This comes up every now and again, but it's totally moot because things are too far gone. If they'd implemented in the early 90's, then it would be possible. The existing userbase is just too big now. So, awareness needs to be promoted more than my futile agenda of mandatory proving-that-you-can-be-a-responsible-user.
Digital signing seems to get compromised regularly, so that's out. I'm not a fan of censorship anyway, so let's not give regulators that kind of power over what you can and can't have - it needs to be a switch. You can put this PC online, it passes the safety and integrity check (no bots are opening ports), and you can go online, you have the license.
I'd say that the license would only allow you access to the Internet. Without it, you wouldn't have access. You'd still be free to do as you please except that you couldn't go online. Just like private property - I believe you should be able to drive a tractor or truck around on your own farm, no matter what, as long as you accept that there are risks to doing that with equipment that rarely or never gets a full inspection.
Restricting compilation wouldn't be good, neither would restricting interpreted bytecode. Again, that is a censorship issue. How would you even begin to restrict it? Based upon some patterns in the code? Require a license? But then what about javascript, vbscript, shell scripts? Java,.NET? Flash? It's not really feasible.
Then you get into dicey territory. What happens if someone sneaks on, or otherwise does something that's supposed to be restricted by not having the license? Is there a penalty? Is it a crime? I don't know.
I haven't thought it all the way through yet, I guess, but I'm satisfied just to promote responsibility.
Every PC owner believes they are entitled to do as they please with their PC. More people think they are knowledgeable than actually are knowledgeable, and I'm not saying I'm exempt either.
Same with car owners, except car owners need to get inspected and will get pulled over if they have something truly obviously broken. Why? It affects other people. Same with PC malware - it affects other people! Your PC might be used to buy/trade my identity, attack my company's networks, or spam my email, without your knowledge. So I really am starting to lean towards having an "Internet drivers' license" and regulating the equipment...
I play too, but I disabled the browser plugin after installing Java. That's the thing - you can't JUST install the JRE, which would be a lot safer. You always get the browser plugin no matter what.
Your average Web user will install ANYTHING if they want to view a website or if some banner ad promises them some "cool" thing. They'll just blindly bomb that OK button like a trained hamster pushing the button to get a pellet. (That's not a bad simile.) Seriously, you could title it "Spy Formatter Pro" and they would install it, because they wouldn't even read the title.
Then once installed, it's out of sight, out of mind - the idea that "this plugin is going to stick around after I close this website" is way too technical for everyone to understand, never mind "other websites might use it maliciously". The web is like a newspaper for most folks, I guess. When you're reading the newspaper, your attention span isn't going to include the previous few pages, or something from last month, unless you specifically knew you needed to remember it. You're not even going to care that the paper is selling your identity to make a few extra bucks and subsidize your paper. You just want to pay your nickel and read your paper.
Quite a pain in the rear for those of us who have desktop users and/or family, for whose computers we take some responsibility. We obviously shouldn't take it out on them no matter how much it pains us to see them repeat the same mistakes over and over. They just don't know what they're doing, so we have to make sure there are safeguards in place like BANISHING JAVA from your average computer and maybe requiring approval for plugin installation from someone with the smarts to know better than to install "Free Funny Video Plugin.exe" or whatever!
Huh, I am required to have multiple-factor ID access to one of my large global enterprise's datacenters in case the primary admins get hit by a bus or something, and those systems are all running on modern x86 hardware. Most of what you refer to is running on Microsoft OSes, virtualized under Microsoft or VMware servers on Intel hardware. Sure, some of it is Linux, but it's still on x86. The only remaining Sparc servers are being phased out and no longer perform critical functions. They've been replaced with lower-cost, redundant x86 equipment. I also participate in certain user groups, and my peers there are doing similar things with their large global enterprises. We're not even at the forefront of this movement, so anyone behind us has to be a really slow mover. Perhaps yours just hasn't migrated yet, for whatever reason...?
This new processor isn't even available to use yet, so all we can do is speculate about what it'll do to our efficiency. I look forward to ANY technology that can leave the current state of affairs in the dust, so I'm all for this processor being great.
