Danseglio said the success of social engineering attacks is a sign that the weakest link in malware defense is "human stupidity."
Wrong. The weakest link in malware defense is the totally flawed design model of Windows, the 90% of desktop PCs on the Internet that run Windows & the 95% of clueless Windows users who wouldn't know security if it hit them in the face. (And yes, I know some good knowledgeable Windows admins who DO know how to make the best of the design flaws & who do a damned ace job securing Windows boxes.)
In addition to the above, you can also blame Microsoft's relentless marketing lies in convincing Joe Average about the "simplicity and ease" of using Windows.
No, I'm not going to get smug about Linux because an unsecured Linux box can also be compromised - but the fact is that attacks on Linux (or UNIX) PCs will NEVER EVER be of the same epidemic proportions that have hit Windows PCs for the following simple facts:
1. Linux isn't ready for the "Joe Average" PC user. That means those that use it are more knowledgeable in what they do and therefore of a mindset that's more likely to take security seriously and harden their machines before putting them on the Internet.
2. About 90% of making a Linux PC secure is understanding some very SIMPLE rules - don't run services you don't need & those you do need, do your best to avoid running them as root. Add to that some common sense about not using guessable account names and non-dictionary passwords and those alone will keep 99% of script-kiddies away.
3. Try and find a single, insecure program that you can use to propogate malware on 90% of Linux boxes - don't bother, I'll give you the answer - THERE ISN'T ONE. There's far too many distros out there running far too many different variations of daemons that it would never happen.
And before anybody accuses me of being a "zealot", I'll say this - I spend a lot of time checking and rechecking my Linux machines for vulnerabilities, I check syslogs regularly and do the occasional packet sniff just to see what's going on out there because 4 years ago I myself was hacked through an FTP service I stupidly left running on an Internet-connected Linux box. But that was MY fault and the good thing was I learnt by my mistakes and became more knowledgeable & vigilant in the process.
Sorry, but as a computer professional of some 20 years now, managing a Linux box properly is infinitely easier than working out the tangled mess of interdependent services, registry keys and DLLs that make up Windows - that's why I have the respect for Windows admins that DO know something about how to do it...
The good news is that I can categorically give you my 100% assurance that I will not be pirating the Gnarls Barkley single.
However, the bad news is that I will not be buying it either as it's yet another example of cobbled-together, formulaic music designed for the plastic, designer mobile-phone generation who are too insecure to venture into a deeper exploration of music that extends beyond the 40-or-so CDs on sale in their local supermarket.
I'm sorry but I wouldn't know "Cee-Loo Green" if he/she passed me in the street but "Danger Mouse" is a superb & wonderful character of whom I have the utmost respect and admiration - although I did sometimes consider him to be a little hard on his mole sidekick, Penfold, in the British cartoon series of the same name.
In my day, when an artist "featured" another guest artist, we generally knew who one, the other or both are as musicians. However, these days such is not the case as I wouldn't know "Snoop Doggy Poop" from "Rampant Moggie Mangler" if they past me in the street.
May I also remind you that in my day, recording engineers were obviously better trained due to the fact that they mixed their music correctly the first time without having to reissue subsequent endless "remixes" of their music, For GOD'S SAKE, why can't you just TRAIN these people properly the first time so they get it right the first time? And why do you not have a decent Quality Assurance department that checks the "mix" quality before sending CDs out to the record stores. Why, we never heard Led Zeppelin (Featuring James Page) saying "Ooh, I don't think Robert quite got the 'Oooh-oooh-oooh' quite right on Stairway To Heaven that time. Can we please have another go at it?"
In summary, therefore, may I offer a few suggestions which, I feel, will go a long way to improving the quality of music in today's pop charts:
1. Suggest to some of your musicians that their hard-earned money might be better spent on singing/instrument lessons rather than baggy, badly-made jeans where the crutch hangs down at the knees. If nothing else, imagine the trouble these poor people would have trying to run outside of a burning studio - the damned things are a fire hazard!
2. Please throw in the occasional guitar solo - after all, guitar solos never did His Almighty Majesty Ozzy Osbourne any damage, now did they?
