Wait, what? Oh, my dear fellow, are you in Uverse territory? Ok, yes, there may be things worse even than Comcast. Although I think ATT is easier to talk to.
No, sorry, It was Verizon here, until they sold off the fiber business a few years back to some local company, I think as part of a deal to become Comcast's favored wireless provider. I see that's worked out really well....
The full story was, started with dialup, went to ATT Cable Modem, ATT sold the business to Comcast, service was the worst I've ever experienced -- even worse than TCI Cable, which is saying something. So for a short time I went to Verizon DSL (something like 750 Kbits down at the time) then to Speakeasy at 1.5 Mbits for awhile, then Verizon strung fiber and I switched to that (5/2, or something like that?) then Verizon sold the business to Frontier. I now have the lowest tier at Frontier, 30/30 which is fine for anything practical. About once a month the Comcast salescreature comes by and tells us that the only chance of us keeping cable TV is to switch to them (at a low low introductory price) because Frontier is dumping television. Which I think is a flat out lie, but it doesn't really matter, because,...cm'ere for a moment... see that? On the roof. It's called an antenna. AnTenNa. It gets TV magically from the very air around us. (Not to mention netflix, and hulu... who really watches cable TV anymore?) Really, the guy was very rude. But you'd expect that, from Comcast.
I'm sorry, if Comcast was offering superfast wifi for almost nuthin', I'd still not take them up on it. Doing business with Comcast was such a horrible experience the first time, I can't see myself ever voluntarily buying anything from them again. The very idea makes my skin crawl. Back in the day, I went back to DSL to get away from them. (Later, the local phone company put in fiber, and I've been happily comcast-free ever since.)
In fairness, the general public doesn't change the oil in their vehicles. If you're lucky they'll pull into a lube station and pay someone else to do it, if it's not too expensive. Mostly, I suspect, cars don't get serviced until something goes wrong. Kinda like computers.
Disney has done some bad things recently (cough-H1B-cough) but I'm kinda glad they refused to pay. And I have a stronger urge to see this film in the theater, regardless of whether the criminals release it or not.
Sounds like he didn't try too hard to hide his identity, depending on the newspapers' integrity to maintain privacy. Maybe instead he should have taken at least some of the steps Anonymous does to keep their identity secret.
It's inevitable that the perps will go after him. Hopefully it'll only be electronic, not physical. He may never be able to own a computer or a credit card again.
The sad thing is that this will serve, at least in part, to discourage other private white hats from publishing their works.
> They just don't know they should do otherwise -- no one has bothered to explain it to them.
Or, their parents have explained it to them, like, a bazillion times, and they just roll their eyes and do whatever the hell they were going to do anyway.
When we first got wind of US spy agencies either discovering or planting exploits for spy purposes, we were told among other things that these exploits wouldn't escape into the wild because they were being kept under tight security.
I said at the time that these exploits will inevitably escape, because they were valuable, and it takes only one employee to trade them for money, and then they're in the wild.
I don't think I've ever worked at a company that had "automatic updates" turned on. The reason being, company ecosystems tend to be predominantly all the same hardware, same Windows version and same patch level, and a bug in an update that affects that particular collection of hardware and software can take an astounding number of seats offline. (In much the same way a biological virus can take out an entire species if they're not sufficiently genetically diverse.) So yeah, no. Companies that want to stay in business don't do that. Of course, they *do* have a team that tests updates in a lab and sends out validated updates to the rest of the company, often a subset of what Microsoft spews out.
I do something similar at home. We have three Winders boxes, and none of them have auto update turned on. Every week or so, I look at what updates are available, and apply at minimum the security updates to the least used of those three boxes. If it survives a reboot and some reasonable amount of smoke testing, I install on the game machine, and if that works out ok, after a day or two I'll install it on my own workstation. I have to take care because my machine is (a) my only conduit to my "day job", and (b) my main workstation for my side-business. I can't afford to be down because Microsoft botched a patch any more than any large company can.
