Spyware can be a real prick to remove, people just cant do it themselves, even competent computer users.
Often you have to pull off special tricks, like creating a dummy file to prevent reinstallation by conspirator spyware programs. Man I hate those programs.
If I remember correctly from a previous article (3-6 months ago), Dell prohibits its tech support from helping customers remove certain programs that could be considered spyware. They are unable to do so because Dell, and some other suppliers have partnerships with the makers of the borderline spyware.
You know... I considered adding a joke to my post about that. I decided against it because it would detract from what I was saying, and because I didn't want people to think I was dirty.
But apparently, everyone is already thinking the same thing!
"How about some nice punched paneling to cover your torso, and this necktie made from aluminum girders? I think it accentuations your ocular sensers and playes off the color in your servos."
...or maybe not. The AI might be a little immature as of 2004.
No kidding. I hate when they whine about stuff like that. What are the alternatives? Make all the dishwashing robots look male just so we don't encourage a stereotype? How dumb is that?
My robot is an arm and hand only. And since it doesn't have fingernails, there is no way to tell if its a girl or boy.
Honestly, as robot builder I find this a little boring. It has little to do with robotics. You can take the same robot and give it a different costume and maybe a new voice to change it's sex... big deal.
You're not far off base there. While it would be difficult to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that someone was responsible for writing a virus, it wouldn't be hard to fit the punishment to the crime.
Among the few crimes that warrant death are murder and treason. Considering how much infrastructure is computer dependant, it isn't hard to beleive that devastating worms cause death and degrade national security. People die indirectly from power outages and similar semi-natural disasters. If someone had purposely cut the power, I think you could make a case that whoever cut the power was responsible for the murder of anyone who died as a result. The worm/virus issue is no different.
I'm imagining the review meeting held one or two years from now where all the Sony execs sit down and try to figure out why their music store was such a dismal failure...
They'll probably talk for hours and never really figure out what happened. They probably don't even realize how badly they suck.
Some companies (Sony et al) get so wrapped up in themselves that they can't understand why anyone would want to do anything their own way, or without purchasing something. It all comes down to the mindset of the company. On one hand you have people who think
"What do my customers want? How can I make them happy and make them want to do business with me?"
Hooray for them! But they are a dying breed. Now you are more likely to find companies that think
"This is what you want to do, and this is the product you need to do it. Do not insert any of your own thought or creativity into your activities, as that would not fit with our business model and thus will cause problems. If you take issue with this, feel free to wait on hold at our customer service number for a couple hours only to listen to a prerecorded menu that does not include the option you want."
This my friends is the problem. These companies are too self absorbed. They can't image you as anything other than a bleeding wallet, so they can't possibly understand what you want.
That's a whole lot of restrictions in an already-fragmented market.
The trendy people and the first-out-of-the-gate people have already gone to Apple. And people interested in their own personaly freedom and fair use will be using one of the services that doesn't include all this hand-tying. So I think Sony might get 10 or 20 people to use this.
I just got done reading it... and now I want to build another set of speakers. And that's bad because I have a lot of stuff to do right now. Maybe I'll just build a little one...
I've built my own speakers before, and while you can do a good-enough job without too much hassle, making a first-rate product is very labor and math intensive. If this guy is putting that much money and effort into this project, I really hope he gets all the damping and power equations right. Otherwise this will all just be a publicity stunt (maybe that's what it is anyway). I'm thinking about the amplifier he needs to run it right now. That's a lot of juice! And juice = money. And worste of all, you'd never be able to use the thing! Even a store bought stereo goes well above the municipal noice ordinances. And bass carries the furthest! What is this guy thinking?
If he ever does use it, I bet he'll feel that really cool thumping sensation in his chest though.
I haven't used WinAmp in quite a while, so I can't remember. Does WinAmp allow dynamic loading of embedded content, as in: you play a song, which has an embedded script that opens an html document for you? I seem to remember one of the players doing this. I'm pretty sure Windows Media Player does this. If WinAmp does, it would make the problem much more dangerous.