3. Allow your musicians to spend some time learning with Michael Flatley & "Riverdance". I find this constant "hand jiving" and finger gesturing by these artists most off-putting. I'm sure Mr Flatley will be able to teach these musicians how to keep their arms gracefully be their sides at most times.
4. Please ask some of your artists to have a quick look in the mirror before venturing out onto the stage or in front of a video camera. It is most disturbing to see so many young men with their baseball caps on backwards & if they took a little more time over their appearance, we would all feel much better.
with Vista, a 12pt font should finally be a 12pt font, not "whatever 12pt is at 72dpi, in pixels, no matter what your real display res is"
Why would anyone care about this? The moment you get a new OS installed (be it Windows or Linux), the first thing you do is tweak Control Panel-type settings to adjust fonts, etc. Sure, on Linux and X, fonts can sometimes be a pain but Windows is pretty good with maintaining a standard look with fonts afterwards. I can't recall one time when I've worried about "dpi" settings on Windows.
A 3D UI also makes doing interesting things with window management easier, or in fact practical.
Again, why does a normal user care about this? The Explorer look and feel has it's problems, sure, but is it not the case that most people have got used to it's limitations and are now fairly happy with the 2D UI and way of working? We're constantly being told that Windows users don't like change - which is why they don't use Linux or OpenOffice - so why are they going to jump to use a new 3D UI and have to learn from the beginning again?
IMO this is an opportunity for MS to do a lot right, and certainly isn't useless.
I agree but the two examples you've given are minor reasons for upgrading to Vista, if they are reasons at all, and this is my point. Apart from focusing more on security and stability, MS have probably reached an endpoint with features on Windows.
Let's face it, security issues in XP didn't stop people using it and once you get to used to having to apply regular updates and frequently run virus/spyware checkers, would you really rush to run a new MS OS just because it's new?
I really do believe that the release of Vista will mark a big turning point for Microsoft - that point in time will be marked as the point where Microsoft either fully secured their place in the OS market or began their decline.
Personally, I think this marks the beginning of the end for Microsoft - at least from the point of view of regular OS releases. I've been a Windows user right since 3.x days (fortunately Linux is now my prime OS) but each time I've upgraded to a new MS OS, I have seen less and less reason to do that upgrade in the first place - I've only used XP for the past year now (used Windows 2000 before) and only really used XP because it came on a new PC I bought and I discovered I could ditch the terrible Windows XP UI for the classic Windows 2000 one. But I can't say i've noticed much difference with using it - I found Windows 2000 pretty stable for general desktop use and XP is no different.
From the perspective of Joe Average, I don't see he has any reason to upgrade to Vista. The PC games market is quite clearly slowing down as games producers focus more on consoles and it's not going to be for around 2 years after Vista is released that we'll see "Vista only" games. You only need to look at the rise in Internet gaming to see that the future of PC games is a subscription model where gamers will be paying once for a game that will be something they will play possibly for several years - as opposed to buying a new game every few weeks or so. And if there's only a small Vista user base, games and apps producers will continue to support XP.
I'm sure that businesses will upgrade slowly (because of the licensing lock-in MS has with them) but those of us in IT have all seen the adoption of new OSes by businesses slow down also. Because Vista will end up breaking a lot of existing apps, the business migration is bound to be very slow.
I'm sure MS know all of this - which is why the marketing around Vista seems to be a lot more now than for any other OS they've released. But I really do think that this time, they're going to have real trouble getting this on the same number of desktops as they did with XP.
Is this one of those "puppy is to dog" as "kitten is to cat" type questions?
In which case the answer must be "Linux".
i.e. Boeing is to "really old technology designed by Americans" as Airbus is to "new technology designed by Europeans". Windows is to "old technology designed by Americans" as Linux is to "new technology designed by Europeans".
Look, I've never owned an Apple product, never had the need for one, so I'm certainly not qualified to comment on whether their products/service are any good or not. From what others tell me, I suspect they're probably okay so that's it.
But can we PLEASE get it into our heads ONCE AND FOR ALL that the purpose of any big corporation is JUST to make money for its shareholders - END OF STORY!!! Whether or not you, the consumer, thinks they make good or bad products is pretty much irrelevant to them once they have your money. And if they give you a good customer service and/or a good feeling every time you deal with them, it is not because they're feeling nice, warm or friendly about you but because it is profitable to do so.
