If you wrote the first OS X virus, nobody would believe you because nobody would have heard about it. There's still room for you to write the most crazy, virulent, destructive Windows virus in history. There's being the first, and then there's being the best. I think most virus authors would go for being the best. It's all a competition.
Err thanks. I guess. I think some of my comments were taken rather too literally but I'm used to Slashdot readers reading between the lines and finding stuff that totally goes against what I was trying to say. A lot of them are extremely faithful to their OS and will jump on their high-horse to defend it, even if I'm not really criticising it. I see operating systems and software as tools, not as political parties.
So, the *only* reason it "gets" viruses is because it's popular? With respect sir, you're simply out of touch with reality.
OK, I'll retract that and say that the major reason that viruses and spyware target Windows is that there is little point in targeting anything else. Viruses are designed to spread, Spyware is designed to collect user information. To meet these goals as fully as possible (spread as fast as possible, collect as much user information as possible), viruses and spyware are naturally targeted at the operating system with the widest use. Sure, some viruses are written simply because the author bares a grudge against some sort of OS, or wants to be the first to target a particular OS, but in general my point stands. If one in one hundred users of a particular OS wants to write a virus for that OS, it's pretty safe to say that as the number of users increases so does the number of people inclined to write viruses. I admit I'm making unfounded and relatively simplistic assumptions here. I'd like to believe that popularity does play some part in the amount of attempts to exploit that popularity to spread a virus or collect as much data as possible, or show as many ads to as many people as possible. I cannot really see much problem with that. Care to explain it?
You assume that popularity is inversely proportional to security
I assume that the more popular an OS is, the more secure it becomes through security fixes. I believe that this is a valid point when considering desktop software. I do not believe that software becomes less secure as popularity increases, that would be moronic. I believe that software is insecure until tested for flaws, and that the greatest test of flaws is massive use and masses of people searching for new exploits to take advantage of. Anyone who says that popularity is inversely proportional to security is crazy. "I just wrote this software! Only two people use it, therefore it is TOTALLY secure compared to the rival product that 45,000 people use!" - there is a problem with this statement that I am sure you can spot.
You assume that part of the problem is the entire problem
I never said it was the entire problem. You assumed that from my post.
You fail to account for different security models.
I'll give you that one.
Not all bugs are security flaws
Not all cars have four wheels.
Privilege separation prevents many problems
Not when I am the sole user of the system and can grant security privileges without full knowledge of the consequences. "I find running as a normal user too prohibitive and I often get prompted for passwords or told I can't do things with MY OWN DAMN COMPUTER! Therefore, I run everything as root. I want full control damn it!" is common, and will become very common when operating systems that allow full privilege separation become suitable for anyone to use.
Different systems are inherently more or less vulnerable to exploits
Obviously. But nobody's perfect. Not even Linux. I'm sure that my Gameboy Advance won't be getting any trojan horse viruses, but then I was pretty damn sure that my Bluetooth mobile phone wouldn't be getting any viruses and hey, what do you know? Along they come. If there's a will, there's generally a way. I admit that some systems are simply better written and better designed than others and this leaves them less susceptible to exploits. I will not concede that any desktop operating system with a web connection can be unquestionably secure.
Not all security flaws are of the same severity
I certainly failed to consider this, because it wasn't at all relevant to what I was posting. I never said that "this is shit because it will have massive security flaws just like the massive security flaws found in IE", I merely stated that there will be flaws.
Running as root is almost always a problem, no matter the system
Operating systems that encourage users to run things as root for day-to-day tasks like installing and uninstalling software are generally improperly designed. If running as root is in any way avoidable, software should be designed to support that. Software should warn if it is being run as root. Educate the user.
Security is by design, not accident
Yes. This does not excuse the fact that the design may be extremely bad. It may also be very good. We'll have to wait and see.
Nice idea, but it's been said before and that doesn't make it any more true.
I'm glad you didn't choose the "moron" option, but I expect that will probably come up after this post.
Response to standard reply 1:
The server market is not the same as the desktop market, especially as far as spyware and viruses are concerned. It's much more sensible to target dumb users, not server admins. Viruses spread better when a user can help them spread (e-mail clients etc.), and spyware would be pretty pointless on a server.
