---Did AMD, Intel or Linus Torvalds give you a PC to develop on? If they didn't give you one, did they loan you one to use? Yeah, I thought not.
Actually, Ive got developer boards from Intel, Motorolla, AMD, and a handful of other companies. If you provide a service or want for people to buy your product (as in samples for embedded or otherwise), they will invest in you IF YOU SHOW THAT YOU DO AS YOU SAY.
---Did you see this? Checking eBay superficially, I found this with a price of US$105: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cate gory=14911&item=5106132682&rd=1
And 4 days out at that. Youre an idiot to post that and expect to "buy it now".
---Now add $130 for a new legal copy of Panther, and you have the Mac you claim you need for $235. And it also has all the USB ports you seem to need.
ASSume that you get that ebay machine for current price HAHAH. Oh, and who's going to buy a legit copy of panther when the sole reason he's buying that is to increase share of Apple software?
---And if you didn't actually already have a physical Mac, why would you be in need of VirtualPC? VirtualPC simulates an Intel clone with Windows on a Mac. Sheesh.
Would you buy Super NES games and expect them to work with your Genesis? Would you buy European power cords and expect them to work here in North America (with no extra adapters)? Would you buy a CD-Rom and expect DVD's to be read in it?
Now, would you buy a Scanner/Printer WITHOUT checking whether it works in Linux?
I sure wouldnt.. If you planned to run Linux, do your homework. If this was a 'lets see if this works', plan for different outcomes.
BTW, Ive had a hard time with the newish versions of SuSE setting up cable/dsl network adapters using the default settings. Takes a bit of teaking to get it right, although Yast should set that up right...
1 Recent machine (1 GHz or higher) with USB. 1 Keyboard and 1 Mouse PS/2 variants 3 Keyboards and 3 Mice USB variants (or the PS/2 to USB connecters, use a powered hub. you will need it) 4 Graphics ports (ports, not cards. Some gfx cards have dual monitor support) You probably will use 1 AGP and 3 PCI cards. ATI 128's are good. 4 Monitors, preferrably 1024x768
Now label the Keyboards/Mice/Monitors to which one each is. Read documentation on how to use Linux USB support to "lock" the input devices by UID of device (so your/dev/'s dont change on unplug/plug). Configure all 4 monitors as needed, and bam.
Now ask yourself this, what good things come out of this if all computer professionals followed this. Now ask yourself if all did not follow this..
What if Doctors denyed the Hippocratic Oath and told others secretly (or anonomously) of conditions of others? Would you go to them if you knew they had a history of this?
Morals are pertaing to religous rules. Ethics are rules and agreements to a type of trade whether that be The Law, medical, social, Teaching that when agreed to, promotes the further learning and legitimacy of the field.
+++++Where's a free (stripped down) version of Visual Basic on Windows? You know, include a low VB 5 compiler for quick stuff..
---Microsoft Word | Tools | Options | Visual Basic.
I was specifing Windows CD only. No additional discs. And MS Word is 250$. Ouch
---Visual Basic for Applications can do most of basic VB stuff. I had to write an applet at a non-networked Win98 computer with just Office, and VBA came in quite useful.
Oh, its useful, but nowhere near free and non-gui'ed. Linux is based on commandline, so commandline is adequate. Windows is GUI based, so you need a cut and dry VB or C gui compiler. Im only asking what comes with any other OS you buy...
---Oh, and the.NET SDK is a free download from MS...I don't have the link now, but you can search for it. Install it, and you get the commandline "vbc" VB.NET compiler and "csc" C#.NET compiler. Moreover, this is not stripped-down; this is the full Visual Studio.NET compilers less the "Visual" part.
Yes, but no gui. Not soo easy to craft gui style sheets without one... Course thats why they want you to buy the 600$+ compiler.
You dont get what Im saying. Look at Monday's verdict of NOT GIVING YOUR NAME TO SOMEONE IN LAW ENFORCEMENT. Fines and/or imprisonment ensues. http://papersplease.org/hiibel/
My god, you sound sooo much like a MS report shill.. Please, I'll enlighten you.
---You're leaving out the cost of additional internal support. You're forgetting that customization of your environment leads to additional hassles applying patches and upgrades. Finally, you're forgetting that switching hardware costs money.
