Assuming that she's not mistranslating the prefix, she is expressing radiation doses in microroentgen per hour. Now, from the food you eat, you aer exposed to about 40millirem (rem=roentgen equivalent man). http://www.oversight.state.id.us/radiation/radiati on.htm
Now, at the rate of 500 microroentgens/hour (or.5mR er hour) it would take 80 hours of exposure to get the same dose that your food gives you in a year. Highly accelerated? Yes. Does she spend 80 hours in that strong a radiation field? No. I didn't see anything regarding the time she spent riding (although I probably missed it) but her overall exposure is significant mathematically but probably not physiologically.
Some other interesting facts about radiation:
Your average overall dose is 360millirem per year (http://www.oversight.state.id.us/radiation/yourra ddose.htm)
Radiation workers (of which I used to be one) are allowed a full 5 REM per year. That is 10,000 hours of.5mREM/hour exposure, or nearly 417 full days meaning that I cannot exceed a Federal limit by being exposed for a full year.
Obviously, for hotter areas radiation-wise, the story is different.
It's been years since I did this kind of thinking, so if I made a mistake, somebody chime in.
Statement A = "Newton, Galileo, Kepler, Dirac, Faraday, Planck, Kelvin, Maxwell and Einstein believed in God."
Statement B = "So do I."
You basically have, A therefore B.
That is incorrect. There is no "therefore" either explicitly or implicitly implied with the two statements. The two statements are expressing a COMPARISON between the belief in God of the listed names and the subject of the second statement, the poster.
Those of us who refuse to get cards--or refuse to carry them--will have to depend on the charity of other lab members to open doors for us. So if someone asks you to open a door, please be considerate and open it for him. It could be a lab member who resists computerized surveillance. It could be a visitor. It could be the friend of your friend.
It could also be somebody looking to make a quick getaway with some expensive lab hardware and sell it. It's called "theft."
I be willing to bet RMS doesn't leave his front door unlocked at night. Why should MIT?
You are probably aware of its existence, but just in case...
MultiZilla (http://multizilla.mozdev.org) provides just such a GUI. Granted, it is not built-in to Mozilla, which is what you were referring to, but it does provide the function.
Virginia/DC area...My package deal (cable/broadband) runs about $80, and I remember that having digital cable put me at least to $120/month, if not more. Perhaps rates have changed in the year or so I have had cable and I need to re-investaigate, but that is what I recall.
Oh let's look at the fact that Comcast right NOW is offering PVR digital box that can record thing easier than a Tivo can (record from the digital channels without a hokey setup) plus is free except for an additional $3.50 a month for box rental and ZERO monthly programming fees.
So it's not really free then, if you have to rent their set top box. Now, doesn't this also require one to subscribe to digital cable? I have Comcast standard (analog) cable, and seem to recall that ifI wanted PVR capability, I'd have to subscribe to their digital service which is an extra $50-60 per month.
If I'm wrong on this point, please correct me.
Seems that with TiVO, I can get PVR capability over my regular analog cable service. Over the very short term, it's cheaper to go with the Comcast solution. Longer than, say, six months or so, TiVO wins on TCO.
Hardly "free" in my book, or even "cost effective."
The virus writers then started sending the password in a bitmap attachment to foil the virus scanners.
Seems to me that this is a natural virus filter. People who are dumb enough to open virus-laced e-mails will be too lazy or won't be smart enough to go through the hoops to open the virus payload, and those smart enough to go through the hassle will also be smart enough to recognize the trap they're facing and just delete the darned thing.
Although, as has been said before, "never underestimate the power of the stupid."
Because Windows Media Player is an APPLICATION, not a part of the operating system (or at least shouldn't be).
From Dictionary.com:
operating system n.
Software designed to control the hardware of a specific data-processing system in order to allow users and application programs to make use of it.
Source: The American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright (C) 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
operating system
(OS) The low-level software which handles the interface to peripheral hardware, schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user when no application program is running.
The OS may be split into a kernel which is always present and various system programs which use facilities provided by the kernel to perform higher-level house-keeping tasks, often acting as servers in a client-server relationship.
Some would include a graphical user interface and window system as part of the OS, others would not. The operating system loader, BIOS, or other firmware required at boot time or when installing the operating system would generally not be considered part of the operating system, though this distinction is unclear in the case of a rommable operating system such as RISC OS.
The facilities an operating system provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up around the machines on which it runs.
