A black van pulls up to your ISP, several men in black suits emerge and enter the office.
Agent A: We would like to access your network routers.
ISP clerk: Why? Who are you, can I see some papers?
Agent B: [Pulls out a black gun] You don't need to see our papers geek boy.
Agent A: Mr. Smith please, not yet. Our papers are in the mail, do you want to wait for them to arrive? Mr. Smith here hates waiting but if you want to force him to wait I am sure that is fine.
ISP clerk: [looks at Agent B playing with a blackened knife] In the mail you say? Oh that is fine, absolutly let me buzz you in.
Agent A: Thank you for your cooperation citizen. I will just be a minute, Mr Smith here will keep your company so you won't get lonely and feel the need to call anyone. [enters the machine room while Agent B plays with his knife]
Agent A: [returns after a few minutes] We will be leaving now. The goverment thanks you for your cooperation, please refrain from speaking with this about anyone.
The two agents leave and the ISP clerk decides that he needs another job.
Question: How to force a people to retrieve an infect WMF file? Answer: Control the network.
Any computer connected to the network does so because an ISP somewhere routes the calls to the proper adress. Rerouting it is trivial for the right people.
This could be done by the goverment in exactly the same way they redirect phone calls (You never seen a movie where people call phone X only to find themselves talking to phone Y without their knowledge?) OR another reason?
This "bug" is claimed to be new to windows 2000. Roughly the time of all those worms when it became impossible to patch a new windows online BEFORE it was infected. Now imagine the solution if this had gotten really out of control were a worm so nasty was out that EVERY windows machine connected to the net would instantly be infected. How would you patch all those machines? Especially considering how impossible it is to get users to actually PATCH their bloody machines? You could make the argument that what would be needed is somekind of solution were every windows machine connecting to the net would immidiatly be patched.
Cue every ISP being told to redirect their users to a WMF file (every isp is capable of this) and voila, instant enforced patching no matter how much you disabled MS update.
The only problem with exploiting this is for complete outsiders. The goverment has absolutly no problem exploiting this exploit to root your machine.
Is this the explenation? I don't know. I am just guessing and not accepting the easy answer.
The few people here who are not up MS ass or think that being paranoid is uncool seem to still discount the possibility that this is a real backdoor on the grounds that it does not allow you to target a machine directly. The only way to trigger the exploit is to visit a site with a "corrupt" wmf file.
If you believe the above to be true you are either not a very good reader or mentally handicapped.
Why do you need to visit a site? A wmf file read from a floppy wouldn't isn't susceptible to the exploit? No this isn't being pendantic. The WMF exploit happens ANYTIME the WMF code is triggered. It could come from anywhere. The image displayed when you install a piece of software could be a wmf.
This still doesn't change the fact that you need to somehow get the user to read your WMF file. Yes absolutly BUT realising it doesn't have to come from a website visited by the user means we are truly thinking about how a backdoor could be used not just copying what has already been said.
So lets made a wild speculation that this is a deliberate backdoor designed not just for testing something (like the quake backdoor) but to take control of customers PC in the wild.
How could you then force a computer user to load a corrupted WMF? You can't surely so this can't be a backdoor.
Here the logic becomes very very complex. Windows users you might want to get help with this one.
What if this is just one(1) part of a backdoor?
Who said that this is the complete backdoor? What if there is a worm backdoor as well that is far simpler and causes the PC to do nothing else then visit a website. A two-stage attack. Most current exploits in fact work this way. The initial exploit causes a very simple trojan to get the more complex payload to be retrieved.
In fact such code would not even have to exist in windows. All you need is the capability to somehow redirect a PC's internet requests to a page of your choosing.
Is it possible to re-route any http request to a url of my choosing and forcing you to load my WMF exploit instead of the page you requested? Well isn't it awfully convenient that the WMF exploit can be hidden in a jpg?
All a US goverment agency, or for that matter any goverment agency would need is for a way to force your isp to be able to redirect your traffic. Exactly the same way they can "phonetap" your ISP connection.
In short, only criminals need to trick you into visiting their site. Goverment agencies can just force your ISP to redirect you. If it is done smartly it could even be done without your noticing.
There is ofcourse also a nice explenation for it. What if there was a security problem in windows so big that it would bring the internet crashing down so hard that even visiting microsoft.com becomes impossible?
How would you patch the millions of machine and get the internet users back online? Simple, every ISP would be sent the patch and they would simply redirect all their users traffic to their own site with the WMF file and force you to patch your windows.
People who discount this as a backdoor because it is not a worm just don't have enough imagination.
None of what I claim above means that this is a backdoor, just that it is not impossible either.
The truth? We either have to assume MS has written some truly amazingly bad code OR that MS has put in a backdoor for either forced patching or for intelligence purposes (either its own or a 3rd party). Since MS is involved the idea that this is just a giant idiotic stupid bug seems all to likely. In fact so likely it would make the perfect cover.
Agent A: "But Sir if we force MS to introduce this backdoor and it is found out we will have a riot."
Agent B: "No we will just claim it is bug."
Agent A: "Will people buy that?"
Agent B: [Turns his PC monitor so Agent A can see the blue screen] "Yes I think so."
Remember, it ain't paranoia if they are really out to get you. I wonder if the jews who stayed in germany called those who emigrated to america paranoid Ah, good old godwins law.
Move your finger over the clickwheel a distance to dial that number. Nice, innovative (pointless and stupid) and reducing the number of buttons. So you might dial a few wrong numbers, see it is a feature to make new friends.
Since they don't claim to be breaking any records this can meanly only one thing. In raw performance this baby is going to suck.
We already know that it is not going to do High Def. Sure sure, you don't have a High Def set right now so why do you need it? Becomes in a few years DIGITAL tv WILL replace ANALOG tv and you will have to ditch your current setup anyway so why not go high def at the same time? Tech moves faster then you think. Just try to remember back when was the last time you saw a movie in TV screen format vs widescreen? Do you have a widescreen tv?
HD looks fantastic. There are some people who claim it is only a marginal imrpovement over DVD but they are idiots or have only seen extremely poor examples. I just watched a HD version of Spirits Within and while the movie itself hasn't improved it is a far better visual experience then the regular DVD version. It truly looks stunning.
Or put another way, do you still play your PC games at less then 640*480? By the end of this year there will be 3 consoles standing next to each other in the shops and the revolution better offer some incredible games because graphically it is going to be the looser.
Will Nintendo deliver? Who knows, they succeeded with the DS in deliviring fun games on inferior hardware BUT not with the gamecube.
