Let's look at the test and the target criteria
on
IT Literacy Test
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· Score: 4, Insightful
It's hard to know much about this test until we see it. Tests in general are measurements based on a body of knowledge. Maybe it's good, maybe it's not.
Damning tests because they seem unfair is silly. Measurements are referential. Some have bad reference points and therefore can't measure very well. Some can, some tests age and become useless, some are good in specific areas. Without the knowledge of the test questions and the criteria for them, comments will likely be specious.
Over the years, Novell has had just four CEOs. I can't count the number of vice presidents/vice somethings they've hired that had intentions of ruling the Novell world. They read like the who's who in business.
The acquisitions were pretty good, although Novell's not known for integrating their acquisitions very well-- if at all given they let Unix slip from their fingers at a crucial time.
Novell has one of the strictest hierarchies in the business world. That hasn't changed, and likely never will until they're acquired. It's their corporate culture-- embedded by Ray Noorda-- still another guy that tried to face down Bill Gates and lost. So, Stone's departure isn't any news; it was simply a matter of how long Chris could survive there.
If SCOG can't get adequate representation because their counsel is distracted now that their fees aren't going to be paid, then an avalanche happens.
The SCOG v Novell litigation surrounding copyright title slander goes in favor of Novell. Novell, ostensible owner of the copyright can then get sued by SCO, but there's a cap now and Novell has lots of cash remaining to burn on litigation. It also sets a precedent that Novell owns Unix copyrights. They manifest themselves through a fairly loyal GPL/FOSS follower, SuSE. Ipso facto, Novell faces down SCOG, Microsoft and Sun.
Then they roll out the serious Microsoft busters in the form of ways to do FOSS-based services from the top down. Noorda will finally smile.
Poof. Something breeches the wing skin, superheats the interior, and in seconds, the shuttle disintegrates. This isn't a political problem, or a budget problem, it's a design problem-- prima facia. It was bad thinking, bad review, bad design, flawed execution. And certainly not the first. I estimate that there's a half of a trillion dollars that NASA has botched in its history. Yes, it's driven by politics and military interests, but it's still woefully awful as evidenced by its mind boggling failures.
Design and architectural engineering can't exist in a vacuum. Quality engineering must be part of the process. Too many times I've winced when NASA screws up. The accountability is terrible.
How many times do we have to watch a NASA tragedy before they do it right? How many NASA rockets have to end up in the ocean after an abort before they re-consider their methods?
I pray they get it right this time. It's not the embarrassment, it's not the loss of life, it's not the billions in the drink that make me sad, it's the BAD ENGINEERING!
It's easy when classically trained/experienced to see tasks as captive procedurally to one processor. Numerous processors, distributed computing, and as a consequence, grids of computers, see a daemon, or a number of distributed but controlled daemon, as capable of broadening the number of concurrent tasks that can be performed. This is the benefit of the grid; resources that can be allocated and run concurrently, then added to the performance of the originating idea/program.
It's a distributed hierachy of functionality. Its benefits can be simply described: more rapid results over a wide breadth of available computing hardware/platforms. It's not for accounting tasks, but can work for churning databases or collections of information. This wide breadth of platforms to deal with datasets brings enormous computational/execution power for little money because it's not captive to a single (set of) platform(s).
Yes, I firmly agree that Windows has more vulnerabilities because of its rotten architecture. But in terms of delivery systems you have 1) whatever comes through a network 2) media transfers like floppies or CDs and so on 3) something the user typed in themselves, and 4) streams through ports, like FireWire and so on.
Each is a delivery system. These are hardware, not software vehicles. With luck, the OS on the other side can wiithstand different transom breach methods, methods that have been getting more onerous over time.
The number of transoms on a Mac is about the same as an average PC. The # of APIs behind RPC code increases the vulnerability of Windows. Bad design also causes problems for Windows in other areas, like the registry. Poor architecture in IE also thwarts security.
But IE is also available on the Mac, and lots of bad stuff that is breached on IE doesn't affect the Mac because of its OS architecture and platform.
If you can get the user to do something stupid, and they will (ex: your social engineering above) then they can compromise both their machine and their local network.
My Mac user-level account has full access to my address book, my mail account, It's ~, after all. So can malware, if I'm either stupid or unlucky enough to have installed it.
