You may see it, but I'm coding it, and have been for the last year. Well, less dramatic perhaps, but still, its something I'm working on all on my ownsome.
Oh for VC funding so I could get more people involved....
Never mind, by 2009 I should have a decent product.
well, yes, you would be. Unless they created some kind of sandbox for developing code. This would then become an attack vector for virus writers who would inject code to this 'run anything' region. If you allow such a system onto your pc, you will certainly end up in confirmation box hell regardless of the method they initiate to cater for developers.
What will most likely happen is that the firms offering whitelists will offer the software equivalent of a gated compound that people can choose to be inside, running just approved (and for the most part non free I reckon) software. Other people may choose not to, but you'll probably find you will eventually have to be in this controlled system of computers to interact with another computer already in such a system.
It seems a bit dodgy for us freedom freaks, but for someone like my mum, or sister, who works from home, it would be something they would jump at to avoid the 'terror' of virus attacks. I'd add something about linux, but no doubt other linux zealots are foaming at the mouth as I write this preparing huge tracts of anti windows text. Me? Dunno about that, I just use linux because I like it.
Take me for example. My open source software has a tiny number of users, being very specialised, and I'm not alone in having this class of software. We can't all be Apache developers. How will people like me get their program approved? Is it going to cost money? That's what I want to know.
I'd be interested in knowing how they deal with the fast release cycle of open source software (excluding mine, oh for a 48 hour day...).
I'm pretty keen on the whitelist idea though. If nothing else it'll make malware more inventive, they'll start imitating the fingerprints of validated software.
Their assets are what? Unixware? All but worthless (nice code maybe, but superseded by linux now). They have no unix copyrights, no trademarks, nothing.
Most ISP now like people to be on limited download limits per month, and charge for excess. If this takes off, the number of 'accidantal' overrtuns will potentially skyrocket, and profits will be up.
I wouldn't be surprised if the unlimited tag is removed completely so they can be sure of cashing in on this.
I'll happily use p2p if it fulfills four criteria
1: It's legal. 2: Its to my direct benefit (people who just leech being removed from the system). 3: My ISP won't try to ass rape my bank account each month with overuse charges. 4: Microsoft don't run the show.
If they manage that, no problem, if not, well then it'll be time for a new technology, won't it.
I thought the most popular image manipulation program was Photoshop??
Perhaps you mean the most popular pirated image editor.
There was a time when everyone I knew had photoshop installed. I never did, just because I failed to see why I should install such a huge program for the kind of trivial image editing I was doing at the time (not because of some moral high ground I hasten to add, I just didn't want it). Most of my image editing needs nowadays are served by paint.net, or gimp, or if I need graphs, Gnu R, openoffice, gnuplot,or I'll write my own thing if its easier, such as to graph out the contents of data structures.
Using facebook and friendsreunited (ok, not really a socail networking site, but it does work) I've found a fair few people I'd lost touch with years ago. I was reluctant to try facebook at first, but within days people I'd lost touch with from undergrad days were found again.
I'm impressed thus far, although I would say I'm not too interested in continuing those friendships through an online site, each time its moved to real world visits, phone calls and emails. That I like.
Lets clear one thing up right here. Microsoft was not only allowed, but very wise to use the bsd TCP/IP stack. Berkley were asked to produce the definitive version of the stack, so as to ensure that all vendors were on the same page, so far as the specification was concerned.
Microsoft changed some parts, as is their wont, but much of it remains unchanged. They may be buggers about a lot of things, but lets get this right, if they hadn't adopted BSDs TCP/IP code, windows would be even worse then it is now.
Really, that company has forgotten to whom this computer belongs. I don't rent it from Microsoft.
Are you sure about that? The OS you got installed on it is there because Microsoft have agreements in place that force OEMs to only use their OS on pain of severe financial penalties. That's been happening for so many years most people don't even realise that its a crazy situation. Most of the hardware you own is developed to run on windows, and they are tied to what windows can do when they write their drivers.
They own the pc environment, and since you use their product, they own your pc in every respect bar that you paid the cash for it. What they decide has a direct impact on your pc, and you.