Hmm, switching to Linux requires no hardware changes (except for some wacky modems and weird stuff). It runs on mnay more platforms than Windows EVER ran on (thinking of old Mips, Alpha, X86, hmmm days, forget that last one).
---Ask yourself this: On how many thousands of computers would I have to save $100 per license to pay for a small team of programmers with secret or better security clearances for three years? If you figure a small team is 5-6 programmers, it works out to around 20,000 computers.
You assume programmers. Oh, and I manage all my computers from a nice shell script. It updates them all at once, and can give basic commmandline prompt through ssh. And if you NEED clearance, you're doing megabucks of something. Might as well do it right anyways. You'll need those programmers on Windows OR Linux.
---On how many more thousands of computers would I have to save $100 per license to pay the additional sysadmins, QA, and help desk personnel? What about the project managers that coordinate all these efforts? What about the additional oversight and compliance officers that ensure all of these activities meet regulations and standards?
I can easily handle 5000 clients. Its the servers I tend to want more people on. Perhaps 1 person per 20 servers or so.. Depends how much uptime is worth. Im not quoting Windows numbers either.
----As you can see, it quickly gets to a point where using a free as in beer product and supporting yourself is more expensive than buying from a vendor and getting a support contract.
Funny. Now count how much downtime costs under windows. Now license costs. Now finding INTELLIGENT admins in the windows world (there's not many). There's a good chance if you hire a Linux admin, youre getting more intelligence, problem solving and generally more expertise.
----A small to medium size business may save some money, but once you grow past that, it just makes more sense to pay for support.
Yet more unfounded statements. Why not hire more intelligent people for IT staff. Yes, it costs more, but thats what IT is for... Reducing the amount of Downtime of network and services. IT is NOT for making money (unless youre a software dev)
Nice, but when govt has to pay 100$ per license in terms of thousands of computers, it starts to hurt budgets.
Knowing your baseline is now 0$ per OS (if you go with internal support.. who calls MS centers anyways), that gets you more customisation of your environment.
And the way Linux works, you can have a smart-card system of semi-dumb terminals that Sun employees have. And of couse, use the good ol' NSA Trusted Kernel, now in 2.6 verison of kernel by default.
Ahh, ok. Well, when I get home first, and when/if I can find that cd.
Im sure i have it, but Ive stacks of spindles;P
Well, and Im at college now in some dumb 200 lvl class about Lisp programming. The prof is just rambling right now about his having to go back to teaching;P
----Any company that relies on its employees to keep current with AntiVirus updates and patches is a fool. Hence such things MUST be an administration issue. The platform does not matter, patches etc still need to be applied.
Not quite. How about that small 4 person financial business... Are they suppsoed to know how to support their computers and network? Thats where I come in. I assess threats and judge how to exterminate them. And they dont want to buy new software every year, as it does cost a bunch. I can supply answers on how to avoid the upgrade merry-go-round.
----The bottom line? A computer is as secure as the person thats using/administering it, not matter what the O/S.
Wrong. Its only as secure as the admin admin'ning it AND the ceiling amount of security preseint on that platform. How do you turn off RPC on MS OS'es without killing the machine? I can turn off any service on Linux....
----I am NOT trying to spread Microsoft FUD; I am a linux advocate. I do believe, however, that linux advocates are going to have a shock when linux does reach 50% market penetration - yes viruses will be written, exploits will be used, people will install dumb shit on their computers and open the door for spyware. Linux is, after all, just another operating system. Its just as good as the person that secures it
I expect that too. Ive already seen XPI's for Mozilla that were trojans/spyware. However, if you can provide a clean way to reset (considering how easy it is for files to be overritten in Linux) like MS safe mode does, it's a lot easier on admin types. Or better yet, just pop a cd in the drive and let the system take cae of it for you. Stupid users have to be dealt with stupidly.
----A hell of a lot of people dont patch systems because doing so will break compatability between products. That mindset will still continue when working with linux and so systems will still go unpatched (along with other reasons such as under-funding, indifference, lack of time etc). I know this because my home gentoo box has a couple of vulnerabilities I need to sort out. But I havent.
