You can't trust the checksum once there's a virus there, because you're going to be depending on APIs provided by the OS and you don't know if they've been compromised.
(Actually, you can't trust anything once a machine's compromised, which to my mind is a huge problem with modern Windows systems, but I'm not even going to go there....)
Virus definition updates are not provided for testing prior to release.
Given how widespread this issue is, I think it would have been picked up in testing.
That's a very good point. Most corporate AV products allow you to set up your own update server and have your PCs update against that, but relatively few companies actually set up a separate update server and run the latest updates there first. Even if you did, any half-decent AV product is updated daily, sometimes more often. Testing every updated DAT file would be an exercise in extreme pain.
Most AV companies have a range of products which are frequently entirely unrelated to each other.
Symantec have Norton (terrible), Symantec Enterprise (actually not too bad, although it's being obsoleted in favour of Endpoint Protection) and Symantec Endpoint Protection (which requires a Windows server even though it's a Java application which installs Tomcat and Apache in order to operate).
McAfee have a home product, an enterprise product and a "serviced" product (fairly standard managed AV product only you don't have to set up your own management server because they run it themselves).
Can't speak for others but quite often by the time you've whittled your requirements down you often find that your application choices are a lot more limited than a first glance would suggest.
It seems to be very willing to take the whole machine down.
Speaking of which, did anyone at McAfee even bother to test this dat on a Windows XP machine?
I'm sure they did but the real question is not "did McAfee test it against Windows XP?". It's "did they test it against Windows XP with every single version of svchost.exe that Microsoft have ever released?" - the original version and every updated version in every patch and service pack to date?
I believe the money from speed cameras in the UK by and large does go to the local constabulary.
This has led to a situation where once you've been caught on camera, it can be remarkably difficult to get off even if there is demonstrably something wrong with the camera and you are demonstrably not guilty.
These are the types of problems that arrise from this prosecution. The law gives organizational policy the force of law, without realizing its limitations.
This is the real problem. Without that, the concerned admin wouldn't have to care about policy - certainly not after they've left their job.
He didn't just make a mistake. He left a prototype in a bar while out drinking. That's flat out incompetence and he should be fired for it. I have zero sympathy for the guy, this growing trend of business people and government officials leaving sensitive equipment and data behind is just pure incompetence and being lax.
Don't be damn stupid.
If you really consider mislaying an item to be "a level of incompetence which should be a sackable offence in any organisation", you're off your rocker. These things happen all the time, if they didn't there would be no such thing as lost property offices.
The correct way to deal with it is to ensure that the impact of such loss is minimised. Turn a potential disaster into a significant hindrance, turn a hindrance into a minor annoyance.
That said, I don't object in to penning animals in general, after all I like their tasty flesh and white milk and cream.. and eggs.. man I love eggs.
Then if you're only prepared to do one thing to increase animal happiness, make it "buy free-range eggs". Decent quality free-range eggs have a much better flavour and the size allocated per hen in a battery farm is about the same size as a sheet of writing paper.
This sort of thing shouldn't be handled by small claims, it's a bit too big. Realistically I'd submit the case to the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) claiming the product was not "Fit for purpose". They are set up to investigate this and fine those responsible if they find anything. I'm not sure if the UK has a similar organisation but I highly doubt the US does.
We do - it's called Trading Standards. But IME as soon as you go down the path of trying to get any enforcement done on something which isn't pretty cut and dried - say only a small fraction of people are affected and nobody has been able to pin down precisely why it's that small fraction - their eyes glaze over. Best case scenario is that Ubisoft would be asked a few questions, and they'd counter with something like "99% of people have not had a problem; you're always going to get some who do for whatever reason" and Trading Standards will nod understandingly and agree. The question of if/how one goes about getting a refund if you're one of the 1% would probably not even come up.
The GP is right. It doesn't matter two hoots if the problem is "A doesn't support B" or "B makes it impossible for A to support it" - the net result is exactly the same.
Now, how you go about resolving that issue is another matter altogether.
Legal costs aren't usually reclaimable in the UK at small claims (they are for most other things), but small claims is designed so that individuals can use it without incurring any - you just fill in the form, the court sends a summons to the defendant and a single judge listens to what you've both got to say and makes his judgement on the spot.
If you win and the defendant doesn't pay out, you can ask the court to send the bailiffs in and any additional bailiff fees would be on top of the judgement amount. There are a few cases of individuals taking big nationwide businesses to court and the business never bothered to file a defence - a few weeks later bailiffs walked into the nearest branch and threatened to seize all their computers unless the judgement was paid on the spot.