Nintendo will certainly have one giant disadvantage. It probably will not be peoples main console. The big cross platform games will look better on anyone else console AND will not require you to buy a controller addon just to play them in a low res format.
Being different can work, iPod is very different from other DAP players, or it can fail, Apple PC vs IBM Clones.
As for people not looking at specs. Right. Nice try. Specs matter. Specs determine a lot of gameplay. The simplest thing of level size and level load is determined by the specs.
Yeah, I thought the same, the Joint Strike Fighter vs MS code. Damn the geneva convention and lets napalm that sucker! Colleteral damage highly advised. If only they can accidently take out Java as well. Then all will be well.
Both Steve Ballmer and Larry Elison were seen throwing chairs and screaming, "We are a going to fucking bury the DoD, we did it before and we will do it again".
The DoD was heard mumbling something along the lines of "you and what army" and went back to keeping democracy save for billionares everywhere.
Lets see, MS gave us WMV. Nasty but at least mplayer by using windows codecs can play it trouble free.
Apple gives us quicktime MOV. I don't know what it is but either Apple constantly is pumping out new versions or nobody else using linux is willing to do all the hardwork for me for free and get it running properly. Or put it simpler. MOV files are always a bitch to run.
As for the players. WMP sucks donkeyballs but Quicktime swallows donkey cum. There is only 1 player worse then WMP and that is quicktime and to add insult to injury quicktime movies tend to more troublesome when playing in alternative windows players.
I hate MS but I loathe Apple. The only reason Apple is less deserving of scorn is because they ar just to small to worry about. For now.
But let us not forget that for all the pampering MS does to the big content owners (DRM pushers) Steve Jobs is in bed with them offering him his big white ass for their enjoyment. Where everyone else has realized you can only ask for money once Apple is still trying to sell both the encoder and the player. I AM NOT GOING TO PAY TO VIEW TRAILERS.
Ah well, MS not going to bother with updating player for free on a competitors OS. Wow, shocking. It is not like anyone still thinks MS is a monopolist who could abuse its dominant market share to control the market.
SWG had something that NO other MMORPG game offered. First of it was a Sony game and Sony is the ONLY company around who understands real world economy. Or put another way, Sony is the only one to use a proper collection agency and support every existing payment method in use through out the world. Every other MMO company seems to think credit cards are in use by everyone.
This makes a huge difference. For many SOE games are the only MMO games available appart from the fee free Guild Wars.
But apart from Sony being the only MMO company willing to take my money, SWG was the most open and free of the games out there at the time.
It wasn't D&D and while bugged it wasn't as crappy as Anarchy Online. It also had rancors and before the doc buffs arrived they were actually scary.
But when you first started the game it showed a lot of promise by actually allowing you to design your own character. You could easily create a very balanced character dabbling in all the proffesions in the game. Use the pistol you made youreselve from materials you gathered to shoot a critter then switch to melee once it close heal yourselve, rip the beastie apart for its skin meat or bones and then dance your worries away.
Mid level you had to make some choices, specialise and give up certain jobs OR just not be able to move on.
It was the end level that was the bitch that killed SWG. You either had to give up all the freedom of making your own character OR just resign yourselve from never being able to do the high level stuff unless you found a large group willing to drag you along.
SOE in its infinite wisdom made all new content exist of dungeons that only the leetest combat specced characters could complete. Had a sideline in say Ranger? Scout? Entertainer? Beast Handler? Crafter? Bio-Engineering? Useless mate. Only non combat characters that were of use in say the corvette or death watch bunker were the doctors as they could revive the dead.
SWG had something but sadly it was ruined when you moved on from the fun midlevels when Dathomir was a place of nightmares to the end game when you were engaging in 20 minute slap fests with 1million hitpoint enemies.
The sad thing? In a way the Death Watch Bunker and Corvette missions were exactly what people on the forums had been asking for. SOE has a lot to answer for but so have the players themselves. If you doc buffed, if you solo grouped, if you spin-attacked a rancor lair, if you armor holed, if you stacked resists THEN you are one of the people that killed SWG. I did it myself and know that. SWG never had a chance. SOE and the players raped it up the ass and then called it a whore.
This is SOE, you should be thankfull if they just leave the existing bugs. Current policy seems to introduce a thousand new bugs AND reactivate the old ones with each update.
Fix outstanding bugs. Tsk, you have much to learn young one.
Granted some bugs are being fixed by just removing the game mechanics behind them. One long lasting bug was that vehicles were not repaired properly wich was finally fixed shortly before the CU. The fix now? Vehicles don't get damaged anymore. Repair was a much needed money drain.
The trial is a mess and the NGE is a mess BUT the part of certain items (especially loot) not having an appearance is caused by the fact the the downloaded demo is limited. It is a mere 2 gigabyte and the full game is close to 5.
While this problem is trivial by itself (just wait for the game to completely download) that is exists at all just goes to show Sony has mismanaged the game to an extent that can not be believed only experienced.
To clarify, the demo is a partial download of the full game. Why? Because probably it would take far to long to download the whole thing. The problem is that for some reason SOE didn't include ALL the loot items in the demo download. Nor did they restrict the loot you get in the demo. CUE you getting items with no 3d model attached.
They should either just have given you all the models OR restricted demo users from getting loot items. Neither are complex to do. That SOE didn't manage or perhaps didn't even think about it tells you everything you need to know.
The demo is however far worse then this. At the start it has the typical tutorial were you are run through the game. Lets just say that it is bugged and you can easily get stuck if you make the mistake of running ahead of the instructions. The instructions are SLOW.
Another problem is that the SWG graphics engine has never been the fastest. Granted it has to do a lot more work then say a Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 engine. YES really. All these games do is render big enviroments with maybe half a dozen clones. SWG has to render far larger areas with easily 2-3 dozen unique individuals with their own body build they own clothes and equipment. Since SWG allows so much diversity in avatars it pays for it in graphical performance.
However the NGE adds to this problem by having the beginner areas designed by a packrat. The early levels are overstuffed with every item ever found in the game and trust me there are a lot. It makes the space station your on crawl at times as there are easily 200 or more items on screen and over a dozen NPC's. It is lag city.
Then there is the fact that the game has had quests bolted on. The game was never about quests, it doesn't support it and the few quests that were in it were boring and buggy. Now it is all about them and oddly enough they are even worse then before. Bugged, unclear, illogical, lame, boring.
SWG had something. It was a complex deep open-ended sandbox wich had not just a player run economy but a player run content system as well. Simply put, SWG was nice if you were in good guild or had lots of friends. SWG was other people.
The NGE is an attempt to give more single player content and it just doesn't work.