Example operating systems include 386BSD, AIX, AOS, Amoeba, Angel, Artemis microkernel, BeOS, Brazil, COS, CP/M, CTSS, Chorus, DACNOS, DOSEXEC 2, GCOS, GEORGE 3, GEOS, ITS, KAOS, Linux, LynxOS, MPV, MS-DOS, MVS, Mach, Macintosh operating system, Microsoft Windows, MINIX, Multics, Multipop-68, Novell NetWare, OS-9, OS/2, Pick, Plan 9, QNX, RISC OS, STING, System V, System/360, TOPS-10, TOPS-20, TRUSIX, TWENEX, TYMCOM-X, Thoth, Unix, VM/CMS, VMS, VRTX, VSTa, VxWorks, WAITS.
Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, (C) 1993-2003 Denis Howe
Windows Media doesn't control the sound card any more than Word or OpenOffice controls the printer. Device drivers do that.
Internet Explorer and Mozilla don't control the operation of a network card; the device driverdoes that.
THAT is why Media Player shouldn't be integrated with the OS. If I purchase a mass-produced computer ever again (not likely) I would want to choose my OWN applications.
I've seen it written somewhere else and I agree: strip out all the non-OS parts of Windows and sell a versionfor $50. That is a reasonable price point, and let the user/manufacturer decide on the default applications.
When I bought my season audio subscription, the website stated that Real Audio was required to get the streams...much to my surprise, the streams came over in Windows Media.
I was a mmight annoyed, and will be writing soon to MLB asking why their website is so out of date or just plain wrong.
my phone can see them both, never tried to hop on those networks though, if I succeeded I would almost certainly pay a mint for roaming.
No you won't, unless there is a T-Mobile plan that doesn't include nationwide roaming, which I have never seen. I have T-Mobile, and whenever I go down to North Carolina, I am roaming on Cingular's GSM network and have never paid a single red cent for roaming.
The only roaming I have ever paid is when I roam internationally. Then I pay many red cents.
Really, i can't imagine that there are so many (800 viruses/month is SO much) evil-programmers that prefer to spend their know-how writing code they will never get paid for, instead of selling their experience to someone who needs it and earn a lot of money..
Who is to say that they aren't doing both? Why wouldn't there be any talented IT professionals who create the very problems they are hired to solve? Provides job security, and you KNOW you can solve the problem quickly and look good; after all, you created it.
My guess is that the thin atmosphere would prevent any sort of blowing as such...the atmosphere is about a tenth of what it is on earth, so you would need a pretty big fam to get anywhere near the pressure needed to blow the dust clinging to the panels away.
Besides, as has been pointed out, any solution adds power requirements, weight, and complexity/points of failure. Does the extra power provided by clean solar panels outweight the added risk of equipment failure?
Channel 19 is prety standard, and channel 9 is reserved for emergency use. Quite a few state highway patrols monitor channel 9 as well.
I don't know about websites for the lingo, but if you listen long enough, you can start to pick up on things. What I have learned just by listening (I don't talk much):
"Bobtailing" - a tractor trailer rig driving along without the trailer is bobtailing
"Bear", "Smokey", etc. - We all pretty much know what those are--COPS
"Taking pictures" or "filming" - radar speed trap
"Yardstick" - mile markers
The lingo you hear on TV and in the movies is pretty much made for entertainment; most people don't talk quite that strange.
Therefore, traffic infomation needs to be distributed very rapidly and distantly from the scene of the problem in order to have any influence on the situation.
A system that does this is already installed...it's called CB radio. OK, so it may not be that cool now, but it still has a use.
When I had a CB, I could drive east on the Indiana/Ohio tollways and get radar and road reports from the drivers headed west, and vice versa.
Firearms and hunting was just an example of something that has good and bad uses. The point I was making was that ANYTHING can be bad if it "fell into the wrong hands" and for somebody to say such is just stating the obvious.
Pick another example: the airplane. It allows for all sorts of good things--world travel, moving cargo, sightseeing tours, etc. We all know what happens when an airplane "falls into the wrong hands."
Anything and everything has good and bad uses. THAT is the point I was trying to get across.
I can't think of any possible "good" associated with the "bad" of firearms.
I can...it's called "hunting." As I think back, I think back to the settlers of the 1800s who, as they made their way west, needed firearms to hunt bear, deer, etc. as sources of food to make it through the winter. They also used them to protect their milk cows from predators such as wolves.
Do you think a man could club a bear to death? Bears are big; I bet it takes a heckuva bow and arrow combination to bring one down (disclaimer: I am not a hunter.)
