I don't see that "other" software mentioned anywhere. Networking ability is so inherenet to modern computing I can't think of ANY software (except for simple games and utilities) that would even be considered "useful" if it were not able to network.
Where did anyone except you mention "other" software? This isn't like divx installing gator on your system - this is a publisher including functionality in their software YOU may not consider explicitly needed (or even wanted) but which they have every right to add. You have two choices: use it, or don't. No one is coming to your office and forcing your hand.
Nor is it even remotely reasonable to expect the end user to explicitly specify every little function added in a piece of software. Most users simply don't give a shit so long as it does what they want; if you demand finer grained control than that, download the source and compile it yourself.
No source? Well, then you make do with what you got. Either way it is your choice.
ALL software will "potentially crash your system." I've encountered tons of shit software that WILL crash a system, no "potential" to it. So by using ANY software - or a computer itself - you implicitly agree to that even IF (which is unlikely) there is no explicit agreement to this very possibility right in the EULA itself.
Your resources? Again, ANY software running on ANY system is, by its very nature, using "resources."
If you install and use a piece of software for which you cannot ascertain its pedigree, who's to blame for that? And who has the right to tell you you canot do exactly this if YOU choose?
In fact, I personally believe this is, under current laws, the ONLY protection that should be afforded software publishers. With no source code they should absolutely NOT be granted copyright, which means if they want to "police" some sort of agrteement this would be their only means of doing so. of course that's an ideal world and this ain't, so instead they get to enjoy both.
Anyway, they absolutely should be free to use such methods. Of course, we are all free to not use their software if we don't like their methods.
That is, if whoever started all this would step up to the plate and tell us who the publisher is...
The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved a complicated child safety bill that also would ban computer-generated child pornography and sexually explicit Internet sites with misleading addresses. With the Senate's 98-0 vote, the measure now goes to President George W. Bush for his expected signature.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 400 to 25 to approve the 118-page bill...
Just like when they all voted unanymously to support the war, then half turn around three months later and cry foul...
Our leaders are sheep and they're leading reason - and our rights - straight to the slaughterhouse.
OMG you know I was reading along just fine and then I came to this sentence that looked for all the world like you were saying "American Wedding" is an example of a good movie!
I bet you have the complete "Porky's" collection too, huh?
Sheesh, talk about falling off the clue train. For the record I don't pay to see movies or buy CDs - but I also download any damn thing I please. Ironically, that very rarely includes music published under an RIAA label. And it most certainly never includes movies, since I live in an area that will have broadband about the time Michael Eisner becomes POTUS.
Frankly, I'm all for greedy bastards - just not greedy bastards in suits. I wish everyone in the US would download more shit and stop sending their money to Hollywood, because Hollywood has way too fucking much power and if you cut off the money you put lobbyists on the street, which means you destroy the power.
That very same "greed" is what put a bunch of snooty frenchmen on the gallows. The american people might be too stupid to elect representatives that actually represent them, but greed is the one universal human trait that can be relied upon to enact change when nothing else will.
If you post to usenet, unless you use something like easynews (which posts more or less "anonymously") or operate your own server so you can craft headers, you can change "identity" all you like and you will still be tracked. Most ISP servers include an IP address at minimum, and many many more even include stuff like hashed user IDs. If a hashed UID is included in your headers it won't matter how many "nicknames" you use, your posts are still unique enough to be easily tracked.
Style is another matter. Even if I posted this as an AC many people would still have a good idea it was me, just as many "regulars" in various newsgroups can be readily identified.
Then, of course, there is cross referencing data even between e and meatspace. And linking users by email address - many of those free email addresses need an old address to send credentials to, which means you can be linked as you hop from space to space (you don't really think free email providers don't sell their user info lists, do you? So what if they protect THEIR mailbox service from spammers - they're not going to care about protecting the other guy's).
I have seen flamefests in newsgroups turn into online detective matches with the result being everything from names and street addresses to complete resumes being posted - most always tracked down starting from nothing more than an IP address. You think the corporations, with all their resources, can't do this - and much more?
And this right here is exactly why the military (likely to be joined by other governments) will do all it can to deter deployment of UWB. Once you have an infrastructure that is highly resistant to this sort of jamming, communications becomes nearly impossible to control.