Exactly.. Some cases happen where thats the case. However most programs that dont depend on certain kernel features WILL work almost regardles of environment. Ones that dont are statically compiled;)
----I'm the kind of person that linux is going to have to deal with. I browse the web from root! Try explaining to your boss that, no, infact he cant do X because it violates the security policy, or that he has to change users to install stuff.
Ouch, you browse as root? Damn, go adduser and make an account;P Just add a sudo entry for you (and of course, deny SU and sudo from unpriv'ed accounts). Wheel is on every other unix system... Too bad Linux'ers dont use it much.
Ive ran all the common unpackers, and Tron against it. Tron gives "unknown packer" and some pack detecters just crash...
Ive tried hand decoding it (fun fun;( ) but it seems to use some sort of the same encryption as AZPR's Zip password recovery. Has a executable stub, some code, then somehow the key itself is encrypted and only the password is the key..
Take a look at trying to crack AZPR.. Ill pay you 100$ if you can. AZPR password somehow has the key as part of the executable so when correct, it correctly decrypts the packed part. No softice or asm dumps can beat it. In my opinion, it seems to be the perfect packing setup.
Admittley its way over my head. I can do stuff like DDD debugging, or looking over deadlists (ala MS VC++ compiler errors and inline asm command switching). I just cant even comprehend what exacly its doing.
And yes, anonycoward, I am telling the truth. You actually think that there's no worms at all for Linux?
The basic messages about selecting MS/Linux for a system are governed by the following:
- Much of the cost saving of Linux over Unix comes from hardware - i.e. using Intel over mainframe/AIX/zSeries etc.
Wrong. Go buy a license for 100 mail users, or 50 MSSQL user licenses. OUCH. Now compare Postgres/MySQL or Sendmail/Qmail/god-knows-what-free-email-servers - OS/Platform is just a tool - choose the right one for the job
Not quite. I get a bunch of apps with a linux install that windows doesnt see fit us have. Even compilers come free. Where's a free (stripped down) version of Visual Basic on Windows? You know, include a low VB 5 compiler for quick stuff..
- MS/Linux TCO's are nearly always within 10% for most projects by the time all costs are accounted for (this was from an independent solutions provider)
---As said by Independant firm who just got 50K from Microsoft.
- Don't just focus on TCO - look at ROI (return on investment)
Nope. ROI doesnt work in IT. IT is a loss leader to prevent bigger losses (downtime).
- MS is pretty well zero-development (no code or scripting)
Yep, and it it doesnt fit, you're screwed. Period.
- The People and Processes are more important than the technical solution
Ok, people are stupid. In Linux, you can people-proof more than you can in Windows. Easier to alias and block commands than it is to load some dumb "dont click here" windows program.
- Check licensing model of any platform (will any Linux development become your IP, or will it be open)
USING Linux is free with no strings attached. USING SOURCE code from GPL programs is where you get in trouble. However, using GCC to compile is fully legit.
- Linux still does not have a really good desktop and the office suites available are still lagging
Windows and everything teh sux0r. Face it, THIS IS AN OPINION. The statement is worthless.
- security issues such as virus updates and patch management are more of an administration issue than a platform one
They are? If I hear of root exploit, I take all harmed services down immediately, and patch one by one. I also give calls to the companies I work with. They agree that having a little bit of downtime is well worth the risk of not being auto-hacked.
- Easier porting J2EE->.Net than the other way round (i.e. MS ties you in worse!!!)
That's why you should use Java OR a server side program (who cares about OS then;-)...
This "worm" was about 1 MB, self contained and ran quite fast.
The full intention of this worm was as an auto-hacker for linux machines. It used a IRC seession, DES encrypted and MD5 checksummed. Once 1 machine was infected, it would use a large library of exploits against other known linux machines (with use of nmap-like scans) and attempt to dupe it to others.
Ive been able to isolate it, but whatever the coders did with it, they made it into semi-encrypted spaghetti. Crashes damn near every debugger Ive tried. It's now a collection on one of my cd's now. "Strange and infectous stuf"
Halloween XI: Get The FUD 22 Jun 2004 I've just seen a dispatch from the front lines of the FUD wars, Huw Lynes's report from one of Microsoft's Get The Facts roadshow in Great Britain. It's a fascinating read, especially when considered in context with Halloween VII and more recent leaks out of Microsoft. The outlines of the next stage in Microsoft's anti-open-source propaganda campaign are becoming clear. It's a good time to take stock of where we are, what our favorite evil empire is doing, and how best to respond.
