**Every** software/media company that is headed to #1 in consumer and small-business categories makes their software a hassle to copy, but that's all.
If you had a half-way decent firewall on a win32 box, you might be surprised how many times windows and the applications running on win32 phoned home. Phoning home is a step or two away from disabling software on demand, so the capability is definitely there and has been for quite some time.
They just want to maintain their monopoly at this point. Linux is pretty well in hand if they capture the dollars that would flow to another company and they've got Apple as their excuse for competition.
Microsoft is such a non-story at this point. I wish./ would move onto more interesting things.
Except the problem with this approach is Microsoft biases the results simply because they can afford PR people who can get stories printed many places that matter.
Example: Microsoft sends Vista to Walt Mossberg over at the WSJ. (BTW, on a smoking-fast system of his choice) He will at least look at it because Microsoft buys advertising. Let's say someone over at Vectorlinux http://www.vectorlinux.com/ attempted to spend some time doing PR.
1. Editors would not give them the time of day because they can't afford to advertise. 2. Let's say there's an editor with a heart of gold out there and throws Vector a bone. Vector would probably need to provide their distro on a laptop. "Oh, just install it." probably won't work. From there, the distro is a punching bag for Microsoft as the only article that sells advertising/copy is "Microsoft versus Linux Death Match!!!" 3. How can Vector legitimately bribe the editorial staff in a manner they are accustomed?
Ubuntu's distro is not superior in any special way. Ubuntu gets press because Shuttleworth pays for PR.
1. Big companies will crush most of the smaller distros. If anyone is old enough to remember before the ipod was launched, they would tell you there were many more mp3-audio devices. Some of them were interesting. The entry of Apple crushed most of them for a product that wasn't substantially better and more expensive.
2. Big companies use research to justify market entry. They will create a Linux distro mono-culture. Not only will they create a mono-culture, they will do so with an inferior product that consumers pay more for. (That's how they pay for advertising and stuff sales channels with products)
I like seeing as wide a variety of distros as possible. To keep it that way, never, ever give corporate conglomerates the tools they need to screw it up. In this case, reliable data on the number of Linux users.
I'm in the minority thinking something like this might work. More like a search engine who's job it is to find prior art would be better.
But that's not addressing a couple of core issues:
1. The obvious can be patented. This must be abolished for a much narrower definition. 2. Patent Office as a revenue generator. One of the problems with treating government institutions like businesses is that the whatever good service intentions an institution starts out with diminish over time to arrive at a point where the bottom line is income generation. Which is where it is now. The appearance of vetting patents occurs with the *actual* vetting happening in the courts.
In Ubuntu's case, the GUI looks familiar and there isn't any need whatsoever for a firewall and anti-virus software, even though that's available too. If your needs are like most, you won't miss a thing.
There are two steep learning curves:
1. Putting the finishing touches on most of the applications included. An example is the kmail spam filter bogofilter. Sure, there's a gui to sort of get it going, but you'll discover it doesn't really work until you set up the wordlist.db and a cron job to feed the wordlist. None of which is obvious.
2. Troubleshooting. It's all different underneath and it takes some time to figure it out. But it's logical. Once you get the hang of it, it's much easier to use.
Some systems store currency value on the card. No complex or burdensome network necessary. Most authentication is handled between the chip and the terminal. Secure. Simple. Efficient. Much cheaper than letting American banks handle micro-transactions.
Complaining that consumers bear the cost of fraud is just silly, though. Of course they do, and there isn't another way to do it.
You completely fail to acknowledge that are lower-cost alternatives. Which suggest you have no experience, much less given the topic any thought.
'd be more than happy to entertain your idea Poke fun at the joker who's talking about you know nothing about. It's easy right? Most of all it's fun. Please examine micro-payments and currency implementations and get back to me when you have some experience in the industry.
The currency system costs less than letting private industry do it. There. No buzz words and totally accurate.
This is what you all should have learned in high school.