The worst change? You can no longer mix and match characters. Before you could be a killer and a dancer. Now you are just a dancer. Do you really want to spend all your time dancing? You won't have any choice, your combat skills can never improve if you choose entertainer. Oh and if your new. Well good luck. Existing players who convert to entertainer attain instant max level. Good luck getting the millions of points of needed XP.
By all means do what the parent did and download the demo. It is only a few gigabyte and you will be able to see for yourselve how it is. Do not think bugs are going to be fixed. SOE was finally arriving at a state were some of the longest lasting bugs were getting fixed and then they started with the combat upgrade wich reintrocuded many of the old bugs and now the NGE wich adds a complete new layer of bugs.
What little promise SWG had has been slaughtered by the NGE. It really is that bad. If you manage to play without it it can still be fun with the right friends but more and more it is inspite of SOE efforts then because of it.
Pedo does what you suggest. Then contact a number of childeren via those email adresses he discovered in reverse. The parents go the police and do a full report and the police officer in questions does such basic interviewing as asking for details about the email adress and how it might have gotten out. Parents say they don't really know but they remember signing up for a no-spam list. The police use 1 or 2 braincells (by calling in 4 or 5 cops) and make the connection. They call the do-not-spam list admins and get the payment details and bam arrest the perp.
You been watching to much TV. Real criminals ain't that stupid. Do you know how real pedo's get their kids? They kidnap one, use them and kill them and dump them and never ever leave details like paying for the kids email adress.
I am afraid you need a reality check. Pedo's are paranoid about keeping themselves hidden. Because pedo's that do not are in jail getting a lesson that even the worst criminals in the world who murder granny's for 10 bucks still hate pedo's.
What you suggest is far to complex and risk prone. Only the terminally stupid IT geek pedo would do this. I suggest that anyone smart enough to do this would be smart enough to realize that the police would have an easy clue. Although considering there are about 5 replies like you I may be wrong. Perhaps IT geeks are not so smart after all.
You know real criminals do something that is called NOT GIVING THEIR FULL CONTACT DETAILS TO THE STATE.
Geez, a couple of comments that suggests pedo's create a very long list of adresses, pay several thousand dollars to the state all to get a handfull of email adress of kids.
God jezus christ almighty. Exactly how many seconds do you think the police needs to make a link to a pedo sending emails to kids on the do not spam list? The police ain't stupid.
I stand confirmed. Slashdot is filled with morons and you and the other idiots that came up the scheme are the kings.
Your new macbook looking like it is about to lock up? Whip out that Windows Install CD and tell it in a nasty voice that you could easily slide the CD in its virginal slot and have its hardware rooted by every little hacker out there before it can call Apple support.
I placed a Windows 95 CD in viewing distance of my linux machines and they never gave me troubles since. MS, ensuring your hardware behaves for two decades and counting.
Okay, ZFS, looks great. Pity your solaris on x86 has such piss poor hardware support but nice of you to open it up so that people who understand PC (Linux) can do it on a proper kernel with support for lousy IDE cards.
Java? Well I still have a bit of hatred left about applets and it would be nice if you could get it to be a bit less of a memory hog in gui mode BUT I suppose it is nice that some apps I use can run almost anywhere. Provided that I got more memory then god but lets not be mean.
The networked thin client idea? GIVE IT A GODDAMN FUCKING REST ALREADY! WE ARE NOT INTRESTED
Sun director really is a fucking idiot based on this article alone.
Parent already put in the quote but fails to take it apart all the stupidity in it. First of he talks about 5-7 years into the future. HELLO! BIG FUCKING WAKE UP CALL FOR SUN!!! If 5 -7 years ago you would have told Sun they would sell AMD machine and Apple would be on Intel and Sony would have lost the walkman to some tiny PC company everyone would have called you insane. The iPod has been around for what 5 yrs and sold 45 million units. AT a very nice profit according to everyones claims. Another 5-7 years of this succes and Steve Jobs will get blow jobs from his bankers virgin daughters (or sons with mac users you can never tell).
Second is that we will be getting our music via our cellphones. Another wake up call is in order. Combination hardware will never replace specialised hardware. It may margenilize it (type writers do still exist) but never replace it because the specialist hardware can always afford to be better. Big fucking clue? That you can still buy old fashioned dedicated Hi-Fi equipment that does just one thing. Other big fucking clue? That the iPod gets away with not being a radio and voice recorder. We had this all-in-one approach with tape walkmans for a while but dedicated devices never went away.
Last is the idea that we will replace local storage with networked storage. Oh yeah. Perhaps sun directors are rolling in it but for the rest of us we got to watch our phone bills. The phone companies LOVE to charge us per fucking megabyte. A good song comes in at easily 3-4 mb (that is presuming that in 5-7 we will not need bigger files just as we now got bigger video files) and listening to an half hour of them will cost a small fortune.
Ah but in 5-7 years we will have some super fast wireless network and very cheap prices. If you believe that, well buy some Sun stock.
Oh sure it might happen. gmail is perhaps one of the first real working examples of an application moving to the network and off your pc. Of course for as long as google continues to exist.
But lets examine how this would run for music. First off a music collection can easily run at 20gb. That is a bit more then the 1gb mail google promises. Second google does not promise your email is secure. It had better make sure only I can access my music or the RIAA will do a nutter.
Then you got to have a music player that can be attached cheaply to the network (less then a dollar per day and even that will men 30 dollars per month to listen to your already bought music), with constant datastream at high bitrates. Yah. Not going to happen. Why not? How is gmail financed? Because I see ads. You want google to insert ads between your already paid for music?
Sun makes some nice hardware and software but somebody should buy the development divisions and replace the directors with people with a clue. Merging would a be a nice idea. Apple design and development with apple leadership. That could work. Sun leadership, well isn't MS looking for some people to replace the ones running away to google?
Btw, anyone know if work has been started on getting ZFS into linux?
There about a dozen posts so far pointing out how this gives spammers/pedos a list of kid email adresses. RTFA you stupid morons. Spammmers that want to comply have got to send their list to the state and the state does the checking. The spammer never gets the registry.
As for keeping it secure. Gee, what would pedo do with a list of email adresses when during the same breakin or electronic theft he can get the complete details of every kid? The state already keeps full listing of every kid in the state, adding a list of emails is not going to be any big deal.
Discuss wether you want or do not want a do no spam list but do not make stupid alarmist posts about things wich are clearly explained in the fucking article. Why does slashdot not have a mod option "RTFA".
Just claim I took a nap and I can finally survive those afternoon meetings legally.