Is that Janus, as in the two-faced?
What an interesting choice of names. I don't know what aspect of the project they are refering to though. Two-faced because they pretend to help customers while back-stabbing their fair-use?
Two-faced because they will sell this to media providers and then act suprised when it is hacked?
Or two-faced just because of the company it came out of?
Ok, we know there are terrorists who want to destroy America/the West. We've invested billions trying to slow them down and beat them to the punch. Now somebody wants to install an auto-destruct on every computer so that if (when) an exploit is discovered, someone could take down the entire electronic infrastructure of the country and parts of the rest of the world without even putting in the work to write an email virus?
And conversely, has anyone used any of the music software on these platforms to actually analyze the contents of commercial subliminal CDs?
If I were making a CD like that, I wouldn't put the message on a separate track that could be easily isolated. I'd mix it in with a dominant track so that it would be virtually impossible to extract. And IF anyone does this, I don't think you'll have much luck picking out the subliminal sounds.
.because you don't actually want the nuclear reaction to start until you're a 'safe' distance away.
As I recall, the nuclear material can get quite hot and the nuclear reaction can take place under normal conditions (no explosion) so long as the material is keep below the critical density. That's how power plants work. For every particle emitted from a radioactive decay, fewer than one additional decays are induced. But there's still a lot of spontaneous decays followed by a few induced decays. These should all be making heat. I don't know how tightly they packed the nuclear material, or its configuration. But it seems that it should have created a reasonable amount of ambient heat.
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Spyware can be a real prick to remove, people just cant do it themselves, even competent computer users.
Often you have to pull off special tricks, like creating a dummy file to prevent reinstallation by conspirator spyware programs. Man I hate those programs.
If I remember correctly from a previous article (3-6 months ago), Dell prohibits its tech support from helping customers remove certain programs that could be considered spyware. They are unable to do so because Dell, and some other suppliers have partnerships with the makers of the borderline spyware.
What a crock!
You know... I considered adding a joke to my post about that. I decided against it because it would detract from what I was saying, and because I didn't want people to think I was dirty.
But apparently, everyone is already thinking the same thing!
Unix + Eunuch = Unic
"How about some nice punched paneling to cover your torso, and this necktie made from aluminum girders? I think it accentuations your ocular sensers and playes off the color in your servos."
...or maybe not. The AI might be a little immature as of 2004.
No kidding. I hate when they whine about stuff like that. What are the alternatives? Make all the dishwashing robots look male just so we don't encourage a stereotype? How dumb is that?
My robot is an arm and hand only. And since it doesn't have fingernails, there is no way to tell if its a girl or boy.
Honestly, as robot builder I find this a little boring. It has little to do with robotics. You can take the same robot and give it a different costume and maybe a new voice to change it's sex... big deal.
Capital punishment for worm writers!
You're not far off base there. While it would be difficult to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that someone was responsible for writing a virus, it wouldn't be hard to fit the punishment to the crime.
Among the few crimes that warrant death are murder and treason. Considering how much infrastructure is computer dependant, it isn't hard to beleive that devastating worms cause death and degrade national security. People die indirectly from power outages and similar semi-natural disasters. If someone had purposely cut the power, I think you could make a case that whoever cut the power was responsible for the murder of anyone who died as a result. The worm/virus issue is no different.
I'm imagining the review meeting held one or two years from now where all the Sony execs sit down and try to figure out why their music store was such a dismal failure...
They'll probably talk for hours and never really figure out what happened. They probably don't even realize how badly they suck.
I completely agree.
Some companies (Sony et al) get so wrapped up in themselves that they can't understand why anyone would want to do anything their own way, or without purchasing something. It all comes down to the mindset of the company. On one hand you have people who think
"What do my customers want? How can I make them happy and make them want to do business with me?"
