The study also disregarded the motivation of the cracker. Which OS would you rather get root on - one that has limited remote usability, such that add-ons are needed to make it remote usable, or one in which you have almost as much control remotely as you do in person because *every single program* written for it was written with remotability? Since the kinds of attacks the study looks at are ONLY those where the attacker is making a deliberate in-person attack (not an automated one), then obviously the platform for which obtaining access would be more fruitful will get attacked more.
Then again, what this also means is that linux machines are the most likely to be overtly hacked into.
There's two ways to interpret that statement:
#1 - Given a randomly chosen cracker, that cracker is more likely to achieve a linux break-in than a break in on something else. Whether this is because of inherent problems with the platform, ubiquity of the platform, or just because of the preference of the cracker is not specified.
#2 - Given that you install a linux server, you are more likely to get it cracked into than if you install some other kind of server.
You can conclude #1 from the article. But the article is trying to imply #2, and you cannot conclude #2, because the data doesn't bother comparing the ratio of number of break-ins to the number of installations of that OS that *could* have been broken into but weren't.
Fact: Out of a sample of N attacts on servers, chosen by some (presumably) fair technique, only a tiny fraction were on MacOS. Moron Conclusion: That must be because MacOS is very secure. Smart Conclusion: Wait, how does that compare against the number of servers actually running MacOS in the first place? If MacOS is less commonly installed as a server, those numbers might not mean anything.
Interesting, your description of GW and Clinton is actually the exact opposite of how the rest of the world views them - They liked Clinton's foreign policy and hate GW's.
When making a joke, it helps to actually be funny. I wish there was a moderation for "-1 unfunny", for use when someone is obviously *trying* to make a joke, and I, as a moderator, want to communicate that I am perfectly aware that it's an attempt at humor, it's just that it failed at it. (For example, I'd use it the next time someone says: "In Soviet Russia, bar foos you!")
A person who doesn't want to watch a UHF station doesn't have to just because the dial is there. A person who doesn't want to smell the smellovision device doesn't have that same opt-out choice.
They still hinge upon faith that people are good because they hinge upon the belief that bettering humankind is a good thing to do, which would not be the case if we are, on average, bad people. The death of the human race might actually be overall beneficial if we are not a posative influence.
And, yes it does hinge upon a certain style of human empathic connection, because without that, there's no motivation to *want* something better for your fellow humans.
And, incedentally, this kind of faith isn't a bad thing. Using faith to try to understand the world (how did we get here, why does this planet exist, is there a god, etc) is bad because it's a useless tool for that application, kind of like trying to turn a screw with a wrench. But using faith to decide how to behave toward other people (I don't know if this person is good or bad, but I'll assume he's good at first because that makes me feel better) is perfectly cromulent, and that's exactly what secular humanism does. This is not a condemnation of it. Not at all.
Some examples from: http://www.secularhumanism.org/intro/what.html
Secular Humanism is a term which has come into use in the last thirty years to describe a world view with the following elements and principles:
[...] A primary concern with fulfillment, growth, and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general. [...] A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us. [...] A conviction that with reason, an open marketplace of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children. [...]
Those are all admirable, and in general I agree with them, but they do hinge upon a certain level of faith - faith that, in general, people are good. This is not evidenced. It is hoped for, but not evidenced in the slightest. I wish I was more optomistic such that I could accept this primary tenet, but based on what I see of human behaviour, I cannot. It is an interesting goal to shoot for, but the belief that humans have some kind of empathic connection that will steer them toward good behaviour if left alone just doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny. To a large extent people believe this (that humans are inherently good) merely because it feels good to believe it, and *that* is religious thinking.
When used by people bitching and moaning about "transitional species", they usually aren't using the word "species" in it's scientific sense of things that can mate.
Micro-evolution: All forms of evolution that happen in a short enough timespan that we can see them happen and prove they are happening to the religious zealots. Macro-evolution: All forms of evolution that take long enough that they haven't been directly observed yet and have to be surmised through historical evidence.