Let's start by reminding ourselves of the stakes. For Microsoft (or at least its present business model) to survive, open source must die. It's a lot like the Cold War was; peaceful coexistence could be a stable solution for us, but it can never be for them, because they can't tolerate the corrosive effect on their customer relationships of comparisons with a more open system. (Anyone who thinks I'm being perfervid or overly melodramatic about this should review the direct long-term revenue and platform threat language from Halloween I. Other people may fool themselves about what this means, but Microsoft never has.).
Because coexistence is not a stable solution for them, it cannot be for us either. We have to assume that Microsoft's long-term aim is to crush our culture and drive us to extinction by whatever combination of technical, economic, legal, and political means they can muster. So, in evaluating the Get the Facts road show, we need to start by asking how it fits into Microsoft's larger strategic plans.
One level is obvious. It seems to me very likely that Microsoft's UK tour is designed as a trial run of themes that they'll take to the U.S. to the extent they look successful. The UK is not a trivial market, of course, but 50% of all IT spending is still in the U.S., so from a Microsoft strategic planner's point of view that's where the main battle is. We can afford to pin some of our hopes on growth in Europe and developing countries and elsewhere, but Microsoft can't -- the time horizon on it is too long for a company whose big challenge is to keep beating revenue expectations every quarter in a market where they have 92% share. If they don't beat those expectations every quarter, their stock tanks, the option pyramid collapses, and it's game over.
The Dog That Didn't Bark So, how does this FUD campaign differ from all other FUD campaigns? Let's start by considering the things Microsoft is not doing in this road show.
They seem to have abandoned using the "open source is intellectual-property cancer" argument directly. This follows the advice their own survey group gave them two years ago that this tactic was backfiring badly. Instead they're pushing this line through bought proxies at SCO and elsewhere.
They've quit claiming that Microsoft's products are technically superior. Instead, they talk up transition costs.
Similarly, innovation, which was every other word out of a Microsoft exec's mouth a year ago, now seems to have quietly exited their voculabulary. It isn't in Huw's report, and it doesn't show up on the Get The Facts page.
Finally, we're not seeing the very recent Microsoft line that actually all software is proprietary because it's owned by somebody, so there's no difference between proprietary and open source.
Like the dog that didn't bark in the night-time, these omissions are significant, because Microsoft marketing is thorough and ruthlessly opportunistic. You can bet money that the reason they're not making these arguments is because they tried them on smaller focus groups, or individually with key customers, and they didn't fly.
The New Party Line Now let's review what Microsoft is doing. Huw gives us five bullet points:
Claim that linux isn't free. Pretend that Shared source is the same as Open Source Make a big deal about the migration costs of moving to Linux Use the Forrester report to claim that Linux is insecure Belittle the quality of the toolset available on L
Slashdot Mirror
---Did AMD, Intel or Linus Torvalds give you a PC to develop on? If they didn't give you one, did they loan you one to use? Yeah, I thought not.
e gory=14911&item=5106132682&rd=1
Actually, Ive got developer boards from Intel, Motorolla, AMD, and a handful of other companies. If you provide a service or want for people to buy your product (as in samples for embedded or otherwise), they will invest in you IF YOU SHOW THAT YOU DO AS YOU SAY.
---Did you see this? Checking eBay superficially, I found this with a price of US$105: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cat
And 4 days out at that. Youre an idiot to post that and expect to "buy it now".
---Now add $130 for a new legal copy of Panther, and you have the Mac you claim you need for $235. And it also has all the USB ports you seem to need.
ASSume that you get that ebay machine for current price HAHAH. Oh, and who's going to buy a legit copy of panther when the sole reason he's buying that is to increase share of Apple software?
---And if you didn't actually already have a physical Mac, why would you be in need of VirtualPC? VirtualPC simulates an Intel clone with Windows on a Mac. Sheesh.
We know what he's talking about, assface.
Hey, I was trying to karma-whore.
;-P
Gimmee a break, Ive 3 trolls to feed at home, and a sick wife....
