FBI-dad was probably hoping to use the spyware on other kids and maybe get some saucy webcam shots. He's just trying to cover his own ass by coming up with some absurd story about FBI-wipes and computer techs.
Parenthetically, I've wondered how that would even work in the real world. What computer-savvy kid is issued a laptop by some authority figure and does not cover up the built-in camera and microphone with duct tape?
The difference between this approach and, for instance, the radioisotope thermoelectric generator that is *still* powering two Voyager spacecraft after 35 years, is the inclusion of parts that must move repeatedly to generate electricity. Is this really a good idea?
> Most laptops these days have a recovery image on a separate partition of the hard drive. It would not be beyond belief that the spyware the agent used injected itself into the recovery partition so it would re-install itself.
Nod. In fact, it would be rather silly for a spyware developer to *not* do this.
The story enclosed within this one is that (a) the FBI is unable to effectively scrub FBI spyware installed by an FBI agent, and (b) the computer repair shop charged an FBI agent to scrub and reimage a laptop, and then apparently just moved it from the To Do shelf to the Done shelf.
...or, that's just what they WANTED you to believe...
You're right. I cautiously approached the article because so many others were treating it as true, and even though it seemed... wildly unlikely... I wanted some proof, not that it was scientifically unlikely to the point of impossibility, but that it matched the characteristics of a hoax. In a surprisingly short time I found three "hoax" factors: The article is not self-consistent, parts unrelated to the claim are demonstrably untrue, and an original exists from which the article was obviously cut-and-pasted.
The web page is a beautiful mock-up. It's too bad that the writers didn't spend a little more time on the wordsmithing. Just reading through the text, one gets an idea that something is wrong, even if one doesn't know jack about science.
Hang on, now. Check how the text in TFA matches this article.
You've been had.
The clue (besides the rather obvious mardi-gras beads in the photo) was the eighth paragraph. Curiosity hasn't been on Mars for eight and a half years. Opportunity has.
It's time for someone to stand up and say "Bazinga".
My best grades and shortest hours (99th percentile, 3-4h of schooling a day) were when homeschooled. Is that union or non-union?
Homeschooling is child abuse.
...or so I was told, by lots of different people, including my mother, who is a teacher. Nevertheless, daughter was homeschooled, due to the school system not recognizing her dyslexia and instead diagnosing her with ADD and insisting I medicate her. She's an adult now and doing pretty well.
It appears to be neither union nor non-union, judging by the fact that both union and non-union school districts are violently against it.
...kicking RIM when they're down. Who would bother to do that? Oh, wait, Nokia. This is like rats scuffling amongst the horses' hooves on a battlefield.
Man, no kidding. The 98SE situation was especially bad, as I recall, because you couldn't get USB support without it, and you could only get it from OEMs. Which led to a huge underground business in unofficial upgrades.
No. Service packs generally do not include new major features
....Well, except when they do. But that's what "generally" means, so ok. I'd like to point out, though, that it's way too early to know what's going to be in 9 besides the inevitable huge morass of bugfixes. Although, I will betcha lunch at a nice restaurant that it will include the ability to boot directly into traditional desktop, and jettison (or at least ignore) the-desktop-formerly-known-as-Metro. Whether this would be considered a major new feature might depend, I would imagine, on how you felt about Metro.
I am basing it on reality. Between you and me, cynicism has long ago lost it's cuteness, even on Slashdot. (Although some haven't gotten the memo yet.)
Embrace, Extend Extinguish. What major software company has for decades taken that philosophy to heart, and continually tried to invoke it even when it didn't work anymore? Another question: What software company has for years (decades?) tried to hang onto the business paradigm that the majority of revenue should come from the high cost of regular OS upgrades, even when it was apparent that the rest of the industry were migrating to a different model?
Now, I'm the first to admit that it is LOGICAL for Microsoft to do as you said. It might even be their only chance of staying relevant. But this is Microsoft, under (this is important) the direction of Steve Ballmer, that we're talking about here.
I just don't see it. But tell you what, let's revisit this in a year, and if I'm wrong I will be glad to admit it in public. Anyone can be surprised, even me. But based on what I've seen up to now, I fully expect Microsoft to continually flog the same dead paradigm, until their arms are too tired to move the stick.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with the practicality of adopting the model you describe. What I think I'm getting at is that I don't believe Microsoft is capable of making such a sweeping change to the way they do business. In the past, the idea has been "pretend to adopt a new system, overwhelm it, and then channel it back to the way we've been doing business since 1990". I admit there is a possibility that they can actually make lasting change to their business paradigm, but it'd be an atypical thing.