If you only want microsoft stuff, then it has to be said that this is probably fine, after all, some people don't want any hassle, they just want to brose the web and play some games. If on the other hand you are really concerned about ownership and privacy, you have problems, because divesting oneself of microsoft is mighty hard. I can't do it completely because I'd lose my games, and I'm not alone.
I see your point, but the longevity of keys is just because they can't currently be cracked. If they can be, then the possibility exists that many keys in a single session may be used.
I'm not a security expert by any means, so I don't know whether what I suggest is feasable, it probably isn't, but someone will find a new way, you can be sure of that.
yes, but the data would never end, so unless you could encrypt in close to real time, you end up with the same problem, too much data to decrypt. You may unencrypt a seriously useful piece of information, but it will almost certainly be old, and therefore quite possibly useless.
Know how many keys there are out there in use? Unless they have a method that can break keys in real time while messages are being sent they're screwed.
Take this example. Person A sends a message to person B. Every tenth character person A switches to a new key. Person B, who knows what keys are in use, but not the order for today, collects the message, and runs their key 'recipes' on it until one makes sense of the first ten blocks, being enough to identify which sequence of keys is in use. Person B then decrypts the whole message.
Anyone snooping on that may have to crack thousands of keys just to extract one coherent message. Good luck on that one.
The grandparent probably already has WGA itself installed, he just thinks he's keeping the devil out of his computer by keeping the Notification update from installing.
Nope, I don't. But then my windows install is for one thing, games. Its just an upgradeable games machine, not too shoddy on that task actually (the one area where linux still falls flat), I am a fan of DirectX for games, its the best thing microsoft ever made IMO. If I used windows for daily stuff I would need WGA, but not at present. When the time comes to buy Vista for it to get the latest games then WGA will arrive. I'm not looking forward to then.
Right now I'm still grooving over Ubuntu after years of purgatory with Gentoo. I mean, Gentoo rocks for my cluster, but as a desktop its as stable as Ice table legs.
yes it does, but it does not attempt to hide that fact. That the install broke X is annoying, but not a sign of secret intent, just a mess up by the team who manage the updates.
Ok, that was a bit off, I admit, but not without reason.
I taught a first year course last year in which Emacs was a required component. I found that the students suffered the classes on emacs, then immediately went to kwrite, or some other 'modern' and less complex editor.
Looking around the department I found that barely anyone who started in computing in the last ten years touched it. Not many used Vim either, in fact no-one I knew used it unless they had to.
In my last uni no-one at all in the undergrad population used emacs, and none of the post grads. There I don't know about staff, but I Emacs was never mentioned in courses.
I am a Vi fan, yes, but most people I meet think that's too much work as well, and prefer to flash up one of KDE editors, or notepad++/PFE in windows.
Actually I've been playing games since Elite on the BBC model B, back in the eigties. That had a tremendously annoying copy protection lense thing that you had to hold up to the tv and use to adjust a firebird picture to get the right focus.
Back then it was tedious, but didn't actually install invasive software.
That's not about the game, is it, that's about the copy protection, which is a whole other subject.
While it is annoying, it has to be said that copy protection only got so nasty because of the virtually unrestricted internet sharing of games. We've all done it at some point or other, so we're all to blame.
The argument 'but I just want to see what the games like' doesn't cut it either. I still know people who say that, but when it comes to my saying 'hey lets play a game online', I get an all too familiar, 'my copy won't work because I don't have a valid key', because their 'review' turned into them not actually buying the thing. It gets real tedious, especially in one particular case, when the game in question was only ten pounds in the local shop.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm still using volume 2...
Got it cheap a few years back. I had no idea it was so out of date.
forget patents and such, the script compiler has got me foxed for now. Yup I've gone the daft route and designed a language specific to my engine.
You may see it, but I'm coding it, and have been for the last year. Well, less dramatic perhaps, but still, its something I'm working on all on my ownsome.
Oh for VC funding so I could get more people involved....