Is how NOT to deal with SPatial paradigm..
m e. htm
Apple's Quicktime is a great (horrible) example.
http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/qti
Care of the "Interface Hall of Shame"
Would you buy Super NES games and expect them to work with your Genesis?
Would you buy European power cords and expect them to work here in North America (with no extra adapters)?
Would you buy a CD-Rom and expect DVD's to be read in it?
Now, would you buy a Scanner/Printer WITHOUT checking whether it works in Linux?
I sure wouldnt.. If you planned to run Linux, do your homework. If this was a 'lets see if this works', plan for different outcomes.
BTW, Ive had a hard time with the newish versions of SuSE setting up cable/dsl network adapters using the default settings. Takes a bit of teaking to get it right, although Yast should set that up right...
And what part was that? I didnt need it when I previously did it with 2 "stations" (1 comp, 2 sets of I/O)
the underwear ads....
Real simple implementation...
/dev/'s dont change on unplug/plug). Configure all 4 monitors as needed, and bam.
1 Recent machine (1 GHz or higher) with USB.
1 Keyboard and 1 Mouse PS/2 variants
3 Keyboards and 3 Mice USB variants (or the PS/2 to USB connecters, use a powered hub. you will need it)
4 Graphics ports (ports, not cards. Some gfx cards have dual monitor support) You probably will use 1 AGP and 3 PCI cards. ATI 128's are good.
4 Monitors, preferrably 1024x768
Now label the Keyboards/Mice/Monitors to which one each is. Read documentation on how to use Linux USB support to "lock" the input devices by UID of device (so your
You just did it.
Stop "ABSTRACTING" the point!
;) Some groups are just soo stupid.
DNS was to make perty names for those hill people.
lol
Wrong, ethics can be taught..
- -------
Here's an example of "Computer Profesionals for Social Responsibility" ethos..
-----
The Ten Commandments
of Computer Ethics
by the Computer Ethics Institute
Thou shalt not use a computer to harm other people.
Thou shalt not interfere with other people's computer work.
Thou shalt not snoop around in other people's computer files.
Thou shalt not use a computer to steal.
Thou shalt not use a computer to bear false witness.
Thou shalt not copy or use proprietary software for which you have not paid.
Thou shalt not use other people's computer resources without authorization or proper compensation.
Thou shalt not appropriate other people's intellectual output.
Thou shalt think about the social consequences of the program you are writing or the system you are designing.
Thou shalt always use a computer in ways that insure consideration and respect for your fellow humans.
http://www.cpsr.org/program/ethics/cei.html
--
Now ask yourself this, what good things come out of this if all computer professionals followed this. Now ask yourself if all did not follow this..
What if Doctors denyed the Hippocratic Oath and told others secretly (or anonomously) of conditions of others? Would you go to them if you knew they had a history of this?
Morals are pertaing to religous rules. Ethics are rules and agreements to a type of trade whether that be The Law, medical, social, Teaching that when agreed to, promotes the further learning and legitimacy of the field.
A really sucky "school"..
You teach ethics, not "hacking ethics". Sounds like a money grab for gullible script kiddies.
I shoudlve thought of it first.
+++++Where's a free (stripped down) version of Visual Basic on Windows? You know, include a low VB 5 compiler for quick stuff..
.NET SDK is a free download from MS...I don't have the link now, but you can search for it. Install it, and you get the commandline "vbc" VB.NET compiler and "csc" C#.NET compiler. Moreover, this is not stripped-down; this is the full Visual Studio.NET compilers less the "Visual" part.
---Microsoft Word | Tools | Options | Visual Basic.
I was specifing Windows CD only. No additional discs. And MS Word is 250$. Ouch
---Visual Basic for Applications can do most of basic VB stuff. I had to write an applet at a non-networked Win98 computer with just Office, and VBA came in quite useful.
Oh, its useful, but nowhere near free and non-gui'ed. Linux is based on commandline, so commandline is adequate. Windows is GUI based, so you need a cut and dry VB or C gui compiler. Im only asking what comes with any other OS you buy...
---Oh, and the
Yes, but no gui. Not soo easy to craft gui style sheets without one... Course thats why they want you to buy the 600$+ compiler.
