I guess it won't be long till we see text message spam offering Norton/McAfee/etc... Anti-Virus software for phones.
As you've said, the worm could be the first part of a more elaborate plan. As the anti-spam and anti-virus companies get more sophisticated, the spammers and virus writers keep ahead.
Definitely a rare event failing so close to the first disk. I've been in IT now for about 10 years and I can only recall 4 disk failing on me in all the systems I've ever worked with (NOTE: I've changed jobs several times so I haven' exactly looked at the same hardware over a 10 year period, but some of the hardware at any of the companies was 5+ years old).
IMO, NS6 did more harm than good for Netscape. Fortunately NS7.1 is pretty stable, but the damage may be too extreme. The combination of NS6, the NS4.X releases (when compared against IE 4 and newer), and the fact that IE comes standard with the OS probably doomed alternate browsers for the MS Win32 platform.
Alternate browsers have a difficult battle ahead. IMO the browser developers really need to push major websites to take advantage of features that IE may not impliment currently and are part of official specifications. These sites could then provide a link to get the alternate browser. Unfortunately though, most major sites will likely not do this as their customer base primarily uses IE.
The Internet "buzz" outside of slashdot and mozillazine hasn't been very positive.
Likely the non-technical (MS user masses) are not reading the other technical publications as well. Probably the only close to technical article you might see the average MS user reading is glancing an article off the front page of CNN, WashingtonPost, NY Times, etc.... Maybe a blurb about browser alternatives near the top of the latest MS IE flaw article would give users a clue about alternatives, but the masses will still stick with what was provided by the OS.
Thanks for the better RAID definition link. The SA at the one I provided may be wondering why they see an increase in traffic (if anyone else actually followed the link too).
Shamelessly presenting a link to define the RAID levels.
Seriously though, the proper RAID level all depends on how much money your willing to spend for the speed and/or performance you require. Consideration for the types of operations (mixed read/write, read-only, or write-only) and reliability (can you afford to lose the filesystem or do you need fault protection) along with your budget usually determine the RAID level for a given system. Also throw in that you can use hardware and software RAID and the choice becomes even more difficult.
Personally, I tend to mirror the OS and application filesystems and use RAID5 for data, but these are systems we deploy and need a high degree of reliability and performance (pretty even mix of read/write data transactions).
Raid 5 is a combination of the 2 in some ways, but it requires 3 hard disks.
This is the minimum configuration, but RAID5 really just requires a disk to maintain parity. You lose capacity for the sake of reliability (example: 5 disk setup could use 4 for data while the other disk maintains parity). Optionally you could add "spare" pool disk(s) to provide failover to automatically take the place of the failed disk until it is replaced (to ensure availability - wouldn't want a two disk failure, rare but possible).
I'm really surprised about that too. Given that you must use Internet Explorer (if using the MS website update application), I'm surprised that one of the recent exploits didn't hijack the browser to get the wrong update site. Like you said, it's a tempting target.
A former co-worker of mine actually worked for a company that developed technology to triangulate gun fire location. He worked for Bradshaw Consulting Services and a write up on the technology is included in this link. Combining the technologies could help alert the camera monitors to watch a particular area to video capture people in a potential crime area.
Part of the problem is that automatic installation of patches isn't the best solution for every system, especially on critical systems. In general, the automated patching will work for most people. As a UNIX administrator though, I like to read the patch details before applying on any system I manage (including my MS Win32 boxes).
The one point about discovery that I don't recall seeing is that where would our software be today if people didn't take the time to discover vulnerabilities? If you figure only "Black Hat" people discover these, they would likely be better at exploiting than those trying to protect the systems without understanding how to discover an exploit. In general though, I believe you need a good balance of internal discovery along with a process to rapidly develop/deploy patches.
In true/. fashion, I'll complain a bit about the MS update process a bit here (at least the web update). Does anyone else find it especially annoying that MS doesn't cummulate their patches a bit more? If you build a system from CD, you spend a good deal of time updating patches only to find that after you install the patches, you need to install another set on top of those. I realize that different sites may want to patch to a particular level, but the default really should be to obsolete patches as they themself are patched.
