The only way most firms will push to respect human rights is if we make serious domestic penalties for companies that break human rights laws overseas or use companies that break codes.
Umm, did you read the article? It's the investors of these companies (in this case) that are pushing for protection of human rights. However, their intetions aren't exactly altruistic.
FTA: "On the broadest possible level, democracy provides the best possible environment for investment," Kanzer said.
and Wolfe maintains that filtering and stifling Internet traffic runs against a good Internet business model.
"Internet traffic creates demand for IT infrastructure networks. So, any activity that serves to quell Internet traffic threatens the long-term viability and growth opportunities of IT infrastructure and networking companies."
We should spread the word about this, the more people who know about this David and Goliath fight, the better. The worst thing we can do is just shake our heads in pity and forget about this whole thing.
Or every slashdotter with access to a web server can setup mirrors of her website. Let's see Activa Group sue the owners of all these web sites for hosting libelous content (especially the ones not in Canada).
Last time I looked a the pricing of Blackberries they were very expensive (both the device itself and the service). Correct me if I'm wrong - but you can get pretty much the same service on your cell phone for a lot less money. I can send and receive e-mail with my basic cell phone service. I'd probably want to upgrade my cheap cell phone to something more conducive to typing and reading e-mails but that wouldn't cost me a lot of money.
I'm curious as to what your "many reasons" were why it couldn't?
Well, actually I figured it was quite possible to do (and didn't know that it was already being done) but I thought a bunch of naysayers would respond with, "that would never work because of x" so I thought I'd say it upfront to avoid all that BS. Anyways, pretty cool and kudos to the game developers for building the functionality in.
Why not combine the two games into one? Let CoH characters play against CoV players. That would be pretty cool. I know this will never happen for many reasons but it's still a cool idea.
I don't believe they ever released a patch that outright disables this functionality (that'd be stupid)
Actually, as stupid as it may sound, they did. I saw it with my own two eyes. It did first confirm that you wanted to disable the warning. As you say, a later patch fixed the underlying problem. Also, you are most likely correct that Symantec had plenty of time to fix the problem and dropped the ball. My assumption that it was MS not playing nicely with others was probably wrong.
Hmm, slashdot is full of assholes who know everything, isn't it? Did you actually read what I was saying? I was formulating an argument within the theory presented. Apparently you need some schooling in logic if you didn't understand that. While you're at it I could give you a lesson in versioning. Where do you want to start? Source control? Branching, tagging? Version numbering (I like the Major.Minor.Patch scheme myself)? Configuration management? I can teach you a few things if you'd like. I feel sorry for the company that employees an arrogant prick like you. Anonymous Coward is right.
Umm, did you read the last paragraph of my comment? Yes, as other people have pointed out Symantec had plenty of time to respond to this and it was probably them who dropped the ball (and as such I stand corrected). I was merely pointing out the fallacies in your theory - not trying to re-assert my original comment or to say that SP2 magically appeared one day without warning. And yes - I am a software developer and I certainly do know what an API is thank-you-very-little. Oh, and one other thing. If I were such an anti-MS zealot why would I be running Windows XP in the first place?
Actually, yes it did, at least the patch I'm talking about. There may have been one later that did what you are saying. And yes I know I could have just disabled it myself very easily but it didn't really bother me.
If this code was work-for-hire, then this would be completely illegal (and laughable).
Yes, the article is very lacking. It says he was an employee but was he really a contractor? If you are an employee then it is assumed that everything you create is a "work for hire" as you say. However, if you're not an employee then a "work for hire" arrangement has to be in writing and fall within very strict guidelines. There is no such thing as an "assumed work for hire" (unless you're an employee). My guess is he was contracted to do the work (not an employee) and thus owned the copyright because no "work for hire" agreement was in place. If this is the case then I can see why he'd want to retain control of his code. However, the courts seemed to think that what the company was doing was fair use under the implied license so no harm no foul.
