Yes, there is quite a difference between not optimizing for your competitor's product and deliberately degrading performance for your competitor's product.
In the former case, there is no additional effort involved; there is a simple decision not to expend resources where they will not provide a return on the investment.
In the latter case, there is a deliberate effort to expend resources with the intention of harming your competitor. And while anti-competitive behaviour may be an unfortunate norm in American business, it is also an illegal behaviour for a company in a monopoly position.
Having hopefully clarified your sloppy manner of thinking (lest others accept it), we can agree your question was deliberately inflammatory and move on.
//If you're putting more load on the system why not be charged more?//
This is already being done. There are tiered services (1 Mbps vs 15 Mbps), as well as monthly bandwidth caps (although only some providers cap).
Net neutrality is something different. It means that Comcast cannot give their VoIP or their video traffic better performance than Skype or Youtube---they have to treat all traffic equally.
Whether you're using a QoS-type scheme to boost your own content or a throttling scheme on competitors, the idea behind net neutrality is that the internet as a whole will work better if ISPs are forbidden from engaging in these shenanigans. Especially since they like to keep their "network management practices" secret, which deprives consumers of key information necessary to determine how much the service would be worth to them.
I am endlessly annoyed by the sidetracking of net neutrality with irrelevant complaints about capped bandwidth. Network neutrality compels ISPs to allow internet communication to work exactly as it has for years. They see a potential windfall in charging premiums for access to certain content or by pushing subscribers to their own content by ensuring their content is the fastest and most reliable.
Some providers would love to rope off a section of the internet with "their" content and charge other users for access to it. If a company is large enough, they could pull it off. Imagine an ISP faced with the choice of paying $1/subscriber or getting throttled to dialup speeds for ESPN, Disney, etc. In the absence of net neutrality, this is entirely possible. There are a couple of cable companies with monopolies in some areas and a large chunk of media companies under their control (e.g., Comcast's purchasing of ESPN and NB).
Net neutrality prevents some of the worst case scenarios from becoming a reality. No more, no less. ISPs against it are uniformly larger and tied to a media platform of some kind.
Some neutrality proposals also include a provision for open access. This means the ISP would have to lease their capacity to another provider at wholesale cost so that company could resell internet access. This is similar to how CLECs work with regard to phone service. Given the success of CLECs in driving down phone costs (particularly the atrocious long distance rates of the 80s and 90s), I'm inclined to support this as well. While open access is a completely separate from the issue of net neutrality, if there's a bill or regulation that requires both... I'm on board.
//Are you shitting me? How about NOT running as a local Admin? How about proper sandboxing and protecting core OS files? Give me a break. Others HAVE done this.//
wat?
The registry is not executable. It is essentially a configuration file. It's stored as binary blobs rather than ASCII, true, but it's a glorified conf file.
"Protecting" a conf file doesn't work if you need to change the config. And before you rant further, yes, you can get per-hive (and finer) granularity for registry permissions. And beyond that, any organization with a domain can push those permissions globally via group policies.
At home though, this security is irrelevant. None of this protects against a user who clicks a UAC prompt to install crazy cursors or get free backgrounds on their desktop.
As I said in another post, it may be reasonable for the shell to handle invalid initialization options gracefully.
But this security canard is really getting beaten. Since Vista, even accounts which are administrators do not run with admin privileges. Windows generates a prompt when a process attempts to elevate. Local escalation exploits---common on XP---are far less frequent on Vista or 7. While Vista or 7 don't even compare to, say, BSD, the OS security is rarely the source of these problems anymore. Most current malware runs without administrator privileges. This restricts its activity to the account of the user that loaded it---which is all the OS security model should do.
If it's a matter of preventing users from running things they shouldn't, that is beyond the scope of the OS security model and into the realm of configurable security policy.
Modern DSL equipment can get ranges of 3-4 miles from the CO on good wiring. Speeds taper off, of course, but a small increase in distance equates to a substantial increase in coverage.
The main problem is that DSLAM tech was pushed until recently so that existing urban COs could get 100% coverage, and now the financial incentive for improvement has vanished. Only rural COs need more than ~3 miles, and the return on R&D costs is thus limited (and deployment rates will be lower since urban COs won't benefit at all from the longer range).
The ultimate solution may be waiting for fiber-to-the-premises, as the range is excellent. And the cost of running the fiber will only come down.
All programs are expected to use the software hive of the Windows registry, and some may have legitimate reasons to change the system hive as well. Most apps or services that have a bona fide need to do so will be business-oriented, specialized scientific/industrial, or security apps.