OK, man's earliest ancestors didn't have firearms, and they hunted down big game. They also hunted in packs of 10-20 and lived in tribes, lucky to live past 30. The settlers were typically single families homesteading, with the nearest neighbor or town miles away.
Man with club + bear = well-fed bear.
I look at the reverse from your statement; the good of firearms is the ability to hunt for food and protect oneself from one's predators. The associated "bad" is that if the predator is another human, then the predator can and generally will use the firearm as well.
My point was that any good idea can and will have bad applications "in the wrong hands." The "in the wrong hands" phrase is stating the obvious in an attempt to diminish the worthiness of something while wasting space on a page and the reader's time.
the author reports he is somewhat worried that all these tools could fall into wrong hands
ANYTHING, in the wrong hands, can pose a hazard to anybody. Guns, information, paper clips, the little umbrellas that get put in tropical drinks--all these can be dangerous if they get in the wrong hands.
The phrase "into the wrong hands" is simply a way of spreading FUD without being specific. There is no such thing as something that has no "bad" associated with its "good." Technology provides many comforts and conveniences for decent people; but it also brings these comfots and conveniences to people who will use them to do unlawful things.
Keep in mind that this comment is being posted by a non-programmer.
It's a sad state of affairs when a BITMAP picture can be used as a security exploit. What next, loading a specially crafted text file into notepad? (err, I better be careful, that my have been doen already...)
True; but the reason Coke and MS have near monopolies is because of marketing, not innate superiority of their products (Pepsi wins most blind taste tests; Macs win all usability tests).
I hardly call Coca-Cola a "near monopoly..."
http://www.beverage-digest.com/editorial/970718. ht ml
The Linux TCP wrappers was (not too long ago) victimized in this way, but the peer review process caught it and removed it almost instantly. If this had happened to a proprietary operating system, it probably wouldn't have been found for a very long time.
What's more, is that even if the binary was found to have been corrupted, Closed Source software also relies on the original vendor to fix the problem--which, as we all know, can sometimes take a good long time.
When an Open Source codebase is found corrupted, it can be fixed locally without depending on somebody else to fix it. THAT is where the security of Open Source lies. If you use Open Source on mission-critical or security-sensitive applications without reviewing the source code first, you may as well use Closed Source software, because you just gave up the advantage.
Although Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has publicly bragged about the security of Windows, even Microsoft fears the release of its code. In testimony during the Microsoft antitrust trial, Jim Allchin, the company's senior vice president for Windows, said opening up the company's source code could be devastating for the operating system's security.
Does anybody else see the contradiction here?
Note to Microsoft: if the source code was written properly and didn't have the security vulnerabilities, then security wouldn't be compromised if the source code was leaked.
Hmmmm, if we pay these guys off, that might validate the patent in everyone's eyes, and then Linux won't be able to have automount...
Then neither would Palm PDAs, VCRs that start playing as soon as a tape is inserted, and DVD players that autoplay the DVD when inserted.
They tackle MS because MS would just fork out the dough to settle rather than litigate to the bitter end. Just because TVI attempts to tackle MS doesn't necessarily mean TVI will go after Palm, Sony, Toshiba, etc...they probably just assume that MS will settle the quickest--maximum return (settlement) on investment (litigation costs).
It's extortion, IMHO. If they were serious about defending their patent against all sorts of prior art, then they would have issued multiple lawsuits MANY YEARS AGO when autoplay was first introduced.
From the article: Microsoft is the defendant in more than 30 patent cases, but only three are listed in Friday's filing. The others are the high-profile case brought by Eolas Technologies Inc. and the University of California over Internet Explorer and a case brought by InterTrust Technologies Corp. over DRM (Digital Rights Management) and other technologies.
Ever really wonder how much of this litigation is based on good-faith belief of true infringement, and how much is picking on the "rich kid of the block?" "Hey, MS has really deep pockets, maybe of we bug them enough they'll give us money to go away."
Sometimes I think this is a non-trivial percentage of the suits brought on MS. Not to say that MS hasn't infringed (they may very well have do so, voluntarily or otherwise) but they are a corn-fed, juicy target for carnivorous teams of attorneys looking for a quick settlement.
Slashdot Mirror
Something to bear in mind:
i on.htm
.5mR er hour) it would take 80 hours of exposure to get the same dose that your food gives you in a year. Highly accelerated? Yes. Does she spend 80 hours in that strong a radiation field? No. I didn't see anything regarding the time she spent riding (although I probably missed it) but her overall exposure is significant mathematically but probably not physiologically.
a ddose.htm)
.5mREM/hour exposure, or nearly 417 full days meaning that I cannot exceed a Federal limit by being exposed for a full year.
