My spam dropped by 35%. Though I can't discount the possibility that it's just the increased virus traffic slowing the rate at which spammers can send their emails.
Microsoft is waiting for another slammer like virus to hit every online computer within 10 minutes, and upon reboot encrypt the FAT or MFT, holding the world hostage for... ONE MILLION... Err... ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS.
I've had to patch and put up to date almost a dozen systems in my free time these weeks. Not seeing one penny for that since they all belong to friends and family...:/
I suppose I should have done the same, but it didn't occur to me. I just patched my home and all our work computers months ago, before everyone expected it to turn into something. I'm sure my family members all got through it though.
Unfortunately, I live in the poorest town in the poorest county in the poorest state in the USA. We have a nearby University pumping out moderately skilled CS grads who either move away or compete in a small economy, where most employers see $10 an hour as a fair starting wage for programmers. But the scenery is great, and family is nearby.
Some of us developers working for smaller businesses need to handle EVERYTHING.
"Hey, Dave, make our fundamentally different, colocated e-commerce sites securely share all their data amongst each other and seemlessly integrate it with this new proprietary MRP solution. Upgrade our computers when we're not using them. Find a legal way to install this one copy of Office onto all these computers. Make our computers faster and better. Don't touch my computer. Upgrade our Norton Antivirus server and all our clients. None of us want login passwords, but we do want security. This one mid-90's era server ought to be enough for all our needs. We want video conferencing on all our sites. We don't want to buy anything."
I do almost as much IT support as I do development.
I like the simplicity of it. I'm not a fan of the new XP look and feel though. 98 was a good year.
My main problems with Windows are the bugs, the licensing, and the built in limits meant to encourage home users to upgrade to their $4000 enterprise edition, which gives you comparable functionality to Linux and other free operating systems.
Just click the "Introducing Linux" link. It brings you to another msn page saying "Red Hat 9.0 is a boon for those who already use it, but it's too expensive to warrant a switch from Windows."
The following links aren't much better. They have this carefully hand-crafted look to them. "Alternatives to Linux", "Linux Training, only $2095 for 5 days", etc.
It's funny to see how far the world's biggest software company will go to bash free software rather than trying to beat them with better software. They've got enough spare cash to hire a hundred thousand programmers for ten years. They could basically write a new operating system from the ground up that runs almost anything on almost anything (assuming enough ram & hard disk space), and does it well, but instead they have probably under a thousand people developing their products and they're getting roughed up by dozens of open source teams of 1-20 active developers each. Not to mention that they sell a stripped down version of Windows to their main audience, when they could give everyone copies of their best version and only see a small drop in sales. Their licensing strategy is holding them back.
Microsoft security has always been implemented as an afterthought. They write code as quickly as possible, test it under normal use, and release it. Internet Explorer is a good example. Most of the exploits people find are just variations on past exploits, and Microsoft just patches each specific exploit rather than fixing the design flaw that responsible for the whole class of exploits.
As for all those buffer overflow exploits, most are the result of a conscious decision to use fixed, unchecked buffers in order to save work. You usually see the glaring potential for exploit as you write it but decide not to worry.
It's understandable that in many projects, it's worth it to allow such vulnerabilities to exist to reduce development time and project complexity, but Microsoft software runs on something like 95% of the desktops in the world, and they repeatedly enable rarely used internet accessible services by default in every version of Windows and generally ignore good safety practices.
On the bright side, they added stack buffer overflow protection to Visual C++ 7.0, so it's just a matter of them getting most of their code to compile under it, and remembering to enable that feature.
Security is not as impossible as Microsoft claims. They just never designed their software with it in mind, and occasionally it comes back and hits them in the face. Windows is like a one room house with 16 back doors and only the front door has a lock. If you look at say, OpenBSD, which is completely free and developed on a shoestring budget, it has an almost perfect security record.
I already had the welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com bookmarked. This one is going right next to it.
Now if only he sold t-shirts and playing cards to go with it. Or perhaps diapers with the name McBride stamped on them. Honey, I think he needs a new McBride, this one is all poopy.
I've read posts by shareware authors who have their software alert them if it's been modified/cracked. Something even more common is simulating nasty bugs when the software has been cracked. One game introduced a memory leak when cracked so that it'll crash before you get too far into it. In some extreme cases they attempt to crash the system.
Slashdot Mirror
Last week: 179 spams
Previous week: 210 spams
Previous week: 277 spams
My spam dropped by 35%. Though I can't discount the possibility that it's just the increased virus traffic slowing the rate at which spammers can send their emails.
An almost identical article appeared a couple weeks or so ago.
Microsoft is waiting for another slammer like virus to hit every online computer within 10 minutes, and upon reboot encrypt the FAT or MFT, holding the world hostage for... ONE MILLION... Err... ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS.
On only one occasion my Windows PC was infected with a virus, because my mom used it to check her email.
I've run into some cool dos viruses at school. Lots of fun to play with in those closed environments.
No Mac viruses, but I don't use them enough.
I've never even heard of an OpenBSD virus.
I've had to patch and put up to date almost a dozen systems in my free time these weeks. Not seeing one penny for that since they all belong to friends and family... :/
I suppose I should have done the same, but it didn't occur to me. I just patched my home and all our work computers months ago, before everyone expected it to turn into something. I'm sure my family members all got through it though.
