Specifically tulip futures. Tulips themselves could be considered commodities (although their utility values is pretty limited), but the way the market treated them in 17th Century Europe, they were really media of exchanges, right down to the fact that you had to "cash them in" (either take delivery of the commodity, or sell your contract) to get external economic effectivity (liquidity -- "real money").
Tulips were hard to increase supplies of (since it takes years for seed to grow to flowering plants, and bulbs can only be split in a relatively narrow window in Fall). Their aesthetic interest and novelty were part of the bubble's mechanic: Tulips are beautiful, and had introduced to European markets only a few decades earlier.
To summarize: bitcoins are the 21st Century geek equivalent to tulips.
If someone stealing your single wallet out of your pocket gets all your money, you are one poor mofo, or one dumb one (dumb like writing PINs on debit cards)... plus the fact that you'll might get the money in the bank back, whereas bitcoin has no equivalent safety net. The anonymity the designers craved is beginning to bite back; possession becomes 10 tenths of the law if identity can't be associated with ownership.
So, if your bitcoins mean anything to you, protect your wallet.dat better than your real wallet, because your losses will probably be more complete and irrecoverable in the former case than in the latter.
Hotjava. A browser which could run Java applets, written in Java.
On all the Sun servers I ever administered, I ran that browser just long enough to download and install Mozilla. (Yeah, it was the IE of Unix browsers, for the simple reason that it was pretty limited.)
This cries out for a "'Yo Dawg" joke which I am not going to stoop to make.
Getting a big project started is often such a politically fraught process that for many managers it's easier to simply write a check.
There is no way the services provisioning and supply chain processes should allow line managers to sidestep corporate IT by merely writing a check. IT is failing in its critical mission to become the unavoidable middle man--the bill you have to pay--by not exercising its oversight over all purchasing decisions. It's the only way: every expenditure must have an IT sign-off to so that a grown-up can make sure IT isn't being left out, and attempting to acquire computing, storage, or communications facilities from anyone except IT must be an immediate termination offense.
Of course, IT must also make sure its firewalls and content protection systems keep the company's machines safely away from these rogue service providers unless the appropriate genuflections, prayers, and offerings are made to IT. An unsanctioned cloud provider contract is useless if the network won't let your systems connect to the service demarcation of the profider.
You know, if that was really the problem, maybe the riot mob shoulda hopped some Greyhound Buses and gone to Boston... where their rioting could have worked in favor of vengeance ^w justice. And, as an extra bonus, served as civic renovation for ol' Beantown.
That just proves that Newtonian mechanics isn't complete physics the same way that high school Macroeconomics isn't the complete economic picture. However, there is a difference: classical mechanics corresponds pretty closely to gross everyday observation of physical phenomena, but pure elementary Macro and Micro bear only the slightest correspondence to the gyrations and churn of the great big huge Global Economy, as frantically and inconsistently reported by every news organ in the world, and as debated endlessly and fruitlessly by every pundit, economist, politician, or CEO in existence.
High school economics is more obviously idealized and incomplete than high school physics, because high school physics is more closely correlated to observable reality.
I'm pretty sure I want careful scrutiny of every other human being on Earth besides myself, because you can't trust any of them, rich or poor. (Of course, I'm trustworthy... just ask me!)
And, in your heart, you know you want exactly the same thing.
The tricky part is backing down from that very unreasonable desire and coming to some kind of reasonable compromise where, perhaps, the people with the greatest power bear the burden of the greatest transparency.
It's possible they're grading in comparison to Slashdot editing. On that curve, my 5-year-old's assorted crayon scribbles rate 6/10 with a special mention for creative use of colors.
Well, you know, I don't especially need a phone. That's for talking to people, and what's the fun in that?
Now, getting into a Wikipedia edit war while driving down the road and eating a Sonic burger... That's fun!
Seriously, though. My HTC isn't a phone, it's a portable computer with telephony capability that I occasionally use.
In other words, you're talking about solving the wrong problem. You want phones that are immune to malware, and as you point out, they're still thick on the ground. I want an ultraportable computer that doesn't get hacked, trojaned, or otherwise attack me without provocation. That's a bit harder.
