Aside from the 35 hour week, wine for a euro a bottle, amazing food, and hot (albeit potentially hairy) women? The ski resorts? The Mediterranean resorts? The Maginot line? Knowing that steak should be rare and bloody...
Are you implying that the Maginot Line is one of the big sources of pride in being French?
$1,500/mo slips in to the noise; $50K makes itself seen.
Here we have Mr. RollingThunder from The Burrows. He is proposing a $50,000 price tag to bring every single system in to compliance. Mr. RollingThunder, would you stand up, please?
I'm no constitutional scholar, but I suspect that inefficiency was meant to be applied to Congress, not to the Executive Branch (which DHS, CIA, NSA and other TLAs are part of). The inefficiency was meant to prevent bogus laws from making it on the books. (you can argue that the inefficiency fails at this, but that was its purpose), not to prevent gov't from enforcing the laws it does have.
Mr. Keene said jurors might think they were helping, not hurting, by digging deeper. âoeThere are people who feel they canâ(TM)t serve justice if they donâ(TM)t find the answers to certain questions,â he said.
I was just about to bring this up. The whole point of 12 Angry Men was a jury that did their own research (all alone in the deliberation room) and came up with the 'right' verdict. Which they would never have done based only on the 'evidence' presented at the trial. I'd sure like to see how that story would turn out if the jury had had internet access.
So there may be centuries of precedent preventing jurors from conducting their own research, but 12 Angry Men is 'precedent' for the contrary strategy.
Why not? Apple did it, and people adjusted pretty well.
Some did. Others didn't.
In the 90's, Photoshop was a Mac product...many people bought Macs to run Photoshop. When Apple switched to OSX, Adobe took what...three years to port Photoshop? Today it does run on OSX, but most users run it on Windows. Apple's switch to OSX cost them a big killer app.
Can you understand why MS doesn't want to go that route?
What you are describing sounds a lot like Java's SecurityManager class. It's the main reason Java is considered 'secure'...the SecurityManager lets Java applets (and other types of programs) run in a sandbox, request extra permissions, and provides APIs to enable users to grant said permissions. I know JS and Flash also have sandboxes, dunno much about their security management.
The problem MS would face is providing a sandbox that is secure, yet is compatibile with the current environment that internet-based programs (eg DirectX) expects. Which (I'm sure) is terribly complex.
Basically, I suspect MS could have 'secure' or 'compatible', but not both.
If you ask that on Slashdot, you get either "switch to Linux hur hur" or "they should write a new OS from scratch and run NT in a VM." Neither of those is a realistic option. The second is (slightly) more realistic, but it would be a decade of work even assuming MS started this minute.
Oh pish-tosh. Show of hands...how many people have a Windows VM up and running? Wow. MS doesn't even have to do anything...Dell or some other OEM could bundle machines with Linux, VirtualBox, and a Windows VM with snapshot facilities. And not even tell people there's Linux under the hood. And in case you get pwned, just revert back to a clean snapshot (like the one provided out of the box).
The only parts that would take a decade is to get graphics working (eg games). and 'weird' hardware (that has no Linux or Mac ports).
Of course, virtualization would commodatize Windows, which would interfere with MS's business model. So I don't think they're too eager to go that route.
So I guess that answer is not realistic for MS anyway. After 5 years, I believe MS *is* doing everything it can (w/o saccrificing its business model). If they haven't fixed things, maybe they *can't*.
Malware!!!
on
Jurassic Web
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
That's the main tech boom since 1996! Think about it. Viruses existed back then, and they were destructive. They'd crash your machine on purpose, but not before alerting you to their presence. Botnets? Definitely a 21st-century tech. There was lots of spam, but it didn't contain viruses, and the web was pretty safe. Even using IE:) The big-name viruses: Melissa, ILoveYou, Blaster...all newer.
Actually, IIRC archie was the closest thing we had to P2P. Including the veronica search engine, as it would index the big FTP sites & let you browse & download to your hearts content.
And there were some copyright violations there, but they were mostly images (comics or porn). And what's worse, they were swamped by the (legit) free software.