And so it goes. Widespread deregulation of public infrastructure is going to be remembered as a phenomenal mistake. People with way too fucking much money and power are driving this phenom, and only a fool believes they're doing it out of some touchy feely public compassion.
They used to point at the airline industry - remember? "Oh, look how great the airline industry did after it was deregulated!" Yeah, well, so now the taxpayers get to bail them out to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. Might as well have subsidized them from the beginning...
The GPL does NOT make works public domain. If they were public domain I could take any GPL project, compile it, and sell it with a shrinkiwrap license (see: Apple & BSD). The GPL is specifically crafted to PREVENT this from happening by allowing the unlimited sharing of works WITHOUT putting them into the PD and making them succeptible to the BSD situation just mentioned.
Furthermore, if I am the creator of a GPL project there is nothing at all to prevent me from making the code I wrote and making it both GPL and shrinkwrap.
That's the whole point of copyright: you can "give away" your rights for one method of distribution and not lose control of the work. GPL is absolutely, completely and utterly NOT "public domain."
You just gotta make friends, bud. Get to know the head of the local chamber of commerce. Tell your story there. These folks usually don't like the people in thier community getting pushed around, and they have much more pull with the local press.
Politics can be an ugly game, but I find it's one we ALL need to play.
It's "homogenized." I spelled it properly, so it should be no problem for you if you read my post. And macs still constitute like 1% or 2% of the total desktops, so even if you managed to infect every mac out there the effect on the net would hardly be noticeable.
So far as your assertions about "statically linked" virii and the impracticality of attacking *nux, I'll remind you of the redhat attack of a couple years back. Took out quite a number of systems as I recall - across a wide variety of revisions and, because RH is the "base" for so many others, a variety of distributions were affected (including my own, which was running Mandrake 6 at the time).
The big question, of course, is "did you actually pirate direcTV?" if you did then I guess you're screwed and it's too bad for your family. If you didn't then why are you paying them off? Go to the local news agency and tell them your story - a fat helping of bad TV publicity has a way of changing these things pretty quick.
I'm wondering if I bought one of these now would it still attract the attention of dtv? I used to be one of their customers, and I could use a good fight right now...
I believe this is a side effect of the Windows dominant world. Many people have no idea that there is an alternative.
Uhhh.. no. This is a side effect of a homogenized world. It's no different than growing a forest of cloned trees, or a race of cloned people. Because they are all identical, they all suffer the same weaknesses. As a result an infestation that would ordinarily kill hundreds instead ends up killing off the whole forest - or an entire race.
If everyone had macs (or linux) virus writers would be targeting macs or linux. The problem isn't just windows: it's that a single OS - a single "species" - is far too pervasive.
Imagine Microsoft sent threatening letters to CEOs of companies running linux, claiming portions of it (like, maybe... SAMBA? Or maybe... WINE?) infringed on their patents and they were going to sue them if they didn't poay up. Then imagine MS did this without ever showing any PUBLIC EVIDENCE to prove any of their claims - they just went around demanding "protection money" from people who don't even use their software.
This is definitely a case for the SEC and the FTC to become involved. The reason they haven't is because those poolitical organizations don't do much of ANYTHING unless there's lots of ass kissing publicity in it for them. And since the SCO case hasn't even made it as a bumper on the network news, it's not on their radar.
My 80+ year old father is already living 50 years in the past. His mother (in her mid 80's when she died) couldn't even recognize her own son ten years before the end came for her. I just turned 41 and I already can see a fairly big difference in my ability to concentrate for long periods, even from what it was ten years ago.
These speculations are ridiculous. We're a LONG way from understanding how the brain works and once that starts "decaying" all the pig hearts and vitamins in the world aren't going to make your life any better. Who the fuck wants to live to be 300 when you have to pay someone to wipe the drool from your chin and powder your wrinkled old ass?
Look at the RIAA. What do they do to shut down campuses? They flood them with DMCA violations and make them spend thousands running around looking beneath every little rock. Then they come in with "but send us thius much money and we'll give you a "license" to share our low quality versions of this stuff and we'll leave you alone..."
I hate to be a karma whore, but this idea really does need some widespread exploitation. The more files there are for them to bitch about the more it's going to piss off ISPs and the sooner we can get some of this nonsense lobbied away.
