since when do you put people installing the OS into the novice category. Sure you don't need to be a guru, but we're talking about people using pre-installed, out of the box stuff, which is what most windows home users are going to be.
as to the whole unix/linux thing, ok true. I never mentioned them really. However I will say that the problem isn't that MS can't release secure software, SP2 is considerably more secure as this whole test showed. The problem is that they release when it's not secure.
I doubt when Longhorn is released it will be secure to the same degree. It will be SP2 when that's secure and we can trust it. The problem is that Microsoft have a real burden to release new stuff to produce new revenue. This is something which Open-Source generally doesn't suffer from, they release, but unstable versions which get a lot of bugs dealt with before being considered ok for a real-world environment.
I suspect Longhorn could probably be the buggiest version of windows we'll ever see, becasue of all the preasures on time so much will be unfinished. From what I can tell the whole thing is a re-write from the ground up. Perhaps this will have an inherrently more secure design, but I would be very suspicious of it until it's been out about a year or so... The trouble is, once it's out all new PCs will have it by default, so essentially MSs beta software will be forced on the less savvy users out there first.
I agree that this is a secure thing. The problem is, nowhere does it tell a novice user that you should enable the firewall, connect to the net then, download patches, then you're secure
The problem with the security is not that the machine can never be made secure, but that it starts out as a terribly insecure product. This is a problem. Most users are out of the box users. They have no understanding, so they don't know about the firewal etc.. They're told by MS that for security they need to patch using windows update. The point above is that this isn't actually that secure, and while this is happening a compromise can take place.
The main issue here is the slack standards Microsoft use to get their products out the door, and their trade off of complexity to security. They are scared of treating their customers with intelligence, and educating them correctly about the actual process of securing and methods of attack (not necessarily at too technical a level) so good practices are used. For fear of confusing the users the XP SP1 firewall is off, and it's not the only software that has all the security off by default.
If normal users understood that direct connections to the net were bad, they'd all buy routers, they'd consider firewalls, probably ones configured to block all but MSN, E-mail and web access, and we'd live in a considerably more worm free world.
The OS may be securable, but it is not secure by default!. That is the problem, because most users don't do anything but the default (hence Explorer's 90% market share)
I agree that there is an imperfect world, but your analogy is out a little. Parent is suggesting that solutions to these problems should include changes of software. Yes all can't swtich to Linux maybe, but advise about more secure e-mail clients such as thunderbird is good advise. Not too mention, than unlike their car, they can get their new software now at no cost. That's good news.
The main reason/problem that it is an "MS World" is that people don't know there are other things and why they should use them, after all they only really hear Microsoft's viewpoint - which is, "We're Great, Use us - It's good". Another point of view they're not even aware of would be fantastic in an independant place which less savvy users are visiting. To be like Balmer, security is about Education, Education, Education.
actually products like this demonstrate Microsofts development process:
1. Build Software
2. Release too early with massive hype
3. Product flaws exposed
4. Some company build solution to those flaws
5. Microsoft buy those companies
6. Microsoft Software is stapled together with that solution.
7. two solutions together have more flaws
8. go to 4 and repeat process.
There should probably be a:
9. ???
10. Profit
In there too.
That's pretty much where we're at now. This is all about fixing a problem they created in the first place, and it's more like treating the symptoms not the cause.
if you get that through soon enough, you could sue MS on their IsNot as it's a derivative of Is, and can't be used without Is, therfore yours must be prior art (it comes before the Not), and they owe you money big style.
Since the USA. Us folks in Europe are thankfully safe for the present time..
If what I've heard about the US constitution is correct, I'd be rounding up people to overthrow the government as per my constituional right, if I were them.. The legal system in the US is unbelievable.
Sellafield is nowhere near london (in UK terms, obviously in US terms everywhere in the UK is practically the same place).
nowhere in the article does it even mention London. Sellafield is in Cumbria, very far north, and closer to Ireland than London (which is why they [Ireland] make such a fuss about it in the first place).
the parents will only be blamed when they have deep pockets to sue. I mean Wall-Mart? If the game was bought at some cheap local computer store you can be sure they wouldn't bother with them..
If you're under linux and the javavm binary can't be found by the java plugin then Java does present rather a problem.. you need to edit your binary search paths ($PATH) and make sure javavm can be hand then all should be well.. try running firefox from a console and you can get a little information as to why the browser dies..
I'm not sure what your point here is. The fact that it's open gives them a considerably better chance of having things which are unique to their set-up supported.
