Since trojan/virus/spyware cause a news-worthy quoted figure of billions of dollars in damage/productivity, when will a study come out that properly reflects this risk as part of the TCO vs. a similar Linux solution?
Lemme answer this one for you: As soon as there are enough Linux boxes in the world to make the trojan/virus/spyware authors take note and start writing them for Linux. Since that won't happen for a very long time, why bother?
As for arguments that Microsoft should fix their software - nice try, but the lemon laws don't apply to software and there's nothing else that's likely to compell Microsoft to change. Unless someone would like to try talking the most conservative Congress in living memory into applying standards to software - are there any geeks rich enough, other than Bil Gates? - I don't see a single reason for Microsoft to change what has always been a profitable tactic - sell trash, then sell an even trashier "upgrade" for lots of money, and THEN convince the consumers that they have the better end of the deal.
You sound like Linux is the answer or something. If Congress were to put into law some standards to software, what would they base those standards on? MS? Nah - can't do that, because 1 company controlling the software, is a problem (but, oh, wait....that would affect things like Java, too - where Sun doesn't have to listen to anyone elses input and can do what they want - I don't see folks complaining about them). Can't base it on Open Source....because companies would have a tough time selling their software - sure, they could, but would also have to provide a majority (if not all) of the source code. Thus, anyone could turn around, and give it away afterwards, per the appropriate license agreement (GPL, etc), thus the company wouldn't be making any money. So what sort of standards could they possibly put into place?
THAT is the problem. You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't - we're all just damned.
Oh yeah! SOFTWARE that can run on it. That will be oh, a few years. Sure, Linux will have a blend that will run on it fairly quickly, but like, these new processors won't take any market away from what's already there. It'll just replace what's there with faster.
Until it can compete with Wintel on all levels, it'll be just like Transmeta - not much.
But yes, most Americans are good, hardworking, nice people. We aren't offened by them, though we perhaps respect them less since the last election. (OK, in 2000 you didn't know G. W. was a fuckup, but this time you should have.) We are, however, often offended by American politicians and media. Their deception, bias, illogical reasoning, and clear pandering towards good sound bites and entertainment over truth is quite obvious and offensive. But when you don't have real politicians and media who actually research and analyze things first, there's nothing to compare to and realize how stupid it looks.
Ah - so the first American president to win the election, both in electoral votes AND popular votes in oh, however many years, is a fuckup? But you can say that John Kerry (or any of the other candidates) wasn't one? OK...If you say so Frenchy.
No country, or it's people, or it's politicians, or it's laws, are perfect. Not here in America, not up there in Canada, not in France, Britain, Germany, Iraq, anywhere.
But, a lot of us Americans are sick and fucking tired of seeing the lackadasical people of most of the world, let bullshit like what Saddam was getting away with, happen. Yes - we SHOULD have taken him out back in '91...I'll agree, 100%, with that. We should NOT have left Iraq as a huge void by just picking up and leaving, which caused another 10 years of issues. But anyone who doesn't think Saddam had the capability to do much more evil things than he did (and if you don't believe he gassed his own people, instead believing him about Iran doing it, that's your own problem), has some serious mental issues.
It's so funny hearing the words from those who think that they're "better" because they don't have the capability to make any real difference in the world.
Linus joined Transmeta too, and wow, look where they're at now.
If someone develops something new, technology-wise (like a new compression scheme or something), I don't see what the problem is with them patenting it if they so choose. The whole problem is with the over-generalization of some of the existing software/business "process" patents that are such bullshit.
Guess you don't want to ever have more than 1 kid, without state sponsorship, eh? Trying to work around their measures to keep freedoms from happening, can ultimately result in your imprisonment or worse....
THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL it cost anywhere near 159$-500$ a pop to create press package and ship what is in that windows box
Who are you to say how much a company should or shouldn't charge for something? In a free-market environment, people will either pay what they ask, or not buy the product...If they don't buy it, then the price will go down until it gets to a point where supply/demand is able to be in close-balance.