Don't be such a dumbass. It's not like this stuff is complicated.
Wow, thank you for that very enlightening comment. According to your theory:
NAV 2004 is released without Window's security APIs because they don't exist yet
XP SP2 comes out in 2004.
Since NAV 2004 isn't programmed against such APIs windows can't recognize it (for the purposes of our discussion).
And this is not Microsoft's fault (going by your theory)? If they're going to change their APIs they need to have some backwards compatibility. I'm not saying go back to Win 98 or anything but if they know the average person updates their anti-virus software once a year then their APIs should be backwards compatible with AV software created in the past year. You don't release an API spec and expect everyone to instantly adapt to it.
Anyways, other people have commented that Symantec did in fact have access to the API specs ahead of time and just dropped the ball in which case it was Symantec's fault and not Microsoft's
You are talking about an older one that didn't follow the windows anti-virus api's for the security center.
Umm, I'm not talking about an "old" version. I'm talking about NAV 2004 (and this was in 2004 when XP SP2 came out). Perhaps the "current" version of NAV didn't follow Window's security center API but I find that hard to believe.
The end-user has the option of switching it out and using a different vendor's spyware protection if they want.
Kind of like how XP SP2 didn't recognize Norton Anti-Virus as a anti-virus software and warned you that you didn't have any anti-virus software installed? Symantec had a patch that disabled this warning right after XP SP2 came out.
Nope, but certain languages are notorious in attracting bad, horrible coders.
And what languages are these? The ones that are easier to learn. Therefore, you have more inexperienced programmers coding in these languages. This is a good thing in my book. Programming languages that are easily accessible (such as PHP) attract more people to programming in general. Do you want to hire an inexperienced programmer to build your e-commerce site? Probably not. Do we want to continual attract people to the field of programming? Probably yes. This is what languages like PHP do. I learned PHP before I learned Java (and yes I do mean Java - not JavaScript), for example. Would I have learned Java if I hadn't learned PHP first. Maybe, maybe not. The point is that most people can't just jump into an advanced language like Java or C++ but these "beginner" languages make the transition into higher-level programming possible.
I'm not familiar with AWStats so it wasn't my intention to assert that it was a PHP application. Thank you for the correction. The comment that I responded to indicated that it was a PHP vulnerability (as did the article) and AWStats was listed as one of the vulnerable applications so I did the math. Apparently the variables I had to work with were wrong. I guess that's what happens when you assume.
Seriously, though; isn't everyone fairly aware that PHP ain't that secure?
No, PHP is secure. Some applications written in PHP are insecure. Programmers can introduce security vulnerabilities in any language. Bad programming is not language specific.
"This is a chapter that ends on a high note for the recording industry, the tech community and music fans and consumers everywhere," said Mitch Bainwol, head of the Recording Industry Association of America.
This is a temporary victory only for the RIAA. They can't change the fact that their business model is becoming obsolete.
Because armed with this precendent Eolas is going to go after anyone who has ever coded a browser with the ability to host an applet.
Let me state upfront that I am not a fan have software patents. However, if other companies have violated their patent, then they need to pay up. The $520 million was based on Microsoft's profits, other companies wouldn't pay as much if they were in violation. Patents are usually pretty specific. I have a feeling that Microsoft was blatantly ripping of their technology and betting that their lawyers would get them out of any legal mess. They beat the government in a court case after all, right?
Pacheco said it appeared that no cost analysis had been done before ITD committed to OpenDocument, and that the agency had moved forward unilaterally without input from other agencies.
How did they end up using MS Office? Did they get input from other agencies? Probably not. At the time, as the parent comment says, they probably thought "Word Processing IS Microsoft Word".
Slashdot Mirror
The only way most firms will push to respect human rights is if we make serious domestic penalties for companies that break human rights laws overseas or use companies that break codes.
Umm, did you read the article? It's the investors of these companies (in this case) that are pushing for protection of human rights. However, their intetions aren't exactly altruistic.