Unless they want to utterly cut off system customization, they cannot block access to the registry any further than requiring administrator privileges to change it. And if we're talking about personal PCs, it is trivial to convince most users to accept a UAC elevation prompt.
And, of course, when you are dealing with core OS configuration you can break it. Perhaps making the GUI shell less dependent on an editable registry value would be wise (or even having a graceful failure mode when initialized with invalid options).
But locking the registry? No. Windows is already less configurable than Linux, and making this worse will not endear Microsoft to anyone.
In his defense, he did mention VMWare sessions. And depending on the image... well, those can get quite heavy-handed.
I have a box with a few VMs running with 6 GB RAM, and if I'm multitasking on the host OS it has fits of paging out sometimes. Adding another 3 or 6 GB would be my next step if I couldn't just suspend one of the VMs whenever I need to.
It all comes down to the typical and load use. If he really needs 12 GB then it's good he had the money to buy it. On the other hand, if his memory utilization peaks at 3-4 GB then "a fool and his money" most definitely applies.
Free money, no mandates. This sounds like the initial Bush stimulus package, so it's entirely without precedent.
If their development is going to be subsidized with federal funds, they damn well better open those lines. And they should be required to meet coverage quotas if they want any of those rural development funds.
Perhaps they are trying to be a bit like Apple... you can get their software in conjunction with their approved hardware for a seamless experience.
Of course, since it's open source there will inevitably be a fork of some kind so it can be adapted for other hardware, get new features, etc.
Maybe they want an unsupported fork where the community develops features (and possibly rearchitects the system) without affecting their polished user experience. Any desirable changes can be ported to the official release.
They get free development; you get another open OS---one that is designed for desktop use from the ground up.
//Teachers make about $50k/year for a quantity of work that is harder to quantify. I recall "school" takes 6 hours and that the average year has 180 calendar days in it.//
Do you also "recall" how long it takes to grade tests and essays? Or to create lesson plans? And what about visual aids or other demonstrations, many of which cannot be reused indefinitely? What was your average time spent tutoring or assisting students after classes ended? What extra-curricular activities did you coach, moderate, or sponsor?
If you're going to pretend to do math to justify your stance, at least be thorough. Based on that "method", your conclusion is scarcely worth saying and a bit misleading.
Send out an email to the entire company asking for licenses, CDs, and product keys for a license reconciliation.
Before or during this time, send out resumes. Do not proceed until you have another job lined up.
Send another email enumerating all of the unlicensed software. This can be sent to management only if you prefer (but be sure to include everyone in the chain of command above you up to the president/officer level). Retain hard copies of any messages and responses---you won't want to advertise that you're retaining copies though.
Your email should include numbers---e.g., we have XXX copies of Microsoft Office XP installed and only YY valid licenses/keys. Conclude with a list of products and the number of licenses of each that must be purchased in order to be legal.
Await shit storm. Remember licenses will always have some hardcopy either in the form of a key code, certificate of authenticity, or printout from the vendor web site. If necessary, send out a followup with amended numbers once they provide documentation of additional licenses.
Eventually, they will either buy all the necessary licenses or tell you not to worry about it. At this point, you resign and take your new job.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
If they bought the licenses, your resume can now include "improved license tracking, software license validation, and asset reconciliation". Congratulations on the new skill set and your new job.
If they did not buy the licenses, you can call the BSA. I believe they have some sort of reward program for whistle blowers. Congratulations on the windfall and your new job.
Oh yeah... Be sure to retouch upon the licensing issue every week or two until you resign as a demonstration of due diligence. This ensures that management is aware of the issue and it is their negligence rather than your own which lead to any license violations.
Either way, you win as long as you play your cards right and plan ahead. Good luck.
//Only an idiot trusts crap uploaded by the general public.//
Some sites by their nature rely on user-supplied content. Facebook, photography enthusiasts, and community blogs all accept files from one user and make them available to another (which is essentially all the site must do in order to bu vulnerable).
In many cases, you can process whatever they send you, but there may be cases where you cannot reencode images, covert document formats, or alter/filter/forbid their files. (Whatever the reason---whether it's a matter of legality, policy, or user expectations.) Or you may simply be hosting files.
Making a user-supplied file available via HTTP is all that you need in order to be exploited. While you may not need to do this, there are legitimate cases where others do.
Ultimately, scanning inbound files for the bits that the Flash plugin uses to identify valid SWF files and removing them should remediate the vulnerability completely---but this shouldn't be necessary because Adobe should have an effective security model.
Stop fixing it. Send them to Geek Squad or some other 3rd-rate repair shop where they will pay $200+ to have their system cleaned.
