Yes but like I said: if someone is actually willing and capable of putting a repeater in the middle of their beam, I think they have bigger things to worry about.
Would not need to be in the middle of the beam. Could even be quite a distance away with a nice antenna setup.
On the other hand, use of SFTP in place of FTP is mandatory in this day and age.
You must be kidding. Most SFTP clients suck. The OpenSSH SFTP client doesn't even have the equivalent functionality of the 80's vintage BSD FTP. No SFTP client even comes close to the functionality offered by something like ncftp.
FTP sends passwords in clear; anybody using it is wearing a big red sign that says HACK ME!!!!
Only if they're able to perform a man-in-the-middle attack. At best they have to be on the same physical network segment as you and able to sniff all traffic: hardly a likely scenario in most businesses, or via. the internet. If someone is able to do this, you have bigger problems anyway.
You've got this completely backwards. When using an encrypted protocol, such as SFTP, then a MITM attack may be necessary to see the unencrypted data. In that case, then it would be easiest if they were on the same physical network segment. (Although, careful not to get a false sense of security here. There are many ways to do this, even without physical access.) Fortunately, there are things we can do to detect and protect against those.
With unencrypted protocols like FTP, there's no reason for a MITM attack or any kind of attack at all. You've just potentially saved a future attacker or curious troublemaker a ton of work. You have literally sent your full login information on many separate networks, each of which have many devices connected to them. If anyone is monitoring traffic on any of those networks, your password could just sit in a dump file (along with your login name, your server's IP address and the port your FTP service is running on) until sometime down the road when someone stumbles upon it or scans for it. Unlike a MITM attack, nobody has to even be trying to attack you. There's no practical way to ensure that there isn't a single insufficiently-secured device on any of the autonomous networks that your info traveled across.
If you're using an encrypted protocol, someone usually has to take the time to attack you. If you're using an unecrypted protocol, you're just gambling on whether or not anyone who stumbles upon your login info will find any value in it.
Unlike everyone else, they're honest - and this is a huge PR problem. Or do you seriously think that the internet had a positive effect on let's say.. Microsoft?
I seriously think that the internet may have had a positive effect on Microsoft.
Many people have purchased computers primarily for accessing the internet, and the majority of those purchases benefited Microsoft through license fees (even if only those paid by an OEM) and by further increasing their market share.
If Linux were the the only OS in the mass market, people would be doing wonderfully, just like in the 80s when MS-DOS was king.
Oh? Then why did Windows (and Mac) even happen? I'm sure Bill Gates, with his immense college-dropout fortune and huge influence, illegally monopolized OEM's to ship Windows 2.0 and 3.1 instead of DOS. Yeah. Or maybe, just maybe, DOS wasn't enough, and Linux/UNIX didn't go fast enough for the average consumer on the user-friendly side of things.
Windows was built on top of DOS, and you had to have it installed to even run Windows 2.0 or 3.1.
Windows was around before Linux was ever written.
UNIX was not available to everyone, and the only computers that it was made to run on were far too expensive for someone to have one of their own at home for personal use.
You really should read up a little on the history of the personal computers. Judging from your comments, you'll be surprised by some of the things you learn.
Since we're using condom analogies for web browser security practices, which would you prefer?
A condom brand that has a long reputation of producing faulty condoms with holes in them, as well as a reputation for ignoring these problems and waiting a considerable amount of time before they work to correct them.
A condom brand that has a reputation for improving their manufacturing process to correct any potential problems as they're discovered.
IMHO, that's not an option. TELNET into Exchange Servers nowadays has been (mostly) blocked due to the inherent vulnerabilities, i.e.- taking over an e-mail server. Not only that, but what with IMAP, SMTP is about the last thing anyone wants in this 'make it pretty' world in the newer servers. I've gotten along with 'mail' and 'pine' for the longest time, but not everything is easy to someone who doesn't understand how to or has not learned the 'old' ways; or how an e-mail server works. Everything doesn't need to be GUI, but try to do anything without it (at least in the world of the average user).
That's true, blocking SMTP is very effective at keeping your mailbox clean and spam-free... but the average user who can't do anything without a GUI is also unlikely to find much use for an email server that doesn't send or receive email.
Why on earth would they have their servers set up to automatically commit serious crimes just because a server was public and then restricted access? Their servers became self-aware on August 29, 1997. Let's just roll back the servers to some time before being completely setup. Then convince them not to complete it, and instead to help you destroy any backups that may contain any of the code they wrote so that it will never be pieced together again.
That's good. Let's hope the profit persists and allows for more to be made in the future.
Let's hope game developers don't get their panties too twisted and continue to make games for it, knowing a softmod is out there ready to take a chunk out of their end of the cut. Do you really think any major game development companies are worried about competition from a bunch of geeks writing their own games that people have to jump through hoops to play? Even though the game devs companies have documentation and an SDK, while the geeks have neither?
Are you a troll, or did you just fail to read the title?
But... isnt a house on a dung hill, better than just standing on a dung hill by itself?
Especially since, you can make the air seem a little more fresh with freshners, take a shower, get out of the sun, etc. Or you could save all of that time and money you'd waste trying to get rid of the smell, and simply build your house elsewhere. Think of all the productive things you could do with that time, if you didn't have to spend it trying to wash off that shitty odor.
The average PC is not a gaming PC. The average PC with an average monitor can put out 1024 vertical, tops. No better than HDTV, except it's on a tiny monitor which makes everything look jagged.
A console hooked up to even a normal TV looks better than squinting at a computer monitor. You must be new to this whole computer thing... If you want a higher resolution use a CRT display, not a LCD. You can find a used CRT that does 1600x1200 for under $50. That's more lines vertical than an HDTV, and quite a bit cheaper. Although, if you already have an HDTV, you can connect your computer to it. You'll also notice jagged lines more, on larger screens. The solution to this is to turn on Anti-Aliasing.
The point is that they should not be subjecting the person on the other end of the line to hearing what is going on in the bathroom. I don't know what you do in your bathroom, but mine is free of distractions and I'm usually pretty relaxed. I've gotten some of my best ideas in here. Thanks to wifi, I can work with others during this relaxed state.
Burn a disk? Don't you mean create an ISO and mount it? VMWare, as well as many other virtualization apps, support mounting ISOs out of the box with no modifications to the guest OS. Why waste a CD, and all the extra effort when the easy answer is sitting right in front of you?
