Given 8 candidates, 56 elections. Think of it this way:
Given Bush or Gore, who would you pick? Gore.
Given Bush or Perot, who would you pick? Perot.
Given Bush or Sharpton, who would you pick? Sharpton.
..Get the drift yet? I don't think running all 56 elections will be necessary.
Big deal. Win XP loads in 35 seconds (measured from on-button-push to useable system) on my Celeron 600mHz desktop with 192MB RAM. Guess Microsoft has finally developed a decent OS, eh?
Copy protected my ass..
1. Insert CD into portable CD player
2. plug player into "microphone" input port on soundcard
3. set musicmatch jukebox to record mp3 from said port
There you have it..no more difficult than the old way of recording mp3s. Now, remind me again what this technology was supposed to accomplish, other than breaking CD drives, and voiding the warranty on Apple computers?
This won't help raise consumer awareness of such things. The tag will probably say something like "secured for your protection," and nobody will think twice about it.
This is, in part, one of the reasons Apple has taken well to opensource. They give a lot of their software away anyway (Free Beer), so why not take the extra step and give some source too?
Why? Because as it is, you CAN download iTunes but you can only run it on a Mac. If they release the source to iTunes, there will probably be x86 builds floating around within a few days. That'll be a sad day for Apple, as 30% of the incentive of buying an iMac (the iLife software) is, well, gone.
Usually the reaction to this is exasperation. Apache wasn't in the list of competitors, and wasn't to be tested. After all, it doesn't have a price, y'know, and there isn't an Apache Inc to buy it from, so how could they ever compare it with the other servers? The rules are to consider competitive bids, and apache didn't make a bid, so they don't have to consider it.
That's an excellent point; I wonder if we could address this problem to increase awareness of free options like Apache. For example, couldn't the Apache group form an Apache, Inc. and sell the very same server (in addition to posting it for download at httpd.apache.org) for, say, $5? It would then be a commercial product, and other companies could finally look at it as a potential choice. Plus, it'd still be cheaper than the compedetors.
Some scam-happy groups/individuals, individuals who are getting rich quick, people with a better sex life (and penis size!) due to some drug, and those who've lost 20 pounds overnight likewise. Ya think maybe I should run my anti-spam tools *before* the social map analyzer?
Problem is, e-mail is cheap to send internationally, so all spammers will just move their servers to some lawless country (haven't they already?). All this list will accomplish, is giving the spammers a good source of active e-mail addresses.
The channel decides which shows will "air" in a given week, and the viewer has access to ALL of them, at any time. If it's Monday and I want to watch something that typically airs on Friday, no problem.
Ooh, does this mean I can watch Friday's 6:00 news on Monday? How about those little clips where you see the lottery numbers picked? Now THAT would be worth paying for.
It's interesting that you suggest this because this idea has been bouncing around Microsoft headquarters for years, and this is actually the direction in which they are heading. MS's next major OS, code-named Longhorn, is expected to deliver exactly that. They refer to it as a "task-oriented UI" because you don't think about what program you want to run, but rather what you want to get done. It's actually an interesting concept, something people used to do quite a lot with menu systems back in DOS, and something Microsoft is planning to re-introduce. In a few years, we'll get to see whether it flies or not.:)
I fail to see what the problem is. Most of the public doesn't care in the slightest about stuff like this, so they won't take any action. Us geeks know what to do to prevent stuff like this from getting out. For example, you can start by using the Corporate Edition of XP, which doesn't require activation (if this bothers your ethics, go buy a copy of XP Home and toss it out before doing this.) Then simply don't use Windows Update..few of the updates are actually necessary (if your system is well firewalled and you run quality non-MS software on top of their OS), and many can be gotten elsewhere.
Finally and most importantly, run ZoneAlarm. This makes it extremely easy to stop hidden windows components from phoning home, and you might just be surprised when you find out what else it's stopping. For example, my HP keyboard driver was trying to contact HP for god-knows-what-reason.
