It is the same as with XPSP1 that would not install on pirated versions. It just contained a blacklist of installation keys. Changing your key made SP1 (and SP2) install nicely.
Tricks like this cannot be prevented, unless they use whitelisting of installation keys. This is a logistical nightmare and can also be circumvented because the software that checks for the valid serial must be able to access the whitelist.
If you uuse a debugger on that program you can fetch the whitelist or fake the check.
I also doubt your argument that achieving security in software is impossible. People have been doing it for years and years. Unfortuately we are seeing more and more security breaks because the percentage of careless programmers out there has been steadily rising.
This is a problem of education. When I was at school you learned to program C and assembler. If you made a stupid programming error you would notice it real soon. Now they mostly teach languages like java which hides most of the defensive programming from the programmer. If you don't know about such things, you should not be programming in languages where you need to these things.
You can write 100% bug-free code if you take your time, are careful and methodical, and do thorough unit and system tests. Those with the "Hey, all warnings but no errors--Ship It!" mentality give the software writing skill a bad name.
Consider all compiler warnings as errors is what I always do. Every warning can be a potential runtime error.
Unlike the Minidisc, another proprietary Sony-developed format, blank media will not be commercially available, in order to avoid piracy
If it is not commercially available it is not possible to create the disc contents. You probably mean they don't want to sell the empty discs to end users.
Sure, GCC, and system-programming stuff is very platform specific. OTOH, we already have GCC for a whole buch of "minority platforms". Are you suggesting to just drop this ?!
This is exactly what is being done. Obsolete platforms are removed from gcc in every release.
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully...
on
Dutch Pass iPod Tax
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
You know what? If I bought an mp3 player in Netherlands and got taxed under the new law, I would feel it's my legal right to copy, distribute and share all my mp3s on p2p networks and also to download as many as I like. Because, after all, I already paid the music industry.
But think about the enormous economical losses of this tax. People will stop buying MP3 players in the Netherlands. Instead they will be buying in Germany or Belgium. Same thing for the DVD tax: I buy all my DVD_Rs from Germany, not in the local shop.
Most resellers are very afraid of this kind of taxes.
Assuming that assertions are used only for the "debug" version of the program, they are ideal for code that needs to be as fast as possible but can still work if there are slowdowns, such as device drivers. They're great for parameter checking during development. Once the code has been verified to work, they can be automatically compiled-out for the "release" version of the program.
They can indeed be usefull during development for the person who is writing the code. After development they should be removed, not just compiled out. I have seen too many cases where assertions are used for primitive exception handling which is a terrible way of programming. If such an assertion is triggered, you mostly have no means to discover why it has triigers, which make debugging such problems a pain. I had to do that a few times and it is not fun if the program consist of about half a million lines of code. What a joy if you have to maintain code written by someone who does not know how to program.
PDF is awful. It's not cross platform, unless you mean that you can crash every platform that it supposedly runs on.
I use Linux at work, and Adobe's version of Acrobat reader for Linux is several years out of date. It very frequently crashes X altogether.
The latest linux version of the reader (5.0) is not the most recent, but it is not years out of date. And you are not bound to adobe's version. You counld also use one of the many alternatives.
An open standard, like HTML (with intelligent CSS which will allow you to print well), is far better, and there is no reason that a halfway decent CSS guy can't make HTML look very good for printing too,
Printed html pages is not the same as printed documentation. You will only be able to print seperate sections, not the entire documentation.
and if that HTML was generated from XML, then it is easy to output the documentation in many other formats too.
If you use an XML based format like docbook this is indeed true.
You need to use a documentation framework to automate the process, unless your SDK only has one or two functions. I like Doxygen a lot, it's pretty easy to use and works with lots of languages. JavaDoc or PerlDoc, etc are good for specific languages. Html is a fine file format for the final output.
Html is nice, hyperlinked pdf is better. You can browse it on your computer and can also make printouts, which is nearly impossible with html documentation.
1. Make bad software 2. Acquire and sell software to repair original bad software 3. PROFIT!!! It can be considered a bit strange: more holes mean more trojans and spyware.
But how will those hole be fixed? will there be a free security fix for windows or a paid update for the anti virus or anti spyware tool?
The fact that 85% of the computer world use MS systems doesn't mean that it's the best thing to do.
It depends what computer world you are looking at. In my line of work, dedicated embedded devices, the numbers are reversed and microsoft has a small marketshare.
Interesting to note that the early days of ICQ everyone said its like a buddy list for the internet, in other words, aol invented the concept?
No they didn't. In the early years ICQ had nothing to do with AOL. It was created and maintained by an israelian corporation. AOL bought it years later.