Response to standard reply 2: You have to enter a root password to install anything
I can't imagine anything worse than this. If I have to run every install as root, it'll become habitual, and that habit will leave me, as a dumb user, open to some seriously dangerous exploits. "I just downloaded Super Web Toolbar 5.7! Oh for christs sake, it's that root password dialog box again. I'm sick of that. Alright have the damn password. Sometimes I wonder why don't I just run as root all the time." - that is clearly NOT a good strategy.
making a claim that Windows without a browser would be as secure as OSX without a browser is a bit disingenuous
This is exactly why I said that the OS kernels themselves are very secure, and pointed out that it's the Microsoft software running on top of the NT kernel that contains the flaws (i.e. the shell). This isn't an important point anyway.
I'd be very happy to see OS X take over the world. Very happy indeed.
but spyware per se would be rare - user must _install_ the spyware, usually by accident, and that's less probable.
Really? Usually spyware installs itself as quietly as possible alongside other applications (ok, you may get a tiny note buried in the EULA but other than that it's practically trojan). I see no reason why the makers of spyware for Linux wouldn't try every trick in the book to get itself installed without the user noticing. Linux users can have accidents too:). I also see no reason why new Linux users won't run everything as root, or won't just be so used to the "This program requires root privileges" dialog box that they simply hammer in the root password automatically for everything that demands it.
Which is archaic, underfeatured, browser-reliant, slow, centralized, ugly and ms-centered. I cannot upgrade firefox, photoshop or whatever by means of Windows Update.
True. There are licencing issues with updating other vendors software, but these could certainly be overcome. Currently many applications (including Fx) rely on internal auto-update systems, but at least Microsoft makes some attempt to update all their software with one service. Take Firefox and Thunderbird: although they're both produced by Mozilla, they each have an independent update system which only runs when the application is running. Linux could demonstrate an update service that allows every software group to release patches and updates over the same system, but it'd be difficult to implement in an environment where users can compile the software themselves, and put it in nonstandard locations. In those eventualities, the system would simply have to notify the user to go and download updates.
Wow! On servers? Production? Err... ok, now I understand.
I'll take this as mockery of Slackware. It was chosen it because it was the distro that was bundled with the least irrelevant shit and was the most suitable for my needs. Damn Small Linux was another option, but that's a little too slimline:) Each to their own I guess.
I did mention that I'd be interested if OS X had an automatic update system. I'm glad to be informed that it does and that it works so well.
Since you read Slashdot you're probably more security conscious than most of the Mac users I've spoken to. Most of them got very huffy about my department's requirement that a Mac version of McAfee VirusScan be installed on their Macs, and they demanded to know why this was required because they were adamant that Macs don't get viruses. What with all the fuss about Windows and security, it's hard to imagine a Windows user in that position (although I admit that there are undoubtedly many of them).
However quickly exploits are fixed, my point still stands: As Mac usage rises, more and more security flaws are likely to be found. Microsoft has been in the difficult position of not being able to keep up, of not being immediately able to patch some of the more tricky security flaws in a way that does not affect user experience (see Windows XP SP2). They made mistakes in their shell from the outset and have paid the price: figuring out how to correct those deep faults without adversely affecting user experience has been a slow process. You may say it's weeks before patches are released for Windows, but they come out much faster now. I think it would be unwise for Microsoft to not fix security flaws as soon as they possibly can, but they need to be sure that such hefty fixes do not break anything else. After all, they have a huge customer base to support and if they screw up with a patch it's a massive problem.
Will Apple also get into this position as usage increases? They're in a much better position than Microsoft right now -- they can learn from Microsoft's mistakes. I reject the suggestion that OS X represents the be-all and end-all of software security, and I deem that view to be dangerously complacent.
I hope to be entering the world of Macintosh soon (I clearly have much to learn), I've used them once or twice and they seem to be great machines that hark back to the Amiga days for me. I reserve the right to not start licking the screen, though:)
I should probably just say that I'm sure Macs have some Intel chips in there somewhere, and that I understand that this remark may have been strategic. I recognise that Intel are trying to distance themselves from the whole "Wintel" thing. The new CEO could have simply been emphasising the fact that Intel is not tied to Microsoft and is trying to grab a bigger piece of the Apple pie.
Firstly, why is a head of Intel recommending a system that uses IBM PowerPC CPUs? Secondly, if everyone switches to a Mac, spyware for Macs will appear. Just as if everyone switches to Linux, spyware for Linux will appear. Imagine spyware that silently compiles itself into your kernel. Imagine what a pain in the ass removing Spyware from Linux would be.
