Technically no laws are broken: data on EU citizens is protected only within the EU and the US Privacy Act only covers data on US citizens.
A European visitor to the US is now (along with nationals from many 'visa exemption' countries) being fingerprinted, photographed, and logged in numerous databases.
As the largest and most powerful nation on Earth, the US can do this. What amazes me is not that the EU allows it (what choice does it have?), but that it does not reciprocate. I'd like to see a special queue at Brussels airport where visiting American tourists are finger-printed, photographed, and generally treated like criminal suspects./me thinks the concept of "tolerance and personal liberty" would soon find a new meaning.
We live in dangerous times: the State is seeking levels of control over our lives that would allow it to eliminate many hard-won liberties, such as the right to travel freely.
Incidentally, since the MPEG standards are so heavily dependent on software patents: there is a demonstration in about 1 hour in Brussels against the EU implementation of software patents.
Yes, the OS cost is insignificant compared to the other costs. However, the key market for Microsoft is the home and small-business market, where professional assistance is minimal and where the OS cost is significant.
- "Just work"
Windows 2000 needs a series of drivers to be installed before it will work with any exotic hardware. This typically means 5 or more reboot cycles to install a PC. Modern Linux distributions detect and configure most hardware as well as, and sometimes better than, Windows XP.
- "Linux is secure"
Any computer, small or large, can be cracked if it is not professionally managed, and often even if it is. The reason millions of Windows machines around the world are owned by worms is not because they have been cracked by experts, but because they are insecure unless specifically protected. The average time to infection of a new PC on the Internet is what... 5 minutes? How can anyone download the necessary patches in that time? Linux boxes are far more secure. I agree that this is a temporary advantage, but it's a real one and probably the most significant one.
- "Modest hardware"
Often because Linux applications are more portable. It's a circular thing: people choose more demanding hardware to run more sophisticated applications (like games). But this also pushes the operating system towards more complex hardware. A heavily used Linux workstation needs lots of RAM, but this is an easy upgrade. My Win2000 system is using about 450Mb of RAM and running not much more than a bunch of standard programs.
- Complexity and stability
True, the whole chain of Linux software adds up to a lot of lines of code. But I maintain that it's less complex, for two reasons. First, it's built up in layers and each layer is well-documented and modestly spec'd. Secondly, because each API is open and well argued, the whole is more stable. Windows applications tend to be much more monolithic: this makes them more complex.
To compare with making cars, modern cars are assembled from sub-componenents like entire doors, dashboards, etc. Cars used to be assembled from much smaller pieces. The larger the components, the more robust the car (and at one level, the simpler). Windows tends towards the 'make the entire car from scratch' model, while Linux tends towards the 'create subassemblies' model.
- Sufficient for common purposes
My observation is that at least 50% and possibly up to 75% of PCs are not used for anything more complex than browsing, email, playing sound and movies, p2p, and some simple games.
Hey, will the real Anonymous Coward please stand up!?
True. But I spout what are called "stealth opinions", being understated (or even unstated) makes them harder to criticize, and I have the advantage of being able to change opinion in mid-spout to dodge the zealots.
You know Goodwin's Law? Well, here is Heironymous' Corollary to Goodwin's Law:
"Anyone using the terms 'zealot' or 'FUD' in a Slashdot discussion is immediately declared the loser of the thread and discussion stops at that point".
Of course I'm force to break my own corollary to make this point.
But to call me a "Linux zealot spouting FUD" (and excuse me for paraphrasing your lucid comment) because I mock a commercial vendor who says that the free alternative is no competition... WTF?
As it happens: I have 20+ years of experience in IT and I've used every one of those packages (except the Cray). Oracle, MySQL, IIS, Apache, Sun, Solaris, Linux. And hundreds of other platforms, as well.
My opinions are not those of a zealot, but pretty impartial and generally very accurate. There is a good reason, for instance, why the most critical servers in my business all run Debian Linux, why the desktops use Xandros, why our applications use MySQL, and why we're phasing our out Microsoft/COM+/IIS/SQLServer platforms. Zealotry has little to do with it, but good sense does.