FTA:
"On the broadest possible level, democracy provides the best possible environment for investment," Kanzer said.
and
Wolfe maintains that filtering and stifling Internet traffic runs against a good Internet business model.
"Internet traffic creates demand for IT infrastructure networks. So, any activity that serves to quell Internet traffic threatens the long-term viability and growth opportunities of IT infrastructure and networking companies."
We should spread the word about this, the more people who know about this David and Goliath fight, the better. The worst thing we can do is just shake our heads in pity and forget about this whole thing.
Or every slashdotter with access to a web server can setup mirrors of her website. Let's see Activa Group sue the owners of all these web sites for hosting libelous content (especially the ones not in Canada).
Last time I looked a the pricing of Blackberries they were very expensive (both the device itself and the service). Correct me if I'm wrong - but you can get pretty much the same service on your cell phone for a lot less money. I can send and receive e-mail with my basic cell phone service. I'd probably want to upgrade my cheap cell phone to something more conducive to typing and reading e-mails but that wouldn't cost me a lot of money.
Apparently 10% of US Blackberry users are government users.
Good to see our tax payer dollars spent on overpriced technology.
he is offended by the fact that the fact that the record labels...
Did anybody else notice the disturbance in the Matrix?
I'm curious as to what your "many reasons" were why it couldn't?
Well, actually I figured it was quite possible to do (and didn't know that it was already being done) but I thought a bunch of naysayers would respond with, "that would never work because of x" so I thought I'd say it upfront to avoid all that BS. Anyways, pretty cool and kudos to the game developers for building the functionality in.
Why not combine the two games into one? Let CoH characters play against CoV players. That would be pretty cool. I know this will never happen for many reasons but it's still a cool idea.
I don't believe they ever released a patch that outright disables this functionality (that'd be stupid)
Actually, as stupid as it may sound, they did. I saw it with my own two eyes. It did first confirm that you wanted to disable the warning. As you say, a later patch fixed the underlying problem. Also, you are most likely correct that Symantec had plenty of time to fix the problem and dropped the ball. My assumption that it was MS not playing nicely with others was probably wrong.
Hmm, slashdot is full of assholes who know everything, isn't it? Did you actually read what I was saying? I was formulating an argument within the theory presented. Apparently you need some schooling in logic if you didn't understand that. While you're at it I could give you a lesson in versioning. Where do you want to start? Source control? Branching, tagging? Version numbering (I like the Major.Minor.Patch scheme myself)? Configuration management? I can teach you a few things if you'd like. I feel sorry for the company that employees an arrogant prick like you. Anonymous Coward is right.
Umm, did you read the last paragraph of my comment? Yes, as other people have pointed out Symantec had plenty of time to respond to this and it was probably them who dropped the ball (and as such I stand corrected). I was merely pointing out the fallacies in your theory - not trying to re-assert my original comment or to say that SP2 magically appeared one day without warning. And yes - I am a software developer and I certainly do know what an API is thank-you-very-little. Oh, and one other thing. If I were such an anti-MS zealot why would I be running Windows XP in the first place?
the patch didn't disable the warning
Actually, yes it did, at least the patch I'm talking about. There may have been one later that did what you are saying. And yes I know I could have just disabled it myself very easily but it didn't really bother me.
If this code was work-for-hire, then this would be completely illegal (and laughable).
Yes, the article is very lacking. It says he was an employee but was he really a contractor? If you are an employee then it is assumed that everything you create is a "work for hire" as you say. However, if you're not an employee then a "work for hire" arrangement has to be in writing and fall within very strict guidelines. There is no such thing as an "assumed work for hire" (unless you're an employee). My guess is he was contracted to do the work (not an employee) and thus owned the copyright because no "work for hire" agreement was in place. If this is the case then I can see why he'd want to retain control of his code. However, the courts seemed to think that what the company was doing was fair use under the implied license so no harm no foul.
