Yes they do. Keep in mind these people aren't writing the software or in charge of developing the features, they just test the software and try to find problems with it.
oh yeah - they charge money for developers to evaluate their beta releases and send them bug reports..
Man did you take a potshot at the wrong thing, the one area Microsoft accels at... developer support. It has nothing to do with testing Microsoft software. For a reasonable amount of money, developers get access to software they can work with for a fraction of the cost of buying it at retail. They do this so that the developers can write new software and upgrade their old software for the new stuff coming from Microsoft.
Your lame attempt at humor would have been funnier if you had sad regular consumers pay money to beta test Microsoft's software.
It only seems this way because there is no possible way for a company to test software as thoroughly as having millions of customers with different platforms testing it.
I don't even like MSFT, but here I am defending them somewhat against the teenagers caught up in the OS Wars.
In-house QA at commercial houses is akin to an author editing his own manuscript.
1. I never said anything about "in-house."
2. What about huge companies like Microsoft, where their QA departments are probably larger than many companies entire staff (all joking aside).
My point was exactly what you said -- the quality comes AFTER the open source product is shipped, if it is maintained at all. Closed source software strives for the opposite, they do QA first before the massive public release.
Microsoft surely has the better money-making model, but people interested in open source are usually more interested in the quality of software.
I would say the open source community is more interested in the fact that their products are OPEN SOURCE and FREE, and that "quality" takes a back seat to those things. Most open source projects don't have QA teams, they rely on the fact that it is open source to get feedback on released projects.
I'm not saying this is bad, and it is not the same way across the board (linux, perl, mozilla come to mind), I'm just saying I don't think of "quality" software in general when I think of open source.
The only product Microsoft maintains that is what I would call "quality software" is SQL Server. For the most part, that thing is a solid piece of software.
I think that you will agree that there is no purpose in us allowing it to morph from a debate into a contest as to who gets the last word, so I'll allow your previous post to stand unchallenged. Fair enough?
If I was arrested for indecent exposure, I would not expect to be set free the moment I showed the officer that my wiener was covered up again. You do the crime, you serve the time. If it's two weeks (or more) in a blacklist, that's fine by me.
First, the only way this analogy would be valid is if the people maintaining the blacklist published rules, e.g. "If we find an open relay on your system, you will be blacklisted until you fix the problem PLUS THREE WEEKS."
Secondly, someone having an open relay isn't like the crime you gave as an example, unless they did it on purpose, which most people do not.
A better analogy would be getting pulled over by a cop for having an expired tag. You pay the fine and get the new tag, and you're immediately allowed to drive again.
I'm the user of their list. I don't give a damn if they only clean the list once every month or two.
That's fine as long as they are upfront about how they handle cleaning the list. MOST blacklist homepages I have seen are NOT.
The chances of me getting spam from some random open-relay are far greater than the chances that I will get legitimate e-mail from that server, so I don't care if it's blacklisted for a month after it's been fixed.
I hate to break it to you, but most of us who are opposed to a lot of these blacklists don't give two shits about you or any other small-time email administrator. We are concerned about the larger players who provide service to OUR CUSTOMERS, and who may be blocking legitimate email from us and others because they trust these blacklist providers TOO MUCH. You are hearing backlash now because we want to wake some of these clueless bastards up. Personally, I don't care if YOU blacklist every mail server, I doubt any of my customers are getting their mail from your server!
As for your argument above about open-relays... I generally am not opposed to those blacklists, as they seem to be fairly automated and kept up to date (testing for open relays is pretty simple to automate). I am mostly opposed to the ones like SPEWS who do not clearly list their policies, who use collateral damage and make unreasonable demands.
(They only seem reasonable until you're at the sharp end of the stick.)
This wouldn't work unless google's server also spawned off a "user" that joined each channel so they'd be marked to receive the channel messages. Doing something like that would cause huge net.bursts, which is why ChanServ remains out of channels.
Right -- that is where the second of my guess comes into play. Google provides free access to their chat servers on these networks. Then they get the traffic for the popular channels, and log the "interesting" channels' traffic.