Like all other things in life, the whole copyright argument is one big gradient, nothing is cut and dry and black and white. There are border cases like singing the Birthday song, or playing satellite TV in a bar, where it's hard to say that the infringement is doing significant, if any damage to the copyright holder at all. But there are extremely clear-cut cases where the violation *is* hurting the creator tangibly, and IMHO our society at this point has far too lax an attitude towards them. Exactly, but the pro-copyright lobbyists don't see it that way. As of right now, any copyright infringement is a crime, regardless of wether or not it actually had a negative impact for the copyright holder. Until there's a clear distinction that can actually be understood by the general public, people will continue to be unfairly prosecuted and others will continue to lose respect for these laws. "Anti-Piracy countermeasures" just add fuel to the fire, by making it more of a pain in the ass to try and do things legally. Most people these days are lazy, and want something that just works with the least amount of effort. If you want to make money, you need to cater to your customers rather than treat them like criminals.
If you fundamentally disagree with the someone's business practices, boycott their products. If only more people would do that, then companies might start paying more attention to what people want. Piracy just makes this worse. People start pirating their products, which increases the userbase of that product as well as the value of it for other businesses who want to make a product to run on top of, or alongside, it. Even worse is when people pirate a product, learn how to use it, and develop stuff with it or assist others in using it. If they had gone with an alternative, then users who needed help with the "bad product" would be more likely to switch to the "good product" that they could get assistance with from their friends/family/etc. Then the worst of all, is when people are advocating "bad products" they pirated by talking about it, or showing it to other people.
It is no justification for stealing/pirating them. It bugs me when I see people confuse theft with copyright infringement. Those are 2 completely different crimes. One actually deprives someone else of their property. The other is unauthorized copying, which has far more severe consequences if caught. In reality, most of the time when someone downloads an MP3 it's not because they wanted to buy it and would rather get it for free. It's because they just wanted to hear the song. It is no indication of whether or not they would be willing to pay to hear the song, and more often then not they simply just wanted to hear it. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen people download an MP3 for a song someone else suggested they listen to. I find it very hard to believe they would have paid someone to listen to a song in those instances. Regardless, though, it is copyright infringement not "stealing". If someone wants an album without paying for it, they'd face a far less severe punishment for stealing it from a local store than making their own personal copy of it. There's simply no comparing the two. $100 fine per album if you're caught in the act vs $10,000 fine per track if you're caught after the fact. And $10,000 is nothing compared to what the pro-copyright lobbyists are trying to increase it to. For someone who can't afford the a product, or is simply willing to break the law to save money, stealing it is a better option right now.
Most people aren't pirating as some form of protest for draconian anti-consumer policies, they pirate because it beats paying money for it.
You're trying to simplify it into something very narrow. There are more things that influence people's behavior than it simply saving money. Otherwise, these people who don't want to waste money would not be listening to nearly as much music, and certainly wouldn't be running out to buy albums they've never heard from bands they've never heard. I know people who like listening to their music through their high end stereo system, or on their computer while they work, that have wasted $15-20 on a new album only to find out that due to the "clever" copy protection on the disc, they are unable to listen to it. Then there are the windows machines that were infected with rootkits, the macs that locked up and refused to reboot or eject the malicious audio cd. Not to mention the people who have a different taste in music, preferring only a few songs from different albums. The biggest contributing factor is probably how "pirated music" tends to have far less problems, than trying to find a legal way to pay for an album and still be able to use it as easily as the mp3 you could have already downloaded by now. Not everyone is that computer literate. Most of the users I know are only capable of using a few simple programs successfully. They don't want to have to learn a variety of systems that individually are more complicated as well as costing them money, without any guarantee that they'll even be able to listen to it on the device they intend to listen to it on.
The vast majority of the world, when it comes to piracy, are cheap bastards. I know guys who pay $2K for a laptop but refuse to pay for a copy of Windows.
Something seems fishy here. A cheap bastard who pays $2,000 for a laptop from one of the limited number of companies that sells it without a Windows license, then pirates Windows because he can't afford it? Don't get me wrong, I know lots of people who pirate windows. Typically, people who are building a custom computer themselves or people who don't want the other 10-15gigs of trial software that came pre-installed with Windows on their machine. I haven't heard of many people building their own custom laptops, though. Most laptops are bought with a windows license already included. What reason would people have for pirating windows if they already own windows? Unless they don't want the other 10gigs of crap that came pre-installed and don't have a plain disc to reinstall with, why would they be pirating Windows? Are you sure it's not just because it's easier than trying to find the long and hard way of accomplishing the same task with the least chance of breaking the law?
They are vaguely aware of a musician that they're ripping off, but their feeble minds do not permit them to hold onto that train of thought long enough to feel guilt.
Every musician I've ever met has wanted people to listen to, and enjoy, their music. They like the idea of their music reaching more people. But, then again, those are just musicians. Some of them talk about how their publisher is ripping them off. I could be wrong, but I tend to believe the people I know personally over what someone I don't know says.
Have you ever been to a public place or a pub where someone had a TV with cable/satellite TV? What about a local concert or open mic where bands played music that they didn't write themselves? Do you realize how many of those are more extreme infringements of these exact same copyrights? Then there are schools, who very rarely license every copyrighted melody that they teach children to perform during public events. What do you do when you're at a restaurant and you hear someone beginning to sing The Birthday Song. I can't imagine the kind of frustration you must put up with on a daily basis, seeing all of these blatant copyright infringements everywhere. If you get so upset about people privately listening to musi
In each of your links, the perp was purposely sitting outside a hub and creating traffic, knowing he was siphoning bandwidth and money. That's spin as well. Most ISPs don't charge by the amount of data transferred. Someone checking their email on a lunch break, such as the case in Michigan, is not going to incur any extra charges from the ISP. Nor are they going to cause any noticeable performance loss on the network.
An automatic detection is not the same as traffic. Windows doesn't just detect the networks. It automatically connects to any available one. When it connects it does generate traffic. It also communicates with the Access Point, which is the crime people are being charged with. After it receives the SSID broadcast from the AP saying that it's open and available to connect to, it connects and sends a DHCP discover packet. The AP responds with a DHCP offer. The client then requests an IP address and waits for the AP to acknowledge it before it can even send anything across the network.