Writing software (and even using it personally) is, in a practical sense, unenforceable. No one is going to come to your house and demand royalties for that OSS MP3 player, or DIVX player or whatever.
but that's you and me. The difference here is businesses are accountable and there's enough exposure there (employees and such) that you can pretty much bank on getting caught if you violate these stupid IP laws. So while it's not a big deal at all in a personal sense - no one is going to "outlaw" linux (nor can they) and no one is going to squash people in their homes (except maybe the **AA, but that's a different matter) - but if businesses cannot use linux then we, the people, lose a helluva lot of influence. Suddenly it's not really a big deal if the DRM-of-the-week player doesn't support linux, because it doesn't represent an economic interest to anyone. No one cares that you can't play fucking DVDs in linux, because no one has an economic interest in it.
Your friend is both right and wrong. OSS actually is anti-capitalist. He, like so many others, is just confused about the implications of this - and more than a little scared that capitalism is the only way to prosper.
Remember that "service economy" everyone said was gonna be so great? Well, this is it. And it's working about as well for us as was for the japanese way back when Clinton first moved into office.
Well, my ISP's mail server has been knocked offline today, and I'm running a box with NO updates except SP3 and it ain't been touched. Nor WILl it (not by this bug) because DCOM is DISABLED. According to MS (and logic) that's one sure fire way to avoid an overflow buffer problem in the service.
Given that no one else has touched this box, and all I have done since it was brought online a week ago is install SP3, care to offer a rational explanation for the disabling of the service?
SP3 is just as vulnerable as with no service pack at all.
Quite obviously, this is wrong.
Of course, if you NEED DCOM then the patch will have to be installed. Otherwise, SP3 seems to disable the service - which is all that is required to avoid the problem.
spam popups every day; port 135 wide open, DCOM blazing away
Post-SP3:
no popups; port 135 still wide open, but not much there because DCOM is now DISABLED.
Like I said: it's just a "junk box" I setup the other day because the power supply died in my "good" server box. I haven't installed the googleplex of win2k patches because I don't think it's worth it - I'm only using it temporarily and if it gets hit I'll reinstall the OS (or stick a freesco floppy in the drive and reboot). This is just something I noticed when I read today's "warning" and went into that machine to disable the offending service.
Are there really that many win2k systems not even running SP3? That's not the only fix, but I have a box here that has had zero patches except SP3 and DCOM is disabled by default - which pretty much makes this "buffer overflow" a non issue. Doesn't XP also install (by default) DCOM disabled? So where is all this traffic coming from? People too nervous to install SP3? People too stubborn to stop using NT4?
Bah. Back in the day (when things were free, open, and 64K of static RAM cost $1000) we had all this stuff. Buy the magazine; build the cards; program it do.. something.
This looks cool in a retro sort of way, except it's not retro enough. It's like selling a crystal radio kit that uses preassembled coils wired to a germanium diode detector and an op-amp headphone driver.
Really, it doesn't even make sense. Why use a stupid 6812? You can fit an entire Sinclair ZX81 "clone" - Z80 CPU and all - on a single, relatively small, FPGA. You can stuck an ARM core on a midrange FPGA and still have 70% of the resources to devote to stuff like graphics accelerators and USB connectors. Using a "real" CPU seems to me to defeat half the (limited) power you already have there. Stick the code for the FPGA in the damn game cartridge and then people can use just about ANY CPU they want. Hell, you could make an ultra-MAME product that ran the actual arcade hardware IN HARDWARE!
Too much of one thing, not enough of the other. It's a $99 junk drawer stuffer.
Is my Win2K PC. The one thing keeping me from moving it to linux is the lack of a quality video solution like DScaler.
I've done hundreds of hours of video capture in Win2K with nary a glitch. Bad hard drives will screw things up, but that's a bandwidth and timing issue, not an OS issue. Hell, I used to run a capture every single night (Voyager) and surf the net at the same time - running win2k on a 450MHz PII machine.
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Where did anyone except you mention "other" software? This isn't like divx installing gator on your system - this is a publisher including functionality in their software YOU may not consider explicitly needed (or even wanted) but which they have every right to add. You have two choices: use it, or don't. No one is coming to your office and forcing your hand.