True that they are starting at the Inner Harbor, but as the article states, "a $2 million federal grant accepted by the city yesterday will expand the cameras into downtown's west side by early November". The Inner Harbor is more a tourist trap, but they have to start the project somewhere.
In some ways, I wonder if this will actually improve city life by removing some of the criminal activities (drugs and the numerous shootings in Baltimore). I'm not sure if the tradeoff is worth it, but if it improves the area for those who can't afford to move out or those who work there, I'd bet they'll appreciate it.
Baltimore's harbor is a major port for goods coming into the country so it does make a logical location to monitor. Using video cameras will likely have little effect on a direct attack of terrorist other than to capture the event for later review. If you go off the idea that activities like drug deals (as some of the anti-drug commercials suggest) support terrorist though, this might be useful. Baltimore (like most cities) has it's share of drug trafficing so maybe this could be reduced.
Not advocating the use of the cameras, but we (the people) expect government to become more efficient in doing their jobs (including police) and then complain when they find a possible way to do it. Take the red light or speed cameras (already in use in Maryland and DC). These free up police from monitoring roads so they can work where they are really needed.
I doubt that many of us would like to live in the "Big Brother" society, but it looks like it is going to eventually get to that point.
The ISP should really have a policy established for handling copyright infringement claims so that everyone understands the process. I use Comcast as my provider and they provide the following:
The Comcast IP Network Abuse Department is responsible for supporting and enforcing the policies set forth in the Comcast Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") and Comcast High-Speed Internet ("HSI") Service Customer Agreement ("Customer Agreement"). The policies set forth in the AUP and Customer Agreement have been put in place to protect the Comcast Network and Comcast High-Speed Internet service customers from the adverse impact that can result from intentional violations of the AUP and/or Customer Agreement. If you believe you have been the victim of activities which are in violation of the Comcast AUP or the Customer Agreement, the Comcast Network Abuse Department will take appropriate action to investigate and attempt to resolve the alleged violation.
If you feel that you have been a victim of Internet abuse which took place in part or completely on the Comcast Network, please report the incident to abuse@comcast.net. Make sure to include the date and time of the incident, log files, spam examples or any other information that may be useful to the investigation and verification of the incident as well as your name and phone number or e-mail address so we may contact you directly.
Even though the exact nature of the investigation isn't specified, they at least indicate that they will investigate. Unfortunately, not all ISP's will have a policy so users may wish to choose a provider that has a clear policy to avoid disruption. I imagine though that major web sites will get a better investigation than I would running a little "this is what I did on my summer vacation" site.
In a way, I have to disagree with what the ISP's did in removing/blocking the content. I realize that the ISP's own the network as you've pointed out, but what would stop someone from makng claims about numerous sites over copyrighted material and having those sites shut down. The author doesn't do a very good job explaining the exact setup of the site or the details of the actions by the ISP, so I can't say with certainty that they acted improperly. If the ISP's just pulled the connection based on a bogus claim, imagine the havoc someone could play on web sites.
Picture the ISP for a local politicians website getting a notice that www.somepolitician.org was displaying copyrighted work. Picture that claim coming from www.running-against.org. Without some level of validation, claims could affect legitimate sites.
One would hope that ISP's would require some level of proof indicating the copyright infringement followed by a contacting the website operator to inquire if they can show rights to the use the content. I don't know if this would put too much burden on the ISP though. Maybe not the ideal solution, but seems better than just pulling the connection.
Are you indicating then that Internet Explorer is a plug-in then to Windows explorer?
Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer appear to share the same code base (COM objects). Removing one will break the other. Some objects may be specific to web browsing vs. file browsing, but using a web browser to navigate the file system in any browser appears relatively similar to a file browser's version. The apps may not be identical, but I'd imagine that the bulk of the code base is (not duplicated, but rather shared).
And how exactly does one do that on the newer MS Win32 versions? The add/remove MS Windows Components only removes the reference to the files as Internet Explorer. The software will remain on the hard disk as the code base is extensively shared by multiple applications. If you start with Windows Explorer and key in a URL in the address bar, you'll be on the net without switching the applications.
