I can't help but notice the irony in wanting to be left alone on a social networking site. Yeah ok I'm with you, the app requests are annoying. Funny statement nonetheless:P
Let me get this straight. Employee goes to work for Company, finds Work is not exactly what he wants, leaves Company.
Again, why is this an article? Just because the employee is recognized in the Open Source arena? Because Microsoft was the employer? Maybe if there was something controversial about his experience at Microsoft, or at least interesting it would qualify.
That's just plain stupid. Grandpa & Grandma want to check their email and pics of the grandkids, why on earth should they require a Radeon MegaXP293823-XtremeSLI+ to do that? I hope there's an option to disable all that cycle-wasting crud or MS may be shooting itself in the foot: how many offices will spend a few hundred dollars on individual video cards just to upgrade the OS? What about those machines with onboard video (ala Dell?)
True, but grandpa and grandma probably aren't going to be upgrading their XP box to Longhorn either. Or they buy a new machine with Longhorn that comes with the required hardware.
I agree that the average computer user is not interested in how their computer works, only that it should work. I also agree that the problem lies with technologies that require more expertise from the average user that is appropriate. BUT. Given that, it is logical to conclude that the "average" user is going to have difficulties using their system. To use an analogy, just because my garage is full of tools doesn't necessarily mean I have the skills to properly tune an engine, or even change the oil.
Computers are still very much at the point where they are tools that require skilled operation depending on what you want to do. Some tasks are obviously easier than others, although ease does not preclude education. For example even though I can buy a computer and have high-speed internet installed in days for just a few hundred dollars, doesn't mean I shouldn't be aware of viruses, spyware etc.
It's a fundamental problem of what people expect from their computers, and it's a much larger problem than just IE as slashdotters would like to believe. For example it is not a trivial matter to produce even medium quality DVDs of home movies captured from a camcorder, but people assume that because "computers" can be used to do this task, THEIR computer must be able to as well. And it can, but only if you know what you're doing.
Another way to remember yet not remember passwords is to have a word in mind, but shift your fingers one key to the left or right and type it out. I could figure out what my password actually is but I don't need to, and it will most likely never be in a dictionary.
You've obviously never had a problem with theft. I live in a wonderful area of Seattle that offers many of the perks of this beautiful city, but this particular area happens to be a hotspot for petty theft; Capitol Hill. Therefore I will do anything I can to make a potential thief at least think twice about my car, even if the alarm going off might do nothing in and of itself. And yes I have had my car broken into, twice in fact. Both times I am absolutely positive that an alarm would have been an effective deterrent (I have one now).
And for the record, it makes COMPLETE sense that using the key to open the door with an alarm will set off the alarm. The most common trigger for car alarms is the door opening (not the key turning) while the alarm is armed, and that's all I care about personally. Options like movement sensors, windows breaking etc are all fine and dandy but most break-ins occur through the door. Except if it's just a smash n grab, nothing could prevent that except bulletproof windows. But if they smash the window and open from the inside, ALARM. That said, most aftermarket alarms should have a hidden bypass switch inside that allow you to disable the alarm in the event of your remote not working. Oh yours doesn't? That's your own damn fault.
Obviously this marketing campaign is not targeted towards you. Believe it or not, not all advertising gimmicks are designed to be desirable by everybody in the whole world. Pepsi and Apple are clearly targeting people who already like Pepsi products and would find a free song a nice prize in addition to their drink of choice.
Anyone who knows anything about iTMS would know that songs are only $.99 and would realize the futility of purchasing a more expensive product just for the less expensive free gift. There's also something to be said for generating hype over a product in general, like we are all doing right this second by reading this post.
So you don't like Pepsi, then don't buy one. If you want songs from iTMS then go directly to the source. Get over yourself.
IIRC, Steve Jackson Games was raided because the government suspected that the GURPS Cyberpunk RPG was a "handbook for computer crime". At least that was their excuse.
Here in the Seattle area there are at least half a dozen places I know of that will either buy old crap from you or at least take it off your hands for free. If your hardware has any value at all (read: less than 3 years old) then usually you can make a few bucks or so.
Although I usually hold on to hardware well past the point of it being valuable anymore so I could care less about getting any money for old 15" CRTs or Pentiums.