In addition to that, your typical mail client will check for new messages every 10 minutes. Windows will automatically download updates. Many manufacturers pre-install software that also automatically downloads additional software updates. These things all generate traffic.
Regardless, the crime people are being charged with is unauthorized computer access. The amount of traffic they generate is irrelevant. The law is interpreted as meaning that it's illegal to access the network device, regardless of the AP being configured to broadcast that it's open and offering IP address leases to machines that it sees trying to connect.
How is your average user supposed to know that the internet access they are given automatically is illegal?
How do you distinguish between APs that are open but illegal to use from APs that are intentionally left open for the public to use?
I understand your points about my setup being too complicated for the average user and increasing the overhead. I was suggesting that something developed to make it easier for the average user, and I got kind of sidetracked into talking about the usefulness of VMware. (I've been using VMware a lot lately for debugging and experimentation, and now I'm thinking about using it for my main OS. That way I can reboot to switch between linux/windows without having to close everything I'm working on. Or go back to a clean install or alternate configuration at the press of a button, without wasting extra drive space on multiple installs of the same OS.)
There I go again, getting sidetracked...
Anyway, back to my point. Virtualization has been getting pretty common in IT. More and more companies are using virtualization on their servers. New processors are coming out with hardware support for virtualization, allowing for more security and less software overhead. Sure, it's not as fast as running the code natively. But when has bloated software ever been a problem? Look at Windows, which is by far the most common desktop OS. And I'm still talking about OS virtualization, which has more than twice the overhead of running it natively. Although that doesn't stop IT departments from using it on their servers. Secure application virtualization would be faster, but I'm not aware of any software already written for this purpose.(haven't looked) I wouldn't be surprised if there is some out there, and I'd love to hear about it. The only application virtualization software I'm aware of are Thinstall and Softgrid (which Microsoft recently bought), and those are focused on making applications portable and allowing them to be streamed over a network.
Whitelisting seems like it'd either cause frustration for normal users, or lock out small developers. Either that, or still be bypassed. It would also cause normal users to fear anything that isn't whitelisted. It'd also increase the time it takes for patches to be applied, since they'd need to be whitelisted before people would trust them. Whitelisted apps could also be tied together with a script run by another whitelisted app, and still be used for malicious purposes. Or someone could just exploit a vulnerability in a white listed app to add additional entries to the white-list, disable it completely, or install a rootkit that hides it from the white-listing software. This also will have overhead. There are a lot of legitimate programs out there, and it'll have to find every dll or exe that you load in the whitelist.
With all of the support virtualization is getting, especially with virtualization support built into the CPU, the overhead is continuing to get smaller. Your arguments against it regarding the cost of an extra OS license, complexity, and creating more zombied machines, are all based on using a complete OS virtualization. I agree that is not the best solution, and the original poster would probably agree as well. Although, that's just 1 application of virtualization/sandboxing, and it has nothing to do with what the original poster was even talking about. The overhead also isn't as big of a deal as you make it out to be, since we're not running everything twice. We're just preventing the application from changing parts of the system that it shouldn't.
In that essay from Marcus Ranum, he's talking about manually whitelisting software and network traffic to only allow what is required for the system to do it's job and blocking/reporting anything different, which is way too complicated for the average user. This article has nothing to do with that. This article is about a whitelist of applications maintained by a third party that are supposedly safe, and only allowing those applications to run. netcat, windows scripting host, vnc, etc. are not needed by most users, but they will still run under this solution since they're white-listed for other people who do use them.
You're talking about OS virtualization. The GP was talking about application virtualization.
As far as vulnerabilities in the virtual environment, that is possible. But secure programming is also possible. Regardless, you'd only have 1 thing to watch for vulnerabilities in. Right now you have to watch for new vulnerabilities in every application you run.
By the way, your solution doesn't really solve much unless those VMs are clean on every boot, no writing anything, and that makes things terribly difficult. Explain to grandma that she has to turn off the freeze, install program XYZ, and then turn the freeze back on. You are frequently lucky to explain the install program XYZ part. So your default permit virtual machine gets infected, stays running as a VM zombie now. Sure its easier to clean up, but rather than solving the problem of getting tagged in the first place you just raise the bar of complexity an order of magnitude and expect joe sixpack user to understand how to operate the new monstrosity. You can have it map certain directories for reading/writing files, and not allow it any kind of access outside of that. Registry changes can be stored in a separate file that's only used for that specific application or other associated applications.
Also, you're getting VMware confused with something like DeepFreeze. DeepFreeze requires you to "unfreeze" the drive to make changes to any drive that isn't "thawed" for writing. VMware you use snapshots. When you get infected with a virus, you click the "revert to previous snapshot button" and you're back within 30-60 seconds. You can also take snapshots for a variety of different configurations and applications, then jump between them as you please. Map a shared folder in VMware to a partition on your hard drive for any files you want to work with between multiple virtual machines or snapshots and your host OS. Or, if you're using Virtual PC (microsoft's free app), when you cose the virtual machine, a popup will appear and you select "Delete changes" to get rid of any viruses or whatever. Although these are all OS virtualization, which is far more than just a sandbox.
A million booleans that if you toggle them the map hack is engaged, and your CDKEY is marked for bannage. Sure, you don't need a mil, 100k would do the trick too. The key is there are a lot of anti-hack tricks you can pull when you know the tools the hackers are going to try first. The interesting thing is that Blizzard doesn't have to ban it immediately. They could let the hack distribute so all the hackers get to a saturation point, then Blizzard bans them all at once. Why have a boolean value that can be toggle to enable a maphack in the first place? If there are 1,000,000 fake ones and 1 real one, the computer has to have some way to know which one is the real one. Load it up in a debugger, and trace it back to the real value. If they randomly change, there will have to be another value somewhere indicating which one is the real one. Or you could also look for the one that isn't checked in the loop that scans through all of the fake ones. Or you could simply inject code that prevents it from changing.
All that would do is waste memory and processing time, while everyone who wants to cheat will simply download a hack that works regardless.
Even if you had a fullproof way to prevent your code from manipulation, someone could write a program that sniffs the network traffic from the game and draws up a map with enemy units and run it on a separate machine. If your code looks for NICs in PASV mode, then you could use a read-only cable.
