So the hungry kids in Africa are all computer experts just waiting for someone to come along and give them a few bucks so they can write the next botnet? Yeah, right.
Did you really just try to counter me calling you out on your strawman argument by making a strawman argument? Let me reread that just to be sure. Yep. You sure did. You are fully aware that not every kid in Africa would need to be a computer expert for there to be enough computer experts in the country to make the system profitable. I hope you don't lie to your customers as transparently as you lie to readers on Slashdot.
These botnets aren't run by kids, they are run by organized crime. Last I checked, the mafia didn't relocate to India because it's cheaper there. You have your people, your networks of influence and power, your ties to the local community and law enforcement, your thugs - all stuff that's not so easy to transport and not so easy to set up someplace else.
Now you are trying to tell us that it is difficult to find corruption in Africa? Wow.
Your claim, not mine. I can connect you to experts in that field if you have business for them, I merely know about it what you pick up when you work in information security for a decade.
Since you post 'facts' about social engineering on your site from seminars that you have given, it is NOT my claim. Unless, of course, you are going to claim that you were totally unqualified to be giving those talks. Quite frankly, given that social engineering is the BIGGEST threat to security, if you cannot claim to be an expert in that part of it, you cannot claim to be an expert in security at all.
Actually, it would have been EASIER back then. That was a time that even normal users frequently had at least an occasional experience with typing in assembly. Asking an average VB, *.net, java, etc developer to write a basic interpreter than runs in 8K of memory today would likely leave you with mostly blank stares, and more than a few claims that it is impossible.
A little hard, not that hard. It is pretty much splitting hairs. It is something that relatively low end developers could do with a little motavation and the resources that were available to Gates.
I'm not saying Gates is/was a technical genius, but if I was hiring developers in the 70's, he'd probably make the cut.
So we are in agreement. Gates did not get to where he is because of technical merit. If he had there would be thousands of Gates running around the country. He would have made the cut as a developer, but just barely.
Are you trying to claim that being able to write a basic interpreter makes you tech savvy? A little MAYBE, but it is hardly on the scale of what Gates is attributed with. Pretty much anyone with an interest could write a basic interpreter. Not to mention he had help.
The first two are doable, but they add a whole bunch of annoying work in an effort to try to prevent someone from spying on you. Much like scanning rooms for bugs could be done. There certainly are countermeasure to spying. It is just creepy that there could be a need to explain to people how to keep a corporation from spying on them.
The third suggestion would break features on the TV. It's pretty hard to play Netflix without an internet connection.
That is kind of funny. There was a time when people who worried that someone might be watching them through their TV were clearly insane. It doesn't seem all that inconcevable anymore. With newer TVs having internet connections, and companies that make TVs being caught spying on customers, how hard would it be to discreetly includ a video camera into a TV and have it stream back to the company.
(I am not saying this is being done, but then I also wasn't saying that Samsung was using keyloggers on their laptops yesterday)
Malware will continue to target the weakest link,
which will often be the human user.
Anti-Malware products have partial success in
containing known threats.
Both sides have thus far avoided entering a
technology arms race, and are instead fighting the
easier war of attrition.
Security products sell a lot.
Malware apparently sells quite good, too.
The third world is not by default cheaper
This is a straw man. Your right that it isn't always cheaper. When you need infrastructure and they don't have it, it can be more expensive. When you have a company reputation on the line that can be damaged by a few failures, it can be more expensive. When you have to worry about liability for faulty products, it can be more expensive. We are not talking about these kinds of businesses though. You fail at your strawman.
I would have thought that someone who is an expert on social engineering would be better at twisting the discussion. Apparently your skills are not as good as you believe.
It is sad how many people there are like you that actually WANT corporations out committing crimes. Individuals have people that rely on them too. If I got sent to jail for 30 days, it would financially devastate my wife and child. So, do I get a free pass to commit crimes without threat of prosecution? If not, why not?
Not even that. There is no way that I would RELY on wireless for my home office. For home use, possibly. Not likely, but possibly. I would let machines in the home or office connect wirelessly to the router that has a wired internet connection, but that is only because in a pinch, I could drag a physical cable from the router to the PC.
1) Fair enough. It should be handled at the OS level though. Since we are starting with basically new OSes, there is no excuse not to have it integrated to the OS at a level far better than what we have in Desktops.
2) Done. There are keyboards for iPads and Android tables. They often come integrated onto a tablet case so that it is hinged just like a laptop.
3) A strange requirement. If the tablet can BE a comparable laptop, why would you pay even on penny more for a device that is locked into laptop mode when you could have a device that can be a laptop OR a tablet? Saying that it has to be AS cheap, I can understand. You may be at your max price for portable electronics, but requiring it to cost SIGNIFICANTLY less makes no sense.
If you can smell the panties in her room from out on the street, she has no place to complain that you did. You on the other hand have a right to complain.
Less disgustingly, if she throws them at you while you are playing a show, you also in the clear to sniff them.
