This post should help you understand why the comparison is valid. It's a DefCon presentation about worms and OS diversity.
The problem is M$ does have security holes but a worm will attack one OS (usually M$). So if the whole web is on IIS, it could be taken down by a single worm in a matter of minutes because of one new security whole. The same argument goes for Apache security wholes. It's really about limiting damages. If you take down a type of resource, you still have a bunch that are left standing.
To add to michael's point, Jonathan Wignall made an excellent presentation(sorry it's PPT) at DefCon 11 last year about how we could fight network worms.
He basically concluded that we could not launch counter worms (like ones that would patch vulnerable Windows systems). The best solution was to diversify the OS we have our servers running on. A worm can spread in a matter of minutes as the creator of the worm usually chooses a set of powerful vulnerable machines as his first hit.
Some OS like to keep things more open and easy to configure like Windows 2k server, which showed a whole in MS SQL server 2K in which the DB could be accessed over the net. As a network admin you just needed to keep your DB firewalled and things would have been ok. Other OS like Solaris are more of a pain to configure but usually leave less stuff open.
Re:Bad Comparison, those aren't service packs.
on
No WMA for HP iPod
·
· Score: 1
There are actually many security features Apple service packs address.
M$ also allows you to get the security fixes without the service packs. No, you don't need the SP to get the security patches. Nothing forces you to upgrade to the new SP. But if you do, you do get new features.
Granted more viruses are written for Windows and the alerts appear more on CNN when it concerns Windows, you might think Windows contains a lot more security holes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying M$ wrote windows very securely, but they do fix their stuff for free.
Don't get me wrong, Apple is doing the right thing from a business standpoint. They are just protecting their market : iPods and ACC.
They just don't want people to be switching from ACC to WMA by the click. They want people to buy a new player. Then when you bought the player, you'll buy only ACC. Nothing new, it's called consumer lock-ins.
I am more wondering if it's a good thing for us, the consumer, to have to buy a different player because M$ and Apple are in their little war.
Re:Is Apple or Microsoft forcing HP to do this?
on
No WMA for HP iPod
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· Score: 1
Well, just try to buy an Apple computer and you'll understand.
I know, I'm pushing the use of "monopoly" here but remember the episode of Ipods and $100 batteries. buy an Ipod, after 2 years your battery life will suck and to replace it apple will charge you $100. I'm sure you and I can figure out a way to do it ourselves but Joe@aol.com which is most of Apple's customer base will pay the $100.
Think now of every service pack Apple releases under a new animal name. Every time, it costs $130. Can you imagine what people would say if M$ charged $100, even $50 for XP SP1? People would say they have no alternative but to buy the new M$. You would have a billion lawsuits against M$. With Apple, if you have a Mac, you install Mac OS, nothing else, so no choice there either.
Re:Is Apple or Microsoft forcing HP to do this?
on
No WMA for HP iPod
·
· Score: 1
I know, I was thinking about that when I wrote the comment! I meant they are monopolies within their own OS market.
So you buy a Mac, then everything has to be Apple approved.
Buy M$, and suddenly things work well with M$ products but not as well when it's a competitor of M$ (although things have been getting better with samba or itunes for windows).
Now, you have this common thing, digital music, that doesn't care about what OS you run it on. The ideal was MP3 (conceptually, not quality wise). It ran everywhere. But with copy protection, M$ created their own format that only works on M$ and Apple the same for their format.
Is Apple or Microsoft forcing HP to do this?
on
No WMA for HP iPod
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I wonder if Microsoft is threatened HP to restrict the Windows and Office licenses if they made a player that could play WMA and ACC.
Not too long ago, they were threatening Dell of not giving them Windows licenses if IE wasn't the only browser in new computers... here's a/. article around that subject .
Well, I hope that's no surprise to anyone. Although M$ does make good products (and I don't mean to start a whole debate here) they have a tendency to use their monopoly to force products.
I also wonder if Apple restricted HP from supporting WMA? Yes, Apple does these kind of things too!
Eh, a war of monopolies! They've just found common grounds to fight on...
Well, it sucks for Lindows but if any of you out there still want to file a claim, you have until March 15, 2004.
Remember, it's your money so it's better to file it through the official channels...
Note: I know some of you will never file anything with M$ so this post doesn't apply to you (you don't need to go crazy on the replies, just go to the next post).
The EFF can't protect you if you for selling them. They can however protect you from downloading them. I would imagine the RIAA sues for both selling and getting the music.
It just looks like the fines for downloading music or video are pretty impressive compared to those of selling the material. I'm not saying they can get you out of jail but they can give you tips on how to fight some of the accusations in court.
Oh they really chose the perfect city for their testing grounds. LA is probably the city that has the most lawyers per person living there.