If you love your Mac or your iPod then great - good luck to you. But PLEASE get it out of your thick skull that wearing a corporate logo of ANY sort is cool - it isn't because it just goes to show the rest of the world that you are insecure enough to want to belong to one (or more) exclusive little cliques that makes you feel special because you can look down on those that aren't members of those same cliques.
Buy an article of clothing because it looks nice on you or feels good on you, buy an iPod because it sounds good or fits well in your jeans pocket - but don't just buy something because it's made by "Gap" or "Apple" because then you really are showing the rest of the world only how much of a corporate puppet you really are...
I think you need to have a clearer definition of what "brand trust" actually is - it's a "buzzword phrase" that basically means "lazy consumer" that is exploited by corporations to leecn more money out of their customers.
Because most people are far too lazy to do any research into expensive products that they buy, they much prefer having an easy life and just throwing money at some company who they believe will deliver them a good product or service.
This is not to say, necessarily, that Sony produces bad products - but, let's face it, circuit boards for consumer electronics, for example, are just about all manufactured in Taiwan now and probably go in equal share into Sony products & the products of countless lesser known brands of goods. Consequently, Sony can spend more on marketing than, say, LG and recoup that marketing expenditure (plus additional profits) purely by putting a Sony badge on a box and charging a premium for it - whilst LG sell a similar quality/designed product for 2/3 of the cost.
The same is true for clothing & sports shoes which are all made in Far East/Phillipino sweat shops anyway whether they get sold in Gap or the local supermarket.
So my core point is that there is absolutely nothing commonsense about brand loyalty - it's purely about taking advantage of consumer laziness & unwillingness to do some research before parting with money.
The problem with Joe Average consumer is that he's happy to sit in his armchair and complain endlessly about just about anything - even to the point where he'll "voice" those complaints in a survey.
However, the reason why there is so much crap and shoddy service in this world is because Joe Average is too fat, dumb & lazy to actually do anything about it - namely not buying or using the stuff he complains about...
If I was Microsoft, I wouldn't give a damn about how trustworthy Joe Average thinks I am; I'd just keep focusing on making sure my lacklustre products are always installed on any PC he buys because I know well enough that Joe is too damn lazy to change them for anything else.
There are two types of people on the Internet - those that take responsibility for their own personal information & those that don't.
Those in the latter group will therefore happily pay someone else to take that responsibility or just not bother (in which case they're an ideal target for spams, scams & viruses). It's therefore safe to assume that no-one in this group is listening to what Bennett Hasleton is saying because they either pay someone else to do that listening or just can't be bothered to listen.
However, those of us in the former group who do take responsibility for our own information go to great lengths to preserve our privacy.
Personally, I don't believe that it is possible to take 100% control when you rely on closed-source commercial products or OSes made by big, bad corporations who have no interest in you, just their bank balances. However, before anyone flames me for that comment, I recognise there are a lot of highly-skilled Windows sysadmins and IT personnel out there who do a very good job in securing personal and corporate data with the tools that they have available to them - I just don't accept that, with any closed-source software, you can never be 100% sure what that software is doing unless you analysing every single packet of data that software sends out onto the Internet.
Therefore, if you're in this group of people, you're either a very diligent closed-source user or an Open Source user who chooses very specific, trustworthy tools to store and distribute your personal information. In either case, you know what you are doing, are confident in what you are doing and therefore have no need to listen to any advice from the likes of Bennett Hasleton.
Quid pro quo - nobody is listening to Bennett Hasleton's advice so he might as well just shut the hell up.
The obvious answer is to unify the sex discrimination, race relations, disability discrimination, gender preference discrimination and all other similar laws into one new law
I always think of laws as rules designed for people who lack common sense.
Let's face it, most of us intelligent people just go about our daily lives interacting with other people without thinking about what they're wearing or what colour their skin is... added to this, I always turn things on their head anyway - if someone discriminates against or prejudges me, I treat them as people who probably aren't worthy of my time in the first place - so it's no great loss to have nothing to do with them.