What good are groups and users if they don't establish hierarchical execution functionalities? Your machine's system functions-- root-- ought to run autonomously unless something needs to be fixed. Then give the password that allows exception-handling execution or functionality. Otherwise, put a flack jacket on that soldier. Don't let that soldier come under fire without one.
Sorry for the ugly military metaphor but it pops out once in a while.
There are all kinds of great malware delivery systems. It's just a matter of time. The Mac is no more exempt than Windows. I'll say that the Mac defaults and architecture are indeed better than Windows/IE has been.
It does take a sudo to get something done that can infect an rc or other kernel load. dBSD is no different than any other *nix. Nothing has spread, it would seem. But then, civilians haven't been using other desktop OSes much. In the lead, it's Windows. Then it's OS9, OS/X. Then it's a gaggle of others, including Linux and others.
OS/X lacks the open RPCs to infect or hammer to root various junkware DLLs that compromise Windows. But there are lot of people on local networks that have admin as user, and keep a few ports open. It doesn't take much to make those machines into slaves for other activities.
Is it alarmist? Yes. Nothing is spreading. But the doors are open.
Most Mac users are civilians, and don't run an unprivileged logon; they're usually the only owner on their machine. This is often the case with Linux newbies, too.
You get fifty emails a day with various attachments that are also ways to 'root' a Windows machine, or at least zombie it. Mac users can open those attachments with impunity because the payloads are destined for Windows.
So, you get an email that has a Mac attachment. You can easily, if the user is hapless and opens the attachment, get them to execute the attached script or executable so as to take advantage of the user's root capability.
Hark, Max OS/X will then ask the user for the root password. Some will type it in, thinking it's the right thing to do. We'll have called it a special update file attachment so that they think they're doing the 'right' thing.
You can then execute any 'root'ing you want. If you're smart, it's a clean root kit and life is good. You're now in control of his/her machine. Use port 80 to talk back and forth, so that you don't have to worry about a port block.
Or check to see if they're using Apache on their machine. Apache is a wonderful engine to allow various kinds of mayhem.
Port blocks are good, and the lack of RPC responders in Macs is also good. But Macs are by no means exempt from user stupidity. They're often worse than Windows users because they've not been bruised up to this point.
Apple's biggest fix for this would be to offer a software update that simply demotes the user (with the user's knowledge via an explanation) away from root, and to warn them that using an Admin account as a user account might cause them problems.
In the meantime, you'll do Mac users (civilians, not./ers) a favor by getting them to down-privilege their account if they're using an Admin account. Otherwise, as mentioned throughout, all kinds of mayhem can ensue.
The process is that usually an individual gets the patent, and the patent is assigned to another entity, usually a corporation, but not necessarily so.
You cannot patent ideas. You can patent processes, but not ideas. Ideas are the cheapest currency known; everyone has one and therefore ideas, while great, are valueless in and of themselves. What makes an idea worth something is the energy that propels the idea.
Patents, on the other hand, are substantive in some way. How much substance is the crux of quarrelsome combat, and the contents of balloons.
In the end, humans only own things for a while, because humans die. By contrast, trusts, corporations, and other artificial bodies live on, physically.
Conceptually, we need FOSS for other non-software inventions, and those interested in keeping ideas 'free' need to publish prior art as frequently as possible to prevent the inaccurate manipulation of IP claims on *processes*
Re:IP problems |= nuclear stockpiling
on
Rob Pike Responds
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· Score: 1
Golden eggs are what patents are valued as, and are traded as, and are understood in asset valuations. That doesn't make them golden, but it establishes value to them. Nuclear weapons kill people, patents do not. Patents may thwart innovation, make dubious claims, unjustly enrich various entities, but they don't cause mass destruction. Encapsulating weaponry of that magnitude with IP problems just spawns more paranoia, rather than addressing the problem at hand. It's an extreme analogy.
Re:IP problems |= nuclear stockpiling
on
Rob Pike Responds
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· Score: 1
The crux of the question-- remember the question?- was about how IP is like nuclear weapons. To then draw an analogy to lawyers being released to then be unable to be recalled, is vacuous. There are checks and balances, albeit expensive. I believe it was Hubbard that once opined (and I paraphrase here) that we hire lawyers to protect us from lawyers. If we all told the truth, never stole, never had accidents, and were completely understood, lawyers would be out of business. Nothing is completely clear in this life, and IP law is murkier than other things. The analogy still fails IMHO.