Once they understand the cost and hassle associated with their mistakes, they'll be more inclined to avoid them in the future.
If, for social reasons, you can't simply tell them to get it fixed themselves, then just ignore calls or fall off the face of the Earth for a few weeks the next time they screw up their machine.
Would they expect a mechanic or artist friend to fix their car or paint a piece for the living room for free? If your family works this way then maybe you do have an obligation, otherwise this is their problem---especially once they're on the umpteenth infection.
//It seems pretty legitimate to me but I haven't exactly scruitinized it either.//
Then scrutinize it or STFU. Arguing about the legitimacy of a document you haven't examined must violate some rational principle.
The flaws are so glaringly apparent that you don't even need specialized knowledge of computers---general critical examination is entirely sufficient.
1. Undisclosed methodology (you'd need background to assess the methods but not to recognize the lack of disclosure)
2. Lack of clarity in conclusion (which versions of the software and on which OS/architecture)
In and of itself, point 1 is damning in any study or technical document.//Be skeptical, but don't outright assume that because it came from MS it is wrong.//
Being skeptical means refusing to accept proposed "facts" until there is a weight of evidence in their favor. The proper response to any document is to examine it for rational or technical flaws and to examine the motive of its proponent in publishing it.
Agreed. CVEs or it doesn't count. User vendor-supplied metrics of any kind (patch count, especially) is just begging for a chance to get it all wrong.
Since Cenzic *never* explains its methodology for enumerating vulnerabilities and then identifying which software is vulnerable, this article is of no merit whatsoever.
And if they're going to count vulnerabilities by browser, they should indicate which ones. They don't break it down by version or architecture, so the pie graph conveys no useful information. Who cares if the Firefox 2.x.x branch or IE7 was vulnerable in 2009---only the people still using them.
Cenzic needs to either explicitly state that this always counts only the latest version (didn't see this indicated), or else clarify which versions were assessed and update the breakdown accordingly.
This paper is an F. Convey useful information or at least put in some biker chicks.
Everything they do will be closed, secret and proprietary.
They're working on military technology so I wouldn't be surprised if a great deal of it is classified. In this context, the open vs closed source debate is largely irrelevant.
No one will want to talk to anyone else about how their stuff works.
Or everyone may be forbidden by law from talking about how their stuff works. Until years later when it's declassed.
And eventually the burden of the bureaucratic secrecy machine will eat up all the project funds.
Because, of course, the military has NEVER researched and developed working information technology.
then why are we paying 100% of the price to the ISP's?
Because your ISP runs and maintains the miles of cabling going from their backbone connection to your house?
They charge you for that connection. Google and others don't charge you for their content because it's more economical to let visitors come in free and charge advertisers for access to those visitors. Google uses that revenue to pays for its own network.
If you haven't already figured this out, I don't know what else to tell you.
We should pay for a service plan to whatever ISP we choose (between what is best available and what we need/want), and a portion of that money should go to supporting whatever companies or organizations maintain the pathways, respectfully.
Building and maintaining the last-mile connection into your house is the greatest expense for ISPs. Once your data hits the routers in the CO, it's chump change to get it to the backbone/peering points. The "portion of that money" to maintain the pathway out to the house is actually the lion's share of the cost.
"I deleted a file two years ago and defragmented my hard drive. You should be able to get it back for me, right?"
Don't comment on how simple something should be if you have no understanding of the problem.
But isn't prudent to get the cancer cells into some ecosystem or bioreactor, apply various factors and study them there instead of this Nazi like trial and error research involving those animals ?
If this were feasible, we would have started experimenting on human cancers directly as soon as the first petri dishes rolled out.
They claim to be able to sequence much smaller DNA so why not 'sequence' or look into the cancer here.
Sequencing DNA is many, many steps away from having adequate detail regarding the biochemical differences that will manifest in the organism (or cell). We can't even coimpletely simulate a bog-standard conception-to-birth timeline for typical humans, with various genes switching on and off at different locations and times during development. There are tremendous advances taking place in genetics and will be for some time---but we are nowhere near this level of sophistication at present.
Also inside organisms they are able to highlight and target cancer with some agent and see exactly where the cancer cells are using that PET scanner technique, but unable to use the same path to deliver treatment to those areas.
The 'P' in PET scanner stands for positron. If the treatment could home in on positron concetrations then you're golden. I'll tell you what: you get the positron-homing molecules ready and I'll find a way to superglue the medicinal molecules to them. Deal?
It seams to me that this cancer 'industry' is trying to do prolonged and expensive healing, but not to cure.
