2. Mac and Linux are a very small minority, and therefore less attractive as targets.
Exactly, the dominant architecture attracts all the attention.
How can having a monoculture be the source of most security problems? The os is the problem, the monoculture only serves to make it worse.
Much much worse, in some cases. We may be talking past each other. Sure, perfect development in a perfect world would handle security problems. We have to deal with what we have and with what we have, a monoculture makes things much worse.
If OpenBSD was the world leader instead of windows, would you blame the security increases on the desktop monoculture?
If OpenBSD was dominant, we'd be all focused on OpenSSH exploits and Apache exploits.
True, if security were considered more important, security would be less of a problem. So what? Obviously, with human nature being what it is, people are more likely to focus on problems only after they become really serious, which leads to poorly designed systems. This being the reality, as opposed to some pie-in-the-sky, diversity of systems would help a lot and should be put forth as one of the main, and relatively easy, things we can do to solve our security problems.
I actually liked a lot of the first season and second season. I really like the portrayal of the Vulcans, for example.
From the old show, we learn that the Vulcans have been in space for a long time, possibly thousands of years. The question comes to mind, with their obvious physical and mental advantages and their long history, why aren't they more advanced? In Enterprise we learn it's because they are arrogant and stagnant as a culture. It actually explains a lot about them.
I like how T'Pol is absolutely and unshakeably convinced that time travel is impossible because Vulcans have proven this. I wonder what else the Vulcan's didn't investigate over the many years because it was proven "impossible". I like the tension between the Vulcans, the Federation with the T'Pol plotlines and all.
I also like the feel of Enterprise, how they're really stretching their technology thin to be doing this at all. Polarizing the hull instead of shields, the grappling hook, torpedo firing practice, etc. It's fun that they have to come up with stuff on the fly instead of the other series where it always seemed like they were saved by some Deus Ex Machina.
But... A lot of the stories are thin and the acting isn't always great. They do have the 1-hour Star Trek problem of building up a complicated story and resolving it in 30 seconds.
I completely disagree with your point that the desktop monoculture is to blame for the security weaknesses we currently experience. I blame the fact that security has not been a priority or a market force until now.
OK, it's official, you're clueless.
If the desktop monoculture is not largely responsible for the security problems we currently experience, why is it that Mac and Linux desktop users experience FAR fewer problems than Windows users with viruses, backdoors and the like?
When fabrications appear on Fox News, we find out about them (if we do at all) from sources other than Fox.
I don't know to what you are referring to here, but please, out with these fabrications that Fox News is guilty of. Are they anywhere, at all, comparable to the years of blatant plagiarism and faked stories that Jayson Blair committed and were they known about for years internally and covered up?
This distinction is to the Times' credit, and speaks to its greater value of journalistic integrity.
By April 2002, Jonathan Landman, the paper's Metro editor, was prompted to send an email, apparently to senior Times employees. "We have to stop Jayson from writing for the paper," it read. "Right now." Blair went on leave and came back, according to reports, on the understanding that he would be writing smaller, closely monitored assignments. "
But, it seems, the abuses continued and actually got far worse in the upcoming year, falsely reporting on the Washingon area sniper and Jessica Lynch. Hardly, smaller assignments and apparently without close monitoring. Yes, that's a record to be proud of, alright.
Just because it's standard doesn't mean it has to be weak.
I think you missed his point completely. He was pointing out how being standard in itself is a potential weakness.
Everyone can see how the desktop monoculture has led to our current situation and that it's bad. I think a security monoculture would, at best, lead people to a false sense of security.
As the poster says, with everyone authenticating to the Internet, we'll finally have the possibility of a "digital Pearl Harbour". Hit the security infrastructure and it all comes down.
It needs booster rockets to achieve escape velocity...
uhh... I don't think we know what it would take to get the Shuttle up to escape velocity, seeing as it's never been tried or even contemplated. Big Rockets would probably do it, though.
Doubtful. Companies that are already Windows shops have a hard time taking all those windows documents and spreadsheets and power point presentations etc... and switching them over to a *nix equivalent (or standard format). The chances of a backfire are minimal.
Huh? All those documents and spreadsheets you refer to are on the desktop. Almost every shop is already Windows Desktop everywhere (remember the Monopoly thing?). These tools help those Windows Desktops interact better with Unix servers.
I don't really see how it helps people migrate to Windows Servers at all.
I'd say this is just a better way to help people switch from *nix environments to Windows (and MS is making it free so it isn't "worse than the open source solution").
OK, no point in discussing this with you. You don't see the advantage to having source, you know free vs. Free and all. Of course, MS, who has always had the user's best interests at heart will never desupport these utilities or break them strategically or anything like that. Nope, no advantage to the Open Source solution here.