Just because you don't want to pay for something, doesn't mean that you have a right to use it. A car doesn't cost $15000 to make either, but if you want that car and need it, you'll pay it (or haggle a price that you are happy with) - in the end, the company still makes money off of the sale...
You're aware that EVERYTHING you buy costs more than what it took to produce it, right?!? Or are you oblivious to that?
In the end - even if it cost $20, there would be plenty of people in the world too damn cheap and they would pirate it. You know this as well as I do - and if you think differently, please, tell me what la-la land you're living in so I can move in.
This is just a ruse to get folks to pay less attention to the fact that the MS OS is generally less secure for most people than it should be...
No it's not....it's about a company being forced to deal with a catch-22 system. If there were no "pirated" copies of Windows out there, it wouldn't be a problem. If there weren't people too damn cheap to pay for a copy, there wouldn't be a problem. Security updates are important...Personally, I think MS should find a way to automatically shutdown any pirated copy of Windows - after all, if you didn't pay for it, you don't deserve to use it - you won't lose your data, just your ability to access it from the pirated environment.
Now I'll await all the people who reply to this saying "if they don't patch all Windows systems out there, the chaos will be hell on the net" - to that I say "Well, had they bought their copy of Windows and not pirated it because they are too cheap to buy a piece of software that they are using than isn't free, then that's their own damn problem". Oh, and don't come and say "Well, is Windows didn't have so many security holes, maybe more people would buy it"...Those folks who use a flavor of Linux should know there's just as many, if not more, security holes and whatnot in Linux - just that not as many people really care about Linux for exploiting.
You don't believe in contracts - that's your perogative. But in this case, they likely do have a service agreement...Thus, they have to abide by the rules set forth. As such, well, they get to deal with it. If they don't like it, they should have picked a provider that they don't have to deal with in that way.
The only restrictive rule here is the one imposed by The Planet.
Don't like playing in their pool, go play somewhere else. It's like most jobs nowadays too - you can be let go for most any reason, and you can quit for any reason, all without notice. That's the way it is. Don't like things that way, go elsewhere where it's done differently and to your liking.
Funny - that's called "freedom" after all, isn't it?
The US is not the shining pinnacle of freedom it once was. The American people have obviously been free for too long and they dont appreciate it anymore.
So what you're saying is that our businesses aren't free to do as they choose within their own rights and regulations?
If we could moderate stories, I would have voted this one down. The act itself is worthy of praise, especially contrasted with Gates' business tactics. The submitter had no reason to insert those last two statements except to provoke negative comments. The "Linux Community" will have a helluva time being able to donate $750 million to people who desperately need some form of necessity, because many (most? almost all?) members of that community don't have anything close to the available cash or equivalents that Gates has at his fingertips.
But why would you have modded it down? I'm sure you wouldn't have cared if it were a Linux story bashing MS - there's been tons of those on the/. frontpage, yet I haven't seen you decry any of them the same way you did this story. Funny that...
Good topic. I wish there were more serious posts so the rest of us could gleam some knowledge from the replies instead of the geeks trying to be funny.
We had a couple people leave work recently and they had some data in the computer that we needed to get ahold of. Since my company requires passwords and restrictive permissions on all Windows systems my team was worried that we might never get the docs off the systems.
A co-worker got out the Knoppix security tools distribution ( http://www.knoppix-std.org/ [knoppix-std.org] ) CD and was able to bypass the Windows passwords very easily. And it read the hard drive ignoring windows permissions.
If someone wanted a secure system. The Knoppix STD CD could be a good tool to use. Try and see if you or a trusted friend could get in to your PC.
So, umm, logging on as an admin and just copying them from the machine too easy for you? Or hooking up the HD to another machine that you can log into and copying from there? Or are all files set with single user access rights, where even your IT admins can't do anything directly?
Failing that - just change his password, login as him, and go about things. Why did you feel the necessity to bring Knoppix into the whole ordeal...Changing a password takes 5 secs.
Matthew Fordahl has written a review of Microsoft's anti-spyware tool and has declared it, in a word, 'ineffective.'