The facts are these: open source, free, commodity IT has become good and cheap enough to exceed the capabilities (at any price) of many commercial systems. Most specifically, Cray, Oracle, Microsoft, and Sun find themselves spot center of the area that has been commoditized.
Oracle disclaim MySQL and PostgreSQL as "toy databases", Microsoft claims that "Apache cannot be used for real web serving", and Sun announces that "Intel and Linux simply cannot be used for enterprise computing".
So all those supercomputing labs that use Linux clustering (that invented Linux clustering, even) have been wasting their time?
Personally, having tried Xandros/1.0 and now using Xandros/2.0 it's clear that Windows has real competition.
No doubt this comment will be targetted by the increasing number of moderators who appear to be Windows admirers, but I have enough karma for a whole barbeque, so here goes with a list of the ten reasons why Linux is destined to overtake Windows in 2004 (or 2005, or 2006, etc.)
- Windows is expensive, Linux is free
- Distros like Xandros "just work"
- Linux is secure from worms, trojans, viruses
- Linux runs on modest hardware
- Linux is less complex and thus more stable
- Linux has a "cool" factor missing from Windows
- The IT world's view of Microsoft as "evil" is percolating down to the general public
- Linux now comes with a sufficient set of applications for most common purposes
- Linux applications are more stable and simpler than Windows' ones
And lastly: more and more institutions will choose Linux as they discover the advantages of it, leading to consumer uptake as people "stay compatible" with their work PCs.
From a 3% marketshare this seems unbelievable. And yet this is how markets work: the "tipping" often happens way before the 20% mark, but once it starts, it's unstoppable.
At the very least, 2004 was the year in which people seriously started to wonder "when" and not "whether" Linux would become the de-facto OS standard for all computing, including the desktop.
For a niche market, it may be useful. But the mass market is hardly suffering because of weak cryptography.
New technologies gives us a nice warm feeling, but the banal truth is that what most people need is better use of existing technology.
Still, I assume spooks and crooks will be investing heavily in quantum cryptography, and we'll see the first quantum walkie-talkies within 10-15 years.
I was careful to say 'StarOffice' not OpenOffice. OpenOffice is GPLd and safe. Still, OpenOffice relies on support from Sun: my guess is Novell or IBM will provide a new home for it if/when Sun says it's cutting back.
I don't believe Microsoft would tolerate that. It has only a few real competitors, and IBM is one of them. Java is essential to IBM's strategy and there is no way that Microsoft does not realize this. $2bn is a lot of money: if all they wanted was insurance against trustbuster trials, they could have paid a lot less.
No, Sun has (in my paranoid opinion) agreed to kill Java and probably StarOffice as well.
It seems quite certain that Java is doomed: Microsoft did not pay $2bn just because it likes the sound of change dropping. It wants Java dead, and.NET to be the main platform for large applications. It hopes to cripple IBM this way. Most likely Sun's refusal to open source Java was based on the promise of the upcoming funds.
So: Sun will slow down and finally stop development of Java. IBM will either try to roll-out its own compatible platform or propose a migration to something else.
And RMS will be muttering: "those fools, those fools, if only they understood what the GPL was about". And he would be entirely right.
OTOH, perhaps I'm just being paranoid and Microsoft will allow Sun (which is now a neutered zombie company selling its own living organs for booze money) to continue supporting one of the main obstacles to its domination of the platform business.
1. Allow insecure software to become entrenched with monopoly power 2. Watch while a global industry in wormware develops to take advantage of this 3. Blame the users for not preventing it.
Excellent strategy, which will help enormously. While we're at it, let's stick a large label on new PCs saying "Warning: this PC is likely to infected within 5 minutes of connecting to the Internet, but that's your fault."
Why... why are companies allowed to sell software that has known defects? Surely it's technically possible to ensure that every installation of Windows XP leaves the shop with all necessary patches?
You consider virus writers to be part of the "computer community"? Like rapist are part of the "dating community" and burglars are part of the "domestic community"?
And that is the "boycott". Named after the English Colonel who's impoverished and powerless Irish peons nonetheless discovered a way of forcing him off their land and out of their lives.
