Remember Slashdot is maybe ~1% of web browser users and our tastes are atypical.
Because they're based on informed decisions?
Not that two informed people can't disagree with each other, because on a matter of taste, they can. It's just that each of them would have a reason for doing so other than "it's what the computer came with."
I love your post and I agree with all of it. But until you've raised your gun to prove yourself otherwise, you've called yourself a coward.
I appreciate the false dichotomy you're presenting here. To be specific, you're saying that my only choices are to either brandish a weapon or consider myself a coward. You leave no room for an understanding of how anything ever gets to the point where (hypothetically speaking) armed conflict would even be considered.
Here I am again speaking hypothetically. If it ever actually came to violence, it would only be because a long series of failures occurred that prevented good people from standing up peacefully while standing up peacefully was still possible. There is much truth in that saying about evil thriving because good men do nothing; that is, they aren't good enough. It's a seldom-recognized fact that all of these huge problems like modern totalitarian states were once small problems that could have been dealt with relatively easily. It's not unlike an infection; it starts small and then, if left untreated, it festers and grows until it takes over the host. Identifying it before it gets too far along requires foresight.
I don't mean this in a religious way at all, but what you're really dealing with is what religious people sometimes refer to as "powers and principalities." They are ideas that act through people because those people are compromised. They're not really themselves. They have an identity that is based on a nation, or a group, or an image, or a culture, and have forgotten that real strength is found within. The principle here is that compromised people demand compromised leaders. The condition is therefore systemic. No sane person with any awareness of the available options would ever want to live under a dictatorship. That idea has to be inflicted on them. For that reason, deception, trauma, and a form of seduction are the main methods by which it is realized.
Deception is fairly easy to identify in politics. In fact, it's so common that most people just assume that politicians are liars and no one really cares anymore. Just think about this for a moment. If politicians never make their own decisions as individuals, but rather, cater to the interests of their financial supporters, then are those politicians really acting as human beings or has their humanity taken a backstage so that they can be a mouthpiece for various external interests? A real human being is no one's puppet. The ultimate expression of this mechanism is when you're made to feel like there is something wrong with you for pointing out how phony most people really are. The hardest part about this is that when most people adhere to a group identity, follow trends, or repeat carefully crafted soundbites intended for public consumption, they really believe that doing so is their own original idea. Did you know that a hypnotist can tell a subject up front that he is going to make that subject take off his left shoe, he can then implant the suggestion, and when the subject removes his left shoe he will make up an excuse for why he did so? It's a mindless and suggestible state that is anything other than your real identity.
Trauma, on the other hand, is not so widely understood. The easiest example of that would be the rise of fear-based politics ever since the September 11th attacks. Heightened security and intrusive governmental powers were not sold on the basis of being good ideas; they were sold on the basis of a national enemy who is trying to get us. That's a far cry from open, rational debate and that's no accident. No excuse for the surrender of civil liberties would ever survive rational debate, particularly not for Americans who are actually familiar with the writings of the Founding Fathers. But if a trauma has been inflicted and fear is rampant, that sort of rationality is rendered mute. The ultimate expression of this mechanism was explained by Hegel and is known either as "thesi
The whole "illegal enemy combatant" thing is immoral
Like many state-sponsored practices which are immoral, it's designed to intimidate.
There really shouldn't be any reason to not consider traditional armed responses to digital attacks. People can cause damage. A teenage hacker may not have the same violent intent as a suicide bomber or a rogue nation plotting a traditional war, but that doesn't stop them from doing something malicious with serious repercussions.
Assuming that your top priority is punishing those who perpetrate such attacks, this makes a great deal of sense. Now, if your top priority is to prevent computer and network intrusions, I think our efforts and resources would be better spent towards hardening machines and networks, identifying insecure practices, and holding personally responsible the people who are supposed to keep those systems secure.
What I mean by "priority" is that we can do this and still try to locate and arrest the perpetrators, it would just have a lower priority than securing our systems to prevent such intrusions in the first place. In other words, they're not mutually exclusive even though I believe one of those options makes a lot more sense. I just think it's silly to believe that stiff penalties alone are going to prevent the intrusion attempts that anyone running any sort of server already accepts as inevitable.
It sounds good in theory, but like the parent, I also look at our country's history of using good judgment in situations like this, and worry.
I think that if you cut through all the peripheral issues and locate the core principle, this goes back to the idea that "freedom isn't free." What people seem to want is the perfect ability to secure us against all sorts of threats while retaining all civil liberties and preventing the abuse of power. That just isn't realistic and history, particularly that of the 20th century, has been the story of why that doesn't work and isn't going to work. Personally, I'd rather retain my civil liberties and have a government that doesn't have so many easily-abused powers, even if that means that some criminals who do real damage might get away with it (though more likely than not, they'd just be dealt with using the criminal justice system instead of the Gitmo system).
It seems evident that people who value freedom more than a need to "get those bastards", more than their party platform, more than their desire to feel safe from a threat be it real or imagined, more than even life itself, are becoming rare. I am forced to regard that as cowardice. When it comes to the motivation behind poor decision-making, few things are quite so effective as cowardice.
Just making it clear is all. I agree with the security problems inherent in Windows that make these things necessary -- I always found ClamAV for linux a little weird, frankly.
I'm not running Windows because I like it (although Vista hasn't really annoyed me as much as it seems to have annoyed everybody else -- I also found ME no more annoying than others, so I'm a definite outlier). I'm running it to run software that doesn't run right under wine, and because I haven't yet got Kubuntu running on the laptop.
Reading that gave me an "outlier" sort of idea, too. It occurred to me that if the US DOJ really wanted to do something about the anticompetitive practices for which they conviced Microsoft, they should have forced Win32 to be an open standard, complete with a free, unrestricted reference implementation in source code. I suppose this idea never came up because a) it's a government agency and they tend not to go for simple solutions that make a lot of sense and b) they seemed to consider only the anticompetitive practices that related to Web browsers.
To me, "anticompetitive" is about the will to unfairly take advantage and has little to do with the specific methods by which this is done (those can be summed up as "any we think we can get away with") so I think worrying too much about specifics would be a whack-a-mole game. To me, the Win32 standard would be that one simple solution to this problem. It follows the logic of the frankly rather childish and selfish people who just want to take advantage, in the sense of "you abused this toy so now we're going to take it away from you." For that reason, I don't believe that my solution would be going too far. I thought of that because there are a lot of folks who say the same thing you just mentioned, that they need to use Windows software that just won't run correctly under WINE.