...is debunking, with references, all the crap forwards my "friends" Share in their data stream.
I mean geeze, it takes less than 60 seconds to find three references that the "carjacker leaves leaflet on your back window" thing is a hoax, or that quote from Thomas Jefferson was four words taken out of context in a passage that means the exact opposite. But people whine "it's too hard to check and if it helps just one person it's worth hitting 'Share'". No, it really isn't. Snopes. Learn it, use it, live it.
Every once in awhile I post a picture of an open front door with "Hit 'Share' if you know what this is and how to use it". Yeap, you're right, I'm not terribly popular with some types of people.
I think there are people who are stressed, and people who cause stress. I'm proud to be one of the latter category.:-)
I hardly post anything to mine. In fact I don't think I've posted a status since I joined back in 2007.
However, I probably get more stressed reading other people's pages and comparing my boring life to them.
Once I start feeling bad I try to remind myself that I'm comparing my life lows to their highlight reel.
I'm willing to bet your life isn't *that* boring. At least five of my "friends" post photos of their meals, and one relative posted every title he rented on Netflix until I finally turned off his news feed. (He apparently watches a *lot* of TV...) How boring could your life be, in comparison to that?
Given the history of usenet negative and troll postings as a rule of thumb... its the lack of a dislike and a "fuck you" button that causes peoples frustration to build up inside... (no vent release)...
There is some truth to that. I guess my response would be, a well thought-out verbal poke in the right place might get a much more satisfying reaction than just punching a "you're a damned dirty troll" button.
...what if you ENJOY offending the easily offendable?
I will note that the more "friends" you have, the more likely it is that whatever you write has a correspondingly increasing likelihood of offending *someone*. So why not just embrace it? Less stress. There, solved it for you.
Depends on the pricing structure going forward. If the cost remains reasonable over time, then sure. If they expect us to spend an hundred and a half for Pro every year, then no
It's, what, the fourth sentence of the summary?
"According to these insiders, Blue will roll out mid-2013, and will be very cheap — or possibly even free, to ensure that 'Windows Blue the next OS that everyone installs.'"
It's what, in my first and second sentences? "Going forward" and "over time". One update that *might* be free does not make a trend.
Slashdot Mirror
FBI-dad was probably hoping to use the spyware on other kids and maybe get some saucy webcam shots. He's just trying to cover his own ass by coming up with some absurd story about FBI-wipes and computer techs.
Parenthetically, I've wondered how that would even work in the real world. What computer-savvy kid is issued a laptop by some authority figure and does not cover up the built-in camera and microphone with duct tape?
You got it. That's the scary part.
The difference between this approach and, for instance, the radioisotope thermoelectric generator that is *still* powering two Voyager spacecraft after 35 years, is the inclusion of parts that must move repeatedly to generate electricity. Is this really a good idea?
We've seen dozens of articles on why various Surface branded products aren't going to make it in the marketplace.
I want to see an article "Why Surface Pro Might Not Fail". (But not written by Ballmer.)
> Most laptops these days have a recovery image on a separate partition of the hard drive. It would not be beyond belief that the spyware the agent used injected itself into the recovery partition so it would re-install itself.
Nod. In fact, it would be rather silly for a spyware developer to *not* do this.
> The FBI 1) spied on a US citizen without a warrant and 2) a US court said that was fine because it wasn't on his computer.
Isn't that what I said? Or was I being too subtle?
> Europe is looking mighty good about now.
You seriously believe Europe is better in this regard?
The story enclosed within this one is that (a) the FBI is unable to effectively scrub FBI spyware installed by an FBI agent, and (b) the computer repair shop charged an FBI agent to scrub and reimage a laptop, and then apparently just moved it from the To Do shelf to the Done shelf.
References?
You're right. I cautiously approached the article because so many others were treating it as true, and even though it seemed ... wildly unlikely ... I wanted some proof, not that it was scientifically unlikely to the point of impossibility, but that it matched the characteristics of a hoax. In a surprisingly short time I found three "hoax" factors: The article is not self-consistent, parts unrelated to the claim are demonstrably untrue, and an original exists from which the article was obviously cut-and-pasted.
The web page is a beautiful mock-up. It's too bad that the writers didn't spend a little more time on the wordsmithing. Just reading through the text, one gets an idea that something is wrong, even if one doesn't know jack about science.