The most effective method of uninstalling Internet Explorer is to uninstall the OS (unless you installed Internet Explorer on another OS - like Internet Explorer for Solaris - but most system administrators would never do this).
Either OS isn't that difficult to learn. The task involved are generally very similar but the implimentations are different. Linux/UNIX tends to be more command line based (although most newer versions tend to provide adequate GUIs as well) while MS almost exclusively provides GUIs.
I was fortunate to start my career on DEC Ultrix so UNIX tends to be my preference, but I can just as easily work in the MS world (I currently manage and develop on IRIX (OK, well not too much on IRIX as many vendors have stopped supporting it), Solaris, and MS Windows).
I guess stating that either one is difficult to administer really depends on one's preference over actual difficulty though. My main complaint with MS Windows administration is that I often have to reboot for updates and that I often have to physically sit at the machine (because I haven't taken the effort to work with the various methods to "push" apps/updates to a desktop). Learning either OS really comes down to desire or necessity. If you have either, you'll find a way to learn them.
While the funding source is likely MS, it can't be confirmed. This article does state "A Microsoft spokesman confirmed that Microsoft provides funding to the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution." so likely the institute at a minimum wants to keep its funding source happy (one doesn't bite the hand that feeds).
The article does interestingly point out the institutes stance on funding as:
"Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment on whether the company directly sponsored the debate paper. De Tocqueville Institute president Ken Brown and chairman Gregory Fossedal refused to comment on whether Microsoft sponsored the report.
"It is not our policy to comment on supporters; I'm sure you can understand. From this you should not infer that information you have is correct or not correct; we just don't comment," Fossedal wrote in an e-mail. "
Basically they use the "neither confirm or deny" tactic, but likely MS does influence their efforts.
Looks like the moderators were unkind to you. Your post is relative and not a troll. The original poster states that he upgraded hundreds of PC's to XP. While the upgrade could have taken roughly that amount of time, the real issue is all the additional planning involved as well as the post upgrade support. Unless this guy is working with a single hardware configuration, the research for pushing the upgrade out must be done to make sure the systems can support the upgrade (minimum CPU, memory, etc... for the supported OS). You also should take into account that users could have personal data and/or applications on their PC (maybe the managers have a management application the other systems don't, the engineers have CAD, etc...). Applications must be tested on the new OS (you'd be in trouble if you upgraded only to find out that a critical application is incompatible). Data must be preserved (even if it's just bookmarks for their browser). The main point is that while the actual upgrade of the OS isn't difficult, the preparation and training are. Users tend to get a little upset when their PC changes. They become a bit possessive once they customize it.
What happens if, in some freak accident, your biometric identifier finger is severed and misplaced
A new market for replication of biometrics will emerge.
Seriously though, tracking this amount of information per media source is going to be unrealistic. They'll have to account for the fact that my wife or kids could play media. I'm certainly not giving my kids personal information to a company. What happens if I leave a CD in my car with one of these players? Can my wife play the media if it's registered to me? The media hasn't been copied by me so it will only be used by one person.
Hopefully this security technique doesn't catch on.
he says it leads to a company like redhat that has open software but closed standards
open software - developers can get access to the source code
open standards - software conforms to open standards - standard API's, data formats, etc...
Following open standards, in my opinion, is more important than open software, but ideally you have both. Without software following an open standard, integration becomes much more challenging - proprietary API's.
Opteron can have some impact on Sun as it changes Sun's image a bit. Wether this is a positive or negative change depends on your point of view. Personally, I see that Sun is looking to provide more economical hardware for the small to medium sized organizations while providing a clear road map should they need to scale up. On the other hand, people who already have a negative opinion of Sun will see the Opteron agreement as Sun giving up on their own chip. The chips can have a perceived affect on Sun which in turn makes it real. Hopefully the affect is a positive one.
