It's just something that messed with the Win32 folder.
So far as they know, at this point.
I agree that the rest of it could be fixed - although it's likely to be easier to wipe and re-image the systems (if they bothered to build them from images in the first place, that is) than to try and restore the installation.
But the original problem could lie in the user data files or somewhere else as well, once they restore those and someone clicks on an infected file they are doing it all over again.
That's actually what makes me think it was a time bomb of some sort, rather than an actual outside malware infection. Most outside malware infections are of the botnet variety, crashing hundreds of systems to a rebuild state is counter-productive. But some disgruntled employee who wanted to cause a lot of grief to the IT department... hiding your code in a print server makes sense, nobody is likely to look there.
Of course it sounds like most of the direct evidence is now gone...
No shit! At the very least they should have imaged the print server's installation drive before they wiped and reinstalled, (even if they needed the system up as fast as possible.) At least that way they'd have something to run forensics ON, and be able to do it at their leisure rather than a hurry-up job.
I did the same the other day for a proprietary security camera setup software (under windows) which is a fairly blatant ripoff of zoneminder.
The company that produced this software (some of you may know who I'm talking about) was no help to the business owner I was working for, he'd already spent a few hundred dollars working with their "support techs" - who were unable to solve his problem (conflict with a anti-malware app) and there is almost no support available online even for basic issues.
I've worked with ZM enough that once I dived into the UI of the proprietary app I had a basic understanding of how it worked, and could solve the problem.
I'm not sure who I'd submit a bug application to... but I did image his system as part of the $75 four hour fix, and now he knows who to contact to get the thing fixed again if it goes south... happy customer and probably won't see him again for some months, good!
Many eyes. It's not just the people fixing the code at the basic level, it's the people doing the fixes at the customer level. If we are permitted at least a small amount of understanding of how the system works without buying expensive subscriptions to developer level support vs spending hours online working thru multiple tiers of tech support, we can contribute too..
I run zoneminder at home, if I have problems I can google a ton of solutions or work out my own...
I think that in Microsoft's case in particular, all the exploits out there prove the opposite of his case.
I'm not a MS dev or even anyone important, just a small business owner who fixes infected Windows machines (it's better than 3/4 of the work I do, sadly) so it seems to me that security wise at least he is way off base - the many more eyes that are looking at MS Windows without even having access to the code base are doing a pretty damned good job of finding security bugs in it.
I don't know that one could always consider user error as a "bug" in the software.
Given the potential variety of human experience and the ways in which software can be misused or abused, it's likely there is no way to make any piece of software "user proof", as you point out.;)
Any technological endeavor human beings work towards will always be subject to "more eyeballs means improvement". If there's not enough eyeballs, then there simply isn't enough people working on the problem.
I haven't RTFA. but from the summary, most of what this program manager says is intuitively obvious.
Now I'm not disagreeing with what you're trying to say, overall; but I'd like to point out a few things:
SEX is also unofficially there in the list, by punishing those that would take advantage of someone who does not quite have the assumed mental capacity you should have at a certain age.
Who makes the assumptions? When I was a teenager - 25 years ago - I knew plenty of kids my age who were extremely mature when it came to sex. Plenty more who were not. Now that I'm middle aged I meet my friends' kids who seem to have about the same distribution.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that perhaps existing laws/morals do an injustice to those kids who do mature early.
I'd like to note that as to the emotional side/feel good side, I know plenty of otherwise functional adults - many older than I - who have problems with sexual relations very similar to what you ascribe to children - ie, not able to distinguish between a good sexual relationship and a bad one. I'm sure many other people have had similar experiences.
So how are children unique in that respect, again?
I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that the concept of "maturity" (regarding any issue in one's personal life, especially) can be assigned by chronological age. People mature at different rates, in different ways, and in some respects some people never mature at all.
Cases like these should be dealt with on individual basis and not by blanket laws, especially regarding even well-intentioned censorship.
I'd also like to note that in my opinion, any country where you can be conscripted to fight in the military before you can legally have a drink in a bar is seriously fucked up. Yes, I'm an American...