Uhhh... eCos already was Open Source, RedHat just held all the copyrights. Now, the copyrights are assigned to FSF.
The difference is that users can now be assured that eCos will be released under the GPL only in the future. The copyright owner can always license software out however they want and RedHat did use a GPL-compatible license. It was already Open Source, but it wasn't already Free.
Oh well. I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed...
"`The first ten million years were the worst,' said Marvin, `and the second ten million, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline.'"
At the risk of being modded down myself... Any discussion of Moderation in a thread not that's not explicitly about Moderation should be modded "Off Topic".
Abuses are supposed to be handled by Meta-Moderation, not discussion.
Don't hold your breath waiting for those Press Releases.
Google would be nuts to do this.
Everyone would hate them for caving in.
It would negatively affect their IPO as investors would not know what kind of liability Google was carrying in the form of periodic license renewals.
IANAL, but wouldn't buying an SCO license for IP that they are already holding under GPL potentially negatively affect Google's future ability to release GPL'd code based on the same body of work. It would seem that buying the SCO license is an implicit admission to SCO's rights here.
But you have to remember that with scientists, likely is a much stronger statement than you seem to think -- i.e. more than 80% probability.
Perhaps. In this case, I think you are probably overstating. The real Scientists were careful to list a lot of alternatives.
The fact that they published it at all means it's the strong majority position of the Academy. I can try to find you a reference for that if you want.
Please do. I've looked and I can't find it. There was a poll from Atmospheric Scientists back in the early 90's that was far from conclusive, although most did say that Global Warming was probably occurring and that if it was it was likely the result of human activity.
I don't think you'll find much real Scientific support that CO2 is clearly the culprit even if human activity is thought to be at the root of Global Warming.
N2O is a MUCH more powerful agent to trap ultraviolet radiation when compared to N2O, and much of the excess N2O comes from human activity. It might be that a modest reduction in N2O will have a more of an effect than a dramatic decrease in CO2.
Also, water vapor traps ultraviolet better than CO2, although nobody really knows what to do to affect water vapor levels.
You are quite correct that the Kyoto doesn't do nearly enough to solve the problem, assuming it exists. The Real Environmentalists I know consider it a first step, in vaguely the right direction, at best.
Yeah. Great first step. Has no real positive effects, but it does serve to trash the engine of Scientific Progress that might actually be able to give us real insight and do something about the problems if they do exist.
Look, I'm not opposed to dramatic efforts to do something, but as it stands, much of the Environmentalist position seems to have a similar effect to the nuts who are burning Hummer dealerships in Southern California. All symbolism, but no substance.
The focus is all wrong. While we are captivated on human-generated CO2 it seems the oceans may be dying. Most CO2 => O2 exchange does not take place in rainforests, as the "average/. reader" would have you believe, but rather the oceans. I'm in favor of virtually any amount of money to study these problems and perhaps we need to immediately curtail dumping in the ocean. Very little support for such things can be expected with the cacophony of chicken littles screaming "We must stop driving cars!! We must stop driving cars!!"
Thanks for the source, now there's something to actually discuss
While the poster said (paraphrasing) "The vast majority of scientists believe that there is global warming and that human activity IS a major factor",this report you cite is actually somewhat equivocal:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that global warming in the last 50 years is likely the result of increases in greenhouse gases, which accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community, the committee said. However, it also cautioned that uncertainties about this conclusion remain because of the level of natural variability inherent in the climate on time scales from decades to centuries, the questionable ability of models to simulate natural variability on such long time scales, and the degree of confidence that can be placed on estimates of temperatures going back thousands of years based on evidence from tree rings or ice cores.
Note the use of the word likely above and the reference to other possible causes? Also, nowhere in this report is there anything about what majority, let alone vast majority, opinion supports even these watered-down observations.
These are the top guys in their fields, and they make good statements based on real evidence, as opposed to the average/. posting...
Indeed, the average/. posting tells us that Scientists have determined that greenhouse gasses have caused global warming. When you examine the real studies, however, you find uncertain support for this position.
The only policy recommendation you hear from the "average/. reader" is an immediate adherence to the Kyoto Treaty. A Treaty that will not do anything to decrease the CO2 surplus for the foreseeable future, but will certainly damage the economies of the industrialized nations.
OK, this all seems very reasonable, but what to do?
The Kyoto Treaty is more about hamstringing the Western industrial countries than about really addressing any kind of CO2 surplus. Check it out, the CO2 surplus is expected to increase for years to come with China, India and Africa facing basically no restrictions at all under Kyoto.