The key here is that if you don't want someone else to have certain information, then you shouldn't give it to them. So, if someone is clear across the map where they can't see you, don't send them your location. Game security obviously requires more server side resources, and network resources, but at least you have far less destructive cheats. You have to find the middle ground between security, cost, and convenience.
If you were a thief, you would be very stupid to hang around carefully inspecting the item you're thinking of stealing. Good way to get busted. You'd just grab it and go. Or in the case of your particular thought experiment, you'd grab both of them and go.
A thief isn't even going to notice an engraving unless it's in 30 point type on the laptop cover. And even then, he'd probably grab it anyway. People who make their living that way tend not to be complicated thinkers. There are professional thieves who discretely inspect the item and surroundings from before moving in. Not professional like you see in the movies, although I wouldn't be surprised if that's where they get some of their ideas. In a cafe, that'd be as simple as going in there and getting a cup of coffee, using a public terminal to check the news, etc...
I remember one time in college when our drain was backed up and the basement flooded, there was a plumber that stopped by to work on it. After he had left, my roommate noticed that her lockbox with all of her valuables was missing. Turns out, the landlords never sent a plumber. Fortunately, someone in their group was drunk and trying to sell some of the jewelry to someone who knew of our loss, so word got back around. They heard about our flooding problem from someone who knew one of my roommate's friends. Then they sent in someone who was very charismatic and appeared clean-cut, that none of us had ever seen before, to pretend to be a plumber and scope out the house. At some point he saw the safe in my roommate's bedroom through her open door, and slipped it into the bathroom with him. Then he slit the window screen, and slipped the lockbox out the window. We weren't sure if he had someone waiting out there, or he just grabbed it after he left. Although, they were mainly just scoping out the place. They were planning on sending this giant methed out black dude back in the middle of the night, at a later date, to get the rest of the stuff they wanted.
So while an engraving might not deter a thief who sees an quick opportunity and takes it without looking at what he's stealing, it could at least help to deter theft from the serious thief who'd rather steal the most valuable thing in sight. Also, if you use a lock with your laptop, that should significantly deter the opportunity thief.
We believe in basic freedoms and other fundamental rights as being inalienable rights
given by God, which no government has the right to impede. Among these are the right to life
(which liberals generally refuse to extend to the unborn); the right to self-government (which
liberals don't acknowledge, as they advocate judges who make they law say what *they* think it
*should* say, instead of what the people's representatives wrote and voted on); the right to
security of one's property (which liberals don't acknowledge, as they believe the government
should distribute property from those who have more to those who have less). Should I go on?
Fred gives a nice rundown in his announcement of candidacy: http://imwithfred.com/
This is where I get confused. I very strongly believe in those exact same rights, but I see
neoconservatism as a major threat to many of those rights. Many mainstream neoconservatives seem
to be extremely power hungry, deceitful, and controlling. They appear to support expanding the
federal government and restricting our rights. It feels like they are primarily concerned with
obtaining power and control for the group as a whole, while ignoring or attacking anyone who
tries to actually look at the facts and use logic/critical thought to figure anything out. It
seems to be a strong "you're with us, or you're against us" mentality, which is going to exclude
anyone who needs to understand where their beliefs come from or why they believe in something. I
really fear the day that we have a federal government focused on revoking my inalienable rights
at their discretion, controlling every aspect of society throughout our entire nation, forcing
their beliefs (which they can't even justify with reason, but instead they stretch their
interpretation of a verse or two in the bible into loosely supporting their belief).
Another thing I don't understand about neoconservatives is their extremely liberal use of the
label "liberal", which they apply to anything that they disagree with to discredit it. I really
don't understand what they think that word means. If I'm wrong, please correct me, but I've
always believed that the word liberal basically meant free. I thought it was used to describe
things that were free from control, manipulation, restriction, etc. I often hear the phrase
"liberal media" being used negatively. But doesnt' that name imply that whatever publication is
being described as liberal is simply free for anybody to have their say without being forced to
restrict information? What's so wrong with the idea of being able to hear a variety of different
ideas and using critical thinking and rational thought in order to really understand both sides
of the situation so that you know why you are for/against an idea and can then defend your
beliefs?
Neoconservatism seems like it'd be of great interest to sociopaths, who typically strive for
power and control over others. With Neoconservatism, if they are able to obtain a position of
power, they will be able to take advantage of the trust others have in their authority to
influence people with their anti-social ideas. This can be done subtly just in their choice of
words when explaining something, or their choice of issues which are then shared with others. If
a sociopath were ever able to obtain a position of authority within a neoconservative group, it
seems like they could reach a much larger audience with far less chance of being questioned or
exposed. When preaching, they could explain a passage in a way which adds to or negates from
it's original meaning. How does neoconservatism protect itself from being infiltrated by a
sociopath? What kinds of checks or balances are in place to prevent him from abusing the
authority that was entrusted to his lies? A sociopath would not stutter, pause, think twice,
or fee
Speaking of WoW, why should I have to pay every month to play a game that I paid for. Guild Wars is free once you buy the game. And Eve-Online is free for the game, but you pay every month. WoW skrews(sic) you instead.
Comparing Guild Wars to WoW is about as extreme as comparing Diablo 2 to EverQuest, which I've seen several people try to do. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume they just aren't familiar with MMORPGs.
Basically, what it boils down to is that in the software industry, the majority of the costs go into developing and maintaining the software. The costs of manufacturing each individual disc is next to nothing. The costs are in creating the data that is pressed onto the disc. Before you can even think about selling a copy of something, you have to have something to sell. You have to pay people to design, develop, and test the software. You have to pay people to create artwork, music, sound effects, 3d models, etc. They all have to work together to create something, and if they are successful you will end up with the software that you can hopefully sell to at least make up for all of the money that was put into creating the software and continue to pay people to update the software when people who want to use it have trouble doing so. Anything made on top of this is profit, which is why someone would invest all of that money into development in the first place instead of just keeping it somewhere safe.
Now, when it comes to MMORPGs, you still have all of those software development costs. In addition, you also have to develop server software, hire people who can analyze the economics and game model to try to ensure that the gameplay and virtual economy inside of the MMORPG won't collapse or fall short, causing players to become disinterested, and the whole project to essentially be a waste of a lot of money and time. You also will likely need more designers, since this game will have to encompass the needs and desires of a lot of different players, without sacrificing too many of the needs or desires of other players.