I suspect this device is intended more for large backyards or other places where it can be emplaced far away from people. I can't get to the article either, but it would make sense to design and mount it such that it can only cover one hemisphere, pointing up.
Obviously that could cause problems in other environments such as multi-story apartment buildings or downtowns, but I don't see any reason why one couldn't write the software such that it doesn't fire on pre-set portions of it's coverage area - ie, windows and balconies and such. There's plenty of surveillance software out there that does similar things.
Shouldn't there be some way to get a rough range using many separated audio sensors ( add antennae to it it'll be even cooler *g* ) and doppler analysis software?
I'm not going to speculate on what effects this may have on ecosystems. It would be pointless for anyone to.
Humor:
Sign seen at entrance to upper-class neighborhood: "This is a Mosquito Free Zone. Please wear the special safety glasses at all times." (Apologies to Carlin)
SB
PS I spent 35 years in Minnesota. Much of it living in Swampland, MN... Mosquito Magnet and Finally Moved the Hell out of There... so a message to all Mosquito Magnets out there, you know who you are, move to a more desert climate.
If I had any logical and rational sense at all, I would feel vindicated.
But human beings, especially those who are in positions of power, rarely let logic or rationality get in the way of their policy.
Damned shame, that.
Don't pardon my sarcasm, I've had way too many dealings with human irrationality today to care much about the feelings or viewpoints of some idiots who can't bother to learn there's a greater world outside of their religious beliefs. Put simply, I don't give a fuck. Let them eat cake.
I'm coming into this late, so it's probably already been said. At least I hope so.
Until we can define what the term intelligence *means* we won't be able to put a date on when AI achieves it.
We can't even pin down a solid definition for our own *species*. To imagine that we can do so is arrogance in the extreme use of the term. (reference this post for one example)
Which is exactly zero damage. Anyone going to the effort to download the files in the first place is not going to purchase them anyway (there are exceptions, but those exceptions benefit the industry as a whole)
What does it matter? There is no possible way that all the uploaders or downloaders can be prosecuted in the court systems, even globally; and as the internet continues to expand, the "problem" is only going to get more complicated (worse, from the copyright holders perspectives)
Even assuming the courts don't have better things to do... sooner or later, the courts are going to have to acknowledge that it's an unsolvable problem.
From a technical standpoint, this issue was done and over with more than a quarter of a century ago (ie, there is never going to be any human-derived copyright protection system that can't be broken by someone smarter or more determined ). That the argument continues to get worse now says a lot more about our society and culture than it does about the technical problems.
So let's just leave the technical side out of it already! Sheese... this has been said millions of times...
SB
(Master of restating the obvious, but obviously someone has to do it... again)
It also depends on the speed of your transport. If you're moving at subluminal speeds over a large distance things might move a ways before you get there;)
This is a bit off topic, but it's something that always strikes me when reading these sorts of discussions: is the political arena in America really this polarised?
It's worse than you know;-)
Yes, it's a quote from Firefly, but it's no less true for being so. Actually I suspect it's worse than anyone can possibly know, or suspect, or even blog about.
There are still historians arguing about the reasons the British empire came apart. I suspect there will be historians a hundred years from now arguing about why the American Industrial Empire came apart.
Yes, this is stuff I think about a lot.
Yes, I do get laid. Not enough, but when I do, the pillowtalk is great...
Slashdot Mirror
It's just something that messed with the Win32 folder.
So far as they know, at this point.
I agree that the rest of it could be fixed - although it's likely to be easier to wipe and re-image the systems (if they bothered to build them from images in the first place, that is) than to try and restore the installation.
But the original problem could lie in the user data files or somewhere else as well, once they restore those and someone clicks on an infected file they are doing it all over again.
SB
That's actually what makes me think it was a time bomb of some sort, rather than an actual outside malware infection. Most outside malware infections are of the botnet variety, crashing hundreds of systems to a rebuild state is counter-productive. But some disgruntled employee who wanted to cause a lot of grief to the IT department... hiding your code in a print server makes sense, nobody is likely to look there.