Or have a war when us geeks will seriously kick the suits asses (after all who invents all the good weaponry ?)
You can count me out of any of that "war" rubbish... I'm heading down to the nearest concrete bunker wearing my sandals with my big collection of O'Reilly books under my arm...
Maybe you should look into this open source/free software thing.
I take a realistic and pragmatic approach to Open Source always. I use Linux for about 80% of my computing needs and never feel more satisifed with myself when I solve a problem using a script or some smart configuration on a Linux system.
I am an RHCE because I told my boss 5 years ago not to waste his or my time sending me on MCSE training.
However, I am also proud not to be a zealot. Satisfying computing is about using software you are comfortable with that does the job you need it to do - it's not about fighting some stupid non-existent war with Microsoft...
Sure, I CAN recompile my brand new 2006 distro to bring it up to speed, but WHY?
You seem to have lost yourself in your own circular argument.
You made an incorrect statement when you implied that you could not optimise Linux/GNU source code for specific CPU platforms - I corrected that statement by illustrating how GCC at least gives you that ability.
You are now asking "why" you would do it. I cannot answer that, that's for you to decide. We could have a lengthy argument about the benefits of optimising or not optimising - that's speculative and depends on what you are trying to achieve with a Linux installation.
Please try to stay within the topic of discussion in future and stop being so defensive/abusive when you don't have a counter-argument - I don't recall referring to you as an idiot, I merely corrected an incorrect statement you made.
Linux was shipping optimized for 386 all the way up until PIII's were the norm
You've obviously never heard of "compiler flags" - have a read up on the GCC documentation for the "-mcpu" and "-march" flags, then tell me you can't compile Linux (kernel) or GNU (everything else) source code optimised for specific architectures...
I think you're missing the point when asking for figures on "lines of code" in Linux.
I could give a pedantic answer & say that you'd then only be counting the lines of code in the Linux kernel source (because "Linux" just means the kernel).
However, since the article talks specifically about Windows being "big & slow" due to having to maintain compatibility with older applications, then I'd say here that this is where Linux and Open Source have a BIG advantage - for the simple fact that if you have access to source code then you can always modify code to compile against the latest libraries, kernels, etc. Yes, it might not be EASY to get it to compile but when it does compile, the app will run natively at the correct speed.
No, it's not all "fine and dandy" in Linux heaven because trying to get a closed source, 5-year-old Linux application or game to run on a modern Linux distro is difficult, if not impossible.
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong. The weakest link in malware defense is the totally flawed design model of Windows, the 90% of desktop PCs on the Internet that run Windows & the 95% of clueless Windows users who wouldn't know security if it hit them in the face. (And yes, I know some good knowledgeable Windows admins who DO know how to make the best of the design flaws & who do a damned ace job securing Windows boxes.)
In addition to the above, you can also blame Microsoft's relentless marketing lies in convincing Joe Average about the "simplicity and ease" of using Windows.
No, I'm not going to get smug about Linux because an unsecured Linux box can also be compromised - but the fact is that attacks on Linux (or UNIX) PCs will NEVER EVER be of the same epidemic proportions that have hit Windows PCs for the following simple facts:
1. Linux isn't ready for the "Joe Average" PC user. That means those that use it are more knowledgeable in what they do and therefore of a mindset that's more likely to take security seriously and harden their machines before putting them on the Internet.
2. About 90% of making a Linux PC secure is understanding some very SIMPLE rules - don't run services you don't need & those you do need, do your best to avoid running them as root. Add to that some common sense about not using guessable account names and non-dictionary passwords and those alone will keep 99% of script-kiddies away.
3. Try and find a single, insecure program that you can use to propogate malware on 90% of Linux boxes - don't bother, I'll give you the answer - THERE ISN'T ONE. There's far too many distros out there running far too many different variations of daemons that it would never happen.
And before anybody accuses me of being a "zealot", I'll say this - I spend a lot of time checking and rechecking my Linux machines for vulnerabilities, I check syslogs regularly and do the occasional packet sniff just to see what's going on out there because 4 years ago I myself was hacked through an FTP service I stupidly left running on an Internet-connected Linux box. But that was MY fault and the good thing was I learnt by my mistakes and became more knowledgeable & vigilant in the process.