Assuming that she's not mistranslating the prefix, she is expressing radiation doses in microroentgen per hour. Now, from the food you eat, you aer exposed to about 40millirem (rem=roentgen equivalent man). http://www.oversight.state.id.us/radiation/radiat
Now, at the rate of 500 microroentgens/hour (or
Some other interesting facts about radiation:
Your average overall dose is 360millirem per year (http://www.oversight.state.id.us/radiation/yourr
Radiation workers (of which I used to be one) are allowed a full 5 REM per year. That is 10,000 hours of
Obviously, for hotter areas radiation-wise, the story is different.
It's been years since I did this kind of thinking, so if I made a mistake, somebody chime in.
"I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad," he said.
Thank goodness for Mozilla and AdBlock!
http://mozilla.org/
http://adblock.mozdev.org/
Statement A = "Newton, Galileo, Kepler, Dirac, Faraday, Planck, Kelvin, Maxwell and Einstein believed in God."
Statement B = "So do I."
You basically have, A therefore B.
That is incorrect. There is no "therefore" either explicitly or implicitly implied with the two statements. The two statements are expressing a COMPARISON between the belief in God of the listed names and the subject of the second statement, the poster.
Those of us who refuse to get cards--or refuse to carry them--will
have to depend on the charity of other lab members to open doors for
us. So if someone asks you to open a door, please be considerate and
open it for him. It could be a lab member who resists computerized
surveillance. It could be a visitor. It could be the friend of your
friend.
It could also be somebody looking to make a quick getaway with some expensive lab hardware and sell it. It's called "theft."
I be willing to bet RMS doesn't leave his front door unlocked at night. Why should MIT?
You are probably aware of its existence, but just in case...
MultiZilla (http://multizilla.mozdev.org) provides just such a GUI. Granted, it is not built-in to Mozilla, which is what you were referring to, but it does provide the function.
Virginia/DC area...My package deal (cable/broadband) runs about $80, and I remember that having digital cable put me at least to $120/month, if not more. Perhaps rates have changed in the year or so I have had cable and I need to re-investaigate, but that is what I recall.
Oh let's look at the fact that Comcast right NOW is offering PVR digital box that can record thing easier than a Tivo can (record from the digital channels without a hokey setup) plus is free except for an additional $3.50 a month for box rental and ZERO monthly programming fees.
So it's not really free then, if you have to rent their set top box. Now, doesn't this also require one to subscribe to digital cable? I have Comcast standard (analog) cable, and seem to recall that ifI wanted PVR capability, I'd have to subscribe to their digital service which is an extra $50-60 per month.
If I'm wrong on this point, please correct me.
Seems that with TiVO, I can get PVR capability over my regular analog cable service. Over the very short term, it's cheaper to go with the Comcast solution. Longer than, say, six months or so, TiVO wins on TCO.
Hardly "free" in my book, or even "cost effective."
The virus writers then started sending the password in a bitmap attachment to foil the virus scanners.
Seems to me that this is a natural virus filter. People who are dumb enough to open virus-laced e-mails will be too lazy or won't be smart enough to go through the hoops to open the virus payload, and those smart enough to go through the hassle will also be smart enough to recognize the trap they're facing and just delete the darned thing.
Although, as has been said before, "never underestimate the power of the stupid."
Because Windows Media Player is an APPLICATION, not a part of the operating system (or at least shouldn't be).
o mp.os.r esearch).
From Dictionary.com:
operating system
n.
Software designed to control the hardware of a specific data-processing system in order to allow users and application programs to make use of it.
Source: The American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright (C) 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
operating system
(OS) The low-level software which handles
the interface to peripheral hardware, schedules tasks,
allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the
user when no application program is running.
The OS may be split into a kernel which is always present
and various system programs which use facilities provided by
the kernel to perform higher-level house-keeping tasks,
often acting as servers in a client-server relationship.
Some would include a graphical user interface and window
system as part of the OS, others would not. The operating
system loader, BIOS, or other firmware required at boot
time or when installing the operating system would generally
not be considered part of the operating system, though this
distinction is unclear in the case of a rommable operating
system such as RISC OS.
The facilities an operating system provides and its general
design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on
programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up
around the machines on which it runs.
