Hmm. Yes. But not on their front page, which is why I linked there. Though your argument makes sense since every search has sponsored links. Point taken.
But also, the plans for the site in question seem much more invasive than pure text ads. But again, those are plans, they seem to be starting out small and working their way up
That's actually a very good point. I personally think that vigilantes aren't really bright for what they're doing. I mean heck, if you're going to test a company's security, get permission and a paycheck first, right?
But the reason I brought those examples to the front wasn't to justify vigilantism, but rather to show that it doesn't cost the company any time or money that the company wouldn't already have to spend if they didn't want their systems broken into.
Scenario 1:
1) System is vulnerable.
2) The vigilante breaks into the system
3) The vigilante tells the admin
4) System must be rebuilt as if it was broken into.
Scenario 2:
1) System is vulnerable
2) Evil Hacker X breaks into the system
3) Evil Hacker X installs a trojan
4) You b3 0wnz3d (or however the kids these days say it:-P )
5) 2 months later you notice the intrusion and have to rebuild your system
So, even though vigilantes are wasting their time and effort by doing this for free.. and they do cost the company time and effort, it is, in fact, time and effort that would have had to be spent anyway. For those of you who might say that "well, who says Hacker X would have broken in?" That is simply security through exception. That's like saying you don't want to have an alarm on your house becuase your neighbor doesn't have one and he'll get hit first. It's a possibility, but I'm not putting my house on that gamble.
I have a great cost saving idea. Lets outsource testing to a group who has no idea what we use the software for, and just give them a list of things to test! That'll obviously work!
That said, engineers see this sort of thing all the time. It breaks down like this.
Bad Performance = Deaths of thousands (ford pinto, challenger shuttle, etc)
Good Performance = Plaque of Appreciation
So what the responsible party should do is resign before they're fired, and find another job before the news gets out(Pun never intended). And next time try not to be in the line of fire when things go to hell...
Beyond the IDE is also the documentation. I've been a PHP programmer for a while now becuase it was free and easy enough to use. But when first starting out, I was floored by how good the manual on the PHP site is. User comments, example code, etc. And it's not only that these existed, but that it was all in one place and easy to find.
I have written personal sites, shopping carts, and some basic management software, and I have never needed to go beyond that manual for help.
I'm willing to learn ASP in my free time (can never hurt to have things on the resume) but is there a comparable site? Or will I have to go back to swimming through the various how-to's on computer sites?
Well, I can imagine the problem has to do with the definition of harm in the first law. I mean, a human being that is cryogenically frozen (in a reversible way) and stuck in a steel/concrete vault can be seen as not being harmed and not being able to be harmed. So in order to protect humanity, they just put us all on ice and be done with it.
Now, if you program them to believe that restriction of freedoms (such as motion, breathing, etc) is a harm, then you might be better off. But I'm not going to put my name on any sheet that claims to be a "complete list of possible harms to prevent".
While this argument does make sense, think about it this way.
If windows isn't marketed to the home sector anymore, that will leave a large gap in the computer industry. A gap that would have to be filled. So either people would have to go out and buy a corporate contract (expensive) or switch to another OS (*nix?) or not use computers (unlikely).
Right now windows bills itself as easier to use and administer than linux. This is in part becuase anyone who has grown up with a computer in their household had probably used windows, is comfortable with the windows interface, and is well versed in basic commands. Fast forward 20 years from when microsoft drops the home market. Now people are graduating college having used linux at home their whole lives. Which will they prefer to use in work? Windows, in which they have no experience, or linux, where they are comfortable?
So don't think of the home market as a poor revenue generating sector. Instead, think of it as a training ground for the geeks of tomorrow. Get them while they're young. It works for tobacco companies, and it can work for OS's as well.
Not like you don't know what you put in your computer.
Hey is this NIC I found buried in my basement a 3c509 or a 3c509B? *tries to read the scratched serial number* (this happened twice at my last job)
It's true, the module trick works quite well.. but for all I know, that's what the auto-detection is doing for me anyway. For important machines, I personally like to install mandrake 10 to figure out all my hardware, then install LFS. But recently I've heard good things about gentoo, so I'm thinking of switching off LFS to that.