Sorry, but as a computer professional of some 20 years now, managing a Linux box properly is infinitely easier than working out the tangled mess of interdependent services, registry keys and DLLs that make up Windows - that's why I have the respect for Windows admins that DO know something about how to do it...
Yes, but I think the author was talking about delivering a large file at least within the same decade...
The reason why your CD sales are slumping is because what you are putting on them is not very good.
Thanks for your time.
Yours Lovingly
Joe Public
Remember, this IS Slashdot...
However, the bad news is that I will not be buying it either as it's yet another example of cobbled-together, formulaic music designed for the plastic, designer mobile-phone generation who are too insecure to venture into a deeper exploration of music that extends beyond the 40-or-so CDs on sale in their local supermarket.
I'm sorry but I wouldn't know "Cee-Loo Green" if he/she passed me in the street but "Danger Mouse" is a superb & wonderful character of whom I have the utmost respect and admiration - although I did sometimes consider him to be a little hard on his mole sidekick, Penfold, in the British cartoon series of the same name.
In my day, when an artist "featured" another guest artist, we generally knew who one, the other or both are as musicians. However, these days such is not the case as I wouldn't know "Snoop Doggy Poop" from "Rampant Moggie Mangler" if they past me in the street.
May I also remind you that in my day, recording engineers were obviously better trained due to the fact that they mixed their music correctly the first time without having to reissue subsequent endless "remixes" of their music, For GOD'S SAKE, why can't you just TRAIN these people properly the first time so they get it right the first time? And why do you not have a decent Quality Assurance department that checks the "mix" quality before sending CDs out to the record stores. Why, we never heard Led Zeppelin (Featuring James Page) saying "Ooh, I don't think Robert quite got the 'Oooh-oooh-oooh' quite right on Stairway To Heaven that time. Can we please have another go at it?"
In summary, therefore, may I offer a few suggestions which, I feel, will go a long way to improving the quality of music in today's pop charts:
1. Suggest to some of your musicians that their hard-earned money might be better spent on singing/instrument lessons rather than baggy, badly-made jeans where the crutch hangs down at the knees. If nothing else, imagine the trouble these poor people would have trying to run outside of a burning studio - the damned things are a fire hazard!
2. Please throw in the occasional guitar solo - after all, guitar solos never did His Almighty Majesty Ozzy Osbourne any damage, now did they?
3. Allow your musicians to spend some time learning with Michael Flatley & "Riverdance". I find this constant "hand jiving" and finger gesturing by these artists most off-putting. I'm sure Mr Flatley will be able to teach these musicians how to keep their arms gracefully be their sides at most times.
4. Please ask some of your artists to have a quick look in the mirror before venturing out onto the stage or in front of a video camera. It is most disturbing to see so many young men with their baseball caps on backwards & if they took a little more time over their appearance, we would all feel much better.
Why would anyone care about this? The moment you get a new OS installed (be it Windows or Linux), the first thing you do is tweak Control Panel-type settings to adjust fonts, etc. Sure, on Linux and X, fonts can sometimes be a pain but Windows is pretty good with maintaining a standard look with fonts afterwards. I can't recall one time when I've worried about "dpi" settings on Windows.
A 3D UI also makes doing interesting things with window management easier, or in fact practical.
Again, why does a normal user care about this? The Explorer look and feel has it's problems, sure, but is it not the case that most people have got used to it's limitations and are now fairly happy with the 2D UI and way of working? We're constantly being told that Windows users don't like change - which is why they don't use Linux or OpenOffice - so why are they going to jump to use a new 3D UI and have to learn from the beginning again?
IMO this is an opportunity for MS to do a lot right, and certainly isn't useless.
I agree but the two examples you've given are minor reasons for upgrading to Vista, if they are reasons at all, and this is my point. Apart from focusing more on security and stability, MS have probably reached an endpoint with features on Windows.
Let's face it, security issues in XP didn't stop people using it and once you get to used to having to apply regular updates and frequently run virus/spyware checkers, would you really rush to run a new MS OS just because it's new?