The thing morons like this Intel guy don't realise is that Windows only gets viruses and spyware because virus and spyware writers get the most reach by targeting the OS that runs on 90% of desktop computers. Considering this, Windows has a huge array of software for dealing with these threats, and has had a huge amount of security fixes to protect itself. If tomorrow morning the world suddenly changed and OS X suddenly became the most widely used OS in the world, Apple would have one bastard of a job patching it up and writing software to remove malware. Security holes may exist in huge numbers in the OS and its supporting software, but since nobody has really spent much time looking for the holes they haven't been discovered yet.
If, suddenly, 50 or 60 security flaws are detected in various Apple products I'm sure that patches would be developed quickly, but will they be deployed as quickly as Microsoft currently deploys them? Would the users install them? No! "Macs don't get viruses or spyware!!". Microsoft have been protecting their software against security threats for years now, they've become pretty good at it, sometimes deploying fixes before threats are exploited, and they have a single, standard automatic patching system in the form of Windows Update. I can't imagine how bad it'd be if holes were discovered in Linux components or OS X. The argument is that holes are patched very quickly in Open Source software, although in my experience it usually takes months before even simple critical bugs are fixed in a good deal of open source software. Check out any BugZilla page for evidence.
Firefox is becoming quite popular, and nobody can have failed to have notice that Fx updates are becoming more and more frequent as its popularity rises. I use Fx. I love it. I just can't agree with lunatics that suggests that software with relatively little public exposure is inherently more secure than software that has been dominant by a huge margin for over five years. The sole reason it's more secure is that nobody has bothered to exploit it or looked for holes in it.
A point to remember when reading this post is that the Linux and OS X operating systems (i.e. kernels) may be extremely secure and well written, but so is the NT kernel. It's the supporting software (IE, MS Office, Explorer) that gets cracked, not the OS itself. In the Linux world, the supporting software is maintained by many, many different people who release official builds from different websites. I doubt that all these people will be as efficient as Microsoft in patching their software, and I know for sure that users will not bother to continuously check project homepages for security updates.
Let's just hope that the exposure of OS X and Linux grows steadily enough for the holes to be identified at a rate that permits efficient patching.
I would like to hear some OS X users opinions on this post. Is there a standard security update tool in OS X? I use Slackware Linux on my servers here, and I'm well aware of how much of a bitch keeping it up-to-date is. Swaret only does half of the work involved.
Well, a search for Psychonauts, Tim Schafer's excellent new game, produced only one legitimate torrent for the demo but a whole bunch of torrents for the full thing.
I don't really see how a site that allows you to merely search for files can be considered illegal (otherwise Google would have to be shut down immediately), but since this site is made by the little guys and it allows searching for those evil.torrent things it'll probably get targetted. Torrent and Terrorist both start with 'T'. Coincidence? I think not!
CDs and DVDs currently contain tons of error detection and correction data. People typically don't realise just how much you can punish a DVD/CD before it becomes unreadable. Get an old CD and chuck it around the room, jump on it, bite it, even rub it with sandpaper, and it'll probably still read OK.
With nanotechnology I expect this error checking and correction will only improve. The effects of a scratch probably deminish in magnitude as discs are read with higher-frequency lasers (as you increase fequency, the effects of refraction are minimised). Since the density of the data is much higher, scratches will also have less of an effect. Imagine the reader is a car and the data is a road. A scratch on a DVD will act like a ditch across the road, creating a big bump that'll probably throw the car off course. A scratch on this medium will appear like a mile-long decline and subsequent incline in the road, which won't affect the course of the car at all. What might really affect this media more is dust that totally obscures large chunks of the data. Some redundancy will obviously have to be built in to combat this.
When will somebody develop an optical media that does not require mechanical parts? Why isn't it possible to read the data with a cathode ray that scans the surface of a translucent media or something. That'd be awesome. But the drive would be huge.
The article states that there are no Microsoft operating systems for the PowerPC architecture. This is only partly true. NT was designed to run on pretty much any processor or architecture provided you write a HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) for that processor/architecture.
This feature was thrown into NT because its original developers wanted to make it portable to any architecture. NT is a very nice (micro)kernel. It's simple, modular, and very portable. It's such a shame that the software, shells and user interfaces that Microsoft develops to run on it are so bad. I might not agree with Microsoft's marketing department, but I know that their NT kernel team are fucking hardcore. Mainly because the project wasn't taken seriously by Microsoft while it was being developed and the coders were pretty much left to their own devices.
Disclaimer: I run Linux on my servers.
