It would be deeply, deeply wrong if IE was the only way to get infected. The vulnerability is quite interesting -- it can be invoked by crafting a special Embedded OpenType (EOT) font file, which then exploits a vulnerability in kernel mode driver that parses font code. So you can be exploited using Microsoft Office, Wordpad -- anything that can display EOT-embedded fonts. All you have to do is open a document containing the offending font. Of course, IE is easy to exploit because all you need to do is put up a web page.
Note that Windows 7, in which most drivers are back in user space, is not vulnerable to this exploit. Killer reason to upgrade, imho. This is also the reason most video driver crashes don't crash Windows 7 -- the display is simply re-initialized.
Google does appear to honor the Accept-Language header setting (which you can set in Firefox).
For example, I just set my Firefox language setting to "German [de]", cleared my cookies and visited google.com. Lo and behold, Google.com in German. Interestingly, it didn't auto-redirect me to Google UK -- I'm in England right now -- although there's a link to Google UK at the bottom.
If you change browser settings like this, be sure to clear your cookies first -- sometimes existing cookies contain prefs about which site you want to go to, clearing them lets you start from a clean slate.
Are _you_ fucking stupid? A president in office for about _10 days_ (and a thin resume as junior Senator before that) does not deserve to be nominated, except by ass-lickers.
He has done nothing before the nomination date to justify the nomination, except inducing good feelings in folk who're impressed by the fact that a black man is now president of the United States.
Worse, he has done nothing since -- brokered no treaties, reduced no arsenals, peacefully endured no hardships at the hand of a tyrannical state -- to deserve the award. Oh yeah, he has given some more speeches around the world. Big whoopin' deal. If that's what it takes to win a Nobel Peace Prize, someone should tell Morgan Tsvangirai, who endured being beaten to a pulp by Mugabe's thugs that he's too fucking good for the award, because these days it's awarded to gasbags as opposed to those who actually effect tangible change through peaceful means.
It's great that Obama was very modest in his speech about the Nobel the other day. He has much to be modest about. And I say that as a guy who voted for him.
Offensive? really? Then you're really very easily offended. Frankly, I don't give a shit if that offends you. If it's gotten to the point that SNL is ribbing him about it, he needs to talk less and do more.
And-- How do you know he didn't make any dirty deals? I'm not specifically accusing him of graft, I just believe he's no better and no worse than any other politician. Although for a 'community organizer' president to suddenly say "I didn't follow what's happening at ACORN" was odd in the extreme, I'd say.
He took down the Clinton political machine that had been slowly pushing Hillary for her run for 10 years. He beat John McCain who had 30 years of service or so in the U.S. Senate.
So he ran a good campaign and was helped by Clinton's missteps and McCain's being Republican after a country governed by Republicans for 8 years. Funny how the Obama of the campaign (powerful, charismatic, inspirational) died a few weeks after the election and we're left with one who just can't get anything done.
> He's not the selfless saint that society has conditioned itself to portray him as
Dude, no one's a *saint*. Even the folk promoted to Catholic sainthood were human beings with all sorts of foibles. But Ghandi deserved this award a lot more than Obama did. A whole lot more.
It's worse than that. The deadline to be nominated is Feb 1. Even assuming he was nominated right near the deadline, he had been in office barely _10 days_ when someone, impressed with all that he has accomplished, nominated him for this award. Jeez. Obviously, someone clearly thought the election of an Democrat/African-American with good oratorial skills was a major contribution to world peace in and of itself.
This is exactly the kind of condescension I as a person of color can live without.
> Sure iTunes has some browser aspects, but it isn't a browser.
iTunes 8 and above used custom renderer (a subset of which was WebKit) and parsed custom XML. Starting with iTunes 9, the use of WebKit (essentially Safari embedded as a control) has expanded to the point where iTunes servers return web pages viewable with a normal browser.
> The script was to complicated, among other things.
It was. Which is why the "browser ballot" is just a web page with links to various browser installers. This allows infinite retweaking by Microsoft/EU, and customers handle complex pages just fine.
> You can't download anything until the browser is installed, among other things.
Exactly why IE (ironically) will be used to show the ballot screen. Unbelievably, Opera complained about this. I like Opera, but they're looking like whiners here.
> That Microsoft couldn't offer browsers which they didn't own, among other things.
The principal argument against bundling (say) Opera's bits into Windows was that Microsoft would get support queries about Opera. The ballot works around this by giving a _link_ to the 3rd party browser installer. Also, Microsoft need only show the ballot if the computer is from a EU IP address, although it'd be great if they do it for all users.
