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User: rtb61

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  1. Re:Not the first time on The Russian Mafia Doesn't Like Spam Either · · Score: 1

    That is most likely the truth, whilst indirectly associated with spam, the most likely reason would be bot control wars, crackers hacking each others bot networks. So apparently the easiest way to take down/over a bot network is to take out the bot network's controller.

  2. Re:Pre-installed OS on Canonical Chases Deal to Ship Ubuntu Server OS · · Score: 1
    Actually selling Linux/Ubuntu pre-installed on servers makes a whole lot of sense. The OS is free and you are not selling the software you are selling service and support. For Dell it means making a slight shift and adding further depth to their service and support by adding administration, either remote or local.

    So would Dell sell Linux/Ubuntu pre-installed on servers, in a heart beat, once they have established the service/support/administration teams globally and they have developed market acceptance and expectations.

    Why not, they get to pocket those unsold M$ licence fees as profit, straight to the bottom line.

    As M$ gets further into selling hardware, Dell and M$ are becoming real competitors.

  3. Re:Cmdr. Sisko wants to know -- on Fairly Realistic Flying Car Offered for 2009 Delivery · · Score: 1
    It really does point our the difference in risk. In the air there is no such thing as a small bingle, a stalled plane means a whole different thing to a stalled car, in car accidents people sometimes die, in plane accidents people sometimes live.

    So flying cars are doomed because of that difference in risk. So going for donuts in a helicopter represents a far higher risk then getting in a car. Just think of this simple difference, turbulence at the landing point generated by the helicopter rotors, a typical littered carpark, represents a considerable risk of eye damage to innocent bystanders.

  4. Re:"Friendly" == "admit they have MS property" on Linspire Releases Controversial Version 6.0 · · Score: 1
    The thing to bear in mind is M$ isn't M$, M$ is it's management team, it is it's corporate executives, it is it's major shareholders.

    Ballmer is currently trying to survive as M$'s CEO, the failure of Vista, the failure of Office 2007, the financial failure of xbox, and the financial failure of MSN, are destroying his career and personal ego trip of being better and greater than Bill Gates in whose shadow Ballmer has been forced to spend the last 20 years.

    So expect lots of rants, screams and flying furniture on the way out.

    As for Linspire, they seem to be going out of their way to make a version of Linux that is just as unstable, unreliable and insecure as windows.

    Windows media player on Linux, how obscene, I don't even use it on windows, VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ and Media player classic http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli are both superior, what are they thinking at the Linspire team or have they stopped thinking all together. Next they will be adding, M$ windows DRM free, M$ windows WGA free and even that piece of junk M$ Works ;).

    The other thing is of course M$ is trying to create the marketing illusion that it is a player of influence in the Linux world, that when M$ babbles, the computer and technology world listens and changes, that Ballmer's asinine opinions actually mean something to the technological future of the planet rather than just adding more content to the geek laugh library.

  5. Re:The other myth: proprietary model and innovatio on A Google Blunder- the Sad Story of Urchin · · Score: 1
    Lets put it another way, you don't buy competition and put them out of business. You buy a hard working staff who produced a quality product and provided excellent customer support and destroyed their careers for being to competitive, that'll teach those employees at other companies who are better than your employees. You punished customers who dared to invest in alternate products by destroying their investment, that'll teach those customers who dare to buy competing companies products.

    Generally when I have been caught up with nonsense like this, I swap away from the company that has been bought out to another different company that's competes against the company doing the buying. It makes simple clear logical sense, the company doing the buying has to buy companies because they just aren't good enough to compete effectively, their products, support and price are sub-par, so they weren't good enough before so why would you expect them to be good enough now.

    So when you expect as a customer, expect buyouts to result in failure, and make plans and initiate a product and supplier shift early in the piece, you find you significantly minimise your losses.

  6. Re:Sun Blackbox? on Google Patents Shipping-Container Data Centers · · Score: 1
    What this storey does point out is, that it should be obvious why google was a strong supporter of patent first reform.

    It doesn't matter who invented, it doesn't matter what has been published about it, it doesn't matter how much and for how long it has been in use, companies that support patent first, want to steal you idea, prevent you from using it and charge you if you attempt to use.

    As far as they are concerned, if you didn't patent it, they are entitled to claim they invented it and patent it themselves. So create ideas and share them among fellow users, like open source software, and don't be surprised when those ideas are patented and used against you. GPL3 came about just for this reason, to block blatant patent thieves with copyright penalties.