To be fair, none of the security products I use is an MS product. The security features added to Vista (yeah, I know, they weren't all about security) I just found annoying as well, so I looked for other solutions.
I wasn't talking about the companies that produce those security products. I was talking about why they even have a market at all. They exist only to make up for shortcomings in Windows. There is something fundamentally wrong with Windows that it has such shortcomings. I mean no disrespect but I don't see what fairness regarding brand names has to do with it.
So I did. After about 11 months, my firewall was fighting with FF badly enough that I had to replace it, and my new firewall fought with the cheap little Risk game I was trying to install, but, other than that, it's been at the annoyance level.
That's the classic hallmark sign of a wrong solution. To the problem of Windows insecurity, that is. It's sort of like a scientist who keeps getting surprised at each new discovery and never thinks that maybe there's something wrong with his theory when it has zero ability to make successful predictions. There's something drastically and fundamentally wrong with the design of Windows if you have to put up with all of that BS just to achieve an acceptable level of security. The only thing I don't fully understand is why so many people with no financial ties to Microsoft don't want to admit this.
Care to explain why the law should protect the stupid
Because in free societies, it isn't illegal to not understand technology.
How about this: make it legal to not understand technology. Make it illegal to not understand technology and still insist on using it anyway on a global network where your negligence can harm others. There is an element of choice to that second scenario that is not present in the first.
"When someone can go to the same church for years without making progress towards losing those negative tendencies and replacing them with an overcoming love for humanity, then there is something wrong with that church. Something critical is missing. Note, I said making progress; I did not say "perfect absolute mastery". I would compare it to someone who attends a programming class for four years and after those four years, is still incapable of writing a "Hello World" program in the language of their choice. It indicates something is very wrong with the class. "
In a school you would be kicked out of the class long before that time. A church will keep let you trying well most of them.
If you don't want to go to a church and or don't believe in what they teach that is one thing. But again you are making a judgment as to that persons progress. Do you really know where that person started? Do you really know where that person is? How do you know what progress they made unless you are that person.
I find the obsession with all these other people to be the part I don't get. You even speak about what a Taoist would say but yet you still judge the value of a churches teaching from the most superficial and external signs possible.
If you have no desire to go to a church that is fine and dandy. Each person has to find their own way to the truth. I personally believe that almost nobody every figures out even the majority of the truth in their life time.
But I would say that you should do a little check on that judging other people thing.
That's neat and sounds good and it has that "who can disagree with that" quality, right? Except that when I join any organization there is a question of whether I will be a contributing member or whether I am merely there to socialize. Personally, I don't want to merely socialize in a place that is supposed to be about wisdom and spiritual growth. There are lots of places to merely socialize which have no such goals if that's what I want to do.
If my message, that is what I would contribute, is accurate yet unwanted then why would I wish to be where I am not wanted? It seems to me that the only correct way to deal with that would be to respect their wishes. I'd love to see you refute that. My bet is that you cannot. If you respond to me again and pretend again that you somehow didn't see me saying this, that will be your implicit admission that you are unable to refute it. I prefer not to be this way but you aren't giving me much to work with here.
I also wonder one thing. There is one alternative to choosing not to go where my genuine heartfelt beliefs are not wanted, but it's an ugly one. I will pose it to you in the form of a question. Do you think I would be genuine and honest if I kept my mouth shut and never contributed anything to a church, or worse, contributed what I don't really believe, in order to be esteemed by its members? Personally I think that would be dishonest and manipulative. It would amount to putting on a mask in order to fit in which would make me a phony, just like most other people. If you think there is ever a good reason to do that, that being phony can lead to the truth and honesty that is needed in order to genuinely explore spirituality, then again I'd love to see your argument.
You have presumed to call me judgmental for refusing to be phony in this way. You have never adequately explained why you insist on doing so when I have given non-judgmental reasons for why I make this choice. Whether that's a position of hypocrisy I will leave for you to decide.
I highlighted the difference between discernment and judgment for a reason. That's because your response was quite predictable, which frankly should tell you something about its usefulness. You have failed to address that difference. What I presented to you was a whole line of reasoning and you have cherry-picked a specific part of it to formulate your response. That's alright, except that you ignored what I wrote that w
Users do not install viruses. Viruses install themselves trough gaping security holes / backdoors.
During the Trojan War, the people of Troy were said to have installed dancing horses, which came pre-infected with the special forces of Greece. Nowadays, users install dancing bunnies, which come pre-infected with viruses and worms and other sorts of malware.
The lesson? Old tricks work because people don't learn.
Why was this AC comment modded down? It was factual and perfectly reasonable.
Because it mentioned those evil terrible things called "guns" and some moderator had a knee-jerk reaction to that. In other words, their emotional reaction to a mention of a weapon is more important to them than the fact that it was only illustrative and was used to make a greater point that was relevant to the discussion. Yes, that really is where we're at concerning the overall quality of moderation. Just be glad that this one was corrected back to a score of 0.
And we all know the conventional wisdom that the structure of software doesn't have anything to do with security...it's all about popularity: any operating system would would be equally vulnerable if its market share were to grow to be as large as the one that currently dominates.
The only thing we know for certain about that "conventional wisdom" is that it's never really been put to the test. The only sure way to test it would be for Windows to become extremely unpopular and for it to be replaced with another operating system. Then and only then is this "wisdom" something more than "speculation that sounds good while ignoring some realities." I don't deny that the most popular/prevalent operating system would be the most targeted. What I deny is that "most targeted" is automatically guaranteed to be the same thing as "most often successfully compromised."
What realities are being ignored? The fact that all security systems are not equally effective. In common usage on Windows, you primarily have after-the-fact damage control measures such as antivirus and antispyware. Damage control is not the same thing as security. Real security is about prevention. There exist operating systems today which generally do not need any sort of antivirus or other signature-based scanners. They heavily use permissions, privilege separation, least-privilege, capabilities and some less-common measures like compiling code in such a way that it is much more difficult to successfully exploit buffer overflows and other flaws.
I honestly think it's a bit absurd to suggest that these would have no greater success than the prevailing measures in common usage on Windows. Certainly this conclusion does not come from actually studying computer security and deciding for yourself, by means of evidence, which methods are more difficult to exploit. I can only speculate as to where it comes from. It really seems like a cop-out designed to silence debate by introducing speculative elements into what was originally a factual discussion. I'm not suggesting that you are deliberately doing this, only that what you are repeating is not at all an original thought (in fact, it almost always comes up in these discussions) and may have had such an intent behind its actual origin.
