I can't begin to tell you how often I have wanted to price-compare Best Buy vs. Staples vs. Circuit City vs. OfficeMax when standing in any one of those stores.
And Best Buy, Staples, Circuit City, OfficeMax, etc. all can't begin to tell you how much they enjoy the fact you can't.
Employees from big stores like that are often asked to go to competing stores and check prices on common merchandise.
And big stores like that consider somebody who is from another big store going to their store to check on prices to be tresspassing. Classic Spy vs. Spy situation.
Somebody other than Wal-Mart having a database of Wal-Mart's price offerings could put Wal-Mart stores in competition with each other, as the consumer from home can decide whether they want to go to the Wal-Mart to the North or the one to the South.
Google's near-monopoly in search doesn't bother Wal-Mart, it's the fact that Google has apparent interest in supplying data to shoppers while they're inside Wal-Mart.
They wanted it to be "Always the lowest price. Always" but were beaten back by lawyers who took that as a claim that they would be lowest on every item, which could be proven false with just one lower price elsewhere.
Google has no interest in becoming a retailer, but has interest in telling you what the price is elsewhere. Imagine a Froogle Local that you could access by showing the barcode to your cameraphone.
With Wal-Mart having a history of kicking out of the store people who dare to write prices on a notebook, they most likely won't like people doing that. But how can they stop it?
The ID is tied to you in that it's your passport, and that ID number will travel anywhere you and your passport go. Any time you're asked to indentify yourself (and that includes not just border crossings, but banks and Internet cafes) and you show your passport, the ID number can be secretly taken and tied to whatever info the person seeing your ID can type in.
Moreover, even without tying it to your name, it's still a unique number that identifies your passport as being distinct from somebody else's passport, and that's just as good as a real world cookie ever gets.
And, if we're going by Security Now's definition of a "rootkit", Norton SystemWorks is a rootkit because its Undelete component hides files from the operating system that are really still there, SystemWorks just fools all applications into thinking they're not there.
Any program that uses the operating system hooks to find out what is going on risks being fooled. The only way around it is to do what RootkitRevealer does, ignore what the OS is saying and go byte-level reading the disk to see what you get, then if you like compare it with what the OS is reporting to see if there's any differences.
I doubt this is going to be the last story of this rootkit being used to hide something from process seekers. Online poker gaming sites rely on being able to look at a user's running processes in order to detect bots.
This is exactly the situation those of us who grew up with VB3 to VB6... VB.net is C# with a coat of paint on it. We got used to breakpoint and resume coding, and that rug got pulled out from under us. I never wanted to be a coder anyway...
If anything, I am more bothered by the fact that cable companies are provided local monopolies by municipal governments, which gives me no choice in cable access as a consumer.
I'm on the Cable Advisory Board in my hometown, and I'm 100% sure that the license we've issued to Comcast is non-exclusive. A second cable company could come to town and "overbuild" a second cable network, but we're not expecting anybody to come forward to do that anytime soon.
See, a second cable network would be great for consumers, but a disaster financially for the investors. There's not much a new cable network can do that Comcast can't do with their existing network too. The competitor would have no hope of capturing more than 50% of the city's cable-subscribing population, and would have to start on day one with Comcast holding a 100%-to-0% head start. Huge investment, not much reward when compared to the potential wiring up an area of the country that isn't served with cable.
Your cable company is a monopoly by default. There's no barrier preventing somebody from wiring up another set of cables, other than the fact that it'd be a stupid idea.
I live in a foreign country and the weirdest things happen under the name of free market (like jeopardizing the electricity network), but everything gets more expensive because of this.
They could get the sales database to spit out all of the times the given model of printer was sold, and then pull the security cameras for the times of the transactions.
The cantenna itself isn't illegal to posess, but it may very well be illegal to use if it boosts the directional signal beyond the FCC's limit. Remember, 2.4GHz space is unlicensed, but it's not completely unregulated. Power limits are in place to prevent greedy users from stepping on the whole band and locking out others. (See FCC rules.)
The reason why there's all those proprietary connections in antenna space is because you're only supposed to use antennas that are approved for use with the transmitting device, so you stay within the perscribed limits for effective directional power. (Just recently the FCC announced plans to allow for mix-and-matching of antennas.) Connect a tightly directional antenna to a transmitter that's operating at full power meant for omnidirectional use, and you'll have an illegal setup. That's exactly the situation most canttenas find themselves in.
From the FAQ...
Will students be able to email, chat, and play games on their laptops?
Chat, IM, games, and email software will be removed from all computers. Student use of email, chatting, IM, and game playing is a direct violation of the KASD computer policy. Students who violate the computer policy will be disciplined.
These were school-owned laptops for approved uses only, and with a pretty tight leash on what could be installed.
Slashdot Mirror
Eh, I've done worse and gotten to keep the karma points. Your point was valid, only your spelling wasn't.
I can't begin to tell you how often I have wanted to price-compare Best Buy vs. Staples vs. Circuit City vs. OfficeMax when standing in any one of those stores.
And Best Buy, Staples, Circuit City, OfficeMax, etc. all can't begin to tell you how much they enjoy the fact you can't.
Employees from big stores like that are often asked to go to competing stores and check prices on common merchandise.
And big stores like that consider somebody who is from another big store going to their store to check on prices to be tresspassing. Classic Spy vs. Spy situation.