  7. Re:the fine didn't fit the crime on Juror From RIAA Trial Speaks · · Score: 1
    Stick to the law. She did not break they law. By definition of law she is innocent. The jury only believes she lied. The RIAA lawyers did not prove she lied, they did not prove she commmited copyright infringement. A bunch of reactionary rednecks who sat on a kangaroo court, obviously the RIAA were careful in jury selection and the defendant wasn't, voted with ignorance.

    Before you make ignorant claims of guilt and innocence, consider that this case would have been laughed out of a criminal court and no prosecutor would have dared to present it before a judge. That jury has shamed itself and the court they sat, in fact quite categorically they declared that in a US civil court, the defendent is guilty until they have proven themselves innocent, and the only way they can prove themselves innocent is to spend more money than the RIAA in court.

    The most important thing this clearly incompetent jury should have asked itself, especially in light of the penalty they deemed approrpiate, was how much of this so called evidence would have been accepted in a criminal court, one has to seriously wonder about the bias of that jury and the reasons behind that bias.

  8. Re:What a crock on Microsoft's Ballmer: Google Reads Your Mail · · Score: 1
    That really is a lie, reading to header to send the email and opening and scanning the email a two wildly different things. Do me a favour go walk outside, look at the telephone lines and tell me how many emails you can accidentally read. Read other peoples electronic mail, beyond automated reading of the headers, requires a wilful and premeditated act to invade another persons privacy.

    In fact google spent millions of dollars in coding software and implementing hardware with the full intent of invading as many peoples privacy as possible and to record it for psychologically invasive marketing purposes, nothing accidental about it all.

  9. Re:What if & modern computing on Google and IBM to Provide Cloud Computing to Students · · Score: 1
    In this case access to cloud computing and you could be paying through the nose for it. Google is a strong supporter of patent first, not invent first legislation, with google's history I would stay will clear of running any possibly patentable work an a computer system that they had anything to do with.

    Whilst IBM certainly has a good reputation, you would think they would hesitate to associate themselves with google's privacy invasive history. As for those famous research universities, did they stop to think about the changes to patent legislation, and protecting their student and staff members ideas.

  10. Re:It makes sense on MS's Hilf Named Windows Server Marketer · · Score: 1
    That is the reality. M$ knows an open source operating system will win, it is inevitable, it makes simple economic sense over the long term as the amount of change required in an OS has become simple refinements and driver upgrades.

    If M$ can not make the transition to an a open source operating system, they will wither and die on the vine. The two reasons of course, no transition to an open source operating system and M$ office has no place to go and the other reason MSN just bleeds money

    Consider what other companies manage to achieve with similar web portals. MSN is about the best web portal (it is better than yahoo and way better than google), the real problem is, M$ chokes the chicken by running too many adds and driving users away add to that of course M$'s anti-customer brand image, (FU)DRM did not help (their management culture makes those poor decisions inevitable).

    So Hilf is the marketing bridge backup for when ballmer and vista fails, and ballmer is publicly sacrificed in order to rebrand M$, likely 'MicroSoft' will disappear and MSN (just the initials) will take precedence.

  11. Re:Thunderbird is awesome on Windows on Thunderbird in Crisis? · · Score: 1

    Who said email service, I said email address service, simple forwarding, costs virtually nothing as it would be built into their own existing services. Perhaps you are right though, a government run email service, as a free essential service for those unable to afford their own email service might be appropriate, I had not thought of that, good idea ;).

  12. Re:What a crock on Microsoft's Ballmer: Google Reads Your Mail · · Score: 1

    I know they don't send out adds but do they store the information ie a completely unwanted, un-requested, un-agreed, to privacy invasion.

  13. Re:Thunderbird is awesome on Windows on Thunderbird in Crisis? · · Score: 1
    I am also to cheap and lazy to create my own police force, army, hospital and education system eyc. The government only performs as well as the electorate allows. Private enterprise performs as poorly as it can get away with until such time as legislation is implemented to limit it's greed and the penalties are sufficient to actually force change.

    So rather than buy into the mass market free enterprise greed is best crap, I find that a truly democratic government which takes responsibility for the government services it administers provides the best management for most essential services. Government services at least attempt to provide the best service for the lowest cost, private enterprise always seeks to provide the least service for the greatest cost (it's called profit), so sometimes, yeah, fuck private enterprise and unlimited profit.

  14. Re:Thunderbird is awesome on Windows on Thunderbird in Crisis? · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but it's a hassle and I'm cheap and lazy. I want something free, easy, simple and secure. So a public service would suit. It's election time why not ask for stuff the provides a simple easy benefit for the majority of citizens.