How are Ubisoft (and the wider games industry) supposed to tell the difference between options 1-5 on your "effective" list and pirating?
I think players who are not prepared to buy the game should write directly to the CEO of Ubisoft explaining that they're not buying the game, explaining why.
Actually, it's not as difficult as you make out and 80% of the building blocks are already in place.
You'd have a small print server at home. This print server would establish a connection to Google's system (they've already got a small application that Google for Domains users can install inside their firewall to integrate with Google for Domains, I don't see why you couldn't add local printer support to that enabling integration of your local printers with GfD) from inside the firewall, eliminating all the firewall messing around and would be able to speak to your printer. The print server would deal with the drivers.
IANAAE (an aviation expert), but it's my understanding that jet engines are designed explicitly to run at around 30-35,000 feet and are very inefficient otherwise.
I'm sure there are other reasons that people could add...
It was a guarantee, however it was a guarantee that nobody ever expected to have to pay out on because the institutions involved were so large that paying out on it would bankrupt the country.
Seriously, the cloud is not the solution to poorly-supported printers and difficult to find drivers. The solution is to demand, simple, consistent network interfaces for printers from the manufacturers.
We've already got that, and we've had it for years.
It's called "don't buy the cheapest shittiest printer with an RJ45 port that you can find". Do that properly, and the thing should support IPP, Zeroconf and Postscript at a bare minimum.
Of course, my printer (and yours too) don't have an outward facing IP and we don't port forward our routers to it either for exactly the reason you mention.
This wouldn't necessarily pose a problem.
Google for Domains customers can install a small app to go on a Linux server which communicates with them and allows you to integrate your systems with theirs. It gets around the firewall by the simple expedient of establishing the connection from the inside out. If you were to integrate that with Zeroconf - abracadabra! Any Google user can indeed print directly to all your printers.
I wouldn't be too surprised to see something like that built into Chrome OS.
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Very few countries have commodity-backed currencies these days. The world hasn't ended yet.
Though I grant you it does appear that nobody really knows how the wheels continue to stay on...
You can't trust the checksum once there's a virus there, because you're going to be depending on APIs provided by the OS and you don't know if they've been compromised.
(Actually, you can't trust anything once a machine's compromised, which to my mind is a huge problem with modern Windows systems, but I'm not even going to go there....)
Virus definition updates are not provided for testing prior to release.
Given how widespread this issue is, I think it would have been picked up in testing.
That's a very good point. Most corporate AV products allow you to set up your own update server and have your PCs update against that, but relatively few companies actually set up a separate update server and run the latest updates there first. Even if you did, any half-decent AV product is updated daily, sometimes more often. Testing every updated DAT file would be an exercise in extreme pain.
The problem with doing that is all a virus needs to do now is to infect a critical Windows file and you'd never know about it.
Well, if their support is anything to go by, the answer to that is a resounding yes.
Most AV companies have a range of products which are frequently entirely unrelated to each other.
Symantec have Norton (terrible), Symantec Enterprise (actually not too bad, although it's being obsoleted in favour of Endpoint Protection) and Symantec Endpoint Protection (which requires a Windows server even though it's a Java application which installs Tomcat and Apache in order to operate).
McAfee have a home product, an enterprise product and a "serviced" product (fairly standard managed AV product only you don't have to set up your own management server because they run it themselves).
Can't speak for others but quite often by the time you've whittled your requirements down you often find that your application choices are a lot more limited than a first glance would suggest.
It seems to be very willing to take the whole machine down.
Speaking of which, did anyone at McAfee even bother to test this dat on a Windows XP machine?
I'm sure they did but the real question is not "did McAfee test it against Windows XP?". It's "did they test it against Windows XP with every single version of svchost.exe that Microsoft have ever released?" - the original version and every updated version in every patch and service pack to date?
I believe the money from speed cameras in the UK by and large does go to the local constabulary.
This has led to a situation where once you've been caught on camera, it can be remarkably difficult to get off even if there is demonstrably something wrong with the camera and you are demonstrably not guilty.
And 20 million computer suddenly went up in smoke.. Let 'em try to keep the machinery running by themselves.
Then those 8 million sysadmins shouldn't have been in work because if the machinery goes up that quickly, they should be shot.
These are the types of problems that arrise from this prosecution. The law gives organizational policy the force of law, without realizing its limitations.
This is the real problem. Without that, the concerned admin wouldn't have to care about policy - certainly not after they've left their job.
Then the correct solution is to write a letter addressed to the Mayor's office for his/her direct attention.
Not to sit in jail waiting for him to come and visit you in person.