IP problems |= nuclear stockpiling
on
Rob Pike Responds
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· Score: 1
Get a grip. You read far more into the reply than is there. The question *is* extreme. IP stockpiles are more like stockpiling little golden eggs. Nuclear weapons are somethign completely different, and with much different possible results.
You're speculating, too. Patent wars can be lucrative, and they can be disasterous. Is the system broken? I'd say so, but that wasn't the question. Read the question. Read the answer. It fit. What is he going to give as an answer? Something that we don't already know? Patents can be greatly abused, and they have value. Value is ok, and patents can be ok. but we'll agree that software patent abuse is rampant, and the term of patent life is also ridiculous. But read the question, and read the answer.
It's not a side step; it's a precharged question.
on
Rob Pike Responds
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
There's no congruity between IP issues and nuclear weapon stockpiling. Nuclear weapons are mass destruction devices. IP protection embues certain rights under various juridictions. There might be very important issues for the questioner in IP, but the question was worded poorly and was presumed to foster a baited answer. The context was poorly set, and the answer put the question in the nebulous context by which it was asked. Good answer.
I've always used 512M or more, and did an uninstall on a 256K PowerBook G4 because it just crawled. It's very very memory bound, and for obvious reasons. You can up the rate a bit by fiddling with the VM disk allocation, but you just have to pay Apple or someone for extra memory.
In an single CPU G4/PowerBook, several different tools reported the CPU speed was about 900mhz. If you load down the VM with Norton, and so on, then it gets droopy in performance. But the clincher in perception is the poor graphics performance, because the GDI is different.
It works. Don't do games on it, and don't run it with low memory. There are a few gotchas, but they're minimal. It's not as slow as you would want to believe, and it occasionally gets bogged down but it's tennable. It's like running on a 900mhz box when run on a ppc32/PowerBookG4. It costs a few bucks, and you still have to buy Norton or McAfee, etc. But it's otherwise as useful and harmless as XP. Oh, except you need to buy an XP license for it, too.
Perhaps this is why there are four of them across the room, running with four HPDL360s, a Gateway, some older Compaq servers, and three ancient VA Linux servers, all humming away, to my immediate right. It's deafening, and they work 24/7.
Slashdot Mirror
It's hard to know much about this test until we see it. Tests in general are measurements based on a body of knowledge. Maybe it's good, maybe it's not. Damning tests because they seem unfair is silly. Measurements are referential. Some have bad reference points and therefore can't measure very well. Some can, some tests age and become useless, some are good in specific areas. Without the knowledge of the test questions and the criteria for them, comments will likely be specious.
Over the years, Novell has had just four CEOs. I can't count the number of vice presidents/vice somethings they've hired that had intentions of ruling the Novell world. They read like the who's who in business.
The acquisitions were pretty good, although Novell's not known for integrating their acquisitions very well-- if at all given they let Unix slip from their fingers at a crucial time.
Novell has one of the strictest hierarchies in the business world. That hasn't changed, and likely never will until they're acquired. It's their corporate culture-- embedded by Ray Noorda-- still another guy that tried to face down Bill Gates and lost. So, Stone's departure isn't any news; it was simply a matter of how long Chris could survive there.
If SCOG can't get adequate representation because their counsel is distracted now that their fees aren't going to be paid, then an avalanche happens. The SCOG v Novell litigation surrounding copyright title slander goes in favor of Novell. Novell, ostensible owner of the copyright can then get sued by SCO, but there's a cap now and Novell has lots of cash remaining to burn on litigation. It also sets a precedent that Novell owns Unix copyrights. They manifest themselves through a fairly loyal GPL/FOSS follower, SuSE. Ipso facto, Novell faces down SCOG, Microsoft and Sun. Then they roll out the serious Microsoft busters in the form of ways to do FOSS-based services from the top down. Noorda will finally smile.
Poof. Something breeches the wing skin, superheats the interior, and in seconds, the shuttle disintegrates. This isn't a political problem, or a budget problem, it's a design problem-- prima facia. It was bad thinking, bad review, bad design, flawed execution. And certainly not the first. I estimate that there's a half of a trillion dollars that NASA has botched in its history. Yes, it's driven by politics and military interests, but it's still woefully awful as evidenced by its mind boggling failures.