It annoys me to no end that users of less friendly Linux distros look down on users who don't want to learn about the guts of their distro.
Right, but it's also these people that have the answers to your problems. Think about it this way. These folks go out and learn about their Linux, it's their job, it's their play, it's their passion. They found something that makes them happy, kudos to them. But now someone comes along and basically says "I don't care how or why it works, I don't want to know the intricate details, I just want you to help me fix it." To me, this shows a severe lack of respect to the amount of effort these uber-geek types put into their work.
You wouldn't go up to a professional racecar driver and ask them how to change your oil. Or maybe some people would. It takes all types, right?
The real question is, what is the motivation that will drive this uber-geek to help someone? In the commercial world, it's money. In the OSS-iverse it's the mental challenge of solving a problem, or the kindness of the person's heart and the belief that Linux is for everyone and everything.
We are currently in a situation where it is assumed that "helping linux become the desktop OS of choice for everyone" is the universal unspoken (or loudly spoken?) goal. And I can tell you that the really hard-core geeks do not always support this concept. The kind of person that spends hours tweaking driver code so they can shave a few milliseconds off a tight loop is not the kind of person who wants to spend that same amount of time explaining to someone who didn't read the README why the driver doesn't work in X situation. Especially when the README covers that topic, or it can be easily found on google, or there's a more appropriate list to be asking on.
So yes, these people leave a bad taste in the mouths of newcomers. But why are the newcomers going to these people in the first place? Aren't there newbie mailing lists where genereous folks who believe in helping everyone can aid in even the simplest of problems? And if not, then maybe all the people who say that linux should be the #1 desktop for everyone should get together and form this. I may even put in a few hours of my own time like I used to do on the qmail list.
I guess my real point in all of this is that the people that want to help are out there. The people that need the help are out there. Why can they never seem to cross paths at the right times? Any thoughts?
I tried typing in 'QGI', the acronmy for an open source project I started/dropped a few years ago, as a test. The first 5 ranked pages come up and point to www.quorumgroup.ca. The first ranked page was index.html, and the next four were single clicks off of index.html. Seems a bit redundant. Maybe I'm just picky, but I think the point of a search engine is variety.
Some large corporations get their future employees solely through headhunter style services. If you put your resume online it will get sucked up by their bots and jammed into a database somewhere. If you have the appropriate key words, you may even be picked back out of the database at some point.
But if nothing else, he is quotable. I specifically liked the "well-designed technology should allow people the luxury of ignorance." Because hell, they're going to be ignorant anyway.
Software should be treated like firearms. You should be allowed to shoot yourself in the foot, but only if you know how to remove the safety.
And re: documentation?? Puh-lease. There are so many more resources out there for Windows, its no contest. Get real.
This may or may not be true, I'm not going to go count web pages. But documentation isn't about quantity, it's about quality. With windows, you can get resources about all common problems and concerns, occasionally get resources about not-common ones, and very very rarely will you get help with the most obscure.
But Linux documentation, like onions and ogres, has layers. The man page for simple usage and configuration, linux help sites for more complicated problems and example configs, mailing lists for horribly obscure problems that only the developers can really help with, and as an absolute last resort, the code itself, which answers all questions if you have a month to spend solving them.
And to answer the initial question posted...
I can have a web server, DNS server, firewall, mail server, and pop server in linux.
I can have a web server, DNS server, firewall, mail server, pop server, and X amount of debt in windows.
Then again, I read a study somewhere saying that my TCO is higher becuase I use Linux, so maybe I'm wrong? Or maybe the group doing that study got their software from the 'P2P outlet store'.
There's only so much you can really do with "being smart with your email address"
My point is that you do what you can by... 1) Not giving out real email address in forms 2) Not posting un-obfuscated email address to the web 3) Securely running your OS
But if I follow point 4... 4) Don't give your friends your email address
Then really why do I have an email addy in the first place?
Most of my spam I get are actually those annoying bounce-back messages you get from anti-virus filters. "The email you sent had the virus W32.Blaster" etc etc. The problem is that I run a solely Linux household, so it's probably coming from a virus on someone else's computer.
And for my 2c, Thunderbird's spam filter isn't half bad, if you don't mind the spam hitting your box prior to filtering.