Except. I don't agree with the outcome of eliminating all debt. 1. There will always be *some* need for credit. It's just human behavior. 2. People will always find something shiny and new to pay more than they paid last year for something a little less shiny.
Then I realized that the bank will take the hit on any losses
No. You and I absorb the costs of fraud because the retailer pays a penalty and loses the income from the fraudulent activity. The retailer raises the price of her goods and services to cover these costs.
You and I also pay the costs for rewards card programs and contactless cards. Nowhere in the process does the bank assume any liability.
r. These guys are serious and have entire departments dedicated to identifying patterns of fraud.
Thanks for perpetuating the myth that banks care. The banks place an enormous burden of proof on the retailer. The bank is assuming no liability whatsoever.
Question: what the retailer does to cover his fraud costs?
Answer: Raise prices.
Funny, nowhere in there are the banks assuming any risks.
Microsoft's only interest is in capturing the dollars that may flow to Linux. Monopoly status doesn't magically come to an end like blowing up the Death Star with a single shot.
I'm left wondering why anyone ponders this question any more. Maybe so nothing gets done?
they want to pin it on someone other than themselves.
In the US this is already how it's done. But I digress...
Three probable Executive-level scenarios.
The Executive-level jokers don't have competent security professionals The Executive-level jokers aren't listening to their own competent staff. Hired an outside big-wig consultant who smokes the Microsoft security weed and blows some of the smoke up their skirts. They are ignoring the very secure EMV standard because it's too expensive.
The sim chip in your phone is practically a TPM module.
There's good crypto capabilities, secure memory, secure PIN storage and enough horsepower to do EMV transactions with all the bells and whistles. That the address book is stored in unsecure memory is no one's fault in particular.
Like most services that have come before it, the network providers in the U.S. will be overcharging and adding one more burden onto our increasingly inefficient banking infrastructure.
It's important to note, a Paypass style payment is completely different than using the phone as the equivalent of an EMV style payment card.
For those Americans that don't know what EMV is, they need to realize american banks place a very low priority on fraud and other security issues because we, the consumers, assume all the costs of fraud. EMV is a very good security standard that probably won't be implemented in the U.S. in my lifetime.
Most Microsoft customers will take the "research" at face value.
I work in a Microsoft shop. And while I have a great boss, (really, no kidding) the company is Microsoft all the way. There is zero logic at play.
But that's the way it goes. I'm old enough to remember when "Made in Japan" was the cultural equivalent of today's "Made in China." That had little basis in reality then, just like Microsoft customers today just aren't ready to comprehend **buying** something other than a Windows box and just take Microsoft's ridiculousness as fact. In time though, I think that can change. Just like the Japanese and their cars.
First, Americans can't vote on federal legislation. Oh really? That's why you have a ***representative*** in DC. To represent her constituents opinions. Just because the only constituents she hears from are more well organized than you are doesn't mean the process doesn't work. Second, Americans can't vote on supreme court members. It's called **voting** for a President. You clearly weren't aware going into the last TWO presidential elections that the balance of the courts would be decided. Oh, and before you tell me the popular election means nothing, every state has a political caucus that welcome participants. It's free too.
Third, Americans can't control the political parties. How many mods read down this far?? Political parties are made up of people. Voters in fact.
How about, instead of blowing off steam, you and the other mods promoting your rant get involved in local politics. Look at how well it's worked out for big business and the Christian right. It could work out that well for you if you got involved.
The way equipment vendors of all kinds have gotten around the previously illegal activity was to set up "Authorized Dealer" agreements. Most corporations at the top of their respective food chains use them. Authorized dealers have pricing sent to them. Pricing includes regular, msrp, and promotional pricing. Big retailers normally do deals above and beyond those offered by the brand in question thereby crushing the small retailer.
Look at Apple as an example. Every retailer's price is about the same except for the unauthorized dealer that got some units somehow.