Unfortunately, I live in the poorest town in the poorest county in the poorest state in the USA. We have a nearby University pumping out moderately skilled CS grads who either move away or compete in a small economy, where most employers see $10 an hour as a fair starting wage for programmers. But the scenery is great, and family is nearby.
Some of us developers working for smaller businesses need to handle EVERYTHING.
"Hey, Dave, make our fundamentally different, colocated e-commerce sites securely share all their data amongst each other and seemlessly integrate it with this new proprietary MRP solution. Upgrade our computers when we're not using them. Find a legal way to install this one copy of Office onto all these computers. Make our computers faster and better. Don't touch my computer. Upgrade our Norton Antivirus server and all our clients. None of us want login passwords, but we do want security. This one mid-90's era server ought to be enough for all our needs. We want video conferencing on all our sites. We don't want to buy anything."
I do almost as much IT support as I do development.
I like the simplicity of it. I'm not a fan of the new XP look and feel though. 98 was a good year.
My main problems with Windows are the bugs, the licensing, and the built in limits meant to encourage home users to upgrade to their $4000 enterprise edition, which gives you comparable functionality to Linux and other free operating systems.
I suppose I was a bit off. Though I just did a quick search myself ad many sites say 10-15%. Some say 5-10%.
I was diagnosed with tourette's back in the 5th grade.
Just click the "Introducing Linux" link. It brings you to another msn page saying "Red Hat 9.0 is a boon for those who already use it, but it's too expensive to warrant a switch from Windows."
The following links aren't much better. They have this carefully hand-crafted look to them. "Alternatives to Linux", "Linux Training, only $2095 for 5 days", etc.
It's funny to see how far the world's biggest software company will go to bash free software rather than trying to beat them with better software. They've got enough spare cash to hire a hundred thousand programmers for ten years. They could basically write a new operating system from the ground up that runs almost anything on almost anything (assuming enough ram & hard disk space), and does it well, but instead they have probably under a thousand people developing their products and they're getting roughed up by dozens of open source teams of 1-20 active developers each. Not to mention that they sell a stripped down version of Windows to their main audience, when they could give everyone copies of their best version and only see a small drop in sales. Their licensing strategy is holding them back.
In Soviet Russia, something old and no longer funny moderates YOU.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those. Oh. Wait.
Somehow I completely forgot about that when writing my post. I've commented on it in the past.
So I guess they just buy software that wasn't written with the expectation that 95% of desktops will run it.
They must have revised it I guess.
Keep in mind that only like 3% of tourettes victims randomly FUCK! CRAP! SHIT! FUCK! FUCK YOU ALL IN HELL! shout profanities.
Oops.
My niece has one of those.
I wonder if she can handle numbers larger than 32 bit.
"Five billion plus one billion is one billion, seven hundred and five million, thirty two thousand, seven hundred and four."
Hearing something like that could really traumatize some first graders.
Here's what it sounds like read by Microsoft Mary.
That may just mean that she can give spelling and definitions for 600 words.
You can give most speech synthesizers a random string of letters and they will sound it out.
It won't be long until some kid has her read "eye yam sofa king we todd did."
Microsoft security has always been implemented as an afterthought. They write code as quickly as possible, test it under normal use, and release it. Internet Explorer is a good example. Most of the exploits people find are just variations on past exploits, and Microsoft just patches each specific exploit rather than fixing the design flaw that responsible for the whole class of exploits.
As for all those buffer overflow exploits, most are the result of a conscious decision to use fixed, unchecked buffers in order to save work. You usually see the glaring potential for exploit as you write it but decide not to worry.
It's understandable that in many projects, it's worth it to allow such vulnerabilities to exist to reduce development time and project complexity, but Microsoft software runs on something like 95% of the desktops in the world, and they repeatedly enable rarely used internet accessible services by default in every version of Windows and generally ignore good safety practices.
On the bright side, they added stack buffer overflow protection to Visual C++ 7.0, so it's just a matter of them getting most of their code to compile under it, and remembering to enable that feature.
Security is not as impossible as Microsoft claims. They just never designed their software with it in mind, and occasionally it comes back and hits them in the face. Windows is like a one room house with 16 back doors and only the front door has a lock. If you look at say, OpenBSD, which is completely free and developed on a shoestring budget, it has an almost perfect security record.
They start out clean like regular diapers, but they can hold 10 times as much before leaking to investors that they're full of crap.
I already had the welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com bookmarked. This one is going right next to it.
Now if only he sold t-shirts and playing cards to go with it. Or perhaps diapers with the name McBride stamped on them. Honey, I think he needs a new McBride, this one is all poopy.
I've read posts by shareware authors who have their software alert them if it's been modified/cracked. Something even more common is simulating nasty bugs when the software has been cracked. One game introduced a memory leak when cracked so that it'll crash before you get too far into it. In some extreme cases they attempt to crash the system.
My experiences were recent, with 9.0 of each, installing on two different pc's.
I also tried Mandrake 9.1. It worked fine on one (but too "user friendly" for my taste) and the installer crashed each time I tried it on the other.