Personally, I think this marks the beginning of the end for Microsoft - at least from the point of view of regular OS releases. I've been a Windows user right since 3.x days (fortunately Linux is now my prime OS) but each time I've upgraded to a new MS OS, I have seen less and less reason to do that upgrade in the first place - I've only used XP for the past year now (used Windows 2000 before) and only really used XP because it came on a new PC I bought and I discovered I could ditch the terrible Windows XP UI for the classic Windows 2000 one. But I can't say i've noticed much difference with using it - I found Windows 2000 pretty stable for general desktop use and XP is no different.
From the perspective of Joe Average, I don't see he has any reason to upgrade to Vista. The PC games market is quite clearly slowing down as games producers focus more on consoles and it's not going to be for around 2 years after Vista is released that we'll see "Vista only" games. You only need to look at the rise in Internet gaming to see that the future of PC games is a subscription model where gamers will be paying once for a game that will be something they will play possibly for several years - as opposed to buying a new game every few weeks or so. And if there's only a small Vista user base, games and apps producers will continue to support XP.
I'm sure that businesses will upgrade slowly (because of the licensing lock-in MS has with them) but those of us in IT have all seen the adoption of new OSes by businesses slow down also. Because Vista will end up breaking a lot of existing apps, the business migration is bound to be very slow.
I'm sure MS know all of this - which is why the marketing around Vista seems to be a lot more now than for any other OS they've released. But I really do think that this time, they're going to have real trouble getting this on the same number of desktops as they did with XP.
Anyone remember Gelatinous Cubes, Carrion Crawlers, Grey Ooze & Purple Worms?
Is this one of those "puppy is to dog" as "kitten is to cat" type questions?
In which case the answer must be "Linux".
i.e. Boeing is to "really old technology designed by Americans" as Airbus is to "new technology designed by Europeans". Windows is to "old technology designed by Americans" as Linux is to "new technology designed by Europeans".
But can we PLEASE get it into our heads ONCE AND FOR ALL that the purpose of any big corporation is JUST to make money for its shareholders - END OF STORY!!! Whether or not you, the consumer, thinks they make good or bad products is pretty much irrelevant to them once they have your money. And if they give you a good customer service and/or a good feeling every time you deal with them, it is not because they're feeling nice, warm or friendly about you but because it is profitable to do so.
If you love your Mac or your iPod then great - good luck to you. But PLEASE get it out of your thick skull that wearing a corporate logo of ANY sort is cool - it isn't because it just goes to show the rest of the world that you are insecure enough to want to belong to one (or more) exclusive little cliques that makes you feel special because you can look down on those that aren't members of those same cliques.
Buy an article of clothing because it looks nice on you or feels good on you, buy an iPod because it sounds good or fits well in your jeans pocket - but don't just buy something because it's made by "Gap" or "Apple" because then you really are showing the rest of the world only how much of a corporate puppet you really are...
Because most people are far too lazy to do any research into expensive products that they buy, they much prefer having an easy life and just throwing money at some company who they believe will deliver them a good product or service.
This is not to say, necessarily, that Sony produces bad products - but, let's face it, circuit boards for consumer electronics, for example, are just about all manufactured in Taiwan now and probably go in equal share into Sony products & the products of countless lesser known brands of goods. Consequently, Sony can spend more on marketing than, say, LG and recoup that marketing expenditure (plus additional profits) purely by putting a Sony badge on a box and charging a premium for it - whilst LG sell a similar quality/designed product for 2/3 of the cost.
The same is true for clothing & sports shoes which are all made in Far East/Phillipino sweat shops anyway whether they get sold in Gap or the local supermarket.
So my core point is that there is absolutely nothing commonsense about brand loyalty - it's purely about taking advantage of consumer laziness & unwillingness to do some research before parting with money.
However, the reason why there is so much crap and shoddy service in this world is because Joe Average is too fat, dumb & lazy to actually do anything about it - namely not buying or using the stuff he complains about...
If I was Microsoft, I wouldn't give a damn about how trustworthy Joe Average thinks I am; I'd just keep focusing on making sure my lacklustre products are always installed on any PC he buys because I know well enough that Joe is too damn lazy to change them for anything else.