The border between the two will move as the religious zealots see fit.
The demarkation of one species from another is completely an arbitrary human invention. When is a difference merely one of breed or race rather than of species? Basically, no matter how many transitional forms are found, we can still find more transitional forms in-between those transitional forms, and thereby keep cutting the difference in half again and again and again, each time rearranging the taxonomy charts to fit the new transitional species into them. And people will still say "Hey, where's the transitional species??" Because they don't understand that they've created a moving target.
There is no such thing as the "fact of evolution". You should really check your sources on that one. It's called a theory for a reason.
Yeah, the same reason everything else in science is called a theory. The theory is not about what has occured, but about a possible explanation as to why.
Your comments make no sense because they seem to be predicated on the premise that:
no god == no supernatural. Not so. God is just one of many concepts that fit under the generic umbrella term "supernatural". So saying that religion doesn't have to include belief in god does NOT say that religion doesn't have to include belief in the supernatural. For example, buddhism is full of supernatural beliefs. But, belief in a god isn't one of them.
Do you have some other word for differentiating those who believe in god from those who don't? (theist vs atheist perhaps?)
I like to use the Tom Clancy analogy when bible thumpers bring up the bits of the bible that are true:
Imagine some future archeologists and historians figuring out that yes indeed, the USSR existed, and it built a lot of large submarines, and there was a cold war between them an a country called USA, and the USSR kept a lot of its submarines at a cold base on their arctic coast, and that these submarines did in fact carry nuclear missles, and they did run on nuclear power plants, and there are documented cases of people from the USSR using subterfuge to defect to the USA, and it is true that you use sound waves in the water to listen for submarines, and that the USA did in fact have spies, and did in fact have a capital city called Washington, DC.
Then, from all that, they conclude that The Hunt For Red October" must therefore be a true story.
This is essentially what people are doing when they claim the bible must be true because some of the cities and places it mentions actually existed.
The movie review section is pretty comic as well. (Although partly I think that because I never agree with the reviewers. But that said, it's still excellent as a movie review because they tell you *why* they don't like a movie in enough detail to understand if I would agree with their assesment but not enough detail to ruin it for me. Too often a movie critic's review is a useless "yeah, it's good" or "yeah, it sucks", without any real information - but that hardly happens with The Onion. I can usually tell if I'll like a movie the onion reviewer hates, because the reviewer's rant about the movie includes clues as to what 'feel' the movie has.
Secular Humanism *is* a form of religion. Religion doesn't require belief in a god (after all Buddhism is most certainly a religion, and yet it doesn't talk of any gods at all.) Keep in mind I say this as an atheist. It is entirely possible (but not by any means guaranteed) for an atheist to have a religion. Religion is a style of thought involving a high degree of faith, and it doesn't have to be faith in a god to count.
Atheism and agnosticism are not incompatable. One can say that knowlege of god is impossible (agnostic) but then conclude via occam's razor that this means it's best to act as if god is nonexistant than to act as if god is existant.
I don't believe the conspiracy theory either, but you should at least have the politeness to criticise people for what they actually are arguing about instead of some strawman version of it. The fear wasn't that MS would try to make money from OSS developers by suing them for alleged copyright infringement, but tht MS would kill OSS competition by doing so.
Reverse engineering is NOT illegal, you just have to do it carefully.
The DMCA has changed that. Now all some company has to do to make it illegal to reverse engineer their code is find a way to tie it to the topic of encryption somehow, and then *bam* reverse engineering it is now illegal. (consider DeCSS).
Because you can't just *park* and stay there. Try it and you fall into the sun. It's called an "orbit" for a reason. The "refuelling stations" would shift in their positions such that they wouldn't be lined up in a useful path between Earth and Mars, and it would take more fuel to fly from one to the next than it would take to just go straight to Mars.