Never mind, by 2009 I should have a decent product.
well, yes, you would be. Unless they created some kind of sandbox for developing code. This would then become an attack vector for virus writers who would inject code to this 'run anything' region. If you allow such a system onto your pc, you will certainly end up in confirmation box hell regardless of the method they initiate to cater for developers.
What will most likely happen is that the firms offering whitelists will offer the software equivalent of a gated compound that people can choose to be inside, running just approved (and for the most part non free I reckon) software. Other people may choose not to, but you'll probably find you will eventually have to be in this controlled system of computers to interact with another computer already in such a system.
It seems a bit dodgy for us freedom freaks, but for someone like my mum, or sister, who works from home, it would be something they would jump at to avoid the 'terror' of virus attacks.
I'd add something about linux, but no doubt other linux zealots are foaming at the mouth as I write this preparing huge tracts of anti windows text. Me? Dunno about that, I just use linux because I like it.
Take me for example. My open source software has a tiny number of users, being very specialised, and I'm not alone in having this class of software. We can't all be Apache developers. How will people like me get their program approved? Is it going to cost money? That's what I want to know.
I'd be interested in knowing how they deal with the fast release cycle of open source software (excluding mine, oh for a 48 hour day...).
I'm pretty keen on the whitelist idea though. If nothing else it'll make malware more inventive, they'll start imitating the fingerprints of validated software.
Their assets are what? Unixware? All but worthless (nice code maybe, but superseded by linux now). They have no unix copyrights, no trademarks, nothing.
Most ISP now like people to be on limited download limits per month, and charge for excess. If this takes off, the number of 'accidantal' overrtuns will potentially skyrocket, and profits will be up.
I wouldn't be surprised if the unlimited tag is removed completely so they can be sure of cashing in on this.
I'll happily use p2p if it fulfills four criteria
1: It's legal.
2: Its to my direct benefit (people who just leech being removed from the system).
3: My ISP won't try to ass rape my bank account each month with overuse charges.
4: Microsoft don't run the show.
If they manage that, no problem, if not, well then it'll be time for a new technology, won't it.
that doesn't help you find people in the first place if you've lost touch, does it...
I thought the most popular image manipulation program was Photoshop??
Perhaps you mean the most popular pirated image editor.
There was a time when everyone I knew had photoshop installed. I never did, just because I failed to see why I should install such a huge program for the kind of trivial image editing I was doing at the time (not because of some moral high ground I hasten to add, I just didn't want it). Most of my image editing needs nowadays are served by paint.net, or gimp, or if I need graphs, Gnu R, openoffice, gnuplot,or I'll write my own thing if its easier, such as to graph out the contents of data structures.
Using facebook and friendsreunited (ok, not really a socail networking site, but it does work) I've found a fair few people I'd lost touch with years ago. I was reluctant to try facebook at first, but within days people I'd lost touch with from undergrad days were found again.
I'm impressed thus far, although I would say I'm not too interested in continuing those friendships through an online site, each time its moved to real world visits, phone calls and emails. That I like.
Lets clear one thing up right here. Microsoft was not only allowed, but very wise to use the bsd TCP/IP stack. Berkley were asked to produce the definitive version of the stack, so as to ensure that all vendors were on the same page, so far as the specification was concerned.
Microsoft changed some parts, as is their wont, but much of it remains unchanged. They may be buggers about a lot of things, but lets get this right, if they hadn't adopted BSDs TCP/IP code, windows would be even worse then it is now.
Small scale thrusters using only lasers is a good start, but we'll have to see what else gets bigger with scale, other than just the thrust.
For one thing, if the laser gets big enough to reach Mars, imagine what size the frickin shark will be...
Really, that company has forgotten to whom this computer belongs. I don't rent it from Microsoft.
Are you sure about that? The OS you got installed on it is there because Microsoft have agreements in place that force OEMs to only use their OS on pain of severe financial penalties. That's been happening for so many years most people don't even realise that its a crazy situation. Most of the hardware you own is developed to run on windows, and they are tied to what windows can do when they write their drivers.
They own the pc environment, and since you use their product, they own your pc in every respect bar that you paid the cash for it. What they decide has a direct impact on your pc, and you.