  15. Re:What a crock on Microsoft's Ballmer: Google Reads Your Mail · · Score: 1
    I think you missed the point. I do not have nor do I want a gmail account, I have sufficient web mail services already, be they MSN, Yahoo, AOL etc more garbage-mail accounts I do not need. What I was talking about was at which point the mail some else sends, their mail, becomes the mail you receive, your mail ie. the sender versus the recipient and whose email is being read. So as the receiver getting email into my private ISP provided account I have agreed to nothing with google nor can the sending by use gmail imply that I have.

    As for selling advertising, I would think attempting to create a profile of someone for personally targeting advertising would be crossing the line. Advertising should simply be about making the 'public' aware of a product, not a personally crafted psychological assault to artificially induce desire for an otherwise unwanted product, sounds terrible when it is worded that way, doesn't it.

    So what new legally enforced limits will need to be applied to achieve a suitable balance, between allowing companies to inform the general public of products they wish to sell and allowing people some quite, personal, non-'hey, consumer, buy this shit now' time.

  16. Re:What a crock on Microsoft's Ballmer: Google Reads Your Mail · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here you go, http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/17/1536230, perhaps you can ask them for proof ;).

  17. Re:What a crock on Microsoft's Ballmer: Google Reads Your Mail · · Score: -1
    Now here is a interesting point which no one has tackled yet. When I go out to my letter box, and open by letter box and look inside my letter box I see 'my' mail, it is no longer the mail of the people who sent it to me, it is my mail, and any unauthorised person who attempts to open my mail, or intercept my mail or read my mail, has committed a criminal offence.

    So when a gmail user sends me an email, google has invaded my privacy as the email receiver and if they attempt to send me a targeted add based upon the contents of my email, have they committed an offence and opened and read my mail with out my authorisation.

    Oddly enough this privacy comment from the CEO of a company that has patented the ability to do much the same in the operating system. So what, M$ wont read your email, they will just monitor their (P)OS as it reads every file on your hard disk, which obviously would include your email. So typical Ballmer, almost the truth, yes they don't currently read your email, but they soon will be. After all if they were not intending to do so, why would they patent the concept. So Ballmer foot in mouth yet again, creating a stigma for privacy invasion by companies while creating an automated system that would be even more privacy invasive, CEO, I am sure the word clown belongs in that title.

  18. Re:Use? on ASUS Motherboard Ships With Embedded Linux · · Score: 1
    A step further to this is to have Linux in the CPU ie a computer in a chip, virtually no boot time apart from accessing connected hardware. A far more secure solution, and in the long term an achievable goal. Likely an upgradeable chip that sockets into the main CPU.

    It is all to do with appliances specific use computers rather than general use computers. For obvious reasons an open source OS has a significant advantages over a closed source proprietary (P)OS, not the least being a software licence fee greater than the cost of the chip.

  19. Re:out of money on Novell to SCO - Pay Up · · Score: 1
    So the really big penalty Novell will be going for is SCO trading while insolvent ie. Knowingly owing more money than they can pay out whilst continuing to trade. So a conviction for this by the SEC would result in Darl and his buddies doing some jail time.

    As a side benefit, this kind of investigation would also seek to reveal any undisclosed association with other companies from whom Novell and others could seek substantial additional damages. So what would Darl confess to, to stay out of jail and what would be the ramifications of those confessions.

  20. Re:A concrete example for Gmail on Designing Software With Privacy in Mind · · Score: 1
    You just don't get it. Privacy is not hardware or software, it is a legislated requirement the the general public via government forces upon companies.

    This article is a growing sign of the times, the wild wild west of the internet is coming to an end. In terms of what a company will be allowed to know or keep records of, with regards to the general public will tighten up and basically be reduced to the absolute minimum required for order placement and account keeping processes.

    Privacy is not a myth, privacy will be a criminal punishment for those individuals and corporations that get caught abusing it. Expect future surprise government audits of corporate data bases.

    Of course it will not be the general populace pushing it, it will be the rich and greedy wanting to hide their secrets, it will be the celebrities trying to maintain their profit generating public image, it will be politicians trying to maintain the illusion of their integrity, it will be corporate executives trying to maintain the fantasy of the skills and abilities to confuse the investors and on the nice side, it will be parents trying to protect the future of their children.

    So make no mistake, those anal retentive companies who currently generate their profits by invading our privacy are basically, no to put a too fine point on it, fucked ;).