OOOH, the off-market AndroidZoom app website seems to not have pulled any apps down in response to this fiasco. Searching the site for "Choopcheec" returns this:
Angry Birds Cheater by Crazy Apps
Chit Chat by Crazy Apps
Snake Kaka by Phill Dig
Angry Birds Rio Unlock by Crazy Apps
Favorite Games Backup by Crazy Apps
Gun Bros Helper by Crazy Apps
Call Ender by Crazy Apps
Angry Birds Multi User! by Crazy Apps
Bring Me Back My Droid! by Crazy Apps
Shake To Fake (Fake call) by Crazy Apps
That's 10 apps... maybe that's the rogues' gallery?
I can see this malware has also downmodded your analysis of its behavior to +0 and converted your helpful post into an anonymous coward post. That is some kind of powerful malware!
AAaaaand, another 10 seconds with Google tells me "choopcheec.com" has sample EULA text like the one above for one other product that Google can find: "Can You Drive".
The sample of the EULA associated with the malware app (yes, malware EULAs) lists "Angry Bird Cheater" by name, so there's one of the candidates. Also, quoting the article:
The code suggests that it is a platform, but it does not disclose its purpose. Descriptions of the apps pulled from the Android Market contain the text:
This application is brought to you free sponsored by Choopcheec Platform. It adds a search shortcut on the home screen or application screen.
So, "Choopcheec" seems to be a common codeword for the apps. Whatever that is.
Me: "Yeah, but I bought the right to yell at you from the old guy in the house!"
Federal District Court: "No, you didn't. You have no standing to yell at anyone. The old guy in the house can either sell you the yard or come outside and do his own yelling. And by the way, explain to me why I shouldn't punish you for lying about your purported 'right to yell'?"
I'm definitely in that camp. I'd love to have a few hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on all-tube gear, analogue-only media equipment (EVEN CDs). and oxygen-free 47-braid virgin copper cable insulated with the skins of baby minke whales.
I wouldn't actually waste money on that crap, of course. I'd just love to be able to afford it, so I can spend the money on stuff that actually matters to me. YMMV.
And yeah, I can sometimes hear the difference between 128kbps and VBR, but only on home entertainment gear (even mediocre). On my smartphone, the earbuds are such a loss acoustically that it's distinguishing between a crappy rip and an awesome one verges on fantasy.
I suppose that's a fair cop, although criticizing Slashdot article summaries is much like mocking the intelligence of the retarded, I mean mentally challenged. It's redundant and not very insightful.
It's a summary on Slashdot. Being merely misleading is actually pretty good, on balance.
Well, the descriptions of the various attacks that led up to Lock-Mart's breaches (including the sustained campaign against RSA) makes a lot of analysts think the entire sequence is the activity of some nation's intelligence apparatus. Blaming China just seems like a knee-jerk to me, though. I would ROFL slightly into my waffles if it turned out to be Lulzsec (although those blowhards would have been boasting about it by now) or maybe the French or something. Maybe the Israelis?
Defense-oriented industrial espionage definitely broadens the pool of suspects; even your friends and allies wouldn't mind getting a peek at what you've got, if they think they can get away with it.
Both North Korea and Red China were participants in the Cold War, more or less (from the perspective of US strategic planning) on the side of the USSR. Of course, there was ample wargaming and what-if planning on scenarios involving China or Korea independent of the Russians, or even in opposition; even the most raving foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Communist had to acknowledge that the East Asian side of the Iron Curtain was separable from the Near-European side.
Still, it's naive or misinformed to insist that the presumptive adversaries in a current intelligence war aren't the same actors as during the Cold War. Russia wasn't the end-all and be-all of the Red side.
All you people taking showers are ruining the planet!
Yeah. It's a damn shame that using water for personal hygiene actually destroys the elementary matter it's made of, in clear and inexplicable violation of the laws of Conservation of Mass.
Unless, perhaps, your shower drains into some kind of mass-conversion energy system, in which case... why aren't you selling that sweet, sweet electricity to your local grid and solving the world's energy problems?