Having google bots that do nothing but record logs would probably piss networks off. Can you say "permanent g-line added for *@*.google.com?"
OK, forget bots. What if Google writes an IRC server that connects to these networks, and then logs the traffic directly via their server instead of a bot? In exchange, Google provides another connection server the people can use to access these IRC networks.
Would this piss networks off? If so, why? I could understand why a specific channel might be pissed off and not want to deal with Google, but that can be remedied channel by channel.
As long as google protects the privacy of the people it is logging (nicknames only), I don't see a problem with this at all, it sounds pretty interesting.
Well, how do you build up a reliable irc database.
Have your bots sit in channels worth archiving. Break logs down into manageable chunks (hourly, by size, etc), and index them. Searches pull up these chunks of log with your search terms highlighted.
I mean there are many servers and bots and so on in the irc, and most of them deal with warez and therefore are only up temporary. So if google really wants to build a irc search engine they have to find a way to get rid of the dead links, and also from links that point to illegal copy's
Ever try searching for warez on Google Groups? Good luck. They don't archive the binary newsgroups, and it is simple to weed out the posts that contain binaries in regular newsgroups.
Google is pretty smart, let's wait and see what they come up with.
I'm confused... that link is apparantly going to allow me to order the high-end G5 for $600 less. I am all the way to the final page asking for my credit card, and it hasn't asked me to prove that I'm entitled to this discount... wtf?
That's a wierd definition of "hurt" I have never seen.
It is? Financial harm is a form of hurt.
Do the impossible? FIX THEIR MAIL SERVER??? Sounds reasonable to me. Wow, if you think that's impossible, you'd better go back to school.
You are misunderstanding me. I am speaking of the blacklists like SPEWS, who use collateral damage to try and get their way. I.e. they will block an entire class C even if only a handful of IP's in there are to blame.
The impossible is for a small business customer to try to force their large ISP to change their ways. Their answer is "then change ISP's!" The truth is a small business cannot afford to move a complex operation from one colocation facility to another at the drop of a hat. It takes months of planning and lots of money. And then you finally move, and what is to stop SPEWS from blocking your new class C with the same illogical thinking that landed you at this new ISP?
Thats why they are un-ethical. They are intentially designed to force a third party to take action. It's downright disgusting.
It sounds like we are saying the same thing, but then I'm confused by your first sentence... with blacklists like SPEWS, there most definitely *IS* collateral damage, that is their many weapon. They hurt innocent people to try and force them to do the impossible.
The responsibilities lie with the admins who choose to EMPLOY these lists.
That is not where it ends though. The responsibility is for the blacklist provider to be clear about how they work, whether they use collateral damage, whether they are quick to respond, etc. Many mail administrators make the terrible assumption that since these people are against spam, they must be trustworthy folks, they are "just blocking spam."
Blacklists like SPEWS do nothing to explain up front how bad they really are.
How does this work if the mails aren't going through the ISP's server? Are you expeting them to scan all traffic on port 25?
Yes! It is the ONLY WAY to stop viruses from spreading.
Even this doesn't help with the viruses that turn the PCs into a zombie relay, through which the spammers then send non-virus spam.
Ummm, sure it does. If it's a virus, it spreads through email. With my plan in effect, viruses no longer spread. If you become infected, sure you're a relay, but you can't further spread your virus around, and once your ISP detects you trying to do that, my plan calls for them to essentially be prevented from accessing the real internet until it's fixed.
Blocking 25 outbound is an excellent way to stop this as well as the direct spreading of viruses. If your ISP has a crap relay, get a better ISP. If you really need outbound SMTP then get a static address.
I disagree, but it's moot. There are always going to be customers that need to be able to send outbound email, e.g. business users, power users, etc. The point is, if you are a service provider, you must scan outgoing port 25 for viruses, and then shutdown your customer once they try sending them.
It is the fault of the blacklist providers when they are like SPEWS, where they don't make it clear anywhere on their website just exactly how draconian they really are. You have to go digging through all sorts of usenet posts to find that out (or learn from experience).