Wow, thank you for that very enlightening comment. According to your theory:
And this is not Microsoft's fault (going by your theory)? If they're going to change their APIs they need to have some backwards compatibility. I'm not saying go back to Win 98 or anything but if they know the average person updates their anti-virus software once a year then their APIs should be backwards compatible with AV software created in the past year. You don't release an API spec and expect everyone to instantly adapt to it.
Anyways, other people have commented that Symantec did in fact have access to the API specs ahead of time and just dropped the ball in which case it was Symantec's fault and not Microsoft's
You are talking about an older one that didn't follow the windows anti-virus api's for the security center.
Umm, I'm not talking about an "old" version. I'm talking about NAV 2004 (and this was in 2004 when XP SP2 came out). Perhaps the "current" version of NAV didn't follow Window's security center API but I find that hard to believe.
The end-user has the option of switching it out and using a different vendor's spyware protection if they want.
Kind of like how XP SP2 didn't recognize Norton Anti-Virus as a anti-virus software and warned you that you didn't have any anti-virus software installed? Symantec had a patch that disabled this warning right after XP SP2 came out.
Nope, but certain languages are notorious in attracting bad, horrible coders.
And what languages are these? The ones that are easier to learn. Therefore, you have more inexperienced programmers coding in these languages. This is a good thing in my book. Programming languages that are easily accessible (such as PHP) attract more people to programming in general. Do you want to hire an inexperienced programmer to build your e-commerce site? Probably not. Do we want to continual attract people to the field of programming? Probably yes. This is what languages like PHP do. I learned PHP before I learned Java (and yes I do mean Java - not JavaScript), for example. Would I have learned Java if I hadn't learned PHP first. Maybe, maybe not. The point is that most people can't just jump into an advanced language like Java or C++ but these "beginner" languages make the transition into higher-level programming possible.
I'm not familiar with AWStats so it wasn't my intention to assert that it was a PHP application. Thank you for the correction. The comment that I responded to indicated that it was a PHP vulnerability (as did the article) and AWStats was listed as one of the vulnerable applications so I did the math. Apparently the variables I had to work with were wrong. I guess that's what happens when you assume.
Seriously, though; isn't everyone fairly aware that PHP ain't that secure?
No, PHP is secure. Some applications written in PHP are insecure. Programmers can introduce security vulnerabilities in any language. Bad programming is not language specific.
Calling it a PHP exploit would be wrong as well. It's an exploit of specific applications written in PHP (AWStats and Drupal from what I could tell).
"This is a chapter that ends on a high note for the recording industry, the tech community and music fans and consumers everywhere," said Mitch Bainwol, head of the Recording Industry Association of America.
This is a temporary victory only for the RIAA. They can't change the fact that their business model is becoming obsolete.
Is there an online version?
8 X
Why yes there is:
http://msdn.safaribooksonline.com/?XmlId=03213367
Bill pulls out his wallet, "Is cash OK?"
And says, "Do you have change for a Billon?"
Because armed with this precendent Eolas is going to go after anyone who has ever coded a browser with the ability to host an applet.
Let me state upfront that I am not a fan have software patents. However, if other companies have violated their patent, then they need to pay up. The $520 million was based on Microsoft's profits, other companies wouldn't pay as much if they were in violation. Patents are usually pretty specific. I have a feeling that Microsoft was blatantly ripping of their technology and betting that their lawyers would get them out of any legal mess. They beat the government in a court case after all, right?
Microsoft had already been dealt a $520.6 million judgement in the case two years ago
How much does Microsoft clear in profit every month, over one billion dollars? This isn't much money to them.
Pacheco said it appeared that no cost analysis had been done before ITD committed to OpenDocument, and that the agency had moved forward unilaterally without input from other agencies.
How did they end up using MS Office? Did they get input from other agencies? Probably not. At the time, as the parent comment says, they probably thought "Word Processing IS Microsoft Word".