Just because the Supreme Court handed down a decision some people don't like doesn't mean it's unchanging. That's what the legislature is for. That's what your democratically elected officials are for.
Oh wait, most Americans don't vote so, they got exactly what they put in. If you are that angry, get involved.
Or is MS just licensing its brand name to go on the outside of the computer...
That's exactly what they are doing. Except they don't get their monopoly-standard ROI.
What's more interesting is there are OEM's with a global presence that would be happy to do a deal (ex. Acer) Heck there are probably Indian versions of Dell that do a fine job. Still, Microsoft has to do the deal on their own... Very mysterious indeed.
Microsoft has a long history of stealing their customers lunches and eating it right in front of them. A visible recent example is the DRM system that microsoft abandoned to start selling Zunes. They burned every Tom Dick and Harry with an MP3 player on the market. They won't be building PC's real soon, but it's definitely coming in my lifetime.
I spent little time looking at the education other than to see if they had the right skill set.
You may have spent little time, but you definitely ranked the candidates based on their school and GPA.
As an example, If you have two candidate resumes in front of you, one from a highly regarded school and one that is less well regarded, then the candidate from the highly regarded school with the same GPA gets ranked higher. This is a fact of life and is the *why* one goes to a well-regarded school.
OT Anecdote: I made a horrible mistake of getting into a well-regarded school and leaving because it is a diploma factory. My fellow students had an offensive sense of entitlement and lived in some kind of fantasy world where the bank of Mom and Dad took care of everything. I got the education I wanted elsewhere and paid for it myself. I paid dearly however because the diploma mill grads took the jobs I wanted.
When I got a post-grad degree from a highly regarded school, career doors magically opened again.
The fundamental failure with the phrase "Vista is still more secure..." starts with the incontrovertible fact that Windows is shipped as a black box.
The temporary absence of security issues with Vista means nothing because neither the scope nor the scale of exploits is known. That is commonly described by the phrase "security through obscurity."
History has shown that Microsoft's approach to security is to talk a good game. Period. While I do not doubt Microsoft has hired excellent security programmers, their contributions don't make it through the management gauntlet.
Another way to highlight my point:
When you buy a windows-equipped box will you: 1: Use email on win32 without an antivirus application? 2. Go on the internet on win32 without a firewall? 3. Run win32 without a NAT?
I propose the following experiment instead: Computer 1: Linux desktop distro immediately after install with no firewall script. Computer 2: Vista equipped PC straight out of the box with the windows supplied firewall disabled. Computer 3: Mac OSX straight out of the box. Run tripwire on all three machines and put them directly on the internet. (aka no NAT)
That might be a better way to compare default security of OS's.
Yes, the OpenOffice code base is complex. Show me another application as functionally complex with a similar architecture that's easy to fix.
You also sweep away all of the *many* other ways to participate in a project to help it along.
Finally, nearly all OSS projects are driven by one or two people coding with other contributions (testing, bug reports, documentation, packaging, translations) kicking the projects into high-gear. There are a few that are so big the leaders code contribution is a small part, but that's the rare exception.
Here's a guy who does the work in an educational institution and he's got practically no influence on IT.
I don't have the time, money, or political support
Because his superior(s) up the chain have got other socio-political arrangements with entrenched software vendors that most likely violate the intent of every corruption law on record.
Much like Moses bringing back the ten commandments from a mountain top, software probably materializes on his desk regardless of the time he spent creating a report on various tools for the job at hand.
This is why ladies and gentlemen it never pays to sell a new software into government, unless of course you sold the old software to government.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't worry, they are.
./ would move onto more interesting things.
**Every** software/media company that is headed to #1 in consumer and small-business categories makes their software a hassle to copy, but that's all.
If you had a half-way decent firewall on a win32 box, you might be surprised how many times windows and the applications running on win32 phoned home. Phoning home is a step or two away from disabling software on demand, so the capability is definitely there and has been for quite some time.