Nor is it even remotely reasonable to expect the end user to explicitly specify every little function added in a piece of software. Most users simply don't give a shit so long as it does what they want; if you demand finer grained control than that, download the source and compile it yourself.
No source? Well, then you make do with what you got. Either way it is your choice.
Your resources? Again, ANY software running on ANY system is, by its very nature, using "resources."
If you install and use a piece of software for which you cannot ascertain its pedigree, who's to blame for that? And who has the right to tell you you canot do exactly this if YOU choose?
Anyway, they absolutely should be free to use such methods. Of course, we are all free to not use their software if we don't like their methods.
That is, if whoever started all this would step up to the plate and tell us who the publisher is...
Just like when they all voted unanymously to support the war, then half turn around three months later and cry foul...
Our leaders are sheep and they're leading reason - and our rights - straight to the slaughterhouse.
I bet you have the complete "Porky's" collection too, huh?
Sheesh, talk about falling off the clue train. For the record I don't pay to see movies or buy CDs - but I also download any damn thing I please. Ironically, that very rarely includes music published under an RIAA label. And it most certainly never includes movies, since I live in an area that will have broadband about the time Michael Eisner becomes POTUS.
Frankly, I'm all for greedy bastards - just not greedy bastards in suits. I wish everyone in the US would download more shit and stop sending their money to Hollywood, because Hollywood has way too fucking much power and if you cut off the money you put lobbyists on the street, which means you destroy the power.
That very same "greed" is what put a bunch of snooty frenchmen on the gallows. The american people might be too stupid to elect representatives that actually represent them, but greed is the one universal human trait that can be relied upon to enact change when nothing else will.
If you post to usenet, unless you use something like easynews (which posts more or less "anonymously") or operate your own server so you can craft headers, you can change "identity" all you like and you will still be tracked. Most ISP servers include an IP address at minimum, and many many more even include stuff like hashed user IDs. If a hashed UID is included in your headers it won't matter how many "nicknames" you use, your posts are still unique enough to be easily tracked. Style is another matter. Even if I posted this as an AC many people would still have a good idea it was me, just as many "regulars" in various newsgroups can be readily identified. Then, of course, there is cross referencing data even between e and meatspace. And linking users by email address - many of those free email addresses need an old address to send credentials to, which means you can be linked as you hop from space to space (you don't really think free email providers don't sell their user info lists, do you? So what if they protect THEIR mailbox service from spammers - they're not going to care about protecting the other guy's). I have seen flamefests in newsgroups turn into online detective matches with the result being everything from names and street addresses to complete resumes being posted - most always tracked down starting from nothing more than an IP address. You think the corporations, with all their resources, can't do this - and much more?
Wait... lotsa men, close quarters, isolated from the world for weeks at a time...
Oh, ok.
They used to point at the airline industry - remember? "Oh, look how great the airline industry did after it was deregulated!" Yeah, well, so now the taxpayers get to bail them out to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. Might as well have subsidized them from the beginning...
Furthermore, if I am the creator of a GPL project there is nothing at all to prevent me from making the code I wrote and making it both GPL and shrinkwrap.
That's the whole point of copyright: you can "give away" your rights for one method of distribution and not lose control of the work. GPL is absolutely, completely and utterly NOT "public domain."
Politics can be an ugly game, but I find it's one we ALL need to play.
So far as your assertions about "statically linked" virii and the impracticality of attacking *nux, I'll remind you of the redhat attack of a couple years back. Took out quite a number of systems as I recall - across a wide variety of revisions and, because RH is the "base" for so many others, a variety of distributions were affected (including my own, which was running Mandrake 6 at the time).
The big question, of course, is "did you actually pirate direcTV?" if you did then I guess you're screwed and it's too bad for your family. If you didn't then why are you paying them off? Go to the local news agency and tell them your story - a fat helping of bad TV publicity has a way of changing these things pretty quick.
I'm wondering if I bought one of these now would it still attract the attention of dtv? I used to be one of their customers, and I could use a good fight right now...
Uhhh.. no. This is a side effect of a homogenized world. It's no different than growing a forest of cloned trees, or a race of cloned people. Because they are all identical, they all suffer the same weaknesses. As a result an infestation that would ordinarily kill hundreds instead ends up killing off the whole forest - or an entire race.
