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User: Kenardy

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Comments · 57

  1. Re:Will they listen? No. on Richard Clarke on Microsoft security · · Score: 1

    "My windows machine doesn't make me look anything up or go out of my way to learn how to use it because I already know how"

    And the reason you 'already know how' is because you have already invested the time in Windows that you are unwilling to invest in Linux.

    I've been using Linux for several years now. Before that, I taught DOS and DOS-based applications.

    I had to invest time in learning DOS. Then I had to un-learn quite a bit to learn to mouse around with Windows. Then I did the grunt work learning for Linux.

    I decided to learn Linux when I realized that every new version of Windows I was using called for a pretty severe re-training anyways ... I might as well run something cutting edge and fun.

  2. Re:Will they listen? No. on Richard Clarke on Microsoft security · · Score: 1

    If that's what it takes to earn your respect, it's not worth having.

  3. Re:Will they listen? No. on Richard Clarke on Microsoft security · · Score: 1

    "If I were a customer of Microsoft, I'd ..."

    Don't know what you'd do, but I know what I did. Starting with RH 5.2, I installed Linux.

    Works for me. 'Course, I'm also the kind of guy who reads /. regularly and have an IQ in the 97th percentile. I am neither stoooopid nor lazy.

    I even have a TOTALLY secure install of Win 98. It isn't allowed access to the internet (although part of my home lan, it gets filtered at my firewalls - yes, I have two piggy-backed. Each is based on a different OS and that, in my opinion, makes an automated attack unlikely) and it contains no personal data. Theft of the box and cracking of the wimpy password will net you ... nothing.

    Let's see now. CE. ME. NT. toupee and ex-pee. Apparently it's been a while since Mr. Gates has had anything I thought worth buying.

  4. Re:Plus, look at the person doing the hacking... on Identity Theft of Many SAIC Employees · · Score: 1

    Did you RTFA?

    This was a 'smash & grab'. SAIC needs stronger windows ... or fewer of them.

    Arguably this information should not have been on the disk drive of a PC to begin with ... but the PC's weren't 'compromised' ... they were STOLEN. SAIC needs to do something about the strength of their first floor windows.

  5. Re:Encryption Time on Precedent for Warrantless Net Monitoring Set · · Score: 2, Informative

    Why wait? Start now with GPG / PGP on your email.

    I have advertised my public key for years. No one has ever used it ... but I've done my part.

    Do yours.

    If all email was encrypted there is NO way that law enforcement officers could decrypt it all. Nope ... they'd have to go back to doing what they have always done ... wait for some sort of evidence by other means.

  6. Re:You want interoperability? on Bill Gates Claims OSS Has Poor Interoperability · · Score: 1

    hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

    bummer

  7. Re:typical on Bill Gates Claims OSS Has Poor Interoperability · · Score: 2, Informative

    It wasn't all that long ago that the official MSFT web site wouldn't open in Opera unless Opera sent the MSIE header. Then it worked just fine.

    I am one of the thousands of folks who were 'on the spot' to test this behavior and KNOW it to be true from personal contact and experience.

    It wasn't a sabotage of a standard, it was a perversion of one.

  8. Re:reasonable doubt on Computer-Edited Photos Lead To Child-Porn Locale · · Score: 1

    In that case, the cops can argue back that they could barely get the existing person out of the pic ... much let put someone else in convincingly.

  9. Re:bugs on No Warrant Needed For GPS Tracking By Police · · Score: 1

    Actually, it gives them quite a bit more information. "Every driver on the road" only knows where you are at the moment. They do not know where you were and they do not know where you will end up or how fast you drive when they can not see you or about the side stop you made to spend 'quality time' with an unmarried associate.

    Nor is this any business of 'every driver on the road'. Nor is it police business until a crime has actually been committed. At that point they will have little or no trouble getting the needed search warrant from a nearby judge.

    People who make the 'nothing to hide' argument don't understand the point ... I have a RIGHT to privacy. I have a RIGHT to make charitable donations without others knowing. I have a RIGHT to travel freely in this country (US). I have a RIGHT to park on a public street and spend my lunch hour reading a book. I have a RIGHT to these things and weasling about 'things to hide' chisels away at my RIGHTS Perfectly good blood was spilled to acquire those RIGHTS and perfectly good blood continues to be shed to obtain them for others (see IRAQ). It would take the crassest disrespect for the lives thus expended for me to willingly surrender those rights without a bloody awful fight.