Design and architectural engineering can't exist in a vacuum. Quality engineering must be part of the process. Too many times I've winced when NASA screws up. The accountability is terrible.
How many times do we have to watch a NASA tragedy before they do it right? How many NASA rockets have to end up in the ocean after an abort before they re-consider their methods? I pray they get it right this time. It's not the embarrassment, it's not the loss of life, it's not the billions in the drink that make me sad, it's the BAD ENGINEERING!
It's easy when classically trained/experienced to see tasks as captive procedurally to one processor. Numerous processors, distributed computing, and as a consequence, grids of computers, see a daemon, or a number of distributed but controlled daemon, as capable of broadening the number of concurrent tasks that can be performed. This is the benefit of the grid; resources that can be allocated and run concurrently, then added to the performance of the originating idea/program.
It's a distributed hierachy of functionality. Its benefits can be simply described: more rapid results over a wide breadth of available computing hardware/platforms. It's not for accounting tasks, but can work for churning databases or collections of information. This wide breadth of platforms to deal with datasets brings enormous computational/execution power for little money because it's not captive to a single (set of) platform(s).
Therein lays the value.
If you're a Mac guy, let me send you something. We'll see who's privileged or not ;)>
Then an app asks the user for the password, and the user enters it-- if they're unwitting and trusting or just plain inept.
Yes, I firmly agree that Windows has more vulnerabilities because of its rotten architecture. But in terms of delivery systems you have 1) whatever comes through a network 2) media transfers like floppies or CDs and so on 3) something the user typed in themselves, and 4) streams through ports, like FireWire and so on. Each is a delivery system. These are hardware, not software vehicles. With luck, the OS on the other side can wiithstand different transom breach methods, methods that have been getting more onerous over time. The number of transoms on a Mac is about the same as an average PC. The # of APIs behind RPC code increases the vulnerability of Windows. Bad design also causes problems for Windows in other areas, like the registry. Poor architecture in IE also thwarts security. But IE is also available on the Mac, and lots of bad stuff that is breached on IE doesn't affect the Mac because of its OS architecture and platform. If you can get the user to do something stupid, and they will (ex: your social engineering above) then they can compromise both their machine and their local network. My Mac user-level account has full access to my address book, my mail account, It's ~, after all. So can malware, if I'm either stupid or unlucky enough to have installed it.
What good are groups and users if they don't establish hierarchical execution functionalities? Your machine's system functions-- root-- ought to run autonomously unless something needs to be fixed. Then give the password that allows exception-handling execution or functionality. Otherwise, put a flack jacket on that soldier. Don't let that soldier come under fire without one. Sorry for the ugly military metaphor but it pops out once in a while.
There are all kinds of great malware delivery systems. It's just a matter of time. The Mac is no more exempt than Windows. I'll say that the Mac defaults and architecture are indeed better than Windows/IE has been. It does take a sudo to get something done that can infect an rc or other kernel load. dBSD is no different than any other *nix. Nothing has spread, it would seem. But then, civilians haven't been using other desktop OSes much. In the lead, it's Windows. Then it's OS9, OS/X. Then it's a gaggle of others, including Linux and others. OS/X lacks the open RPCs to infect or hammer to root various junkware DLLs that compromise Windows. But there are lot of people on local networks that have admin as user, and keep a few ports open. It doesn't take much to make those machines into slaves for other activities. Is it alarmist? Yes. Nothing is spreading. But the doors are open.
Most Mac users are civilians, and don't run an unprivileged logon; they're usually the only owner on their machine. This is often the case with Linux newbies, too.
./ers) a favor by getting them to down-privilege their account if they're using an Admin account. Otherwise, as mentioned throughout, all kinds of mayhem can ensue.
You get fifty emails a day with various attachments that are also ways to 'root' a Windows machine, or at least zombie it. Mac users can open those attachments with impunity because the payloads are destined for Windows.
So, you get an email that has a Mac attachment. You can easily, if the user is hapless and opens the attachment, get them to execute the attached script or executable so as to take advantage of the user's root capability.
Hark, Max OS/X will then ask the user for the root password. Some will type it in, thinking it's the right thing to do. We'll have called it a special update file attachment so that they think they're doing the 'right' thing.