In my opinion, Sun's real problem is acceptability in the home desktop market. Microsoft has dominated the home market to the point that people have been raised on MS products and expect to see the same thing in their work environment, at least at the desktop level. In the server room, ideally IT managers would deploy the best solution for a given problem rather than showing their bias toward an OS. Unfortunately for many smaller to medium sized organizations the MS solution is the only possible solution as the view of non-MS solutions is that training and maintenance cost are too expensive.
Dell is their main competitor in this arena
I couldn't agree with you more on this. Sun's current hardware lineup is very competitive on price and, in my opinion, easily out scales the Dell/MS Win32 Server solutions.
I hadn't really thought of spam as a MLM scheme but I guess it could work that way.
My guess on the legitimate products is that most legitimate companies are probably looking to not drive their customers away. Imagine if a company like Time Life (seller of various collectables, compilations, books, etc...) switched from the TV adds to spam. Would anyone continue to purchase from them? They already use (in my opinion) fairly annoying commercials so why not use spam? I can't imagine a company that uses traditional marketing would really resort to spam given it's negative image. Spam likely supports less than legitimate companies and companies that don't have a reputation to maintain. Legitimate companies also tend to provide valid "remove" instructions so the true spam should be seen as non-legitimate.
True that some SPAM has no obvious targeted marketing, but maybe it is the type that has a "web beacon" (verifying address list) or maybe they are just trying complicate the anti-spam software out there.
Maybe the badly formed spam is from a new person in the spam business?
I think if I were the first spammer to be sentenced that I would be looking to get a book deal, but of course the advertisement for the book would be done through spam methods.
My wife is not as addicted to games as I am, but she does enjoy playing "The Sims" with the various expansion packs. Fortunately for me though, my wife would rather have me playing the video games over going out to drink or spending a lot of time fishing (which oddly enough she decided to take up this year too). I still need to moderate (which she and I have different opinions on) how much game time vs wife time. When she sends the kids over to the PC to bug me, I know that I've reached my game time limit.
Re:Too easy to send
on
NYT on Spam Cops
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Even though TV advertising could be seen as annoying most people, it would still need to be profitable, otherwise companies wouldn't do it. Generally companies don't like to "throw" money away.
People generating SPAM must be making enough money to offset the time/resources involved, otherwise what is their incentive for sending SPAM? I can't imagine that spammers are the charitable type.
By the fact that people still go to the theater and are willing to pay, I doubt that many of them will care about the hidden security until someone starts abusing the system. When we start to see "night vision girls gone wild" catching couple's messing around at the theater, people may start resisting. The average movie viewer though likely won't care about the night vision goggles or security cameras.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess it won't be long till we see text message spam offering Norton/McAfee/etc... Anti-Virus software for phones.
As you've said, the worm could be the first part of a more elaborate plan. As the anti-spam and anti-virus companies get more sophisticated, the spammers and virus writers keep ahead.
Definitely a rare event failing so close to the first disk. I've been in IT now for about 10 years and I can only recall 4 disk failing on me in all the systems I've ever worked with (NOTE: I've changed jobs several times so I haven' exactly looked at the same hardware over a 10 year period, but some of the hardware at any of the companies was 5+ years old).
IMO, NS6 did more harm than good for Netscape. Fortunately NS7.1 is pretty stable, but the damage may be too extreme. The combination of NS6, the NS4.X releases (when compared against IE 4 and newer), and the fact that IE comes standard with the OS probably doomed alternate browsers for the MS Win32 platform.
Alternate browsers have a difficult battle ahead. IMO the browser developers really need to push major websites to take advantage of features that IE may not impliment currently and are part of official specifications. These sites could then provide a link to get the alternate browser. Unfortunately though, most major sites will likely not do this as their customer base primarily uses IE.
The Internet "buzz" outside of slashdot and mozillazine hasn't been very positive.
Likely the non-technical (MS user masses) are not reading the other technical publications as well. Probably the only close to technical article you might see the average MS user reading is glancing an article off the front page of CNN, WashingtonPost, NY Times, etc.... Maybe a blurb about browser alternatives near the top of the latest MS IE flaw article would give users a clue about alternatives, but the masses will still stick with what was provided by the OS.