So, to sum up, the "browser ballot" is lightweight enough that Microsoft can't complain about the engineering cost, and still fulfils the EU goal of giving 3rd party browsers a fair shot in front of customers' eyeballs. Win-win, which is likely why everyone's happy with the scheme.
I still don't agree with the general principle of a government telling me what I must put into my software product, but if Microsoft finds this acceptable, *shrug* good for them.
'I think this is a trustful deal we are making. There can't be a misunderstanding because it is the final result of a long discussion between Steve Ballmer and me.'
"This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine [...] We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again." --Neville Chamberlain, September 1938.
Run as a limited user, locked down. You'd be surprised how safe you'll be. Every version of Windows NT, back to NT 3.1, had this feature. Of course, most users can't be bothered.
The Reg covered it yesterday and noted that Mandelson denied this report -- given they're due for an election in less than a year I can't believe they'd go out of their way to alienate voters.
Offtopic, British lords are so hilarious. There's a secretary of transport called Lord Adonis. Had to chuckle at that.
Re:Caizen is actually spelt with a K
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KDE 4.3 Released
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· Score: 1
The point was that most nations do not have anything that approach the rigor of the 1st and 2nd amendments, either as amendments or even in the main body of the text, or in revisions to the text.
And you miss the point of the amendments. Unlike most constitutions, which are massive *grants* of power to the legislature (effectively the party in power), the US amendments are red lines in the ground that *prohibit* certain kinds of laws. This is why even liberal countries like Sweden and Canada have laws that allow governments a lot of leeway in suppressing certain kinds of speech. See this thread for more details.
And yes, I do think everyone should know what the 1st and 2nd amendments are about. They are very powerful tools in ensuring against government tyranny and lots of countries, including several in Western Europe, would benefit from them.
Re:Caizen is actually spelt with a K
on
KDE 4.3 Released
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· Score: 1
Imho the secrecy helped them with new product designs and new product categories (e.g. the iPhone and the putative Mac Tablet), but the radio silence that precedes a little tweak in hardware specs is pretty stupid. People catch on it too -- all the fanboys who clamored for "one more thing" and got nothing did notice -- google for [WWDC boring] and see. But I suppose the continued secrecy helps build the Apple mystique.
There's this very old Perl script, but it was designed for Netscape. I think Firefox now stores its cookies in a sqlite database, but Perl should still be able to handle that.
> such that all the Flash cookies (yes Flash cookies) are also deleted.
Good point. Too few people even know about Flash cookies. There's also a Firefox extension called BetterPrivacy that'll do this, for those that can't be bothered with scripts.
I know that some shadier ad networks also use Java local storage to store tracking info, if your browser has a Java plugin. Solution: disable storing temporary files on your computer using the Java control panel icon.
Honestly, I do all of this, but I wonder how many others would even bother. It's almost like Scott "You have no privacy. Get over it." McNealy was right.
> why in the world are they buying a laptop in the first place?
Excellent question. Most people really want luggables, not true notebooks. Here's the thing: execs want laptops to do the odd spreadsheet, document and presentation, and see their email on a comfortable-sized screen. They can live with a small, relatively underpowered machine (say a Toshiba Portege or Macbook Air). Geeks with >1 computers can get a beefy desktop and a light, portable laptop.
But in the real world when students buy a laptop, they need to move it around (students move around a lot) AND they use it as their primary machine -- from watching DVDs to doing their schoolwork to even doing the odd video editing for posting party pics to Facebook or Youtube. So yes, they need a powerful notebook -- a luggable if you like.
Same with home users, many of whom have chosen laptops over desktops because it's easier to use laptops in the kitchen and the bedroom and the den. Again, if it's their primary PC, they need something with more power than what the lighter portables provide.
BMW has about 5-8%* of the auto market, but they make a lot of money in that little niche. You don't have to dominate the world to be profitable.
And yes, this does go to show that Microsoft is right in the laptop hunters ad -- Macs *are* pricier. But to those that buy them, they get something of value for that extra $$$.
I have had to work with UK privacy laws before, and trust me, violating them is nothing like murder (see point #1 in the link). It's more like a slap on the wrists and a small fine. Lying and prolonging the media coverage, OTOH, means more customers get to find out that you're lying scumbags.
Which is why IMHO Spinvox is indeed innocent (and is the victim of disgruntled employees) or an especially brazen scumbag.
Spinvox has a denial here, claiming this is a case of disgruntled employees spreading falsehoods.
Of course one'd expect them to deny it, but they've just upped the stakes. They would be in violation of UK privacy laws *and* lying through their teeth if this denial is false.
Same company. Somewhat like the Keiretsus (Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, etc) in Japan and Chaelbols in Korea, you'll find their paws in many businesses. Outside India, they own Jaguar and Tetley Tea, IIRC.