Of course it sounds like most of the direct evidence is now gone...
SB
No shit! At the very least they should have imaged the print server's installation drive before they wiped and reinstalled, (even if they needed the system up as fast as possible.) At least that way they'd have something to run forensics ON, and be able to do it at their leisure rather than a hurry-up job.
Someone screwed up bad.
SB
I did the same the other day for a proprietary security camera setup software (under windows) which is a fairly blatant ripoff of zoneminder.
The company that produced this software (some of you may know who I'm talking about) was no help to the business owner I was working for, he'd already spent a few hundred dollars working with their "support techs" - who were unable to solve his problem (conflict with a anti-malware app) and there is almost no support available online even for basic issues.
I've worked with ZM enough that once I dived into the UI of the proprietary app I had a basic understanding of how it worked, and could solve the problem.
I'm not sure who I'd submit a bug application to... but I did image his system as part of the $75 four hour fix, and now he knows who to contact to get the thing fixed again if it goes south... happy customer and probably won't see him again for some months, good!
Many eyes. It's not just the people fixing the code at the basic level, it's the people doing the fixes at the customer level. If we are permitted at least a small amount of understanding of how the system works without buying expensive subscriptions to developer level support vs spending hours online working thru multiple tiers of tech support, we can contribute too..
I run zoneminder at home, if I have problems I can google a ton of solutions or work out my own...
SB
Exactly.
Microsoft is a business that exists to make money. (Obscene amounts of it, if you want my opinion.)
People who code free software generally do so to make better software.
I know which one I trust.
SB
Then you probably miss out on a lot of good information because someone makes a basic mistake.
IME pedants are usually so busy proofreading they miss the gist of the content. ;-)
Me included!
SB
SB
I think that in Microsoft's case in particular, all the exploits out there prove the opposite of his case.
I'm not a MS dev or even anyone important, just a small business owner who fixes infected Windows machines (it's better than 3/4 of the work I do, sadly) so it seems to me that security wise at least he is way off base - the many more eyes that are looking at MS Windows without even having access to the code base are doing a pretty damned good job of finding security bugs in it.
SB
I don't know that one could always consider user error as a "bug" in the software.
Given the potential variety of human experience and the ways in which software can be misused or abused, it's likely there is no way to make any piece of software "user proof", as you point out. ;)
SB
Any technological endeavor human beings work towards will always be subject to "more eyeballs means improvement". If there's not enough eyeballs, then there simply isn't enough people working on the problem.
I haven't RTFA. but from the summary, most of what this program manager says is intuitively obvious.
SB
Now I'm not disagreeing with what you're trying to say, overall; but I'd like to point out a few things:
SEX is also unofficially there in the list, by punishing those that would take advantage of someone who does not quite have the assumed mental capacity you should have at a certain age.
Who makes the assumptions? When I was a teenager - 25 years ago - I knew plenty of kids my age who were extremely mature when it came to sex. Plenty more who were not. Now that I'm middle aged I meet my friends' kids who seem to have about the same distribution.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that perhaps existing laws/morals do an injustice to those kids who do mature early.
I'd like to note that as to the emotional side/feel good side, I know plenty of otherwise functional adults - many older than I - who have problems with sexual relations very similar to what you ascribe to children - ie, not able to distinguish between a good sexual relationship and a bad one. I'm sure many other people have had similar experiences.
So how are children unique in that respect, again?
I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that the concept of "maturity" (regarding any issue in one's personal life, especially) can be assigned by chronological age. People mature at different rates, in different ways, and in some respects some people never mature at all.
Cases like these should be dealt with on individual basis and not by blanket laws, especially regarding even well-intentioned censorship.
I'd also like to note that in my opinion, any country where you can be conscripted to fight in the military before you can legally have a drink in a bar is seriously fucked up. Yes, I'm an American...
SB
I suspect this device is intended more for large backyards or other places where it can be emplaced far away from people. I can't get to the article either, but it would make sense to design and mount it such that it can only cover one hemisphere, pointing up.