Thanks for the better RAID definition link. The SA at the one I provided may be wondering why they see an increase in traffic (if anyone else actually followed the link too).
Shamelessly presenting a link to define the RAID levels.
Seriously though, the proper RAID level all depends on how much money your willing to spend for the speed and/or performance you require. Consideration for the types of operations (mixed read/write, read-only, or write-only) and reliability (can you afford to lose the filesystem or do you need fault protection) along with your budget usually determine the RAID level for a given system. Also throw in that you can use hardware and software RAID and the choice becomes even more difficult.
Personally, I tend to mirror the OS and application filesystems and use RAID5 for data, but these are systems we deploy and need a high degree of reliability and performance (pretty even mix of read/write data transactions).
Raid 5 is a combination of the 2 in some ways, but it requires 3 hard disks.
This is the minimum configuration, but RAID5 really just requires a disk to maintain parity. You lose capacity for the sake of reliability (example: 5 disk setup could use 4 for data while the other disk maintains parity). Optionally you could add "spare" pool disk(s) to provide failover to automatically take the place of the failed disk until it is replaced (to ensure availability - wouldn't want a two disk failure, rare but possible).
I'm really surprised about that too. Given that you must use Internet Explorer (if using the MS website update application), I'm surprised that one of the recent exploits didn't hijack the browser to get the wrong update site. Like you said, it's a tempting target.
A former co-worker of mine actually worked for a company that developed technology to triangulate gun fire location. He worked for Bradshaw Consulting Services and a write up on the technology is included in this link. Combining the technologies could help alert the camera monitors to watch a particular area to video capture people in a potential crime area.
Part of the problem is that automatic installation of patches isn't the best solution for every system, especially on critical systems. In general, the automated patching will work for most people. As a UNIX administrator though, I like to read the patch details before applying on any system I manage (including my MS Win32 boxes).
/. fashion, I'll complain a bit about the MS update process a bit here (at least the web update). Does anyone else find it especially annoying that MS doesn't cummulate their patches a bit more? If you build a system from CD, you spend a good deal of time updating patches only to find that after you install the patches, you need to install another set on top of those. I realize that different sites may want to patch to a particular level, but the default really should be to obsolete patches as they themself are patched.
The one point about discovery that I don't recall seeing is that where would our software be today if people didn't take the time to discover vulnerabilities? If you figure only "Black Hat" people discover these, they would likely be better at exploiting than those trying to protect the systems without understanding how to discover an exploit. In general though, I believe you need a good balance of internal discovery along with a process to rapidly develop/deploy patches.
In true
True that they are starting at the Inner Harbor, but as the article states, "a $2 million federal grant accepted by the city yesterday will expand the cameras into downtown's west side by early November". The Inner Harbor is more a tourist trap, but they have to start the project somewhere.
In some ways, I wonder if this will actually improve city life by removing some of the criminal activities (drugs and the numerous shootings in Baltimore). I'm not sure if the tradeoff is worth it, but if it improves the area for those who can't afford to move out or those who work there, I'd bet they'll appreciate it.
Baltimore's harbor is a major port for goods coming into the country so it does make a logical location to monitor. Using video cameras will likely have little effect on a direct attack of terrorist other than to capture the event for later review. If you go off the idea that activities like drug deals (as some of the anti-drug commercials suggest) support terrorist though, this might be useful. Baltimore (like most cities) has it's share of drug trafficing so maybe this could be reduced.
Not advocating the use of the cameras, but we (the people) expect government to become more efficient in doing their jobs (including police) and then complain when they find a possible way to do it. Take the red light or speed cameras (already in use in Maryland and DC). These free up police from monitoring roads so they can work where they are really needed.
I doubt that many of us would like to live in the "Big Brother" society, but it looks like it is going to eventually get to that point.
If you feel that you have been a victim of Internet abuse which took place in part or completely on the Comcast Network, please report the incident to abuse@comcast.net. Make sure to include the date and time of the incident, log files, spam examples or any other information that may be useful to the investigation and verification of the incident as well as your name and phone number or e-mail address so we may contact you directly.