Conversely, if she puts even the slightest effort into keeping you from smelling them, you do not.
Sounds reasonable to me. I didn't read the article, but the summary doesn't say that they were forced to do this. If it is voluntary, it is far more than I would expect from other companies.
A very good example is when you look at weight. There is a large percentage of people who would say that I don't take part because my lean body mass, as in not counting any fat on my body, puts me in the "overweight" category. Ironically, I know plenty of people that are in the "normal" category who easily have 30 or 35 pounds of excess body fat.
You are simply wrong. The "just count the calories" diet has been a miserable failure. It is irresponsible, and it is a shame that it isn't a fad. Have you seen these huge people that are like 400 lbs? Could you get to that size, even if you put in a real effort? I couldn't. I just don't have the genes for it. I also don't have the genes to get to a "normal" weight as defined by the BMI. Not only because my genetics makes my body want to store fat, but because my lean body weight alone defines me as "over weight".
Mayonnaise, fatty burgers, straight sesame oil are all low GI foods. You obviously don't know what you are talking about concerning that.
As for body fat, the ONLY way that I can get body fat down is to not only avoid sugars (yes, that includes high sugar fruits and breads), but to keep my fat intake up. If I don't eat enough fat, I get fat. Personally, I can easily gain weight on a 2500 calorie a day diet, and lose it on a 4000 calorie a day diet. It is all about WHAT I heat, and has very little to do with HOW MUCH I eat.
The human body is a complex system. Thinking that thinking that weight control is just about calories is about as rational as thinking the universe is made up of the 4 elements earth, wind, fire, and water.
"Possible" is not what the problem of Spam is even about. "Massive enough to drown everything else" is what the problem is.
That is a false dichotomy. If it is possible, and it can make money then someone will do it. Your cost calculations are irrelevant when you factor in the third world, although it is unlikely to become so expensive that it needs to go to the third world. Of course, your own papers point out that remote exploits are totally unnecessary to propagate malware. What you say in this thread directly contradicts the papers you wrote and published on your website.
I do no such thing. There is also color depth that I have indeed mentioned. Everything else is processing power. The processing power increases with color depth and resolution. PCs have historically as well as currently been plenty powerful enough to process the images as well or better than consoles at the color depth and resolutions that the consoles max out at. In an apples to apples comparison, PCs have matched consoles since the VGA was introduced with no more upgrading than with a console.
Historically TVs only had 720x576, and PCs played that just fine without regular updates. The screen resolution has changed, but the principle hasn't. When comparing apples to apples, since the advent of VGA, the PC has looked just as good and played just as well as the consoles.
No, it doesn't make a trend. It does show it is possible though, and unless you are claiming that spammers would refuse to spam from anything but Windows, we must come to the conclusion that the spamming would continue on another system. The claim that spammers would refuse to work on other system that meet their needs is an extraordinary claim that would need extraordinary proof.
True, but we're talking volume here. Do you really think that 98% of e-mail would be spam if it weren't for the botnets?
There would continue to be compromised systems. People install botnet clients all the time. There is nothing in Linux or OSX that prevents users from installing software that sends email, so your making a false assumption that there wouldn't be botnets without Windows.
Botnets are automated Social Networks. Just like social networks, greater membership brings more members which increases membership. You want some research that supports my position? Here is a link for you to read http://web.lemuria.org/
If you will excuse the dead links, the papers that are posted there point out that there are far more vectors than just Windows, and that if all else fails, it is simple enough to just get users to install your botnet software. Go ahead. Read the articles. What is in them might seem familiar to you, even if they contradict what you are saying here on Slashdot.
I've shown you yours, so now come up with something that contradicts me or YOU shut up.
True, 6 is a WAG. The thing is, it is more legit of a number for counting users than using login accounts. It is well know that creating extra accounts for Facebook games is extremely common. We don't know how many users Facebook really has, but we know that it is less than the number of accounts on the system.
I'm not sure what definition of "behaviors" you are using, but the definition everyone else uses means that SMTP certainly does have behaviors. SMTP does not identify the sender. It allows the sender to offer up their identity if the so choose. Yes, I am splitting hair by saying that securely identifying the sender isn't the same as just taking their word for it, but that is the crux of the problem.
Stopping spam is a two part problem. The first part is identifying who the mail comes from. Without a secure way of doing that, there is little beyond what we do today that can be done about it. The second part is throwing the spammers into a pit with hungry tigers and poisonous snakes. You can't do part two until you have done part one.
Well, having personally seen spam spewing from an open relay on a linux box, seems like pretty decent evidence. The Linux and MacOS system that spit out spam now are do not disappear if Windows goes away. In fact, there would be more of them. Now, do you have any supporting evidence to the contrary? Not guesses, theories, thoughts, I mean evidence.
You don't have to log into MySpace to see the bands website or even to listen to the music they post. Myspace IS a low-cost (or free) hosting provider. They also supply the tools to easily put bands pages up. Basically, what you said was "Do exactly what you are doing, but with a different company because I am too hip to see you of MySpace".