And there were dire warnings that your FTP site would be brought to its knees if you made porn available there. Those faded away sometime around '96. Not that there weren't better ways to get porn anyway.
Actually back in 1996 there was no GNOME or KDE...we used fvwm (1!). And emacs was only in version 19. One of the trinity, along with netscape and xterm. People were still reading USENET although I had tired of it after the eternal September.
Sigh...you're right. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
Well, if you want me to believe you, try showing how those licenses don't satisfy a particular business purpose that would be satisfied by one of the other 70.
Doesn't the GCC compiler use a modified version of the GPL? Don't remember details, but there is a modification of the GPL that specifically permits you to write closed-source code and compile it using GCC (without your code becoming GPL). And IIRC flex & bison have similar exemptions.
It's fairly easy to devise a virus or botnet that works on Windows without admin privileges...after all what part of a virus *requires* admin? A non-admin virus can still start up when you login, can still access the net & send spam.
I'd guess the only reason running as non-admin would stop current viruses is that few enough people do it to not make a big enough target.
How about this one: Ok Microsoft, you are making automatic changes to software written by other companies without permission or request of the user. I don't care if you say it's just an extension, you didn't ask me! My trust just went right down the toilet.
Don't worry, just flush. You'll have some more trust in about 20-30 hours.
Typing cryptic commands is very error-prone and disconcerting for users. You may think that the "click blah blah" instructions are long and complicated, but for most users it's what makes the most sense, and they have at least a slight idea of what's going on.
Maybe true for simple users. Power users don't type cryptic commands verbatim; they cut'n paste them directly from the source. Heck, simple users could do this too, if they understand cut'n paste.
Most likely we need a 'For Dummies' section of the community docs that explains cut'npaste on terminals and other such things you need to know in order to follow directions properly.
Wasn't the fact that the four-color theorem was 'solved' in 1979 using a computer actual evidence of proof by programming? Plus the fact that no one has solved it w/o a computer?
1. Contact pornmonger running download-for-$ website 2. Contact black hat managing botnet 3. Pay black hat $ to instruct botnet to buy porn from website 4. Collect $$ from pornomonger 5. Profit!
The problem with Java concurrency and threading is, all the locks are advisory. The synchronize statement is a nice bit of syntax, and making it apply to whole blocks of code was the Right Thing to do.
The problem simply comes in that a program is not obligated to *use* synchronize, or any locking, when it accesses objects. Which means the code is totally unsuitable for integrating into a multithreaded program. And trying to backport thread-safety in is (currently) too difficult, as there are no tools to tell you when you've got it right.
I haven't studied Erlang yet, but threads (or more generally concurrency) done securely would require mandatory locking of all data..except when you know two threads must share data and sync between each other. Ada95 seems to understand this, although it probably needs refinement.
Which makes threads functionally equivalent to UNIX processes & shared memory:)
Well, if I planned to seed a worm in a botnet that would patch machines against said botnet (or crash them spectacularly, requiring reboot/patch), my reputation is on the line. I'd probably announce "This is possible", not "I'm gonna do it".
Which is precisely what they did. Hmmmmmmm...where's my tinfoil hat?
What could change it would for example be if a seller of a commercial linux distro would actually pay application developers for modifications, including usability: "-You get $1000 if you can make pidgin girlfriend-friendly following these guidelines", meaning: wizards, simplifications, naming conventions, themes and so on. Well, Canonical is a private company, it would be fairly easy for them to have a 'Pidgin setup wizard' that queried you for your AIM, MSN, etc login credentials, and set up the appropriate config files so that Pidgen logs you on automatically when you first run it, right? That way they wouldn't have to bother the Pidgin devs with "your s/w is too hard!".
Slashdot Mirror
Aside from the 35 hour week, wine for a euro a bottle, amazing food, and hot (albeit potentially hairy) women? The ski resorts? The Mediterranean resorts? The Maginot line? Knowing that steak should be rare and bloody...
Are you implying that the Maginot Line is one of the big sources of pride in being French?
