IIRC its something to do with a problem left over from the old netscape days. It "grows" in memory because it doesn't clear up after itself very well. Unfortunatly I hear that it'll take a fairly big effort to sort it out since the inherited problem is so old and hence ingrained in the software. Lets hope they've got someone working on it already. It's the one problem I have with FF.
DISCLAIMER: I'm no expert on FF or the memory growing problem so please correct me if I'm wrong (I'd like to know) but keep the flaming to a minimum.
He states that he publised his viruses. This is just as bad as actively releasing the thing.
Or maybe they're all just too stupid to think that some script kiddie will come along, compile and release the thing. Writing malicious code to see if something works is one thing, writing it and releasing/publishing it is another. One can help you understand the workings of another piece of software, the other makes a big mess of the internet and there's no excuse for it.
"In short, while one could as you suggest, it would a lot of pain, for no gain. It would be far better to just cut off access to the Internet completely, which really is the only solution."
Hehe, what about CD swapping or wireless networks? There are still lots of ways to swap music even without the internet.
So you wouldn't mind at all if I took something of yours (some intellectual property of course) and claimed it was mine? Not even if it was a book that you wrote that was heralded as the best book the last 100 years?
Copyrights are not bad things. They originated to give authors the rights to their works rather than the publishers.
The problems have arisn from publishers getting the copyrights back into their possession and abusing them for all they're worth.
This is very strange indeed. The wireless cards I use in my home network work perfectly with linux while I had to prat about for a month with the windows installs, downloading newer and newer versions of the drivers and each time having windows mess up the install. In relation, the linux installs were done in a hour just by following the simple plain english instructions with the third party driver provided by some nice people who had to reverse engineer the card.
While I agree that the only way to really ensure you do not get remotely compromised is to unplug the thing, I'd like to point out that there IS software that you can trust well enough: the stuff you write on your own. You *could* write a compiler in a low level language so you skip the need for another compiler, and then you *could* use your own compiler to compile the rest of your software. Of course, this solution's reserved for the most paranoid person with the most amount of time on their hands, but it *could* happen./nit picking
The reason that strict interpretation is a good thing is to keep standards. Do you want your browser to only be able to load 90% of the web pages you visit? When a browser starts guessing on how to present a page it gets messy. It may end up not looking anything like the author intended and may even become too broken to use. This is what standards are all about: keeping compatibility. Compatibility is a good thing and ensures that everybody can have access.
"It's a language that is in large use by people with limited knowledge of any form of programming"
Hence all of the programs avaliable to do to do the coding for you. These programs should be doing the guess work for the web page authors, not the browsers.
"What if Ted Kennedy came out and said "If those people release the game I will have them killed"."
You're comparing a simulation of a historical event with a real life death threat. There's a huge difference. A video game is hardly a threat on somebodies life. Up until some nut actually takes it seriously enough to plan and attempt a murder it is still a simple video game, and even then it is hardly at fault. You have to remember that if _anybody_ were to decide assassinating a president, based on their experience playing this game, was a good idea, they were already pre-disposed to that sort of behaviour. The game doesn't make people do anything and is not a death threat.
"Threats of violence control people." Why do you think libya changed their stance? It's called bullying.
IMHO they are going to have to do a major re-write of much of the OS to make security a real possibility. There are too many problems with the design of the OS to simply stick a few band-aids over them. Of course, the stability _is_ getting better. If it wasn't they'd be dying. I'd love to see microsoft sort out their security. It'd help the internet as a whole (all that pesky malware affects more than just windows users) and would make me feel a bit safer when I'm forced to use their OS at college and at work.
I'm not confident either, but I guess more people would make the switch if schools and colleges(et al) started using firefox as their default (or even alternative) browser. I plan to at least _ask_ my college to install firefox as an alternative (it would make the technicians jobs easier). If more people started bugging the people in charge of the networks more users would get exposed to firefox (or whatever browser) and may see a good reason to change.
Unless of course, they get a thousend firefox using/.'ers going over there now just because you posted the link;) But point taken. The context of the sites should be taken into account when trying to measure what percentage of people are using what browsers.
Spend some money, patent what you have, and make sure you havn't infringed on any of MicroSofts patents. This way they either have to buy your idea, get your patent revoked, or play the market against you.
Provided you're not treading on their turf they probably wouldn't bother you until you become a threat.
How about legal ownership of all the users assets (house, car, money, etc)? Ridiculous enough to get the law changed, but not as bad as demanding somebodies first born child;)
umm....a EULA falls under copyright. End User Licensing Agreement. It's just a software license, plain and simple. It grants you rights to use the software (just as the GPL or BSDL do). Just because it's a harsh and very restrictive license doesn't magically mean it's no longer a document pertaining to copyright.
