That is just totally evil. And really should not be done if you're an Admin at work.
But it's still funny.
It reminds me of when I was back in college. We used the old Acorn Archimedes comptuers there, and a friend of mine wrote tis neat little app called "Beep". It randomly played bleeps of varying tones in a quiet "bubbling" sound, hardly audible until you moved the mouse or used the keyboard.
So, of course, I loaded it onto a handful of machines at one go. And a girl came in to do some work, sat at a computer, and suddenly it started bleeping at her all worryingly. So she moved to another one. And, predictably, it was another one I'd tampered with. She gave up and left the room, I was in a fit of giggles.
Of course, were I do do the same at work now i'd probably get fired(and rightly so). But everyone has to try something like this at least ocne in their life. (Just try to make it where it's not important, in bad taste, or liekly to get you fired)
True, I think that hoaxing your users is probably a bad thing. Fun, true, but bad.
Unless you are (somehow) using it to legitimately explain insecure habits to your Users.
But hoaxing the Admin? No way!
If nor no other reason that we can hoax back better. And "bad thing" or not, remember turnabout is fair play.
(That, and most IT Guys can probably cover their tracks better than the Users.)
If you brits didn't have such little dicks, there wouldn't be a market for such products, and hence, no spam.:)
Hey. Speaking as a Brit I'm quite content with my "size". So why I want anyone telling me to pay them to make by penis bigger is just a mystery.
Seriously, though, it's interesting that in the UK they're finding most of their spam coming from the USA. Here in the USA, I hear most of our spam comes from overseas
Most of mine certianly comes from the US. Or, at the very least, comes on behalf of US companies.
I don't see quite so much Asian-based spam these days.
Then again, this could be due to a combination of my mailhost using Spamassassin, and my mail-client auto-moving anything from @yahoo.com.tw to the trash folder.
Non-geeks should be a non-issue.
This isn't always the case though.
I've certainly come across places where they've needed to make sure that the comptuer labs are useable as general-purpiose computer rooms as well as specialist labs.
"An anonymous source states that..." never seems to get taken seriously though. Contributing to a paper about security problems in Microsoft software without signing your name to it will just get you ignored. People would assume you're a "Linux Geek" or a "Slashdotter" (or whoever is known, at any given time, to be anti-Microsoft).
By stating his name, and stating his position with a security-centred company, it increases his likelihood of people believing that he knows what he's tlaking about.
Yes, @Stake were probably well within their legal rights to fire him. But I don't think they've through carefully about the ramifications. People now [a] are starting to think they are a little heavy-handed/unfair, and [b] think that maybe this guy got fired for being "Brave enough to state the truth as he sees it".
Neither of which are really going to help decrease the credibility of the report. And both of which just add up to negative publicity for both themselves and MS.
If your company has a financial stake in the success of X and you take deliberate action to reduce the success of X (in this case, making a public warning that the success itself results in harm to the public at large), then yes.
On the one hand, this is understandable. And from business sense it does make perfect sense.
However...
Think of the world's media of being like a giant/. site, and papers like this being like/. articles or comments.
If you make a statement saying that [foo] is or isn't good, who are you going to take most notice of?
Someone who signs their name?
Someone who states their profession as proving that they know what they're talking about?
An AC?
It's just a whole other damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario.
State your name and profession, get fired. Stay anonymous, get ignored/flamed.
Either way, you're better off never making your opinions known.
Somehow I don't think that's supposed to be a good thing.
Microsft is supervising the subscriber channels - but not the free channels. They are (or were) after all, free. Employing people to supervise channels costs money, and obviously cannot be done on channels that people aren't paying for. Paid subscribers are also traceable - if someone misbehaves, you've got their real name and address. They can't hide these from you if they paid by credit card.
Much as I'm usually anti-Microsoft, and much as I'm suspicious about the timing of all this, I have to admit that Microsoft are cuaght between a rock and a hard place here.
If they do nothing, they'll be accused of helping protect paedophiles. And as soon as something really bad goes down on one of their free chatrooms, someone will sure their ass.
But anything they can do is going to cost money, and the easiest way to keep tabs on a person's name and address is to have their CC details (or similar "official" billing details) on record.
And, unfortunately for MS, a lot of geeks, techies,/.ers, and even non-technical types are going to be suspiscious of any high-profile company making people pay to "increase safety".