It only seems that way because you are utterly ignorant of the underlying reality.
While this is true for music theory (and probably most humanities courses), any science textbooks beyond the most basic ones have to be updated semi-regularly. Higher-level material more often, as that is where the new information is discovered.
Calculus, basic chemistry, basic mechanics, and biology 101 probably don't need the same update frequency as 400-level and graduate courses in materials engineering and applied infomatics.
Arbitrary updates should be punishable my market forces as useless futzing---by a refusal to buy the product. But the ability to retire old editions (with different chapter arrangements, page #s, and sample questions) makes this impossible. Copyright should expire when a text is out of print. (With out-of-print being defined as unable to be delivered for sale by the publisher within 30 days of order to prevent tomfoolery.) If you want the old version because the new, expensive one offers nothing of value, you have the option of paying another publisher to run copies of the content.
If you can make ships more efficient in the water, making ships that run on renewable sources becomes more possible.
While there may be technical merit to what you say, the economics imply the reverse.
If the ship is more energy-efficient, the savings from switching to renewable energy will be lower, which in turn will delay the transition to renewable energy sources.
Energy efficiency is a bit of double-edged sword in this regard, but there is still the big picture. The more time existing ships can spend at sea, the fewer ships we'll need to build to get the job done. A win for energy consumption in end, yes---but be careful of the assumption that it will benefit the adoption of renewable energy sources.
Please cite the section of USC they have violated, or clarify any torte action you would pursue.
Best Buy and the rest of them have enough experience and legal acumen under their belts to avoid any particularly egregious violations of the law. Spewing incoherent technobabble isn't a crime, and it takes a long stretch to reach a reasonable torte status.
If it comes down to it, they'll usually offer a full return on something that was misrepresented---which resolves their responsibility regarding any warranty of mercantibility or fitness for purpose.
Save the prosecutorial grandstanding for real fraud cases.
//What boggles me is people like you just ACCEPT this... like it is ok. It isn't ok. It's fraud. Nothing can or will be done until you stop bending over and taking the whole broomstick.//
Rather than ranting at people, why don't you suggest your own solution? Oh, right. That's because you don't have one.
The only permanent solution is to rearchitect the entire retail industry---or to educate the general populate in detail on computing technology--, and that is not the least bit feasible.
People who remain absolutely ignorant of both the product they desire and the sellers they buy from will be bilked. This has been true since forever... probably even back before the wheel was invented.
I'm fine with a surcharge on ignorance; I simply dislike that it's collected by the voraciously greedy.
//I do not understand why it is acceptable and expected to install all sorts of third party drivers on a Windows system, but as soon as you have to do it on any Linux distribution it's "Not ready for prime time."//
I believe it is because when you have a fairly recent device and a fairly recent version of Windows, you have a 90% or higher chance of finding a self-configuring, self-installing driver from the manufacturer's web site or on a CD with the product itself.
I'd even go so far as to say many users couldn't even get it working without an auto-run installer on a disc. I've done desktop support before, and I doubt the world has changed in the time since.
If a driver typically requires any non-GUI configuration, it's not ready for average users. If it requires the user input any system parameters, it's not ready for average users. If it requires the user to remember information about software or services installed longer than 10 minutes ago, it's not ready. This very likely will require laborious dependency/version checks, device probing, protocol probing, and other installer logic that is tedious to develop and test.
This is the difference between ready and not ready, in a nutshell---substantial developer time spent on user convenience rather than on features, performance, and fixes.
//Or was there a different reason why we had to remember the Occam's Razor?//
Not OP, but I gave it the moment of thought required to see that Occam's Razor does apply.
There are competing explanations for Microsoft's behavior.
First, that they are essentially turning over patens (for a relatively modest fee) to the open source community.
Second, Microsoft intended to turn those patents over to a patent troll in order that said troll could harrass Linux vendors while Microsoft remains above the fray (a public auction guaranteeing the appearance of indifference).
Both of these supposed goals predict the same outcome: Microsoft sells patents at an open auction.
There is a third option, fairly straightforward, which has been ignored here. Microsoft sells unneeded patents in order to turn a profit on work they had already paid for.
While I'm not going to weigh in on Microsoft's motivations (because I quite frankly don't know what they are), there are at least three different goals which would prompt the sale at auction of patents.
Slashdot Mirror
//Is there? No seriously, is there?//
Yes, there is quite a difference between not optimizing for your competitor's product and deliberately degrading performance for your competitor's product.
In the former case, there is no additional effort involved; there is a simple decision not to expend resources where they will not provide a return on the investment.