The java byte code is platform independant (unless you use platform specific stuff), but the JRE needed to run it is not.
And this is different from PHP how? The PHP intepreter must be compiled for the platform. You can't just try to run PHP code with the x86-linux binary PHP executable on a x86-windows or a Sparc-Solaris platform.
It is not different, but a lot o people claim it is. They claim java is truly platform independant, but it isn't.
Seriously, is there something that is TRULY portable as in NOT NEEDING ANYTHING for the specific platform?
Answer is simple: no. Anybody that claims otherwise does not know what he is talking about.
I want a decent middle ware, that is cross platform, fast, and well documented, free as in beer (and preferably as in speech also).
That's Java.
are you sure?
java is getting a lot faster with newer releases, but it is not cross platform. The java byte code is platform independant (unless you use platform specific stuff), but the JRE needed to run it is not.
If you read the license thoroughly, you find that you may continue to use the old patent license when Yahoo updates it, at your choice ("If Yahoo! makes such a modification, You may continue under the terms and conditions of this Agreement or agree to the updated or modified terms and conditions.")
This very much like the clause in a well-known free software license, the GPL. ("you can redistribute [...] under the terms of the GNU GPL [...]; either version 2 [...], or (at your option) any later version.")
But what if, after some time, they make a small but significant adjustment to the specs and make that only available under the new version of the license?
In that situation implementation of the old spec is not a problem, but implementation of the new spec is.
Looking forward to reading their other guides, pretty nice of them to publish them online:)
It's indeed nice of them, lots of info, although not complete. If you look at the Java in embedded Linux systems slides they only mention java's strengths in embedded device and 'forgot' its weaknesses.
My only fear is that if this becomes a reality and catches on, we will see ATi/nVidia step up their support for Linux JUST enough to pull away any consumer base this company might gain.
And there is another thing: if the new card contains some advanced features not found in other cards ati or nvidia can simply copy it for use in their on hardware. Because the card is open, they can see how it is done.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't contribute to campaign something that other countries call bride?
Paying politicians money to get what you want?
Absolutely nothing.
It is the same as with XPSP1 that would not install on pirated versions. It just contained a blacklist of installation keys. Changing your key made SP1 (and SP2) install nicely.
Tricks like this cannot be prevented, unless they use whitelisting of installation keys.
This is a logistical nightmare and can also be circumvented because the software that checks for the valid serial must be able to access the whitelist.
If you uuse a debugger on that program you can fetch the whitelist or fake the check.
This is a problem of education. When I was at school you learned to program C and assembler. If you made a stupid programming error you would notice it real soon. Now they mostly teach languages like java which hides most of the defensive programming from the programmer. If you don't know about such things, you should not be programming in languages where you need to these things.
Consider all compiler warnings as errors is what I always do. Every warning can be a potential runtime error.
Thinking before you code can also help a lot.
But von Lohmann said if the Motion Picture Association of America wanted to go after Cohen, it would have done it a long time ago.
But it looks perfectly in line with the current 'bittorrent is evil' campaign. Isn't this a perfect way to spread FUD about bittorent?
If it is not commercially available it is not possible to create the disc contents. You probably mean they don't want to sell the empty discs to end users.
That is indeed true. Doom 1 and 2 were fun to play, doom 3 wasn't. The graphics look better, but the feeling of the first two games is gone.
This is exactly what is being done. Obsolete platforms are removed from gcc in every release.
You know what? If I bought an mp3 player in Netherlands and got taxed under the new law, I would feel it's my legal right to copy, distribute and share all my mp3s on p2p networks and also to download as many as I like. Because, after all, I already paid the music industry.
But think about the enormous economical losses of this tax. People will stop buying MP3 players in the Netherlands. Instead they will be buying in Germany or Belgium. Same thing for the DVD tax: I buy all my DVD_Rs from Germany, not in the local shop.
Most resellers are very afraid of this kind of taxes.
It shouldn't be possible for a dialog box, especially one from another application, to steal keyboard focus.
It is really annoying, but you can prevent an application from stealing focus. It is a setting in tweakui.
Please visit a mechanic immediately, your sarcasm detector is badly malfunctioning.
Nah, The detector is just out of order for the rest of the evening. Hope it will work again tomorrow (after some sleep).
I'm sure glad they didn't pick some wimpy combination of Mandrake and Conectiva.
Eh, you mean like mandrake connectiva?
Assuming that assertions are used only for the "debug" version of the program, they are ideal for code that needs to be as fast as possible but can still work if there are slowdowns, such as device drivers. They're great for parameter checking during development. Once the code has been verified to work, they can be automatically compiled-out for the "release" version of the program.