I no longer dream of shooting them... i do wish that there was a way i could help these kids out tho, today... i'm concidering setting up a free service for kids like this to give them hidden cameras, hidden mikes... and then setting them up with lawyers to sue the fucking losers that do this to kids like i was... and have the proof...
This is absolutely brilliant; I'd love to support such an initiative, and I'm sure slashdot would, too. If you'd like someone to talk it over with or bounce ideas off of, please contact me at fsg%^botservice.net (replace %^ with @).
Several people in this discussion have asked about Clean Slate and Deep Freeze, and whether they could've prevented this attack by securely blocking drive write access.
Having installed these programs on some of my school's machines, I can explain. The program itself is a low-level driver that basically sits between the OS and the hard drive. Whenever the OS wants to write to the HD, the driver does the writing and also makes a note of what was changed in a hidden location on the drive. When the machine boots, these notes are re-read, and the changes undone. This means that you can go to C:\, Select All, Delete, Empty Trash and it'll really be done (well, most of it; you can't delete certain things) - but the driver will remember those changes, and undelete everything when you reboot.
Can it be defeated? You bet. A classmate of mine demonstrated defeating Deep Freeze by booting from a Linux floppy and simply renaming the driver files, preventing the program from loading itself. He then proceeded to install StarCraft (back in Windows), then repeated the linux-boot procedure and restored the drivers, effectively preventing anyone who didn't know the Deep Freeze disable password (or the Linux solution) from deleting the game.
On the announcement page, DALnet states that no group or organization is forcing it to make this controversial decision. I, for one, didn't believe this for a second, and here is why. First, you have to understand that DALnet's higher administration has known for years that such a move is practically legal suicide. If you don't block anything, you aren't legally liable for the content transmitted. Once you start selectively blocking things, you're liable if you let something slip through. Furthermore, DALnet use to have a policy about removing those who do illegal stuff (child pornography trading, warez, etc.) but the network CEO personally repealed those policies when he saw the usercount quickly dropping because of them. Why re-instate them now?
There's more. Anyone who keeps up with IRC news knows that other networks such as IRC-Chat were very recently contacted by the MPAA, who asked them to take an active role in stopping file distribution. At this very same time, DALnet announces a nearly identical policy out of the blue, while claiming that it did so purely voluntarily.
We're nerds, so why do we even care what policies they set? It is, after all, extremely easy to circumvent them and browse whatever the heck you want, safe in the knowledge that you're probably not being monitored (I know, keystroke loggers, etc..) I'm sure somebody here has already mentioned SSH tunnels, and us ultra-nerds have no problem setting them up. For the rest of the world (as well as those who don't leave their boxen on 24/7), there are free services like https://megaproxy.com which is, as the name suggests, an HTTPS-secured web proxy system.
You go to that page, type in which site you want to visit, and you're off to that site, and off the company's squid radar. At school, I use it every day to read forbidden bulletin boards that are blocked by the school's squid-based proxy.
Slashdot Mirror
Given Bush or Gore, who would you pick?
Gore.
Given Bush or Perot, who would you pick?
Perot.
Given Bush or Sharpton, who would you pick?
Sharpton.
Big deal. Win XP loads in 35 seconds (measured from on-button-push to useable system) on my Celeron 600mHz desktop with 192MB RAM. Guess Microsoft has finally developed a decent OS, eh?
1. Insert CD into portable CD player
2. plug player into "microphone" input port on soundcard
3. set musicmatch jukebox to record mp3 from said port
There you have it..no more difficult than the old way of recording mp3s. Now, remind me again what this technology was supposed to accomplish, other than breaking CD drives, and voiding the warranty on Apple computers?
This won't help raise consumer awareness of such things. The tag will probably say something like "secured for your protection," and nobody will think twice about it.