In the latter case, there is a deliberate effort to expend resources with the intention of harming your competitor. And while anti-competitive behaviour may be an unfortunate norm in American business, it is also an illegal behaviour for a company in a monopoly position.
Having hopefully clarified your sloppy manner of thinking (lest others accept it), we can agree your question was deliberately inflammatory and move on.
//If you're putting more load on the system why not be charged more?//
This is already being done. There are tiered services (1 Mbps vs 15 Mbps), as well as monthly bandwidth caps (although only some providers cap).
Net neutrality is something different. It means that Comcast cannot give their VoIP or their video traffic better performance than Skype or Youtube---they have to treat all traffic equally.
Whether you're using a QoS-type scheme to boost your own content or a throttling scheme on competitors, the idea behind net neutrality is that the internet as a whole will work better if ISPs are forbidden from engaging in these shenanigans. Especially since they like to keep their "network management practices" secret, which deprives consumers of key information necessary to determine how much the service would be worth to them.
I am endlessly annoyed by the sidetracking of net neutrality with irrelevant complaints about capped bandwidth. Network neutrality compels ISPs to allow internet communication to work exactly as it has for years. They see a potential windfall in charging premiums for access to certain content or by pushing subscribers to their own content by ensuring their content is the fastest and most reliable.
Some providers would love to rope off a section of the internet with "their" content and charge other users for access to it. If a company is large enough, they could pull it off. Imagine an ISP faced with the choice of paying $1/subscriber or getting throttled to dialup speeds for ESPN, Disney, etc. In the absence of net neutrality, this is entirely possible. There are a couple of cable companies with monopolies in some areas and a large chunk of media companies under their control (e.g., Comcast's purchasing of ESPN and NB).
Net neutrality prevents some of the worst case scenarios from becoming a reality. No more, no less. ISPs against it are uniformly larger and tied to a media platform of some kind.
Some neutrality proposals also include a provision for open access. This means the ISP would have to lease their capacity to another provider at wholesale cost so that company could resell internet access. This is similar to how CLECs work with regard to phone service. Given the success of CLECs in driving down phone costs (particularly the atrocious long distance rates of the 80s and 90s), I'm inclined to support this as well. While open access is a completely separate from the issue of net neutrality, if there's a bill or regulation that requires both... I'm on board.
//Are you shitting me? How about NOT running as a local Admin? How about proper sandboxing and protecting core OS files? Give me a break. Others HAVE done this.//
wat?
The registry is not executable. It is essentially a configuration file. It's stored as binary blobs rather than ASCII, true, but it's a glorified conf file.
"Protecting" a conf file doesn't work if you need to change the config. And before you rant further, yes, you can get per-hive (and finer) granularity for registry permissions. And beyond that, any organization with a domain can push those permissions globally via group policies.
At home though, this security is irrelevant. None of this protects against a user who clicks a UAC prompt to install crazy cursors or get free backgrounds on their desktop.
As I said in another post, it may be reasonable for the shell to handle invalid initialization options gracefully.
But this security canard is really getting beaten. Since Vista, even accounts which are administrators do not run with admin privileges. Windows generates a prompt when a process attempts to elevate. Local escalation exploits---common on XP---are far less frequent on Vista or 7. While Vista or 7 don't even compare to, say, BSD, the OS security is rarely the source of these problems anymore. Most current malware runs without administrator privileges. This restricts its activity to the account of the user that loaded it---which is all the OS security model should do.
If it's a matter of preventing users from running things they shouldn't, that is beyond the scope of the OS security model and into the realm of configurable security policy.
Modern DSL equipment can get ranges of 3-4 miles from the CO on good wiring. Speeds taper off, of course, but a small increase in distance equates to a substantial increase in coverage.
The main problem is that DSLAM tech was pushed until recently so that existing urban COs could get 100% coverage, and now the financial incentive for improvement has vanished. Only rural COs need more than ~3 miles, and the return on R&D costs is thus limited (and deployment rates will be lower since urban COs won't benefit at all from the longer range).
The ultimate solution may be waiting for fiber-to-the-premises, as the range is excellent. And the cost of running the fiber will only come down.
All programs are expected to use the software hive of the Windows registry, and some may have legitimate reasons to change the system hive as well. Most apps or services that have a bona fide need to do so will be business-oriented, specialized scientific/industrial, or security apps.
Unless they want to utterly cut off system customization, they cannot block access to the registry any further than requiring administrator privileges to change it. And if we're talking about personal PCs, it is trivial to convince most users to accept a UAC elevation prompt.