Now that doesn't mean I support or agree with how they're handing the situation. But I do acknowledge that there is a chance that they honestly believe they're doing the right thing for the right reasons.
What about parental responsibility? Do you allow you children to watch anything on TV when it can include extreme violence and things like that? Why is the Internet different?
It isn't. The problem is that people do let their kids watch anything, and then bitch like craxy at the TV Execs when "Little Johnny" sees something that they (the parents, not the kids) don't like.
"Here in the UK there is a lengthy screening process for anyone who work with children" (emphasis mine)
No shit, sherlock. I applied for Disclosure last May. It took about 6 months or more for them to finally get my paperwork dealt with.
Even worse, it took about 4 months for them to return my form saying "You filled this bit in wrong".
And it wasn't until the Soham murders that the CRB even admitted that they had a backlog - when by then I'd already been waiting for more than the "3 weeks" it was supposed to take.
And the upshot of this?
The backlog was still in full swing by September, and many schools were unable to run full classes because new staff didn't have clearance, and eventually the Government had to say that new teachers could start without the full Disclosure.
And all it's really done is tick off people who loathe forms, or who hate being "guilty until proven innocent".
I'd like to see them try to stop access to IRC. I simply don't think there's a way of them being able to do that.
Even if they got all ISPs to start blocking the standard 666x range of ports, servers would just open using different ports. The real problem would be that most of these other-port servers would be the predominately "pr0n & wareZ" channels.
Ah yes. The wonders of the "Paulsgrove Estate" incidents.
And it's reactions like that that make people too scared to ever offer help to a kid, on the worry that anyone watching yould think you're up to no good.
The problem is that a lot of consumers don't know that they don't want DRM. A lot of consumers will be sucked in my the marketing. Heck, even the people who WOULD think it's a good idea probably don't have enough information on it to make an informed decision,
But maybe that's the point. They don't want us to make informed decisions. They push the technology, and as long as they can stay even just one step ahead of the latest cracks, then they can steer the industry their way bit by bit.
After all, CCS and Region Coding in DVDs weren't wanted by any consumers, but the fact that the "Big Companies" have put such a force behind it that the next step (DRM) isn't too far away.
"Comments such as 'this will be cracked'" "You don't want to be called a thief for running Linux? You don't want to be known as some script-kiddie hacker for using OSS? Well here is a good hint...stop advocating cracking and stealing music and software."
But you're missing the point. Or, at least, you're missing a point.
OK. So I'll be legal and ethical, and never work out how to crack "copy-proof" CDs, or bypass DRM technology. That makes you (and the Industry) happy.
I also won't be buying any music. Or DVDs. or anything like that. 'Cos their "protected" technology means that it won't be able to play on my choice of equipment. So if it won't play on what I use, and I don't use a crack, then I'll just save my money and spend it elsewhere.
And this has already happened. The Wildhearts have a new album out. I won't buy it. 'Cos I won't be able to rip it to my PC, or burn it onto a CDR. Nothing to do with copying, this is how I listen to music I've bought.
I'm also not going to pirate it. So I won't be "stealing" any of the Record Company's profits. I just won't be adding to them, either.
But it's still down to thatr, and cases like it, that we now get such important information on packaging. Such as "Warning, contents may be hot" on something bought as hot food, or "Warning, may contain nuts" on a packet of peanuts.
It's still indicative of the American (and now British, too...) knee-jerk "compensation culture" that is becoming evermore prevalent. And the McDonalds case could be (and probably has been/will be) used as a precedent when something happens to a much lesser scale.
But I do "like all kinds of music". That doesn't however, mean I actually like all examples of all kinds. And it sure as ehck doesn't mean I'm a slave to advertising. It just means I have rock, rap, pop and classical in my CD rack.
I mainly like rock music and some dance tracks these days. But that doesn't stop me from recognising that some of them are total trash.
But I also like some things from all genres. but I also can't (on the whole) can't stand mass-marketed "pop", and more often than not I tend to ignore the advertising.
If (big if...) I buy a Britney Spears CD, it'll be because I genuinely enjoy the music on the disc. If I don't like the music, then even a multi-million advertising campaign won't persuade me to part with my cash.
Just wanted to point out that "I like all kinds of music" doesn't necessarily come from people who'll follow the adverts like sheep.
Slashdot Mirror
Not really. The guy did say he wanted "harmless" jokes.
That is just totally evil. And really should not be done if you're an Admin at work.