Unfortunately, I have a Masters Degree in Drunken Calculus, so that feature won't help me :(
Yes. As long as you know not to mix drinking and deriving.
<ducks>
$1,500/mo slips in to the noise; $50K makes itself seen.
Here we have Mr. RollingThunder from The Burrows. He is proposing a $50,000 price tag to bring every single system in to compliance. Mr. RollingThunder, would you stand up, please?
<bang>
This demonstrates the value of not being seen
I'm no constitutional scholar, but I suspect that inefficiency was meant to be applied to Congress, not to the Executive Branch (which DHS, CIA, NSA and other TLAs are part of). The inefficiency was meant to prevent bogus laws from making it on the books. (you can argue that the inefficiency fails at this, but that was its purpose), not to prevent gov't from enforcing the laws it does have.
Mr. Keene said jurors might think they were helping, not hurting, by digging deeper. âoeThere are people who feel they canâ(TM)t serve justice if they donâ(TM)t find the answers to certain questions,â he said.
I was just about to bring this up. The whole point of 12 Angry Men was a jury that did their own research (all alone in the deliberation room) and came up with the 'right' verdict. Which they would never have done based only on the 'evidence' presented at the trial. I'd sure like to see how that story would turn out if the jury had had internet access.
So there may be centuries of precedent preventing jurors from conducting their own research, but 12 Angry Men is 'precedent' for the contrary strategy.
Why not? Apple did it, and people adjusted pretty well.
Some did. Others didn't.
In the 90's, Photoshop was a Mac product...many people bought Macs to run Photoshop. When Apple switched to OSX, Adobe took what...three years to port Photoshop? Today it does run on OSX, but most users run it on Windows. Apple's switch to OSX cost them a big killer app.
Can you understand why MS doesn't want to go that route?
What you are describing sounds a lot like Java's SecurityManager class. It's the main reason Java is considered 'secure'...the SecurityManager lets Java applets (and other types of programs) run in a sandbox, request extra permissions, and provides APIs to enable users to grant said permissions. I know JS and Flash also have sandboxes, dunno much about their security management.
The problem MS would face is providing a sandbox that is secure, yet is compatibile with the current environment that internet-based programs (eg DirectX) expects. Which (I'm sure) is terribly complex.
Basically, I suspect MS could have 'secure' or 'compatible', but not both.
If you ask that on Slashdot, you get either "switch to Linux hur hur" or "they should write a new OS from scratch and run NT in a VM." Neither of those is a realistic option. The second is (slightly) more realistic, but it would be a decade of work even assuming MS started this minute.
Oh pish-tosh. Show of hands...how many people have a Windows VM up and running? Wow. MS doesn't even have to do anything...Dell or some other OEM could bundle machines with Linux, VirtualBox, and a Windows VM with snapshot facilities. And not even tell people there's Linux under the hood. And in case you get pwned, just revert back to a clean snapshot (like the one provided out of the box).
The only parts that would take a decade is to get graphics working (eg games). and 'weird' hardware (that has no Linux or Mac ports).
Of course, virtualization would commodatize Windows, which would interfere with MS's business model. So I don't think they're too eager to go that route.
So I guess that answer is not realistic for MS anyway. After 5 years, I believe MS *is* doing everything it can (w/o saccrificing its business model). If they haven't fixed things, maybe they *can't*.
That's the main tech boom since 1996! Think about it. Viruses existed back then, and they were destructive. They'd crash your machine on purpose, but not before alerting you to their presence. Botnets? Definitely a 21st-century tech. There was lots of spam, but it didn't contain viruses, and the web was pretty safe. Even using IE :) The big-name viruses: Melissa, ILoveYou, Blaster...all newer.
Heck Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit wasn't published until 1998.
The net hasn't improved much since '96. It's the bad guys that have. Where will THEY be in 13 years?
Actually, IIRC archie was the closest thing we had to P2P. Including the veronica search engine, as it would index the big FTP sites & let you browse & download to your hearts content.