I love how you say they can not be judgmental and must be understanding of others faults and they say that you will not go to a church unless all the members meet your requirements.
Seeing the faults of others and honestly calling them what they are: discernment. Hating the person in any way because of what you see, whether that hatred expresses itself by means of anger, resentment, frustration, condemnation, or holier-than-thou: judgment. Declining to associate with people who don't understand what they preach and are unwilling to consider the possibility that they don't understand what they preach is merely wise decision-making. It is not a judgment on those people, it is a willingness to let them live their lives as they see fit while I do the same. It is also a recognition that their current state may be a necessary part of their path of development.
I think your objection was sincere yet misguided, otherwise I'd say that what you are doing there is quite twisted and seems designed to convince me that what I plainly see with my very eyes is somehow not what I plainly see with my very eyes. Beware, because many people will attempt to do that and most of them don't understand that this is what they're doing. The reason why ignorance is so compelling and often is not self-correcting (except in those whom you may call "true seekers", and even for them this requires much effort) is because it is self-reinforcing. That is, the beliefs that come from ignorance seem valid within the framework of the worldview that is willing to entertain them. In other words, these things are often subtle; if the effects of ignorance were obviously and undeniably wrong to anyone and everyone, then there would be no such thing as ignorance. That is clearly not the case.
The failings of the other people in the church shouldn't matter to you.
When someone can go to the same church for years without making progress towards losing those negative tendencies and replacing them with an overcoming love for humanity, then there is something wrong with that church. Something critical is missing. Note, I said making progress; I did not say "perfect absolute mastery". I would compare it to someone who attends a programming class for four years and after those four years, is still incapable of writing a "Hello World" program in the language of their choice. It indicates something is very wrong with the class.
The problem you have with churches is that it's almost impossible to find a counterexample that shows the shameful state of all of the others. For many people, the beginning of wisdom would be the realization of how fake and phony they are, of how many attitudes and beliefs and behavior patterns they have that somebody else put there, of how they can be this way while sincerely believing that they are living their own lives, of how even their kindness is fake and manipulative because it's designed to obtain a result, namely that of being liked. This, incidentally, is why the general population is such a sucker for any politician or leader who tells them what they want to hear. It's why they're such sheep. It's why they think mutual need is the same thing as love.
That's not exactly an easy realization. It does not draw a crowd. Anyone who preaches that, however accurate it may be, will quickly find that most people dearly love their mindless state and would rather silence the person who reminds them of it (because they perceive that person's message as painful) than seek freedom from it. Anyone who preaches that better be prepared to catch a lot of flak from a bunch of people who nod fervently when told that Jesus said we should love God and should love one another.
You think you're telling me something new when you say to me that people are imperfect? Do you sincerely believe that I did not notice that, or that this wasn't a core part of the point I am making? I say to you that this is a condi
I'm a Christian, and I'm a tech. (I don't use twitter - I don't see a point to it). I do however, understand that this is another way to let people know what your particular church is about - on the other hand, I think this can be really distracting for those in the congregation that are trying to listen to the message for the day. I heard about this last week on K-Love (National Christian radio station) and will be interesting to see how it works out. (I don't see this lasting long)
Sorry I picked you for this one, but you were the first self-identified Christian I saw posting in here.
The moment I find one church where its members love one another, do not judge for any reason especially reasons based on appearance (i.e. the clothing you wear, etc.), do not form little exclusive cliques as though this were high school, do not gossip about one another and refuse to entertain gossip about anyone else, understand the folly of anger and frustration, and show genuine loving-kindness instead of merely being nice because they are weak for the approval of others and worry about what other people think of them... then, and only then, would I consider joining that congregation. Extra points if at least some of the sessions include material that is difficult and challenging and represents an understanding higher than your own so that you can strive to reach for it, rather than the easily understood (and easily heard) platitudes which are designed to appeal to (i.e. pander to) the masses.
The words in the form of chapter and verse are a map. The map is not the territory. When I go into churches, what I find is a bunch of people who have memorized words and they think they understand them, but it does not show in their lives per my criteria above. They still think that the spiritual experience is an intellectual experience. They don't see how limited intellect and logic really are, how they are powerful yet useless for all but the most mundane of affairs.
The whole problem with the Bible is that you kinda already have to "get it" before you can really get much out of what it teaches. At that point where you start getting it, you realize that most of the religions started with a simple idea that is beyond all intellectual or logical apprehension and that great complications arose when the enlightened tried to teach that idea to others. Those enlightened folks had a severely difficult problem: how to use words to teach something for which there are no words. The best that they could do was to provide a description of what it looks like and hope that those who study it don't confuse the description for the real thing (i.e. religion instead of spirituality). That confusion is exactly what has happened to modern "Churchianity". It's a shame, really, because if you study various religions and have seen the real thing, you will find that the Christians have one of the most accurate descriptions available.
I'm no fan of "hate speech" myself but my right to free speech overrides your right not to be offended by what I say.
While I agree with the intent of your post I have to point out one glaring inaccuracy. NOBODY has a RIGHT to not be offended. That is the simple, logical mistake of every person who introduces, or defends, things like this proposed bill.
I apologize because I am not a fan of "me too" posts. However... I really wanted to say "Amen Brother!" I was about to make this correction myself until I noticed that you had already taken care of it.
You should have read more than the headline because frankly, the headline sucks. This bill strives to make "severe, repeated, and hostile" speech used in cyberbullying a criminal offense. Since MY blog doesn't have any of that stuff, this bill would not be able to declare my blog a weapon. By no means am I supporting this bill, but also by no means do I consider this alarmist headline to have any validity.
The summary had it right. The emphasis is mine:
The bill is called The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, and if passed into law (and if it survives constitutional challenge) it looks almost certain to be misused."
When are you and the population in general going to learn that that's the whole point? Almost all politicians are lawyers; it's not like they don't understand the implications of a law and can't foresee its abuses. So, why would someone be perfectly capable of knowing that this will be abused and support it anyway? Because that's exactly what they want. What we call "abuse" they might call "consolidation of power." It doesn't even require some smoky-back-room conspiracy, all it requires is the understanding that people who love power want more of it and are willing to take measures in order to obtain it. What did you expect, exactly? Do you suppose that the Hitlers of the world obtain power by going out in public and delivering speeches which say "I want to rule all of you under an evil totalitarian police state that will cause much misery and suffering, so vote for me!" No, they don't. They have to be subtle and they have to have plausible deniability at each step.