If not through the existing kernel/software, then through their own bespoke stuff. They have the option to put these things in, by hiring if need be some kernel hackers to do these things. They can do this anytime they want, with the cash invested, and be in total control over what they get.
A proprietry system (let's say Windows for the sake of argument) would not have this option, if it's not working then there needs to be petitioning by the company to the vendor to produce something for them, which may be would work, but if the vendor doesn't think it cost effective, or will do it only for a fee, then they still have to pay money. The upshot is that they lose control of the process as well.
Both cases would require time for whatever specialisations to be produced, Linux is no worse than your proprietory system.
If there were a proprietory system which met the needs already, then that would likely be the best choice, but even then it would need the benefits evaluated against the cost of a more custom solution.
Either way, it seems a bit strange that they'd have a multi-million dollar installation running which couldn't be used while the new work was being undertaken, everything wouldn't simply stop working (unless you're talking about the Y2K bug, but I think that boat has sailed).
Not all programs are stored in Program Files under windows either. many in c:\Windows, c:\windows\system etc.. lots of different locations.
The package manager installs wherever, and the packages are managed by it, uncluding all associated libraries.
For average joe, where they are is irrelevant.. removing something from "Program Files" does not uninstall it, using the windows uninstaller or "package manager" which does pretty much the same thing. Why should a user need to know what a C drive is?
Surely they just need to know there is a Filesystem on the computer, network places, floppy/CD drives and a personal Directory. Those are abstracted better in most cases under Linux, like/cdrom and/floppy, rather than f:\ which may or may not actually be a hard-drive, could be a cd-rom depending on the hardware.
Matlab is slow and junky, but its for rapid algorithm development and proofs of concepts.
I used Matlab for my dissertation (about 4 yrs ago) doing motion capture, using the Image processing toolbox.
It's pretty much like using basic, you can play with ideas quickly to investigate stuff, my software worked pretty well, but was slow. Obviously I'd write the thing in C/C++ in real terms, but it was very easy to investigate in Matlab, but wouldn't have been in C/C++ even with similar libraries, the development would have been too time consuming.
I tried this, and it didn't work. Then I realised what they were actually wanting. Open the citbank window, then click on the genuine link in the citibank window (pictured in the site) and if the window opens and shows citibank stuff you're ok, if it opens and then immediatly written over with their data, you're vunerable.
I did this, and Firefox 1.0 (linux) was vunerable. The site wasn't clear that the first site wasn't the vunerability, but links from a genuine site can be made vunerable.
Of course, you have to visit one of thse sites, and then go to the other.. so you have to be fooled by the malware site into it first.
The reason it's important, is why Microsoft fought the war in the first place. Microsoft wanted the way Internet Explorer does things to be the standard. It wanted any web based systems (which is becoming increasingly larger a market - although I don't think it'll be the size that people really think) will require Internet Explorer to run.
The upshot of this is that if Internet Explorer is required to be used, then Windows is required to be used, and therefore no matter who is providing the web-based services, at least microsoft will be getting some money, and it'll make it easier for them to "bundle" their web-services into the browser by default (aka,.net login in XP).
If the browser becomes interchangeable, then the platform will too, and Microsoft cease to be in control, so there goes all the people who use their services because they're installed as default.
Naturally the people who'd use Microsoft's defaults would be less likely to use Mozilla or other OS's, but there is concievably a time when these things can be pre-installed, especially to save cash from an OEM point of view.
I didn't think they were about making profit. being an org and all. However if you're thinking of providing financial support for the org then a whole bunch of people just donated a total of $250,000 I believe.
I think that the way in which they could get money is through extentions.. they could build extentions or provide services to companies wanting to build extentions... assuming none of this sells out the user and we end up with exploiting spyware type things.
However, most people are involved because they pretty much love to bring something better, something corporate types find hard to understand about open-source.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure if this has change recently but I'm pretty sure when I was a SuSE user years ago (befor Novell) they had a PPC version.
since when do you put people installing the OS into the novice category. Sure you don't need to be a guru, but we're talking about people using pre-installed, out of the box stuff, which is what most windows home users are going to be.
as to the whole unix/linux thing, ok true. I never mentioned them really. However I will say that the problem isn't that MS can't release secure software, SP2 is considerably more secure as this whole test showed. The problem is that they release when it's not secure.