Well, if you ever get in trouble with the RIAA in the streets of LA, try the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Here are a few tips from the EFF if you get in trouble with the RIAA.
I wonder if their jackets are copyrighted. It would be funny to find RIAA jackets for sale downtown LA. But then again, who would wear them!
Unfortunately, it seems the primary motivation for the Mars for the general population is now sensationalism. I'm sure the Slashdot audience how a different view on Mars though.
USA Today has a good article about how Mars is shifting from science to politics.
The Washington Post explains better the goals of the current US gov.
I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing because that's usually how space projects get more funding but it might explain why the photos are looking more "nice to the user" than "scientifically realistic".
We do have laws to protect us against spam but the problem is enforcing them. Do you really have the time and resources to go track down with very expensive lawyers the spammer that lives in Brazil using a Russian ISP through an offshore bank account?
Ideally the US gov would take care of it but it seems they'd rather support spammers...
Maybe people whose address is posted should file a complaint with the FTC against the U.S. Treasury Department. I know, the Treasury dept is technically not a "business" (although it's arguable) but it would be funny if the FTC received tons of complaints because of this.
Well you're right in concept. The problem is he originally switched from DSL to cable because of the download speed. Cable allowed twice the speed as DSL in his area. With newsgroup downloads, you do download at the max speed so it mattered quite a bit... now it takes twice the time.
Actually, a friend with Adelphia received a letter telling him to cut his download. He called Adelphia and no one could tell him how much to cut or how much he did download.
He cut half his newsgroup download and they cut his service after a month saying it was still too much.
He yelled, bitched, emailed, called, nada (I called too). So then he could either get DSL or a lawyer. DSL was much easier.
It really sucks but I am not sure how else you can fight that. Maybe the ACLU?
The problem is that, as the Adelphia contract states, they decide on the fly how much is too much download. So you can keep the contract but it won't help you much.
You'll start seeing bandwidth limits when they start charging for it. Right now they just don't handle it. The US will do like Australia and start charging for bandwidth... it's just a matter of time.
The LA area... they have plenty of bandwidth there.
What slows down cable is usually the upload, not download. So worry about your neighbor that didn't notice all the spyware uploading from his comp:)
Slashdot Mirror
Dude, relax a little
word
We might need it as the White House recommends we eat junk food (usually the preffered gaming food) as long as we excercise.
The World Health Organization recommends eating better but they have probably never played video games.
According to a Netcraft report, 2/3 of the web now runs on Apache.
Granted, it could be Window/Apache, it's most likely Linux/Apache.
This post should help you understand why the comparison is valid. It's a DefCon presentation about worms and OS diversity.
The problem is M$ does have security holes but a worm will attack one OS (usually M$). So if the whole web is on IIS, it could be taken down by a single worm in a matter of minutes because of one new security whole. The same argument goes for Apache security wholes. It's really about limiting damages. If you take down a type of resource, you still have a bunch that are left standing.
To add to michael's point, Jonathan Wignall made an excellent presentation(sorry it's PPT) at DefCon 11 last year about how we could fight network worms.
He basically concluded that we could not launch counter worms (like ones that would patch vulnerable Windows systems). The best solution was to diversify the OS we have our servers running on. A worm can spread in a matter of minutes as the creator of the worm usually chooses a set of powerful vulnerable machines as his first hit.
Some OS like to keep things more open and easy to configure like Windows 2k server, which showed a whole in MS SQL server 2K in which the DB could be accessed over the net. As a network admin you just needed to keep your DB firewalled and things would have been ok. Other OS like Solaris are more of a pain to configure but usually leave less stuff open.
There are actually many security features Apple service packs address.
M$ also allows you to get the security fixes without the service packs. No, you don't need the SP to get the security patches. Nothing forces you to upgrade to the new SP. But if you do, you do get new features.
Granted more viruses are written for Windows and the alerts appear more on CNN when it concerns Windows, you might think Windows contains a lot more security holes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying M$ wrote windows very securely, but they do fix their stuff for free.
My bad guys. You know what I meant... :)
Don't get me wrong, Apple is doing the right thing from a business standpoint. They are just protecting their market : iPods and ACC.
They just don't want people to be switching from ACC to WMA by the click. They want people to buy a new player. Then when you bought the player, you'll buy only ACC. Nothing new, it's called consumer lock-ins.
I am more wondering if it's a good thing for us, the consumer, to have to buy a different player because M$ and Apple are in their little war.
Well, just try to buy an Apple computer and you'll understand.
I know, I'm pushing the use of "monopoly" here but remember the episode of Ipods and $100 batteries. buy an Ipod, after 2 years your battery life will suck and to replace it apple will charge you $100. I'm sure you and I can figure out a way to do it ourselves but Joe@aol.com which is most of Apple's customer base will pay the $100.