Combine this with the fact that Europe is not expected to meet it's obligations under Kyoto, even thought they continue to play lip service to it, and it's dim indeed.
The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, and that human activity is a major factor.
Sources, please?
I keep hearing this "vast majority of scientists agree" and "human activity IS" (rather than MAY be) "a major factor", but I've never seen a source for this contention.
The problem is that is was buried in an appropriations bill. You can't tell if any of those who voted for it or against it were even really aware of this provision.
Now, THAT's the real problem. Congressmen play games, like voice votes and burying things in unrelated legislation, so we can't really hold them accountable.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly, the dominant architecture attracts all the attention.
Much much worse, in some cases. We may be talking past each other. Sure, perfect development in a perfect world would handle security problems. We have to deal with what we have and with what we have, a monoculture makes things much worse.
If OpenBSD was dominant, we'd be all focused on OpenSSH exploits and Apache exploits.
True, if security were considered more important, security would be less of a problem. So what? Obviously, with human nature being what it is, people are more likely to focus on problems only after they become really serious, which leads to poorly designed systems. This being the reality, as opposed to some pie-in-the-sky, diversity of systems would help a lot and should be put forth as one of the main, and relatively easy, things we can do to solve our security problems.
From the old show, we learn that the Vulcans have been in space for a long time, possibly thousands of years. The question comes to mind, with their obvious physical and mental advantages and their long history, why aren't they more advanced? In Enterprise we learn it's because they are arrogant and stagnant as a culture. It actually explains a lot about them.
I like how T'Pol is absolutely and unshakeably convinced that time travel is impossible because Vulcans have proven this. I wonder what else the Vulcan's didn't investigate over the many years because it was proven "impossible". I like the tension between the Vulcans, the Federation with the T'Pol plotlines and all.
I also like the feel of Enterprise, how they're really stretching their technology thin to be doing this at all. Polarizing the hull instead of shields, the grappling hook, torpedo firing practice, etc. It's fun that they have to come up with stuff on the fly instead of the other series where it always seemed like they were saved by some Deus Ex Machina.
But... A lot of the stories are thin and the acting isn't always great. They do have the 1-hour Star Trek problem of building up a complicated story and resolving it in 30 seconds.
Why would we care about dinosaur killers? In case you didn't notice, the dinosaurs have been extinct for 70 million years or so.
- I completely disagree with your point that the desktop monoculture is to blame for the security weaknesses we currently experience. I blame the fact that security has not been a priority or a market force until now.
OK, it's official, you're clueless.If the desktop monoculture is not largely responsible for the security problems we currently experience, why is it that Mac and Linux desktop users experience FAR fewer problems than Windows users with viruses, backdoors and the like?
- When fabrications appear in the Times, we find out about them first from the Times' open admissions and internal investigations.
If you are referring to the Jayson Blair affair, if you examine the record carefully you'll find that the NYT times broke the story only after another newspaper, the San Antonio News-Express, raised concerns of plagiarism.I don't know to what you are referring to here, but please, out with these fabrications that Fox News is guilty of. Are they anywhere, at all, comparable to the years of blatant plagiarism and faked stories that Jayson Blair committed and were they known about for years internally and covered up?
What incredible journalistic integrity! The Metro editor, a YEAR before the story recommended immediate dismissal:
But, it seems, the abuses continued and actually got far worse in the upcoming year, falsely reporting on the Washingon area sniper and Jessica Lynch. Hardly, smaller assignments and apparently without close monitoring. Yes, that's a record to be proud of, alright.
Oh oh. Did I miss something? Did SCO win in a BIG way when I wasn't looking? People are starting to refer to the government as SCO city.
I think you missed his point completely. He was pointing out how being standard in itself is a potential weakness.
Everyone can see how the desktop monoculture has led to our current situation and that it's bad. I think a security monoculture would, at best, lead people to a false sense of security.
As the poster says, with everyone authenticating to the Internet, we'll finally have the possibility of a "digital Pearl Harbour". Hit the security infrastructure and it all comes down.
uhh... I don't think we know what it would take to get the Shuttle up to escape velocity, seeing as it's never been tried or even contemplated. Big Rockets would probably do it, though.
all the gloom and doom about what would happen to the "orphaned" Mozilla browser now that AOL was dropping it.
In 2005, it's back to Windows then?
Science doesn't even fully understand Fire and we use that pretty well, too.
- Doubtful. Companies that are already Windows shops have a hard time taking all those windows documents and spreadsheets and power point presentations etc... and switching them over to a *nix equivalent (or standard format). The chances of a backfire are minimal.
Huh? All those documents and spreadsheets you refer to are on the desktop. Almost every shop is already Windows Desktop everywhere (remember the Monopoly thing?). These tools help those Windows Desktops interact better with Unix servers.I don't really see how it helps people migrate to Windows Servers at all.