I'd be a little more careful about making sweeping generalizations and calling people names.:)
It's probably incapable of refreshing it at an acceptable rate for video playback. Doesn't it use the whole screen while you're performing less intensive operations, like reading a book?
Also... Remember analog CRTs? Remember that you always had to design for the "overscan" area and designate a safe draw area with a margin around it, when making games and GUIs. It's been done before, and continues to be relevant even today because CRTs are still alive. Not being able to use the entire display resolution is nothing new. Not that it's an optimal scenario, just that display hardware has always imposed some sort of restriction until recently. We're just spoiled!:)
It's the norm in my corporate environment. We're a publicly-traded global enterprise. I guess it could be a lot more common at the larger sizes than smaller, but who wouldn't want to run a caching proxy to help conserve their bandwidth anyway?
Well, yes, until some malware author reverse engineered the updater software, learned how to duplicate the bypass-the-write-protect-mechanism code that allows flashing, and then used that to inject his own code. That would take all of the next day after it hit the store shelves, at most. Have you heard of malware that alters the BIOS? There are a few prior examples of such a thing. CIH was doing that in 1998, for example. Mebromi does that today.
So, no, it wouldn't stop it, unless you had to purchase and install a new physical ROM chip as your upgrade process. Nobody would go for that, though... too expensive to manufacture the parts, too fragile, too scary for non-geeks!
You'd still have regular viruses and such that were installed in the "regular" filesystem, though, so rootkits would still exist. Someone could make a virus that installs as a driver, which does NOT have the prerequisite of controlling hardware nor does it have to be visible to the user. That could get high-level access to the system, and you'd never know it. That happens today. It's been happening since at least 1999, when Infis was discovered. Remember the Sony rootkit, too!
Interesting counterpoint. You can't make someone change something they don't want to change - that's a maxim of any social service group out there.
That philosophy sounds good at an individual level. Now consider it on a larger scheme than the individual. Imagine a collective societal unit of lazy/selfish/greedy people voting for whatever they think will most immediately benefit each of them personally. They aren't even considering other members of their group, just themselves. Then we wind up with a political scene full of manipulative, scheming politicians running for the most votes by saying what their staff thinks will be the most popular (perhaps based on focus groups who are asked "Does this feel good? How about this?") and who are equally as selfish, greedy and lazy as their constituency, whose goals are dictated by whoever yells the loudest. That's how we wind up with corruption, which I think everyone can agree is a problem. In order to change that, we have to address the root cause: people don't care enough to strain themselves and think about what they're doing.
I guess my point all along has been... motivate people to consider the good of their neighbors too, and don't take the TV's word for any politician's goals or integrity... they need to do their own research! I might not reach everyone, but if I reach a few people, it will improve the situation for everyone. These things ripple outward.
You're on the path to the uncomfortable realization that the vast majority of people don't care to be smart, because it's hard and doesn't immediately benefit them. Laziness trumps everything else.
On average, people aren't smart enough to vote for anyone who will lay down solid foundations. They're too lazy and/or selfish. Instead, it's a giant game of I'll-scratch-your-back-if-you-scratch-my-back based on the hot topics, like tax breaks and all that entertaining mud slinging. Poll around, see how much people know about the politicians they voted for. You'll be surprised. Did they get the bulk of their information from TV commercials and office talk around those? Yeah... they did. Did anyone look a their elected representatives' voting history? I bet not.
So occasionally someone smart DOES slip through the cracks, or someone in office has a really good idea, and then they put forth a smart bill that actually protects people. Or, some news article gets a lot of coverage somehow, and turns on the spotlight, and the politicians decide they'd better do something that looks good. And then they bicker over it, and add riders, and eventually kill the whole mess outright, thus preventing us from getting most of the laws that would have protected the average person from his average laziness. Sometimes something good does happen, like the Credit Card Reform Act, or the one for student loans. Those are statistical outliers, because people just don't care about each other or themselves enough to get un-lazy and learn about these people they are voting into office!
You'd REALLY like to think so. So would I. Unfortunately, all of history proves that your average (key word: average) customer is about as smart as a bag of rocks. All you need to do is give them a good sales pitch, and they don't even bother to read the fine print on the paper you hand them! It's really sad and one of the reasons I needed to get out of retail so long ago.