He didn't just make a mistake. He left a prototype in a bar while out drinking. That's flat out incompetence and he should be fired for it. I have zero sympathy for the guy, this growing trend of business people and government officials leaving sensitive equipment and data behind is just pure incompetence and being lax.
Don't be damn stupid.
If you really consider mislaying an item to be "a level of incompetence which should be a sackable offence in any organisation", you're off your rocker. These things happen all the time, if they didn't there would be no such thing as lost property offices.
The correct way to deal with it is to ensure that the impact of such loss is minimised. Turn a potential disaster into a significant hindrance, turn a hindrance into a minor annoyance.
Except it would taste pretty boring because the flavour comes from the fat.
That said, I don't object in to penning animals in general, after all I like their tasty flesh and white milk and cream.. and eggs.. man I love eggs.
Then if you're only prepared to do one thing to increase animal happiness, make it "buy free-range eggs". Decent quality free-range eggs have a much better flavour and the size allocated per hen in a battery farm is about the same size as a sheet of writing paper.
Putting it like that...
This sort of thing shouldn't be handled by small claims, it's a bit too big. Realistically I'd submit the case to the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) claiming the product was not "Fit for purpose". They are set up to investigate this and fine those responsible if they find anything. I'm not sure if the UK has a similar organisation but I highly doubt the US does.
We do - it's called Trading Standards. But IME as soon as you go down the path of trying to get any enforcement done on something which isn't pretty cut and dried - say only a small fraction of people are affected and nobody has been able to pin down precisely why it's that small fraction - their eyes glaze over. Best case scenario is that Ubisoft would be asked a few questions, and they'd counter with something like "99% of people have not had a problem; you're always going to get some who do for whatever reason" and Trading Standards will nod understandingly and agree. The question of if/how one goes about getting a refund if you're one of the 1% would probably not even come up.
The GP is right. It doesn't matter two hoots if the problem is "A doesn't support B" or "B makes it impossible for A to support it" - the net result is exactly the same.
Now, how you go about resolving that issue is another matter altogether.
Legal costs aren't usually reclaimable in the UK at small claims (they are for most other things), but small claims is designed so that individuals can use it without incurring any - you just fill in the form, the court sends a summons to the defendant and a single judge listens to what you've both got to say and makes his judgement on the spot.
If you win and the defendant doesn't pay out, you can ask the court to send the bailiffs in and any additional bailiff fees would be on top of the judgement amount. There are a few cases of individuals taking big nationwide businesses to court and the business never bothered to file a defence - a few weeks later bailiffs walked into the nearest branch and threatened to seize all their computers unless the judgement was paid on the spot.
How are Ubisoft (and the wider games industry) supposed to tell the difference between options 1-5 on your "effective" list and pirating?
I think players who are not prepared to buy the game should write directly to the CEO of Ubisoft explaining that they're not buying the game, explaining why.
How come so few US people even seem to consider the small claims route? Is it really awkward in the US or something?
Actually, it's not as difficult as you make out and 80% of the building blocks are already in place.
You'd have a small print server at home. This print server would establish a connection to Google's system (they've already got a small application that Google for Domains users can install inside their firewall to integrate with Google for Domains, I don't see why you couldn't add local printer support to that enabling integration of your local printers with GfD) from inside the firewall, eliminating all the firewall messing around and would be able to speak to your printer. The print server would deal with the drivers.
IANAAE (an aviation expert), but it's my understanding that jet engines are designed explicitly to run at around 30-35,000 feet and are very inefficient otherwise.
I'm sure there are other reasons that people could add...
Reads like a guarantee to me.
It was a guarantee, however it was a guarantee that nobody ever expected to have to pay out on because the institutions involved were so large that paying out on it would bankrupt the country.
Seriously, the cloud is not the solution to poorly-supported printers and difficult to find drivers. The solution is to demand, simple, consistent network interfaces for printers from the manufacturers.
We've already got that, and we've had it for years.
It's called "don't buy the cheapest shittiest printer with an RJ45 port that you can find". Do that properly, and the thing should support IPP, Zeroconf and Postscript at a bare minimum.
Not if the OP has older printers, which is very likely in a school.
Of course, my printer (and yours too) don't have an outward facing IP and we don't port forward our routers to it either for exactly the reason you mention.
This wouldn't necessarily pose a problem.
Google for Domains customers can install a small app to go on a Linux server which communicates with them and allows you to integrate your systems with theirs. It gets around the firewall by the simple expedient of establishing the connection from the inside out. If you were to integrate that with Zeroconf - abracadabra! Any Google user can indeed print directly to all your printers.
I wouldn't be too surprised to see something like that built into Chrome OS.