The systems don't stop at the computers. The best system admin in the world can't stop an attack if it's: 1) original 2) helped along by a user (whether they mean to or not) 3) outside the control of the sysadmin
I'm sure the systems are hardened, but hardened deosn't mean 100% secure. There will always be a way for an attacker to be successful. Unless computers containing sensitive information are taken off a network, locked up and guarded there's a big risk of being compromised.
JoeUser also wants to be able to play the latest games, chat to people on the other side of the world and a multitude of other things that require complex technology. If we ever learn how to write proovably solid software (currently an impossibility) then its just not possible to have idiot-proof computers. People want to do things that need something like a PC to work. Basic computer maintenance isn't all that complicated. I'd have to say that the technology being complicated is only half the problem. People are the other half (and not just the average users).
How about an automatically updating program that could retrieve a list of games/programs that would run on a users current computer? All the user would have to do is look on the list to see if the games/programs they want to use are present.
...is more secure than the neighbours. Sounds selfish (and it is) but it's surprisingly effective. An intruder wants and easy time. They'll pick the easy option. Just make sure you have solid doors, windows etc, an alarm system (or a good dummy one), and take note of the other tips posted. Most intruders are oppotunists or unsophisticated.
Try proving that a computer is 100% secure (and thus hack-proof). It's an impossible task since the attacker might think of something entirely new and break into your system. Computers and software are complex (and getting more complex all the time). With complexity comes insecurity.
But then the main symptom is probably going to change rather than go away. Blocking one form of attack will most likely mean an increase in another, or a new one entirely. I doubt very much that SPF will be an end to spam, even if it is widespread. People need to be taking away the incentive for spammers to bother. Would _you_ send out millions of emails if you weren't going to make any money? This is a social problem, not a technical one.
It's not likely to happen. Think about it. The government and military have extensive use for cryptography so an outright ban would have to exempt them otherwise it would do more harm than good. Big business also use cryptography to protect their assets and they would make it _very_ difficult to uphold that kind of legislation for long. Encryption is far too widespread to outright ban. A more likely (but still doubtful) scenario would be the government forcing users of encryption to hand over their keys so that law enforcement can listen in.
Considering the BBC get's it's money from anybody with a TV in the UK (you have to have a TV license or you get fined) you might say that _I_ helped make the olympics happen.
Heh, yes it would, but I should have thought most methods of subverting this system would do the same. You might also be in trouble for something like fraud (although IANAL).
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC its something to do with a problem left over from the old netscape days. It "grows" in memory because it doesn't clear up after itself very well. Unfortunatly I hear that it'll take a fairly big effort to sort it out since the inherited problem is so old and hence ingrained in the software.
Lets hope they've got someone working on it already. It's the one problem I have with FF.
DISCLAIMER: I'm no expert on FF or the memory growing problem so please correct me if I'm wrong (I'd like to know) but keep the flaming to a minimum.
He states that he publised his viruses. This is just as bad as actively releasing the thing.
Or maybe they're all just too stupid to think that some script kiddie will come along, compile and release the thing. Writing malicious code to see if something works is one thing, writing it and releasing/publishing it is another. One can help you understand the workings of another piece of software, the other makes a big mess of the internet and there's no excuse for it.
"In short, while one could as you suggest, it would a lot of pain, for no gain. It would be far better to just cut off access to the Internet completely, which really is the only solution."
Hehe, what about CD swapping or wireless networks? There are still lots of ways to swap music even without the internet.
So you wouldn't mind at all if I took something of yours (some intellectual property of course) and claimed it was mine? Not even if it was a book that you wrote that was heralded as the best book the last 100 years?
Copyrights are not bad things. They originated to give authors the rights to their works rather than the publishers.
The problems have arisn from publishers getting the copyrights back into their possession and abusing them for all they're worth.
"MirrorDot - Solving the Slashdot Effect"
While copying the horrific colour schemes!
This is very strange indeed. The wireless cards I use in my home network work perfectly with linux while I had to prat about for a month with the windows installs, downloading newer and newer versions of the drivers and each time having windows mess up the install.
In relation, the linux installs were done in a hour just by following the simple plain english instructions with the third party driver provided by some nice people who had to reverse engineer the card.
Very very strange.
While I agree that the only way to really ensure you do not get remotely compromised is to unplug the thing, I'd like to point out that there IS software that you can trust well enough: the stuff you write on your own. You *could* write a compiler in a low level language so you skip the need for another compiler, and then you *could* use your own compiler to compile the rest of your software. Of course, this solution's reserved for the most paranoid person with the most amount of time on their hands, but it *could* happen. /nit picking
The reason that strict interpretation is a good thing is to keep standards. Do you want your browser to only be able to load 90% of the web pages you visit? When a browser starts guessing on how to present a page it gets messy. It may end up not looking anything like the author intended and may even become too broken to use. This is what standards are all about: keeping compatibility. Compatibility is a good thing and ensures that everybody can have access.