Hang on, now. Check how the text in TFA matches this article.
You've been had.
The clue (besides the rather obvious mardi-gras beads in the photo) was the eighth paragraph. Curiosity hasn't been on Mars for eight and a half years. Opportunity has.
It's time for someone to stand up and say "Bazinga".
How did this get past the editors?
My best grades and shortest hours (99th percentile, 3-4h of schooling a day) were when homeschooled.
Is that union or non-union?
Homeschooling is child abuse.
It appears to be neither union nor non-union, judging by the fact that both union and non-union school districts are violently against it.
here
> [...........] And yes, Carl Sagan was on the team (and apparently leaked the info!)
That's in the wiki entry. Slow news during the holiday season?
I can endure product placement if it doesn't hold up the film.
Consider the film The Wizard (1989). Does the non-stop display of Nintendo products in that film "hold up the film"?
Dunno. Never saw it, never plan to.
Man, no kidding. The 98SE situation was especially bad, as I recall, because you couldn't get USB support without it, and you could only get it from OEMs. Which led to a huge underground business in unofficial upgrades.
No. Service packs generally do not include new major features
I am basing it on reality. Between you and me, cynicism has long ago lost it's cuteness, even on Slashdot. (Although some haven't gotten the memo yet.)
Embrace, Extend Extinguish. What major software company has for decades taken that philosophy to heart, and continually tried to invoke it even when it didn't work anymore? Another question: What software company has for years (decades?) tried to hang onto the business paradigm that the majority of revenue should come from the high cost of regular OS upgrades, even when it was apparent that the rest of the industry were migrating to a different model?
Now, I'm the first to admit that it is LOGICAL for Microsoft to do as you said. It might even be their only chance of staying relevant. But this is Microsoft, under (this is important) the direction of Steve Ballmer, that we're talking about here.
I just don't see it. But tell you what, let's revisit this in a year, and if I'm wrong I will be glad to admit it in public. Anyone can be surprised, even me. But based on what I've seen up to now, I fully expect Microsoft to continually flog the same dead paradigm, until their arms are too tired to move the stick.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with the practicality of adopting the model you describe. What I think I'm getting at is that I don't believe Microsoft is capable of making such a sweeping change to the way they do business. In the past, the idea has been "pretend to adopt a new system, overwhelm it, and then channel it back to the way we've been doing business since 1990". I admit there is a possibility that they can actually make lasting change to their business paradigm, but it'd be an atypical thing.
I mean geeze, it takes less than 60 seconds to find three references that the "carjacker leaves leaflet on your back window" thing is a hoax, or that quote from Thomas Jefferson was four words taken out of context in a passage that means the exact opposite. But people whine "it's too hard to check and if it helps just one person it's worth hitting 'Share'". No, it really isn't. Snopes. Learn it, use it, live it.
Every once in awhile I post a picture of an open front door with "Hit 'Share' if you know what this is and how to use it". Yeap, you're right, I'm not terribly popular with some types of people.
I think there are people who are stressed, and people who cause stress. I'm proud to be one of the latter category. :-)
I hardly post anything to mine. In fact I don't think I've posted a status since I joined back in 2007.
However, I probably get more stressed reading other people's pages and comparing my boring life to them.
Once I start feeling bad I try to remind myself that I'm comparing my life lows to their highlight reel.
I'm willing to bet your life isn't *that* boring. At least five of my "friends" post photos of their meals, and one relative posted every title he rented on Netflix until I finally turned off his news feed. (He apparently watches a *lot* of TV...) How boring could your life be, in comparison to that?
Given the history of usenet negative and troll postings as a rule of thumb... its the lack of a dislike and a "fuck you" button that causes peoples frustration to build up inside... (no vent release)...
There is some truth to that. I guess my response would be, a well thought-out verbal poke in the right place might get a much more satisfying reaction than just punching a "you're a damned dirty troll" button.
I will note that the more "friends" you have, the more likely it is that whatever you write has a correspondingly increasing likelihood of offending *someone*. So why not just embrace it? Less stress. There, solved it for you.
Depends on the pricing structure going forward. If the cost remains reasonable over time, then sure. If they expect us to spend an hundred and a half for Pro every year, then no
It's, what, the fourth sentence of the summary?
"According to these insiders, Blue will roll out mid-2013, and will be very cheap — or possibly even free, to ensure that 'Windows Blue the next OS that everyone installs.'"
It's what, in my first and second sentences? "Going forward" and "over time". One update that *might* be free does not make a trend.