The biggest difference is that in normal software development, when the software is released, you no longer need all of those designers, developers, etc. You may need one or two, so that they can provide updates to fix things that come up. For an MMORPG, there are still a lot of extra costs. In addition to developing and selling software, they also have to provide a service for that software to be used with. They have to pay people to keep that service maintained, and to continue designing and developing new elements in the game to give the subscribers to the service more stuff to do. So not only are the initial costs much higher, but the long term costs are also much higher.
Now, there are a lot of ideas that people are experimenting with to try and cut down the costs as well as the price. But investors typically want a model that is proven not to lose all of their money. They don't want to gamble, they want to invest. So, traditionally it's been independent developers who experiment with these new ideas. The easiest way to convince people to invest a lot of money into a new idea is by backing up your claims with proof, such as the independent developers who have already tried similar ideas and succeeded.
If you don't feel that the product is worth it's price, do NOT buy it. It's as simple as that. Play something else, use the competitor's product, etc. No matter how many people bitch and moan about their product, if they see high sales records they aren't going to listen to the people who are complaining. They are going to think, "many people are buying our product so we must know what we're doing". On the other hand, if the sales records are low, then they might be interested in listening to complaints and changing the product to satisfy them. Until then, they'll be afraid that changing the product to make the few people who are bitching happy could in turn make the people who are already buying the product unhappy.
I am proud to call myself a neoconservative. The above description is so dissimilar to anything that any of us favor, as to be laughable.
What do you favor then? I'd really like to know. As of right now, my opinion on neo-conservatives is based on their perceived actions. I don't want to believe that they're intentionally doing what they appear to be doing. I like to be optimistic, and I'd really like to discover that neo-conservatives really aren't the religious fundamentalists that they appear to be.
That is abject nonsense. George Bush was twice duly elected. He is the representative of the people in the Executive Branch. He is the decider on executive issues, by the consent of the people.
While yes, Bush is the president, the elections were full of problems. There were independents in various counties who got zero votes or very few votes, even though they had a significantly larger following that claims to have voted for them. Yeah, there may be conspiracy theorists who believe all of their supporters, friends, relatives, as well as themselves, voted for someone else and lied afterwards by claiming they voted for the person they were actively supporting all along. Personally, I try not to put too much faith in a conspiracy theory that requires the participation of many individuals who never made a mistake that can be used to prove that they're lying.
At the very least, it appears that even if the voting machines were never rigged by anyone, there were flaws in them that prevented votes from being counted. I could be wrong, but I thought I heard a Judge talking about how a large number of votes were never tallied at all and just left to the side. Then there's the question as to why the voting records from most counties in Ohio (the state that ultimately decided the last election) were destroyed in violation of a federal court order to preserve them for later analysis.
I'm not sure if the majority of the population actually voted for Bush. Assuming nobody would ever try to manipulate a voting machine or vote counts, it appears as if Bush just had enough votes in the right places to get electoral votes. I understand the reason for the electoral college, and how it prevents areas with large populations from having too much of an impact compared to areas with small populations.
I'm just trying to point out how that statement could hurt the credibility of your argument. I didn't mean to go off on a long winded rant. I'm just a young programmer, I don't know much about politics throughout history. For all I know, there could have been this same kind of controversy over election manipulation when Clinton was elected. To get back on topic, I'd really appreciate it if you could enlighten me on the intentions and goals of neo-conservatives. It seems like people look at FOX News, and assume that's how neo-conservatives behave.
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Yes but like I said: if someone is actually willing and capable of putting a repeater in the middle of their beam, I think they have bigger things to worry about.
Would not need to be in the middle of the beam. Could even be quite a distance away with a nice antenna setup.
You must be kidding. Most SFTP clients suck. The OpenSSH SFTP client doesn't even have the equivalent functionality of the 80's vintage BSD FTP. No SFTP client even comes close to the functionality offered by something like ncftp.
Only if they're able to perform a man-in-the-middle attack. At best they have to be on the same physical network segment as you and able to sniff all traffic: hardly a likely scenario in most businesses, or via. the internet. If someone is able to do this, you have bigger problems anyway.
You've got this completely backwards. When using an encrypted protocol, such as SFTP, then a MITM attack may be necessary to see the unencrypted data. In that case, then it would be easiest if they were on the same physical network segment. (Although, careful not to get a false sense of security here. There are many ways to do this, even without physical access.) Fortunately, there are things we can do to detect and protect against those.
With unencrypted protocols like FTP, there's no reason for a MITM attack or any kind of attack at all. You've just potentially saved a future attacker or curious troublemaker a ton of work. You have literally sent your full login information on many separate networks, each of which have many devices connected to them. If anyone is monitoring traffic on any of those networks, your password could just sit in a dump file (along with your login name, your server's IP address and the port your FTP service is running on) until sometime down the road when someone stumbles upon it or scans for it. Unlike a MITM attack, nobody has to even be trying to attack you. There's no practical way to ensure that there isn't a single insufficiently-secured device on any of the autonomous networks that your info traveled across.
If you're using an encrypted protocol, someone usually has to take the time to attack you. If you're using an unecrypted protocol, you're just gambling on whether or not anyone who stumbles upon your login info will find any value in it.
Unlike everyone else, they're honest - and this is a huge PR problem.
Or do you seriously think that the internet had a positive effect on let's say.. Microsoft?
I seriously think that the internet may have had a positive effect on Microsoft.
Many people have purchased computers primarily for accessing the internet, and the majority of those purchases benefited Microsoft through license fees (even if only those paid by an OEM) and by further increasing their market share.
If Linux were the the only OS in the mass market, people would be doing wonderfully, just like in the 80s when MS-DOS was king.
Oh? Then why did Windows (and Mac) even happen? I'm sure Bill Gates, with his immense college-dropout fortune and huge influence, illegally monopolized OEM's to ship Windows 2.0 and 3.1 instead of DOS. Yeah. Or maybe, just maybe, DOS wasn't enough, and Linux/UNIX didn't go fast enough for the average consumer on the user-friendly side of things.