Then I'm going to guess that the author tested Spybot Search & Destroy and AdAware right nest to the MS AntiSpyWare and found them "useless". You can do the tests yourself very easily.
1) Infect a machine with as much ad-ware/spyware you can find
2) Use AdAware - note the results
3) Use Spybot S&D - note the results
4) Use MS AntiSpyWare - note the results
Do 2-4 again after putting the spyware back on the PC, but do them in a different order.
You'll find that MS AntiSpyware will find more.
An executive at my company brought his home PC to the help desk a week ago. It wouldn't boot (The registry had been deleted). After recovering the registry from an earlier copy, I first ran AdAware...found 30 or so pieces of Adware/Spyware....Then I ran Spybot S&D - found about 23 more...Then ran MS AntiSpyWare....it found an additional 1300 files (which weren't just browser cookies), and over 5000 more registry entries.
Funny that. I think if MS can keep up with the updates, and change from a subscription service to including it in a SP or as a free download for users, it'll be an amazing tool.
I think the question that needs to be asked is "Qui Incolmunis" -- or, who is injured. In this case, where (as far as I can tell) no one is injured, there should be no litigation.
Except, how do you define "injured". Having items and money in game makes you "better" more "powerful" in a lot of ways. So, in a way, someone who plays the game, earning, through the game, everything they get could be considered "injured" to some whacko who just up and buys it from someone else. Now, the real twist is that at some point, someone did "earn" the money or items involved (by playing the game)....so, it becomes a direct debate on whether or not everything should be earned by each player (i.e. soulbound) or if they can let an in-game economy happen being able to trade things (i.e. the way it is now).....
Tough to say which is which. However, to me, EULAs should be in general, enforcable, if nothing else than the fact that if you're too stupid to read them, you deserve what you get.
Do you even know what FUD stands for? It is certain and there is no doubt that Microsoft's 2003 crashed under the pressure and OSX did not. Where is the fear? Where is the uncertainty? And where is the doubt?
You're kidding, right? Or are you one of those believers that *nix never crashes, never has virii, never has popular exploits (all of which applies to OS X, too)...?
We don't know anything beyond what little bit the OP said regarding this issue (which was likely pulled from any of the plethora ("Do you know what a 'plethora' is, Hefe?") of news articles out there...But obviously you seem to know more about everything regarding those issues than even the OP to dispell the "FUD" aspect of my post...Please, enlighten us...
Except the problem is even if they transfer the new compressed image, you still have to decompress it.
Websites that have "gallerys" of sorts, don't transfer the picture to you in that way. Stuffit would have to come out with a browser plugin that would do the decompression on the fly.
Granted, that would be a pretty cool thing - saving 25+% bandwidth for sites hosting a ton of pics and making the client end do the hard work...
...But one with proper security controls put in place like a good virus scanner/firewall/IE settings/anti spyware and creating a non-admin user for web browsing will not be affected.
And a car with the wheels nailed to the ground, the doors welded...
Yeah, and your linux box is just oh so secure...Please....there's just as many, fi not more, Linux security holes out there - but not too many say anything - why? Because hardly anyone uses it compared to Windows....Gimme an f'n break you fanboi.
I think whoever can make a tradeskill system that is more realistic than all of the current systems out there will have a winner.
No they won't - wanna know why? Because there are so few people out there willing to go that length to do those things...While it may be fun for you, it'll hardly be fun enough to warrant making it that complex...It won't hold people's attention for long - well, except the masochists like yourself...
Slashdot Mirror
Since trojan/virus/spyware cause a news-worthy quoted figure of billions of dollars in damage/productivity, when will a study come out that properly reflects this risk as part of the TCO vs. a similar Linux solution?
Lemme answer this one for you: As soon as there are enough Linux boxes in the world to make the trojan/virus/spyware authors take note and start writing them for Linux. Since that won't happen for a very long time, why bother?