So yeah, security updates are important. Vital, even. But that doesn't mean you just install every update the moment it becomes available. An important part of "security" is "availability". And that's just as important as "confidentiality" and "integrity".
Another contributor had it right -- there should be a way to auto install security updates only. So if Microsoft botched a driver update and it renders unbootable a certain brand of PC running a certain brand of video card, it's less likely to take large numbers of users offline.
I know there are essential and optional updates (or whatever words they use) but most updates are considered by Microsoft to be essential.
And this doesn't even address compatibility of updates with installed applications. You know, the software you use to actually do work.
All that said, it does seem like Microsoft is doing a better job vetting their patches before release than they did the earlier part of this century. But being burned a few times breeds caution.
You would probably have to directly plug your PC into your ISP's connection as opposed to using a router of which any decent model should block unsolicited incoming traffic by default.
I was somewhat shocked to find that some ISPs just install a cable modem and plug the victim's... sorry, customer's PC directly into the raw internet. Happened to my mother-in-law. Fortunately, she was on the phone to me when he was doing the install, because she didn't fully trust him, and was giving me a running description of what he was doing. When I heard that it was a modem not a router, (she had asked about wifi and he said she'd need to buy a router for that) I yelled "Unplug it! Unplug it now!" and drove over there with a spare router and did the rest of the install myself. I mean geeze, it's like some ISPs are in collusion with the ransomware people.
Back in the days of DSL, before cable modem or fiber were available in my area, I happily plugged my computer into the DSL modem, ran the included Verizon CD, and got pwned in the first half hour. Reformat, reinstall, try it again, and was pwned inside of 15 minutes. I thought at first that there was a virus on the CD. A little investigation led me to software firewalls... (what was it called, firedoor?) and later to hardware routers.
At what category? In the amount of built in spyware? At annoying its users with bland and unintuitive UI?
Spyware, point. Bland, also point. Apparently Aero was too CPU-intense for tablets. But what made it better than Windows 8 was that someone with Windows 7 and earlier experience could actually use Windows 10 without blowing their brains out. Yes, it was uninspired. Yes, some admin stuff was here and some was over there, where it used to be all in the same place. Yes, it still tried to do some touch-centric stuff entirely inappropriate in a KVM environment. Yes, the live icons in the start menu are really irritating and the first thing many people delete. (At least there *was* a start menu!) But people who just wanted to get their work done (where "their work" != "evaluate new operating systems") could, most of the time, do their work without fighting the operating system.
I was an early adopter of 8, because we had a laptop with a touch screen and 7 just doesn't do touch very well. (Laughingly bad, actually.) 8 was so frustrating that after a month or so we did a system restore back to 7. (We ended up giving the touchscreen laptop away and going with a Samsung Note, because Microsoft didn't get content creation on a touch screen, and there were tools that worked ok in Android. Microsoft is trying harder now, and Samsung seems to be abandoning content creation, so maybe it's time to switch back.)
So when 10 came out, I was planning to skip it and see what they came out with afterwards. But the free upgrade to 10 was a strong motivator, so I upgraded an older PC... and it was ok. Not great, ugly interface, but I could work. (And really, the eye candy of Aero doesn't help me work any faster.) So after careful tests, I bit the bullet and upgraded my main workstation. And it's been ok. I still think the GUI design of 7 is superior. But I can work with 10, whereas, I couldn't with 8.
I still hesitate to call 10 an "upgrade" over 7, but the good news is, they haven't wrecked it so bad as to make it unusable. The Adobe suite only works on Winders and Mac, and at least this year, I don't have to hemorrhage money and switch to Apple. And become acquainted with the eccentricities of *that* platform.
So yeah, "one single good news about that damned OS" is that it doesn't quite cross over the line to unusability. At this point in time, I'll take that.
I think it's already happening. There's already people running apps in a sandbox inside a virtual container that's running inside another sandbox running on a vmware server instance. They're talking about an app that'll magically set all of that up. I wonder if we'll see bugs that cause infinite recursion, like two mirrors reflecting each other.