Windows was built on top of DOS, and you had to have it installed to even run Windows 2.0 or 3.1.
Windows was around before Linux was ever written.
UNIX was not available to everyone, and the only computers that it was made to run on were far too expensive for someone to have one of their own at home for personal use.
You really should read up a little on the history of the personal computers. Judging from your comments, you'll be surprised by some of the things you learn.
Since we're using condom analogies for web browser security practices, which would you prefer?
A condom brand that has a long reputation of producing faulty condoms with holes in them, as well as a reputation for ignoring these problems and waiting a considerable amount of time before they work to correct them.
A condom brand that has a reputation for improving their manufacturing process to correct any potential problems as they're discovered.
IMHO, that's not an option. TELNET into Exchange Servers nowadays has been (mostly) blocked due to the inherent vulnerabilities, i.e.- taking over an e-mail server. Not only that, but what with IMAP, SMTP is about the last thing anyone wants in this 'make it pretty' world in the newer servers. I've gotten along with 'mail' and 'pine' for the longest time, but not everything is easy to someone who doesn't understand how to or has not learned the 'old' ways; or how an e-mail server works. Everything doesn't need to be GUI, but try to do anything without it (at least in the world of the average user).
That's true, blocking SMTP is very effective at keeping your mailbox clean and spam-free... but the average user who can't do anything without a GUI is also unlikely to find much use for an email server that doesn't send or receive email.
How? Lets see, if the FBI catches you downloading things on TPB, you could possibly be sued.
From what I recall, the RIAA/MPAA has been hiring private companies for that.
The FBI though, can do a whole lot.
But datamining telecommunications nationwide is the NSA's doing, not the FBI's.
A console hooked up to even a normal TV looks better than squinting at a computer monitor. You must be new to this whole computer thing... If you want a higher resolution use a CRT display, not a LCD. You can find a used CRT that does 1600x1200 for under $50. That's more lines vertical than an HDTV, and quite a bit cheaper. Although, if you already have an HDTV, you can connect your computer to it. You'll also notice jagged lines more, on larger screens. The solution to this is to turn on Anti-Aliasing.
Burn a disk? Don't you mean create an ISO and mount it? VMWare, as well as many other virtualization apps, support mounting ISOs out of the box with no modifications to the guest OS. Why waste a CD, and all the extra effort when the easy answer is sitting right in front of you?
Most people aren't pirating as some form of protest for draconian anti-consumer policies, they pirate because it beats paying money for it.
You're trying to simplify it into something very narrow. There are more things that influence people's behavior than it simply saving money. Otherwise, these people who don't want to waste money would not be listening to nearly as much music, and certainly wouldn't be running out to buy albums they've never heard from bands they've never heard. I know people who like listening to their music through their high end stereo system, or on their computer while they work, that have wasted $15-20 on a new album only to find out that due to the "clever" copy protection on the disc, they are unable to listen to it. Then there are the windows machines that were infected with rootkits, the macs that locked up and refused to reboot or eject the malicious audio cd. Not to mention the people who have a different taste in music, preferring only a few songs from different albums. The biggest contributing factor is probably how "pirated music" tends to have far less problems, than trying to find a legal way to pay for an album and still be able to use it as easily as the mp3 you could have already downloaded by now. Not everyone is that computer literate. Most of the users I know are only capable of using a few simple programs successfully. They don't want to have to learn a variety of systems that individually are more complicated as well as costing them money, without any guarantee that they'll even be able to listen to it on the device they intend to listen to it on.
The vast majority of the world, when it comes to piracy, are cheap bastards. I know guys who pay $2K for a laptop but refuse to pay for a copy of Windows.
Something seems fishy here. A cheap bastard who pays $2,000 for a laptop from one of the limited number of companies that sells it without a Windows license, then pirates Windows because he can't afford it? Don't get me wrong, I know lots of people who pirate windows. Typically, people who are building a custom computer themselves or people who don't want the other 10-15gigs of trial software that came pre-installed with Windows on their machine. I haven't heard of many people building their own custom laptops, though. Most laptops are bought with a windows license already included. What reason would people have for pirating windows if they already own windows? Unless they don't want the other 10gigs of crap that came pre-installed and don't have a plain disc to reinstall with, why would they be pirating Windows? Are you sure it's not just because it's easier than trying to find the long and hard way of accomplishing the same task with the least chance of breaking the law?
They are vaguely aware of a musician that they're ripping off, but their feeble minds do not permit them to hold onto that train of thought long enough to feel guilt.
Every musician I've ever met has wanted people to listen to, and enjoy, their music. They like the idea of their music reaching more people. But, then again, those are just musicians. Some of them talk about how their publisher is ripping them off. I could be wrong, but I tend to believe the people I know personally over what someone I don't know says.
Have you ever been to a public place or a pub where someone had a TV with cable/satellite TV? What about a local concert or open mic where bands played music that they didn't write themselves? Do you realize how many of those are more extreme infringements of these exact same copyrights? Then there are schools, who very rarely license every copyrighted melody that they teach children to perform during public events. What do you do when you're at a restaurant and you hear someone beginning to sing The Birthday Song. I can't imagine the kind of frustration you must put up with on a daily basis, seeing all of these blatant copyright infringements everywhere. If you get so upset about people privately listening to musi
In addition to that, your typical mail client will check for new messages every 10 minutes. Windows will automatically download updates. Many manufacturers pre-install software that also automatically downloads additional software updates. These things all generate traffic.
Regardless, the crime people are being charged with is unauthorized computer access. The amount of traffic they generate is irrelevant. The law is interpreted as meaning that it's illegal to access the network device, regardless of the AP being configured to broadcast that it's open and offering IP address leases to machines that it sees trying to connect.
How is your average user supposed to know that the internet access they are given automatically is illegal?
How do you distinguish between APs that are open but illegal to use from APs that are intentionally left open for the public to use?
http://www.techweb.com/wire/mobile/183702832 -- This one in Illinois http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/07/tech/main707361.shtml -- This one in Florida http://web.archive.org/web/20060701105145/http://www.katu.com/stories/87037.html -- This one in Washington http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070522-michigan-man-arrested-for-using-cafes-free-wifi-from-his-car.html -- And another story about the Michigan guy, for those who missed it As dumb as it sounds, to be arrested for using technology the way it was designed, it is happening. Just because computers running Windows automatically do it by default, does not mean you won't get arrested. It's ridiculous, but true. Welcome to the 21st century, where it's considered a felony(by cops and judges) to turn on a standard wifi enabled computer running Windows.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/23/michigan_wifi_conviction/ -- Here's a case where the precedent was set.