Gator/Claria survives by delivering an effective way for advertisers to reach consumers. You cannot punish Gator/Claria directly - some other company would simply take its place.
Rather, let us organize a boycott of any advertiser who tries to sell his product via spyware of any kind.
Writing to any company that advertises via spyware, and telling them that you will not be using their products any more is a good idea. Telling everyone you know about such companies may also be effective. The best thing would be pressure from consumer groups to government so that advertisers are forced to adhere to a code of conduct that excludes spyware.
Finally, spyware companies will find that the only clients they can find are the same criminal rings that pay for worms, trojans, and viruses, and this is one commercial sector that will find it hard to lobby governments for protection.
Curious how perceived "anti-Microsoft" comments get moderated down so quickly.
My comment was a serious one, ceertainly not a troll or flamebait yet gets marked as such.
Moderation as a tool for censorship? Interesting.
It bears repeating: Windows' greatest weakness today is its security. Assigning this observation to the dustbin does not make it less true.
Re:Microsoft needs exactly ONE new product
on
Microsoft Clips Longhorn
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
It's hardly a troll.
Windows' security is the number one issue facing the company, and this is by their own declaration.
More functionality makes more complexity, which creates more security vulnerabilities.
Microsoft's users are currently seriously exposed to trojans, worms, and viruses. The advice of "protect your systems" is useless, even malicious, when 95% of PC users are technically naive, and when this is the very reason that Windows has spread to every corner of the PC market.
Microsoft's core market consists of people who cannot install patches, who don't know the different between spams and real emails, and who have a finite capacity for being hit by malware before they will abandon the Internet or find alternative platforms.
At the risk of replying to a Microsoft troll, this is not a "pretty insignificant" story.
Errors in server-side applications are rapidly fixed by serious system administrators and at the worst they provide attackers a way into unprotected systems. How many computers around the world are currently infected or zombied thanks to holes in any of the programs you cited? Almost zero.
Security holes in client-side applications (MSIE, Outlook, primarily) are a totally different story. These programs are mainly used by people who don't have the capacity to protect their systems. And the results are clear: millions of PCs infected by everything from viruses to worms and spywares, used as platforms to launch DDoS attacks, to send spam, to steal information...
There is a real security problem on the Internet, one that is making a joke of the "information highway", and it's almost entirely caused by vulnerabilities like the one reported here.
Until the market leader realizes that its users need serious protection from the malicious forces who roam the Internet, no amount of criticism is too much. And, if you really want to support and defend Microsoft, you should be adding your voice, because it is this issue - its failure to provide its users with a safe platform - which will be its downfall.
"Microsoft = insecure" is an association that should be sending shivers down the backs of those marketing managers trying to bomb the web with billions of Microsoft adverts.
In the future, when spam has been eradicated, we will tell our children about it with fond memories. "Yes, we got messages like '1ncreas3 y3r p3ni5 5iz3!', and 'v14gr4 n0\/\/!'"
Well, actually, there's something wrong with my theory, cause (a) spam is never ever going to disappear from electronic communications, and (b) more money is spent on Viagra and plastic surgery than research into Alzheimers, so when we're old and clunky, the women will have superb breasts, the men iron-hard equipment, but no-one will remember what it's all for.
Slashdot Mirror
Technically no laws are broken: data on EU citizens is protected only within the EU and the US Privacy Act only covers data on US citizens.
/me thinks the concept of "tolerance and personal liberty" would soon find a new meaning.
A European visitor to the US is now (along with nationals from many 'visa exemption' countries) being fingerprinted, photographed, and logged in numerous databases.
As the largest and most powerful nation on Earth, the US can do this. What amazes me is not that the EU allows it (what choice does it have?), but that it does not reciprocate. I'd like to see a special queue at Brussels airport where visiting American tourists are finger-printed, photographed, and generally treated like criminal suspects.
We live in dangerous times: the State is seeking levels of control over our lives that would allow it to eliminate many hard-won liberties, such as the right to travel freely.