Slashdot Mirror
Tulips.
Specifically tulip futures. Tulips themselves could be considered commodities (although their utility values is pretty limited), but the way the market treated them in 17th Century Europe, they were really media of exchanges, right down to the fact that you had to "cash them in" (either take delivery of the commodity, or sell your contract) to get external economic effectivity (liquidity -- "real money").
Tulips were hard to increase supplies of (since it takes years for seed to grow to flowering plants, and bulbs can only be split in a relatively narrow window in Fall). Their aesthetic interest and novelty were part of the bubble's mechanic: Tulips are beautiful, and had introduced to European markets only a few decades earlier.
To summarize: bitcoins are the 21st Century geek equivalent to tulips.
If someone stealing your single wallet out of your pocket gets all your money, you are one poor mofo, or one dumb one (dumb like writing PINs on debit cards)... plus the fact that you'll might get the money in the bank back, whereas bitcoin has no equivalent safety net. The anonymity the designers craved is beginning to bite back; possession becomes 10 tenths of the law if identity can't be associated with ownership.
So, if your bitcoins mean anything to you, protect your wallet.dat better than your real wallet, because your losses will probably be more complete and irrecoverable in the former case than in the latter.
Hotjava. A browser which could run Java applets, written in Java.
On all the Sun servers I ever administered, I ran that browser just long enough to download and install Mozilla. (Yeah, it was the IE of Unix browsers, for the simple reason that it was pretty limited.)
This cries out for a "'Yo Dawg" joke which I am not going to stoop to make.
Getting a big project started is often such a politically fraught process that for many managers it's easier to simply write a check.
There is no way the services provisioning and supply chain processes should allow line managers to sidestep corporate IT by merely writing a check. IT is failing in its critical mission to become the unavoidable middle man--the bill you have to pay--by not exercising its oversight over all purchasing decisions. It's the only way: every expenditure must have an IT sign-off to so that a grown-up can make sure IT isn't being left out, and attempting to acquire computing, storage, or communications facilities from anyone except IT must be an immediate termination offense.
Of course, IT must also make sure its firewalls and content protection systems keep the company's machines safely away from these rogue service providers unless the appropriate genuflections, prayers, and offerings are made to IT. An unsanctioned cloud provider contract is useless if the network won't let your systems connect to the service demarcation of the profider.
(Am I serious? Am I kidding? Am I both?)
You know, if that was really the problem, maybe the riot mob shoulda hopped some Greyhound Buses and gone to Boston... where their rioting could have worked in favor of vengeance ^w justice. And, as an extra bonus, served as civic renovation for ol' Beantown.
Her phone number was 876-5309. She was veeeeery popular, back in the day.
Where's our weaponized flu strains that are fatal to them?
I can't help but feel that this calls for a "Your mom" joke right about here. But I also can't bring myself to tell it. Oh, well.
That just proves that Newtonian mechanics isn't complete physics the same way that high school Macroeconomics isn't the complete economic picture. However, there is a difference: classical mechanics corresponds pretty closely to gross everyday observation of physical phenomena, but pure elementary Macro and Micro bear only the slightest correspondence to the gyrations and churn of the great big huge Global Economy, as frantically and inconsistently reported by every news organ in the world, and as debated endlessly and fruitlessly by every pundit, economist, politician, or CEO in existence.
High school economics is more obviously idealized and incomplete than high school physics, because high school physics is more closely correlated to observable reality.
Why don't you synchronize the file between the two mobiles using Dropbox?
WARNING: LOW-FLYING JOKE.
I'm pretty sure I want careful scrutiny of every other human being on Earth besides myself, because you can't trust any of them, rich or poor. (Of course, I'm trustworthy... just ask me!)
And, in your heart, you know you want exactly the same thing.
The tricky part is backing down from that very unreasonable desire and coming to some kind of reasonable compromise where, perhaps, the people with the greatest power bear the burden of the greatest transparency.
-- Robert A. Heinlein
It's possible they're grading in comparison to Slashdot editing. On that curve, my 5-year-old's assorted crayon scribbles rate 6/10 with a special mention for creative use of colors.