I understand your points about my setup being too complicated for the average user and increasing the overhead. I was suggesting that something developed to make it easier for the average user, and I got kind of sidetracked into talking about the usefulness of VMware. (I've been using VMware a lot lately for debugging and experimentation, and now I'm thinking about using it for my main OS. That way I can reboot to switch between linux/windows without having to close everything I'm working on. Or go back to a clean install or alternate configuration at the press of a button, without wasting extra drive space on multiple installs of the same OS.)
There I go again, getting sidetracked...
Anyway, back to my point. Virtualization has been getting pretty common in IT. More and more companies are using virtualization on their servers. New processors are coming out with hardware support for virtualization, allowing for more security and less software overhead. Sure, it's not as fast as running the code natively. But when has bloated software ever been a problem? Look at Windows, which is by far the most common desktop OS. And I'm still talking about OS virtualization, which has more than twice the overhead of running it natively. Although that doesn't stop IT departments from using it on their servers. Secure application virtualization would be faster, but I'm not aware of any software already written for this purpose.(haven't looked) I wouldn't be surprised if there is some out there, and I'd love to hear about it. The only application virtualization software I'm aware of are Thinstall and Softgrid (which Microsoft recently bought), and those are focused on making applications portable and allowing them to be streamed over a network.
Whitelisting seems like it'd either cause frustration for normal users, or lock out small developers. Either that, or still be bypassed. It would also cause normal users to fear anything that isn't whitelisted. It'd also increase the time it takes for patches to be applied, since they'd need to be whitelisted before people would trust them. Whitelisted apps could also be tied together with a script run by another whitelisted app, and still be used for malicious purposes. Or someone could just exploit a vulnerability in a white listed app to add additional entries to the white-list, disable it completely, or install a rootkit that hides it from the white-listing software. This also will have overhead. There are a lot of legitimate programs out there, and it'll have to find every dll or exe that you load in the whitelist.
With all of the support virtualization is getting, especially with virtualization support built into the CPU, the overhead is continuing to get smaller. Your arguments against it regarding the cost of an extra OS license, complexity, and creating more zombied machines, are all based on using a complete OS virtualization. I agree that is not the best solution, and the original poster would probably agree as well. Although, that's just 1 application of virtualization/sandboxing, and it has nothing to do with what the original poster was even talking about. The overhead also isn't as big of a deal as you make it out to be, since we're not running everything twice. We're just preventing the application from changing parts of the system that it shouldn't.
In that essay from Marcus Ranum, he's talking about manually whitelisting software and network traffic to only allow what is required for the system to do it's job and blocking/reporting anything different, which is way too complicated for the average user. This article has nothing to do with that. This article is about a whitelist of applications maintained by a third party that are supposedly safe, and only allowing those applications to run. netcat, windows scripting host, vnc, etc. are not needed by most users, but they will still run under this solution since they're white-listed for other people who do use them.
A thief isn't even going to notice an engraving unless it's in 30 point type on the laptop cover. And even then, he'd probably grab it anyway. People who make their living that way tend not to be complicated thinkers. There are professional thieves who discretely inspect the item and surroundings from before moving in. Not professional like you see in the movies, although I wouldn't be surprised if that's where they get some of their ideas. In a cafe, that'd be as simple as going in there and getting a cup of coffee, using a public terminal to check the news, etc...
I remember one time in college when our drain was backed up and the basement flooded, there was a plumber that stopped by to work on it. After he had left, my roommate noticed that her lockbox with all of her valuables was missing. Turns out, the landlords never sent a plumber. Fortunately, someone in their group was drunk and trying to sell some of the jewelry to someone who knew of our loss, so word got back around. They heard about our flooding problem from someone who knew one of my roommate's friends. Then they sent in someone who was very charismatic and appeared clean-cut, that none of us had ever seen before, to pretend to be a plumber and scope out the house. At some point he saw the safe in my roommate's bedroom through her open door, and slipped it into the bathroom with him. Then he slit the window screen, and slipped the lockbox out the window. We weren't sure if he had someone waiting out there, or he just grabbed it after he left. Although, they were mainly just scoping out the place. They were planning on sending this giant methed out black dude back in the middle of the night, at a later date, to get the rest of the stuff they wanted.
So while an engraving might not deter a thief who sees an quick opportunity and takes it without looking at what he's stealing, it could at least help to deter theft from the serious thief who'd rather steal the most valuable thing in sight. Also, if you use a lock with your laptop, that should significantly deter the opportunity thief.
We believe in basic freedoms and other fundamental rights as being inalienable rights
given by God, which no government has the right to impede. Among these are the right to life
(which liberals generally refuse to extend to the unborn); the right to self-government (which
liberals don't acknowledge, as they advocate judges who make they law say what *they* think it
*should* say, instead of what the people's representatives wrote and voted on); the right to
security of one's property (which liberals don't acknowledge, as they believe the government
should distribute property from those who have more to those who have less). Should I go on?
Fred gives a nice rundown in his announcement of candidacy: http://imwithfred.com/
This is where I get confused. I very strongly believe in those exact same rights, but I see
neoconservatism as a major threat to many of those rights. Many mainstream neoconservatives seem
to be extremely power hungry, deceitful, and controlling. They appear to support expanding the
federal government and restricting our rights. It feels like they are primarily concerned with
obtaining power and control for the group as a whole, while ignoring or attacking anyone who
tries to actually look at the facts and use logic/critical thought to figure anything out. It
seems to be a strong "you're with us, or you're against us" mentality, which is going to exclude
anyone who needs to understand where their beliefs come from or why they believe in something. I
really fear the day that we have a federal government focused on revoking my inalienable rights
at their discretion, controlling every aspect of society throughout our entire nation, forcing
their beliefs (which they can't even justify with reason, but instead they stretch their
interpretation of a verse or two in the bible into loosely supporting their belief).