Even though the exact nature of the investigation isn't specified, they at least indicate that they will investigate. Unfortunately, not all ISP's will have a policy so users may wish to choose a provider that has a clear policy to avoid disruption. I imagine though that major web sites will get a better investigation than I would running a little "this is what I did on my summer vacation" site.
In a way, I have to disagree with what the ISP's did in removing/blocking the content. I realize that the ISP's own the network as you've pointed out, but what would stop someone from makng claims about numerous sites over copyrighted material and having those sites shut down. The author doesn't do a very good job explaining the exact setup of the site or the details of the actions by the ISP, so I can't say with certainty that they acted improperly. If the ISP's just pulled the connection based on a bogus claim, imagine the havoc someone could play on web sites.
Picture the ISP for a local politicians website getting a notice that www.somepolitician.org was displaying copyrighted work. Picture that claim coming from www.running-against.org. Without some level of validation, claims could affect legitimate sites.
One would hope that ISP's would require some level of proof indicating the copyright infringement followed by a contacting the website operator to inquire if they can show rights to the use the content. I don't know if this would put too much burden on the ISP though. Maybe not the ideal solution, but seems better than just pulling the connection.
Are you indicating then that Internet Explorer is a plug-in then to Windows explorer?
Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer appear to share the same code base (COM objects). Removing one will break the other. Some objects may be specific to web browsing vs. file browsing, but using a web browser to navigate the file system in any browser appears relatively similar to a file browser's version. The apps may not be identical, but I'd imagine that the bulk of the code base is (not duplicated, but rather shared).
And how exactly does one do that on the newer MS Win32 versions? The add/remove MS Windows Components only removes the reference to the files as Internet Explorer. The software will remain on the hard disk as the code base is extensively shared by multiple applications. If you start with Windows Explorer and key in a URL in the address bar, you'll be on the net without switching the applications.
The most effective method of uninstalling Internet Explorer is to uninstall the OS (unless you installed Internet Explorer on another OS - like Internet Explorer for Solaris - but most system administrators would never do this).
Either OS isn't that difficult to learn. The task involved are generally very similar but the implimentations are different. Linux/UNIX tends to be more command line based (although most newer versions tend to provide adequate GUIs as well) while MS almost exclusively provides GUIs.
I was fortunate to start my career on DEC Ultrix so UNIX tends to be my preference, but I can just as easily work in the MS world (I currently manage and develop on IRIX (OK, well not too much on IRIX as many vendors have stopped supporting it), Solaris, and MS Windows).
I guess stating that either one is difficult to administer really depends on one's preference over actual difficulty though. My main complaint with MS Windows administration is that I often have to reboot for updates and that I often have to physically sit at the machine (because I haven't taken the effort to work with the various methods to "push" apps/updates to a desktop). Learning either OS really comes down to desire or necessity. If you have either, you'll find a way to learn them.
While the funding source is likely MS, it can't be confirmed. This article does state "A Microsoft spokesman confirmed that Microsoft provides funding to the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution." so likely the institute at a minimum wants to keep its funding source happy (one doesn't bite the hand that feeds).
The article does interestingly point out the institutes stance on funding as:
"Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment on whether the company directly sponsored the debate paper. De Tocqueville Institute president Ken Brown and chairman Gregory Fossedal refused to comment on whether Microsoft sponsored the report.
"It is not our policy to comment on supporters; I'm sure you can understand. From this you should not infer that information you have is correct or not correct; we just don't comment," Fossedal wrote in an e-mail. "
Basically they use the "neither confirm or deny" tactic, but likely MS does influence their efforts.
Looks like the moderators were unkind to you. Your post is relative and not a troll. The original poster states that he upgraded hundreds of PC's to XP. While the upgrade could have taken roughly that amount of time, the real issue is all the additional planning involved as well as the post upgrade support. Unless this guy is working with a single hardware configuration, the research for pushing the upgrade out must be done to make sure the systems can support the upgrade (minimum CPU, memory, etc... for the supported OS). You also should take into account that users could have personal data and/or applications on their PC (maybe the managers have a management application the other systems don't, the engineers have CAD, etc...). Applications must be tested on the new OS (you'd be in trouble if you upgraded only to find out that a critical application is incompatible). Data must be preserved (even if it's just bookmarks for their browser). The main point is that while the actual upgrade of the OS isn't difficult, the preparation and training are. Users tend to get a little upset when their PC changes. They become a bit possessive once they customize it.