Why are we persuing hydrogen fuel cells at all? From the article, they sound like a terrible idea. They're promoted because they're "greener" than fossil fuels and the only exhaust is water vapour, but the article states that production process of extracting hydrogen fuel from natural gas would lead to an increase in carbon dioxide emmisions and fossil fuel use.
Can someone give me the definitive reason for the drive to get fuel cells off the ground? Is it purely because it would allow us to centralize the production of harmful waste in hydrogen extraction plants, rather than distributing it across the world by burning fossil fuels in cars and using chemical batteries as we currently do? Or is it purely because hydrogen fuel cells would be simply better than batteries in terms of power output and lifespan? We'll never get more energy out of hydrogen than we put into extracting it, so what's the point in using it when we can simply use existing technology that is apparently not as wasteful? Is there any environmental argument for the fuel cell at all?
"Peridot could lead to a world where there are no more broken links". Yes, it could. Peridot could also lead to a world where broken links are not manually and intelligently spotted and repaired, but automatically repaired. Automatic resolution of what a link "ought" to point to is never going to be accurate (look at search engines), and could make a company website a minefield of confusion and frustration for the user.
Am I to suspect that we're in for another branded browser based on the Mozilla core? From reading the article that seems likely.
I have nothing against Mozilla, but as far as web browsers for Windows or Linux are concerned, there aren't many options. On Windows you can run IE, Mozilla or Opera. Anything else just doesn't cut the mustard. IE is blindingly fast but full of holes. Mozilla is slow and apparently not full of holes (although I'm sure more will be discovered once it becomes more dominant), Opera is slow and lacks compatibility with a lot of websites.
When are we going to get a best-of-breed? There needs to be more than three (Firebird uses the Gecko rendering core from Mozilla so I count that as a Mozilla). A google browser with it's own rendering engine and interface (non-skinned please) would be great. However, I'm not expecting that for at least a year.
I stopped reading the moment he called Voice over IP the greatest invention since the telephone. It's not. I don't care how learned you are, I don't care how much you know about your own field, when you make comparisons like that you are a fool and I will not listen to you. Voice over IP is a product of the Telephone. It currently runs over telephone networks (IP does). In fact it's an abstraction of the telephone. You take the telephone, then you shove data down it, and in that data you encode voice information, whereas before, you simply spoke down the telephone.
Where Voice over IP wins is in freedom and price. Running over current Internet networks, Voice over IP does not inflict any limitations on its users as would be inflicted by telephone companies. As it's a software system, it's also scalable without doing mass hardware replacement. It can change every week if it has to.
VoIP is not the greatest thing since the telephone or the radio or the wheel or whatever else. It's simply a considerably lateral evolution of the telephone.
When you think about it, back in the 19th Century we should have come up with data networks, then worked out how to put voice over them. That would be logical. We've come full circle. Voice to data to highspeed data back to voice again. I wonder when dial up users will be using a VoIP telephone to encode their MODEM tones over VoIP. Then I'll just explode with joy at how fucked up the telcoms industry is at the moment.
VoIP should have been done a long time ago, and should not be pronounced "voyp".
I dont think Valve are stupid enough to license any other software to Vivendi, especially with the kind of revenue that Steam will pull in. The big plan is that Steam is not just for Valve games, you know. Valve could become a publisher, and squash Vivendi out of the picture. I sure hope so, because that bunch of crooks need a severe whipping.
There is no way to do what you say with encryption that can't be easily cracked. You can redistribute the.gcf files to your buddies if you want to share the game content. However, sharing the Steam account required to play will not be possible.
Mind you, whatever copy protection is in HL2 will be cracked within a week of release, so all of this is irrelevant.
It already boiled over. The hype was too much a couple of months ago. Now it's becomming tired and people are starting to accept that HL2 will be subject to yet more delays anyway, so they're beginning to lose interest and look elsewhere.
This news doesn't surprise me. I can't see Sierra/VUG getting any money off of the Steam distribution of the game, and I'm not surprised they're pissed off about that and want to wiggle into some profit off it. Hopefully Valve has the right to tell them to fuck off and find a more agreeable publisher, but since cases are filed I doubt they'll be getting out of it that easily.
So we see yet more delays, and Valve should know that game hype does have a half life of about one month. Most of the people obtaining the game off Steam will be doing so because it will be cheaper and more convenient than purchasing it in a store.
There is no Java in A9.com's interface, and thank god for that. There is only the misnamed "javascript", which is not strongly typed and is really nothing like Java.
Slashdot Mirror
Windows NT pretty much discards the BIOS too after boot, my friend. BIOS = slow and incompatible.