In my experience working for an ISP there are three main avenues of spam an admin should be worried about.
1) Spam sent through the customers open-relays, or hijacked mail servers. This is truly the worst of the worst, and almost always unsolicited.
2) Customers who send from their own SMTP servers. We kept an eye on these guys and generally allowed people to do it unless we got complaints or if the mailings were illegal (forged headers or missing/non-functional unsubscribe link).
3) Customers who use the ISPs SMTP server. Of the three this was the least of our concerns by far. This was prohibited in our TOS and we were pretty strict. One warning and you're gone.
So given these three types of spam delivery, what could an ISP do to prevent it? Since only a very small fraction of the spam that passed through our network went through our SMTP server, throttling it back or monitoring it wouldn't have done very much. And tracking down our customers open relays before spammers do was never really effective, because most people were either too incompetent to understand what an open relay was (uhh, I'll call our "consultant", he set up "the server"), or didn't think it was a serious enough issue to do anything about it. Most of the people that understood what an open relay was and realized its potential for abuse had either already secured it properly, or secured it after our discovery.
For one, I would like to see more people actively making the distinction between unsolicited "spam", and legal (albeit questionable) "direct email marketing". I say this because I work for a marketing company that does some email advertising, and I've also worked in the abuse department at a local ISP so I've seen both sides. The difference being that the spam mentioned in the article comes largely from unsecure, hijacked mail servers. Not so say that spam is the fault of some system administrator who didn't properly configure their SMTP server, but a lot could be done right there to slow down the constant barrage of penis enlargement offers.
Oh, and the company I work for DOES in fact honor the opt-out links in all our ads. If you don't want to receive email from us, you won't. Unfortunately, if one of us has you on our list, 100 others do already....
Again, I just want to see people differentiate between illegal, unethical mail server hijacking, and more legal methods. A solution to stopping one type won't necessarily work to stop the other.
Slashdot Mirror
"Leave me alone"?
:P
I can't help but notice the irony in wanting to be left alone on a social networking site. Yeah ok I'm with you, the app requests are annoying. Funny statement nonetheless
Totally OT I know so flame or or mod me down or whatever but grow up people.
Let me get this straight. Employee goes to work for Company, finds Work is not exactly what he wants, leaves Company.
Again, why is this an article? Just because the employee is recognized in the Open Source arena? Because Microsoft was the employer? Maybe if there was something controversial about his experience at Microsoft, or at least interesting it would qualify.
The fixes have already been released.
n /MS06-002.mspx
n /MS06-003.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulleti
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulleti
True, but grandpa and grandma probably aren't going to be upgrading their XP box to Longhorn either. Or they buy a new machine with Longhorn that comes with the required hardware.
I agree and disagree.
I agree that the average computer user is not interested in how their computer works, only that it should work. I also agree that the problem lies with technologies that require more expertise from the average user that is appropriate. BUT. Given that, it is logical to conclude that the "average" user is going to have difficulties using their system. To use an analogy, just because my garage is full of tools doesn't necessarily mean I have the skills to properly tune an engine, or even change the oil.
Computers are still very much at the point where they are tools that require skilled operation depending on what you want to do. Some tasks are obviously easier than others, although ease does not preclude education. For example even though I can buy a computer and have high-speed internet installed in days for just a few hundred dollars, doesn't mean I shouldn't be aware of viruses, spyware etc.
It's a fundamental problem of what people expect from their computers, and it's a much larger problem than just IE as slashdotters would like to believe. For example it is not a trivial matter to produce even medium quality DVDs of home movies captured from a camcorder, but people assume that because "computers" can be used to do this task, THEIR computer must be able to as well. And it can, but only if you know what you're doing.
Another way to remember yet not remember passwords is to have a word in mind, but shift your fingers one key to the left or right and type it out. I could figure out what my password actually is but I don't need to, and it will most likely never be in a dictionary.
If you look at the numbers you'll see a week is still 7 days long, for some reason they just skip it on the calendar.
IE, the top left month shows:
(going down) 2 3 4 (next column) 6 7 8 9 10 11
You've obviously never had a problem with theft. I live in a wonderful area of Seattle that offers many of the perks of this beautiful city, but this particular area happens to be a hotspot for petty theft; Capitol Hill. Therefore I will do anything I can to make a potential thief at least think twice about my car, even if the alarm going off might do nothing in and of itself. And yes I have had my car broken into, twice in fact. Both times I am absolutely positive that an alarm would have been an effective deterrent (I have one now).