Slashdot Mirror
It would be deeply, deeply wrong if IE was the only way to get infected. The vulnerability is quite interesting -- it can be invoked by crafting a special Embedded OpenType (EOT) font file, which then exploits a vulnerability in kernel mode driver that parses font code. So you can be exploited using Microsoft Office, Wordpad -- anything that can display EOT-embedded fonts. All you have to do is open a document containing the offending font. Of course, IE is easy to exploit because all you need to do is put up a web page.
Note that Windows 7, in which most drivers are back in user space, is not vulnerable to this exploit. Killer reason to upgrade, imho. This is also the reason most video driver crashes don't crash Windows 7 -- the display is simply re-initialized.
Google does appear to honor the Accept-Language header setting (which you can set in Firefox).
For example, I just set my Firefox language setting to "German [de]", cleared my cookies and visited google.com. Lo and behold, Google.com in German. Interestingly, it didn't auto-redirect me to Google UK -- I'm in England right now -- although there's a link to Google UK at the bottom.
If you change browser settings like this, be sure to clear your cookies first -- sometimes existing cookies contain prefs about which site you want to go to, clearing them lets you start from a clean slate.
Are _you_ fucking stupid? A president in office for about _10 days_ (and a thin resume as junior Senator before that) does not deserve to be nominated, except by ass-lickers.
He has done nothing before the nomination date to justify the nomination, except inducing good feelings in folk who're impressed by the fact that a black man is now president of the United States.
Worse, he has done nothing since -- brokered no treaties, reduced no arsenals, peacefully endured no hardships at the hand of a tyrannical state -- to deserve the award. Oh yeah, he has given some more speeches around the world. Big whoopin' deal. If that's what it takes to win a Nobel Peace Prize, someone should tell Morgan Tsvangirai, who endured being beaten to a pulp by Mugabe's thugs that he's too fucking good for the award, because these days it's awarded to gasbags as opposed to those who actually effect tangible change through peaceful means.
It's great that Obama was very modest in his speech about the Nobel the other day. He has much to be modest about. And I say that as a guy who voted for him.
Even better: Windows 7 doesn't come with a mail client.
Offensive? really? Then you're really very easily offended. Frankly, I don't give a shit if that offends you. If it's gotten to the point that SNL is ribbing him about it, he needs to talk less and do more.
And-- How do you know he didn't make any dirty deals? I'm not specifically accusing him of graft, I just believe he's no better and no worse than any other politician. Although for a 'community organizer' president to suddenly say "I didn't follow what's happening at ACORN" was odd in the extreme, I'd say.
So he ran a good campaign and was helped by Clinton's missteps and McCain's being Republican after a country governed by Republicans for 8 years. Funny how the Obama of the campaign (powerful, charismatic, inspirational) died a few weeks after the election and we're left with one who just can't get anything done.
> He's not the selfless saint that society has conditioned itself to portray him as
Dude, no one's a *saint*. Even the folk promoted to Catholic sainthood were human beings with all sorts of foibles. But Ghandi deserved this award a lot more than Obama did. A whole lot more.
> he's only 8 months into his first term.
It's worse than that. The deadline to be nominated is Feb 1. Even assuming he was nominated right near the deadline, he had been in office barely _10 days_ when someone, impressed with all that he has accomplished, nominated him for this award. Jeez. Obviously, someone clearly thought the election of an Democrat/African-American with good oratorial skills was a major contribution to world peace in and of itself.
This is exactly the kind of condescension I as a person of color can live without.
> Seriously, what on earth has he done to win such a prize?
He has delivered some very good speeches, you insensitive clod!
> Sure iTunes has some browser aspects, but it isn't a browser.
iTunes 8 and above used custom renderer (a subset of which was WebKit) and parsed custom XML. Starting with iTunes 9, the use of WebKit (essentially Safari embedded as a control) has expanded to the point where iTunes servers return web pages viewable with a normal browser.
> The script was to complicated, among other things.
It was. Which is why the "browser ballot" is just a web page with links to various browser installers. This allows infinite retweaking by Microsoft/EU, and customers handle complex pages just fine.
> You can't download anything until the browser is installed, among other things.
Exactly why IE (ironically) will be used to show the ballot screen. Unbelievably, Opera complained about this. I like Opera, but they're looking like whiners here.
> That Microsoft couldn't offer browsers which they didn't own, among other things.
The principal argument against bundling (say) Opera's bits into Windows was that Microsoft would get support queries about Opera. The ballot works around this by giving a _link_ to the 3rd party browser installer. Also, Microsoft need only show the ballot if the computer is from a EU IP address, although it'd be great if they do it for all users.