Really, the level of naivete and downright stupidity on the part of the ruled (not the governed) regarding these basic things is pathetic and shameful. Even public education and all of the indoctrination and the snuffing out of natural intuitive brightness that goes along with it does not adequately explain how badly, how desperately, many of you want to believe that these hollow and soul-less mockeries of human beings (that is, our rulers) somehow have our best interests at heart. It is self-destructive and completely without excuse. Does that sound harsh? Is this Flamebait because you don't like to hear it? Consider that the widespread stupidity of the general public is materially damaging my life and the life of anyone else who does not wish to live in a totalitarian police state. Then tell me whether my response is so harsh or whether it's incredibly civil. Then talk to me about what you don't like to hear.
but I'm not afraid of the flu. I think we should name it what Fox News suggested. The Black Plague 2.
Yeah I love the way the major news networks hype this up. "This is what we want you to be afraid of today!" Anyone remember hoof-and-mouth disease? Mad cow? How about SARS? Bird flu? There's probably a few I'm forgetting. All terrible horrible epidemic plagues that were going to kill us all, or so you'd think from listening to the news. You want a population that's easy to control, you first have to make them afraid of something. Of course you could also choose to think that all of these things are accidents or coincidences...
Absolutely. What many programmers and companies do not realise is that there there needs to be a large amount of trust between users and themselves.
Oh, they realize it alright. It just so happens that they also realize the vast ignorance concerning technical matters of the average customer. Most users won't understand why this is a problem, and among those who understand that, many won't think it's important (like privacy, appreciation of trust seems to be on the decline). Certainly they won't think it's important enough to uninstall the extension and never use it again, nor any other software written by its author. That's really what needs to happen each and every time there's any sort of deliberate decision like this with no up-front disclosure. That's if you actually want to end this practice, of course.
Ultimately, by installing software, users are giving huge control of their systems and software to people they have never met and who will never meet them.
That's the point. You just explained why it's not a proposition to be taken lightly. If what I describe above sounds like an extreme reaction it's because the importance of what you just described is seldom appreciated. There's no reason to have a soft spot for people who think that you and/or your property are theirs to control. That their intentions are mostly benign and they're "just trying to make a buck" doesn't change the nature of the situation.
Re:The pictured Sun Conure
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Parrots Can Dance
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I've kept birds for a number of years and I can say that you can guess but you never really know for certain just how smart they are, except maybe to say "probably more than you think".
Too true. At times, you may think you're training your bird, however, the reverse is true. How many times I've found myself acting like a spastic retard trying to get my brid to do something entertaining...*bows head in shame*
Haha yeah I know what you mean. There's definitely something special about them. I really think that if more people kept birds, then "bird-brain" would never have been considered an insult.
Common crows are incredible too. I believe they are the only non-primate that will not only use tools, but make and then use them. Crows have been known to find bits of wire and bend them into a "hook" and use that to get food, probably insects. If there is a nut they want to eat but cannot crack, they have been known to place it on a road and wait for a car to run over it and crack it for them. Of course that sounds very basic to us as humans but that kind of planning and forethought is quite rare among animals.
Re:The pictured Sun Conure
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Parrots Can Dance
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I've got a Sun Conure, which happens to be the same bird in the picture in the summary. He's only 5 months old, so he's not all out dancing, but he does seem to be starting to respond to music, as he'll start to bob his head in time for a few seconds at a time. Search youtube for kimba's song, and you can see the Sun Conure groovin to a performing beatboxer.
I have a cockatiel and he's about eight years old. He has a little metal band around one of his feet, I guess to prove that he was domestically bred and not poached (not sure exactly). He does one thing that I've never seen another bird do, though it's not as extreme as actually dancing. If I play certain percussive music or if I drum on my desk with my fingers, he will tap that metal band against his wooden perch to either the same rhythm or the same rhythm with little variations.
Sometimes he'll do this as a sort of "Simon" game where I'm supposed to match his little drum-solo and then he tries to match mine. It never occurred to me that birds would properly dance, though this one does make displays etc that are a lot like dancing. Either way, they definitely do have the required sense of rhythm. I've kept birds for a number of years and I can say that you can guess but you never really know for certain just how smart they are, except maybe to say "probably more than you think".
The computers that were infected weren't hooked to the internet, they were hooked to a network that was hooked to the internet.
I don't mean to nitpick, but what's the difference? Your ISP has a network that's hooked to the Internet and you connect your computer to it in order to have Internet access. Seems to me that the basic routing functionality of IP guarantees that there is no meaningful difference there, at least not unless you have some carefully-planned firewall rules in place and even then...
Medical equipment has a very long lifespan. Many devices for measurement and monitoring are used for 10 to 20 years before replacement. The general policy is "if it works, don't fix it and, more important, do not touch it".
The real problem is that most suppliers of equipment are reluctant to support any type of patches. Many of the suppliers explicitly state that the machines may not be changed in any way (and that includes patching the OS) or you will lose all guarantee and support.
Doesn't Microsoft itself say (perhaps in the EULA disclaimer) that its operating systems were not intended to be used in this sort of mission-critical capacity? That could of course have a very narrow definition, something along the lines of "don't ever use it to operate that iron lung but maybe use it so the receptionist can run MS Office" but if that were the case, then this would be a mere nuisance and not such a real problem. That is, in that case there'd be nothing special about the fact that the affected institution happened to be a hospital beyond the fact that it sounds bad. Because of that, I really get the impression that they were using the wrong tool for the job.
Dear mods, that's meant to be facetious. Some of you seem to be a little trigger-happy so you won't understand why I shouldn't have to explain that.
Make your joke and take the moderations like a man.
If you are going to explain that it is a joke, you might as well not bother in the first place since explaining takes away all the fun.
I wonder if you are aware of the "I'm superior to you" undercurrent behind that. I'll tell you what a man does, he says what he wants to say the way he wants to say it and doesn't allow petty tyrants like you to tell him that there's anything wrong with that. Oh you can try, and I celebrate your right to do so, but it's just a noise. Save this for someone who is weak enough to need your approval. It will be much more successful then, at least for weird definitions of "success" that include "feeling better about yourself while actually accomplishing nothing". It's as though you want to tell someone how to be a man while at the same time expecting him to bow down to what you think that should look like, which fails because if he kowtowed to you his manhood would be the first thing he loses. My point is that what you're doing doesn't work, can't work, and trying harder won't change that.
