Well exactly. It's a back door but it wouldn't be all that special to "discover" it. There is no risk in leaving those types of holes in the system and they work just as well as the ones which you create deliberately.
"We can make the enemy's command centers not work by changing their data system. We can cause the enemy's headquarters to make incorrect judgments by sending disinformation. We can dominate the enemy's banking system and even its entire social order." General Pan, Chinese PLA
Now, that was in 1996. I think he read the tea leaves correctly even back then, and the world has become a lot more interconnected in the last 14 years. Read More
What is the difference between a back door, and a section of code which is deliberately a little bit sloppy to allow for a vulnerability that would just be very difficult for someone to discover? You are assuming that any back-door which does exist would be well labeled as such and therefore serve the function of a smoking gun if discovered. In reality it would probably be far easier to just not fix certain bugs deliberately and provide detailed documentation of them to the right people.
This strikes me as a straw man argument in many ways. Why would we assume that the ownership of the company has anything to do with the possible influence or even direct manipulation of the products produced by the state in which the company is headquartered and operated? That is a very western view. Even if we take that point for granted, the public shareholders of even a US company have quite limited visibility into its day to day operations beyond quarterly financial and very broad and deliberately limited strategic objectives of management.
The technology isn't all that interesting though, at the end of the day, it's all just software. All of those nifty technical innovations that they may have on a low level can be replicated or even improved upon by competitors given sufficient time, and it is in their interest to get Microsoft (as well as anyone else playing at that level) out of the stack if practical.
However Microsoft does have a tremendous amount of engineering talent, seasoned business leaders, and top notch marketing and research departments. There is no resource advantage that the other firms hold over them, they just have not made the best strategic decisions as of late. Microsoft is attempting to go through the process of reinventing itself in a few different ways, but for any large corporation this is a slow, painful, and quite possibly even terminal procedure. It doesn't help that they are being pulled in a bunch of different directions by innovative competitors in just about all of the markets that they play in.
My only point is that they need to weather this wave of change if they hope to be competitive in this space, and this type of corporate change is anything but simple. There are many potentially good strategies that they are well equipped to explore, but getting everything realigned properly to even make a serious attempt is an extremely difficult thing for a large organization to do.
For such a critical piece, it sure was a poor online reading experience; No graphics, fully justified blocks of text, as soon as I clicked the link my shoulders drooped a little.
But that doesn't make sense. People bribe regulators so that they look the other way when inspecting for compliance, which happens long before they would ever enter a court room.
So is the problem that Microsoft wants to hold on to backwards compatibility too much? Why can't they do what apple has done with the iPhone, or Google with Android? They certainly have the resources (talent, cash). What's the problem?
Microsoft has never managed to crack the mobile nut, why is that? What is their strategic blind spot that makes them so unable to penetrate this industry, even through acquisition?
Does this report on broadband offer any broader insights on Net Neutrality? Would instituting such a regime increase the gap between the US and other countries, or would it widen it and why?
I don't care. It's not apathy. It's a lack of concern.
That is apathy last time I checked.;) But no, more seriously, I agree with you but you're making a flippant suggestion as though it is a decision that people could make freely and easily. That just may not be the case! It's like suggesting that you don't have to be recorded on surveillance cameras if you simply avoid places where the cameras are installed. It makes sense, but only on the surface. When you dig deeper you quickly realize that you don't know where the cameras are to avoid them, and can't easily discover them without exposing yourself.
US is not in the top 10, couple of cities in the top 50 of those for download, none in upload? Is the USA really that far behind the curve, or is there another explanation?
There is no "Lemons" problem for online privacy and websites. Why do you suppose that is? Is it that most consumers just don't value their online privacy?
Oh, agreed completely. I don't know why people provide so much potentially damaging personal information to social networking sites myself. My point was focused exclusively at the hiding in the crowd argument provided by the parent.
Simple perhaps, but is it actually a practical suggestion? Do you have a list of every website that partners with any behavioral tracking / targeted advertising providers? That could be a handy list for some kind of a browser extension that would say "Woah there! You're about to opt-in to web based behavioral tracking! Would you like to continue?" Of course, as an alternative, someone could just use something like NoScript or AdBlock, but then you would probably object to that as "stealing." Suggestions?
But with sites like Facebook it's a little bit different. If someone out there is looking for information about you, and facebook is happy to provide it to them through some new privacy option that you didn't change the default on, then you're not really protected by a veil of obscurity.
It's not always that transparent. If you consider the network advertising initiative for example, you can quickly see a large number of advertising networks that track behavioral patterns based simply on embedded advertisements on pages that don't necessarily carry any obvious information about what types of behavioral tracking the user is being subjected to. Furthermore, you can't easily tell if a site employs these features before actually going to it. Sure, you can opt-out but that just sets a cookie. Clear your cookies, and you're opted back in.
Slashdot Mirror
Well exactly. It's a back door but it wouldn't be all that special to "discover" it. There is no risk in leaving those types of holes in the system and they work just as well as the ones which you create deliberately.