As for arguments that Microsoft should fix their software - nice try, but the lemon laws don't apply to software and there's nothing else that's likely to compell Microsoft to change. Unless someone would like to try talking the most conservative Congress in living memory into applying standards to software - are there any geeks rich enough, other than Bil Gates? - I don't see a single reason for Microsoft to change what has always been a profitable tactic - sell trash, then sell an even trashier "upgrade" for lots of money, and THEN convince the consumers that they have the better end of the deal.
You sound like Linux is the answer or something. If Congress were to put into law some standards to software, what would they base those standards on? MS? Nah - can't do that, because 1 company controlling the software, is a problem (but, oh, wait....that would affect things like Java, too - where Sun doesn't have to listen to anyone elses input and can do what they want - I don't see folks complaining about them). Can't base it on Open Source....because companies would have a tough time selling their software - sure, they could, but would also have to provide a majority (if not all) of the source code. Thus, anyone could turn around, and give it away afterwards, per the appropriate license agreement (GPL, etc), thus the company wouldn't be making any money. So what sort of standards could they possibly put into place?
THAT is the problem. You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't - we're all just damned.
I for one aren't too stuck on the notion that we would create humans just for harvesting organs....
Heck, if we can somehow just grow a specific organ to replace a bad one, even better.
Hopefully they will find great successes, and we can smack some of those stuck on the idea that we shouldn't be "playing god".
Now all we need is um...what is it...
Oh yeah! SOFTWARE that can run on it. That will be oh, a few years. Sure, Linux will have a blend that will run on it fairly quickly, but like, these new processors won't take any market away from what's already there. It'll just replace what's there with faster.
Until it can compete with Wintel on all levels, it'll be just like Transmeta - not much.
but those levels were not written in the course of daily programming.
And neither are the exploits people write to take advantage of "flaws"
...they can be sued for sharing files.....Wonder who's been posing as this dead person? :)
Someone would be stupid enough not to install their anti-virus protection and anti=spyware protection on a computer before connecting it to the net?
Stupidity reaps it's own kind of reward in this case.
But yes, most Americans are good, hardworking, nice people. We aren't offened by them, though we perhaps respect them less since the last election. (OK, in 2000 you didn't know G. W. was a fuckup, but this time you should have.) We are, however, often offended by American politicians and media. Their deception, bias, illogical reasoning, and clear pandering towards good sound bites and entertainment over truth is quite obvious and offensive. But when you don't have real politicians and media who actually research and analyze things first, there's nothing to compare to and realize how stupid it looks.
Ah - so the first American president to win the election, both in electoral votes AND popular votes in oh, however many years, is a fuckup? But you can say that John Kerry (or any of the other candidates) wasn't one? OK...If you say so Frenchy.
No country, or it's people, or it's politicians, or it's laws, are perfect. Not here in America, not up there in Canada, not in France, Britain, Germany, Iraq, anywhere.
But, a lot of us Americans are sick and fucking tired of seeing the lackadasical people of most of the world, let bullshit like what Saddam was getting away with, happen. Yes - we SHOULD have taken him out back in '91...I'll agree, 100%, with that. We should NOT have left Iraq as a huge void by just picking up and leaving, which caused another 10 years of issues. But anyone who doesn't think Saddam had the capability to do much more evil things than he did (and if you don't believe he gassed his own people, instead believing him about Iran doing it, that's your own problem), has some serious mental issues.
It's so funny hearing the words from those who think that they're "better" because they don't have the capability to make any real difference in the world.
Linus joined Transmeta too, and wow, look where they're at now.
If someone develops something new, technology-wise (like a new compression scheme or something), I don't see what the problem is with them patenting it if they so choose. The whole problem is with the over-generalization of some of the existing software/business "process" patents that are such bullshit.
Guess you don't want to ever have more than 1 kid, without state sponsorship, eh? Trying to work around their measures to keep freedoms from happening, can ultimately result in your imprisonment or worse....
THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL it cost anywhere near 159$-500$ a pop to create press package and ship what is in that windows box
Who are you to say how much a company should or shouldn't charge for something? In a free-market environment, people will either pay what they ask, or not buy the product...If they don't buy it, then the price will go down until it gets to a point where supply/demand is able to be in close-balance.
