You claimed that WFP was useful and "more effective than tripwire". I pointed out that if malware is run at admin-level (which it would need to be to replace system files in the first place), it is utterly trivial to 'disable' WFP. So the only times you'll get a warning from WFP is when it's a benign patch or a particularly stupid virus. It requires no removal of the OS and no rebooting into Knoppix. I don't know why you brought that up.
If you want to use "but you can boot from Knoppix/remove the hard drive, then reverse-engineer the executables and replace the code that does the signature checks and..." as your standard, there's no point to having any security at all.
It is software-based after all: anything that is protected in software, can be subverted in software.
Not so. It is entirely up to the operating system to decide what 'root' (or Administrator) is, and entirely possible to permanently protect certain files. After all, the filesystem can only be accessed through the kernel.
I'm not saying Microsoft necessarily made a bad decision here; I'm just saying that 99% of the time, WPF doesn't do much.
The router, obviously. If one user (identified by MAC address) starts sending out tons of packets, their future traffic should receive lower priority. These are fairly simple algorithms that are also used in process scheduling.
Except it's not very effective, is it? Is there anything stopping a system-level process (eg, malware) from grabbing the window handle and sending the appropriate keystrokes to dismiss the prompt? I haven't tested it myself, but I've used that technique successfully for the "unsigned driver" warnings. WFP lets you keep the unsigned driver/DLL with no further warnings if you press two buttons.
I hardly ever use XP, so I'm not sure if their command line tools are BSD derived or not (they certainly used to be) - but if they are, good - far better to used free quality tools then something MS has written inhouse:-)
> strings/cygdrive/C/WINDOWS/system32/ftp.exe | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
I think you're right about the TCP/IP stack no longer being BSD-based, though.
It'd take the malware makers about an hour to find any of the what, probably 80 holes that would let them go around such windows security.
Yeah. Off the top of my head, malware could install a TDI or NDIS Intermediate Mode driver, either of which can be used to filter and block packets. There are helpful examples right in the Windows DDK.
Censorship refers to when the government prevents publication of materials, not a private website.
This may be your definition. It is not the definition of the word in English:
censoring: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable (Merriam-Webster) censoring: To examine and expurgate. (American Heritage)
Most television networks have their own censor (yes, with that title) who decides what is allowed on the air. Censorship has a precise definition, and it requires no government intervention to be practiced.
And as for your statement that Wikipedia is banned from use in undergraduate writing, do you have a source? I know, at least at my university, that's not true
Wikipedia isn't an academic source by any stretch of the imagination, and should never be used as a reference in any remotely serious writing. It's a great resource to use to explore a subject, but you'd be crazy to cite it in a paper.
A lot of people on Slashdot are degree-obsessed; at an early age they have bought into the idea that everybody who does not have a formal academic education to at least PhD level is necessarily unable to contribute anything to research.
Aside from a few special circumstances and accidents, this is largely true. It is extraordinarily difficult to make a meaningful contribution to a field without extensive knowledge of that field and the work that has been done. Only the very rare geniuses like Ramanujan can even understand the problems without significant education.
Some people (*raises hand*) aren't big fans of either OS X or Windows, but want/need some apps on both. I'm much more productive and happy in KDE than in either MacOS or Windows. I'm really considering buying a new Mac, using Linux or FreeBSD for my serious work, MacOS for GarageBand and other stuff, and Windows for development and maybe games. It's a dream come true.
My only concern is that, last I heard, there are still no AirPort Express drivers for Linux/BSD, due to legal threats from Broadcom.
You're either a fucking moron or being deliberately obtuse. After one last try to put it into very small words, I'll give up: Very different possibilities of the future -> very different variables to plug into 100-year models -> very different results.
In other (very small) words, if we start significantly cutting greenhouse gas emissions NOW, we might only lose 20 million tons of crops. If we continue at the current rate and keep expanding, we might lose 400 million. Since the researchers have no way of predicting which scenario will become reality, they run both and report both. I don't see how this is difficult to understand.
If you understand the scientific method, then you should go read the fucking paper and not rely on the media to provide an accurate picture of the science (ha!). Criticize the science and methodology. Don't act stupid about how the results get reported.
You seriously expect climatologists to be able to predict the future and say exactly how various nations are going to develop, what pollution-reducing technologies will be invented, and what international agreements will be followed? Those are the variables. Please don't ridicule what you don't understand.
This is why Mozilla restricts access to security bug information. It's only an issue if it becomes public. By the way, I only count seven security-related bug fixes. Where are you getting 21?
I've been asking around for some time, and I've even done some literature searching myself (and found some really strange stuff, like "Application of Bayesian network to the probabilistic risk assessment of nuclear waste disposal"), but I haven't gotten a satisfactory answer yet:
I'd like to see a complete listing of the wastes produced by a modern fission reactor. As a bonus, I'd like to see exactly what plans there are to dispose of it.
Because: "However, at the rate waste is produced by the existing fleet of nuclear reactors in the US, new repository capacity equal to the statutory capacity of the yet-to-open Yucca Mountain would be needed about every 20 years." (Venneri, F; et al. NUCLEAR ENERGY-JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH NUCLEAR ENERGY SOCIETY 41 (3): 223-224 JUN 2002)
When you see a range like this, it isn't because of margin of error. This is a common misonception that leads certain people to ridicule the widely-quoted predictions that global temperature will rise 1.5 to 5.8 C by 2100. Again, it's not margin of error: it's a result of different variables they put into the model. Can you predict exactly how the output of greenhouses gases will change over the next 100 years? No. So you try a few different scenarios, some best case, some worst case, some in-between. That's where the different numbers come from.