For now. At the rate they are growing, that may not always be the case. "The future belongs to those who plan for it"
"We can make the enemy's command centers not work by changing their data system. We can cause the enemy's headquarters to make incorrect judgments by sending disinformation. We can dominate the enemy's banking system and even its entire social order." General Pan, Chinese PLA
Now, that was in 1996. I think he read the tea leaves correctly even back then, and the world has become a lot more interconnected in the last 14 years. Read More
What is the difference between a back door, and a section of code which is deliberately a little bit sloppy to allow for a vulnerability that would just be very difficult for someone to discover? You are assuming that any back-door which does exist would be well labeled as such and therefore serve the function of a smoking gun if discovered. In reality it would probably be far easier to just not fix certain bugs deliberately and provide detailed documentation of them to the right people.
This strikes me as a straw man argument in many ways. Why would we assume that the ownership of the company has anything to do with the possible influence or even direct manipulation of the products produced by the state in which the company is headquartered and operated? That is a very western view. Even if we take that point for granted, the public shareholders of even a US company have quite limited visibility into its day to day operations beyond quarterly financial and very broad and deliberately limited strategic objectives of management.
The technology isn't all that interesting though, at the end of the day, it's all just software. All of those nifty technical innovations that they may have on a low level can be replicated or even improved upon by competitors given sufficient time, and it is in their interest to get Microsoft (as well as anyone else playing at that level) out of the stack if practical.
However Microsoft does have a tremendous amount of engineering talent, seasoned business leaders, and top notch marketing and research departments. There is no resource advantage that the other firms hold over them, they just have not made the best strategic decisions as of late. Microsoft is attempting to go through the process of reinventing itself in a few different ways, but for any large corporation this is a slow, painful, and quite possibly even terminal procedure. It doesn't help that they are being pulled in a bunch of different directions by innovative competitors in just about all of the markets that they play in.
My only point is that they need to weather this wave of change if they hope to be competitive in this space, and this type of corporate change is anything but simple. There are many potentially good strategies that they are well equipped to explore, but getting everything realigned properly to even make a serious attempt is an extremely difficult thing for a large organization to do.
For such a critical piece, it sure was a poor online reading experience; No graphics, fully justified blocks of text, as soon as I clicked the link my shoulders drooped a little.
But that doesn't make sense. People bribe regulators so that they look the other way when inspecting for compliance, which happens long before they would ever enter a court room.
What about one of these? (dell tablet running android)
So is the problem that Microsoft wants to hold on to backwards compatibility too much? Why can't they do what apple has done with the iPhone, or Google with Android? They certainly have the resources (talent, cash). What's the problem?
Microsoft has never managed to crack the mobile nut, why is that? What is their strategic blind spot that makes them so unable to penetrate this industry, even through acquisition?
Does this report on broadband offer any broader insights on Net Neutrality? Would instituting such a regime increase the gap between the US and other countries, or would it widen it and why?
In response to my previous comment I ask the question: If the state of things in the US broadband wise is so bad, how do we fix it?
It seems that there are a lot of people out there who would disagree with you
I don't care. It's not apathy. It's a lack of concern.
That is apathy last time I checked. ;) But no, more seriously, I agree with you but you're making a flippant suggestion as though it is a decision that people could make freely and easily. That just may not be the case! It's like suggesting that you don't have to be recorded on surveillance cameras if you simply avoid places where the cameras are installed. It makes sense, but only on the surface. When you dig deeper you quickly realize that you don't know where the cameras are to avoid them, and can't easily discover them without exposing yourself.
Fortunately they are poorly organized
If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
-- Eric Schmidt. CEO, Google Inc.
US is not in the top 10, couple of cities in the top 50 of those for download, none in upload? Is the USA really that far behind the curve, or is there another explanation?
So you're admitting that it's impractical and suggesting apathy as a solution?
There is no "Lemons" problem for online privacy and websites. Why do you suppose that is? Is it that most consumers just don't value their online privacy?
Oh, agreed completely. I don't know why people provide so much potentially damaging personal information to social networking sites myself. My point was focused exclusively at the hiding in the crowd argument provided by the parent.
Simple perhaps, but is it actually a practical suggestion? Do you have a list of every website that partners with any behavioral tracking / targeted advertising providers? That could be a handy list for some kind of a browser extension that would say "Woah there! You're about to opt-in to web based behavioral tracking! Would you like to continue?" Of course, as an alternative, someone could just use something like NoScript or AdBlock, but then you would probably object to that as "stealing." Suggestions?
But with sites like Facebook it's a little bit different. If someone out there is looking for information about you, and facebook is happy to provide it to them through some new privacy option that you didn't change the default on, then you're not really protected by a veil of obscurity.
That makes sense in an opt-in framework, but not in an opt-out framework.
It's not always that transparent. If you consider the network advertising initiative for example, you can quickly see a large number of advertising networks that track behavioral patterns based simply on embedded advertisements on pages that don't necessarily carry any obvious information about what types of behavioral tracking the user is being subjected to. Furthermore, you can't easily tell if a site employs these features before actually going to it. Sure, you can opt-out but that just sets a cookie. Clear your cookies, and you're opted back in.