As for this being true, my usuall waking up is from nice pleasant dreams to the stark reality that my life is half over and I am old and decrepit and nobody loves me and I am in a job I hate and it is cold and my body hurts.
The reason I appear drunk is not because I wake up drunk but because a small drink is the only way to survive waking up.
I don't drive so I am not putting anyone at risk by going to work with a small booster. Yeah sure sure I am ruining my health. Who gives a fuck. It is alcoholism or suicide.
This is a serious enough subject. No I don't give a damn that some politicians will do a nutter, vote them out or at least restrict them to the american continent.
Sex in games is nothing new. Most games have an objective and a reward and it is very easy to make the objective be to uncover a naked girl and that is also your reward. Cue the sextetris clones. Those generally are boring. There are some intresting variants like a scrolling shooter where you got to shoot the clothing off a girl.
Then there are the games like Leisure suit larry or the japanese story H-games where instead of your goal being to defeat the evil overlord your goal is to get laid.
Again nothing special. Some succeed in being funny or even arrousing and at least it is a welcome change from the usual save the world storyline.
Then of course there are the games that have a lot of vibes that some girls seem to enjoy playing. Women are a large gaming audience and well there might be a market where you have two dual shock controllers and the better you are at the game well the better it is. Women are far more perverted then/. geeks believe. But strictly speaking that doesn't have to be an erotic game itself. Sure a hardcore gore shooter will probably ruin the mood (you never know with some women) but the game action itself does not have to be erotic.
But what about a game that combines it all. A story line with an erotic angle, some erotic imagery and feedback for those of the gaming population for whom a simple rumblepack is enough. Well it would be insanely difficult to produce.
Currently you can have jarring gameplay where your following a story plot only to be suddenly forced to do 20 minutes of leaping and climbing and shooting and getting killed. Worse imagine your almost there and all of sudden you take a wrong turn and your lost and left hanging while trying to figure out where the game wants you to go next. Frustration city!
All kidding aside I do believe there is room for adult games, where adult doesn't have to mean endless sex but where the designer can well go where he couldn't go before. MMO land has plenty of people engaging in cyber sex. Now imagine a MMO game that had instead of the usual airguitar emotes emotes like "kiss" "stroke" and the avatars actually interacted with each other. Would that "sell"?
Yes and no. I don't think it would sell to well if that is all there is but imagine a mature MMORPG (no kiddies allowed) with mature plots, real dead, and adult players that could do more then just exchange rings and blow kisses. I think there is a market for it.
The only problem would be of A keeping the kids out and B that it would have to be a good game on its own.
Because just pure sex games where the gameplay is ruined in favor of the porn just don't sell except to teenage boys. A good erotic game needs to appeal to both sexes. It can be done but not by current companies.
Yeah could it be a sports car brakes better then a suv? Suvs are crap cars. They are a danger on the road and not just because they are driven by assholes.
They are also heavy, have a high center of gravity making them worthless when the shit hits the fan as they react badly.
Now even a street sports car will have been somewhat designed to stick to the goddamn road and behave properly. Among them is to brake well. Braking is very important even in a semi race/sports car as being able to brake late means a lot in being fast.
You are comparing the braking between a car designed to have good handling vs a car designed to appeal to the asshole in you.
ABS on the same car has been proven time and time again to shorten brake distances. The only exception can occur with REALLY good drivers. You are not a really good driver.
There was a story a few years back about an hightech aircraft that ran out of fuel because of human error (The error being that stupid people do not use metric (bite me yanks)) and all of a sudden the pilot was not in control of a super automated computer plane but a very heavy glider.
I bet the passengers aboard that plane were very glad they had a old pilot who knew about gliders (perhaps they would have been more glad if they had a pilot who knew how to do conversions properly) and was able to use his obsolete skills to safely bring the plane down.
Recently we had the WMF exploit on windows (well we, I mean windows users not real people who run real OS'es) and the workaround required to do some stuff in DOS (So much for Windows being a GUI OS I guess) and a lot of people had trouble with it. All of sudden high tech fails and people who only know the high tech situation flop around like fish on land.
Of course that is just life but it doesn't mean we shouldn't be aware of it. If you are ever faced with the choice of having to absolutly rely on a car for your live, take on that is purely mechanical and can be fixed easily on the road. Some time ago there was a fun drive with some really old mercedes cars. All the oldies made it, their accompening Land Rovers had a few dropouts. 100yr old tech beating the latest and greatest. Just beware.
Yeah wich is the reason high performance jets do NOT use those old fashioned controls. Because jet pilots never sheeze or are never jolted around or shocked or even injured.
Yes? Then no problem. At least when she is on nethack there is no chance of her meeting a handsome hunk of a man. (Yes I considered the possibilty that the poster is one but broke down in hysterical laugher after 1 second)
No? Then no problem, your a geek and weren't going to get any anyway.
But if your desperate I suggest sneaking up on her when she is asleep and tying her to the bed and giving her more sex then a woman can handle. Let all the frustation of you years of being a geek virgin out and rock her boat.
Either it will give her a new appreciation of dating a geek (unlikely but you never know) or it will get you arrested and thrown in jail. Wich is still good since you at least lost your cherry and will soon loose another as you meet your new cell mate.
Anyone else thinks the chances of the original question being real are less then zero? Any real geek with a nethack addicted girlfriend would be to busy thanking god on his knees to post on/.
I guess I am just to spoiled being on linux. The last one I was affected by was the openssl bug a year or two ago. Bug found to first patch was a few hours. Then I believe some others were discovered and I had to recompile 2 times in I think 2 days. MS 135 days.
And still MS apologists come up with excuse after excuse. Oh but MS got to make sure that what the patch doesn't destroy a thousand other things. Well a couple of items about that.
Opensource is any different? They can just do a patch and think of all the software that uses it as "who gives a fuck"
MS patches and updates are well known for not breaking old software. HA!
If MS would seperate their code they would have to check a thousand sideeffects.
MS should be big enough to have thousands of people dedicated to the task
Why am I so pissed? Because I am tired of explaining to windows users that yes while I do know a lot about computers I am not going to fix their fucking porn infested crap fest dell boxes. Only semi-attractive women can ask and they need to allow me to fuck them in the ass in return, being windows users they should be used to it.
What I find most amazing how oddly we deal with software bugs. Why on earth were not all windows machines patched to disable WMF completly the moment the exploit was discovered. Can't do that? Sorry but that is what happens in the real world.
If a problem is discovered with a real product an immidiate warning will be put out to stop using it and only then will people worry about possible work arounds. If the brakes on your cars were discovered to have a fatal bug would you want your car company to first test a patch and see how it effects every car in the world OR that they contact your ASP and tell you your brakes are untrustworthy and to stop driving your car?