Another thing I don't understand about neoconservatives is their extremely liberal use of the
label "liberal", which they apply to anything that they disagree with to discredit it. I really
don't understand what they think that word means. If I'm wrong, please correct me, but I've
always believed that the word liberal basically meant free. I thought it was used to describe
things that were free from control, manipulation, restriction, etc. I often hear the phrase
"liberal media" being used negatively. But doesnt' that name imply that whatever publication is
being described as liberal is simply free for anybody to have their say without being forced to
restrict information? What's so wrong with the idea of being able to hear a variety of different
ideas and using critical thinking and rational thought in order to really understand both sides
of the situation so that you know why you are for/against an idea and can then defend your
beliefs?
Neoconservatism seems like it'd be of great interest to sociopaths, who typically strive for
power and control over others. With Neoconservatism, if they are able to obtain a position of
power, they will be able to take advantage of the trust others have in their authority to
influence people with their anti-social ideas. This can be done subtly just in their choice of
words when explaining something, or their choice of issues which are then shared with others. If
a sociopath were ever able to obtain a position of authority within a neoconservative group, it
seems like they could reach a much larger audience with far less chance of being questioned or
exposed. When preaching, they could explain a passage in a way which adds to or negates from
it's original meaning. How does neoconservatism protect itself from being infiltrated by a
sociopath? What kinds of checks or balances are in place to prevent him from abusing the
authority that was entrusted to his lies? A sociopath would not stutter, pause, think twice,
or fee
Speaking of WoW, why should I have to pay every month to play a game that I paid for. Guild Wars is free once you buy the game. And Eve-Online is free for the game, but you pay every month. WoW skrews(sic) you instead.
Comparing Guild Wars to WoW is about as extreme as comparing Diablo 2 to EverQuest, which I've seen several people try to do. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume they just aren't familiar with MMORPGs.
Basically, what it boils down to is that in the software industry, the majority of the costs go into developing and maintaining the software. The costs of manufacturing each individual disc is next to nothing. The costs are in creating the data that is pressed onto the disc. Before you can even think about selling a copy of something, you have to have something to sell. You have to pay people to design, develop, and test the software. You have to pay people to create artwork, music, sound effects, 3d models, etc. They all have to work together to create something, and if they are successful you will end up with the software that you can hopefully sell to at least make up for all of the money that was put into creating the software and continue to pay people to update the software when people who want to use it have trouble doing so. Anything made on top of this is profit, which is why someone would invest all of that money into development in the first place instead of just keeping it somewhere safe.
Now, when it comes to MMORPGs, you still have all of those software development costs. In addition, you also have to develop server software, hire people who can analyze the economics and game model to try to ensure that the gameplay and virtual economy inside of the MMORPG won't collapse or fall short, causing players to become disinterested, and the whole project to essentially be a waste of a lot of money and time. You also will likely need more designers, since this game will have to encompass the needs and desires of a lot of different players, without sacrificing too many of the needs or desires of other players.
The biggest difference is that in normal software development, when the software is released, you no longer need all of those designers, developers, etc. You may need one or two, so that they can provide updates to fix things that come up. For an MMORPG, there are still a lot of extra costs. In addition to developing and selling software, they also have to provide a service for that software to be used with. They have to pay people to keep that service maintained, and to continue designing and developing new elements in the game to give the subscribers to the service more stuff to do. So not only are the initial costs much higher, but the long term costs are also much higher.
Now, there are a lot of ideas that people are experimenting with to try and cut down the costs as well as the price. But investors typically want a model that is proven not to lose all of their money. They don't want to gamble, they want to invest. So, traditionally it's been independent developers who experiment with these new ideas. The easiest way to convince people to invest a lot of money into a new idea is by backing up your claims with proof, such as the independent developers who have already tried similar ideas and succeeded.
If you don't feel that the product is worth it's price, do NOT buy it. It's as simple as that. Play something else, use the competitor's product, etc. No matter how many people bitch and moan about their product, if they see high sales records they aren't going to listen to the people who are complaining. They are going to think, "many people are buying our product so we must know what we're doing". On the other hand, if the sales records are low, then they might be interested in listening to complaints and changing the product to satisfy them. Until then, they'll be afraid that changing the product to make the few people who are bitching happy could in turn make the people who are already buying the product unhappy.
I am proud to call myself a neoconservative. The above description is so dissimilar to anything that any of us favor, as to be laughable.
What do you favor then? I'd really like to know. As of right now, my opinion on neo-conservatives is based on their perceived actions. I don't want to believe that they're intentionally doing what they appear to be doing. I like to be optimistic, and I'd really like to discover that neo-conservatives really aren't the religious fundamentalists that they appear to be.
That is abject nonsense. George Bush was twice duly elected. He is the representative of the people in the Executive Branch. He is the decider on executive issues, by the consent of the people.
While yes, Bush is the president, the elections were full of problems. There were independents in various counties who got zero votes or very few votes, even though they had a significantly larger following that claims to have voted for them. Yeah, there may be conspiracy theorists who believe all of their supporters, friends, relatives, as well as themselves, voted for someone else and lied afterwards by claiming they voted for the person they were actively supporting all along. Personally, I try not to put too much faith in a conspiracy theory that requires the participation of many individuals who never made a mistake that can be used to prove that they're lying.
At the very least, it appears that even if the voting machines were never rigged by anyone, there were flaws in them that prevented votes from being counted. I could be wrong, but I thought I heard a Judge talking about how a large number of votes were never tallied at all and just left to the side. Then there's the question as to why the voting records from most counties in Ohio (the state that ultimately decided the last election) were destroyed in violation of a federal court order to preserve them for later analysis.
I'm not sure if the majority of the population actually voted for Bush. Assuming nobody would ever try to manipulate a voting machine or vote counts, it appears as if Bush just had enough votes in the right places to get electoral votes. I understand the reason for the electoral college, and how it prevents areas with large populations from having too much of an impact compared to areas with small populations.
I'm just trying to point out how that statement could hurt the credibility of your argument. I didn't mean to go off on a long winded rant. I'm just a young programmer, I don't know much about politics throughout history. For all I know, there could have been this same kind of controversy over election manipulation when Clinton was elected. To get back on topic, I'd really appreciate it if you could enlighten me on the intentions and goals of neo-conservatives. It seems like people look at FOX News, and assume that's how neo-conservatives behave.