Just because you don't want to pay for something, doesn't mean that you have a right to use it. A car doesn't cost $15000 to make either, but if you want that car and need it, you'll pay it (or haggle a price that you are happy with) - in the end, the company still makes money off of the sale...
You're aware that EVERYTHING you buy costs more than what it took to produce it, right?!? Or are you oblivious to that?
In the end - even if it cost $20, there would be plenty of people in the world too damn cheap and they would pirate it. You know this as well as I do - and if you think differently, please, tell me what la-la land you're living in so I can move in.
This is just a ruse to get folks to pay less attention to the fact that the MS OS is generally less secure for most people than it should be...
No it's not....it's about a company being forced to deal with a catch-22 system. If there were no "pirated" copies of Windows out there, it wouldn't be a problem. If there weren't people too damn cheap to pay for a copy, there wouldn't be a problem. Security updates are important...Personally, I think MS should find a way to automatically shutdown any pirated copy of Windows - after all, if you didn't pay for it, you don't deserve to use it - you won't lose your data, just your ability to access it from the pirated environment.
Now I'll await all the people who reply to this saying "if they don't patch all Windows systems out there, the chaos will be hell on the net" - to that I say "Well, had they bought their copy of Windows and not pirated it because they are too cheap to buy a piece of software that they are using than isn't free, then that's their own damn problem". Oh, and don't come and say "Well, is Windows didn't have so many security holes, maybe more people would buy it"...Those folks who use a flavor of Linux should know there's just as many, if not more, security holes and whatnot in Linux - just that not as many people really care about Linux for exploiting.
You don't believe in contracts - that's your perogative. But in this case, they likely do have a service agreement...Thus, they have to abide by the rules set forth. As such, well, they get to deal with it. If they don't like it, they should have picked a provider that they don't have to deal with in that way.
The only restrictive rule here is the one imposed by The Planet.
Don't like playing in their pool, go play somewhere else. It's like most jobs nowadays too - you can be let go for most any reason, and you can quit for any reason, all without notice. That's the way it is. Don't like things that way, go elsewhere where it's done differently and to your liking.
Funny - that's called "freedom" after all, isn't it?
The US is not the shining pinnacle of freedom it once was. The American people have obviously been free for too long and they dont appreciate it anymore.
So what you're saying is that our businesses aren't free to do as they choose within their own rights and regulations?
Oh, wait. To do that would be considered freedom.
If we could moderate stories, I would have voted this one down. The act itself is worthy of praise, especially contrasted with Gates' business tactics. The submitter had no reason to insert those last two statements except to provoke negative comments. The "Linux Community" will have a helluva time being able to donate $750 million to people who desperately need some form of necessity, because many (most? almost all?) members of that community don't have anything close to the available cash or equivalents that Gates has at his fingertips.
/. frontpage, yet I haven't seen you decry any of them the same way you did this story. Funny that...
But why would you have modded it down? I'm sure you wouldn't have cared if it were a Linux story bashing MS - there's been tons of those on the
Good topic. I wish there were more serious posts so the rest of us could gleam some knowledge from the replies instead of the geeks trying to be funny.
We had a couple people leave work recently and they had some data in the computer that we needed to get ahold of. Since my company requires passwords and restrictive permissions on all Windows systems my team was worried that we might never get the docs off the systems.
A co-worker got out the Knoppix security tools distribution ( http://www.knoppix-std.org/ [knoppix-std.org] ) CD and was able to bypass the Windows passwords very easily. And it read the hard drive ignoring windows permissions.
If someone wanted a secure system. The Knoppix STD CD could be a good tool to use. Try and see if you or a trusted friend could get in to your PC.
So, umm, logging on as an admin and just copying them from the machine too easy for you? Or hooking up the HD to another machine that you can log into and copying from there? Or are all files set with single user access rights, where even your IT admins can't do anything directly?