Youre right. Im just not smart enough to figure what techniques to decrypt it..
;(
What i worrry is if it requires a signed passwd over that irc connection to initate..
You dont get what Im saying. Look at Monday's verdict of NOT GIVING YOUR NAME TO SOMEONE IN LAW ENFORCEMENT. Fines and/or imprisonment ensues. http://papersplease.org/hiibel/
YOu cant refuse to give them your name anyways.
They still'll get all your data.
My god, you sound sooo much like a MS report shill.. Please, I'll enlighten you.
---You're leaving out the cost of additional internal support. You're forgetting that customization of your environment leads to additional hassles applying patches and upgrades. Finally, you're forgetting that switching hardware costs money.
Hmm, switching to Linux requires no hardware changes (except for some wacky modems and weird stuff). It runs on mnay more platforms than Windows EVER ran on (thinking of old Mips, Alpha, X86, hmmm days, forget that last one).
---Ask yourself this: On how many thousands of computers would I have to save $100 per license to pay for a small team of programmers with secret or better security clearances for three years? If you figure a small team is 5-6 programmers, it works out to around 20,000 computers.
You assume programmers. Oh, and I manage all my computers from a nice shell script. It updates them all at once, and can give basic commmandline prompt through ssh. And if you NEED clearance, you're doing megabucks of something. Might as well do it right anyways. You'll need those programmers on Windows OR Linux.
---On how many more thousands of computers would I have to save $100 per license to pay the additional sysadmins, QA, and help desk personnel? What about the project managers that coordinate all these efforts? What about the additional oversight and compliance officers that ensure all of these activities meet regulations and standards?
I can easily handle 5000 clients. Its the servers I tend to want more people on. Perhaps 1 person per 20 servers or so.. Depends how much uptime is worth. Im not quoting Windows numbers either.
----As you can see, it quickly gets to a point where using a free as in beer product and supporting yourself is more expensive than buying from a vendor and getting a support contract.
Funny. Now count how much downtime costs under windows. Now license costs. Now finding INTELLIGENT admins in the windows world (there's not many). There's a good chance if you hire a Linux admin, youre getting more intelligence, problem solving and generally more expertise.
----A small to medium size business may save some money, but once you grow past that, it just makes more sense to pay for support.
Yet more unfounded statements. Why not hire more intelligent people for IT staff. Yes, it costs more, but thats what IT is for... Reducing the amount of Downtime of network and services. IT is NOT for making money (unless youre a software dev)
Nice, but when govt has to pay 100$ per license in terms of thousands of computers, it starts to hurt budgets.
Knowing your baseline is now 0$ per OS (if you go with internal support.. who calls MS centers anyways), that gets you more customisation of your environment.
And the way Linux works, you can have a smart-card system of semi-dumb terminals that Sun employees have. And of couse, use the good ol' NSA Trusted Kernel, now in 2.6 verison of kernel by default.
Ahh, ok. Well, when I get home first, and when/if I can find that cd.
;P
;P
Im sure i have it, but Ive stacks of spindles
Well, and Im at college now in some dumb 200 lvl class about Lisp programming. The prof is just rambling right now about his having to go back to teaching
----Any company that relies on its employees to keep current with AntiVirus updates and patches is a fool. Hence such things MUST be an administration issue. The platform does not matter, patches etc still need to be applied.
;)
;P Just add a sudo entry for you (and of course, deny SU and sudo from unpriv'ed accounts). Wheel is on every other unix system... Too bad Linux'ers dont use it much.
Not quite. How about that small 4 person financial business... Are they suppsoed to know how to support their computers and network? Thats where I come in. I assess threats and judge how to exterminate them. And they dont want to buy new software every year, as it does cost a bunch. I can supply answers on how to avoid the upgrade merry-go-round.
----The bottom line? A computer is as secure as the person thats using/administering it, not matter what the O/S.
Wrong. Its only as secure as the admin admin'ning it AND the ceiling amount of security preseint on that platform. How do you turn off RPC on MS OS'es without killing the machine? I can turn off any service on Linux....