Incidentally, since the MPEG standards are so heavily dependent on software patents: there is a demonstration in about 1 hour in Brussels against the EU implementation of software patents.
Whereas security holes used to be obvious and easy to find, these days they require a lot more work to find.
This is why there are fewer exploits than ever before, and fewer cases of PCs being 0wned and trojaned.
The recent BlackIce break-in clearly demonstrates... oh, sorry, it doesn't, and attacks on PCs are escalating, not going down.
Perhaps professional attackers don't need to wait for exploits after all.
Good responses, and I'll field them.
- Cost to the enterprise
Yes, the OS cost is insignificant compared to the other costs. However, the key market for Microsoft is the home and small-business market, where professional assistance is minimal and where the OS cost is significant.
- "Just work"
Windows 2000 needs a series of drivers to be installed before it will work with any exotic hardware. This typically means 5 or more reboot cycles to install a PC. Modern Linux distributions detect and configure most hardware as well as, and sometimes better than, Windows XP.
- "Linux is secure"
Any computer, small or large, can be cracked if it is not professionally managed, and often even if it is. The reason millions of Windows machines around the world are owned by worms is not because they have been cracked by experts, but because they are insecure unless specifically protected. The average time to infection of a new PC on the Internet is what... 5 minutes? How can anyone download the necessary patches in that time? Linux boxes are far more secure. I agree that this is a temporary advantage, but it's a real one and probably the most significant one.
- "Modest hardware"
Often because Linux applications are more portable. It's a circular thing: people choose more demanding hardware to run more sophisticated applications (like games). But this also pushes the operating system towards more complex hardware. A heavily used Linux workstation needs lots of RAM, but this is an easy upgrade. My Win2000 system is using about 450Mb of RAM and running not much more than a bunch of standard programs.
- Complexity and stability
True, the whole chain of Linux software adds up to a lot of lines of code. But I maintain that it's less complex, for two reasons. First, it's built up in layers and each layer is well-documented and modestly spec'd. Secondly, because each API is open and well argued, the whole is more stable. Windows applications tend to be much more monolithic: this makes them more complex.
To compare with making cars, modern cars are assembled from sub-componenents like entire doors, dashboards, etc. Cars used to be assembled from much smaller pieces. The larger the components, the more robust the car (and at one level, the simpler). Windows tends towards the 'make the entire car from scratch' model, while Linux tends towards the 'create subassemblies' model.
- Sufficient for common purposes
My observation is that at least 50% and possibly up to 75% of PCs are not used for anything more complex than browsing, email, playing sound and movies, p2p, and some simple games.
Hey, will the real Anonymous Coward please stand up!?
True. But I spout what are called "stealth opinions", being understated (or even unstated) makes them harder to criticize, and I have the advantage of being able to change opinion in mid-spout to dodge the zealots.
1. Move from MS Office to OpenOffice.org (cost: 2 weeks to settle down, 1 month to adapt fully)
2. Move from MSIE to Mozilla (cost: 2 hours to settle down)
3. Move from Outlook to Mozilla Mail (cost: 1 week to settle down)
4. Switch the OS when no-one's looking (cost: $40 for Xandros, 1 hour per PC).
Seriously: the key to migrating is to start with the applications.
You know Goodwin's Law? Well, here is Heironymous' Corollary to Goodwin's Law:
"Anyone using the terms 'zealot' or 'FUD' in a Slashdot discussion is immediately declared the loser of the thread and discussion stops at that point".
Of course I'm force to break my own corollary to make this point.
But to call me a "Linux zealot spouting FUD" (and excuse me for paraphrasing your lucid comment) because I mock a commercial vendor who says that the free alternative is no competition... WTF?
As it happens: I have 20+ years of experience in IT and I've used every one of those packages (except the Cray). Oracle, MySQL, IIS, Apache, Sun, Solaris, Linux. And hundreds of other platforms, as well.
My opinions are not those of a zealot, but pretty impartial and generally very accurate. There is a good reason, for instance, why the most critical servers in my business all run Debian Linux, why the desktops use Xandros, why our applications use MySQL, and why we're phasing our out Microsoft/COM+/IIS/SQLServer platforms. Zealotry has little to do with it, but good sense does.
