I am the other extream. I wish there wasn't a BIOS. Just enough code to start the machine and then pass to the OS of choice. I feel after that the BIOS should stay out of they way.
I for one do not want to have to flash rom chips on cards all the time to update drivers! Its bad enough to do that just with my motherboard (BOOT with a DOS boot disk when I have been using Linux exclusively for over 2 years, bah).
First let me say I'm no fan of Martha Stewart. But, from my understanding the feds went after her for spite more than anything else. She was convicted of "obstruction of justice", not insider trading. The fed just couldn't drop the case after it was so public, so they had to come up with something.
There is a lot of truth in what you say. There have always been "script kiddie" types. In the past they were pranksters and getting arrested for vandalism/arson/(pick stupid crime). Now, with easy access to the world through the internet, they create trouble for everyone on a massive scale instead of just the local town they live in.
Sounds to me like job security. If it wasn't for users such as you describe, you wouldn't be as needed. From what you have written you say that you are the "contact" person for him. He must halfway think you know what you are doing. You should take it as a complement and fix his stupid mistakes with a big smile on your face as you hold his hand though his difficult ordeal(your getting paid).
I speak from a little experience... I have a few users I support that give me job security as well:)
Yes, I agree. The main problem with all the modern virus scanners is that the can't detect viruses FROM THE FUTURE. What we really need is for someone to put together a program that anticipates the form that next year's viruses will take and then automatically deletes them.
Better yet, we need a program that predicts where the viruses will come from and then has the writers arrested before they even make the code. Problem solved!
I know that was meant as a joke, but you actually are on the right track. In my opinion virus scanners shouldn't just be looking for virus "signatures", but look for "malicious code". For example look for blocks of code that would send e-mail out to everyone in your address book or put hidden keys in the registry.
I'm not a Windows programmer, but I am sure there are specific calls to libraries that can be detected in a dangerous sequence that could flag the executable as a potential virus. Just running strings on a virus I got mailed today reveals calls to InternetOpenA, ShellExecuteA, URLDownloadToFileA, etc. A virus scanner that semi-disassemled an executable to more or less see if it would do damage would be a far better approach.
Another approach would be for the virus scanner to actually execute the virus in a chrooted/jailed environment to see what it does.
I'm just brainstorming here. Your comment got me thinking.
SCO wants Linux users to buy licenses from them. So far, everyone SCO has sued has had a contract/license with them. SCO has said that contracts are tools to use AGAINST your business partners.
Autozone was just one of the few companies that had a SCO Unix license (not a SCO Linux as far as I know). They will run out of SCO Unix customers to sue in short order.
If you read the SCO Linux license you can see that it is very strict and easy to break (binary only, ie. can't compile your own kernel). Obviously they just want to sell Linux licenses so you can violate them. How many Linux users never compile the kernel from source? I bet not many. Looks to me that they just want to sell Linux licenses to get a bigger pool of companies to sue.
I think that was just the SCO Linux license not the SCO Unix license for not getting sued. If I remember correctly Darl, said that contracts/licenses were to be used against your customers or something to that effect. I'm not sure rather they consider all the AT&T/Novell carryover licenses SCO licenses. Knowing SCO, they probably do. So it could be anyone that has or probably ever has had a Unix SysV license. My bet is one of the unlucky companies will most likely be SGI.
I would have to disagree. Just look at the mess that was going on in the railroad/steel industry before the trust laws were in force. If you think Billy G. is bad you should read up on J.P. Morgan. I'm usually one that is all for government staying out of private enterprise, but I would hate to imagine what kind of world we would be living in without Roosevelt and his trust-busting at the turn of the century.
There is the problem. Getting the average joe the message. The average joe gets his news from the mainstream media. Do you really think the mainstream media is going to take a position against DRM? I sure AOL Time Warner etc will be sure to say how bad DRM is for the masses on CNN. Maybe I'm a bit bitter after seeing things like DMCA getting shoved down our throats. With the big media companies having wet dreams over DRM, I don't see how its NOT going to get implemented everywhere.
That could take a while on older hardware. I sure the poster doesn't want the diagnosis to take hours. (Just got done with updating FreeBSD on my 3 year old thinkpad. That took 4 hours.) But, you are correct. A buildworld does stress the hardware fairly well.
I don't think that is the way I would look at it. John Carmack makes games with lots of physics calculations in them. Rocketry uses....lots of physics calculations. I would bet you the destination is less important to John Carmack than the journey. I think he just likes mathmatical challenges.