Maybe because -- whether they get paid or not -- these people running the popular blacklists have a RESPONSIBILITY, due to their power. If you can't see this, you are naive. If they are going to be quick to dish out the punishment, they should be quick to respond when the person fixes the problem.
If they don't want this responsibility, they can stop their blacklist at any time.
Unfortunately, these Windows viruses that make a broadband customer act as a spam relay are a big reason that ISPs are considering blocking mail from dialups/dynamics.
This is ridiculous! Viruses could be completely eradicated if ISP's would apply an outgoing email filter. If it detects a dangerous attachment coming from a specific customer, they drop that customer into a sandbox, and the only webpage they can receive is one that explains that they are infected.
With sender forgeries now, the only ones that can stop viruses are the ISP's that allow their customers to continue pouring these emails outbound.
All it will take is one good lawsuit against a large ISP for damages due to neglect.
What's with the current boo-hoo over blacklists? Do we have some kind of spammer astroturf going here?
Apply Occam's Razor -- spammers astro-turfing on Slashdot? Or geeks that run technology networks adversely affected by overzealous blacklists run by people who insist on collateral damage?
And it's not just blacklists that are a pain in the ass -- whitelists are, too. At least for anyone like us who runs a legitimate company which needs to maintain email contact with its members.
And why is that? Because our wonderfully accurate intelligence has pegged him as the mastermind behind 9/11?
No, how about the dozens of times he has personally admitted to planning terrorist activities and funding al Qaeda? Who needs suspect intelligence when you have a confession?
Good luck finding someone to rape him -- even prison rapists have standards.
Slashdot Mirror
what? Microsoft has a QA department?
..
... developer support. It has nothing to do with testing Microsoft software. For a reasonable amount of money, developers get access to software they can work with for a fraction of the cost of buying it at retail. They do this so that the developers can write new software and upgrade their old software for the new stuff coming from Microsoft.
Yes they do. Keep in mind these people aren't writing the software or in charge of developing the features, they just test the software and try to find problems with it.
oh yeah - they charge money for developers to evaluate their beta releases and send them bug reports
Man did you take a potshot at the wrong thing, the one area Microsoft accels at
Your lame attempt at humor would have been funnier if you had sad regular consumers pay money to beta test Microsoft's software.
It only seems this way because there is no possible way for a company to test software as thoroughly as having millions of customers with different platforms testing it.
I don't even like MSFT, but here I am defending them somewhat against the teenagers caught up in the OS Wars.
In-house QA at commercial houses is akin to an author editing his own manuscript.
1. I never said anything about "in-house."
2. What about huge companies like Microsoft, where their QA departments are probably larger than many companies entire staff (all joking aside).
My point was exactly what you said -- the quality comes AFTER the open source product is shipped, if it is maintained at all. Closed source software strives for the opposite, they do QA first before the massive public release.
Ummm, the point is they can't track down where the DDoS's are coming from, so how exactly would group A know who to DDoS?
pray that you are able to restore the same exact hardware, or you will likely run into problems with your hardware after you restore.
This was especially a problem in NT4. Maybe they've fixed it 2K and 2K3.
Microsoft surely has the better money-making model, but people interested in open source are usually more interested in the quality of software.
I would say the open source community is more interested in the fact that their products are OPEN SOURCE and FREE, and that "quality" takes a back seat to those things. Most open source projects don't have QA teams, they rely on the fact that it is open source to get feedback on released projects.
I'm not saying this is bad, and it is not the same way across the board (linux, perl, mozilla come to mind), I'm just saying I don't think of "quality" software in general when I think of open source.
The only product Microsoft maintains that is what I would call "quality software" is SQL Server. For the most part, that thing is a solid piece of software.
I think that you will agree that there is no purpose in us allowing it to morph from a debate into a contest as to who gets the last word, so I'll allow your previous post to stand unchallenged. Fair enough?
So you're saying I won?
JUST KIDDING!!!!
If I was arrested for indecent exposure, I would not expect to be set free the moment I showed the officer that my wiener was covered up again. You do the crime, you serve the time. If it's two weeks (or more) in a blacklist, that's fine by me.