And, of course, when you are dealing with core OS configuration you can break it. Perhaps making the GUI shell less dependent on an editable registry value would be wise (or even having a graceful failure mode when initialized with invalid options).
But locking the registry? No. Windows is already less configurable than Linux, and making this worse will not endear Microsoft to anyone.
In his defense, he did mention VMWare sessions. And depending on the image... well, those can get quite heavy-handed.
I have a box with a few VMs running with 6 GB RAM, and if I'm multitasking on the host OS it has fits of paging out sometimes. Adding another 3 or 6 GB would be my next step if I couldn't just suspend one of the VMs whenever I need to.
It all comes down to the typical and load use. If he really needs 12 GB then it's good he had the money to buy it. On the other hand, if his memory utilization peaks at 3-4 GB then "a fool and his money" most definitely applies.
Free money, no mandates. This sounds like the initial Bush stimulus package, so it's entirely without precedent.
If their development is going to be subsidized with federal funds, they damn well better open those lines. And they should be required to meet coverage quotas if they want any of those rural development funds.
Perhaps they are trying to be a bit like Apple... you can get their software in conjunction with their approved hardware for a seamless experience.
Of course, since it's open source there will inevitably be a fork of some kind so it can be adapted for other hardware, get new features, etc.
Maybe they want an unsupported fork where the community develops features (and possibly rearchitects the system) without affecting their polished user experience. Any desirable changes can be ported to the official release.
They get free development; you get another open OS---one that is designed for desktop use from the ground up.
//Teachers make about $50k/year for a quantity of work that is harder to quantify. I recall "school" takes 6 hours and that the average year has 180 calendar days in it.//
Do you also "recall" how long it takes to grade tests and essays? Or to create lesson plans? And what about visual aids or other demonstrations, many of which cannot be reused indefinitely? What was your average time spent tutoring or assisting students after classes ended? What extra-curricular activities did you coach, moderate, or sponsor?
If you're going to pretend to do math to justify your stance, at least be thorough. Based on that "method", your conclusion is scarcely worth saying and a bit misleading.
Send out an email to the entire company asking for licenses, CDs, and product keys for a license reconciliation.
Before or during this time, send out resumes. Do not proceed until you have another job lined up.
Send another email enumerating all of the unlicensed software. This can be sent to management only if you prefer (but be sure to include everyone in the chain of command above you up to the president/officer level). Retain hard copies of any messages and responses---you won't want to advertise that you're retaining copies though.
Your email should include numbers---e.g., we have XXX copies of Microsoft Office XP installed and only YY valid licenses/keys. Conclude with a list of products and the number of licenses of each that must be purchased in order to be legal.
Await shit storm. Remember licenses will always have some hardcopy either in the form of a key code, certificate of authenticity, or printout from the vendor web site. If necessary, send out a followup with amended numbers once they provide documentation of additional licenses.
Eventually, they will either buy all the necessary licenses or tell you not to worry about it. At this point, you resign and take your new job.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
If they bought the licenses, your resume can now include "improved license tracking, software license validation, and asset reconciliation". Congratulations on the new skill set and your new job.
If they did not buy the licenses, you can call the BSA. I believe they have some sort of reward program for whistle blowers. Congratulations on the windfall and your new job.
Oh yeah... Be sure to retouch upon the licensing issue every week or two until you resign as a demonstration of due diligence. This ensures that management is aware of the issue and it is their negligence rather than your own which lead to any license violations.
Either way, you win as long as you play your cards right and plan ahead. Good luck.
//Only an idiot trusts crap uploaded by the general public.//
Some sites by their nature rely on user-supplied content. Facebook, photography enthusiasts, and community blogs all accept files from one user and make them available to another (which is essentially all the site must do in order to bu vulnerable).
In many cases, you can process whatever they send you, but there may be cases where you cannot reencode images, covert document formats, or alter/filter/forbid their files. (Whatever the reason---whether it's a matter of legality, policy, or user expectations.) Or you may simply be hosting files.
Making a user-supplied file available via HTTP is all that you need in order to be exploited. While you may not need to do this, there are legitimate cases where others do.
Ultimately, scanning inbound files for the bits that the Flash plugin uses to identify valid SWF files and removing them should remediate the vulnerability completely---but this shouldn't be necessary because Adobe should have an effective security model.
Stop fixing it. Send them to Geek Squad or some other 3rd-rate repair shop where they will pay $200+ to have their system cleaned.
Once they understand the cost and hassle associated with their mistakes, they'll be more inclined to avoid them in the future.