If everyone had macs (or linux) virus writers would be targeting macs or linux. The problem isn't just windows: it's that a single OS - a single "species" - is far too pervasive.
the problem is most PCs are not yet equipped with the cd-bluetooth karmic storage drives...
This is definitely a case for the SEC and the FTC to become involved. The reason they haven't is because those poolitical organizations don't do much of ANYTHING unless there's lots of ass kissing publicity in it for them. And since the SCO case hasn't even made it as a bumper on the network news, it's not on their radar.
These speculations are ridiculous. We're a LONG way from understanding how the brain works and once that starts "decaying" all the pig hearts and vitamins in the world aren't going to make your life any better. Who the fuck wants to live to be 300 when you have to pay someone to wipe the drool from your chin and powder your wrinkled old ass?
I hate to be a karma whore, but this idea really does need some widespread exploitation. The more files there are for them to bitch about the more it's going to piss off ISPs and the sooner we can get some of this nonsense lobbied away.
but that's you and me. The difference here is businesses are accountable and there's enough exposure there (employees and such) that you can pretty much bank on getting caught if you violate these stupid IP laws. So while it's not a big deal at all in a personal sense - no one is going to "outlaw" linux (nor can they) and no one is going to squash people in their homes (except maybe the **AA, but that's a different matter) - but if businesses cannot use linux then we, the people, lose a helluva lot of influence. Suddenly it's not really a big deal if the DRM-of-the-week player doesn't support linux, because it doesn't represent an economic interest to anyone. No one cares that you can't play fucking DVDs in linux, because no one has an economic interest in it.
Your friend is both right and wrong. OSS actually is anti-capitalist. He, like so many others, is just confused about the implications of this - and more than a little scared that capitalism is the only way to prosper.
Remember that "service economy" everyone said was gonna be so great? Well, this is it. And it's working about as well for us as was for the japanese way back when Clinton first moved into office.
Guess they're having the last laugh now...
Given that no one else has touched this box, and all I have done since it was brought online a week ago is install SP3, care to offer a rational explanation for the disabling of the service?
SP3 is just as vulnerable as with no service pack at all.
Quite obviously, this is wrong.
Of course, if you NEED DCOM then the patch will have to be installed. Otherwise, SP3 seems to disable the service - which is all that is required to avoid the problem.
spam popups every day; port 135 wide open, DCOM blazing away
Post-SP3:
no popups; port 135 still wide open, but not much there because DCOM is now DISABLED.
Like I said: it's just a "junk box" I setup the other day because the power supply died in my "good" server box. I haven't installed the googleplex of win2k patches because I don't think it's worth it - I'm only using it temporarily and if it gets hit I'll reinstall the OS (or stick a freesco floppy in the drive and reboot). This is just something I noticed when I read today's "warning" and went into that machine to disable the offending service.
Are there really that many win2k systems not even running SP3? That's not the only fix, but I have a box here that has had zero patches except SP3 and DCOM is disabled by default - which pretty much makes this "buffer overflow" a non issue. Doesn't XP also install (by default) DCOM disabled? So where is all this traffic coming from? People too nervous to install SP3? People too stubborn to stop using NT4?
This looks cool in a retro sort of way, except it's not retro enough. It's like selling a crystal radio kit that uses preassembled coils wired to a germanium diode detector and an op-amp headphone driver.
Really, it doesn't even make sense. Why use a stupid 6812? You can fit an entire Sinclair ZX81 "clone" - Z80 CPU and all - on a single, relatively small, FPGA. You can stuck an ARM core on a midrange FPGA and still have 70% of the resources to devote to stuff like graphics accelerators and USB connectors. Using a "real" CPU seems to me to defeat half the (limited) power you already have there. Stick the code for the FPGA in the damn game cartridge and then people can use just about ANY CPU they want. Hell, you could make an ultra-MAME product that ran the actual arcade hardware IN HARDWARE!
Too much of one thing, not enough of the other. It's a $99 junk drawer stuffer.
I've done hundreds of hours of video capture in Win2K with nary a glitch. Bad hard drives will screw things up, but that's a bandwidth and timing issue, not an OS issue. Hell, I used to run a capture every single night (Voyager) and surf the net at the same time - running win2k on a 450MHz PII machine.