So, to sum up, the "browser ballot" is lightweight enough that Microsoft can't complain about the engineering cost, and still fulfils the EU goal of giving 3rd party browsers a fair shot in front of customers' eyeballs. Win-win, which is likely why everyone's happy with the scheme.
I still don't agree with the general principle of a government telling me what I must put into my software product, but if Microsoft finds this acceptable, *shrug* good for them.
"This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine [...] We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again." --Neville Chamberlain, September 1938.
Run as a limited user, locked down. You'd be surprised how safe you'll be. Every version of Windows NT, back to NT 3.1, had this feature. Of course, most users can't be bothered.
> When elephants fight it is the grass under their feet that suffers the most.
True. Also, when elephants make love it is also the grass under their feet that suffers the most.
The Reg covered it yesterday and noted that Mandelson denied this report -- given they're due for an election in less than a year I can't believe they'd go out of their way to alienate voters.
Offtopic, British lords are so hilarious. There's a secretary of transport called Lord Adonis. Had to chuckle at that.
The point was that most nations do not have anything that approach the rigor of the 1st and 2nd amendments, either as amendments or even in the main body of the text, or in revisions to the text.
And you miss the point of the amendments. Unlike most constitutions, which are massive *grants* of power to the legislature (effectively the party in power), the US amendments are red lines in the ground that *prohibit* certain kinds of laws. This is why even liberal countries like Sweden and Canada have laws that allow governments a lot of leeway in suppressing certain kinds of speech. See this thread for more details.
And yes, I do think everyone should know what the 1st and 2nd amendments are about. They are very powerful tools in ensuring against government tyranny and lots of countries, including several in Western Europe, would benefit from them.
Nope.
...interesting to see the KDE team drop the K from a word where it'd actually be appropriate.
Imho the secrecy helped them with new product designs and new product categories (e.g. the iPhone and the putative Mac Tablet), but the radio silence that precedes a little tweak in hardware specs is pretty stupid. People catch on it too -- all the fanboys who clamored for "one more thing" and got nothing did notice -- google for [WWDC boring] and see. But I suppose the continued secrecy helps build the Apple mystique.
There's this very old Perl script, but it was designed for Netscape. I think Firefox now stores its cookies in a sqlite database, but Perl should still be able to handle that.
> such that all the Flash cookies (yes Flash cookies) are also deleted.
Good point. Too few people even know about Flash cookies. There's also a Firefox extension called BetterPrivacy that'll do this, for those that can't be bothered with scripts.
I know that some shadier ad networks also use Java local storage to store tracking info, if your browser has a Java plugin. Solution: disable storing temporary files on your computer using the Java control panel icon.
Honestly, I do all of this, but I wonder how many others would even bother. It's almost like Scott "You have no privacy. Get over it." McNealy was right.
> why in the world are they buying a laptop in the first place?
Excellent question. Most people really want luggables, not true notebooks. Here's the thing: execs want laptops to do the odd spreadsheet, document and presentation, and see their email on a comfortable-sized screen. They can live with a small, relatively underpowered machine (say a Toshiba Portege or Macbook Air). Geeks with >1 computers can get a beefy desktop and a light, portable laptop.
But in the real world when students buy a laptop, they need to move it around (students move around a lot) AND they use it as their primary machine -- from watching DVDs to doing their schoolwork to even doing the odd video editing for posting party pics to Facebook or Youtube. So yes, they need a powerful notebook -- a luggable if you like.
Same with home users, many of whom have chosen laptops over desktops because it's easier to use laptops in the kitchen and the bedroom and the den. Again, if it's their primary PC, they need something with more power than what the lighter portables provide.
BMW has about 5-8%* of the auto market, but they make a lot of money in that little niche. You don't have to dominate the world to be profitable.
And yes, this does go to show that Microsoft is right in the laptop hunters ad -- Macs *are* pricier. But to those that buy them, they get something of value for that extra $$$.
*I just made that up.
I have had to work with UK privacy laws before, and trust me, violating them is nothing like murder (see point #1 in the link). It's more like a slap on the wrists and a small fine. Lying and prolonging the media coverage, OTOH, means more customers get to find out that you're lying scumbags.
Which is why IMHO Spinvox is indeed innocent (and is the victim of disgruntled employees) or an especially brazen scumbag.
Spinvox has a denial here, claiming this is a case of disgruntled employees spreading falsehoods.
Of course one'd expect them to deny it, but they've just upped the stakes. They would be in violation of UK privacy laws *and* lying through their teeth if this denial is false.
Same company. Somewhat like the Keiretsus (Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, etc) in Japan and Chaelbols in Korea, you'll find their paws in many businesses. Outside India, they own Jaguar and Tetley Tea, IIRC.