If you wrote the first OS X virus, nobody would believe you because nobody would have heard about it. There's still room for you to write the most crazy, virulent, destructive Windows virus in history. There's being the first, and then there's being the best. I think most virus authors would go for being the best. It's all a competition.
Err thanks. I guess. I think some of my comments were taken rather too literally but I'm used to Slashdot readers reading between the lines and finding stuff that totally goes against what I was trying to say. A lot of them are extremely faithful to their OS and will jump on their high-horse to defend it, even if I'm not really criticising it. I see operating systems and software as tools, not as political parties.
So, the *only* reason it "gets" viruses is because it's popular? With respect sir, you're simply out of touch with reality.
OK, I'll retract that and say that the major reason that viruses and spyware target Windows is that there is little point in targeting anything else. Viruses are designed to spread, Spyware is designed to collect user information. To meet these goals as fully as possible (spread as fast as possible, collect as much user information as possible), viruses and spyware are naturally targeted at the operating system with the widest use. Sure, some viruses are written simply because the author bares a grudge against some sort of OS, or wants to be the first to target a particular OS, but in general my point stands. If one in one hundred users of a particular OS wants to write a virus for that OS, it's pretty safe to say that as the number of users increases so does the number of people inclined to write viruses. I admit I'm making unfounded and relatively simplistic assumptions here. I'd like to believe that popularity does play some part in the amount of attempts to exploit that popularity to spread a virus or collect as much data as possible, or show as many ads to as many people as possible. I cannot really see much problem with that. Care to explain it?
Entertaining.
You assume that popularity is inversely proportional to security
I assume that the more popular an OS is, the more secure it becomes through security fixes. I believe that this is a valid point when considering desktop software. I do not believe that software becomes less secure as popularity increases, that would be moronic. I believe that software is insecure until tested for flaws, and that the greatest test of flaws is massive use and masses of people searching for new exploits to take advantage of. Anyone who says that popularity is inversely proportional to security is crazy. "I just wrote this software! Only two people use it, therefore it is TOTALLY secure compared to the rival product that 45,000 people use!" - there is a problem with this statement that I am sure you can spot.
You assume that part of the problem is the entire problem
I never said it was the entire problem. You assumed that from my post.
You fail to account for different security models.
I'll give you that one.
Not all bugs are security flaws
Not all cars have four wheels.
Privilege separation prevents many problems
Not when I am the sole user of the system and can grant security privileges without full knowledge of the consequences. "I find running as a normal user too prohibitive and I often get prompted for passwords or told I can't do things with MY OWN DAMN COMPUTER! Therefore, I run everything as root. I want full control damn it!" is common, and will become very common when operating systems that allow full privilege separation become suitable for anyone to use.
Different systems are inherently more or less vulnerable to exploits
Obviously. But nobody's perfect. Not even Linux. I'm sure that my Gameboy Advance won't be getting any trojan horse viruses, but then I was pretty damn sure that my Bluetooth mobile phone wouldn't be getting any viruses and hey, what do you know? Along they come. If there's a will, there's generally a way. I admit that some systems are simply better written and better designed than others and this leaves them less susceptible to exploits. I will not concede that any desktop operating system with a web connection can be unquestionably secure.
Not all security flaws are of the same severity
I certainly failed to consider this, because it wasn't at all relevant to what I was posting. I never said that "this is shit because it will have massive security flaws just like the massive security flaws found in IE", I merely stated that there will be flaws.
Running as root is almost always a problem, no matter the system
Operating systems that encourage users to run things as root for day-to-day tasks like installing and uninstalling software are generally improperly designed. If running as root is in any way avoidable, software should be designed to support that. Software should warn if it is being run as root. Educate the user.
Security is by design, not accident
Yes. This does not excuse the fact that the design may be extremely bad. It may also be very good. We'll have to wait and see.
Nice idea, but it's been said before and that doesn't make it any more true.
I'm glad you didn't choose the "moron" option, but I expect that will probably come up after this post.
Response to standard reply 1:
The server market is not the same as the desktop market, especially as far as spyware and viruses are concerned. It's much more sensible to target dumb users, not server admins. Viruses spread better when a user can help them spread (e-mail clients etc.), and spyware would be pretty pointless on a server.