They just want to maintain their monopoly at this point. Linux is pretty well in hand if they capture the dollars that would flow to another company and they've got Apple as their excuse for competition.
Microsoft is such a non-story at this point. I wish
Except the problem with this approach is Microsoft biases the results simply because they can afford PR people who can get stories printed many places that matter.
Example: Microsoft sends Vista to Walt Mossberg over at the WSJ. (BTW, on a smoking-fast system of his choice) He will at least look at it because Microsoft buys advertising. Let's say someone over at Vectorlinux http://www.vectorlinux.com/ attempted to spend some time doing PR.
1. Editors would not give them the time of day because they can't afford to advertise.
2. Let's say there's an editor with a heart of gold out there and throws Vector a bone. Vector would probably need to provide their distro on a laptop. "Oh, just install it." probably won't work. From there, the distro is a punching bag for Microsoft as the only article that sells advertising/copy is "Microsoft versus Linux Death Match!!!"
3. How can Vector legitimately bribe the editorial staff in a manner they are accustomed?
Ubuntu's distro is not superior in any special way. Ubuntu gets press because Shuttleworth pays for PR.
Crazy? Maybe. But here are the reasons.
1. Big companies will crush most of the smaller distros. If anyone is old enough to remember before the ipod was launched, they would tell you there were many more mp3-audio devices. Some of them were interesting. The entry of Apple crushed most of them for a product that wasn't substantially better and more expensive.
2. Big companies use research to justify market entry. They will create a Linux distro mono-culture. Not only will they create a mono-culture, they will do so with an inferior product that consumers pay more for. (That's how they pay for advertising and stuff sales channels with products)
I like seeing as wide a variety of distros as possible. To keep it that way, never, ever give corporate conglomerates the tools they need to screw it up. In this case, reliable data on the number of Linux users.
I'm in the minority thinking something like this might work. More like a search engine who's job it is to find prior art would be better.
But that's not addressing a couple of core issues:
1. The obvious can be patented. This must be abolished for a much narrower definition.
2. Patent Office as a revenue generator. One of the problems with treating government institutions like businesses is that the whatever good service intentions an institution starts out with diminish over time to arrive at a point where the bottom line is income generation. Which is where it is now. The appearance of vetting patents occurs with the *actual* vetting happening in the courts.
Discuss amongst yourselves..
In Ubuntu's case, the GUI looks familiar and there isn't any need whatsoever for a firewall and anti-virus software, even though that's available too. If your needs are like most, you won't miss a thing.
There are two steep learning curves:
1. Putting the finishing touches on most of the applications included. An example is the kmail spam filter bogofilter. Sure, there's a gui to sort of get it going, but you'll discover it doesn't really work until you set up the wordlist.db and a cron job to feed the wordlist. None of which is obvious.
2. Troubleshooting. It's all different underneath and it takes some time to figure it out. But it's logical. Once you get the hang of it, it's much easier to use.
it's probably not an average american debit card.
Some systems store currency value on the card. No complex or burdensome network necessary. Most authentication is handled between the chip and the terminal. Secure. Simple. Efficient. Much cheaper than letting American banks handle micro-transactions.
The other person on /. who knows something about the payment card industry.
Read the post carefully. It's 100% right.
Complaining that consumers bear the cost of fraud is just silly, though. Of course they do, and there isn't another way to do it.
You completely fail to acknowledge that are lower-cost alternatives. Which suggest you have no experience, much less given the topic any thought.
'd be more than happy to entertain your idea
Poke fun at the joker who's talking about you know nothing about. It's easy right? Most of all it's fun. Please examine micro-payments and currency implementations and get back to me when you have some experience in the industry.
The currency system costs less than letting private industry do it. There. No buzz words and totally accurate.
This is what you all should have learned in high school.
Except. I don't agree with the outcome of eliminating all debt.
1. There will always be *some* need for credit. It's just human behavior.
2. People will always find something shiny and new to pay more than they paid last year for something a little less shiny.