... I generally am not opposed to those blacklists, as they seem to be fairly automated and kept up to date (testing for open relays is pretty simple to automate). I am mostly opposed to the ones like SPEWS who do not clearly list their policies, who use collateral damage and make unreasonable demands.
First, the only way this analogy would be valid is if the people maintaining the blacklist published rules, e.g. "If we find an open relay on your system, you will be blacklisted until you fix the problem PLUS THREE WEEKS."
Secondly, someone having an open relay isn't like the crime you gave as an example, unless they did it on purpose, which most people do not.
A better analogy would be getting pulled over by a cop for having an expired tag. You pay the fine and get the new tag, and you're immediately allowed to drive again.
I'm the user of their list. I don't give a damn if they only clean the list once every month or two.
That's fine as long as they are upfront about how they handle cleaning the list. MOST blacklist homepages I have seen are NOT.
The chances of me getting spam from some random open-relay are far greater than the chances that I will get legitimate e-mail from that server, so I don't care if it's blacklisted for a month after it's been fixed.
I hate to break it to you, but most of us who are opposed to a lot of these blacklists don't give two shits about you or any other small-time email administrator. We are concerned about the larger players who provide service to OUR CUSTOMERS, and who may be blocking legitimate email from us and others because they trust these blacklist providers TOO MUCH. You are hearing backlash now because we want to wake some of these clueless bastards up. Personally, I don't care if YOU blacklist every mail server, I doubt any of my customers are getting their mail from your server!
As for your argument above about open-relays
(They only seem reasonable until you're at the sharp end of the stick.)
Please define USENET. If a news server doesn't carry EVERY SINGLE NEWSGROUP, does that mean they are not part of USENET?
Grow up.
How long has google been censoring stuff?
Yeah, if we can't trust google to waste terabytes of their disk space to provide free warez for lowlifes, WHO CAN WE TRUST?!
This wouldn't work unless google's server also spawned off a "user" that joined each channel so they'd be marked to receive the channel messages. Doing something like that would cause huge net.bursts, which is why ChanServ remains out of channels.
Right -- that is where the second of my guess comes into play. Google provides free access to their chat servers on these networks. Then they get the traffic for the popular channels, and log the "interesting" channels' traffic.
Having google bots that do nothing but record logs would probably piss networks off. Can you say "permanent g-line added for *@*.google.com?"
OK, forget bots. What if Google writes an IRC server that connects to these networks, and then logs the traffic directly via their server instead of a bot? In exchange, Google provides another connection server the people can use to access these IRC networks.
Would this piss networks off? If so, why? I could understand why a specific channel might be pissed off and not want to deal with Google, but that can be remedied channel by channel.
As long as google protects the privacy of the people it is logging (nicknames only), I don't see a problem with this at all, it sounds pretty interesting.
"Sony Music Testing New Copy Protection"
"The article explains that the disc's audio can still be copied."
Experiment: failure. Move on.
Well, how do you build up a reliable irc database.
Have your bots sit in channels worth archiving. Break logs down into manageable chunks (hourly, by size, etc), and index them. Searches pull up these chunks of log with your search terms highlighted.
I mean there are many servers and bots and so on in the irc, and most of them deal with warez and therefore are only up temporary. So if google really wants to build a irc search engine they have to find a way to get rid of the dead links, and also from links that point to illegal copy's
Ever try searching for warez on Google Groups? Good luck. They don't archive the binary newsgroups, and it is simple to weed out the posts that contain binaries in regular newsgroups.
Google is pretty smart, let's wait and see what they come up with.
Apple user ID's are free of charge.
I'm confused... that link is apparantly going to allow me to order the high-end G5 for $600 less. I am all the way to the final page asking for my credit card, and it hasn't asked me to prove that I'm entitled to this discount... wtf?
That's a wierd definition of "hurt" I have never seen.
It is? Financial harm is a form of hurt.
Do the impossible? FIX THEIR MAIL SERVER??? Sounds reasonable to me. Wow, if you think that's impossible, you'd better go back to school.
You are misunderstanding me. I am speaking of the blacklists like SPEWS, who use collateral damage to try and get their way. I.e. they will block an entire class C even if only a handful of IP's in there are to blame.