    And I won't do it.

    Surrender your own rights if you wish. But take mine from me only by force and at great risk to yourself.

  10. Re:Okay, so this changes what again? on No Warrant Needed For GPS Tracking By Police · · Score: 1

    While acknowledging that the judge in this matter saw things differently, I am of the opinion that a person driving in their car DOES have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

    Short of being stalked / trailed, there is little likelihood that an observer at the destination can tell where a car originated nor is there much chance of a person at the origination point knowing where the car will ultimately arrive. If the cops have the right to attach a tracking device to my personal property, they also have the right to attach it directly to me.

    While a GPS could follow me to my sons house in another state, no individual police officer could. A police officer only has jurisdiction in a reasonably confined geographical area and only has an interest in my doings while I am within that area. Yet a GPS reports my whereabouts pretty much anywhere on the planet.

    This is an unreasonable invasion of privacy ... a 'fishing expedition' in search of a crime, possibly not yet committed.

    WRONG.

    Where I go after my weekly round of Yahtzee with an old friend is NO ONE'S business but my own. Even if all I do is stop to get an ice-cream cone on the way home ... the right to privacy -except in certain narrowly defined circumstances- is a primary right.

    It isn't that I have anything to hide ... I simply have a right to privacy and the police to NOT have the right to invade it simply because they think I MIGHT be planning to be a bad boy.

  11. Re:How'd they get the funding? on New and Improved SETI · · Score: 1

    The more likely use of lasers aimed at us would be to re-establish contact when our technology had sufficiently matured that we could hold up our end of the conversation.

    That, of course, presumes that VonDaniken isn't a total nutcase and 'they' have already been here.

  12. Re:Tell that to Bikini Atoll... on Asteroid Flies Under the Radar, Literally · · Score: 1

    "What do you think the result of flash-heating the upper atmosphere to several thousand degrees for several hours is likely to be?"

    I dunno. What makes you think this would happen? If it did, probably we could all take the day off work.

  13. Re:this kind of thing is needed for video chats! on Build Your Own Teleprompter · · Score: 1

    Mount your camera between you and the monitor. Problem solved.

  14. Re:Reasons why people don't have phone service on Louisiana Towns Going High-Tech · · Score: 1

    The grocer and the gas station don't extend you credit, either.

    When you use a credit card at the gas station and grocery store, the payment is guaranteed by the card issuer. The grocer and gas station pay the credit card issuer for that guarantee.

    I'd guess that you'd get a different response if you asked the grocer to wait 60 days for payment.

  15. Slashdot effect on Revolutionary Tower in Brazil · · Score: 1

    I've read all the posts and I am thoroughly convinced that the IQ level in here has dropped considerably.

    People seem to be worried that they won't be able to find the bathroom or the exit in time. Makes me wonder how they find them in rectangular structures ... like the paper bag they have over their heads.

    All utilities run through the center column. The kitchen, restroom(s), exit / entrance and quite possibly the bedroom(s) are all in the fixed center column. In all likliehood, only the living areas held in common rotate. No engineering marvels here ... all solved problems from long ago. The comments about stairs really cracked me up. Not. Go see the movie "Kate & Leopold" ... only this time pay attention to something other than Kate's bottom. Elevators were invented LONG ago and even Brazil has them now. Brazil has an arguable claim to have invented heavier than air flying, fer cryin' out loud.

    You guys who are working so hard to find fault with this building needn't bother ... it wasn't built for you.

  16. Re:No posts on SCO Gives up on Linux Website · · Score: 1

    I think legal realized that SCO is nearly out of toes and can't afford to shoot itself in the foot forever. Legal probably doesn't object to the toe mutilation as much as they object to the 'out of money to pay attornies' part.

  17. Re:Why doesn't on Redmondmag on Dumping IE · · Score: 1

    When I hit a broken website (one reliant on Flash or MSIE for basic communications, for instance) I look around for an email address and, if I find one, let the contact person know that I came, I tried to buy,I departed. I point out that I took my money with me when I left ... and exactly why.

    I'm an individual trying to get a business started.