Then I realized that the bank will take the hit on any losses
No. You and I absorb the costs of fraud because the retailer pays a penalty and loses the income from the fraudulent activity. The retailer raises the price of her goods and services to cover these costs.
You and I also pay the costs for rewards card programs and contactless cards. Nowhere in the process does the bank assume any liability.
r. These guys are serious and have entire departments dedicated to identifying patterns of fraud.
Thanks for perpetuating the myth that banks care. The banks place an enormous burden of proof on the retailer. The bank is assuming no liability whatsoever.
Question: what the retailer does to cover his fraud costs?
Answer: Raise prices.
Funny, nowhere in there are the banks assuming any risks.
This is a play by the banks to privatize the role of the Treasury as a no-cost micro-transactions service provider.
Consumers already assume all costs of payment card fraud and rewards programs. Most are stupid enough to let this go too.
I anxiously await the uninformed posts to follow.
Microsoft's only interest is in capturing the dollars that may flow to Linux. Monopoly status doesn't magically come to an end like blowing up the Death Star with a single shot.
I'm left wondering why anyone ponders this question any more. Maybe so nothing gets done?
they want to pin it on someone other than themselves.
In the US this is already how it's done. But I digress...
Three probable Executive-level scenarios.
The Executive-level jokers don't have competent security professionals
The Executive-level jokers aren't listening to their own competent staff.
Hired an outside big-wig consultant who smokes the Microsoft security weed and blows some of the smoke up their skirts.
They are ignoring the very secure EMV standard because it's too expensive.
I'm inclined to believe number two.
I can think of a dozen American industries that are quite happy with the way things work right now. Including the tech industry.
The sim chip in your phone is practically a TPM module.
There's good crypto capabilities, secure memory, secure PIN storage and enough horsepower to do EMV transactions with all the bells and whistles. That the address book is stored in unsecure memory is no one's fault in particular.
Like most services that have come before it, the network providers in the U.S. will be overcharging and adding one more burden onto our increasingly inefficient banking infrastructure.
It's important to note, a Paypass style payment is completely different than using the phone as the equivalent of an EMV style payment card.
For those Americans that don't know what EMV is, they need to realize american banks place a very low priority on fraud and other security issues because we, the consumers, assume all the costs of fraud. EMV is a very good security standard that probably won't be implemented in the U.S. in my lifetime.
Most Microsoft customers will take the "research" at face value.
I work in a Microsoft shop. And while I have a great boss, (really, no kidding) the company is Microsoft all the way. There is zero logic at play.
But that's the way it goes. I'm old enough to remember when "Made in Japan" was the cultural equivalent of today's "Made in China." That had little basis in reality then, just like Microsoft customers today just aren't ready to comprehend **buying** something other than a Windows box and just take Microsoft's ridiculousness as fact. In time though, I think that can change. Just like the Japanese and their cars.
First, Americans can't vote on federal legislation.
Oh really? That's why you have a ***representative*** in DC. To represent her constituents opinions. Just because the only constituents she hears from are more well organized than you are doesn't mean the process doesn't work.
Second, Americans can't vote on supreme court members.
It's called **voting** for a President. You clearly weren't aware going into the last TWO presidential elections that the balance of the courts would be decided. Oh, and before you tell me the popular election means nothing, every state has a political caucus that welcome participants. It's free too.
Third, Americans can't control the political parties.
How many mods read down this far?? Political parties are made up of people. Voters in fact.
How about, instead of blowing off steam, you and the other mods promoting your rant get involved in local politics. Look at how well it's worked out for big business and the Christian right. It could work out that well for you if you got involved.
It's hardly the case this is a new development.
The way equipment vendors of all kinds have gotten around the previously illegal activity was to set up "Authorized Dealer" agreements. Most corporations at the top of their respective food chains use them. Authorized dealers have pricing sent to them. Pricing includes regular, msrp, and promotional pricing. Big retailers normally do deals above and beyond those offered by the brand in question thereby crushing the small retailer.