Perhaps if this stuff didn't get more and more pigeonholed as "geek stuff" and relegated to more and more niche classes for smart kids in middle and high school... You know, because it's not politically correct to teach kids hard stuff that the entire class isn't going to get. None of this stuff is on the (massively flawed in execution) state exams, so it's not going to get the school's attention if they aren't learning it. I'd even like to see more basic electronics and mechanics demos for younger kids!
You could say the same thing about electronics, mechanics (like car engines), physics, programming, etc... There are all these kids who want to be businesspeople, lawyers, doctors, and teachers... what about scientists and engineers?
It sure would be great if the elder generations took the initiative to pass it on to the younger generations:)
What's a weapon, though? It causes immediate, permanent damage to your opponent's unprotected eyes. That's pretty weapon-like. If you can rob someone of an entire empirical sense, that's worse than chopping off a finger or something, no?
At that distance in a populated area, you can't be reasonably sure that you won't have reflected beams hit something that refocuses them. So there's really no safe way to use this other than in a controlled laboratory, where you should probably be purchasing different lasers anyway.
Yes! Let us amateurs attempt to damage a satellite that was specifically designed to provide fast high-resolution mapping and targeting, and was probably designed to withstand "enemy" sabotage attempts! What could possibly go wrong?:)
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This comes up every now and again, but it's totally moot because things are too far gone. If they'd implemented in the early 90's, then it would be possible. The existing userbase is just too big now. So, awareness needs to be promoted more than my futile agenda of mandatory proving-that-you-can-be-a-responsible-user.
Digital signing seems to get compromised regularly, so that's out. I'm not a fan of censorship anyway, so let's not give regulators that kind of power over what you can and can't have - it needs to be a switch. You can put this PC online, it passes the safety and integrity check (no bots are opening ports), and you can go online, you have the license.
I'd say that the license would only allow you access to the Internet. Without it, you wouldn't have access. You'd still be free to do as you please except that you couldn't go online. Just like private property - I believe you should be able to drive a tractor or truck around on your own farm, no matter what, as long as you accept that there are risks to doing that with equipment that rarely or never gets a full inspection.
Restricting compilation wouldn't be good, neither would restricting interpreted bytecode. Again, that is a censorship issue. How would you even begin to restrict it? Based upon some patterns in the code? Require a license? But then what about javascript, vbscript, shell scripts? Java, .NET? Flash? It's not really feasible.
Then you get into dicey territory. What happens if someone sneaks on, or otherwise does something that's supposed to be restricted by not having the license? Is there a penalty? Is it a crime? I don't know.
I haven't thought it all the way through yet, I guess, but I'm satisfied just to promote responsibility.
That's the million dollar question, isn't it?
Every PC owner believes they are entitled to do as they please with their PC. More people think they are knowledgeable than actually are knowledgeable, and I'm not saying I'm exempt either.
Same with car owners, except car owners need to get inspected and will get pulled over if they have something truly obviously broken. Why? It affects other people. Same with PC malware - it affects other people! Your PC might be used to buy/trade my identity, attack my company's networks, or spam my email, without your knowledge. So I really am starting to lean towards having an "Internet drivers' license" and regulating the equipment...
I play too, but I disabled the browser plugin after installing Java. That's the thing - you can't JUST install the JRE, which would be a lot safer. You always get the browser plugin no matter what.
Your average Web user will install ANYTHING if they want to view a website or if some banner ad promises them some "cool" thing. They'll just blindly bomb that OK button like a trained hamster pushing the button to get a pellet. (That's not a bad simile.) Seriously, you could title it "Spy Formatter Pro" and they would install it, because they wouldn't even read the title.
Then once installed, it's out of sight, out of mind - the idea that "this plugin is going to stick around after I close this website" is way too technical for everyone to understand, never mind "other websites might use it maliciously". The web is like a newspaper for most folks, I guess. When you're reading the newspaper, your attention span isn't going to include the previous few pages, or something from last month, unless you specifically knew you needed to remember it. You're not even going to care that the paper is selling your identity to make a few extra bucks and subsidize your paper. You just want to pay your nickel and read your paper.