I doubt when Longhorn is released it will be secure to the same degree. It will be SP2 when that's secure and we can trust it. The problem is that Microsoft have a real burden to release new stuff to produce new revenue. This is something which Open-Source generally doesn't suffer from, they release, but unstable versions which get a lot of bugs dealt with before being considered ok for a real-world environment.
I suspect Longhorn could probably be the buggiest version of windows we'll ever see, becasue of all the preasures on time so much will be unfinished. From what I can tell the whole thing is a re-write from the ground up. Perhaps this will have an inherrently more secure design, but I would be very suspicious of it until it's been out about a year or so... The trouble is, once it's out all new PCs will have it by default, so essentially MSs beta software will be forced on the less savvy users out there first.
I agree that this is a secure thing. The problem is, nowhere does it tell a novice user that you should enable the firewall, connect to the net then, download patches, then you're secure
The problem with the security is not that the machine can never be made secure, but that it starts out as a terribly insecure product. This is a problem. Most users are out of the box users. They have no understanding, so they don't know about the firewal etc.. They're told by MS that for security they need to patch using windows update. The point above is that this isn't actually that secure, and while this is happening a compromise can take place.
The main issue here is the slack standards Microsoft use to get their products out the door, and their trade off of complexity to security. They are scared of treating their customers with intelligence, and educating them correctly about the actual process of securing and methods of attack (not necessarily at too technical a level) so good practices are used. For fear of confusing the users the XP SP1 firewall is off, and it's not the only software that has all the security off by default.
If normal users understood that direct connections to the net were bad, they'd all buy routers, they'd consider firewalls, probably ones configured to block all but MSN, E-mail and web access, and we'd live in a considerably more worm free world.
The OS may be securable, but it is not secure by default!. That is the problem, because most users don't do anything but the default (hence Explorer's 90% market share)
I see you've been reading the latest Microsoft Anouncment for parents.
I agree that there is an imperfect world, but your analogy is out a little. Parent is suggesting that solutions to these problems should include changes of software. Yes all can't swtich to Linux maybe, but advise about more secure e-mail clients such as thunderbird is good advise. Not too mention, than unlike their car, they can get their new software now at no cost. That's good news.
The main reason/problem that it is an "MS World" is that people don't know there are other things and why they should use them, after all they only really hear Microsoft's viewpoint - which is, "We're Great, Use us - It's good". Another point of view they're not even aware of would be fantastic in an independant place which less savvy users are visiting. To be like Balmer, security is about Education, Education, Education.
actually products like this demonstrate Microsofts development process:
1. Build Software
2. Release too early with massive hype
3. Product flaws exposed
4. Some company build solution to those flaws
5. Microsoft buy those companies
6. Microsoft Software is stapled together with that solution.
7. two solutions together have more flaws
8. go to 4 and repeat process.
There should probably be a:
9. ???
10. Profit
In there too.
That's pretty much where we're at now. This is all about fixing a problem they created in the first place, and it's more like treating the symptoms not the cause.
if you get that through soon enough, you could sue MS on their IsNot as it's a derivative of Is, and can't be used without Is, therfore yours must be prior art (it comes before the Not), and they owe you money big style.
Since the USA. Us folks in Europe are thankfully safe for the present time..
If what I've heard about the US constitution is correct, I'd be rounding up people to overthrow the government as per my constituional right, if I were them.. The legal system in the US is unbelievable.
Sellafield is nowhere near london (in UK terms, obviously in US terms everywhere in the UK is practically the same place).
nowhere in the article does it even mention London. Sellafield is in Cumbria, very far north, and closer to Ireland than London (which is why they [Ireland] make such a fuss about it in the first place).
the parents will only be blamed when they have deep pockets to sue. I mean Wall-Mart? If the game was bought at some cheap local computer store you can be sure they wouldn't bother with them..
He is referring to the location of files, paths and files in windows are Case Insensitive, but in most other os's it's case sensitive, so:
/C/Windows/AnotherDir/
/c/windows/anotherdir/
is not the same as
see? Not the language but the platform, so path/library locations relying on case insensitivity is the issue..
Surely if you were proud you wouldn't post anonymously...
Haven't these things been around for ages? Only the black box was more of a ball?
...[shakes 8-ball]... Outlook Not So Good ...
If you're under linux and the javavm binary can't be found by the java plugin then Java does present rather a problem.. you need to edit your binary search paths ($PATH) and make sure javavm can be hand then all should be well.. try running firefox from a console and you can get a little information as to why the browser dies..