Well, you know, I don't especially need a phone. That's for talking to people, and what's the fun in that?
Now, getting into a Wikipedia edit war while driving down the road and eating a Sonic burger... That's fun!
Seriously, though. My HTC isn't a phone, it's a portable computer with telephony capability that I occasionally use.
In other words, you're talking about solving the wrong problem. You want phones that are immune to malware, and as you point out, they're still thick on the ground. I want an ultraportable computer that doesn't get hacked, trojaned, or otherwise attack me without provocation. That's a bit harder.
That's 10 apps... maybe that's the rogues' gallery?
I can see this malware has also downmodded your analysis of its behavior to +0 and converted your helpful post into an anonymous coward post. That is some kind of powerful malware!
Good point. I usually prefer Panaphonic products, especially since I'm boycotting Sorny and generally unhappy with the product quality from Magnetbox.
AAaaaand, another 10 seconds with Google tells me "choopcheec.com" has sample EULA text like the one above for one other product that Google can find: "Can You Drive".
turns up Sophos' analysis of this "Plankton" malware.
The sample of the EULA associated with the malware app (yes, malware EULAs) lists "Angry Bird Cheater" by name, so there's one of the candidates. Also, quoting the article:
So, "Choopcheec" seems to be a common codeword for the apps. Whatever that is.
How's this for a "Slashdot not-a-car" analogy:
Me: "Get off my lawn!"
Kids: "It's not your lawn!"
Me: "Yeah, but I bought the right to yell at you from the old guy in the house!"
Federal District Court: "No, you didn't. You have no standing to yell at anyone. The old guy in the house can either sell you the yard or come outside and do his own yelling. And by the way, explain to me why I shouldn't punish you for lying about your purported 'right to yell'?"
Me: <Gulp!>
True audiophiles only listen to the voices in their heads.
I'm definitely in that camp. I'd love to have a few hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on all-tube gear, analogue-only media equipment (EVEN CDs). and oxygen-free 47-braid virgin copper cable insulated with the skins of baby minke whales.
I wouldn't actually waste money on that crap, of course. I'd just love to be able to afford it, so I can spend the money on stuff that actually matters to me. YMMV.
And yeah, I can sometimes hear the difference between 128kbps and VBR, but only on home entertainment gear (even mediocre). On my smartphone, the earbuds are such a loss acoustically that it's distinguishing between a crappy rip and an awesome one verges on fantasy.
I suppose that's a fair cop, although criticizing Slashdot article summaries is much like mocking the intelligence of the retarded, I mean mentally challenged. It's redundant and not very insightful.
It's a summary on Slashdot. Being merely misleading is actually pretty good, on balance.
Well, the descriptions of the various attacks that led up to Lock-Mart's breaches (including the sustained campaign against RSA) makes a lot of analysts think the entire sequence is the activity of some nation's intelligence apparatus. Blaming China just seems like a knee-jerk to me, though. I would ROFL slightly into my waffles if it turned out to be Lulzsec (although those blowhards would have been boasting about it by now) or maybe the French or something. Maybe the Israelis?
Defense-oriented industrial espionage definitely broadens the pool of suspects; even your friends and allies wouldn't mind getting a peek at what you've got, if they think they can get away with it.
Both North Korea and Red China were participants in the Cold War, more or less (from the perspective of US strategic planning) on the side of the USSR. Of course, there was ample wargaming and what-if planning on scenarios involving China or Korea independent of the Russians, or even in opposition; even the most raving foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Communist had to acknowledge that the East Asian side of the Iron Curtain was separable from the Near-European side.
Still, it's naive or misinformed to insist that the presumptive adversaries in a current intelligence war aren't the same actors as during the Cold War. Russia wasn't the end-all and be-all of the Red side.
All you people taking showers are ruining the planet!
Yeah. It's a damn shame that using water for personal hygiene actually destroys the elementary matter it's made of, in clear and inexplicable violation of the laws of Conservation of Mass.
Unless, perhaps, your shower drains into some kind of mass-conversion energy system, in which case... why aren't you selling that sweet, sweet electricity to your local grid and solving the world's energy problems?