...that's like Deja-Vu, but what you're remembering was getting kicked in the head some time ago.
...I remember an IBM salescreature, telling me sometime in the nineties about an upcoming operating system that would run AIX or MacOS binaries, interchangably, on either the RS6000 or Mac platform. And they weren't even talking (at the time) about running on different architectures.
On the other hand, virtualization has made giant strides since then, and Microsoft has needed for some time a viable presence in the ARM arena. There was WinCE, (pronounced "wince") and Surface RT, (motto: good luck finding apps) and now there's Win10 Arm (or whatever they're calling it). Hopefully it'll be more successful than the first two. But I can't read "it'll run this, it'll run that, it'll run everything! isn't that exciting!" without thinking of that IBM guy all those years ago.
It depends on what kind of work you do, or who your circle of friends are. I do photography as a sideline, and no matter my personal feelings about Facebook, it's undeniably a way to keep in touch with my customers, share content, and promote my work. I wish it wasn't, but that's just the way things are.
Speaking of which... I have a friend who adamantly refused to sign up for Facebook, and his solution was to only choose friends who were accessible by ways other than Facebook, so he could maintain that he didn't need Facebook (pretty much by definition).
And then... and THEN... years later, he confesses that he's been on Facebook all along under a pseudonym (not in my friends list) and when he finally friends me... I find that he's doing all the facebook-centric stuff he had been complaining about all along. He posts pictures of his meals. He forwards memes. He "likes" other posts. (At least, he doesn't play Facebook games as far as I know.) And that's about it. No original content. (Unless you count a picture of breakfast as original content.)
Now, I started Facebook early enough that I could get a custom URL that was just my name, mostly out of curiosity. I rapidly got tired of all the crap (Farmville!!!) and nearly quit, until I learned that you could fix most of them. Facebook lets you turn off game notifications. You *must* do that, or you're going to get frustrated very quickly. Plugins like Social Fixer will filter out most of the other crap. And then, you're at the mercy only of the people in your friends list. So, make sure you pick decent friends. (Actually, you can still stay "friends" with someone and not have them in your news feed.)
And (this is the important point)... see... I was there when email was only for the military, some universities, and military contractors. I was there when Cantor and Siegel happened. I've had access to the internet since before Algore invented it. And as soon as it went commercial, we all had to learn how to filter our access to it, including really intricate email filters.
Facebook is the same. It's an open pipe that gains access to a little helpful information and a lot of sewage, just like email. Just like most of the raw internet. And with Facebook, you have to protect your identity, your name and your sanity in much the same ways as you do with those other resources. It's not rocket surgery.
The great majority of my posts (probably over 90%) are original content. My own photos (of which virtually none are food), and my own writings and opinions. (Why bother forwarding a meme when you can just state what your opinion is and why you feel like that?) I amuse myself busting hoaxes that others in my "friends" list have fallen for. This has cost me a few "friends", but the rest have learned (most of the time) to google a meme or "contest" or "type amen" before reposting, because they know I'll jump on it if it's a hoax.
Facebook is just another conduit. How valuable it is to you depends entirely on what you do with it. Just like any other interaction with the internet.
Today on the family channel, the heartwarming story of a call center operator who engineers a complicated scam and then rats out the relative who helped him. Brought to you by your friends at Hallmark. Don't forget mother's day!
... every time I visit a facebook page... I don't want to f'ing sign up for your sh***y site...
Than why do you visit it so often? I know it's geek or leet or whatever to say you hate Facebook, but own up to it, you're there every day because those are the only "friends" you have.
Because everyone in the world is on Facebook. Subject specific forums have become passe, and Usenet has long since become a vast echo chamber containing mostly Pr0n and a few old timers like, well, me. Last weekend I very reluctantly signed up for the Facebook version of rec.motorcycles.harley, because (it took me a long time to admit to myself) there was nobody there but me and the bot that posts the "how to post to RMH" weekly messages. Now that I write that, it seems like I need a life.