----I am NOT trying to spread Microsoft FUD; I am a linux advocate. I do believe, however, that linux advocates are going to have a shock when linux does reach 50% market penetration - yes viruses will be written, exploits will be used, people will install dumb shit on their computers and open the door for spyware. Linux is, after all, just another operating system. Its just as good as the person that secures it
I expect that too. Ive already seen XPI's for Mozilla that were trojans/spyware. However, if you can provide a clean way to reset (considering how easy it is for files to be overritten in Linux) like MS safe mode does, it's a lot easier on admin types. Or better yet, just pop a cd in the drive and let the system take cae of it for you. Stupid users have to be dealt with stupidly.
----A hell of a lot of people dont patch systems because doing so will break compatability between products. That mindset will still continue when working with linux and so systems will still go unpatched (along with other reasons such as under-funding, indifference, lack of time etc). I know this because my home gentoo box has a couple of vulnerabilities I need to sort out. But I havent.
Exactly.. Some cases happen where thats the case. However most programs that dont depend on certain kernel features WILL work almost regardles of environment. Ones that dont are statically compiled
----I'm the kind of person that linux is going to have to deal with. I browse the web from root! Try explaining to your boss that, no, infact he cant do X because it violates the security policy, or that he has to change users to install stuff.
Ouch, you browse as root? Damn, go adduser and make an account
Yep, tried to.
;( ) but it seems to use some sort of the same encryption as AZPR's Zip password recovery. Has a executable stub, some code, then somehow the key itself is encrypted and only the password is the key..
Ive ran all the common unpackers, and Tron against it. Tron gives "unknown packer" and some pack detecters just crash...
Ive tried hand decoding it (fun fun
Take a look at trying to crack AZPR.. Ill pay you 100$ if you can. AZPR password somehow has the key as part of the executable so when correct, it correctly decrypts the packed part. No softice or asm dumps can beat it. In my opinion, it seems to be the perfect packing setup.
Admittley its way over my head. I can do stuff like DDD debugging, or looking over deadlists (ala MS VC++ compiler errors and inline asm command switching). I just cant even comprehend what exacly its doing.
And yes, anonycoward, I am telling the truth. You actually think that there's no worms at all for Linux?
The basic messages about selecting MS/Linux for a system are governed by the following:
;-)...
- Much of the cost saving of Linux over Unix comes from hardware - i.e. using Intel over mainframe/AIX/zSeries etc.
Wrong. Go buy a license for 100 mail users, or 50 MSSQL user licenses. OUCH. Now compare Postgres/MySQL or Sendmail/Qmail/god-knows-what-free-email-servers
- OS/Platform is just a tool - choose the right one for the job
Not quite. I get a bunch of apps with a linux install that windows doesnt see fit us have. Even compilers come free. Where's a free (stripped down) version of Visual Basic on Windows? You know, include a low VB 5 compiler for quick stuff..
- MS/Linux TCO's are nearly always within 10% for most projects by the time all costs are accounted for (this was from an independent solutions provider)
---As said by Independant firm who just got 50K from Microsoft.
- Don't just focus on TCO - look at ROI (return on investment)
Nope. ROI doesnt work in IT. IT is a loss leader to prevent bigger losses (downtime).
- MS is pretty well zero-development (no code or scripting)
Yep, and it it doesnt fit, you're screwed. Period.
- The People and Processes are more important than the technical solution
Ok, people are stupid. In Linux, you can people-proof more than you can in Windows. Easier to alias and block commands than it is to load some dumb "dont click here" windows program.
- Check licensing model of any platform (will any Linux development become your IP, or will it be open)
USING Linux is free with no strings attached. USING SOURCE code from GPL programs is where you get in trouble. However, using GCC to compile is fully legit.
- Linux still does not have a really good desktop and the office suites available are still lagging
Windows and everything teh sux0r. Face it, THIS IS AN OPINION. The statement is worthless.
- security issues such as virus updates and patch management are more of an administration issue than a platform one
They are? If I hear of root exploit, I take all harmed services down immediately, and patch one by one. I also give calls to the companies I work with. They agree that having a little bit of downtime is well worth the risk of not being auto-hacked.
- Easier porting J2EE->.Net than the other way round (i.e. MS ties you in worse!!!)
That's why you should use Java OR a server side program (who cares about OS then
Exactly. Windows DOES NOT MATTER.
If the apps are the same acros platforms, the underlying doesnt matter, except for cost and stability.. Guess who wins out on that?