"Dad. Please may I have an iPod for my birthday?"
"Yes, Linus, my son. Of course you may."
You mean someone has let Ballmer REPRODUCE????
Those in the latter group will therefore happily pay someone else to take that responsibility or just not bother (in which case they're an ideal target for spams, scams & viruses). It's therefore safe to assume that no-one in this group is listening to what Bennett Hasleton is saying because they either pay someone else to do that listening or just can't be bothered to listen.
However, those of us in the former group who do take responsibility for our own information go to great lengths to preserve our privacy.
Personally, I don't believe that it is possible to take 100% control when you rely on closed-source commercial products or OSes made by big, bad corporations who have no interest in you, just their bank balances. However, before anyone flames me for that comment, I recognise there are a lot of highly-skilled Windows sysadmins and IT personnel out there who do a very good job in securing personal and corporate data with the tools that they have available to them - I just don't accept that, with any closed-source software, you can never be 100% sure what that software is doing unless you analysing every single packet of data that software sends out onto the Internet.
Therefore, if you're in this group of people, you're either a very diligent closed-source user or an Open Source user who chooses very specific, trustworthy tools to store and distribute your personal information. In either case, you know what you are doing, are confident in what you are doing and therefore have no need to listen to any advice from the likes of Bennett Hasleton.
Quid pro quo - nobody is listening to Bennett Hasleton's advice so he might as well just shut the hell up.
Then it's definitely for me! :-)
I have it on good authority that it's those evil Podcastanians behind all this.
... Hitler wore a nice pressed suit, his hair cut short & shiny boots - Jesus Christ had uncut hair, a beard and sandals...
I always think of laws as rules designed for people who lack common sense.
Let's face it, most of us intelligent people just go about our daily lives interacting with other people without thinking about what they're wearing or what colour their skin is... added to this, I always turn things on their head anyway - if someone discriminates against or prejudges me, I treat them as people who probably aren't worthy of my time in the first place - so it's no great loss to have nothing to do with them.
You can count me out of any of that "war" rubbish... I'm heading down to the nearest concrete bunker wearing my sandals with my big collection of O'Reilly books under my arm...
I take a realistic and pragmatic approach to Open Source always. I use Linux for about 80% of my computing needs and never feel more satisifed with myself when I solve a problem using a script or some smart configuration on a Linux system.
I am an RHCE because I told my boss 5 years ago not to waste his or my time sending me on MCSE training.
However, I am also proud not to be a zealot. Satisfying computing is about using software you are comfortable with that does the job you need it to do - it's not about fighting some stupid non-existent war with Microsoft...
You seem to have lost yourself in your own circular argument.
You made an incorrect statement when you implied that you could not optimise Linux/GNU source code for specific CPU platforms - I corrected that statement by illustrating how GCC at least gives you that ability.
You are now asking "why" you would do it. I cannot answer that, that's for you to decide. We could have a lengthy argument about the benefits of optimising or not optimising - that's speculative and depends on what you are trying to achieve with a Linux installation.
Please try to stay within the topic of discussion in future and stop being so defensive/abusive when you don't have a counter-argument - I don't recall referring to you as an idiot, I merely corrected an incorrect statement you made.
You've obviously never heard of "compiler flags" - have a read up on the GCC documentation for the "-mcpu" and "-march" flags, then tell me you can't compile Linux (kernel) or GNU (everything else) source code optimised for specific architectures...
I could give a pedantic answer & say that you'd then only be counting the lines of code in the Linux kernel source (because "Linux" just means the kernel).
However, since the article talks specifically about Windows being "big & slow" due to having to maintain compatibility with older applications, then I'd say here that this is where Linux and Open Source have a BIG advantage - for the simple fact that if you have access to source code then you can always modify code to compile against the latest libraries, kernels, etc. Yes, it might not be EASY to get it to compile but when it does compile, the app will run natively at the correct speed.
No, it's not all "fine and dandy" in Linux heaven because trying to get a closed source, 5-year-old Linux application or game to run on a modern Linux distro is difficult, if not impossible.