If, for social reasons, you can't simply tell them to get it fixed themselves, then just ignore calls or fall off the face of the Earth for a few weeks the next time they screw up their machine.
Would they expect a mechanic or artist friend to fix their car or paint a piece for the living room for free? If your family works this way then maybe you do have an obligation, otherwise this is their problem---especially once they're on the umpteenth infection.
//It seems pretty legitimate to me but I haven't exactly scruitinized it either.//
Then scrutinize it or STFU. Arguing about the legitimacy of a document you haven't examined must violate some rational principle.
The flaws are so glaringly apparent that you don't even need specialized knowledge of computers---general critical examination is entirely sufficient.
1. Undisclosed methodology (you'd need background to assess the methods but not to recognize the lack of disclosure)
2. Lack of clarity in conclusion (which versions of the software and on which OS/architecture)
In and of itself, point 1 is damning in any study or technical document. //Be skeptical, but don't outright assume that because it came from MS it is wrong.//
Being skeptical means refusing to accept proposed "facts" until there is a weight of evidence in their favor. The proper response to any document is to examine it for rational or technical flaws and to examine the motive of its proponent in publishing it.
Agreed. CVEs or it doesn't count. User vendor-supplied metrics of any kind (patch count, especially) is just begging for a chance to get it all wrong.
Since Cenzic *never* explains its methodology for enumerating vulnerabilities and then identifying which software is vulnerable, this article is of no merit whatsoever.
And if they're going to count vulnerabilities by browser, they should indicate which ones. They don't break it down by version or architecture, so the pie graph conveys no useful information. Who cares if the Firefox 2.x.x branch or IE7 was vulnerable in 2009---only the people still using them.
Cenzic needs to either explicitly state that this always counts only the latest version (didn't see this indicated), or else clarify which versions were assessed and update the breakdown accordingly.
This paper is an F. Convey useful information or at least put in some biker chicks.
It yields 1.5X the current screen area, so that is rather substantial. It is roughly equivalent to moving from an 18" monitor to a 24" screen.
A comparable monitor upgrade was quite substantial for me.
That said, I'm not a DS owner so I don't know---but I'd imagine it'd be quite nice.
Everything they do will be closed, secret and proprietary.
They're working on military technology so I wouldn't be surprised if a great deal of it is classified. In this context, the open vs closed source debate is largely irrelevant.
No one will want to talk to anyone else about how their stuff works.
Or everyone may be forbidden by law from talking about how their stuff works. Until years later when it's declassed.
And eventually the burden of the bureaucratic secrecy machine will eat up all the project funds.
Because, of course, the military has NEVER researched and developed working information technology.
then why are we paying 100% of the price to the ISP's?
Because your ISP runs and maintains the miles of cabling going from their backbone connection to your house?
They charge you for that connection. Google and others don't charge you for their content because it's more economical to let visitors come in free and charge advertisers for access to those visitors. Google uses that revenue to pays for its own network.
If you haven't already figured this out, I don't know what else to tell you.
We should pay for a service plan to whatever ISP we choose (between what is best available and what we need/want), and a portion of that money should go to supporting whatever companies or organizations maintain the pathways, respectfully.
Building and maintaining the last-mile connection into your house is the greatest expense for ISPs. Once your data hits the routers in the CO, it's chump change to get it to the backbone/peering points. The "portion of that money" to maintain the pathway out to the house is actually the lion's share of the cost.
Yes, I have worked for a major ISP. Recently.
"I deleted a file two years ago and defragmented my hard drive. You should be able to get it back for me, right?"
Don't comment on how simple something should be if you have no understanding of the problem.
But isn't prudent to get the cancer cells into some ecosystem or bioreactor, apply various factors and study them there instead of this Nazi like trial and error research involving those animals ?
If this were feasible, we would have started experimenting on human cancers directly as soon as the first petri dishes rolled out.
They claim to be able to sequence much smaller DNA so why not 'sequence' or look into the cancer here.
Sequencing DNA is many, many steps away from having adequate detail regarding the biochemical differences that will manifest in the organism (or cell). We can't even coimpletely simulate a bog-standard conception-to-birth timeline for typical humans, with various genes switching on and off at different locations and times during development. There are tremendous advances taking place in genetics and will be for some time---but we are nowhere near this level of sophistication at present.
Also inside organisms they are able to highlight and target cancer with some agent and see exactly where the cancer cells are using that PET scanner technique, but unable to use the same path to deliver treatment to those areas.
The 'P' in PET scanner stands for positron. If the treatment could home in on positron concetrations then you're golden. I'll tell you what: you get the positron-homing molecules ready and I'll find a way to superglue the medicinal molecules to them. Deal?