To put that another way, was I really making a joke or was I trying to tell the mods a thing or two in a relatively non-threatening way that doesn't get them on their defensive high horse? You seem to have a great conviction that you know the answer to that question. The problem is you have no evidence to back up that conviction. You'd do well to actually know where somebody is coming from, with no such flimsy assumptions, before you presume to tell them what they should do and how they should be. I'm not trying to be rude but you're putting me in a position where I won't mince words.
Your computer is infected by a rootkit that dumps payloads on your system?
Sadly, this is my case where I have randomly named files on my system that I just cannot remove short of reinstalling the OS.
However, giving the extent of viruses, who's to say that you placed the content on your computer or even knew it was there.
In a way that's pretty funny.
"Windows is insecure and has all of these virus problems."
"It's not a bug, it's a feature! This way you have plausible deniability."
Slashdot Mirror
Because they're based on informed decisions?
Not that two informed people can't disagree with each other, because on a matter of taste, they can. It's just that each of them would have a reason for doing so other than "it's what the computer came with."
I appreciate the false dichotomy you're presenting here. To be specific, you're saying that my only choices are to either brandish a weapon or consider myself a coward. You leave no room for an understanding of how anything ever gets to the point where (hypothetically speaking) armed conflict would even be considered.
Here I am again speaking hypothetically. If it ever actually came to violence, it would only be because a long series of failures occurred that prevented good people from standing up peacefully while standing up peacefully was still possible. There is much truth in that saying about evil thriving because good men do nothing; that is, they aren't good enough. It's a seldom-recognized fact that all of these huge problems like modern totalitarian states were once small problems that could have been dealt with relatively easily. It's not unlike an infection; it starts small and then, if left untreated, it festers and grows until it takes over the host. Identifying it before it gets too far along requires foresight.
I don't mean this in a religious way at all, but what you're really dealing with is what religious people sometimes refer to as "powers and principalities." They are ideas that act through people because those people are compromised. They're not really themselves. They have an identity that is based on a nation, or a group, or an image, or a culture, and have forgotten that real strength is found within. The principle here is that compromised people demand compromised leaders. The condition is therefore systemic. No sane person with any awareness of the available options would ever want to live under a dictatorship. That idea has to be inflicted on them. For that reason, deception, trauma, and a form of seduction are the main methods by which it is realized.
Deception is fairly easy to identify in politics. In fact, it's so common that most people just assume that politicians are liars and no one really cares anymore. Just think about this for a moment. If politicians never make their own decisions as individuals, but rather, cater to the interests of their financial supporters, then are those politicians really acting as human beings or has their humanity taken a backstage so that they can be a mouthpiece for various external interests? A real human being is no one's puppet. The ultimate expression of this mechanism is when you're made to feel like there is something wrong with you for pointing out how phony most people really are. The hardest part about this is that when most people adhere to a group identity, follow trends, or repeat carefully crafted soundbites intended for public consumption, they really believe that doing so is their own original idea. Did you know that a hypnotist can tell a subject up front that he is going to make that subject take off his left shoe, he can then implant the suggestion, and when the subject removes his left shoe he will make up an excuse for why he did so? It's a mindless and suggestible state that is anything other than your real identity.
Trauma, on the other hand, is not so widely understood. The easiest example of that would be the rise of fear-based politics ever since the September 11th attacks. Heightened security and intrusive governmental powers were not sold on the basis of being good ideas; they were sold on the basis of a national enemy who is trying to get us. That's a far cry from open, rational debate and that's no accident. No excuse for the surrender of civil liberties would ever survive rational debate, particularly not for Americans who are actually familiar with the writings of the Founding Fathers. But if a trauma has been inflicted and fear is rampant, that sort of rationality is rendered mute. The ultimate expression of this mechanism was explained by Hegel and is known either as "thesi
Like many state-sponsored practices which are immoral, it's designed to intimidate.
Assuming that your top priority is punishing those who perpetrate such attacks, this makes a great deal of sense. Now, if your top priority is to prevent computer and network intrusions, I think our efforts and resources would be better spent towards hardening machines and networks, identifying insecure practices, and holding personally responsible the people who are supposed to keep those systems secure.
What I mean by "priority" is that we can do this and still try to locate and arrest the perpetrators, it would just have a lower priority than securing our systems to prevent such intrusions in the first place. In other words, they're not mutually exclusive even though I believe one of those options makes a lot more sense. I just think it's silly to believe that stiff penalties alone are going to prevent the intrusion attempts that anyone running any sort of server already accepts as inevitable.
I think that if you cut through all the peripheral issues and locate the core principle, this goes back to the idea that "freedom isn't free." What people seem to want is the perfect ability to secure us against all sorts of threats while retaining all civil liberties and preventing the abuse of power. That just isn't realistic and history, particularly that of the 20th century, has been the story of why that doesn't work and isn't going to work. Personally, I'd rather retain my civil liberties and have a government that doesn't have so many easily-abused powers, even if that means that some criminals who do real damage might get away with it (though more likely than not, they'd just be dealt with using the criminal justice system instead of the Gitmo system).
It seems evident that people who value freedom more than a need to "get those bastards", more than their party platform, more than their desire to feel safe from a threat be it real or imagined, more than even life itself, are becoming rare. I am forced to regard that as cowardice. When it comes to the motivation behind poor decision-making, few things are quite so effective as cowardice.
Just making it clear is all. I agree with the security problems inherent in Windows that make these things necessary -- I always found ClamAV for linux a little weird, frankly.
I'm not running Windows because I like it (although Vista hasn't really annoyed me as much as it seems to have annoyed everybody else -- I also found ME no more annoying than others, so I'm a definite outlier). I'm running it to run software that doesn't run right under wine, and because I haven't yet got Kubuntu running on the laptop.
Reading that gave me an "outlier" sort of idea, too. It occurred to me that if the US DOJ really wanted to do something about the anticompetitive practices for which they conviced Microsoft, they should have forced Win32 to be an open standard, complete with a free, unrestricted reference implementation in source code. I suppose this idea never came up because a) it's a government agency and they tend not to go for simple solutions that make a lot of sense and b) they seemed to consider only the anticompetitive practices that related to Web browsers.
To me, "anticompetitive" is about the will to unfairly take advantage and has little to do with the specific methods by which this is done (those can be summed up as "any we think we can get away with") so I think worrying too much about specifics would be a whack-a-mole game. To me, the Win32 standard would be that one simple solution to this problem. It follows the logic of the frankly rather childish and selfish people who just want to take advantage, in the sense of "you abused this toy so now we're going to take it away from you." For that reason, I don't believe that my solution would be going too far. I thought of that because there are a lot of folks who say the same thing you just mentioned, that they need to use Windows software that just won't run correctly under WINE.