And for the record, it makes COMPLETE sense that using the key to open the door with an alarm will set off the alarm. The most common trigger for car alarms is the door opening (not the key turning) while the alarm is armed, and that's all I care about personally. Options like movement sensors, windows breaking etc are all fine and dandy but most break-ins occur through the door. Except if it's just a smash n grab, nothing could prevent that except bulletproof windows. But if they smash the window and open from the inside, ALARM. That said, most aftermarket alarms should have a hidden bypass switch inside that allow you to disable the alarm in the event of your remote not working. Oh yours doesn't? That's your own damn fault.
Exactly my point.
Obviously this marketing campaign is not targeted towards you. Believe it or not, not all advertising gimmicks are designed to be desirable by everybody in the whole world. Pepsi and Apple are clearly targeting people who already like Pepsi products and would find a free song a nice prize in addition to their drink of choice.
Anyone who knows anything about iTMS would know that songs are only $.99 and would realize the futility of purchasing a more expensive product just for the less expensive free gift. There's also something to be said for generating hype over a product in general, like we are all doing right this second by reading this post.
So you don't like Pepsi, then don't buy one. If you want songs from iTMS then go directly to the source. Get over yourself.
IIRC, Steve Jackson Games was raided because the government suspected that the GURPS Cyberpunk RPG was a "handbook for computer crime". At least that was their excuse.
Read all about it here.
More downforce == more control, fwd or rwd. If you're doing 95 around a bend in a fwd car, your back wheels can still break loose.
Here in the Seattle area there are at least half a dozen places I know of that will either buy old crap from you or at least take it off your hands for free. If your hardware has any value at all (read: less than 3 years old) then usually you can make a few bucks or so.
Although I usually hold on to hardware well past the point of it being valuable anymore so I could care less about getting any money for old 15" CRTs or Pentiums.
With a "receive only sniffer", even if the machine gets infected it will have "zero chance" to infect other machines. Eric
Hi, S. I R Frank.
(old Frank & Ernest, you get 1000000 points if you remember/get it)
Fruedian slip? CDs may be wasteful, but cripes, I'm not sure murder is the solution.
Help!
In my experience working for an ISP there are three main avenues of spam an admin should be worried about.
1) Spam sent through the customers open-relays, or hijacked mail servers. This is truly the worst of the worst, and almost always unsolicited.
2) Customers who send from their own SMTP servers. We kept an eye on these guys and generally allowed people to do it unless we got complaints or if the mailings were illegal (forged headers or missing/non-functional unsubscribe link).
3) Customers who use the ISPs SMTP server. Of the three this was the least of our concerns by far. This was prohibited in our TOS and we were pretty strict. One warning and you're gone.
So given these three types of spam delivery, what could an ISP do to prevent it? Since only a very small fraction of the spam that passed through our network went through our SMTP server, throttling it back or monitoring it wouldn't have done very much. And tracking down our customers open relays before spammers do was never really effective, because most people were either too incompetent to understand what an open relay was (uhh, I'll call our "consultant", he set up "the server"), or didn't think it was a serious enough issue to do anything about it. Most of the people that understood what an open relay was and realized its potential for abuse had either already secured it properly, or secured it after our discovery.
For one, I would like to see more people actively making the distinction between unsolicited "spam", and legal (albeit questionable) "direct email marketing". I say this because I work for a marketing company that does some email advertising, and I've also worked in the abuse department at a local ISP so I've seen both sides. The difference being that the spam mentioned in the article comes largely from unsecure, hijacked mail servers. Not so say that spam is the fault of some system administrator who didn't properly configure their SMTP server, but a lot could be done right there to slow down the constant barrage of penis enlargement offers. Oh, and the company I work for DOES in fact honor the opt-out links in all our ads. If you don't want to receive email from us, you won't. Unfortunately, if one of us has you on our list, 100 others do already.... Again, I just want to see people differentiate between illegal, unethical mail server hijacking, and more legal methods. A solution to stopping one type won't necessarily work to stop the other.