Response to standard reply 2:
You have to enter a root password to install anything
I can't imagine anything worse than this. If I have to run every install as root, it'll become habitual, and that habit will leave me, as a dumb user, open to some seriously dangerous exploits. "I just downloaded Super Web Toolbar 5.7! Oh for christs sake, it's that root password dialog box again. I'm sick of that. Alright have the damn password. Sometimes I wonder why don't I just run as root all the time." - that is clearly NOT a good strategy.
making a claim that Windows without a browser would be as secure as OSX without a browser is a bit disingenuous
This is exactly why I said that the OS kernels themselves are very secure, and pointed out that it's the Microsoft software running on top of the NT kernel that contains the flaws (i.e. the shell). This isn't an important point anyway.
I'd be very happy to see OS X take over the world. Very happy indeed.
True. There are licencing issues with updating other vendors software, but these could certainly be overcome. Currently many applications (including Fx) rely on internal auto-update systems, but at least Microsoft makes some attempt to update all their software with one service. Take Firefox and Thunderbird: although they're both produced by Mozilla, they each have an independent update system which only runs when the application is running. Linux could demonstrate an update service that allows every software group to release patches and updates over the same system, but it'd be difficult to implement in an environment where users can compile the software themselves, and put it in nonstandard locations. In those eventualities, the system would simply have to notify the user to go and download updates.
I'll take this as mockery of Slackware. It was chosen it because it was the distro that was bundled with the least irrelevant shit and was the most suitable for my needs. Damn Small Linux was another option, but that's a little too slimline
I did mention that I'd be interested if OS X had an automatic update system. I'm glad to be informed that it does and that it works so well.
:)
Since you read Slashdot you're probably more security conscious than most of the Mac users I've spoken to. Most of them got very huffy about my department's requirement that a Mac version of McAfee VirusScan be installed on their Macs, and they demanded to know why this was required because they were adamant that Macs don't get viruses. What with all the fuss about Windows and security, it's hard to imagine a Windows user in that position (although I admit that there are undoubtedly many of them).
However quickly exploits are fixed, my point still stands: As Mac usage rises, more and more security flaws are likely to be found. Microsoft has been in the difficult position of not being able to keep up, of not being immediately able to patch some of the more tricky security flaws in a way that does not affect user experience (see Windows XP SP2). They made mistakes in their shell from the outset and have paid the price: figuring out how to correct those deep faults without adversely affecting user experience has been a slow process. You may say it's weeks before patches are released for Windows, but they come out much faster now. I think it would be unwise for Microsoft to not fix security flaws as soon as they possibly can, but they need to be sure that such hefty fixes do not break anything else. After all, they have a huge customer base to support and if they screw up with a patch it's a massive problem.
Will Apple also get into this position as usage increases? They're in a much better position than Microsoft right now -- they can learn from Microsoft's mistakes. I reject the suggestion that OS X represents the be-all and end-all of software security, and I deem that view to be dangerously complacent.
I hope to be entering the world of Macintosh soon (I clearly have much to learn), I've used them once or twice and they seem to be great machines that hark back to the Amiga days for me. I reserve the right to not start licking the screen, though
I should probably just say that I'm sure Macs have some Intel chips in there somewhere, and that I understand that this remark may have been strategic. I recognise that Intel are trying to distance themselves from the whole "Wintel" thing. The new CEO could have simply been emphasising the fact that Intel is not tied to Microsoft and is trying to grab a bigger piece of the Apple pie.
Firstly, why is a head of Intel recommending a system that uses IBM PowerPC CPUs? Secondly, if everyone switches to a Mac, spyware for Macs will appear. Just as if everyone switches to Linux, spyware for Linux will appear. Imagine spyware that silently compiles itself into your kernel. Imagine what a pain in the ass removing Spyware from Linux would be.
The thing morons like this Intel guy don't realise is that Windows only gets viruses and spyware because virus and spyware writers get the most reach by targeting the OS that runs on 90% of desktop computers. Considering this, Windows has a huge array of software for dealing with these threats, and has had a huge amount of security fixes to protect itself. If tomorrow morning the world suddenly changed and OS X suddenly became the most widely used OS in the world, Apple would have one bastard of a job patching it up and writing software to remove malware. Security holes may exist in huge numbers in the OS and its supporting software, but since nobody has really spent much time looking for the holes they haven't been discovered yet.
If, suddenly, 50 or 60 security flaws are detected in various Apple products I'm sure that patches would be developed quickly, but will they be deployed as quickly as Microsoft currently deploys them? Would the users install them? No! "Macs don't get viruses or spyware!!". Microsoft have been protecting their software against security threats for years now, they've become pretty good at it, sometimes deploying fixes before threats are exploited, and they have a single, standard automatic patching system in the form of Windows Update. I can't imagine how bad it'd be if holes were discovered in Linux components or OS X. The argument is that holes are patched very quickly in Open Source software, although in my experience it usually takes months before even simple critical bugs are fixed in a good deal of open source software. Check out any BugZilla page for evidence.