    I drop anywhere from $200-$600 a month on internet purchases or on purchases from 'bricks & clicks' that were originally researched on the internet but purchased locally to avoid waiting for delivery. If people want any part of those sales they've got to write websites I can view.

    There is nothing I need to buy for which there are not at least a dozen vendors. If one doesn't care to help me spend my money by writing browser-agnostic code, there are at least 11 others who will be happy to accept my credit cards.

    And that's a fact, Jack.

  18. Re:An idea to beat Microsoft on Redmondmag on Dumping IE · · Score: 1

    I am using Firefox .8 and all I see is a fuzzy blue "Odeon" with no clickable links.

    I hope they weren't trying to sell me anything ... because I just blew on outta there.

  19. Re:Can I mod this +6? on RIAA Grinds Down Individuals in the Courtroom · · Score: 1

    Actually, why not RAISE the penalties for illegal copyright violations ... say $100,000 for the first illegally copied CD and $1,000,000 for each illegally copied CD thereafter?

    That would make the RIAA look like doggie do-do for chasing after the casual thief who copied 20 tunes and increase their incentive to pursue folks who copy every title on or before the date of its release.

    Where I work there is a guy who makes (quite a bit of) 'spare change' by selling pirated CD's for $5.00. He buys them from someone else at 3 for $10.00. He doesn't care that it is stealing ... he just wants to make the lease payments on his SUV.

    Quite frankly, I am of the opinion that he is participating in organized crime and deserves whatever may befall him for his part in it.

    I don't like the RIAA. Not even a little bit on a nice day. I consider the way they pursue their business grossly immoral. But I'm no fonder of small potatoes thieves than I am of big ones.

  20. Re:Can I mod this +6? on RIAA Grinds Down Individuals in the Courtroom · · Score: 1

    I'd like to suggest that you skip the used CD market as well (except, possibly, for like-kind FtF sharing). I suspect that the funds endusers realize from the sale of used CD's usually ends up in new CD purchases. Nothing is gained when all you do is launder the money through an additional set of hands before it gets to the RIAA.

    Just boycot RIAA CD's in all forms.

  21. Re:Once again, protest with your money on RIAA Grinds Down Individuals in the Courtroom · · Score: 1

    That's right. Those fines don't pay those attornies, sales of recorded media do.

    I think that a boycot is WAY overdue. We can't beat them in court but we could, conceivably, starve them to death at the music stores.

  22. Re:A sentence or two... on Grokster Wins Big in Ninth Circuit · · Score: 1

    However, rephrasing things in non-tech terms means that they will never learn tech lingo because they will never need to. This would be a grave disservice to all the techie wannabees out there.

    Moreover, if you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.

  23. Re:One of the primary difficulties on Telstra Used Linux To Get Microsoft Discounts · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Or, in other words: This shouldn't be seen as a victory for Microsoft's competitors because Microsoft's having to lower their prices for the customers who are threatening to leave. It's a victory for Microsoft, because Microsoft isn't having to lower their prices for everyone else."

    Yet.

    I just thought I'd supply the word you left off.

  24. Re:A few thoughts on Telstra Used Linux To Get Microsoft Discounts · · Score: 1

    I have heard a rumor that Longhorn will be renamed "Brand X" before release ... like XP (that's "Brand X, build P"). Most likely, it will be called "MSFT XTC".

  25. Re:Go Back Three Spaces - Or not on Telstra Used Linux To Get Microsoft Discounts · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's the magic of it all ... it's not a bluff. If Microsoft doesn't actually cough up the serious discounts, the Linux card gets played. Unless staying with Microsoft is significantly less expensive than changing to Linux, Linux gets installed over MSFT. The more security (and other) problems MSFT operating systems and application programming have, the greater the margin they have to beat Linux by.

    Even with the discounts, the sales are still profitable (they have to get below ~15% profit before Bill starts looking for the exit) but the days of 'gag a maggot' margins are nearing their end. This leads, necessarily, to the question of how long MSFT stock will remain at its current levels.

    And, if MSFT stock options become less attractive, will they be able to retain their programmers for the same cash wages?

    A loss of profit margins leads to a loss of stock value which leads to a loss of programmer income which leads to a brain drain. Responding to the brain drain by upping the cash component of the wages narrows the profit margins even further.

    This cannot be good for Microsoft.