And there were some copyright violations there, but they were mostly images (comics or porn). And what's worse, they were swamped by the (legit) free software.
And there were dire warnings that your FTP site would be brought to its knees if you made porn available there. Those faded away sometime around '96. Not that there weren't better ways to get porn anyway.
And no one called it pr0n yet :)
Actually back in 1996 there was no GNOME or KDE...we used fvwm (1!).
And emacs was only in version 19. One of the trinity, along with
netscape and xterm. People were still reading USENET although I had
tired of it after the eternal September.
Sigh...you're right. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
..but you decided to post instead. ...ducks...
Simple solution. Change the GNOME/KDE desktop & filebrowser to refuse to execute programs owned by the user. Stops trojans dead.
Yes, it is a bit inconvenient...if a user wants to run a downloaded program they have to..urk...USE THE COMMMAND LINE! AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!
Perfect way to stop 'stupid' users from running malware.
Well, if you want me to believe you, try showing how those licenses don't satisfy a particular business purpose that would be satisfied by one of the other 70.
Doesn't the GCC compiler use a modified version of the GPL? Don't remember details, but there is a modification of the GPL that specifically permits you to write closed-source code and compile it using GCC (without your code becoming GPL). And IIRC flex & bison have similar exemptions.
I call bullshit.
It's fairly easy to devise a virus or botnet that works on Windows without admin privileges...after all what part of a virus *requires* admin? A non-admin virus can still start up when you login, can still access the net & send spam.
I'd guess the only reason running as non-admin would stop current viruses is that few enough people do it to not make a big enough target.
How about this one: Ok Microsoft, you are making automatic changes to software written by other companies without permission or request of the user. I don't care if you say it's just an extension, you didn't ask me! My trust just went right down the toilet.
Don't worry, just flush. You'll have some more trust in about 20-30 hours.
(I'm only half-joking)
Typing cryptic commands is very error-prone and disconcerting for users. You may think that the "click blah blah" instructions are long and complicated, but for most users it's what makes the most sense, and they have at least a slight idea of what's going on.
Maybe true for simple users. Power users don't type cryptic commands verbatim; they cut'n paste them directly from the source. Heck, simple users could do this too, if they understand cut'n paste.
Most likely we need a 'For Dummies' section of the community docs that explains cut'npaste on terminals and other such things you need to know in order to follow directions properly.
Wasn't the fact that the four-color
theorem was 'solved' in 1979 using a computer actual evidence of
proof by programming? Plus the fact that no one has solved it w/o a
computer?
Damn, and I burned all my mod points on last week's "Stupid Emacs Tricks".
Somewhere, someone's laughing at me.
I SAID SYNTAX ERROR!
NOW CUT IT OUT!!!
Brought to you by a cute little utility: "Naked City" from the Apple II days of yore.
1. Contact pornmonger running download-for-$ website
2. Contact black hat managing botnet
3. Pay black hat $ to instruct botnet to buy porn from website
4. Collect $$ from pornomonger
5. Profit!
Wow! A library that helps people detect sarcasm...that IS a killer feature!!!
The problem with Java concurrency and threading is, all the locks are advisory. The synchronize statement is a nice bit of syntax, and making it apply to whole blocks of code was the Right Thing to do.
:)
The problem simply comes in that a program is not obligated to *use* synchronize, or any locking, when it accesses objects. Which means the code is totally unsuitable for integrating into a multithreaded program. And trying to backport thread-safety in is (currently) too difficult, as there are no tools to tell you when you've got it right.
I haven't studied Erlang yet, but threads (or more generally concurrency) done securely would require mandatory locking of all data..except when you know two threads must share data and sync between each other. Ada95 seems to understand this, although it probably needs refinement.
Which makes threads functionally equivalent to UNIX processes & shared memory
Well, if I planned to seed a worm in a botnet that would patch machines against said botnet (or crash them spectacularly, requiring reboot/patch), my reputation is on the line. I'd probably announce "This is possible", not "I'm gonna do it".
Which is precisely what they did. Hmmmmmmm...where's my tinfoil hat?