Probably not. The sheer number of distros would ensure that, while 'linux' may have majority market share, a single distro would never gain enough to be considered a monopoly.
The other point that I think needs to be made is that we're talking about bundling software. If, ?somehow?, linux manages to bundle some software with a required portion of the OS (kernel wont load without mozilla, lets say) then most definitely there will be an outcry. I would expect riots, defections to *BSD, and lonely men all over the globe having nothing to do on the weekends.
I also expect that this is why such a bundling wont happen. It's bad karma to anger your entire user base.
Slashdot Mirror
But also, the plans for the site in question seem much more invasive than pure text ads. But again, those are plans, they seem to be starting out small and working their way up
www.google.com
And that is why I use them. No bloat.
What? Is slashdot no longer considered a serious artistic meduim? This post should be up for an award!
But the reason I brought those examples to the front wasn't to justify vigilantism, but rather to show that it doesn't cost the company any time or money that the company wouldn't already have to spend if they didn't want their systems broken into.
Scenario 1:
1) System is vulnerable.
2) The vigilante breaks into the system
3) The vigilante tells the admin
4) System must be rebuilt as if it was broken into.
Scenario 2: :-P )
1) System is vulnerable
2) Evil Hacker X breaks into the system
3) Evil Hacker X installs a trojan
4) You b3 0wnz3d (or however the kids these days say it
5) 2 months later you notice the intrusion and have to rebuild your system
So, even though vigilantes are wasting their time and effort by doing this for free.. and they do cost the company time and effort, it is, in fact, time and effort that would have had to be spent anyway. For those of you who might say that "well, who says Hacker X would have broken in?" That is simply security through exception. That's like saying you don't want to have an alarm on your house becuase your neighbor doesn't have one and he'll get hit first. It's a possibility, but I'm not putting my house on that gamble.
That said, engineers see this sort of thing all the time. It breaks down like this.
Bad Performance = Deaths of thousands (ford pinto, challenger shuttle, etc)
Good Performance = Plaque of Appreciation
So what the responsible party should do is resign before they're fired, and find another job before the news gets out(Pun never intended). And next time try not to be in the line of fire when things go to hell...
I have written personal sites, shopping carts, and some basic management software, and I have never needed to go beyond that manual for help.
I'm willing to learn ASP in my free time (can never hurt to have things on the resume) but is there a comparable site? Or will I have to go back to swimming through the various how-to's on computer sites?
Now what we need is someone throwing a giant hammer at a screen showing IE...
Now, if you program them to believe that restriction of freedoms (such as motion, breathing, etc) is a harm, then you might be better off. But I'm not going to put my name on any sheet that claims to be a "complete list of possible harms to prevent".
If windows isn't marketed to the home sector anymore, that will leave a large gap in the computer industry. A gap that would have to be filled. So either people would have to go out and buy a corporate contract (expensive) or switch to another OS (*nix?) or not use computers (unlikely).
Right now windows bills itself as easier to use and administer than linux. This is in part becuase anyone who has grown up with a computer in their household had probably used windows, is comfortable with the windows interface, and is well versed in basic commands. Fast forward 20 years from when microsoft drops the home market. Now people are graduating college having used linux at home their whole lives. Which will they prefer to use in work? Windows, in which they have no experience, or linux, where they are comfortable?
So don't think of the home market as a poor revenue generating sector. Instead, think of it as a training ground for the geeks of tomorrow. Get them while they're young. It works for tobacco companies, and it can work for OS's as well.
Hey is this NIC I found buried in my basement a 3c509 or a 3c509B? *tries to read the scratched serial number* (this happened twice at my last job)
It's true, the module trick works quite well.. but for all I know, that's what the auto-detection is doing for me anyway. For important machines, I personally like to install mandrake 10 to figure out all my hardware, then install LFS. But recently I've heard good things about gentoo, so I'm thinking of switching off LFS to that.
Right, but it's also these people that have the answers to your problems. Think about it this way. These folks go out and learn about their Linux, it's their job, it's their play, it's their passion. They found something that makes them happy, kudos to them. But now someone comes along and basically says "I don't care how or why it works, I don't want to know the intricate details, I just want you to help me fix it." To me, this shows a severe lack of respect to the amount of effort these uber-geek types put into their work. You wouldn't go up to a professional racecar driver and ask them how to change your oil. Or maybe some people would. It takes all types, right?