"It's a language that is in large use by people with limited knowledge of any form of programming"
Hence all of the programs avaliable to do to do the coding for you. These programs should be doing the guess work for the web page authors, not the browsers.
"What if Ted Kennedy came out and said "If those people release the game I will have them killed"."
You're comparing a simulation of a historical event with a real life death threat. There's a huge difference.
A video game is hardly a threat on somebodies life. Up until some nut actually takes it seriously enough to plan and attempt a murder it is still a simple video game, and even then it is hardly at fault.
You have to remember that if _anybody_ were to decide assassinating a president, based on their experience playing this game, was a good idea, they were already pre-disposed to that sort of behaviour. The game doesn't make people do anything and is not a death threat.
"Threats of violence control people."
Why do you think libya changed their stance? It's called bullying.
Oldest surviving distro then.
IMHO they are going to have to do a major re-write of much of the OS to make security a real possibility. There are too many problems with the design of the OS to simply stick a few band-aids over them. Of course, the stability _is_ getting better. If it wasn't they'd be dying.
I'd love to see microsoft sort out their security. It'd help the internet as a whole (all that pesky malware affects more than just windows users) and would make me feel a bit safer when I'm forced to use their OS at college and at work.
I'm not confident either, but I guess more people would make the switch if schools and colleges(et al) started using firefox as their default (or even alternative) browser. I plan to at least _ask_ my college to install firefox as an alternative (it would make the technicians jobs easier).
If more people started bugging the people in charge of the networks more users would get exposed to firefox (or whatever browser) and may see a good reason to change.
Unless of course, they get a thousend firefox using /.'ers going over there now just because you posted the link ;)
But point taken. The context of the sites should be taken into account when trying to measure what percentage of people are using what browsers.
Spend some money, patent what you have, and make sure you havn't infringed on any of MicroSofts patents. This way they either have to buy your idea, get your patent revoked, or play the market against you.
Provided you're not treading on their turf they probably wouldn't bother you until you become a threat.
How about legal ownership of all the users assets (house, car, money, etc)? Ridiculous enough to get the law changed, but not as bad as demanding somebodies first born child ;)
umm....a EULA falls under copyright. End User Licensing Agreement. It's just a software license, plain and simple. It grants you rights to use the software (just as the GPL or BSDL do). Just because it's a harsh and very restrictive license doesn't magically mean it's no longer a document pertaining to copyright.
The systems don't stop at the computers. The best system admin in the world can't stop an attack if it's:
1) original
2) helped along by a user (whether they mean to or not)
3) outside the control of the sysadmin
I'm sure the systems are hardened, but hardened deosn't mean 100% secure. There will always be a way for an attacker to be successful. Unless computers containing sensitive information are taken off a network, locked up and guarded there's a big risk of being compromised.
JoeUser also wants to be able to play the latest games, chat to people on the other side of the world and a multitude of other things that require complex technology. If we ever learn how to write proovably solid software (currently an impossibility) then its just not possible to have idiot-proof computers. People want to do things that need something like a PC to work.
Basic computer maintenance isn't all that complicated.
I'd have to say that the technology being complicated is only half the problem. People are the other half (and not just the average users).
How about an automatically updating program that could retrieve a list of games/programs that would run on a users current computer? All the user would have to do is look on the list to see if the games/programs they want to use are present.
...is more secure than the neighbours. Sounds selfish (and it is) but it's surprisingly effective. An intruder wants and easy time. They'll pick the easy option. Just make sure you have solid doors, windows etc, an alarm system (or a good dummy one), and take note of the other tips posted.
Most intruders are oppotunists or unsophisticated.
Try proving that a computer is 100% secure (and thus hack-proof). It's an impossible task since the attacker might think of something entirely new and break into your system.
Computers and software are complex (and getting more complex all the time). With complexity comes insecurity.
But then the main symptom is probably going to change rather than go away.
Blocking one form of attack will most likely mean an increase in another, or a new one entirely.
I doubt very much that SPF will be an end to spam, even if it is widespread.
People need to be taking away the incentive for spammers to bother. Would _you_ send out millions of emails if you weren't going to make any money?
This is a social problem, not a technical one.
It's not likely to happen. Think about it. The government and military have extensive use for cryptography so an outright ban would have to exempt them otherwise it would do more harm than good. Big business also use cryptography to protect their assets and they would make it _very_ difficult to uphold that kind of legislation for long.
Encryption is far too widespread to outright ban. A more likely (but still doubtful) scenario would be the government forcing users of encryption to hand over their keys so that law enforcement can listen in.
Considering the BBC get's it's money from anybody with a TV in the UK (you have to have a TV license or you get fined) you might say that _I_ helped make the olympics happen.
Heh, yes it would, but I should have thought most methods of subverting this system would do the same. You might also be in trouble for something like fraud (although IANAL).