To be fair, none of the security products I use is an MS product. The security features added to Vista (yeah, I know, they weren't all about security) I just found annoying as well, so I looked for other solutions.
I wasn't talking about the companies that produce those security products. I was talking about why they even have a market at all. They exist only to make up for shortcomings in Windows. There is something fundamentally wrong with Windows that it has such shortcomings. I mean no disrespect but I don't see what fairness regarding brand names has to do with it.
That's the classic hallmark sign of a wrong solution. To the problem of Windows insecurity, that is. It's sort of like a scientist who keeps getting surprised at each new discovery and never thinks that maybe there's something wrong with his theory when it has zero ability to make successful predictions. There's something drastically and fundamentally wrong with the design of Windows if you have to put up with all of that BS just to achieve an acceptable level of security. The only thing I don't fully understand is why so many people with no financial ties to Microsoft don't want to admit this.
Care to explain why the law should protect the stupid
Because in free societies, it isn't illegal to not understand technology.
How about this: make it legal to not understand technology. Make it illegal to not understand technology and still insist on using it anyway on a global network where your negligence can harm others. There is an element of choice to that second scenario that is not present in the first.
"When someone can go to the same church for years without making progress towards losing those negative tendencies and replacing them with an overcoming love for humanity, then there is something wrong with that church. Something critical is missing. Note, I said making progress; I did not say "perfect absolute mastery". I would compare it to someone who attends a programming class for four years and after those four years, is still incapable of writing a "Hello World" program in the language of their choice. It indicates something is very wrong with the class. " In a school you would be kicked out of the class long before that time. A church will keep let you trying well most of them. If you don't want to go to a church and or don't believe in what they teach that is one thing. But again you are making a judgment as to that persons progress. Do you really know where that person started? Do you really know where that person is? How do you know what progress they made unless you are that person. I find the obsession with all these other people to be the part I don't get. You even speak about what a Taoist would say but yet you still judge the value of a churches teaching from the most superficial and external signs possible. If you have no desire to go to a church that is fine and dandy. Each person has to find their own way to the truth. I personally believe that almost nobody every figures out even the majority of the truth in their life time. But I would say that you should do a little check on that judging other people thing.
That's neat and sounds good and it has that "who can disagree with that" quality, right? Except that when I join any organization there is a question of whether I will be a contributing member or whether I am merely there to socialize. Personally, I don't want to merely socialize in a place that is supposed to be about wisdom and spiritual growth. There are lots of places to merely socialize which have no such goals if that's what I want to do.
If my message, that is what I would contribute, is accurate yet unwanted then why would I wish to be where I am not wanted? It seems to me that the only correct way to deal with that would be to respect their wishes. I'd love to see you refute that. My bet is that you cannot. If you respond to me again and pretend again that you somehow didn't see me saying this, that will be your implicit admission that you are unable to refute it. I prefer not to be this way but you aren't giving me much to work with here.
I also wonder one thing. There is one alternative to choosing not to go where my genuine heartfelt beliefs are not wanted, but it's an ugly one. I will pose it to you in the form of a question. Do you think I would be genuine and honest if I kept my mouth shut and never contributed anything to a church, or worse, contributed what I don't really believe, in order to be esteemed by its members? Personally I think that would be dishonest and manipulative. It would amount to putting on a mask in order to fit in which would make me a phony, just like most other people. If you think there is ever a good reason to do that, that being phony can lead to the truth and honesty that is needed in order to genuinely explore spirituality, then again I'd love to see your argument.
You have presumed to call me judgmental for refusing to be phony in this way. You have never adequately explained why you insist on doing so when I have given non-judgmental reasons for why I make this choice. Whether that's a position of hypocrisy I will leave for you to decide.
I highlighted the difference between discernment and judgment for a reason. That's because your response was quite predictable, which frankly should tell you something about its usefulness. You have failed to address that difference. What I presented to you was a whole line of reasoning and you have cherry-picked a specific part of it to formulate your response. That's alright, except that you ignored what I wrote that w
Users do not install viruses. Viruses install themselves trough gaping security holes / backdoors.
During the Trojan War, the people of Troy were said to have installed dancing horses, which came pre-infected with the special forces of Greece. Nowadays, users install dancing bunnies, which come pre-infected with viruses and worms and other sorts of malware.
The lesson? Old tricks work because people don't learn.
Why was this AC comment modded down? It was factual and perfectly reasonable.
Because it mentioned those evil terrible things called "guns" and some moderator had a knee-jerk reaction to that. In other words, their emotional reaction to a mention of a weapon is more important to them than the fact that it was only illustrative and was used to make a greater point that was relevant to the discussion. Yes, that really is where we're at concerning the overall quality of moderation. Just be glad that this one was corrected back to a score of 0.
The only thing we know for certain about that "conventional wisdom" is that it's never really been put to the test. The only sure way to test it would be for Windows to become extremely unpopular and for it to be replaced with another operating system. Then and only then is this "wisdom" something more than "speculation that sounds good while ignoring some realities." I don't deny that the most popular/prevalent operating system would be the most targeted. What I deny is that "most targeted" is automatically guaranteed to be the same thing as "most often successfully compromised."
What realities are being ignored? The fact that all security systems are not equally effective. In common usage on Windows, you primarily have after-the-fact damage control measures such as antivirus and antispyware. Damage control is not the same thing as security. Real security is about prevention. There exist operating systems today which generally do not need any sort of antivirus or other signature-based scanners. They heavily use permissions, privilege separation, least-privilege, capabilities and some less-common measures like compiling code in such a way that it is much more difficult to successfully exploit buffer overflows and other flaws.
I honestly think it's a bit absurd to suggest that these would have no greater success than the prevailing measures in common usage on Windows. Certainly this conclusion does not come from actually studying computer security and deciding for yourself, by means of evidence, which methods are more difficult to exploit. I can only speculate as to where it comes from. It really seems like a cop-out designed to silence debate by introducing speculative elements into what was originally a factual discussion. I'm not suggesting that you are deliberately doing this, only that what you are repeating is not at all an original thought (in fact, it almost always comes up in these discussions) and may have had such an intent behind its actual origin.
Seeing the faults of others and honestly calling them what they are: discernment. Hating the person in any way because of what you see, whether that hatred expresses itself by means of anger, resentment, frustration, condemnation, or holier-than-thou: judgment. Declining to associate with people who don't understand what they preach and are unwilling to consider the possibility that they don't understand what they preach is merely wise decision-making. It is not a judgment on those people, it is a willingness to let them live their lives as they see fit while I do the same. It is also a recognition that their current state may be a necessary part of their path of development.