The impossible is for a small business customer to try to force their large ISP to change their ways. Their answer is "then change ISP's!" The truth is a small business cannot afford to move a complex operation from one colocation facility to another at the drop of a hat. It takes months of planning and lots of money. And then you finally move, and what is to stop SPEWS from blocking your new class C with the same illogical thinking that landed you at this new ISP?
There is no collateral damage in a blacklist.
Thats why they are un-ethical. They are intentially designed to force a third party to take action. It's downright disgusting.
It sounds like we are saying the same thing, but then I'm confused by your first sentence... with blacklists like SPEWS, there most definitely *IS* collateral damage, that is their many weapon. They hurt innocent people to try and force them to do the impossible.
The responsibilities lie with the admins who choose to EMPLOY these lists.
That is not where it ends though. The responsibility is for the blacklist provider to be clear about how they work, whether they use collateral damage, whether they are quick to respond, etc. Many mail administrators make the terrible assumption that since these people are against spam, they must be trustworthy folks, they are "just blocking spam."
Blacklists like SPEWS do nothing to explain up front how bad they really are.
How does this work if the mails aren't going through the ISP's server? Are you expeting them to scan all traffic on port 25?
Yes! It is the ONLY WAY to stop viruses from spreading.
Even this doesn't help with the viruses that turn the PCs into a zombie relay, through which the spammers then send non-virus spam.
Ummm, sure it does. If it's a virus, it spreads through email. With my plan in effect, viruses no longer spread. If you become infected, sure you're a relay, but you can't further spread your virus around, and once your ISP detects you trying to do that, my plan calls for them to essentially be prevented from accessing the real internet until it's fixed.
Blocking 25 outbound is an excellent way to stop this as well as the direct spreading of viruses. If your ISP has a crap relay, get a better ISP. If you really need outbound SMTP then get a static address.
I disagree, but it's moot. There are always going to be customers that need to be able to send outbound email, e.g. business users, power users, etc. The point is, if you are a service provider, you must scan outgoing port 25 for viruses, and then shutdown your customer once they try sending them.
It is the fault of the blacklist providers when they are like SPEWS, where they don't make it clear anywhere on their website just exactly how draconian they really are. You have to go digging through all sorts of usenet posts to find that out (or learn from experience).
Why do you believe that they owed you anything?
Maybe because -- whether they get paid or not -- these people running the popular blacklists have a RESPONSIBILITY, due to their power. If you can't see this, you are naive. If they are going to be quick to dish out the punishment, they should be quick to respond when the person fixes the problem.
If they don't want this responsibility, they can stop their blacklist at any time.
Unfortunately, these Windows viruses that make a broadband customer act as a spam relay are a big reason that ISPs are considering blocking mail from dialups/dynamics.
This is ridiculous! Viruses could be completely eradicated if ISP's would apply an outgoing email filter. If it detects a dangerous attachment coming from a specific customer, they drop that customer into a sandbox, and the only webpage they can receive is one that explains that they are infected.
With sender forgeries now, the only ones that can stop viruses are the ISP's that allow their customers to continue pouring these emails outbound.
All it will take is one good lawsuit against a large ISP for damages due to neglect.
What's with the current boo-hoo over blacklists? Do we have some kind of spammer astroturf going here?
Apply Occam's Razor -- spammers astro-turfing on Slashdot? Or geeks that run technology networks adversely affected by overzealous blacklists run by people who insist on collateral damage?
And it's not just blacklists that are a pain in the ass -- whitelists are, too. At least for anyone like us who runs a legitimate company which needs to maintain email contact with its members.
Should developers try to be aware of whether their game will reproduce negative trends already present in real life?
Developers should try to be aware of what management wants. Management should try to be aware of what consumers want.
Let the armchair psychologists and talking heads worry about this other crap.
And why is that? Because our wonderfully accurate intelligence has pegged him as the mastermind behind 9/11? No, how about the dozens of times he has personally admitted to planning terrorist activities and funding al Qaeda? Who needs suspect intelligence when you have a confession? Good luck finding someone to rape him -- even prison rapists have standards.