Think now of every service pack Apple releases under a new animal name. Every time, it costs $130. Can you imagine what people would say if M$ charged $100, even $50 for XP SP1? People would say they have no alternative but to buy the new M$. You would have a billion lawsuits against M$. With Apple, if you have a Mac, you install Mac OS, nothing else, so no choice there either.
I know, I was thinking about that when I wrote the comment! I meant they are monopolies within their own OS market.
So you buy a Mac, then everything has to be Apple approved.
Buy M$, and suddenly things work well with M$ products but not as well when it's a competitor of M$ (although things have been getting better with samba or itunes for windows).
Now, you have this common thing, digital music, that doesn't care about what OS you run it on. The ideal was MP3 (conceptually, not quality wise). It ran everywhere. But with copy protection, M$ created their own format that only works on M$ and Apple the same for their format.
I wonder if Microsoft is threatened HP to restrict the Windows and Office licenses if they made a player that could play WMA and ACC.
/. article around that subject .
Well, I hope that's no surprise to anyone. Although M$ does make good products (and I don't mean to start a whole debate here) they have a tendency to use their monopoly to force products.
Not too long ago, they were threatening Dell of not giving them Windows licenses if IE wasn't the only browser in new computers... here's a
I also wonder if Apple restricted HP from supporting WMA? Yes, Apple does these kind of things too!
Eh, a war of monopolies! They've just found common grounds to fight on...
no wonder an Anonymous Coward posted this.
Well, it sucks for Lindows but if any of you out there still want to file a claim, you have until March 15, 2004.
Remember, it's your money so it's better to file it through the official channels...
Note: I know some of you will never file anything with M$ so this post doesn't apply to you (you don't need to go crazy on the replies, just go to the next post).
The EFF can't protect you if you for selling them. They can however protect you from downloading them. I would imagine the RIAA sues for both selling and getting the music.
It just looks like the fines for downloading music or video are pretty impressive compared to those of selling the material. I'm not saying they can get you out of jail but they can give you tips on how to fight some of the accusations in court.
Oh they really chose the perfect city for their testing grounds. LA is probably the city that has the most lawyers per person living there.
Well, if you ever get in trouble with the RIAA in the streets of LA, try the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Here are a few tips from the EFF if you get in trouble with the RIAA.
I wonder if their jackets are copyrighted. It would be funny to find RIAA jackets for sale downtown LA. But then again, who would wear them!
Unfortunately, it seems the primary motivation for the Mars for the general population is now sensationalism. I'm sure the Slashdot audience how a different view on Mars though.
USA Today has a good article about how Mars is shifting from science to politics.
The Washington Post explains better the goals of the current US gov.
I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing because that's usually how space projects get more funding but it might explain why the photos are looking more "nice to the user" than "scientifically realistic".
Next thing you know, people are going to file lawsuits against the creators of GTA because their car got damaged in an earthquake...
We do have laws to protect us against spam but the problem is enforcing them. Do you really have the time and resources to go track down with very expensive lawyers the spammer that lives in Brazil using a Russian ISP through an offshore bank account?
Ideally the US gov would take care of it but it seems they'd rather support spammers...
Here's a consumer alert from the Federal Trade Commission on why you shouldn't post your email address online... how ironic!
Maybe people whose address is posted should file a complaint with the FTC against the U.S. Treasury Department. I know, the Treasury dept is technically not a "business" (although it's arguable) but it would be funny if the FTC received tons of complaints because of this.
Well you're right in concept. The problem is he originally switched from DSL to cable because of the download speed. Cable allowed twice the speed as DSL in his area. With newsgroup downloads, you do download at the max speed so it mattered quite a bit... now it takes twice the time.
I actually use a different newsgroup provider because Adelphia is really bandwidth with retention. So they would see the bandwidth usage....
Actually, a friend with Adelphia received a letter telling him to cut his download. He called Adelphia and no one could tell him how much to cut or how much he did download.
He cut half his newsgroup download and they cut his service after a month saying it was still too much.
He yelled, bitched, emailed, called, nada (I called too). So then he could either get DSL or a lawyer. DSL was much easier.
It really sucks but I am not sure how else you can fight that. Maybe the ACLU?
The problem is that, as the Adelphia contract states, they decide on the fly how much is too much download. So you can keep the contract but it won't help you much.
You'll start seeing bandwidth limits when they start charging for it. Right now they just don't handle it. The US will do like Australia and start charging for bandwidth... it's just a matter of time.
The LA area... they have plenty of bandwidth there. :)
What slows down cable is usually the upload, not download. So worry about your neighbor that didn't notice all the spyware uploading from his comp