If you only want microsoft stuff, then it has to be said that this is probably fine, after all, some people don't want any hassle, they just want to brose the web and play some games. If on the other hand you are really concerned about ownership and privacy, you have problems, because divesting oneself of microsoft is mighty hard. I can't do it completely because I'd lose my games, and I'm not alone.
I see your point, but the longevity of keys is just because they can't currently be cracked. If they can be, then the possibility exists that many keys in a single session may be used.
I'm not a security expert by any means, so I don't know whether what I suggest is feasable, it probably isn't, but someone will find a new way, you can be sure of that.
yes, but the data would never end, so unless you could encrypt in close to real time, you end up with the same problem, too much data to decrypt. You may unencrypt a seriously useful piece of information, but it will almost certainly be old, and therefore quite possibly useless.
Know how many keys there are out there in use? Unless they have a method that can break keys in real time while messages are being sent they're screwed.
Take this example. Person A sends a message to person B. Every tenth character person A switches to a new key. Person B, who knows what keys are in use, but not the order for today, collects the message, and runs their key 'recipes' on it until one makes sense of the first ten blocks, being enough to identify which sequence of keys is in use. Person B then decrypts the whole message.
Anyone snooping on that may have to crack thousands of keys just to extract one coherent message. Good luck on that one.
The grandparent probably already has WGA itself installed, he just thinks he's keeping the devil out of his computer by keeping the Notification update from installing.
Nope, I don't. But then my windows install is for one thing, games. Its just an upgradeable games machine, not too shoddy on that task actually (the one area where linux still falls flat), I am a fan of DirectX for games, its the best thing microsoft ever made IMO. If I used windows for daily stuff I would need WGA, but not at present. When the time comes to buy Vista for it to get the latest games then WGA will arrive. I'm not looking forward to then.
Right now I'm still grooving over Ubuntu after years of purgatory with Gentoo. I mean, Gentoo rocks for my cluster, but as a desktop its as stable as Ice table legs.
yes it does, but it does not attempt to hide that fact. That the install broke X is annoying, but not a sign of secret intent, just a mess up by the team who manage the updates.
*sigh* nice troll. 4/10
Hmm, care to prove me wrong? How many open source projects enforce monitoring or hidden updates about which there is no choice on users?
I'd give it six months and this will be used to enforce install of WGA on every windows machine.
That's the proprietary software world for you.
The solution is simple, install Ubuntu.
Ok, that was a bit off, I admit, but not without reason.
I taught a first year course last year in which Emacs was a required component. I found that the students suffered the classes on emacs, then immediately went to kwrite, or some other 'modern' and less complex editor.
Looking around the department I found that barely anyone who started in computing in the last ten years touched it. Not many used Vim either, in fact no-one I knew used it unless they had to.
In my last uni no-one at all in the undergrad population used emacs, and none of the post grads. There I don't know about staff, but I Emacs was never mentioned in courses.
I am a Vi fan, yes, but most people I meet think that's too much work as well, and prefer to flash up one of KDE editors, or notepad++/PFE in windows.
Son! I'll have you know I'm, um, well, old enough to know who Hungry Horace was.
I wouldn't know about the Apple ][. I fair lusted after it, but my bank account disagreed.
Actually I've been playing games since Elite on the BBC model B, back in the eigties. That had a tremendously annoying copy protection lense thing that you had to hold up to the tv and use to adjust a firebird picture to get the right focus.
Back then it was tedious, but didn't actually install invasive software.
That's not about the game, is it, that's about the copy protection, which is a whole other subject.
While it is annoying, it has to be said that copy protection only got so nasty because of the virtually unrestricted internet sharing of games. We've all done it at some point or other, so we're all to blame.
The argument 'but I just want to see what the games like' doesn't cut it either. I still know people who say that, but when it comes to my saying 'hey lets play a game online', I get an all too familiar, 'my copy won't work because I don't have a valid key', because their 'review' turned into them not actually buying the thing. It gets real tedious, especially in one particular case, when the game in question was only ten pounds in the local shop.