Why? Because as it is, you CAN download iTunes but you can only run it on a Mac. If they release the source to iTunes, there will probably be x86 builds floating around within a few days. That'll be a sad day for Apple, as 30% of the incentive of buying an iMac (the iLife software) is, well, gone.
Yes, I'm sure they do ROT-13 just fine.
Oh, you mean like this?
Apple? Customer friendly? How can a company that invoked the DMCA against its customers be considered customer-friendly in any sense of the word?
I knew Perl/CGI could do anything.
That's an excellent point; I wonder if we could address this problem to increase awareness of free options like Apache. For example, couldn't the Apache group form an Apache, Inc. and sell the very same server (in addition to posting it for download at httpd.apache.org) for, say, $5? It would then be a commercial product, and other companies could finally look at it as a potential choice. Plus, it'd still be cheaper than the compedetors.
Some scam-happy groups/individuals, individuals who are getting rich quick, people with a better sex life (and penis size!) due to some drug, and those who've lost 20 pounds overnight likewise. Ya think maybe I should run my anti-spam tools *before* the social map analyzer?
Problem is, e-mail is cheap to send internationally, so all spammers will just move their servers to some lawless country (haven't they already?). All this list will accomplish, is giving the spammers a good source of active e-mail addresses.
Thanks to this google link, you don't need to register: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/11/business/11PRIV. html?ex=1047963600&en=b851b67c98e9787e&ei=5062&par tner=GOOGLE
Ooh, does this mean I can watch Friday's 6:00 news on Monday? How about those little clips where you see the lottery numbers picked? Now THAT would be worth paying for.
It's interesting that you suggest this because this idea has been bouncing around Microsoft headquarters for years, and this is actually the direction in which they are heading. MS's next major OS, code-named Longhorn, is expected to deliver exactly that. They refer to it as a "task-oriented UI" because you don't think about what program you want to run, but rather what you want to get done. It's actually an interesting concept, something people used to do quite a lot with menu systems back in DOS, and something Microsoft is planning to re-introduce. In a few years, we'll get to see whether it flies or not. :)
Whoever said hello to Windows on sensitive servers shouldn't be allowed to take charge of a soap dish, let alone a server of any kind.
Finally and most importantly, run ZoneAlarm. This makes it extremely easy to stop hidden windows components from phoning home, and you might just be surprised when you find out what else it's stopping. For example, my HP keyboard driver was trying to contact HP for god-knows-what-reason.
This is absolutely brilliant; I'd love to support such an initiative, and I'm sure slashdot would, too. If you'd like someone to talk it over with or bounce ideas off of, please contact me at fsg%^botservice.net (replace %^ with @).
Having installed these programs on some of my school's machines, I can explain. The program itself is a low-level driver that basically sits between the OS and the hard drive. Whenever the OS wants to write to the HD, the driver does the writing and also makes a note of what was changed in a hidden location on the drive. When the machine boots, these notes are re-read, and the changes undone. This means that you can go to C:\, Select All, Delete, Empty Trash and it'll really be done (well, most of it; you can't delete certain things) - but the driver will remember those changes, and undelete everything when you reboot.
Can it be defeated? You bet. A classmate of mine demonstrated defeating Deep Freeze by booting from a Linux floppy and simply renaming the driver files, preventing the program from loading itself. He then proceeded to install StarCraft (back in Windows), then repeated the linux-boot procedure and restored the drivers, effectively preventing anyone who didn't know the Deep Freeze disable password (or the Linux solution) from deleting the game.
Neat, eh?
There's more. Anyone who keeps up with IRC news knows that other networks such as IRC-Chat were very recently contacted by the MPAA, who asked them to take an active role in stopping file distribution. At this very same time, DALnet announces a nearly identical policy out of the blue, while claiming that it did so purely voluntarily.
If nothing else, that seems a little odd.
You go to that page, type in which site you want to visit, and you're off to that site, and off the company's squid radar. At school, I use it every day to read forbidden bulletin boards that are blocked by the school's squid-based proxy.