My daughter tells me that Instagram made Facebook obsolete. And Snapchat is making Instagram obsolete. I'm thinking blipverts will be next.
> Facebook defines a "low-quality site" as one "containing little substantive content, and that is covered in disruptive, shocking or malicious ads."
The snarky side of me wants to say "Yeah, like most of the internet". But at very least, like a substantial amount of the Yahoo front page. (I hate listies and will not click on anything that looks like one no matter how interesting or provocative the title.) It annoys me that I can't scan for headlines on the Yahoo front page without discarding half of them in the categories of "they couldn't believe what happened next" (under a photo of a half naked girl) or "the ten ugliest squirrels -- number 7 will make you lose your lunch". Or the latest one -- "this 'white oil' will put oil companies out of business". It's LITHIUM, people! Lithium! For batteries. Get it? Oh dear, I spoiled the surprise.
Does anyone remember when the Seattle PI newspaper website was just swarming with full page popup ads and floating popovers and ads with animation and sound? The site had a tool where you could create your own survey.... and someone created a survey asking readers how much the site resembled a Pr0n site. (a) Not that much, (b) Somewhat (c) Enough to be really annoying (d) I'm expecting to meet LiveJasmine at any moment. They eventually toned down the ads. I wonder if it's because other sites were flagging Seattle PI as a "low quality site"?
I thought all the AV companies actually also created the need for AV programs!
Isn't that where most malware comes from?!
I'd like to think not, but I guess it's a possibility. Sometimes the constant nagging by my antivirus product to buy more expensive coverage (which is impossible to turn off) feels like malware. Especially when I'm doing work (like editing photos) that takes up the entire screen, and the AV ad pops up over the control sliders. It's enough to make one consider keeping the AV turned off and the network cable unplugged while doing serious work.
Then there was the hilarious but almost certainly untrue rumor that Microsoft had created an API specifically for malware developers.
Slashdot Mirror
do you actually think that ATT is better?
Wait, what? Oh, my dear fellow, are you in Uverse territory? Ok, yes, there may be things worse even than Comcast. Although I think ATT is easier to talk to.
No, sorry, It was Verizon here, until they sold off the fiber business a few years back to some local company, I think as part of a deal to become Comcast's favored wireless provider. I see that's worked out really well....
The full story was, started with dialup, went to ATT Cable Modem, ATT sold the business to Comcast, service was the worst I've ever experienced -- even worse than TCI Cable, which is saying something. So for a short time I went to Verizon DSL (something like 750 Kbits down at the time) then to Speakeasy at 1.5 Mbits for awhile, then Verizon strung fiber and I switched to that (5/2, or something like that?) then Verizon sold the business to Frontier. I now have the lowest tier at Frontier, 30/30 which is fine for anything practical. About once a month the Comcast salescreature comes by and tells us that the only chance of us keeping cable TV is to switch to them (at a low low introductory price) because Frontier is dumping television. Which I think is a flat out lie, but it doesn't really matter, because, ...cm'ere for a moment ... see that? On the roof. It's called an antenna. AnTenNa. It gets TV magically from the very air around us. (Not to mention netflix, and hulu... who really watches cable TV anymore?) Really, the guy was very rude. But you'd expect that, from Comcast.
I'm sorry, if Comcast was offering superfast wifi for almost nuthin', I'd still not take them up on it. Doing business with Comcast was such a horrible experience the first time, I can't see myself ever voluntarily buying anything from them again. The very idea makes my skin crawl. Back in the day, I went back to DSL to get away from them. (Later, the local phone company put in fiber, and I've been happily comcast-free ever since.)
In fairness, the general public doesn't change the oil in their vehicles. If you're lucky they'll pull into a lube station and pay someone else to do it, if it's not too expensive. Mostly, I suspect, cars don't get serviced until something goes wrong. Kinda like computers.
Disney has done some bad things recently (cough-H1B-cough) but I'm kinda glad they refused to pay. And I have a stronger urge to see this film in the theater, regardless of whether the criminals release it or not.