Firefox is becoming quite popular, and nobody can have failed to have notice that Fx updates are becoming more and more frequent as its popularity rises. I use Fx. I love it. I just can't agree with lunatics that suggests that software with relatively little public exposure is inherently more secure than software that has been dominant by a huge margin for over five years. The sole reason it's more secure is that nobody has bothered to exploit it or looked for holes in it.
A point to remember when reading this post is that the Linux and OS X operating systems (i.e. kernels) may be extremely secure and well written, but so is the NT kernel. It's the supporting software (IE, MS Office, Explorer) that gets cracked, not the OS itself. In the Linux world, the supporting software is maintained by many, many different people who release official builds from different websites. I doubt that all these people will be as efficient as Microsoft in patching their software, and I know for sure that users will not bother to continuously check project homepages for security updates.
Let's just hope that the exposure of OS X and Linux grows steadily enough for the holes to be identified at a rate that permits efficient patching.
I would like to hear some OS X users opinions on this post. Is there a standard security update tool in OS X? I use Slackware Linux on my servers here, and I'm well aware of how much of a bitch keeping it up-to-date is. Swaret only does half of the work involved.
Well, a search for Psychonauts, Tim Schafer's excellent new game, produced only one legitimate torrent for the demo but a whole bunch of torrents for the full thing.
.torrent things it'll probably get targetted. Torrent and Terrorist both start with 'T'. Coincidence? I think not!
I don't really see how a site that allows you to merely search for files can be considered illegal (otherwise Google would have to be shut down immediately), but since this site is made by the little guys and it allows searching for those evil
CDs and DVDs currently contain tons of error detection and correction data. People typically don't realise just how much you can punish a DVD/CD before it becomes unreadable. Get an old CD and chuck it around the room, jump on it, bite it, even rub it with sandpaper, and it'll probably still read OK.
With nanotechnology I expect this error checking and correction will only improve. The effects of a scratch probably deminish in magnitude as discs are read with higher-frequency lasers (as you increase fequency, the effects of refraction are minimised). Since the density of the data is much higher, scratches will also have less of an effect. Imagine the reader is a car and the data is a road. A scratch on a DVD will act like a ditch across the road, creating a big bump that'll probably throw the car off course. A scratch on this medium will appear like a mile-long decline and subsequent incline in the road, which won't affect the course of the car at all. What might really affect this media more is dust that totally obscures large chunks of the data. Some redundancy will obviously have to be built in to combat this.
When will somebody develop an optical media that does not require mechanical parts? Why isn't it possible to read the data with a cathode ray that scans the surface of a translucent media or something. That'd be awesome. But the drive would be huge.
- Optical (possibly laser, but not necessary)
- Trackball replaces wheel for scrolling in any direction
- Wireless
- Charging socket on the front of the mouse so it can be used like a corded mouse while charging (I hate docking stations)
- Ambidextrous
- Side buttons must be staggered on either side so that applying force to press one button does not mean you squeeze the other button down by accident.
- Lifting the mouse off a surface even a small distance disables the eye, meaning that the cursor does not jump around.
- No dumb software required
- Not designed by anybody famous
This mouse does not exist. I wish it did.The article states that there are no Microsoft operating systems for the PowerPC architecture. This is only partly true. NT was designed to run on pretty much any processor or architecture provided you write a HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) for that processor/architecture.
This feature was thrown into NT because its original developers wanted to make it portable to any architecture. NT is a very nice (micro)kernel. It's simple, modular, and very portable. It's such a shame that the software, shells and user interfaces that Microsoft develops to run on it are so bad. I might not agree with Microsoft's marketing department, but I know that their NT kernel team are fucking hardcore. Mainly because the project wasn't taken seriously by Microsoft while it was being developed and the coders were pretty much left to their own devices. Disclaimer: I run Linux on my servers.
Why are we persuing hydrogen fuel cells at all? From the article, they sound like a terrible idea. They're promoted because they're "greener" than fossil fuels and the only exhaust is water vapour, but the article states that production process of extracting hydrogen fuel from natural gas would lead to an increase in carbon dioxide emmisions and fossil fuel use.