The WMF idiocy showed that MS and its users still live in a dreamland. Frankly I found it all hilarious especially the people who had to reformat as they were infected. Remember you either run a unix or everyone else runs your machine.
They have a subscription at slashdot and saw that all the stories recently about security add up. WMF exploit used to install malware wich is also send via IM attacks coming from, wait for it, the middle east! What do all those stories have in common? They are about CLOSED SOURCE products. That is right, someone at washington made the connection CLOSED SOURCE is the tool of terrorists.
All windows owners will be brought in for questioning. Do not be alarmed citizen, your deportation to an undisclosed location was in the EULA that came with the last windows update. Resistance is futile.
What other explenation is there for the key military units (the soldiers) being equipped with linux hardware and the NSA making Linux more secure?
Wow your sure? Hot lesbians teenage sluts don't want my hard throbbing cock? I am shocked and here I am trying to enter fake cc details to get a date with them. Sigh, is nothing sacred?
To be fair wether the parent was joking or not it is sadly true that an awfull lot of people fall for this. No I am not some elite super intelligent person, I just know that the chances of an woman on IM sending naked pictures off herself to geeks is roughly zero. It may happen but not to me.
Free software is even easier somehow. Home come you can easily tell that the free firefox is really free but those smilies for your IM client come at the cost of your privacy?
Tip, if they advertise that it is free then it probably isn't. How do you explain to people that those free smilies are not free but that free browser is free? Most people here can probably "feel" it in their gut but I find it very hard to explain to normal people.
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A black van pulls up to your ISP, several men in black suits emerge and enter the office.
Agent A: We would like to access your network routers.
ISP clerk: Why? Who are you, can I see some papers?
Agent B: [Pulls out a black gun] You don't need to see our papers geek boy.
Agent A: Mr. Smith please, not yet. Our papers are in the mail, do you want to wait for them to arrive? Mr. Smith here hates waiting but if you want to force him to wait I am sure that is fine.
ISP clerk: [looks at Agent B playing with a blackened knife] In the mail you say? Oh that is fine, absolutly let me buzz you in.
Agent A: Thank you for your cooperation citizen. I will just be a minute, Mr Smith here will keep your company so you won't get lonely and feel the need to call anyone. [enters the machine room while Agent B plays with his knife]
Agent A: [returns after a few minutes] We will be leaving now. The goverment thanks you for your cooperation, please refrain from speaking with this about anyone.
The two agents leave and the ISP clerk decides that he needs another job.
Question: How to force a people to retrieve an infect WMF file? Answer: Control the network.
Any computer connected to the network does so because an ISP somewhere routes the calls to the proper adress. Rerouting it is trivial for the right people.
This could be done by the goverment in exactly the same way they redirect phone calls (You never seen a movie where people call phone X only to find themselves talking to phone Y without their knowledge?) OR another reason?
This "bug" is claimed to be new to windows 2000. Roughly the time of all those worms when it became impossible to patch a new windows online BEFORE it was infected. Now imagine the solution if this had gotten really out of control were a worm so nasty was out that EVERY windows machine connected to the net would instantly be infected. How would you patch all those machines? Especially considering how impossible it is to get users to actually PATCH their bloody machines? You could make the argument that what would be needed is somekind of solution were every windows machine connecting to the net would immidiatly be patched.
Cue every ISP being told to redirect their users to a WMF file (every isp is capable of this) and voila, instant enforced patching no matter how much you disabled MS update.
The only problem with exploiting this is for complete outsiders. The goverment has absolutly no problem exploiting this exploit to root your machine.
Is this the explenation? I don't know. I am just guessing and not accepting the easy answer.
The few people here who are not up MS ass or think that being paranoid is uncool seem to still discount the possibility that this is a real backdoor on the grounds that it does not allow you to target a machine directly. The only way to trigger the exploit is to visit a site with a "corrupt" wmf file.
If you believe the above to be true you are either not a very good reader or mentally handicapped.
Why do you need to visit a site? A wmf file read from a floppy wouldn't isn't susceptible to the exploit? No this isn't being pendantic. The WMF exploit happens ANYTIME the WMF code is triggered. It could come from anywhere. The image displayed when you install a piece of software could be a wmf.
This still doesn't change the fact that you need to somehow get the user to read your WMF file. Yes absolutly BUT realising it doesn't have to come from a website visited by the user means we are truly thinking about how a backdoor could be used not just copying what has already been said.
So lets made a wild speculation that this is a deliberate backdoor designed not just for testing something (like the quake backdoor) but to take control of customers PC in the wild.
How could you then force a computer user to load a corrupted WMF? You can't surely so this can't be a backdoor.
Here the logic becomes very very complex. Windows users you might want to get help with this one.
What if this is just one(1) part of a backdoor?
Who said that this is the complete backdoor? What if there is a worm backdoor as well that is far simpler and causes the PC to do nothing else then visit a website. A two-stage attack. Most current exploits in fact work this way. The initial exploit causes a very simple trojan to get the more complex payload to be retrieved.
In fact such code would not even have to exist in windows. All you need is the capability to somehow redirect a PC's internet requests to a page of your choosing.
Is it possible to re-route any http request to a url of my choosing and forcing you to load my WMF exploit instead of the page you requested? Well isn't it awfully convenient that the WMF exploit can be hidden in a jpg?
All a US goverment agency, or for that matter any goverment agency would need is for a way to force your isp to be able to redirect your traffic. Exactly the same way they can "phonetap" your ISP connection.
In short, only criminals need to trick you into visiting their site. Goverment agencies can just force your ISP to redirect you. If it is done smartly it could even be done without your noticing.
There is ofcourse also a nice explenation for it. What if there was a security problem in windows so big that it would bring the internet crashing down so hard that even visiting microsoft.com becomes impossible?
How would you patch the millions of machine and get the internet users back online? Simple, every ISP would be sent the patch and they would simply redirect all their users traffic to their own site with the WMF file and force you to patch your windows.
People who discount this as a backdoor because it is not a worm just don't have enough imagination.
None of what I claim above means that this is a backdoor, just that it is not impossible either.
The truth? We either have to assume MS has written some truly amazingly bad code OR that MS has put in a backdoor for either forced patching or for intelligence purposes (either its own or a 3rd party). Since MS is involved the idea that this is just a giant idiotic stupid bug seems all to likely. In fact so likely it would make the perfect cover.
Agent A: "But Sir if we force MS to introduce this backdoor and it is found out we will have a riot."