It seams to me that this cancer 'industry' is trying to do prolonged and expensive healing, but not to cure.
It only seems that way because you are utterly ignorant of the underlying reality.
While this is true for music theory (and probably most humanities courses), any science textbooks beyond the most basic ones have to be updated semi-regularly. Higher-level material more often, as that is where the new information is discovered.
Calculus, basic chemistry, basic mechanics, and biology 101 probably don't need the same update frequency as 400-level and graduate courses in materials engineering and applied infomatics.
Arbitrary updates should be punishable my market forces as useless futzing---by a refusal to buy the product. But the ability to retire old editions (with different chapter arrangements, page #s, and sample questions) makes this impossible. Copyright should expire when a text is out of print. (With out-of-print being defined as unable to be delivered for sale by the publisher within 30 days of order to prevent tomfoolery.) If you want the old version because the new, expensive one offers nothing of value, you have the option of paying another publisher to run copies of the content.
If you can make ships more efficient in the water, making ships that run on renewable sources becomes more possible.
While there may be technical merit to what you say, the economics imply the reverse.
If the ship is more energy-efficient, the savings from switching to renewable energy will be lower, which in turn will delay the transition to renewable energy sources.
Energy efficiency is a bit of double-edged sword in this regard, but there is still the big picture. The more time existing ships can spend at sea, the fewer ships we'll need to build to get the job done. A win for energy consumption in end, yes---but be careful of the assumption that it will benefit the adoption of renewable energy sources.
What is wrong with charging them with fraud?
Please cite the section of USC they have violated, or clarify any torte action you would pursue.
Best Buy and the rest of them have enough experience and legal acumen under their belts to avoid any particularly egregious violations of the law. Spewing incoherent technobabble isn't a crime, and it takes a long stretch to reach a reasonable torte status.
If it comes down to it, they'll usually offer a full return on something that was misrepresented---which resolves their responsibility regarding any warranty of mercantibility or fitness for purpose.
Save the prosecutorial grandstanding for real fraud cases.
//What boggles me is people like you just ACCEPT this... like it is ok. It isn't ok. It's fraud. Nothing can or will be done until you stop bending over and taking the whole broomstick.//
Rather than ranting at people, why don't you suggest your own solution? Oh, right. That's because you don't have one.
The only permanent solution is to rearchitect the entire retail industry---or to educate the general populate in detail on computing technology--, and that is not the least bit feasible.
People who remain absolutely ignorant of both the product they desire and the sellers they buy from will be bilked. This has been true since forever... probably even back before the wheel was invented.
I'm fine with a surcharge on ignorance; I simply dislike that it's collected by the voraciously greedy.
//I do not understand why it is acceptable and expected to install all sorts of third party drivers on a Windows system, but as soon as you have to do it on any Linux distribution it's "Not ready for prime time."//
I believe it is because when you have a fairly recent device and a fairly recent version of Windows, you have a 90% or higher chance of finding a self-configuring, self-installing driver from the manufacturer's web site or on a CD with the product itself.
I'd even go so far as to say many users couldn't even get it working without an auto-run installer on a disc. I've done desktop support before, and I doubt the world has changed in the time since.
If a driver typically requires any non-GUI configuration, it's not ready for average users. If it requires the user input any system parameters, it's not ready for average users. If it requires the user to remember information about software or services installed longer than 10 minutes ago, it's not ready. This very likely will require laborious dependency/version checks, device probing, protocol probing, and other installer logic that is tedious to develop and test.
This is the difference between ready and not ready, in a nutshell---substantial developer time spent on user convenience rather than on features, performance, and fixes.
Three words, my friend: LG borderless monitors.
//Or was there a different reason why we had to remember the Occam's Razor?//
Not OP, but I gave it the moment of thought required to see that Occam's Razor does apply.
There are competing explanations for Microsoft's behavior.
First, that they are essentially turning over patens (for a relatively modest fee) to the open source community.
Second, Microsoft intended to turn those patents over to a patent troll in order that said troll could harrass Linux vendors while Microsoft remains above the fray (a public auction guaranteeing the appearance of indifference).
Both of these supposed goals predict the same outcome: Microsoft sells patents at an open auction.
There is a third option, fairly straightforward, which has been ignored here. Microsoft sells unneeded patents in order to turn a profit on work they had already paid for.
While I'm not going to weigh in on Microsoft's motivations (because I quite frankly don't know what they are), there are at least three different goals which would prompt the sale at auction of patents.