- I'd say this is just a better way to help people switch from *nix environments to Windows (and MS is making it free so it isn't "worse than the open source solution").
OK, no point in discussing this with you. You don't see the advantage to having source, you know free vs. Free and all. Of course, MS, who has always had the user's best interests at heart will never desupport these utilities or break them strategically or anything like that. Nope, no advantage to the Open Source solution here.Agreed. I thought "Free" (as used by RMS) == GPL, but I've been educated. Thanks.
I'm not trying to quibble here, for all intents and purposes it might have been Free.
The difference is that users can now be assured that eCos will be released under the GPL only in the future. The copyright owner can always license software out however they want and RedHat did use a GPL-compatible license. It was already Open Source, but it wasn't already Free.
- Oh well. I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed...
"`The first ten million years were the worst,' said Marvin, `and the second ten million, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline.'"Abuses are supposed to be handled by Meta-Moderation, not discussion.
Google would be nuts to do this.
- But you have to remember that with scientists, likely is a much stronger statement than you seem to think -- i.e. more than 80% probability.
Perhaps. In this case, I think you are probably overstating. The real Scientists were careful to list a lot of alternatives.- The fact that they published it at all means it's the strong majority position of the Academy. I can try to find you a reference for that if you want.
Please do. I've looked and I can't find it. There was a poll from Atmospheric Scientists back in the early 90's that was far from conclusive, although most did say that Global Warming was probably occurring and that if it was it was likely the result of human activity.I don't think you'll find much real Scientific support that CO2 is clearly the culprit even if human activity is thought to be at the root of Global Warming.
N2O is a MUCH more powerful agent to trap ultraviolet radiation when compared to N2O, and much of the excess N2O comes from human activity. It might be that a modest reduction in N2O will have a more of an effect than a dramatic decrease in CO2.
Also, water vapor traps ultraviolet better than CO2, although nobody really knows what to do to affect water vapor levels.
- You are quite correct that the Kyoto doesn't do nearly enough to solve the problem, assuming it exists. The Real Environmentalists I know consider it a first step, in vaguely the right direction, at best.
Yeah. Great first step. Has no real positive effects, but it does serve to trash the engine of Scientific Progress that might actually be able to give us real insight and do something about the problems if they do exist.Look, I'm not opposed to dramatic efforts to do something, but as it stands, much of the Environmentalist position seems to have a similar effect to the nuts who are burning Hummer dealerships in Southern California. All symbolism, but no substance.
The focus is all wrong. While we are captivated on human-generated CO2 it seems the oceans may be dying. Most CO2 => O2 exchange does not take place in rainforests, as the "average /. reader" would have you believe, but rather the oceans. I'm in favor of virtually any amount of money to study these problems and perhaps we need to immediately curtail dumping in the ocean. Very little support for such things can be expected with the cacophony of chicken littles screaming "We must stop driving cars!! We must stop driving cars!!"
While the poster said (paraphrasing) "The vast majority of scientists believe that there is global warming and that human activity IS a major factor",this report you cite is actually somewhat equivocal:
Note the use of the word likely above and the reference to other possible causes? Also, nowhere in this report is there anything about what majority, let alone vast majority, opinion supports even these watered-down observations.- These are the top guys in their fields, and they make good statements based on real evidence, as opposed to the average
/. posting...
Indeed, the averageThe only policy recommendation you hear from the "average /. reader" is an immediate adherence to the Kyoto Treaty. A Treaty that will not do anything to decrease the CO2 surplus for the foreseeable future, but will certainly damage the economies of the industrialized nations.
The Kyoto Treaty is more about hamstringing the Western industrial countries than about really addressing any kind of CO2 surplus. Check it out, the CO2 surplus is expected to increase for years to come with China, India and Africa facing basically no restrictions at all under Kyoto.
Combine this with the fact that Europe is not expected to meet it's obligations under Kyoto, even thought they continue to play lip service to it, and it's dim indeed.
-
Every one of these factoids has been disproved.
Sources, please?The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, and that human activity is a major factor.
I keep hearing this "vast majority of scientists agree" and "human activity IS" (rather than MAY be) "a major factor", but I've never seen a source for this contention.
Uhhh, I hate to break this to you, but the non-physical money is created by the Treasury Department through the Federal Reserve also.
Now, THAT's the real problem. Congressmen play games, like voice votes and burying things in unrelated legislation, so we can't really hold them accountable.
I don't have a solution.
- How many icebergs did the Ark bounce off of?
The Ark survived at least as many iceberg strikes as the Titanic.