Sounds like he didn't try too hard to hide his identity, depending on the newspapers' integrity to maintain privacy. Maybe instead he should have taken at least some of the steps Anonymous does to keep their identity secret.
It's inevitable that the perps will go after him. Hopefully it'll only be electronic, not physical. He may never be able to own a computer or a credit card again.
The sad thing is that this will serve, at least in part, to discourage other private white hats from publishing their works.
> They just don't know they should do otherwise -- no one has bothered to explain it to them.
Or, their parents have explained it to them, like, a bazillion times, and they just roll their eyes and do whatever the hell they were going to do anyway.
When we first got wind of US spy agencies either discovering or planting exploits for spy purposes, we were told among other things that these exploits wouldn't escape into the wild because they were being kept under tight security.
I said at the time that these exploits will inevitably escape, because they were valuable, and it takes only one employee to trade them for money, and then they're in the wild.
And so, here we are.
I don't think I've ever worked at a company that had "automatic updates" turned on. The reason being, company ecosystems tend to be predominantly all the same hardware, same Windows version and same patch level, and a bug in an update that affects that particular collection of hardware and software can take an astounding number of seats offline. (In much the same way a biological virus can take out an entire species if they're not sufficiently genetically diverse.) So yeah, no. Companies that want to stay in business don't do that. Of course, they *do* have a team that tests updates in a lab and sends out validated updates to the rest of the company, often a subset of what Microsoft spews out.
I do something similar at home. We have three Winders boxes, and none of them have auto update turned on. Every week or so, I look at what updates are available, and apply at minimum the security updates to the least used of those three boxes. If it survives a reboot and some reasonable amount of smoke testing, I install on the game machine, and if that works out ok, after a day or two I'll install it on my own workstation. I have to take care because my machine is (a) my only conduit to my "day job", and (b) my main workstation for my side-business. I can't afford to be down because Microsoft botched a patch any more than any large company can.
So yeah, security updates are important. Vital, even. But that doesn't mean you just install every update the moment it becomes available. An important part of "security" is "availability". And that's just as important as "confidentiality" and "integrity".
Another contributor had it right -- there should be a way to auto install security updates only. So if Microsoft botched a driver update and it renders unbootable a certain brand of PC running a certain brand of video card, it's less likely to take large numbers of users offline.
I know there are essential and optional updates (or whatever words they use) but most updates are considered by Microsoft to be essential.
And this doesn't even address compatibility of updates with installed applications. You know, the software you use to actually do work.
All that said, it does seem like Microsoft is doing a better job vetting their patches before release than they did the earlier part of this century. But being burned a few times breeds caution.
You would probably have to directly plug your PC into your ISP's connection as opposed to using a router of which any decent model should block unsolicited incoming traffic by default.
I was somewhat shocked to find that some ISPs just install a cable modem and plug the victim's... sorry, customer's PC directly into the raw internet. Happened to my mother-in-law. Fortunately, she was on the phone to me when he was doing the install, because she didn't fully trust him, and was giving me a running description of what he was doing. When I heard that it was a modem not a router, (she had asked about wifi and he said she'd need to buy a router for that) I yelled "Unplug it! Unplug it now!" and drove over there with a spare router and did the rest of the install myself. I mean geeze, it's like some ISPs are in collusion with the ransomware people.
Back in the days of DSL, before cable modem or fiber were available in my area, I happily plugged my computer into the DSL modem, ran the included Verizon CD, and got pwned in the first half hour. Reformat, reinstall, try it again, and was pwned inside of 15 minutes. I thought at first that there was a virus on the CD. A little investigation led me to software firewalls... (what was it called, firedoor?) and later to hardware routers.
But, I'm a geek. What do regular people do?
At what category? In the amount of built in spyware? At annoying its users with bland and unintuitive UI?