Example operating systems include 386BSD, AIX, AOS,
Amoeba, Angel, Artemis microkernel, BeOS, Brazil,
COS, CP/M, CTSS, Chorus, DACNOS, DOSEXEC 2,
GCOS, GEORGE 3, GEOS, ITS, KAOS, Linux, LynxOS,
MPV, MS-DOS, MVS, Mach, Macintosh operating system,
Microsoft Windows, MINIX, Multics, Multipop-68,
Novell NetWare, OS-9, OS/2, Pick, Plan 9, QNX,
RISC OS, STING, System V, System/360, TOPS-10,
TOPS-20, TRUSIX, TWENEX, TYMCOM-X, Thoth, Unix,
VM/CMS, VMS, VRTX, VSTa, VxWorks, WAITS.
FAQ
(ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/c
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.os.research.
(1999-06-09)
Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, (C) 1993-2003 Denis Howe
Windows Media doesn't control the sound card any more than Word or OpenOffice controls the printer. Device drivers do that.
Internet Explorer and Mozilla don't control the operation of a network card; the device driverdoes that.
THAT is why Media Player shouldn't be integrated with the OS. If I purchase a mass-produced computer ever again (not likely) I would want to choose my OWN applications.
I've seen it written somewhere else and I agree: strip out all the non-OS parts of Windows and sell a versionfor $50. That is a reasonable price point, and let the user/manufacturer decide on the default applications.
When I bought my season audio subscription, the website stated that Real Audio was required to get the streams...much to my surprise, the streams came over in Windows Media.
I was a mmight annoyed, and will be writing soon to MLB asking why their website is so out of date or just plain wrong.
my phone can see them both, never tried to hop on those networks though, if I succeeded I would almost certainly pay a mint for roaming.
No you won't, unless there is a T-Mobile plan that doesn't include nationwide roaming, which I have never seen. I have T-Mobile, and whenever I go down to North Carolina, I am roaming on Cingular's GSM network and have never paid a single red cent for roaming.
The only roaming I have ever paid is when I roam internationally. Then I pay many red cents.
Volvo's new concept car, launched at the Geneva motor show, is a car designed by women for women.
No modding down allowed...women designed it for crissake!
Let's see...SCO files suit against IBM, Autozone, and Daimler-Chrysler...
Talk about taking on a family of 800-lb gorillas!
Really, i can't imagine that there are so many (800 viruses/month is SO much) evil-programmers that prefer to spend their know-how writing code they will never get paid for, instead of selling their experience to someone who needs it and earn a lot of money..
Who is to say that they aren't doing both? Why wouldn't there be any talented IT professionals who create the very problems they are hired to solve? Provides job security, and you KNOW you can solve the problem quickly and look good; after all, you created it.
My guess is that the thin atmosphere would prevent any sort of blowing as such...the atmosphere is about a tenth of what it is on earth, so you would need a pretty big fam to get anywhere near the pressure needed to blow the dust clinging to the panels away.
Besides, as has been pointed out, any solution adds power requirements, weight, and complexity/points of failure. Does the extra power provided by clean solar panels outweight the added risk of equipment failure?
Channel 19 is prety standard, and channel 9 is reserved for emergency use. Quite a few state highway patrols monitor channel 9 as well.
I don't know about websites for the lingo, but if you listen long enough, you can start to pick up on things. What I have learned just by listening (I don't talk much):
"Bobtailing" - a tractor trailer rig driving along without the trailer is bobtailing
"Bear", "Smokey", etc. - We all pretty much know what those are--COPS
"Taking pictures" or "filming" - radar speed trap
"Yardstick" - mile markers
The lingo you hear on TV and in the movies is pretty much made for entertainment; most people don't talk quite that strange.
Therefore, traffic infomation needs to be distributed very rapidly and distantly from the scene of the problem in order to have any influence on the situation.
A system that does this is already installed...it's called CB radio. OK, so it may not be that cool now, but it still has a use.
When I had a CB, I could drive east on the Indiana/Ohio tollways and get radar and road reports from the drivers headed west, and vice versa.
Firearms and hunting was just an example of something that has good and bad uses. The point I was making was that ANYTHING can be bad if it "fell into the wrong hands" and for somebody to say such is just stating the obvious.
Pick another example: the airplane. It allows for all sorts of good things--world travel, moving cargo, sightseeing tours, etc. We all know what happens when an airplane "falls into the wrong hands."
Anything and everything has good and bad uses. THAT is the point I was trying to get across.
I can't think of any possible "good" associated with the "bad" of firearms.