Slashdot Mirror
The study also disregarded the motivation of the cracker. Which OS would you rather get root on - one that has limited remote usability, such that add-ons are needed to make it remote usable, or one in which you have almost as much control remotely as you do in person because *every single program* written for it was written with remotability? Since the kinds of attacks the study looks at are ONLY those where the attacker is making a deliberate in-person attack (not an automated one), then obviously the platform for which obtaining access would be more fruitful will get attacked more.
Then again, what this also means is that linux machines are the most likely to be overtly hacked into.
There's two ways to interpret that statement:
#1 - Given a randomly chosen cracker, that cracker is more likely to achieve a linux break-in than a break in on something else. Whether this is because of inherent problems with the platform, ubiquity of the platform, or just because of the preference of the cracker is not specified.
#2 - Given that you install a linux server, you are more likely to get it cracked into than if you install some other kind of server.
You can conclude #1 from the article. But the article is trying to imply #2, and you cannot conclude #2, because the data doesn't bother comparing the ratio of number of break-ins to the number of installations of that OS that *could* have been broken into but weren't.
Fact: Out of a sample of N attacts on servers, chosen by some (presumably) fair technique, only a tiny fraction were on MacOS.
Moron Conclusion: That must be because MacOS is very secure.
Smart Conclusion: Wait, how does that compare against the number of servers actually running MacOS in the first place? If MacOS is less commonly installed as a server, those numbers might not mean anything.
Interesting, your description of GW and Clinton is actually the exact opposite of how the rest of the world views them - They liked Clinton's foreign policy and hate GW's.
When making a joke, it helps to actually be funny. I wish there was a moderation for "-1 unfunny", for use when someone is obviously *trying* to make a joke, and I, as a moderator, want to communicate that I am perfectly aware that it's an attempt at humor, it's just that it failed at it. (For example, I'd use it the next time someone says: "In Soviet Russia, bar foos you!")
A person who doesn't want to watch a UHF station doesn't have to just because the dial is there. A person who doesn't want to smell the smellovision device doesn't have that same opt-out choice.
Well, it would be kind of interesting to add a smell factor to first-person-shooters.
Do you realize what a room full of people who died in a gunfight would smell like?
They still hinge upon faith that people are good because they hinge upon the belief that bettering humankind is a good thing to do, which would not be the case if we are, on average, bad people. The death of the human race might actually be overall beneficial if we are not a posative influence.
And, yes it does hinge upon a certain style of human empathic connection, because without that, there's no motivation to *want* something better for your fellow humans.
And, incedentally, this kind of faith isn't a bad thing. Using faith to try to understand the world (how did we get here, why does this planet exist, is there a god, etc) is bad because it's a useless tool for that application, kind of like trying to turn a screw with a wrench. But using faith to decide how to behave toward other people (I don't know if this person is good or bad, but I'll assume he's good at first because that makes me feel better) is perfectly cromulent, and that's exactly what secular humanism does. This is not a condemnation of it. Not at all.
Those are all admirable, and in general I agree with them, but they do hinge upon a certain level of faith - faith that, in general, people are good. This is not evidenced. It is hoped for, but not evidenced in the slightest. I wish I was more optomistic such that I could accept this primary tenet, but based on what I see of human behaviour, I cannot. It is an interesting goal to shoot for, but the belief that humans have some kind of empathic connection that will steer them toward good behaviour if left alone just doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny. To a large extent people believe this (that humans are inherently good) merely because it feels good to believe it, and *that* is religious thinking.
When used by people bitching and moaning about "transitional species", they usually aren't using the word "species" in it's scientific sense of things that can mate.
Secular humanism does not include supernatural beliefs
Wrong.
Micro-evolution: All forms of evolution that happen in a short enough timespan that we can see them happen and prove they are happening to the religious zealots.
Macro-evolution: All forms of evolution that take long enough that they haven't been directly observed yet and have to be surmised through historical evidence.
The border between the two will move as the religious zealots see fit.