Somebody other than Wal-Mart having a database of Wal-Mart's price offerings could put Wal-Mart stores in competition with each other, as the consumer from home can decide whether they want to go to the Wal-Mart to the North or the one to the South.
What's "Froggle"? Google's pricing site is "Froogle".
Google's near-monopoly in search doesn't bother Wal-Mart, it's the fact that Google has apparent interest in supplying data to shoppers while they're inside Wal-Mart.
The wording is "Always the low price. Always."
They wanted it to be "Always the lowest price. Always" but were beaten back by lawyers who took that as a claim that they would be lowest on every item, which could be proven false with just one lower price elsewhere.
Google has no interest in becoming a retailer, but has interest in telling you what the price is elsewhere. Imagine a Froogle Local that you could access by showing the barcode to your cameraphone.
With Wal-Mart having a history of kicking out of the store people who dare to write prices on a notebook, they most likely won't like people doing that. But how can they stop it?
The ID is tied to you in that it's your passport, and that ID number will travel anywhere you and your passport go. Any time you're asked to indentify yourself (and that includes not just border crossings, but banks and Internet cafes) and you show your passport, the ID number can be secretly taken and tied to whatever info the person seeing your ID can type in.
Moreover, even without tying it to your name, it's still a unique number that identifies your passport as being distinct from somebody else's passport, and that's just as good as a real world cookie ever gets.
And, if we're going by Security Now's definition of a "rootkit", Norton SystemWorks is a rootkit because its Undelete component hides files from the operating system that are really still there, SystemWorks just fools all applications into thinking they're not there.
Any program that uses the operating system hooks to find out what is going on risks being fooled. The only way around it is to do what RootkitRevealer does, ignore what the OS is saying and go byte-level reading the disk to see what you get, then if you like compare it with what the OS is reporting to see if there's any differences.
I doubt this is going to be the last story of this rootkit being used to hide something from process seekers. Online poker gaming sites rely on being able to look at a user's running processes in order to detect bots.
Are we suddenly interested in the rights of game cheaters? Whose rights are being impacted here?
/., but in a different section...
This is just a classic hack. Nothing impacting free speech or even property rights. Yes, it belongs on
This is exactly the situation those of us who grew up with VB3 to VB6... VB.net is C# with a coat of paint on it. We got used to breakpoint and resume coding, and that rug got pulled out from under us. I never wanted to be a coder anyway...
Yes, but ideally the collisions would be random collections of bits. They shouldn't make up anything meaningful, nevermind being a piece of malware.
Sure, now they offer insurance as it starts to become clear that SCO is going bankrupt.
If anything, I am more bothered by the fact that cable companies are provided local monopolies by municipal governments, which gives me no choice in cable access as a consumer.
I'm on the Cable Advisory Board in my hometown, and I'm 100% sure that the license we've issued to Comcast is non-exclusive. A second cable company could come to town and "overbuild" a second cable network, but we're not expecting anybody to come forward to do that anytime soon.
See, a second cable network would be great for consumers, but a disaster financially for the investors. There's not much a new cable network can do that Comcast can't do with their existing network too. The competitor would have no hope of capturing more than 50% of the city's cable-subscribing population, and would have to start on day one with Comcast holding a 100%-to-0% head start. Huge investment, not much reward when compared to the potential wiring up an area of the country that isn't served with cable.
Your cable company is a monopoly by default. There's no barrier preventing somebody from wiring up another set of cables, other than the fact that it'd be a stupid idea.
I live in a foreign country and the weirdest things happen under the name of free market (like jeopardizing the electricity network), but everything gets more expensive because of this.
California is not a foreign country.
As broadband is becoming more widely available it is becoming easier to switch providers, as well.
It won't be so easy if all that's left is the local monoploy cable company and the local monopoly phone company.
They could get the sales database to spit out all of the times the given model of printer was sold, and then pull the security cameras for the times of the transactions.
RTFA... The technology adds pixel-sized yellow dots about every inch.
The cantenna itself isn't illegal to posess, but it may very well be illegal to use if it boosts the directional signal beyond the FCC's limit. Remember, 2.4GHz space is unlicensed, but it's not completely unregulated. Power limits are in place to prevent greedy users from stepping on the whole band and locking out others. (See FCC rules.)
The reason why there's all those proprietary connections in antenna space is because you're only supposed to use antennas that are approved for use with the transmitting device, so you stay within the perscribed limits for effective directional power. (Just recently the FCC announced plans to allow for mix-and-matching of antennas.) Connect a tightly directional antenna to a transmitter that's operating at full power meant for omnidirectional use, and you'll have an illegal setup. That's exactly the situation most canttenas find themselves in.
What version of the article are you reading? It doesn't say that.
Also, since when is passing the administrator's password around considered [Hacking|Cracking] anyway?
Definitely part of the branch known as "social engineering".
What did the 13 who got charged do differently that made them stand out from the "80 to 100" students who used the compromized password?
From the FAQ... Will students be able to email, chat, and play games on their laptops? Chat, IM, games, and email software will be removed from all computers. Student use of email, chatting, IM, and game playing is a direct violation of the KASD computer policy. Students who violate the computer policy will be disciplined. These were school-owned laptops for approved uses only, and with a pretty tight leash on what could be installed.