The real question is, what is the motivation that will drive this uber-geek to help someone? In the commercial world, it's money. In the OSS-iverse it's the mental challenge of solving a problem, or the kindness of the person's heart and the belief that Linux is for everyone and everything.
We are currently in a situation where it is assumed that "helping linux become the desktop OS of choice for everyone" is the universal unspoken (or loudly spoken?) goal. And I can tell you that the really hard-core geeks do not always support this concept. The kind of person that spends hours tweaking driver code so they can shave a few milliseconds off a tight loop is not the kind of person who wants to spend that same amount of time explaining to someone who didn't read the README why the driver doesn't work in X situation. Especially when the README covers that topic, or it can be easily found on google, or there's a more appropriate list to be asking on.
So yes, these people leave a bad taste in the mouths of newcomers. But why are the newcomers going to these people in the first place? Aren't there newbie mailing lists where genereous folks who believe in helping everyone can aid in even the simplest of problems? And if not, then maybe all the people who say that linux should be the #1 desktop for everyone should get together and form this. I may even put in a few hours of my own time like I used to do on the qmail list.
I guess my real point in all of this is that the people that want to help are out there. The people that need the help are out there. Why can they never seem to cross paths at the right times? Any thoughts?
I tried typing in 'QGI', the acronmy for an open source project I started/dropped a few years ago, as a test. The first 5 ranked pages come up and point to www.quorumgroup.ca. The first ranked page was index.html, and the next four were single clicks off of index.html. Seems a bit redundant. Maybe I'm just picky, but I think the point of a search engine is variety.
I'll say it again.
Put your resume online.
Some large corporations get their future employees solely through headhunter style services. If you put your resume online it will get sucked up by their bots and jammed into a database somewhere. If you have the appropriate key words, you may even be picked back out of the database at some point.
At least.. that's how I got my job.
Software should be treated like firearms. You should be allowed to shoot yourself in the foot, but only if you know how to remove the safety.
This may or may not be true, I'm not going to go count web pages. But documentation isn't about quantity, it's about quality. With windows, you can get resources about all common problems and concerns, occasionally get resources about not-common ones, and very very rarely will you get help with the most obscure.
But Linux documentation, like onions and ogres, has layers. The man page for simple usage and configuration, linux help sites for more complicated problems and example configs, mailing lists for horribly obscure problems that only the developers can really help with, and as an absolute last resort, the code itself, which answers all questions if you have a month to spend solving them.
And to answer the initial question posted...
I can have a web server, DNS server, firewall, mail server, and pop server in linux.
I can have a web server, DNS server, firewall, mail server, pop server, and X amount of debt in windows.
Then again, I read a study somewhere saying that my TCO is higher becuase I use Linux, so maybe I'm wrong? Or maybe the group doing that study got their software from the 'P2P outlet store'.
There's only so much you can really do with "being smart with your email address"
My point is that you do what you can by...
1) Not giving out real email address in forms
2) Not posting un-obfuscated email address to the web
3) Securely running your OS
But if I follow point 4...
4) Don't give your friends your email address
Then really why do I have an email addy in the first place?
Most of my spam I get are actually those annoying bounce-back messages you get from anti-virus filters. "The email you sent had the virus W32.Blaster" etc etc. The problem is that I run a solely Linux household, so it's probably coming from a virus on someone else's computer.
And for my 2c, Thunderbird's spam filter isn't half bad, if you don't mind the spam hitting your box prior to filtering.
Probably not. The sheer number of distros would ensure that, while 'linux' may have majority market share, a single distro would never gain enough to be considered a monopoly.
The other point that I think needs to be made is that we're talking about bundling software. If, ?somehow?, linux manages to bundle some software with a required portion of the OS (kernel wont load without mozilla, lets say) then most definitely there will be an outcry. I would expect riots, defections to *BSD, and lonely men all over the globe having nothing to do on the weekends.
I also expect that this is why such a bundling wont happen. It's bad karma to anger your entire user base.