I think your objection was sincere yet misguided, otherwise I'd say that what you are doing there is quite twisted and seems designed to convince me that what I plainly see with my very eyes is somehow not what I plainly see with my very eyes. Beware, because many people will attempt to do that and most of them don't understand that this is what they're doing. The reason why ignorance is so compelling and often is not self-correcting (except in those whom you may call "true seekers", and even for them this requires much effort) is because it is self-reinforcing. That is, the beliefs that come from ignorance seem valid within the framework of the worldview that is willing to entertain them. In other words, these things are often subtle; if the effects of ignorance were obviously and undeniably wrong to anyone and everyone, then there would be no such thing as ignorance. That is clearly not the case.
When someone can go to the same church for years without making progress towards losing those negative tendencies and replacing them with an overcoming love for humanity, then there is something wrong with that church. Something critical is missing. Note, I said making progress; I did not say "perfect absolute mastery". I would compare it to someone who attends a programming class for four years and after those four years, is still incapable of writing a "Hello World" program in the language of their choice. It indicates something is very wrong with the class.
The problem you have with churches is that it's almost impossible to find a counterexample that shows the shameful state of all of the others. For many people, the beginning of wisdom would be the realization of how fake and phony they are, of how many attitudes and beliefs and behavior patterns they have that somebody else put there, of how they can be this way while sincerely believing that they are living their own lives, of how even their kindness is fake and manipulative because it's designed to obtain a result, namely that of being liked. This, incidentally, is why the general population is such a sucker for any politician or leader who tells them what they want to hear. It's why they're such sheep. It's why they think mutual need is the same thing as love.
That's not exactly an easy realization. It does not draw a crowd. Anyone who preaches that, however accurate it may be, will quickly find that most people dearly love their mindless state and would rather silence the person who reminds them of it (because they perceive that person's message as painful) than seek freedom from it. Anyone who preaches that better be prepared to catch a lot of flak from a bunch of people who nod fervently when told that Jesus said we should love God and should love one another.
You think you're telling me something new when you say to me that people are imperfect? Do you sincerely believe that I did not notice that, or that this wasn't a core part of the point I am making? I say to you that this is a condi
I'm a Christian, and I'm a tech. (I don't use twitter - I don't see a point to it). I do however, understand that this is another way to let people know what your particular church is about - on the other hand, I think this can be really distracting for those in the congregation that are trying to listen to the message for the day. I heard about this last week on K-Love (National Christian radio station) and will be interesting to see how it works out. (I don't see this lasting long)
Sorry I picked you for this one, but you were the first self-identified Christian I saw posting in here.
... then, and only then, would I consider joining that congregation. Extra points if at least some of the sessions include material that is difficult and challenging and represents an understanding higher than your own so that you can strive to reach for it, rather than the easily understood (and easily heard) platitudes which are designed to appeal to (i.e. pander to) the masses.
The moment I find one church where its members love one another, do not judge for any reason especially reasons based on appearance (i.e. the clothing you wear, etc.), do not form little exclusive cliques as though this were high school, do not gossip about one another and refuse to entertain gossip about anyone else, understand the folly of anger and frustration, and show genuine loving-kindness instead of merely being nice because they are weak for the approval of others and worry about what other people think of them
The words in the form of chapter and verse are a map. The map is not the territory. When I go into churches, what I find is a bunch of people who have memorized words and they think they understand them, but it does not show in their lives per my criteria above. They still think that the spiritual experience is an intellectual experience. They don't see how limited intellect and logic really are, how they are powerful yet useless for all but the most mundane of affairs.
The whole problem with the Bible is that you kinda already have to "get it" before you can really get much out of what it teaches. At that point where you start getting it, you realize that most of the religions started with a simple idea that is beyond all intellectual or logical apprehension and that great complications arose when the enlightened tried to teach that idea to others. Those enlightened folks had a severely difficult problem: how to use words to teach something for which there are no words. The best that they could do was to provide a description of what it looks like and hope that those who study it don't confuse the description for the real thing (i.e. religion instead of spirituality). That confusion is exactly what has happened to modern "Churchianity". It's a shame, really, because if you study various religions and have seen the real thing, you will find that the Christians have one of the most accurate descriptions available.
I'm no fan of "hate speech" myself but my right to free speech overrides your right not to be offended by what I say.
While I agree with the intent of your post I have to point out one glaring inaccuracy. NOBODY has a RIGHT to not be offended. That is the simple, logical mistake of every person who introduces, or defends, things like this proposed bill.
I apologize because I am not a fan of "me too" posts. However ... I really wanted to say "Amen Brother!" I was about to make this correction myself until I noticed that you had already taken care of it.
You should have read more than the headline because frankly, the headline sucks. This bill strives to make "severe, repeated, and hostile" speech used in cyberbullying a criminal offense. Since MY blog doesn't have any of that stuff, this bill would not be able to declare my blog a weapon. By no means am I supporting this bill, but also by no means do I consider this alarmist headline to have any validity.
The summary had it right. The emphasis is mine:
When are you and the population in general going to learn that that's the whole point? Almost all politicians are lawyers; it's not like they don't understand the implications of a law and can't foresee its abuses. So, why would someone be perfectly capable of knowing that this will be abused and support it anyway? Because that's exactly what they want. What we call "abuse" they might call "consolidation of power." It doesn't even require some smoky-back-room conspiracy, all it requires is the understanding that people who love power want more of it and are willing to take measures in order to obtain it. What did you expect, exactly? Do you suppose that the Hitlers of the world obtain power by going out in public and delivering speeches which say "I want to rule all of you under an evil totalitarian police state that will cause much misery and suffering, so vote for me!" No, they don't. They have to be subtle and they have to have plausible deniability at each step.
Really, the level of naivete and downright stupidity on the part of the ruled (not the governed) regarding these basic things is pathetic and shameful. Even public education and all of the indoctrination and the snuffing out of natural intuitive brightness that goes along with it does not adequately explain how badly, how desperately, many of you want to believe that these hollow and soul-less mockeries of human beings (that is, our rulers) somehow have our best interests at heart. It is self-destructive and completely without excuse. Does that sound harsh? Is this Flamebait because you don't like to hear it? Consider that the widespread stupidity of the general public is materially damaging my life and the life of anyone else who does not wish to live in a totalitarian police state. Then tell me whether my response is so harsh or whether it's incredibly civil. Then talk to me about what you don't like to hear.