The facts are these: open source, free, commodity IT has become good and cheap enough to exceed the capabilities (at any price) of many commercial systems. Most specifically, Cray, Oracle, Microsoft, and Sun find themselves spot center of the area that has been commoditized.
Oracle disclaim MySQL and PostgreSQL as "toy databases", Microsoft claims that "Apache cannot be used for real web serving", and Sun announces that "Intel and Linux simply cannot be used for enterprise computing".
So all those supercomputing labs that use Linux clustering (that invented Linux clustering, even) have been wasting their time?
Personally, having tried Xandros/1.0 and now using Xandros/2.0 it's clear that Windows has real competition.
No doubt this comment will be targetted by the increasing number of moderators who appear to be Windows admirers, but I have enough karma for a whole barbeque, so here goes with a list of the ten reasons why Linux is destined to overtake Windows in 2004 (or 2005, or 2006, etc.)
- Windows is expensive, Linux is free
- Distros like Xandros "just work"
- Linux is secure from worms, trojans, viruses
- Linux runs on modest hardware
- Linux is less complex and thus more stable
- Linux has a "cool" factor missing from Windows
- The IT world's view of Microsoft as "evil" is percolating down to the general public
- Linux now comes with a sufficient set of applications for most common purposes
- Linux applications are more stable and simpler than Windows' ones
And lastly: more and more institutions will choose Linux as they discover the advantages of it, leading to consumer uptake as people "stay compatible" with their work PCs.
From a 3% marketshare this seems unbelievable. And yet this is how markets work: the "tipping" often happens way before the 20% mark, but once it starts, it's unstoppable.
At the very least, 2004 was the year in which people seriously started to wonder "when" and not "whether" Linux would become the de-facto OS standard for all computing, including the desktop.
you better not be contributing to bash.org.
For a niche market, it may be useful. But the mass market is hardly suffering because of weak cryptography.
New technologies gives us a nice warm feeling, but the banal truth is that what most people need is better use of existing technology.
Still, I assume spooks and crooks will be investing heavily in quantum cryptography, and we'll see the first quantum walkie-talkies within 10-15 years.
I was careful to say 'StarOffice' not OpenOffice. OpenOffice is GPLd and safe. Still, OpenOffice relies on support from Sun: my guess is Novell or IBM will provide a new home for it if/when Sun says it's cutting back.
I don't believe Microsoft would tolerate that. It has only a few real competitors, and IBM is one of them. Java is essential to IBM's strategy and there is no way that Microsoft does not realize this. $2bn is a lot of money: if all they wanted was insurance against trustbuster trials, they could have paid a lot less.
No, Sun has (in my paranoid opinion) agreed to kill Java and probably StarOffice as well.
I'm quite curious to see how IBM will react.
It seems quite certain that Java is doomed: Microsoft did not pay $2bn just because it likes the sound of change dropping. It wants Java dead, and .NET to be the main platform for large applications. It hopes to cripple IBM this way. Most likely Sun's refusal to open source Java was based on the promise of the upcoming funds.
So: Sun will slow down and finally stop development of Java. IBM will either try to roll-out its own compatible platform or propose a migration to something else.
And RMS will be muttering: "those fools, those fools, if only they understood what the GPL was about". And he would be entirely right.
OTOH, perhaps I'm just being paranoid and Microsoft will allow Sun (which is now a neutered zombie company selling its own living organs for booze money) to continue supporting one of the main obstacles to its domination of the platform business.
1. Allow insecure software to become entrenched with monopoly power
2. Watch while a global industry in wormware develops to take advantage of this
3. Blame the users for not preventing it.
Excellent strategy, which will help enormously. While we're at it, let's stick a large label on new PCs saying "Warning: this PC is likely to infected within 5 minutes of connecting to the Internet, but that's your fault."
Why... why are companies allowed to sell software that has known defects? Surely it's technically possible to ensure that every installation of Windows XP leaves the shop with all necessary patches?
He's a reviewer for "Blue LED Lover" magazine.