It's easy to make a link say something in the bar, using JavaScript. remember those scrolling message you see? It could still be done like that
Admittedly, it would be good if you could have an icon there indicating that the content is site set, NOT browser set to stop that spoof being used..
I'm not sure what your point here is. The fact that it's open gives them a considerably better chance of having things which are unique to their set-up supported.
If not through the existing kernel/software, then through their own bespoke stuff. They have the option to put these things in, by hiring if need be some kernel hackers to do these things. They can do this anytime they want, with the cash invested, and be in total control over what they get.
A proprietry system (let's say Windows for the sake of argument) would not have this option, if it's not working then there needs to be petitioning by the company to the vendor to produce something for them, which may be would work, but if the vendor doesn't think it cost effective, or will do it only for a fee, then they still have to pay money. The upshot is that they lose control of the process as well.
Both cases would require time for whatever specialisations to be produced, Linux is no worse than your proprietory system.
If there were a proprietory system which met the needs already, then that would likely be the best choice, but even then it would need the benefits evaluated against the cost of a more custom solution.
Either way, it seems a bit strange that they'd have a multi-million dollar installation running which couldn't be used while the new work was being undertaken, everything wouldn't simply stop working (unless you're talking about the Y2K bug, but I think that boat has sailed).
no, he included a linux server, and everyone knows that's a SCO product..
couldn't resist.
/cdrom and /floppy, rather than f:\ which may or may not actually be a hard-drive, could be a cd-rom depending on the hardware.
Not all programs are stored in Program Files under windows either. many in c:\Windows, c:\windows\system etc.. lots of different locations.
The package manager installs wherever, and the packages are managed by it, uncluding all associated libraries.
For average joe, where they are is irrelevant.. removing something from "Program Files" does not uninstall it, using the windows uninstaller or "package manager" which does pretty much the same thing. Why should a user need to know what a C drive is?
Surely they just need to know there is a Filesystem on the computer, network places, floppy/CD drives and a personal Directory. Those are abstracted better in most cases under Linux, like
I take it you haven't used ubuntu. by far the most user friendly and well compiled distro I've seen.
The have an introduction to codes and code-breaking methods on the site. Just click on the link which says "Break Some Codes" or click here.
Matlab is slow and junky, but its for rapid algorithm development and proofs of concepts.
I used Matlab for my dissertation (about 4 yrs ago) doing motion capture, using the Image processing toolbox.
It's pretty much like using basic, you can play with ideas quickly to investigate stuff, my software worked pretty well, but was slow. Obviously I'd write the thing in C/C++ in real terms, but it was very easy to investigate in Matlab, but wouldn't have been in C/C++ even with similar libraries, the development would have been too time consuming.
I tried this, and it didn't work. Then I realised what they were actually wanting. Open the citbank window, then click on the genuine link in the citibank window (pictured in the site) and if the window opens and shows citibank stuff you're ok, if it opens and then immediatly written over with their data, you're vunerable.
I did this, and Firefox 1.0 (linux) was vunerable. The site wasn't clear that the first site wasn't the vunerability, but links from a genuine site can be made vunerable.
Of course, you have to visit one of thse sites, and then go to the other.. so you have to be fooled by the malware site into it first.
which they've already lost due to piracy, so it's not really any price at all to hunt out the people at the top.
The reason it's important, is why Microsoft fought the war in the first place. Microsoft wanted the way Internet Explorer does things to be the standard. It wanted any web based systems (which is becoming increasingly larger a market - although I don't think it'll be the size that people really think) will require Internet Explorer to run.
.net login in XP).
The upshot of this is that if Internet Explorer is required to be used, then Windows is required to be used, and therefore no matter who is providing the web-based services, at least microsoft will be getting some money, and it'll make it easier for them to "bundle" their web-services into the browser by default (aka,
If the browser becomes interchangeable, then the platform will too, and Microsoft cease to be in control, so there goes all the people who use their services because they're installed as default.
Naturally the people who'd use Microsoft's defaults would be less likely to use Mozilla or other OS's, but there is concievably a time when these things can be pre-installed, especially to save cash from an OEM point of view.
I didn't think they were about making profit. being an org and all. However if you're thinking of providing financial support for the org then a whole bunch of people just donated a total of $250,000 I believe.
I think that the way in which they could get money is through extentions.. they could build extentions or provide services to companies wanting to build extentions... assuming none of this sells out the user and we end up with exploiting spyware type things.
However, most people are involved because they pretty much love to bring something better, something corporate types find hard to understand about open-source.