  21. Re:Conspiracy? on Googlestalking For Covert NSA Research Funding · · Score: 1
    Not to put a too fine point on it but researches are members of the public. What you are saying, is when you are getting paid you no longer have to maintain individual moral judgement. The big thing is the willingness of those people with the skills who agree to participate in these works. Their absence or morals, their basically amoral and immoral attitude is a requirement.

    Of course the obvious problem at the moment is that the best people do in fact refuse to participate in this kind of shite and as a result a large amount of money sucking, worthless, junk science is created. Of course this is still extremely bad for two reasons, one, it is a complete and obscene waste of taxpayer funds and two, it establishes validity for the kind of psychopaths who authorise and try to make use of this work and the cowardly, second rate, quisling slime willing to do the research.

  22. Re:Somebody please, stop the madness on Listening To The Radio At Work? Prepare To Be Sued · · Score: 4, Insightful
    But the real problem here is not the music but the radio. Consider the application of the law, if everybody walked into work or any other public space carrying and using their own radio, no one is infringing, the public broadcasting is being done in an electro magnetic spectrum which the radio is receiving and retransmitting. So the courts or the judge are being visibly corrupt in their interpretation of infrgingement.

    It is already a licensed public transmission, only the number of devices used to alter the unencrypted signal to a human audible range is in question.

    So it is a flagrant and complete corruption of the principles of copyright, which corrupt politicians in collusion with drunken drugged up minstrals have implemented to rip of and steal from the general public.

    The only possible infringement would be a long since passed patent infringement on the process of converting the signal. So either the corrupt government stick to the law and administer justice and ban all personal listening devices in those locations and at those times or they accept the proper interpretation of the law and the number of devices used to play a publicly broadcast signal should not affect copyright.

    By the current clearly dishonest interpretation, if I use more than one device at a time, so two radios at once, am I and the broadcaster entitled to a discount and pay half price, just like where two people listening to the same device should pay double.

    A flagrant and glaring example of corporate and government corruption.

  23. Re:Thunderbird is awesome on Windows on Thunderbird in Crisis? · · Score: 4, Interesting
    So that is the real problem competition with Gmail and Evolution or more specifically successful competition against both those products are having an impact on future thunderbird development.

    So in a nut shell, there appear to be limited corporate revenue opportunities for thunderbird, it is just a useful, simple, easy to use, end user interface for managing email, fit for purpose rather than fit for profit software.

    No corporations are really going to get behind it, especially not google or any other company involved with email servers.

    So thunderbird will keep quietly ticking along, doing the job it needs to do, with out any major changes, just continual refinement. I use it and I am pretty happy with that. To put it simply, I am sick of software changing for change sake and to generate upgrade profits. As for privacy invasive web mail, eww, I only use that for G-mail (garbage mail) and questionable web sites.

    The next big thing might be email address portability, much like postal address not being bound to the people making the deliveries, one could envisage a government controlled email address router to allow end users to retain a permanent email address, not bound to a particular supplier or as a marketing tool for that particular supplier ie. an address that avoids customer lock and ensures competition in email services. It would really hurt web mail but of course not as much as cheap internet serving appliances, IPv6 and free email software servers, privacy invasive web mail is doomed ;).

  24. Re:Huh? on Official - Bungie Departing Microsoft · · Score: 1
    This looks more like brand shifting than anything else. M$ is pretty much a lame duck when it comes to branding, just look at the zune and the performance of M$'s other games. A lot of users are pissed off with M$'s attitude with regard to customers and it main products windows and office, which means that don't buy anything branded 'MS', mice, keyboards, or games.

    M$ will be publishing all bungie titles, M$ retains an equity interest, likely a majority interest, so it really is only independent in terms of marketing and avoids the whole ballmer goatse stigma.

    So will Bungie produce PS3/Wii titles or not.

    Now are those sales of Halo 3 to actual customers or just to retailers.

  25. Re:unsubscribe on Microsoft Working On Health Information 'Vault' System · · Score: 1
    Do you know what is even worse, M$ daring to call it a 'secure' database.

    8. WE MAKE NO WARRANTY.

    We provide the Service "as-is," "with all faults" and "as available." We do not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of information available from the Service. Microsoft gives no express warranties, guarantees or conditions. You may have additional consumer rights under your local laws that this Service Agreement cannot change. We exclude any implied warranties including those of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, workmanlike effort and non-infringement.

    That is from https://account.healthvault.com/help.aspx?topicid=ServiceAgreement now that is exactly how secure the database is. The non-infringement bit is interesting, is M$ admitting to stealing code and hiding in the closed source software.