But does anyone really think that getting users to download and run random binaries off the internet is a good thing? How are people supposed to be able to differentiate the "good" foo.torrent.exe offering (say) porn from the "bad" dialer.exe which also offers porn?
And why did the project think that having users install new software from a different web-site every time they feel like watching a video was a better solution than creating a clear and fool-proof BT client which only needs to be downloaded once, and that can be from a trustworthy source?
"I'd call it cybersquatting if he were trying to sell it back to Van Hollings for a profit"
This is neither necessary nor sufficient for something to be considered cybersquatting. Also, remember that somethingorother-sucks.com is considered squatting at the moment.
This would heavily impact news gathering and probably the income of commercial satellite operators - who would only be able to sell to the U.S. Govt.
Of course, the linked article says nothing of the sort. It does say that
maps, reports, and any other unclassified government analyses or communications that are in some way 'derived from' a commercial satellite image would all of a sudden become inaccessible [under the FoIA]... they would vanish from public view
but doesn't explain how people/organisations are prevented from obtaining such images outside of the FoIA - like, say, purchasing them from the independent sattelite operators.
In short, the end result seems to be that news organisations have to pay market prices for their information, and private satellite operators make a few more sales...
I like The Register, I really do. And Thomas Greene's a smart chap. But this article doesn't look right to me at all.
I'll spare you all the effort of reading it with a simple summary: XP has a zillion security-related settings, and Microsoft has been terribly irresponsible by not making the default setting the most secure one in every case.
For example, highlighted issues include:
- many services are "manual" rather than "disabled" (the sky is hardly falling so long as the services aren't running)
- the DHCP and DNS-client services are enabled by default (in particular, the former is actually used by many people)
- the QoS Packet Scheduler is installed by default (...and...?)
- the Windows firewall doesn't do egress filtering (which is an anti-trust case waiting to happen if it did, and a totally inappropriate feature for the overwhelming majority of end-users in any case)
- IE enables meta-refresh and javascript by default
There are some great points in the article (does IE really need 7 settings to control ActiveX?), but they're lost in the hysteria of trying to build a mountain out of molehills.
Thank you for being the first person to make this point. If only I had mod points right now...
"important to have a look at all of the options"
on
Handtop Roundup
·
· Score: 1
Apparently (according to the blurb), it's "important to have a look at all of the options" -- really? why? Unless, of course, you only mean important to OQO's bottom line?
You solved the problem of people doing multiple registrations for a *free* trial by introducing a system where I have to get a notarized copy of my passport and then *pay you to process it*? I am wildly unconvinced the author of the original article has any idea what problem he's trying to solve...
In short: show me a problem, show me a solution, and do us all a favour by having the two match up.
A possible solution I've been toying with...
1. Servers provide a meta-tag for certain pages which search engines interpret as reducing/eliminating that specific page's search weight.
2. Scripts which allow user-created content (wikis?, guestbooks, weblog comment forms, forums, and so on) can be updated by the content-provider to include this meta-tag.
3. To encourage spammers to check this tag and move on elsewhere if it's implemented, these same scripts should enforce a longish (5 second?) delay for all user-initiated content changes.
[and seeing this is slashdot]
4. ???
5. Profit!
The trouble with a live server CD is that sooner or later one of those services is going to have a remote exploit (and if you're shipping with everything enabled, the chance of this is significantly increased.)
And once an exploit is available, you're only a hop, skip, and a jump away from anyone who tests the CD having the contents of their hard drive trashed (or worse.)
"there is no such thing as private property (it's the definition of Communism, get over it flamers)"
no. if that were true, then any society without private property would be communist. now consider WW2 prison camps. lack of private property is most definitely not sufficient, and arguably not even necessary for a communist society.
"what about dialects? [...] Over here we have not just CJK, but also Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Burmese, 2 flavours of Malay..."
I'm sure the Thais and Vietnamese would be fascinated to discover that they speak a dialect (of which language I'm not sure), and the Cambodians would be astounded to learn that they aren't speaking Khmer.
for non-pro/home broadcasting to take off
on
Icecast 2.0 Released
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
for non-pro/home broadcasting to take off, there needs to be an underlying p2p network layer. This is particularly true as live video-streaming becomes more popular.
http://www.peercast.org/ exists, but sadly doesn't seem to have been updated for 9 months, and activity in their forum is fairly low.
So it was the *Jews* who attacked Pearl Harbor? Thanks for clearing that up for the rest of us.
Aside: you should probably also consider that if the US hadn't got involved in the European theatre of WW2, then the Soviets would have ended up in a massively more powerful position there, and had a reasonable chance of actually winning the cold war.
(It would also be very handy to lump smokers into this category.)