But it's still funny.
It reminds me of when I was back in college. We used the old Acorn Archimedes comptuers there, and a friend of mine wrote tis neat little app called "Beep". It randomly played bleeps of varying tones in a quiet "bubbling" sound, hardly audible until you moved the mouse or used the keyboard.
So, of course, I loaded it onto a handful of machines at one go. And a girl came in to do some work, sat at a computer, and suddenly it started bleeping at her all worryingly. So she moved to another one. And, predictably, it was another one I'd tampered with. She gave up and left the room, I was in a fit of giggles.
Of course, were I do do the same at work now i'd probably get fired(and rightly so). But everyone has to try something like this at least ocne in their life. (Just try to make it where it's not important, in bad taste, or liekly to get you fired)
Tiggs
Speaking as an "IT Guy" - bugger that!.
True, I think that hoaxing your users is probably a bad thing. Fun, true, but bad.
Unless you are (somehow) using it to legitimately explain insecure habits to your Users.
But hoaxing the Admin? No way!
If nor no other reason that we can hoax back better. And "bad thing" or not, remember turnabout is fair play.
(That, and most IT Guys can probably cover their tracks better than the Users.)
Sounds like a standard error log to me. ;)
Hey. Speaking as a Brit I'm quite content with my "size". So why I want anyone telling me to pay them to make by penis bigger is just a mystery.
Most of mine certianly comes from the US. Or, at the very least, comes on behalf of US companies.
I don't see quite so much Asian-based spam these days.
Then again, this could be due to a combination of my mailhost using Spamassassin, and my mail-client auto-moving anything from @yahoo.com.tw to the trash folder.
Non-geeks should be a non-issue.
This isn't always the case though.
I've certainly come across places where they've needed to make sure that the comptuer labs are useable as general-purpiose computer rooms as well as specialist labs.
Tiggs"An anonymous source states that..." never seems to get taken seriously though. Contributing to a paper about security problems in Microsoft software without signing your name to it will just get you ignored. People would assume you're a "Linux Geek" or a "Slashdotter" (or whoever is known, at any given time, to be anti-Microsoft).
By stating his name, and stating his position with a security-centred company, it increases his likelihood of people believing that he knows what he's tlaking about.
Yes, @Stake were probably well within their legal rights to fire him. But I don't think they've through carefully about the ramifications.
People now [a] are starting to think they are a little heavy-handed/unfair, and [b] think that maybe this guy got fired for being "Brave enough to state the truth as he sees it".
Neither of which are really going to help decrease the credibility of the report. And both of which just add up to negative publicity for both themselves and MS.
On the one hand, this is understandable. And from business sense it does make perfect sense.
However... /. site, and papers like this being like /. articles or comments.
Think of the world's media of being like a giant
If you make a statement saying that [foo] is or isn't good, who are you going to take most notice of?
It's just a whole other damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario.
State your name and profession, get fired. Stay anonymous, get ignored/flamed.
Either way, you're better off never making your opinions known.
Somehow I don't think that's supposed to be a good thing.
Well, it sure as hell ain't an ETLA!
Well, a lot of people are actually saying that it's a good thing because is puts RIAA on one side, and EULAs on the other.
Whatever the eventual outcome, a precedent will be set against one of the two.
And the same could be said about copyrights/patents.
Much as I'm usually anti-Microsoft, and much as I'm suspicious about the timing of all this, I have to admit that Microsoft are cuaght between a rock and a hard place here.
If they do nothing, they'll be accused of helping protect paedophiles. And as soon as something really bad goes down on one of their free chatrooms, someone will sure their ass.
But anything they can do is going to cost money, and the easiest way to keep tabs on a person's name and address is to have their CC details (or similar "official" billing details) on record.
And, unfortunately for MS, a lot of geeks, techies, /.ers, and even non-technical types are going to be suspiscious of any high-profile company making people pay to "increase safety".
Now that doesn't mean I support or agree with how they're handing the situation. But I do acknowledge that there is a chance that they honestly believe they're doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Tiggs
Has their ever been an attempt to make an Access/compatible OS database?
Or does everyone who writes OS databases just think Access sucks?
It isn't. The problem is that people do let their kids watch anything, and then bitch like craxy at the TV Execs when "Little Johnny" sees something that they (the parents, not the kids) don't like.
There is that, but how they could prove that me nattering about the day's radio shows with a group of friends was really potentially harmful.