Agent B: "No we will just claim it is bug."
Agent A: "Will people buy that?"
Agent B: [Turns his PC monitor so Agent A can see the blue screen] "Yes I think so."
Remember, it ain't paranoia if they are really out to get you. I wonder if the jews who stayed in germany called those who emigrated to america paranoid Ah, good old godwins law.
Move your finger over the clickwheel a distance to dial that number. Nice, innovative (pointless and stupid) and reducing the number of buttons. So you might dial a few wrong numbers, see it is a feature to make new friends.
We already know that it is not going to do High Def. Sure sure, you don't have a High Def set right now so why do you need it? Becomes in a few years DIGITAL tv WILL replace ANALOG tv and you will have to ditch your current setup anyway so why not go high def at the same time? Tech moves faster then you think. Just try to remember back when was the last time you saw a movie in TV screen format vs widescreen? Do you have a widescreen tv?
HD looks fantastic. There are some people who claim it is only a marginal imrpovement over DVD but they are idiots or have only seen extremely poor examples. I just watched a HD version of Spirits Within and while the movie itself hasn't improved it is a far better visual experience then the regular DVD version. It truly looks stunning.
Or put another way, do you still play your PC games at less then 640*480? By the end of this year there will be 3 consoles standing next to each other in the shops and the revolution better offer some incredible games because graphically it is going to be the looser.
Will Nintendo deliver? Who knows, they succeeded with the DS in deliviring fun games on inferior hardware BUT not with the gamecube.
Nintendo will certainly have one giant disadvantage. It probably will not be peoples main console. The big cross platform games will look better on anyone else console AND will not require you to buy a controller addon just to play them in a low res format.
Being different can work, iPod is very different from other DAP players, or it can fail, Apple PC vs IBM Clones.
As for people not looking at specs. Right. Nice try. Specs matter. Specs determine a lot of gameplay. The simplest thing of level size and level load is determined by the specs.
Yeah, I thought the same, the Joint Strike Fighter vs MS code. Damn the geneva convention and lets napalm that sucker! Colleteral damage highly advised. If only they can accidently take out Java as well. Then all will be well.
Both Steve Ballmer and Larry Elison were seen throwing chairs and screaming, "We are a going to fucking bury the DoD, we did it before and we will do it again".
The DoD was heard mumbling something along the lines of "you and what army" and went back to keeping democracy save for billionares everywhere.
Lets see, MS gave us WMV. Nasty but at least mplayer by using windows codecs can play it trouble free.
Apple gives us quicktime MOV. I don't know what it is but either Apple constantly is pumping out new versions or nobody else using linux is willing to do all the hardwork for me for free and get it running properly. Or put it simpler. MOV files are always a bitch to run.
As for the players. WMP sucks donkeyballs but Quicktime swallows donkey cum. There is only 1 player worse then WMP and that is quicktime and to add insult to injury quicktime movies tend to more troublesome when playing in alternative windows players.
I hate MS but I loathe Apple. The only reason Apple is less deserving of scorn is because they ar just to small to worry about. For now.
But let us not forget that for all the pampering MS does to the big content owners (DRM pushers) Steve Jobs is in bed with them offering him his big white ass for their enjoyment. Where everyone else has realized you can only ask for money once Apple is still trying to sell both the encoder and the player. I AM NOT GOING TO PAY TO VIEW TRAILERS.
Ah well, MS not going to bother with updating player for free on a competitors OS. Wow, shocking. It is not like anyone still thinks MS is a monopolist who could abuse its dominant market share to control the market.
This makes a huge difference. For many SOE games are the only MMO games available appart from the fee free Guild Wars.
But apart from Sony being the only MMO company willing to take my money, SWG was the most open and free of the games out there at the time.
It wasn't D&D and while bugged it wasn't as crappy as Anarchy Online. It also had rancors and before the doc buffs arrived they were actually scary.
But when you first started the game it showed a lot of promise by actually allowing you to design your own character. You could easily create a very balanced character dabbling in all the proffesions in the game. Use the pistol you made youreselve from materials you gathered to shoot a critter then switch to melee once it close heal yourselve, rip the beastie apart for its skin meat or bones and then dance your worries away.
Mid level you had to make some choices, specialise and give up certain jobs OR just not be able to move on.
It was the end level that was the bitch that killed SWG. You either had to give up all the freedom of making your own character OR just resign yourselve from never being able to do the high level stuff unless you found a large group willing to drag you along.
SOE in its infinite wisdom made all new content exist of dungeons that only the leetest combat specced characters could complete. Had a sideline in say Ranger? Scout? Entertainer? Beast Handler? Crafter? Bio-Engineering? Useless mate. Only non combat characters that were of use in say the corvette or death watch bunker were the doctors as they could revive the dead.
SWG had something but sadly it was ruined when you moved on from the fun midlevels when Dathomir was a place of nightmares to the end game when you were engaging in 20 minute slap fests with 1million hitpoint enemies.
The sad thing? In a way the Death Watch Bunker and Corvette missions were exactly what people on the forums had been asking for. SOE has a lot to answer for but so have the players themselves. If you doc buffed, if you solo grouped, if you spin-attacked a rancor lair, if you armor holed, if you stacked resists THEN you are one of the people that killed SWG. I did it myself and know that. SWG never had a chance. SOE and the players raped it up the ass and then called it a whore.
Fix outstanding bugs. Tsk, you have much to learn young one.
Granted some bugs are being fixed by just removing the game mechanics behind them. One long lasting bug was that vehicles were not repaired properly wich was finally fixed shortly before the CU. The fix now? Vehicles don't get damaged anymore. Repair was a much needed money drain.
While this problem is trivial by itself (just wait for the game to completely download) that is exists at all just goes to show Sony has mismanaged the game to an extent that can not be believed only experienced.
To clarify, the demo is a partial download of the full game. Why? Because probably it would take far to long to download the whole thing. The problem is that for some reason SOE didn't include ALL the loot items in the demo download. Nor did they restrict the loot you get in the demo. CUE you getting items with no 3d model attached.
They should either just have given you all the models OR restricted demo users from getting loot items. Neither are complex to do. That SOE didn't manage or perhaps didn't even think about it tells you everything you need to know.
The demo is however far worse then this. At the start it has the typical tutorial were you are run through the game. Lets just say that it is bugged and you can easily get stuck if you make the mistake of running ahead of the instructions. The instructions are SLOW.