You consider virus writers to be part of the "computer community"? Like rapist are part of the "dating community" and burglars are part of the "domestic community"?
And that is the "boycott". Named after the English Colonel who's impoverished and powerless Irish peons nonetheless discovered a way of forcing him off their land and out of their lives.
Gator/Claria survives by delivering an effective way for advertisers to reach consumers. You cannot punish Gator/Claria directly - some other company would simply take its place.
Rather, let us organize a boycott of any advertiser who tries to sell his product via spyware of any kind.
Writing to any company that advertises via spyware, and telling them that you will not be using their products any more is a good idea. Telling everyone you know about such companies may also be effective. The best thing would be pressure from consumer groups to government so that advertisers are forced to adhere to a code of conduct that excludes spyware.
Finally, spyware companies will find that the only clients they can find are the same criminal rings that pay for worms, trojans, and viruses, and this is one commercial sector that will find it hard to lobby governments for protection.
Boycott the bums into behaving properly!
Curious how perceived "anti-Microsoft" comments get moderated down so quickly.
My comment was a serious one, ceertainly not a troll or flamebait yet gets marked as such.
Moderation as a tool for censorship? Interesting.
It bears repeating: Windows' greatest weakness today is its security. Assigning this observation to the dustbin does not make it less true.
It's hardly a troll.
Windows' security is the number one issue facing the company, and this is by their own declaration.
More functionality makes more complexity, which creates more security vulnerabilities.
Microsoft's users are currently seriously exposed to trojans, worms, and viruses. The advice of "protect your systems" is useless, even malicious, when 95% of PC users are technically naive, and when this is the very reason that Windows has spread to every corner of the PC market.
Microsoft's core market consists of people who cannot install patches, who don't know the different between spams and real emails, and who have a finite capacity for being hit by malware before they will abandon the Internet or find alternative platforms.
And that is "Windows Secure".
A platform that will let you browse, email, and generally enjoy the Internet without risk of viruses, trojans, worms or spam.
At the risk of replying to a Microsoft troll, this is not a "pretty insignificant" story.
Errors in server-side applications are rapidly fixed by serious system administrators and at the worst they provide attackers a way into unprotected systems. How many computers around the world are currently infected or zombied thanks to holes in any of the programs you cited? Almost zero.
Security holes in client-side applications (MSIE, Outlook, primarily) are a totally different story. These programs are mainly used by people who don't have the capacity to protect their systems. And the results are clear: millions of PCs infected by everything from viruses to worms and spywares, used as platforms to launch DDoS attacks, to send spam, to steal information...
There is a real security problem on the Internet, one that is making a joke of the "information highway", and it's almost entirely caused by vulnerabilities like the one reported here.
Until the market leader realizes that its users need serious protection from the malicious forces who roam the Internet, no amount of criticism is too much. And, if you really want to support and defend Microsoft, you should be adding your voice, because it is this issue - its failure to provide its users with a safe platform - which will be its downfall.
"Microsoft = insecure" is an association that should be sending shivers down the backs of those marketing managers trying to bomb the web with billions of Microsoft adverts.
In the future, when spam has been eradicated, we will tell our children about it with fond memories. "Yes, we got messages like '1ncreas3 y3r p3ni5 5iz3!', and 'v14gr4 n0\/\/!'"
Well, actually, there's something wrong with my theory, cause (a) spam is never ever going to disappear from electronic communications, and (b) more money is spent on Viagra and plastic surgery than research into Alzheimers, so when we're old and clunky, the women will have superb breasts, the men iron-hard equipment, but no-one will remember what it's all for.
I believe Microsoft recently stated that their goal was to ensure that everyone saw at least one Microsoft ad when they surfed.
.NET ads on Linux websites.
It's just funny to see
Running commentary on everything that happens in the office? Priceless!
"Hey, man, another coffee?"
"Hey, Aztec, you scored good in that meeting. Give ya a kickdrop and a sideswing. Need more stamina though..."
"Hey, Sandy, nice skirt you're wearing there! You already got ten eyeballs."
"Hey... WTF!? You can't unplug m-/$!