Quite a pain in the rear for those of us who have desktop users and/or family, for whose computers we take some responsibility. We obviously shouldn't take it out on them no matter how much it pains us to see them repeat the same mistakes over and over. They just don't know what they're doing, so we have to make sure there are safeguards in place like BANISHING JAVA from your average computer and maybe requiring approval for plugin installation from someone with the smarts to know better than to install "Free Funny Video Plugin.exe" or whatever!
Maybe both. Well, if anyone thinks they can come up with one cheddar, I'm all ears. :)
I think you guys are in agreement, but you don't realize it.
NO, I AGREE!
NO, *I* AGREE!
No, because Hulu Plus and Netflix don't have all the shows you might want to DVR. So then you have to have digital cable with the DVR.
Huh, I am required to have multiple-factor ID access to one of my large global enterprise's datacenters in case the primary admins get hit by a bus or something, and those systems are all running on modern x86 hardware. Most of what you refer to is running on Microsoft OSes, virtualized under Microsoft or VMware servers on Intel hardware. Sure, some of it is Linux, but it's still on x86. The only remaining Sparc servers are being phased out and no longer perform critical functions. They've been replaced with lower-cost, redundant x86 equipment. I also participate in certain user groups, and my peers there are doing similar things with their large global enterprises. We're not even at the forefront of this movement, so anyone behind us has to be a really slow mover. Perhaps yours just hasn't migrated yet, for whatever reason...?
This new processor isn't even available to use yet, so all we can do is speculate about what it'll do to our efficiency. I look forward to ANY technology that can leave the current state of affairs in the dust, so I'm all for this processor being great.
I'd be a little more careful about making sweeping generalizations and calling people names. :)
It's probably incapable of refreshing it at an acceptable rate for video playback. Doesn't it use the whole screen while you're performing less intensive operations, like reading a book?
Also... Remember analog CRTs? Remember that you always had to design for the "overscan" area and designate a safe draw area with a margin around it, when making games and GUIs. It's been done before, and continues to be relevant even today because CRTs are still alive. Not being able to use the entire display resolution is nothing new. Not that it's an optimal scenario, just that display hardware has always imposed some sort of restriction until recently. We're just spoiled! :)
Well, I guess he had to cash in his chips eventually.
Thanks for the flavors, sir!
It's the norm in my corporate environment. We're a publicly-traded global enterprise. I guess it could be a lot more common at the larger sizes than smaller, but who wouldn't want to run a caching proxy to help conserve their bandwidth anyway?
Adobe is positioning their Flash-based platforms to be a platform for mature applications instead of widgets and applets.
I wonder if Microsoft will expose the new WinRT API to Flash or AIR?
Well, yes, until some malware author reverse engineered the updater software, learned how to duplicate the bypass-the-write-protect-mechanism code that allows flashing, and then used that to inject his own code. That would take all of the next day after it hit the store shelves, at most. Have you heard of malware that alters the BIOS? There are a few prior examples of such a thing. CIH was doing that in 1998, for example. Mebromi does that today.
So, no, it wouldn't stop it, unless you had to purchase and install a new physical ROM chip as your upgrade process. Nobody would go for that, though... too expensive to manufacture the parts, too fragile, too scary for non-geeks!
You'd still have regular viruses and such that were installed in the "regular" filesystem, though, so rootkits would still exist. Someone could make a virus that installs as a driver, which does NOT have the prerequisite of controlling hardware nor does it have to be visible to the user. That could get high-level access to the system, and you'd never know it. That happens today. It's been happening since at least 1999, when Infis was discovered. Remember the Sony rootkit, too!
I have often seen "virii" used as the plural.
But yes, using "viruses" as the plural of the word "virus" just works better. It's even specified in the dictionary, actually.
Oops, I forgot to also mention that it will support LIMIT/OFFSET as well, which is noted in the same link. Sorry for double-post.
Actually, MSSQL11 will support FETCH FIRST.
Check it out (you'll have to scroll a couple pages down): http://www.codeproject.com/KB/database/Denali_Tsql_Part_2.aspx#3.3
It's probably going to take a while to decide on the cabling standard.