You're right, but I suspect that the success of Linux is the major reason that the HURD has never seen the light of day. But I had to laugh when I heard they decided to ditch Pistachio (fairly mature, fast, and cross-platform) in favor of a brand new kernel that's nowhere near finished ("The Coyotos tree is far from ready to build in any meaningful way"), is primarily being developed to support x86 platforms, and is written in its own new language! It's like they've given up hope of ever producing something useful and concluded that the HURD will forever be an academic project only. It's unfortunate, because a usable FOSS microkernel OS would be very cool.
Personally, I'm working on my own toy OS based on Pistachio. It's a lot of fun, but I have no delusions of grandeur.
Slashdot Mirror
You claimed that WFP was useful and "more effective than tripwire". I pointed out that if malware is run at admin-level (which it would need to be to replace system files in the first place), it is utterly trivial to 'disable' WFP. So the only times you'll get a warning from WFP is when it's a benign patch or a particularly stupid virus. It requires no removal of the OS and no rebooting into Knoppix. I don't know why you brought that up.
If you want to use "but you can boot from Knoppix/remove the hard drive, then reverse-engineer the executables and replace the code that does the signature checks and ..." as your standard, there's no point to having any security at all.
That's not subverting the software, though. That's removing the software, which does not and (usually) cannot do.
Not so. It is entirely up to the operating system to decide what 'root' (or Administrator) is, and entirely possible to permanently protect certain files. After all, the filesystem can only be accessed through the kernel.
I'm not saying Microsoft necessarily made a bad decision here; I'm just saying that 99% of the time, WPF doesn't do much.
The router, obviously. If one user (identified by MAC address) starts sending out tons of packets, their future traffic should receive lower priority. These are fairly simple algorithms that are also used in process scheduling.
This is why things like QoS exist. You should never let one user monopolize the network; packets should be appropriately queued.
Except it's not very effective, is it? Is there anything stopping a system-level process (eg, malware) from grabbing the window handle and sending the appropriate keystrokes to dismiss the prompt? I haven't tested it myself, but I've used that technique successfully for the "unsigned driver" warnings. WFP lets you keep the unsigned driver/DLL with no further warnings if you press two buttons.
I think you're right about the TCP/IP stack no longer being BSD-based, though.
Yeah. Off the top of my head, malware could install a TDI or NDIS Intermediate Mode driver, either of which can be used to filter and block packets. There are helpful examples right in the Windows DDK.
Welcome to the justice system in the real world, where innocent people sometimes get convicted and even executed.
This may be your definition. It is not the definition of the word in English:
censoring: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable (Merriam-Webster)
censoring: To examine and expurgate. (American Heritage)
Most television networks have their own censor (yes, with that title) who decides what is allowed on the air. Censorship has a precise definition, and it requires no government intervention to be practiced.
And as for your statement that Wikipedia is banned from use in undergraduate writing, do you have a source? I know, at least at my university, that's not true
Wikipedia isn't an academic source by any stretch of the imagination, and should never be used as a reference in any remotely serious writing. It's a great resource to use to explore a subject, but you'd be crazy to cite it in a paper.
Aside from a few special circumstances and accidents, this is largely true. It is extraordinarily difficult to make a meaningful contribution to a field without extensive knowledge of that field and the work that has been done. Only the very rare geniuses like Ramanujan can even understand the problems without significant education.
My only concern is that, last I heard, there are still no AirPort Express drivers for Linux/BSD, due to legal threats from Broadcom.
In other (very small) words, if we start significantly cutting greenhouse gas emissions NOW, we might only lose 20 million tons of crops. If we continue at the current rate and keep expanding, we might lose 400 million. Since the researchers have no way of predicting which scenario will become reality, they run both and report both. I don't see how this is difficult to understand.
If you understand the scientific method, then you should go read the fucking paper and not rely on the media to provide an accurate picture of the science (ha!). Criticize the science and methodology. Don't act stupid about how the results get reported.
You seriously expect climatologists to be able to predict the future and say exactly how various nations are going to develop, what pollution-reducing technologies will be invented, and what international agreements will be followed? Those are the variables. Please don't ridicule what you don't understand.
Short of WINE achieving perfection (ie, never), that statement will never be true for many, many people.
This is why Mozilla restricts access to security bug information. It's only an issue if it becomes public. By the way, I only count seven security-related bug fixes. Where are you getting 21?
I'd like to see a complete listing of the wastes produced by a modern fission reactor. As a bonus, I'd like to see exactly what plans there are to dispose of it.
Because: "However, at the rate waste is produced by the existing fleet of nuclear reactors in the US, new repository capacity equal to the statutory capacity of the yet-to-open Yucca Mountain would be needed about every 20 years." (Venneri, F; et al. NUCLEAR ENERGY-JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH NUCLEAR ENERGY SOCIETY 41 (3): 223-224 JUN 2002)
When you see a range like this, it isn't because of margin of error. This is a common misonception that leads certain people to ridicule the widely-quoted predictions that global temperature will rise 1.5 to 5.8 C by 2100. Again, it's not margin of error: it's a result of different variables they put into the model. Can you predict exactly how the output of greenhouses gases will change over the next 100 years? No. So you try a few different scenarios, some best case, some worst case, some in-between. That's where the different numbers come from.
Thanks for my first laugh of the day. Want to tell me how you plan to move Manhattan inland?
It sounds really bad, therefore it must not be true? What kind of logic is that?
Personally, I'm working on my own toy OS based on Pistachio. It's a lot of fun, but I have no delusions of grandeur.
Just like Daikatana, right?
Some idiot decided to run French text through Babelfish and post as-is. Sigh.
I had the same thought. For now I'm comprimising by adding due dates as events.