What happens if, in some freak accident, your biometric identifier finger is severed and misplaced
A new market for replication of biometrics will emerge.
Seriously though, tracking this amount of information per media source is going to be unrealistic. They'll have to account for the fact that my wife or kids could play media. I'm certainly not giving my kids personal information to a company. What happens if I leave a CD in my car with one of these players? Can my wife play the media if it's registered to me? The media hasn't been copied by me so it will only be used by one person.
Hopefully this security technique doesn't catch on.
open software - developers can get access to the source code
open standards - software conforms to open standards - standard API's, data formats, etc...
Following open standards, in my opinion, is more important than open software, but ideally you have both. Without software following an open standard, integration becomes much more challenging - proprietary API's.
Opteron can have some impact on Sun as it changes Sun's image a bit. Wether this is a positive or negative change depends on your point of view. Personally, I see that Sun is looking to provide more economical hardware for the small to medium sized organizations while providing a clear road map should they need to scale up. On the other hand, people who already have a negative opinion of Sun will see the Opteron agreement as Sun giving up on their own chip. The chips can have a perceived affect on Sun which in turn makes it real. Hopefully the affect is a positive one.
In my opinion, Sun's real problem is acceptability in the home desktop market. Microsoft has dominated the home market to the point that people have been raised on MS products and expect to see the same thing in their work environment, at least at the desktop level. In the server room, ideally IT managers would deploy the best solution for a given problem rather than showing their bias toward an OS. Unfortunately for many smaller to medium sized organizations the MS solution is the only possible solution as the view of non-MS solutions is that training and maintenance cost are too expensive.
Dell is their main competitor in this arena
I couldn't agree with you more on this. Sun's current hardware lineup is very competitive on price and, in my opinion, easily out scales the Dell/MS Win32 Server solutions.
I hadn't really thought of spam as a MLM scheme but I guess it could work that way.
My guess on the legitimate products is that most legitimate companies are probably looking to not drive their customers away. Imagine if a company like Time Life (seller of various collectables, compilations, books, etc...) switched from the TV adds to spam. Would anyone continue to purchase from them? They already use (in my opinion) fairly annoying commercials so why not use spam? I can't imagine a company that uses traditional marketing would really resort to spam given it's negative image. Spam likely supports less than legitimate companies and companies that don't have a reputation to maintain. Legitimate companies also tend to provide valid "remove" instructions so the true spam should be seen as non-legitimate.
True that some SPAM has no obvious targeted marketing, but maybe it is the type that has a "web beacon" (verifying address list) or maybe they are just trying complicate the anti-spam software out there.
Maybe the badly formed spam is from a new person in the spam business?
I think if I were the first spammer to be sentenced that I would be looking to get a book deal, but of course the advertisement for the book would be done through spam methods.
My wife is not as addicted to games as I am, but she does enjoy playing "The Sims" with the various expansion packs. Fortunately for me though, my wife would rather have me playing the video games over going out to drink or spending a lot of time fishing (which oddly enough she decided to take up this year too). I still need to moderate (which she and I have different opinions on) how much game time vs wife time. When she sends the kids over to the PC to bug me, I know that I've reached my game time limit.
Even though TV advertising could be seen as annoying most people, it would still need to be profitable, otherwise companies wouldn't do it. Generally companies don't like to "throw" money away.
People generating SPAM must be making enough money to offset the time/resources involved, otherwise what is their incentive for sending SPAM? I can't imagine that spammers are the charitable type.
By the fact that people still go to the theater and are willing to pay, I doubt that many of them will care about the hidden security until someone starts abusing the system. When we start to see "night vision girls gone wild" catching couple's messing around at the theater, people may start resisting. The average movie viewer though likely won't care about the night vision goggles or security cameras.