Spyware, point. Bland, also point. Apparently Aero was too CPU-intense for tablets. But what made it better than Windows 8 was that someone with Windows 7 and earlier experience could actually use Windows 10 without blowing their brains out. Yes, it was uninspired. Yes, some admin stuff was here and some was over there, where it used to be all in the same place. Yes, it still tried to do some touch-centric stuff entirely inappropriate in a KVM environment. Yes, the live icons in the start menu are really irritating and the first thing many people delete. (At least there *was* a start menu!) But people who just wanted to get their work done (where "their work" != "evaluate new operating systems") could, most of the time, do their work without fighting the operating system.
I was an early adopter of 8, because we had a laptop with a touch screen and 7 just doesn't do touch very well. (Laughingly bad, actually.) 8 was so frustrating that after a month or so we did a system restore back to 7. (We ended up giving the touchscreen laptop away and going with a Samsung Note, because Microsoft didn't get content creation on a touch screen, and there were tools that worked ok in Android. Microsoft is trying harder now, and Samsung seems to be abandoning content creation, so maybe it's time to switch back.)
So when 10 came out, I was planning to skip it and see what they came out with afterwards. But the free upgrade to 10 was a strong motivator, so I upgraded an older PC ... and it was ok. Not great, ugly interface, but I could work. (And really, the eye candy of Aero doesn't help me work any faster.) So after careful tests, I bit the bullet and upgraded my main workstation. And it's been ok. I still think the GUI design of 7 is superior. But I can work with 10, whereas, I couldn't with 8.
I still hesitate to call 10 an "upgrade" over 7, but the good news is, they haven't wrecked it so bad as to make it unusable. The Adobe suite only works on Winders and Mac, and at least this year, I don't have to hemorrhage money and switch to Apple. And become acquainted with the eccentricities of *that* platform.
So yeah, "one single good news about that damned OS" is that it doesn't quite cross over the line to unusability. At this point in time, I'll take that.
I think it's already happening. There's already people running apps in a sandbox inside a virtual container that's running inside another sandbox running on a vmware server instance. They're talking about an app that'll magically set all of that up. I wonder if we'll see bugs that cause infinite recursion, like two mirrors reflecting each other.
Aero is baaaaaaackkk
On the other hand, virtualization has made giant strides since then, and Microsoft has needed for some time a viable presence in the ARM arena. There was WinCE, (pronounced "wince") and Surface RT, (motto: good luck finding apps) and now there's Win10 Arm (or whatever they're calling it). Hopefully it'll be more successful than the first two. But I can't read "it'll run this, it'll run that, it'll run everything! isn't that exciting!" without thinking of that IBM guy all those years ago.
Ok, here. Read one single good news about that damned OS:
It's better than Windows 8.
It depends on what kind of work you do, or who your circle of friends are. I do photography as a sideline, and no matter my personal feelings about Facebook, it's undeniably a way to keep in touch with my customers, share content, and promote my work. I wish it wasn't, but that's just the way things are.
Speaking of which... I have a friend who adamantly refused to sign up for Facebook, and his solution was to only choose friends who were accessible by ways other than Facebook, so he could maintain that he didn't need Facebook (pretty much by definition).
And then... and THEN... years later, he confesses that he's been on Facebook all along under a pseudonym (not in my friends list) and when he finally friends me... I find that he's doing all the facebook-centric stuff he had been complaining about all along. He posts pictures of his meals. He forwards memes. He "likes" other posts. (At least, he doesn't play Facebook games as far as I know.) And that's about it. No original content. (Unless you count a picture of breakfast as original content.)
Now, I started Facebook early enough that I could get a custom URL that was just my name, mostly out of curiosity. I rapidly got tired of all the crap (Farmville!!!) and nearly quit, until I learned that you could fix most of them. Facebook lets you turn off game notifications. You *must* do that, or you're going to get frustrated very quickly. Plugins like Social Fixer will filter out most of the other crap. And then, you're at the mercy only of the people in your friends list. So, make sure you pick decent friends. (Actually, you can still stay "friends" with someone and not have them in your news feed.)
And (this is the important point)... see... I was there when email was only for the military, some universities, and military contractors. I was there when Cantor and Siegel happened. I've had access to the internet since before Algore invented it. And as soon as it went commercial, we all had to learn how to filter our access to it, including really intricate email filters.