Failing that - just change his password, login as him, and go about things. Why did you feel the necessity to bring Knoppix into the whole ordeal...Changing a password takes 5 secs.
Matthew Fordahl has written a review of Microsoft's anti-spyware tool and has declared it, in a word, 'ineffective.'
Then I'm going to guess that the author tested Spybot Search & Destroy and AdAware right nest to the MS AntiSpyWare and found them "useless". You can do the tests yourself very easily.
1) Infect a machine with as much ad-ware/spyware you can find
2) Use AdAware - note the results
3) Use Spybot S&D - note the results
4) Use MS AntiSpyWare - note the results
Do 2-4 again after putting the spyware back on the PC, but do them in a different order.
You'll find that MS AntiSpyware will find more.
An executive at my company brought his home PC to the help desk a week ago. It wouldn't boot (The registry had been deleted). After recovering the registry from an earlier copy, I first ran AdAware...found 30 or so pieces of Adware/Spyware....Then I ran Spybot S&D - found about 23 more...Then ran MS AntiSpyWare....it found an additional 1300 files (which weren't just browser cookies), and over 5000 more registry entries.
Funny that. I think if MS can keep up with the updates, and change from a subscription service to including it in a SP or as a free download for users, it'll be an amazing tool.
I think the question that needs to be asked is "Qui Incolmunis" -- or, who is injured. In this case, where (as far as I can tell) no one is injured, there should be no litigation.
Except, how do you define "injured". Having items and money in game makes you "better" more "powerful" in a lot of ways. So, in a way, someone who plays the game, earning, through the game, everything they get could be considered "injured" to some whacko who just up and buys it from someone else. Now, the real twist is that at some point, someone did "earn" the money or items involved (by playing the game)....so, it becomes a direct debate on whether or not everything should be earned by each player (i.e. soulbound) or if they can let an in-game economy happen being able to trade things (i.e. the way it is now).....
Tough to say which is which. However, to me, EULAs should be in general, enforcable, if nothing else than the fact that if you're too stupid to read them, you deserve what you get.
Do you even know what FUD stands for? It is certain and there is no doubt that Microsoft's 2003 crashed under the pressure and OSX did not. Where is the fear? Where is the uncertainty? And where is the doubt?
You're kidding, right? Or are you one of those believers that *nix never crashes, never has virii, never has popular exploits (all of which applies to OS X, too)...?
We don't know anything beyond what little bit the OP said regarding this issue (which was likely pulled from any of the plethora ("Do you know what a 'plethora' is, Hefe?") of news articles out there...But obviously you seem to know more about everything regarding those issues than even the OP to dispell the "FUD" aspect of my post...Please, enlighten us...
Except the problem is even if they transfer the new compressed image, you still have to decompress it.
Websites that have "gallerys" of sorts, don't transfer the picture to you in that way. Stuffit would have to come out with a browser plugin that would do the decompression on the fly.
Granted, that would be a pretty cool thing - saving 25+% bandwidth for sites hosting a ton of pics and making the client end do the hard work...
Yet another MS hater having to spread his FUD with implied meanings....
...But one with proper security controls put in place like a good virus scanner/firewall/IE settings/anti spyware and creating a non-admin user for web browsing will not be affected. And a car with the wheels nailed to the ground, the doors welded...
Yeah, and your linux box is just oh so secure...Please....there's just as many, fi not more, Linux security holes out there - but not too many say anything - why? Because hardly anyone uses it compared to Windows....Gimme an f'n break you fanboi.
I think whoever can make a tradeskill system that is more realistic than all of the current systems out there will have a winner.
No they won't - wanna know why? Because there are so few people out there willing to go that length to do those things...While it may be fun for you, it'll hardly be fun enough to warrant making it that complex...It won't hold people's attention for long - well, except the masochists like yourself...
WinME boxes aren't THAT old
Yes, they are...
We don't care that another gadget uses Linux. We care that another corporation is willing to use an open source solution to get our dollars.
Plus, it lets the open-sourcies not have to whine about it being MS or something...heh.