Hooray for them! But they are a dying breed. Now you are more likely to find companies that think
"This is what you want to do, and this is the product you need to do it. Do not insert any of your own thought or creativity into your activities, as that would not fit with our business model and thus will cause problems. If you take issue with this, feel free to wait on hold at our customer service number for a couple hours only to listen to a prerecorded menu that does not include the option you want."
This my friends is the problem. These companies are too self absorbed. They can't image you as anything other than a bleeding wallet, so they can't possibly understand what you want.
That's a whole lot of restrictions in an already-fragmented market.
The trendy people and the first-out-of-the-gate people have already gone to Apple. And people interested in their own personaly freedom and fair use will be using one of the services that doesn't include all this hand-tying. So I think Sony might get 10 or 20 people to use this.
If only I couldn've known then the things that I know now...
Damn I hated numbering each line of code!
And when you had to add something and have uneven spacing of line numbers... Oh it just drives the type A personality in me nuts!
The only good part about line numbers was how easy it made it to write GOTO statements.
Thanks for the link.
I just got done reading it... and now I want to build another set of speakers. And that's bad because I have a lot of stuff to do right now. Maybe I'll just build a little one...
I've built my own speakers before, and while you can do a good-enough job without too much hassle, making a first-rate product is very labor and math intensive. If this guy is putting that much money and effort into this project, I really hope he gets all the damping and power equations right. Otherwise this will all just be a publicity stunt (maybe that's what it is anyway). I'm thinking about the amplifier he needs to run it right now. That's a lot of juice! And juice = money. And worste of all, you'd never be able to use the thing! Even a store bought stereo goes well above the municipal noice ordinances. And bass carries the furthest! What is this guy thinking?
If he ever does use it, I bet he'll feel that really cool thumping sensation in his chest though.
bloated POS Winamp 5 player
You know your media player is too big when all the eye candy slows your older computers to the point they can't play mp3's without choking.
I haven't used WinAmp in quite a while, so I can't remember. Does WinAmp allow dynamic loading of embedded content, as in: you play a song, which has an embedded script that opens an html document for you? I seem to remember one of the players doing this. I'm pretty sure Windows Media Player does this. If WinAmp does, it would make the problem much more dangerous.
Is that Janus, as in the two-faced?
What an interesting choice of names. I don't know what aspect of the project they are refering to though. Two-faced because they pretend to help customers while back-stabbing their fair-use?
Two-faced because they will sell this to media providers and then act suprised when it is hacked?
Or two-faced just because of the company it came out of?
Maybe all three? Time will tell.
Shortly after agreeing to settle, Microsoft realized $2 Bil was a lot of money, and immediately approached the DOJ to have the settlement blocked.
I think O'Reilly has a Munitions book that includes surface to air missiles and a host of other goodies (with code snippets).
I can't remember what's on the cover.
Ok, we know there are terrorists who want to destroy America/the West. We've invested billions trying to slow them down and beat them to the punch. Now somebody wants to install an auto-destruct on every computer so that if (when) an exploit is discovered, someone could take down the entire electronic infrastructure of the country and parts of the rest of the world without even putting in the work to write an email virus?
BAD IDEA
Have we learned nothing?
And conversely, has anyone used any of the music software on these platforms to actually analyze the contents of commercial subliminal CDs?
If I were making a CD like that, I wouldn't put the message on a separate track that could be easily isolated. I'd mix it in with a dominant track so that it would be virtually impossible to extract. And IF anyone does this, I don't think you'll have much luck picking out the subliminal sounds.
I would like to create custom subliminal CDs for my own use.
Anybody else creeped out?
.because you don't actually want the nuclear reaction to start until you're a 'safe' distance away.
As I recall, the nuclear material can get quite hot and the nuclear reaction can take place under normal conditions (no explosion) so long as the material is keep below the critical density. That's how power plants work. For every particle emitted from a radioactive decay, fewer than one additional decays are induced. But there's still a lot of spontaneous decays followed by a few induced decays. These should all be making heat. I don't know how tightly they packed the nuclear material, or its configuration. But it seems that it should have created a reasonable amount of ambient heat.