I can...it's called "hunting." As I think back, I think back to the settlers of the 1800s who, as they made their way west, needed firearms to hunt bear, deer, etc. as sources of food to make it through the winter. They also used them to protect their milk cows from predators such as wolves.
Do you think a man could club a bear to death? Bears are big; I bet it takes a heckuva bow and arrow combination to bring one down (disclaimer: I am not a hunter.)
OK, man's earliest ancestors didn't have firearms, and they hunted down big game. They also hunted in packs of 10-20 and lived in tribes, lucky to live past 30. The settlers were typically single families homesteading, with the nearest neighbor or town miles away.
Man with club + bear = well-fed bear.
I look at the reverse from your statement; the good of firearms is the ability to hunt for food and protect oneself from one's predators. The associated "bad" is that if the predator is another human, then the predator can and generally will use the firearm as well.
My point was that any good idea can and will have bad applications "in the wrong hands." The "in the wrong hands" phrase is stating the obvious in an attempt to diminish the worthiness of something while wasting space on a page and the reader's time.
the author reports he is somewhat worried that all these tools could fall into wrong hands
ANYTHING, in the wrong hands, can pose a hazard to anybody. Guns, information, paper clips, the little umbrellas that get put in tropical drinks--all these can be dangerous if they get in the wrong hands.
The phrase "into the wrong hands" is simply a way of spreading FUD without being specific. There is no such thing as something that has no "bad" associated with its "good." Technology provides many comforts and conveniences for decent people; but it also brings these comfots and conveniences to people who will use them to do unlawful things.
Keep in mind that this comment is being posted by a non-programmer.
It's a sad state of affairs when a BITMAP picture can be used as a security exploit. What next, loading a specially crafted text file into notepad? (err, I better be careful, that my have been doen already...)
Slightly OT:
. ht ml
True; but the reason Coke and MS have near monopolies is because of marketing, not innate superiority of their products (Pepsi wins most blind taste tests; Macs win all usability tests).
I hardly call Coca-Cola a "near monopoly..."
http://www.beverage-digest.com/editorial/970718
The Linux TCP wrappers was (not too long ago) victimized in this way, but the peer review process caught it and removed it almost instantly. If this had happened to a proprietary operating system, it probably wouldn't have been found for a very long time.
What's more, is that even if the binary was found to have been corrupted, Closed Source software also relies on the original vendor to fix the problem--which, as we all know, can sometimes take a good long time.
When an Open Source codebase is found corrupted, it can be fixed locally without depending on somebody else to fix it. THAT is where the security of Open Source lies. If you use Open Source on mission-critical or security-sensitive applications without reviewing the source code first, you may as well use Closed Source software, because you just gave up the advantage.
Although Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has publicly bragged about the security of Windows, even Microsoft fears the release of its code. In testimony during the Microsoft antitrust trial, Jim Allchin, the company's senior vice president for Windows, said opening up the company's source code could be devastating for the operating system's security.
Does anybody else see the contradiction here?
Note to Microsoft: if the source code was written properly and didn't have the security vulnerabilities, then security wouldn't be compromised if the source code was leaked.
Hmmmm, if we pay these guys off, that might validate the patent in everyone's eyes, and then Linux won't be able to have automount...
Then neither would Palm PDAs, VCRs that start playing as soon as a tape is inserted, and DVD players that autoplay the DVD when inserted.
They tackle MS because MS would just fork out the dough to settle rather than litigate to the bitter end. Just because TVI attempts to tackle MS doesn't necessarily mean TVI will go after Palm, Sony, Toshiba, etc...they probably just assume that MS will settle the quickest--maximum return (settlement) on investment (litigation costs).
It's extortion, IMHO. If they were serious about defending their patent against all sorts of prior art, then they would have issued multiple lawsuits MANY YEARS AGO when autoplay was first introduced.
From the article:
Microsoft is the defendant in more than 30 patent cases, but only three are listed in Friday's filing. The others are the high-profile case brought by Eolas Technologies Inc. and the University of California over Internet Explorer and a case brought by InterTrust Technologies Corp. over DRM (Digital Rights Management) and other technologies.
Ever really wonder how much of this litigation is based on good-faith belief of true infringement, and how much is picking on the "rich kid of the block?" "Hey, MS has really deep pockets, maybe of we bug them enough they'll give us money to go away."
Sometimes I think this is a non-trivial percentage of the suits brought on MS. Not to say that MS hasn't infringed (they may very well have do so, voluntarily or otherwise) but they are a corn-fed, juicy target for carnivorous teams of attorneys looking for a quick settlement.