You can then execute any 'root'ing you want. If you're smart, it's a clean root kit and life is good. You're now in control of his/her machine. Use port 80 to talk back and forth, so that you don't have to worry about a port block.
Or check to see if they're using Apache on their machine. Apache is a wonderful engine to allow various kinds of mayhem.
Port blocks are good, and the lack of RPC responders in Macs is also good. But Macs are by no means exempt from user stupidity. They're often worse than Windows users because they've not been bruised up to this point.
Apple's biggest fix for this would be to offer a software update that simply demotes the user (with the user's knowledge via an explanation) away from root, and to warn them that using an Admin account as a user account might cause them problems.
In the meantime, you'll do Mac users (civilians, not
The process is that usually an individual gets the patent, and the patent is assigned to another entity, usually a corporation, but not necessarily so. You cannot patent ideas. You can patent processes, but not ideas. Ideas are the cheapest currency known; everyone has one and therefore ideas, while great, are valueless in and of themselves. What makes an idea worth something is the energy that propels the idea. Patents, on the other hand, are substantive in some way. How much substance is the crux of quarrelsome combat, and the contents of balloons. In the end, humans only own things for a while, because humans die. By contrast, trusts, corporations, and other artificial bodies live on, physically. Conceptually, we need FOSS for other non-software inventions, and those interested in keeping ideas 'free' need to publish prior art as frequently as possible to prevent the inaccurate manipulation of IP claims on *processes*
Golden eggs are what patents are valued as, and are traded as, and are understood in asset valuations. That doesn't make them golden, but it establishes value to them. Nuclear weapons kill people, patents do not. Patents may thwart innovation, make dubious claims, unjustly enrich various entities, but they don't cause mass destruction. Encapsulating weaponry of that magnitude with IP problems just spawns more paranoia, rather than addressing the problem at hand. It's an extreme analogy.
The crux of the question-- remember the question?- was about how IP is like nuclear weapons. To then draw an analogy to lawyers being released to then be unable to be recalled, is vacuous. There are checks and balances, albeit expensive. I believe it was Hubbard that once opined (and I paraphrase here) that we hire lawyers to protect us from lawyers. If we all told the truth, never stole, never had accidents, and were completely understood, lawyers would be out of business. Nothing is completely clear in this life, and IP law is murkier than other things. The analogy still fails IMHO.
Get a grip. You read far more into the reply than is there. The question *is* extreme. IP stockpiles are more like stockpiling little golden eggs. Nuclear weapons are somethign completely different, and with much different possible results.
You're speculating, too. Patent wars can be lucrative, and they can be disasterous. Is the system broken? I'd say so, but that wasn't the question. Read the question. Read the answer. It fit. What is he going to give as an answer? Something that we don't already know? Patents can be greatly abused, and they have value. Value is ok, and patents can be ok. but we'll agree that software patent abuse is rampant, and the term of patent life is also ridiculous. But read the question, and read the answer.
There's no congruity between IP issues and nuclear weapon stockpiling. Nuclear weapons are mass destruction devices. IP protection embues certain rights under various juridictions. There might be very important issues for the questioner in IP, but the question was worded poorly and was presumed to foster a baited answer. The context was poorly set, and the answer put the question in the nebulous context by which it was asked. Good answer.
Nope. Separate product.
I've always used 512M or more, and did an uninstall on a 256K PowerBook G4 because it just crawled. It's very very memory bound, and for obvious reasons. You can up the rate a bit by fiddling with the VM disk allocation, but you just have to pay Apple or someone for extra memory.
In an single CPU G4/PowerBook, several different tools reported the CPU speed was about 900mhz. If you load down the VM with Norton, and so on, then it gets droopy in performance. But the clincher in perception is the poor graphics performance, because the GDI is different.
Nor I.
It works. Don't do games on it, and don't run it with low memory. There are a few gotchas, but they're minimal. It's not as slow as you would want to believe, and it occasionally gets bogged down but it's tennable. It's like running on a 900mhz box when run on a ppc32/PowerBookG4. It costs a few bucks, and you still have to buy Norton or McAfee, etc. But it's otherwise as useful and harmless as XP. Oh, except you need to buy an XP license for it, too.
Perhaps this is why there are four of them across the room, running with four HPDL360s, a Gateway, some older Compaq servers, and three ancient VA Linux servers, all humming away, to my immediate right. It's deafening, and they work 24/7.