Another problem is that the SWG graphics engine has never been the fastest. Granted it has to do a lot more work then say a Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 engine. YES really. All these games do is render big enviroments with maybe half a dozen clones. SWG has to render far larger areas with easily 2-3 dozen unique individuals with their own body build they own clothes and equipment. Since SWG allows so much diversity in avatars it pays for it in graphical performance.
However the NGE adds to this problem by having the beginner areas designed by a packrat. The early levels are overstuffed with every item ever found in the game and trust me there are a lot. It makes the space station your on crawl at times as there are easily 200 or more items on screen and over a dozen NPC's. It is lag city.
Then there is the fact that the game has had quests bolted on. The game was never about quests, it doesn't support it and the few quests that were in it were boring and buggy. Now it is all about them and oddly enough they are even worse then before. Bugged, unclear, illogical, lame, boring.
SWG had something. It was a complex deep open-ended sandbox wich had not just a player run economy but a player run content system as well. Simply put, SWG was nice if you were in good guild or had lots of friends. SWG was other people.
The NGE is an attempt to give more single player content and it just doesn't work.
The worst change? You can no longer mix and match characters. Before you could be a killer and a dancer. Now you are just a dancer. Do you really want to spend all your time dancing? You won't have any choice, your combat skills can never improve if you choose entertainer. Oh and if your new. Well good luck. Existing players who convert to entertainer attain instant max level. Good luck getting the millions of points of needed XP.
By all means do what the parent did and download the demo. It is only a few gigabyte and you will be able to see for yourselve how it is. Do not think bugs are going to be fixed. SOE was finally arriving at a state were some of the longest lasting bugs were getting fixed and then they started with the combat upgrade wich reintrocuded many of the old bugs and now the NGE wich adds a complete new layer of bugs.
What little promise SWG had has been slaughtered by the NGE. It really is that bad. If you manage to play without it it can still be fun with the right friends but more and more it is inspite of SOE efforts then because of it.
You been watching to much TV. Real criminals ain't that stupid. Do you know how real pedo's get their kids? They kidnap one, use them and kill them and dump them and never ever leave details like paying for the kids email adress.
I am afraid you need a reality check. Pedo's are paranoid about keeping themselves hidden. Because pedo's that do not are in jail getting a lesson that even the worst criminals in the world who murder granny's for 10 bucks still hate pedo's.
What you suggest is far to complex and risk prone. Only the terminally stupid IT geek pedo would do this. I suggest that anyone smart enough to do this would be smart enough to realize that the police would have an easy clue. Although considering there are about 5 replies like you I may be wrong. Perhaps IT geeks are not so smart after all.
Geez, a couple of comments that suggests pedo's create a very long list of adresses, pay several thousand dollars to the state all to get a handfull of email adress of kids.
God jezus christ almighty. Exactly how many seconds do you think the police needs to make a link to a pedo sending emails to kids on the do not spam list? The police ain't stupid.
I stand confirmed. Slashdot is filled with morons and you and the other idiots that came up the scheme are the kings.
I placed a Windows 95 CD in viewing distance of my linux machines and they never gave me troubles since. MS, ensuring your hardware behaves for two decades and counting.
Java? Well I still have a bit of hatred left about applets and it would be nice if you could get it to be a bit less of a memory hog in gui mode BUT I suppose it is nice that some apps I use can run almost anywhere. Provided that I got more memory then god but lets not be mean.
The networked thin client idea? GIVE IT A GODDAMN FUCKING REST ALREADY! WE ARE NOT INTRESTED
Sun director really is a fucking idiot based on this article alone.
Parent already put in the quote but fails to take it apart all the stupidity in it. First of he talks about 5-7 years into the future. HELLO! BIG FUCKING WAKE UP CALL FOR SUN!!! If 5 -7 years ago you would have told Sun they would sell AMD machine and Apple would be on Intel and Sony would have lost the walkman to some tiny PC company everyone would have called you insane. The iPod has been around for what 5 yrs and sold 45 million units. AT a very nice profit according to everyones claims. Another 5-7 years of this succes and Steve Jobs will get blow jobs from his bankers virgin daughters (or sons with mac users you can never tell).
Second is that we will be getting our music via our cellphones. Another wake up call is in order. Combination hardware will never replace specialised hardware. It may margenilize it (type writers do still exist) but never replace it because the specialist hardware can always afford to be better. Big fucking clue? That you can still buy old fashioned dedicated Hi-Fi equipment that does just one thing. Other big fucking clue? That the iPod gets away with not being a radio and voice recorder. We had this all-in-one approach with tape walkmans for a while but dedicated devices never went away.
Last is the idea that we will replace local storage with networked storage. Oh yeah. Perhaps sun directors are rolling in it but for the rest of us we got to watch our phone bills. The phone companies LOVE to charge us per fucking megabyte. A good song comes in at easily 3-4 mb (that is presuming that in 5-7 we will not need bigger files just as we now got bigger video files) and listening to an half hour of them will cost a small fortune.
Ah but in 5-7 years we will have some super fast wireless network and very cheap prices. If you believe that, well buy some Sun stock.
Oh sure it might happen. gmail is perhaps one of the first real working examples of an application moving to the network and off your pc. Of course for as long as google continues to exist.
But lets examine how this would run for music. First off a music collection can easily run at 20gb. That is a bit more then the 1gb mail google promises. Second google does not promise your email is secure. It had better make sure only I can access my music or the RIAA will do a nutter.
Then you got to have a music player that can be attached cheaply to the network (less then a dollar per day and even that will men 30 dollars per month to listen to your already bought music), with constant datastream at high bitrates. Yah. Not going to happen. Why not? How is gmail financed? Because I see ads. You want google to insert ads between your already paid for music?
Sun makes some nice hardware and software but somebody should buy the development divisions and replace the directors with people with a clue. Merging would a be a nice idea. Apple design and development with apple leadership. That could work. Sun leadership, well isn't MS looking for some people to replace the ones running away to google?
Btw, anyone know if work has been started on getting ZFS into linux?
As for keeping it secure. Gee, what would pedo do with a list of email adresses when during the same breakin or electronic theft he can get the complete details of every kid? The state already keeps full listing of every kid in the state, adding a list of emails is not going to be any big deal.
Discuss wether you want or do not want a do no spam list but do not make stupid alarmist posts about things wich are clearly explained in the fucking article. Why does slashdot not have a mod option "RTFA".
As for this being true, my usuall waking up is from nice pleasant dreams to the stark reality that my life is half over and I am old and decrepit and nobody loves me and I am in a job I hate and it is cold and my body hurts.
The reason I appear drunk is not because I wake up drunk but because a small drink is the only way to survive waking up.