They can indeed be usefull during development for the person who is writing the code. After development they should be removed, not just compiled out. I have seen too many cases where assertions are used for primitive exception handling which is a terrible way of programming.
If such an assertion is triggered, you mostly have no means to discover why it has triigers, which make debugging such problems a pain. I had to do that a few times and it is not fun if the program consist of about half a million lines of code.
What a joy if you have to maintain code written by someone who does not know how to program.
PDF is awful. It's not cross platform, unless you mean that you can crash every platform that it supposedly runs on.
I use Linux at work, and Adobe's version of Acrobat reader for Linux is several years out of date. It very frequently crashes X altogether.
The latest linux version of the reader (5.0) is not the most recent, but it is not years out of date. And you are not bound to adobe's version. You counld also use one of the many alternatives.
An open standard, like HTML (with intelligent CSS which will allow you to print well), is far better, and there is no reason that a halfway decent CSS guy can't make HTML look very good for printing too,
Printed html pages is not the same as printed documentation. You will only be able to print seperate sections, not the entire documentation.
and if that HTML was generated from XML, then it is easy to output the documentation in many other formats too.
If you use an XML based format like docbook this is indeed true.
You need to use a documentation framework to automate the process, unless your SDK only has one or two functions. I like Doxygen a lot, it's pretty easy to use and works with lots of languages. JavaDoc or PerlDoc, etc are good for specific languages. Html is a fine file format for the final output.
Html is nice, hyperlinked pdf is better. You can browse it on your computer and can also make printouts, which is nearly impossible with html documentation.
1. Make bad software 2. Acquire and sell software to repair original bad software 3. PROFIT!!!
It can be considered a bit strange: more holes mean more trojans and spyware.
But how will those hole be fixed? will there be a free security fix for windows or a paid update for the anti virus or anti spyware tool?
You have the client-server relationship wrong, a common mistake when talking about X windows.
It is a common mistake, but that is mostly because it is very confusing: the X clients run on the server PC, the X server runs on the client PC.
The fact that 85% of the computer world use MS systems doesn't mean that it's the best thing to do.
It depends what computer world you are looking at. In my line of work, dedicated embedded devices, the numbers are reversed and microsoft has a small marketshare.
Interesting to note that the early days of ICQ everyone said its like a buddy list for the internet, in other words, aol invented the concept?
No they didn't. In the early years ICQ had nothing to do with AOL. It was created and maintained by an israelian corporation. AOL bought it years later.
The java byte code is platform independant (unless you use platform specific stuff), but the JRE needed to run it is not.
And this is different from PHP how? The PHP intepreter must be compiled for the platform. You can't just try to run PHP code with the x86-linux binary PHP executable on a x86-windows or a Sparc-Solaris platform.
It is not different, but a lot o people claim it is. They claim java is truly platform independant, but it isn't.
Seriously, is there something that is TRULY portable as in NOT NEEDING ANYTHING for the specific platform?
Answer is simple: no. Anybody that claims otherwise does not know what he is talking about.
I want a decent middle ware, that is cross platform, fast, and well documented, free as in beer (and preferably as in speech also).
That's Java.
are you sure?
java is getting a lot faster with newer releases, but it is not cross platform.
The java byte code is platform independant (unless you use platform specific stuff), but the JRE needed to run it is not.
If you read the license thoroughly, you find that you may continue to use the old patent license when Yahoo updates it, at your choice ("If Yahoo! makes such a modification, You may continue under the terms and conditions of this Agreement or agree to the updated or modified terms and conditions.")
This very much like the clause in a well-known free software license, the GPL. ("you can redistribute [...] under the terms of the GNU GPL [...]; either version 2 [...], or (at your option) any later version.")
But what if, after some time, they make a small but significant adjustment to the specs and make that only available under the new version of the license?
In that situation implementation of the old spec is not a problem, but implementation of the new spec is.
I don't think the basement really qualifies as being a separate house. I mean, what if the whole place goes up in flames?
;)
Just protect your computer by placing a firewall around it
Looking forward to reading their other guides, pretty nice of them to publish them online :)
It's indeed nice of them, lots of info, although not complete.
If you look at the Java in embedded Linux systems slides they only mention java's strengths in embedded device and 'forgot' its weaknesses.
I like open source software, and I am all for someone developing an open source GPS-program, but these people need to make money.
It could be a combination. the GPS software for free, but charge for the card material.
My only fear is that if this becomes a reality and catches on, we will see ATi/nVidia step up their support for Linux JUST enough to pull away any consumer base this company might gain.
And there is another thing: if the new card contains some advanced features not found in other cards ati or nvidia can simply copy it for use in their on hardware. Because the card is open, they can see how it is done.