In the UK, for years smokers have paid more in tobacco-related taxes than it costs the health-service to look after them.
Slashdot Mirror
But does anyone really think that getting users to download and run random binaries off the internet is a good thing? How are people supposed to be able to differentiate the "good" foo.torrent.exe offering (say) porn from the "bad" dialer.exe which also offers porn?
And why did the project think that having users install new software from a different web-site every time they feel like watching a video was a better solution than creating a clear and fool-proof BT client which only needs to be downloaded once, and that can be from a trustworthy source?
Actually, I'll expand on that...
Having the status-bar and the link-target disagree is a non-event (and has been ever since 99% of people enabled javascript in their browser.)
A major event would be where the address bar and dislayed-url differ. That is not the case here.
There is no big deal - someone just thought they'd like to see their name in lights by posting a nonsense bug to a popular mailing-list.
"I'd call it cybersquatting if he were trying to sell it back to Van Hollings for a profit"
This is neither necessary nor sufficient for something to be considered cybersquatting. Also, remember that somethingorother-sucks.com is considered squatting at the moment.
It's clearly cybersquatting, but the real question is whether cybersquatting can/should be protected as freedom of speech.
In short, the end result seems to be that news organisations have to pay market prices for their information, and private satellite operators make a few more sales...
I like The Register, I really do. And Thomas Greene's a smart chap. But this article doesn't look right to me at all.
I'll spare you all the effort of reading it with a simple summary: XP has a zillion security-related settings, and Microsoft has been terribly irresponsible by not making the default setting the most secure one in every case.
For example, highlighted issues include:
- many services are "manual" rather than "disabled" (the sky is hardly falling so long as the services aren't running)
- the DHCP and DNS-client services are enabled by default (in particular, the former is actually used by many people)
- the QoS Packet Scheduler is installed by default (...and...?)
- the Windows firewall doesn't do egress filtering (which is an anti-trust case waiting to happen if it did, and a totally inappropriate feature for the overwhelming majority of end-users in any case)
- IE enables meta-refresh and javascript by default
There are some great points in the article (does IE really need 7 settings to control ActiveX?), but they're lost in the hysteria of trying to build a mountain out of molehills.
Thank you for being the first person to make this point. If only I had mod points right now...
Apparently (according to the blurb), it's "important to have a look at all of the options" -- really? why? Unless, of course, you only mean important to OQO's bottom line?
surely 'brillig' should be set to true?
You solved the problem of people doing multiple registrations for a *free* trial by introducing a system where I have to get a notarized copy of my passport and then *pay you to process it*? I am wildly unconvinced the author of the original article has any idea what problem he's trying to solve... In short: show me a problem, show me a solution, and do us all a favour by having the two match up.
A possible solution I've been toying with... 1. Servers provide a meta-tag for certain pages which search engines interpret as reducing/eliminating that specific page's search weight. 2. Scripts which allow user-created content (wikis?, guestbooks, weblog comment forms, forums, and so on) can be updated by the content-provider to include this meta-tag. 3. To encourage spammers to check this tag and move on elsewhere if it's implemented, these same scripts should enforce a longish (5 second?) delay for all user-initiated content changes. [and seeing this is slashdot] 4. ??? 5. Profit!
The trouble with a live server CD is that sooner or later one of those services is going to have a remote exploit (and if you're shipping with everything enabled, the chance of this is significantly increased.) And once an exploit is available, you're only a hop, skip, and a jump away from anyone who tests the CD having the contents of their hard drive trashed (or worse.)
"there is no such thing as private property (it's the definition of Communism, get over it flamers)"
no. if that were true, then any society without private property would be communist. now consider WW2 prison camps. lack of private property is most definitely not sufficient, and arguably not even necessary for a communist society.
"what about dialects? [...] Over here we have not just CJK, but also Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Burmese, 2 flavours of Malay..." I'm sure the Thais and Vietnamese would be fascinated to discover that they speak a dialect (of which language I'm not sure), and the Cambodians would be astounded to learn that they aren't speaking Khmer.
for non-pro/home broadcasting to take off, there needs to be an underlying p2p network layer. This is particularly true as live video-streaming becomes more popular. http://www.peercast.org/ exists, but sadly doesn't seem to have been updated for 9 months, and activity in their forum is fairly low.
So it was the *Jews* who attacked Pearl Harbor? Thanks for clearing that up for the rest of us. Aside: you should probably also consider that if the US hadn't got involved in the European theatre of WW2, then the Soviets would have ended up in a massively more powerful position there, and had a reasonable chance of actually winning the cold war.
(It would also be very handy to lump smokers into this category.) In the UK, for years smokers have paid more in tobacco-related taxes than it costs the health-service to look after them.