Look at Apple as an example. Every retailer's price is about the same except for the unauthorized dealer that got some units somehow.
Just because the Supreme Court handed down a decision some people don't like doesn't mean it's unchanging. That's what the legislature is for. That's what your democratically elected officials are for.
Oh wait, most Americans don't vote so, they got exactly what they put in. If you are that angry, get involved.
Or is MS just licensing its brand name to go on the outside of the computer...
That's exactly what they are doing. Except they don't get their monopoly-standard ROI.
What's more interesting is there are OEM's with a global presence that would be happy to do a deal (ex. Acer) Heck there are probably Indian versions of Dell that do a fine job. Still, Microsoft has to do the deal on their own... Very mysterious indeed.
Microsoft has a long history of stealing their customers lunches and eating it right in front of them. A visible recent example is the DRM system that microsoft abandoned to start selling Zunes. They burned every Tom Dick and Harry with an MP3 player on the market. They won't be building PC's real soon, but it's definitely coming in my lifetime.
I spent little time looking at the education other than to see if they had the right skill set.
You may have spent little time, but you definitely ranked the candidates based on their school and GPA.
As an example, If you have two candidate resumes in front of you, one from a highly regarded school and one that is less well regarded, then the candidate from the highly regarded school with the same GPA gets ranked higher. This is a fact of life and is the *why* one goes to a well-regarded school.
OT Anecdote:
I made a horrible mistake of getting into a well-regarded school and leaving because it is a diploma factory. My fellow students had an offensive sense of entitlement and lived in some kind of fantasy world where the bank of Mom and Dad took care of everything. I got the education I wanted elsewhere and paid for it myself. I paid dearly however because the diploma mill grads took the jobs I wanted.
When I got a post-grad degree from a highly regarded school, career doors magically opened again.
The fundamental failure with the phrase "Vista is still more secure..." starts with the incontrovertible fact that Windows is shipped as a black box.
The temporary absence of security issues with Vista means nothing because neither the scope nor the scale of exploits is known. That is commonly described by the phrase "security through obscurity."
History has shown that Microsoft's approach to security is to talk a good game. Period. While I do not doubt Microsoft has hired excellent security programmers, their contributions don't make it through the management gauntlet.
Another way to highlight my point:
When you buy a windows-equipped box will you:
1: Use email on win32 without an antivirus application?
2. Go on the internet on win32 without a firewall?
3. Run win32 without a NAT?
I propose the following experiment instead:
Computer 1: Linux desktop distro immediately after install with no firewall script.
Computer 2: Vista equipped PC straight out of the box with the windows supplied firewall disabled.
Computer 3: Mac OSX straight out of the box.
Run tripwire on all three machines and put them directly on the internet. (aka no NAT)
That might be a better way to compare default security of OS's.
Yes, the OpenOffice code base is complex. Show me another application as functionally complex with a similar architecture that's easy to fix.
You also sweep away all of the *many* other ways to participate in a project to help it along.
Finally, nearly all OSS projects are driven by one or two people coding with other contributions (testing, bug reports, documentation, packaging, translations) kicking the projects into high-gear. There are a few that are so big the leaders code contribution is a small part, but that's the rare exception.
OT Rant: OO.org team: please move to GTK+.
by Microsoft. Of course they'll play along. Otherwise it's biting the hand that feeds them.
Perhaps this is a good lesson about the perils of privatized funding?
Here's a guy who does the work in an educational institution and he's got practically no influence on IT.
I don't have the time, money, or political support
Because his superior(s) up the chain have got other socio-political arrangements with entrenched software vendors that most likely violate the intent of every corruption law on record.
Much like Moses bringing back the ten commandments from a mountain top, software probably materializes on his desk regardless of the time he spent creating a report on various tools for the job at hand.
This is why ladies and gentlemen it never pays to sell a new software into government, unless of course you sold the old software to government.