Can someone give me the definitive reason for the drive to get fuel cells off the ground? Is it purely because it would allow us to centralize the production of harmful waste in hydrogen extraction plants, rather than distributing it across the world by burning fossil fuels in cars and using chemical batteries as we currently do? Or is it purely because hydrogen fuel cells would be simply better than batteries in terms of power output and lifespan? We'll never get more energy out of hydrogen than we put into extracting it, so what's the point in using it when we can simply use existing technology that is apparently not as wasteful? Is there any environmental argument for the fuel cell at all?
I think the hologram on british pounds and the euros might give the game away. You can't scan a hologram.
"Peridot could lead to a world where there are no more broken links". Yes, it could. Peridot could also lead to a world where broken links are not manually and intelligently spotted and repaired, but automatically repaired. Automatic resolution of what a link "ought" to point to is never going to be accurate (look at search engines), and could make a company website a minefield of confusion and frustration for the user.
Only time will tell, I suppose.
Yeah I know it's not called Firebird. I was on autopilot when typing. Sorry.
Am I to suspect that we're in for another branded browser based on the Mozilla core? From reading the article that seems likely.
I have nothing against Mozilla, but as far as web browsers for Windows or Linux are concerned, there aren't many options. On Windows you can run IE, Mozilla or Opera. Anything else just doesn't cut the mustard. IE is blindingly fast but full of holes. Mozilla is slow and apparently not full of holes (although I'm sure more will be discovered once it becomes more dominant), Opera is slow and lacks compatibility with a lot of websites.
When are we going to get a best-of-breed? There needs to be more than three (Firebird uses the Gecko rendering core from Mozilla so I count that as a Mozilla). A google browser with it's own rendering engine and interface (non-skinned please) would be great. However, I'm not expecting that for at least a year.
I stopped reading the moment he called Voice over IP the greatest invention since the telephone. It's not. I don't care how learned you are, I don't care how much you know about your own field, when you make comparisons like that you are a fool and I will not listen to you. Voice over IP is a product of the Telephone. It currently runs over telephone networks (IP does). In fact it's an abstraction of the telephone. You take the telephone, then you shove data down it, and in that data you encode voice information, whereas before, you simply spoke down the telephone.
Where Voice over IP wins is in freedom and price. Running over current Internet networks, Voice over IP does not inflict any limitations on its users as would be inflicted by telephone companies. As it's a software system, it's also scalable without doing mass hardware replacement. It can change every week if it has to.
VoIP is not the greatest thing since the telephone or the radio or the wheel or whatever else. It's simply a considerably lateral evolution of the telephone.
When you think about it, back in the 19th Century we should have come up with data networks, then worked out how to put voice over them. That would be logical. We've come full circle. Voice to data to highspeed data back to voice again. I wonder when dial up users will be using a VoIP telephone to encode their MODEM tones over VoIP. Then I'll just explode with joy at how fucked up the telcoms industry is at the moment.
VoIP should have been done a long time ago, and should not be pronounced "voyp".
I dont think Valve are stupid enough to license any other software to Vivendi, especially with the kind of revenue that Steam will pull in. The big plan is that Steam is not just for Valve games, you know. Valve could become a publisher, and squash Vivendi out of the picture. I sure hope so, because that bunch of crooks need a severe whipping.
There is no way to do what you say with encryption that can't be easily cracked. You can redistribute the .gcf files to your buddies if you want to share the game content. However, sharing the Steam account required to play will not be possible.
Mind you, whatever copy protection is in HL2 will be cracked within a week of release, so all of this is irrelevant.
It already boiled over. The hype was too much a couple of months ago. Now it's becomming tired and people are starting to accept that HL2 will be subject to yet more delays anyway, so they're beginning to lose interest and look elsewhere.
This news doesn't surprise me. I can't see Sierra/VUG getting any money off of the Steam distribution of the game, and I'm not surprised they're pissed off about that and want to wiggle into some profit off it. Hopefully Valve has the right to tell them to fuck off and find a more agreeable publisher, but since cases are filed I doubt they'll be getting out of it that easily.
So we see yet more delays, and Valve should know that game hype does have a half life of about one month. Most of the people obtaining the game off Steam will be doing so because it will be cheaper and more convenient than purchasing it in a store.
I live in a small town called "Porn" in Russia. When I searched for it on google and A9, all the results were naked ladies!
"Its Java-heavy inteface reminds me of Gmail"
There is no Java in A9.com's interface, and thank god for that. There is only the misnamed "javascript", which is not strongly typed and is really nothing like Java.