Obviously that could cause problems in other environments such as multi-story apartment buildings or downtowns, but I don't see any reason why one couldn't write the software such that it doesn't fire on pre-set portions of it's coverage area - ie, windows and balconies and such. There's plenty of surveillance software out there that does similar things.
Shouldn't there be some way to get a rough range using many separated audio sensors ( add antennae to it it'll be even cooler *g* ) and doppler analysis software?
I'm not going to speculate on what effects this may have on ecosystems. It would be pointless for anyone to.
Humor:
Sign seen at entrance to upper-class neighborhood: "This is a Mosquito Free Zone. Please wear the special safety glasses at all times." (Apologies to Carlin)
SB
PS I spent 35 years in Minnesota. Much of it living in Swampland, MN... Mosquito Magnet and Finally Moved the Hell out of There... so a message to all Mosquito Magnets out there, you know who you are, move to a more desert climate.
If I had any logical and rational sense at all, I would feel vindicated.
But human beings, especially those who are in positions of power, rarely let logic or rationality get in the way of their policy.
Damned shame, that.
Don't pardon my sarcasm, I've had way too many dealings with human irrationality today to care much about the feelings or viewpoints of some idiots who can't bother to learn there's a greater world outside of their religious beliefs. Put simply, I don't give a fuck. Let them eat cake.
SB
I'm coming into this late, so it's probably already been said. At least I hope so.
Until we can define what the term intelligence *means* we won't be able to put a date on when AI achieves it.
We can't even pin down a solid definition for our own *species*. To imagine that we can do so is arrogance in the extreme use of the term. (reference this post for one example)
SB
Which is exactly zero damage. Anyone going to the effort to download the files in the first place is not going to purchase them anyway (there are exceptions, but those exceptions benefit the industry as a whole)
SB
Redundant.
Well, duh.
SB
What does it matter? There is no possible way that all the uploaders or downloaders can be prosecuted in the court systems, even globally; and as the internet continues to expand, the "problem" is only going to get more complicated (worse, from the copyright holders perspectives)
Even assuming the courts don't have better things to do... sooner or later, the courts are going to have to acknowledge that it's an unsolvable problem.
From a technical standpoint, this issue was done and over with more than a quarter of a century ago (ie, there is never going to be any human-derived copyright protection system that can't be broken by someone smarter or more determined ). That the argument continues to get worse now says a lot more about our society and culture than it does about the technical problems.
So let's just leave the technical side out of it already! Sheese... this has been said millions of times...
SB
(Master of restating the obvious, but obviously someone has to do it... again)
That's too bad, because it certainly sounds good.
SB
They can ride the same public transportation as anyone else does.
Hopefully we'll need them soon. As in, we have enough people of all stripes in orbit that it's a problem...
SB
It also depends on the speed of your transport. If you're moving at subluminal speeds over a large distance things might move a ways before you get there ;)
SB
I wish I had mod points today, because that's probably the best description of much of modern psychology I've ever seen ;-)
SB
Agree completely. Whatever else the young Paul Atreides was, he was not a whiny, selfish little brat. Lynch's Paul was a lot closer to the novel.
SB
Yeah. And often it's hard to tell the serious people from the "others". ;-D
SB
( 42 years an "american citizen" now, although I think the term "homo sapiens modernus" is more accurate - humble, y'see)
Calling political argument on slashdot "a sport" is petty cheap.
SB
This is a bit off topic, but it's something that always strikes me when reading these sorts of discussions: is the political arena in America really this polarised?
It's worse than you know ;-)
Yes, it's a quote from Firefly, but it's no less true for being so. Actually I suspect it's worse than anyone can possibly know, or suspect, or even blog about.
There are still historians arguing about the reasons the British empire came apart. I suspect there will be historians a hundred years from now arguing about why the American Industrial Empire came apart.
Yes, this is stuff I think about a lot.
Yes, I do get laid. Not enough, but when I do, the pillowtalk is great...
SB