As soon as they say "using X-type software is illegal" they get onto very shaky ground.
"Here in the UK there is a lengthy screening process for anyone who work with children"
(emphasis mine)
No shit, sherlock. I applied for Disclosure last May. It took about 6 months or more for them to finally get my paperwork dealt with.
Even worse, it took about 4 months for them to return my form saying "You filled this bit in wrong".
And it wasn't until the Soham murders that the CRB even admitted that they had a backlog - when by then I'd already been waiting for more than the "3 weeks" it was supposed to take.
And the upshot of this?
The backlog was still in full swing by September, and many schools were unable to run full classes because new staff didn't have clearance, and eventually the Government had to say that new teachers could start without the full Disclosure.
And all it's really done is tick off people who loathe forms, or who hate being "guilty until proven innocent".
I'd like to see them try to stop access to IRC. I simply don't think there's a way of them being able to do that.
Even if they got all ISPs to start blocking the standard 666x range of ports, servers would just open using different ports.
The real problem would be that most of these other-port servers would be the predominately "pr0n & wareZ" channels.
At least one thing you have to acknowledge. They're admitting that part of the decision is business-oriented.
At least, for once, they're being open about it.
Ah yes. The wonders of the "Paulsgrove Estate" incidents.
And it's reactions like that that make people too scared to ever offer help to a kid, on the worry that anyone watching yould think you're up to no good.
Damn! There goes my unique IRC characteristic. :-/
The problem is that a lot of consumers don't know that they don't want DRM. A lot of consumers will be sucked in my the marketing. Heck, even the people who WOULD think it's a good idea probably don't have enough information on it to make an informed decision,
But maybe that's the point. They don't want us to make informed decisions. They push the technology, and as long as they can stay even just one step ahead of the latest cracks, then they can steer the industry their way bit by bit.
After all, CCS and Region Coding in DVDs weren't wanted by any consumers, but the fact that the "Big Companies" have put such a force behind it that the next step (DRM) isn't too far away.
"Comments such as 'this will be cracked'"
"You don't want to be called a thief for running Linux? You don't want to be known as some script-kiddie hacker for using OSS? Well here is a good hint...stop advocating cracking and stealing music and software."
But you're missing the point. Or, at least, you're missing a point.
OK. So I'll be legal and ethical, and never work out how to crack "copy-proof" CDs, or bypass DRM technology. That makes you (and the Industry) happy.
I also won't be buying any music. Or DVDs. or anything like that. 'Cos their "protected" technology means that it won't be able to play on my choice of equipment. So if it won't play on what I use, and I don't use a crack, then I'll just save my money and spend it elsewhere.
And this has already happened. The Wildhearts have a new album out. I won't buy it. 'Cos I won't be able to rip it to my PC, or burn it onto a CDR. Nothing to do with copying, this is how I listen to music I've bought.
I'm also not going to pirate it. So I won't be "stealing" any of the Record Company's profits. I just won't be adding to them, either.
But it's still down to thatr, and cases like it, that we now get such important information on packaging. Such as "Warning, contents may be hot" on something bought as hot food, or "Warning, may contain nuts" on a packet of peanuts.
It's still indicative of the American (and now British, too...) knee-jerk "compensation culture" that is becoming evermore prevalent. And the McDonalds case could be (and probably has been/will be) used as a precedent when something happens to a much lesser scale.
tools that could help virus writers? like, what? c++? visual basic? or, more realistically, nessus?
Or, to take it to an extreme, Notepad/vi/emacs.
After all, the most basic tool required for writing a virus (or any piece of code) is your bog-standard Text Editor.
But I do "like all kinds of music". That doesn't however, mean I actually like all examples of all kinds. And it sure as ehck doesn't mean I'm a slave to advertising. It just means I have rock, rap, pop and classical in my CD rack.
I mainly like rock music and some dance tracks these days. But that doesn't stop me from recognising that some of them are total trash. But I also like some things from all genres. but I also can't (on the whole) can't stand mass-marketed "pop", and more often than not I tend to ignore the advertising.
If (big if...) I buy a Britney Spears CD, it'll be because I genuinely enjoy the music on the disc. If I don't like the music, then even a multi-million advertising campaign won't persuade me to part with my cash.
Just wanted to point out that "I like all kinds of music" doesn't necessarily come from people who'll follow the adverts like sheep.