Facebook is the same. It's an open pipe that gains access to a little helpful information and a lot of sewage, just like email. Just like most of the raw internet. And with Facebook, you have to protect your identity, your name and your sanity in much the same ways as you do with those other resources. It's not rocket surgery.
The great majority of my posts (probably over 90%) are original content. My own photos (of which virtually none are food), and my own writings and opinions. (Why bother forwarding a meme when you can just state what your opinion is and why you feel like that?) I amuse myself busting hoaxes that others in my "friends" list have fallen for. This has cost me a few "friends", but the rest have learned (most of the time) to google a meme or "contest" or "type amen" before reposting, because they know I'll jump on it if it's a hoax.
Facebook is just another conduit. How valuable it is to you depends entirely on what you do with it. Just like any other interaction with the internet.
What, seriously? Well crap you got me. My secret is out. I haven't watched regular TV in years.
Today on the family channel, the heartwarming story of a call center operator who engineers a complicated scam and then rats out the relative who helped him. Brought to you by your friends at Hallmark. Don't forget mother's day!
> I don't have time to remove twenty ads with close boxes that decide close X means link to site.
A personal white hot hate of mine.
That's because links to crappy sites smothered in ads are a major source of revenue for them.
It is their only source of revenue.
I thought selling personal user info was a big part of their revenue stream.
... every time I visit a facebook page ... I don't want to f'ing sign up for your sh***y site...
Than why do you visit it so often? I know it's geek or leet or whatever to say you hate Facebook, but own up to it, you're there every day because those are the only "friends" you have.
Because everyone in the world is on Facebook. Subject specific forums have become passe, and Usenet has long since become a vast echo chamber containing mostly Pr0n and a few old timers like, well, me. Last weekend I very reluctantly signed up for the Facebook version of rec.motorcycles.harley, because (it took me a long time to admit to myself) there was nobody there but me and the bot that posts the "how to post to RMH" weekly messages. Now that I write that, it seems like I need a life.
My daughter tells me that Instagram made Facebook obsolete. And Snapchat is making Instagram obsolete. I'm thinking blipverts will be next.
> Facebook defines a "low-quality site" as one "containing little substantive content, and that is covered in disruptive, shocking or malicious ads."
The snarky side of me wants to say "Yeah, like most of the internet". But at very least, like a substantial amount of the Yahoo front page. (I hate listies and will not click on anything that looks like one no matter how interesting or provocative the title.) It annoys me that I can't scan for headlines on the Yahoo front page without discarding half of them in the categories of "they couldn't believe what happened next" (under a photo of a half naked girl) or "the ten ugliest squirrels -- number 7 will make you lose your lunch". Or the latest one -- "this 'white oil' will put oil companies out of business". It's LITHIUM, people! Lithium! For batteries. Get it? Oh dear, I spoiled the surprise.
Does anyone remember when the Seattle PI newspaper website was just swarming with full page popup ads and floating popovers and ads with animation and sound? The site had a tool where you could create your own survey.... and someone created a survey asking readers how much the site resembled a Pr0n site. (a) Not that much, (b) Somewhat (c) Enough to be really annoying (d) I'm expecting to meet LiveJasmine at any moment. They eventually toned down the ads. I wonder if it's because other sites were flagging Seattle PI as a "low quality site"?
Ummm. Duh! Yeah!
I thought all the AV companies actually also created the need for AV programs!
Isn't that where most malware comes from?!
I'd like to think not, but I guess it's a possibility. Sometimes the constant nagging by my antivirus product to buy more expensive coverage (which is impossible to turn off) feels like malware. Especially when I'm doing work (like editing photos) that takes up the entire screen, and the AV ad pops up over the control sliders. It's enough to make one consider keeping the AV turned off and the network cable unplugged while doing serious work.
Then there was the hilarious but almost certainly untrue rumor that Microsoft had created an API specifically for malware developers.
You win.
The joke's on us -- the chips come from China.