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I am the other extream. I wish there wasn't a BIOS. Just enough code to start the machine and then pass to the OS of choice. I feel after that the BIOS should stay out of they way. I for one do not want to have to flash rom chips on cards all the time to update drivers! Its bad enough to do that just with my motherboard (BOOT with a DOS boot disk when I have been using Linux exclusively for over 2 years, bah).
First let me say I'm no fan of Martha Stewart. But, from my understanding the feds went after her for spite more than anything else. She was convicted of "obstruction of justice", not insider trading. The fed just couldn't drop the case after it was so public, so they had to come up with something.
There is a lot of truth in what you say. There have always been "script kiddie" types. In the past they were pranksters and getting arrested for vandalism/arson/(pick stupid crime). Now, with easy access to the world through the internet, they create trouble for everyone on a massive scale instead of just the local town they live in.
Sounds to me like job security. If it wasn't for users such as you describe, you wouldn't be as needed. From what you have written you say that you are the "contact" person for him. He must halfway think you know what you are doing. You should take it as a complement and fix his stupid mistakes with a big smile on your face as you hold his hand though his difficult ordeal(your getting paid). :)
I speak from a little experience... I have a few users I support that give me job security as well
Yes, I agree. The main problem with all the modern virus scanners is that the can't detect viruses FROM THE FUTURE. What we really need is for someone to put together a program that anticipates the form that next year's viruses will take and then automatically deletes them. Better yet, we need a program that predicts where the viruses will come from and then has the writers arrested before they even make the code. Problem solved!
I know that was meant as a joke, but you actually are on the right track. In my opinion virus scanners shouldn't just be looking for virus "signatures", but look for "malicious code". For example look for blocks of code that would send e-mail out to everyone in your address book or put hidden keys in the registry.
I'm not a Windows programmer, but I am sure there are specific calls to libraries that can be detected in a dangerous sequence that could flag the executable as a potential virus. Just running strings on a virus I got mailed today reveals calls to InternetOpenA, ShellExecuteA, URLDownloadToFileA, etc. A virus scanner that semi-disassemled an executable to more or less see if it would do damage would be a far better approach.
Another approach would be for the virus scanner to actually execute the virus in a chrooted/jailed environment to see what it does.
I'm just brainstorming here. Your comment got me thinking.
SCO wants Linux users to buy licenses from them. So far, everyone SCO has sued has had a contract/license with them. SCO has said that contracts are tools to use AGAINST your business partners. Autozone was just one of the few companies that had a SCO Unix license (not a SCO Linux as far as I know). They will run out of SCO Unix customers to sue in short order. If you read the SCO Linux license you can see that it is very strict and easy to break (binary only, ie. can't compile your own kernel). Obviously they just want to sell Linux licenses so you can violate them. How many Linux users never compile the kernel from source? I bet not many. Looks to me that they just want to sell Linux licenses to get a bigger pool of companies to sue.
I think that was just the SCO Linux license not the SCO Unix license for not getting sued. If I remember correctly Darl, said that contracts/licenses were to be used against your customers or something to that effect. I'm not sure rather they consider all the AT&T/Novell carryover licenses SCO licenses. Knowing SCO, they probably do. So it could be anyone that has or probably ever has had a Unix SysV license. My bet is one of the unlucky companies will most likely be SGI.
I would have to disagree. Just look at the mess that was going on in the railroad/steel industry before the trust laws were in force. If you think Billy G. is bad you should read up on J.P. Morgan. I'm usually one that is all for government staying out of private enterprise, but I would hate to imagine what kind of world we would be living in without Roosevelt and his trust-busting at the turn of the century.
There is the problem. Getting the average joe the message. The average joe gets his news from the mainstream media. Do you really think the mainstream media is going to take a position against DRM? I sure AOL Time Warner etc will be sure to say how bad DRM is for the masses on CNN. Maybe I'm a bit bitter after seeing things like DMCA getting shoved down our throats. With the big media companies having wet dreams over DRM, I don't see how its NOT going to get implemented everywhere.
That could take a while on older hardware. I sure the poster doesn't want the diagnosis to take hours. (Just got done with updating FreeBSD on my 3 year old thinkpad. That took 4 hours.) But, you are correct. A buildworld does stress the hardware fairly well.
Not exactly. Q-Link (AOL before it was AOL) was released with GEOS, but did not run in GEOS. Q-Link ran native on the C-64.
I don't think that is the way I would look at it. John Carmack makes games with lots of physics calculations in them. Rocketry uses ....lots of physics calculations. I would bet you the destination is less important to John Carmack than the journey. I think he just likes mathmatical challenges.