Actually, Ive ran across 1 of them..
This "worm" was about 1 MB, self contained and ran quite fast.
The full intention of this worm was as an auto-hacker for linux machines. It used a IRC seession, DES encrypted and MD5 checksummed. Once 1 machine was infected, it would use a large library of exploits against other known linux machines (with use of nmap-like scans) and attempt to dupe it to others.
Ive been able to isolate it, but whatever the coders did with it, they made it into semi-encrypted spaghetti. Crashes damn near every debugger Ive tried. It's now a collection on one of my cd's now. "Strange and infectous stuf"
Halloween XI: Get The FUD
22 Jun 2004
I've just seen a dispatch from the front lines of the FUD wars, Huw Lynes's report from one of Microsoft's Get The Facts roadshow in Great Britain. It's a fascinating read, especially when considered in context with Halloween VII and more recent leaks out of Microsoft. The outlines of the next stage in Microsoft's anti-open-source propaganda campaign are becoming clear. It's a good time to take stock of where we are, what our favorite evil empire is doing, and how best to respond.
Let's start by reminding ourselves of the stakes. For Microsoft (or at least its present business model) to survive, open source must die. It's a lot like the Cold War was; peaceful coexistence could be a stable solution for us, but it can never be for them, because they can't tolerate the corrosive effect on their customer relationships of comparisons with a more open system. (Anyone who thinks I'm being perfervid or overly melodramatic about this should review the direct long-term revenue and platform threat language from Halloween I. Other people may fool themselves about what this means, but Microsoft never has.).
Because coexistence is not a stable solution for them, it cannot be for us either. We have to assume that Microsoft's long-term aim is to crush our culture and drive us to extinction by whatever combination of technical, economic, legal, and political means they can muster. So, in evaluating the Get the Facts road show, we need to start by asking how it fits into Microsoft's larger strategic plans.
One level is obvious. It seems to me very likely that Microsoft's UK tour is designed as a trial run of themes that they'll take to the U.S. to the extent they look successful. The UK is not a trivial market, of course, but 50% of all IT spending is still in the U.S., so from a Microsoft strategic planner's point of view that's where the main battle is. We can afford to pin some of our hopes on growth in Europe and developing countries and elsewhere, but Microsoft can't -- the time horizon on it is too long for a company whose big challenge is to keep beating revenue expectations every quarter in a market where they have 92% share. If they don't beat those expectations every quarter, their stock tanks, the option pyramid collapses, and it's game over.
The Dog That Didn't Bark
So, how does this FUD campaign differ from all other FUD campaigns? Let's start by considering the things Microsoft is not doing in this road show.
They seem to have abandoned using the "open source is intellectual-property cancer" argument directly. This follows the advice their own survey group gave them two years ago that this tactic was backfiring badly. Instead they're pushing this line through bought proxies at SCO and elsewhere.
They've quit claiming that Microsoft's products are technically superior. Instead, they talk up transition costs.
Similarly, innovation, which was every other word out of a Microsoft exec's mouth a year ago, now seems to have quietly exited their voculabulary. It isn't in Huw's report, and it doesn't show up on the Get The Facts page.
Finally, we're not seeing the very recent Microsoft line that actually all software is proprietary because it's owned by somebody, so there's no difference between proprietary and open source.
Like the dog that didn't bark in the night-time, these omissions are significant, because Microsoft marketing is thorough and ruthlessly opportunistic. You can bet money that the reason they're not making these arguments is because they tried them on smaller focus groups, or individually with key customers, and they didn't fly.
The New Party Line
Now let's review what Microsoft is doing. Huw gives us five bullet points:
Claim that linux isn't free.
Pretend that Shared source is the same as Open Source
Make a big deal about the migration costs of moving to Linux
Use the Forrester report to claim that Linux is insecure
Belittle the quality of the toolset available on L
I might be mistaken, but I believe in the mid-eighties, the IEEE (mainly engineers used grad's) changed gradians FROM 400 = circle TO 100 = circle.
Course, I also believe changing a unit midstream is also why nobody uses that anymore.
I like Gradians better
Circle = 360 degrees, 2PI radians, or 100 Gradians.
Just seems simpler.. 100