Apple's a major religion.
Most of these guys are the David Karash's of the tech world. Minus the whole FBI crashing the house party... yet.
Actually, that was the ATF.
but I'm not afraid of the flu. I think we should name it what Fox News suggested. The Black Plague 2.
Yeah I love the way the major news networks hype this up. "This is what we want you to be afraid of today!" Anyone remember hoof-and-mouth disease? Mad cow? How about SARS? Bird flu? There's probably a few I'm forgetting. All terrible horrible epidemic plagues that were going to kill us all, or so you'd think from listening to the news. You want a population that's easy to control, you first have to make them afraid of something. Of course you could also choose to think that all of these things are accidents or coincidences...
Oh, they realize it alright. It just so happens that they also realize the vast ignorance concerning technical matters of the average customer. Most users won't understand why this is a problem, and among those who understand that, many won't think it's important (like privacy, appreciation of trust seems to be on the decline). Certainly they won't think it's important enough to uninstall the extension and never use it again, nor any other software written by its author. That's really what needs to happen each and every time there's any sort of deliberate decision like this with no up-front disclosure. That's if you actually want to end this practice, of course.
That's the point. You just explained why it's not a proposition to be taken lightly. If what I describe above sounds like an extreme reaction it's because the importance of what you just described is seldom appreciated. There's no reason to have a soft spot for people who think that you and/or your property are theirs to control. That their intentions are mostly benign and they're "just trying to make a buck" doesn't change the nature of the situation.
I've kept birds for a number of years and I can say that you can guess but you never really know for certain just how smart they are, except maybe to say "probably more than you think".
Too true. At times, you may think you're training your bird, however, the reverse is true. How many times I've found myself acting like a spastic retard trying to get my brid to do something entertaining...*bows head in shame*
Haha yeah I know what you mean. There's definitely something special about them. I really think that if more people kept birds, then "bird-brain" would never have been considered an insult.
Common crows are incredible too. I believe they are the only non-primate that will not only use tools, but make and then use them. Crows have been known to find bits of wire and bend them into a "hook" and use that to get food, probably insects. If there is a nut they want to eat but cannot crack, they have been known to place it on a road and wait for a car to run over it and crack it for them. Of course that sounds very basic to us as humans but that kind of planning and forethought is quite rare among animals.
I've got a Sun Conure, which happens to be the same bird in the picture in the summary. He's only 5 months old, so he's not all out dancing, but he does seem to be starting to respond to music, as he'll start to bob his head in time for a few seconds at a time. Search youtube for kimba's song, and you can see the Sun Conure groovin to a performing beatboxer.
I have a cockatiel and he's about eight years old. He has a little metal band around one of his feet, I guess to prove that he was domestically bred and not poached (not sure exactly). He does one thing that I've never seen another bird do, though it's not as extreme as actually dancing. If I play certain percussive music or if I drum on my desk with my fingers, he will tap that metal band against his wooden perch to either the same rhythm or the same rhythm with little variations.
Sometimes he'll do this as a sort of "Simon" game where I'm supposed to match his little drum-solo and then he tries to match mine. It never occurred to me that birds would properly dance, though this one does make displays etc that are a lot like dancing. Either way, they definitely do have the required sense of rhythm. I've kept birds for a number of years and I can say that you can guess but you never really know for certain just how smart they are, except maybe to say "probably more than you think".
I don't mean to nitpick, but what's the difference? Your ISP has a network that's hooked to the Internet and you connect your computer to it in order to have Internet access. Seems to me that the basic routing functionality of IP guarantees that there is no meaningful difference there, at least not unless you have some carefully-planned firewall rules in place and even then ...
Medical equipment has a very long lifespan. Many devices for measurement and monitoring are used for 10 to 20 years before replacement. The general policy is "if it works, don't fix it and, more important, do not touch it". The real problem is that most suppliers of equipment are reluctant to support any type of patches. Many of the suppliers explicitly state that the machines may not be changed in any way (and that includes patching the OS) or you will lose all guarantee and support.
Doesn't Microsoft itself say (perhaps in the EULA disclaimer) that its operating systems were not intended to be used in this sort of mission-critical capacity? That could of course have a very narrow definition, something along the lines of "don't ever use it to operate that iron lung but maybe use it so the receptionist can run MS Office" but if that were the case, then this would be a mere nuisance and not such a real problem. That is, in that case there'd be nothing special about the fact that the affected institution happened to be a hospital beyond the fact that it sounds bad. Because of that, I really get the impression that they were using the wrong tool for the job.
Dear mods, that's meant to be facetious. Some of you seem to be a little trigger-happy so you won't understand why I shouldn't have to explain that.
Make your joke and take the moderations like a man. If you are going to explain that it is a joke, you might as well not bother in the first place since explaining takes away all the fun.
I wonder if you are aware of the "I'm superior to you" undercurrent behind that. I'll tell you what a man does, he says what he wants to say the way he wants to say it and doesn't allow petty tyrants like you to tell him that there's anything wrong with that. Oh you can try, and I celebrate your right to do so, but it's just a noise. Save this for someone who is weak enough to need your approval. It will be much more successful then, at least for weird definitions of "success" that include "feeling better about yourself while actually accomplishing nothing". It's as though you want to tell someone how to be a man while at the same time expecting him to bow down to what you think that should look like, which fails because if he kowtowed to you his manhood would be the first thing he loses. My point is that what you're doing doesn't work, can't work, and trying harder won't change that.
To put that another way, was I really making a joke or was I trying to tell the mods a thing or two in a relatively non-threatening way that doesn't get them on their defensive high horse? You seem to have a great conviction that you know the answer to that question. The problem is you have no evidence to back up that conviction. You'd do well to actually know where somebody is coming from, with no such flimsy assumptions, before you presume to tell them what they should do and how they should be. I'm not trying to be rude but you're putting me in a position where I won't mince words.
Your computer is infected by a rootkit that dumps payloads on your system? Sadly, this is my case where I have randomly named files on my system that I just cannot remove short of reinstalling the OS. However, giving the extent of viruses, who's to say that you placed the content on your computer or even knew it was there.
In a way that's pretty funny.
"Windows is insecure and has all of these virus problems."
"It's not a bug, it's a feature! This way you have plausible deniability."
And how many completely-random files do you have on your computer?
One, and a second file that's pretty close. /dev/random and /dev/urandom.
Dear mods, that's meant to be facetious. Some of you seem to be a little trigger-happy so you won't understand why I shouldn't have to explain that.