I don't drive so I am not putting anyone at risk by going to work with a small booster. Yeah sure sure I am ruining my health. Who gives a fuck. It is alcoholism or suicide.
Sex in games is nothing new. Most games have an objective and a reward and it is very easy to make the objective be to uncover a naked girl and that is also your reward. Cue the sextetris clones. Those generally are boring. There are some intresting variants like a scrolling shooter where you got to shoot the clothing off a girl.
Then there are the games like Leisure suit larry or the japanese story H-games where instead of your goal being to defeat the evil overlord your goal is to get laid.
Again nothing special. Some succeed in being funny or even arrousing and at least it is a welcome change from the usual save the world storyline.
Then of course there are the games that have a lot of vibes that some girls seem to enjoy playing. Women are a large gaming audience and well there might be a market where you have two dual shock controllers and the better you are at the game well the better it is. Women are far more perverted then /. geeks believe. But strictly speaking that doesn't have to be an erotic game itself. Sure a hardcore gore shooter will probably ruin the mood (you never know with some women) but the game action itself does not have to be erotic.
But what about a game that combines it all. A story line with an erotic angle, some erotic imagery and feedback for those of the gaming population for whom a simple rumblepack is enough. Well it would be insanely difficult to produce.
Currently you can have jarring gameplay where your following a story plot only to be suddenly forced to do 20 minutes of leaping and climbing and shooting and getting killed. Worse imagine your almost there and all of sudden you take a wrong turn and your lost and left hanging while trying to figure out where the game wants you to go next. Frustration city!
All kidding aside I do believe there is room for adult games, where adult doesn't have to mean endless sex but where the designer can well go where he couldn't go before. MMO land has plenty of people engaging in cyber sex. Now imagine a MMO game that had instead of the usual airguitar emotes emotes like "kiss" "stroke" and the avatars actually interacted with each other. Would that "sell"?
Yes and no. I don't think it would sell to well if that is all there is but imagine a mature MMORPG (no kiddies allowed) with mature plots, real dead, and adult players that could do more then just exchange rings and blow kisses. I think there is a market for it.
The only problem would be of A keeping the kids out and B that it would have to be a good game on its own.
Because just pure sex games where the gameplay is ruined in favor of the porn just don't sell except to teenage boys. A good erotic game needs to appeal to both sexes. It can be done but not by current companies.
They are also heavy, have a high center of gravity making them worthless when the shit hits the fan as they react badly.
Now even a street sports car will have been somewhat designed to stick to the goddamn road and behave properly. Among them is to brake well. Braking is very important even in a semi race/sports car as being able to brake late means a lot in being fast.
You are comparing the braking between a car designed to have good handling vs a car designed to appeal to the asshole in you.
ABS on the same car has been proven time and time again to shorten brake distances. The only exception can occur with REALLY good drivers. You are not a really good driver.
I bet the passengers aboard that plane were very glad they had a old pilot who knew about gliders (perhaps they would have been more glad if they had a pilot who knew how to do conversions properly) and was able to use his obsolete skills to safely bring the plane down.
Recently we had the WMF exploit on windows (well we, I mean windows users not real people who run real OS'es) and the workaround required to do some stuff in DOS (So much for Windows being a GUI OS I guess) and a lot of people had trouble with it. All of sudden high tech fails and people who only know the high tech situation flop around like fish on land.
Of course that is just life but it doesn't mean we shouldn't be aware of it. If you are ever faced with the choice of having to absolutly rely on a car for your live, take on that is purely mechanical and can be fixed easily on the road. Some time ago there was a fun drive with some really old mercedes cars. All the oldies made it, their accompening Land Rovers had a few dropouts. 100yr old tech beating the latest and greatest. Just beware.
Yeah wich is the reason high performance jets do NOT use those old fashioned controls. Because jet pilots never sheeze or are never jolted around or shocked or even injured.
No? Then no problem, your a geek and weren't going to get any anyway.
But if your desperate I suggest sneaking up on her when she is asleep and tying her to the bed and giving her more sex then a woman can handle. Let all the frustation of you years of being a geek virgin out and rock her boat.
Either it will give her a new appreciation of dating a geek (unlikely but you never know) or it will get you arrested and thrown in jail. Wich is still good since you at least lost your cherry and will soon loose another as you meet your new cell mate.
Anyone else thinks the chances of the original question being real are less then zero? Any real geek with a nethack addicted girlfriend would be to busy thanking god on his knees to post on /.
And still MS apologists come up with excuse after excuse. Oh but MS got to make sure that what the patch doesn't destroy a thousand other things. Well a couple of items about that.
Why am I so pissed? Because I am tired of explaining to windows users that yes while I do know a lot about computers I am not going to fix their fucking porn infested crap fest dell boxes. Only semi-attractive women can ask and they need to allow me to fuck them in the ass in return, being windows users they should be used to it.
What I find most amazing how oddly we deal with software bugs. Why on earth were not all windows machines patched to disable WMF completly the moment the exploit was discovered. Can't do that? Sorry but that is what happens in the real world.
If a problem is discovered with a real product an immidiate warning will be put out to stop using it and only then will people worry about possible work arounds. If the brakes on your cars were discovered to have a fatal bug would you want your car company to first test a patch and see how it effects every car in the world OR that they contact your ASP and tell you your brakes are untrustworthy and to stop driving your car?
The WMF idiocy showed that MS and its users still live in a dreamland. Frankly I found it all hilarious especially the people who had to reformat as they were infected. Remember you either run a unix or everyone else runs your machine.
Or to paraphrase, "sell me a bug ridden OS once shame on you, sell me a bug ridden OS twice shame on me".
Cue everyone giving lousy examples of why they cannot live without windows.
Proposal for a new moderation system, you can only mod people in OS discussions who are on the same OS as you.
All windows owners will be brought in for questioning. Do not be alarmed citizen, your deportation to an undisclosed location was in the EULA that came with the last windows update. Resistance is futile.
What other explenation is there for the key military units (the soldiers) being equipped with linux hardware and the NSA making Linux more secure?
The cleansing is about to begin.
To be fair wether the parent was joking or not it is sadly true that an awfull lot of people fall for this. No I am not some elite super intelligent person, I just know that the chances of an woman on IM sending naked pictures off herself to geeks is roughly zero. It may happen but not to me.
Free software is even easier somehow. Home come you can easily tell that the free firefox is really free but those smilies for your IM client come at the cost of your privacy?
Tip, if they advertise that it is free then it probably isn't. How do you explain to people that those free smilies are not free but that free browser is free? Most people here can probably "feel" it in their gut but I find it very hard to explain to normal people.