The quarreling feline-luminescence-transport camps are currently divided between CAT-5meow, CAT-6, High Definition Meow Interface and DisplayPurr-t.
Also, the mouse compatibility bug is being worked, but resolution appears to be a ways out still.
Interesting counterpoint. You can't make someone change something they don't want to change - that's a maxim of any social service group out there.
That philosophy sounds good at an individual level. Now consider it on a larger scheme than the individual. Imagine a collective societal unit of lazy/selfish/greedy people voting for whatever they think will most immediately benefit each of them personally. They aren't even considering other members of their group, just themselves. Then we wind up with a political scene full of manipulative, scheming politicians running for the most votes by saying what their staff thinks will be the most popular (perhaps based on focus groups who are asked "Does this feel good? How about this?") and who are equally as selfish, greedy and lazy as their constituency, whose goals are dictated by whoever yells the loudest. That's how we wind up with corruption, which I think everyone can agree is a problem. In order to change that, we have to address the root cause: people don't care enough to strain themselves and think about what they're doing.
I guess my point all along has been... motivate people to consider the good of their neighbors too, and don't take the TV's word for any politician's goals or integrity... they need to do their own research! I might not reach everyone, but if I reach a few people, it will improve the situation for everyone. These things ripple outward.
You're on the path to the uncomfortable realization that the vast majority of people don't care to be smart, because it's hard and doesn't immediately benefit them. Laziness trumps everything else.
On average, people aren't smart enough to vote for anyone who will lay down solid foundations. They're too lazy and/or selfish. Instead, it's a giant game of I'll-scratch-your-back-if-you-scratch-my-back based on the hot topics, like tax breaks and all that entertaining mud slinging. Poll around, see how much people know about the politicians they voted for. You'll be surprised. Did they get the bulk of their information from TV commercials and office talk around those? Yeah... they did. Did anyone look a their elected representatives' voting history? I bet not.
So occasionally someone smart DOES slip through the cracks, or someone in office has a really good idea, and then they put forth a smart bill that actually protects people. Or, some news article gets a lot of coverage somehow, and turns on the spotlight, and the politicians decide they'd better do something that looks good. And then they bicker over it, and add riders, and eventually kill the whole mess outright, thus preventing us from getting most of the laws that would have protected the average person from his average laziness. Sometimes something good does happen, like the Credit Card Reform Act, or the one for student loans. Those are statistical outliers, because people just don't care about each other or themselves enough to get un-lazy and learn about these people they are voting into office!
You'd REALLY like to think so. So would I. Unfortunately, all of history proves that your average (key word: average) customer is about as smart as a bag of rocks. All you need to do is give them a good sales pitch, and they don't even bother to read the fine print on the paper you hand them! It's really sad and one of the reasons I needed to get out of retail so long ago.
Yes, we technically minded under-50s are around.
Perhaps if this stuff didn't get more and more pigeonholed as "geek stuff" and relegated to more and more niche classes for smart kids in middle and high school... You know, because it's not politically correct to teach kids hard stuff that the entire class isn't going to get. None of this stuff is on the (massively flawed in execution) state exams, so it's not going to get the school's attention if they aren't learning it. I'd even like to see more basic electronics and mechanics demos for younger kids!
You could say the same thing about electronics, mechanics (like car engines), physics, programming, etc... There are all these kids who want to be businesspeople, lawyers, doctors, and teachers... what about scientists and engineers?
It sure would be great if the elder generations took the initiative to pass it on to the younger generations :)
What's a weapon, though? It causes immediate, permanent damage to your opponent's unprotected eyes. That's pretty weapon-like. If you can rob someone of an entire empirical sense, that's worse than chopping off a finger or something, no?
1W is a frightening amount of power for something marketed like this.
Warning: Do not stare at neighboring town with remaining eye.
At that distance in a populated area, you can't be reasonably sure that you won't have reflected beams hit something that refocuses them. So there's really no safe way to use this other than in a controlled laboratory, where you should probably be purchasing different lasers anyway.
Yes! Let us amateurs attempt to damage a satellite that was specifically designed to provide fast high-resolution mapping and targeting, and was probably designed to withstand "enemy" sabotage attempts! What could possibly go wrong? :)