big. In contrast linux is getting SELinux functionality implemented as we speak.
I hope this isnt true because it would turn the world of computers totally upside down and have big impact on innocent bystanders who bought into the MS marketing lies.
If i recall it Microsoft gave out enormous rebates. Munich did take into account that these rebates wouldnt last longer than to the next upgrade of their Windows systems and they would be at square one again. With linux they know they can move money from paying Microsoft to pay local companies to tailor linux in ways that is impossible with Windows.
MS is just trying to keep customers in their treadmill'o'upgrades.