The demarkation of one species from another is completely an arbitrary human invention. When is a difference merely one of breed or race rather than of species? Basically, no matter how many transitional forms are found, we can still find more transitional forms in-between those transitional forms, and thereby keep cutting the difference in half again and again and again, each time rearranging the taxonomy charts to fit the new transitional species into them. And people will still say "Hey, where's the transitional species??" Because they don't understand that they've created a moving target.
There is no such thing as the "fact of evolution". You should really check your sources on that one. It's called a theory for a reason.
Yeah, the same reason everything else in science is called a theory. The theory is not about what has occured, but about a possible explanation as to why.
Your comments make no sense because they seem to be predicated on the premise that:
no god == no supernatural.
Not so. God is just one of many concepts that fit under the generic umbrella term "supernatural". So saying that religion doesn't have to include belief in god does NOT say that religion doesn't have to include belief in the supernatural. For example, buddhism is full of supernatural beliefs. But, belief in a god isn't one of them.
Do you have some other word for differentiating those who believe in god from those who don't? (theist vs atheist perhaps?)
Of course. That's what those words MEAN.
Not necessarily. He'll get his chance like all the rest: Carousel.
I like to use the Tom Clancy analogy when bible thumpers bring up the bits of the bible that are true:
Imagine some future archeologists and historians figuring out that yes indeed, the USSR existed, and it built a lot of large submarines, and there was a cold war between them an a country called USA, and the USSR kept a lot of its submarines at a cold base on their arctic coast, and that these submarines did in fact carry nuclear missles, and they did run on nuclear power plants, and there are documented cases of people from the USSR using subterfuge to defect to the USA, and it is true that you use sound waves in the water to listen for submarines, and that the USA did in fact have spies, and did in fact have a capital city called Washington, DC.
Then, from all that, they conclude that The Hunt For Red October" must therefore be a true story.
This is essentially what people are doing when they claim the bible must be true because some of the cities and places it mentions actually existed.
The movie review section is pretty comic as well. (Although partly I think that because I never agree with the reviewers. But that said, it's still excellent as a movie review because they tell you *why* they don't like a movie in enough detail to understand if I would agree with their assesment but not enough detail to ruin it for me. Too often a movie critic's review is a useless "yeah, it's good" or "yeah, it sucks", without any real information - but that hardly happens with The Onion. I can usually tell if I'll like a movie the onion reviewer hates, because the reviewer's rant about the movie includes clues as to what 'feel' the movie has.
Secular Humanism *is* a form of religion. Religion doesn't require belief in a god (after all Buddhism is most certainly a religion, and yet it doesn't talk of any gods at all.) Keep in mind I say this as an atheist. It is entirely possible (but not by any means guaranteed) for an atheist to have a religion. Religion is a style of thought involving a high degree of faith, and it doesn't have to be faith in a god to count.
Atheism and agnosticism are not incompatable. One can say that knowlege of god is impossible (agnostic) but then conclude via occam's razor that this means it's best to act as if god is nonexistant than to act as if god is existant.
A lot of libertarians are people who say they would be Republicans if it wasn't for the Christian Right.
The military is not 50% of the budget.
I don't believe the conspiracy theory either, but you should at least have the politeness to criticise people for what they actually are arguing about instead of some strawman version of it. The fear wasn't that MS would try to make money from OSS developers by suing them for alleged copyright infringement, but tht MS would kill OSS competition by doing so.
Reverse engineering is NOT illegal, you just have to do it carefully.
The DMCA has changed that. Now all some company has to do to make it illegal to reverse engineer their code is find a way to tie it to the topic of encryption somehow, and then *bam* reverse engineering it is now illegal. (consider DeCSS).
Because you can't just *park* and stay there. Try it and you fall into the sun. It's called an "orbit" for a reason. The "refuelling stations" would shift in their positions such that they wouldn't be lined up in a useful path between Earth and Mars, and it would take more fuel to fly from one to the next than it would take to just go straight to Mars.