Slashdot Mirror
What would be funnier would be to not post a single fake article, and watch as everyone tries to figure out which one of the real articles is fake.
So the hungry kids in Africa are all computer experts just waiting for someone to come along and give them a few bucks so they can write the next botnet? Yeah, right.
Did you really just try to counter me calling you out on your strawman argument by making a strawman argument? Let me reread that just to be sure. Yep. You sure did. You are fully aware that not every kid in Africa would need to be a computer expert for there to be enough computer experts in the country to make the system profitable. I hope you don't lie to your customers as transparently as you lie to readers on Slashdot.
These botnets aren't run by kids, they are run by organized crime. Last I checked, the mafia didn't relocate to India because it's cheaper there. You have your people, your networks of influence and power, your ties to the local community and law enforcement, your thugs - all stuff that's not so easy to transport and not so easy to set up someplace else.
Now you are trying to tell us that it is difficult to find corruption in Africa? Wow.
Your claim, not mine. I can connect you to experts in that field if you have business for them, I merely know about it what you pick up when you work in information security for a decade.
Since you post 'facts' about social engineering on your site from seminars that you have given, it is NOT my claim. Unless, of course, you are going to claim that you were totally unqualified to be giving those talks. Quite frankly, given that social engineering is the BIGGEST threat to security, if you cannot claim to be an expert in that part of it, you cannot claim to be an expert in security at all.
Actually, it would have been EASIER back then. That was a time that even normal users frequently had at least an occasional experience with typing in assembly. Asking an average VB, *.net, java, etc developer to write a basic interpreter than runs in 8K of memory today would likely leave you with mostly blank stares, and more than a few claims that it is impossible.
I'm not saying Gates is/was a technical genius, but if I was hiring developers in the 70's, he'd probably make the cut.
So we are in agreement. Gates did not get to where he is because of technical merit. If he had there would be thousands of Gates running around the country. He would have made the cut as a developer, but just barely.
Are you trying to claim that being able to write a basic interpreter makes you tech savvy? A little MAYBE, but it is hardly on the scale of what Gates is attributed with. Pretty much anyone with an interest could write a basic interpreter. Not to mention he had help.
The first two are doable, but they add a whole bunch of annoying work in an effort to try to prevent someone from spying on you. Much like scanning rooms for bugs could be done. There certainly are countermeasure to spying. It is just creepy that there could be a need to explain to people how to keep a corporation from spying on them.
The third suggestion would break features on the TV. It's pretty hard to play Netflix without an internet connection.
That is kind of funny. There was a time when people who worried that someone might be watching them through their TV were clearly insane. It doesn't seem all that inconcevable anymore. With newer TVs having internet connections, and companies that make TVs being caught spying on customers, how hard would it be to discreetly includ a video camera into a TV and have it stream back to the company.
(I am not saying this is being done, but then I also wasn't saying that Samsung was using keyloggers on their laptops yesterday)
Malware will continue to target the weakest link, which will often be the human user. Anti-Malware products have partial success in containing known threats. Both sides have thus far avoided entering a technology arms race, and are instead fighting the easier war of attrition. Security products sell a lot. Malware apparently sells quite good, too.
The third world is not by default cheaper
This is a straw man. Your right that it isn't always cheaper. When you need infrastructure and they don't have it, it can be more expensive. When you have a company reputation on the line that can be damaged by a few failures, it can be more expensive. When you have to worry about liability for faulty products, it can be more expensive. We are not talking about these kinds of businesses though. You fail at your strawman.
I would have thought that someone who is an expert on social engineering would be better at twisting the discussion. Apparently your skills are not as good as you believe.
It is sad how many people there are like you that actually WANT corporations out committing crimes. Individuals have people that rely on them too. If I got sent to jail for 30 days, it would financially devastate my wife and child. So, do I get a free pass to commit crimes without threat of prosecution? If not, why not?
Not even that. There is no way that I would RELY on wireless for my home office. For home use, possibly. Not likely, but possibly. I would let machines in the home or office connect wirelessly to the router that has a wired internet connection, but that is only because in a pinch, I could drag a physical cable from the router to the PC.
1) Fair enough. It should be handled at the OS level though. Since we are starting with basically new OSes, there is no excuse not to have it integrated to the OS at a level far better than what we have in Desktops.
2) Done. There are keyboards for iPads and Android tables. They often come integrated onto a tablet case so that it is hinged just like a laptop.
3) A strange requirement. If the tablet can BE a comparable laptop, why would you pay even on penny more for a device that is locked into laptop mode when you could have a device that can be a laptop OR a tablet? Saying that it has to be AS cheap, I can understand. You may be at your max price for portable electronics, but requiring it to cost SIGNIFICANTLY less makes no sense.
If you can smell the panties in her room from out on the street, she has no place to complain that you did. You on the other hand have a right to complain.
Less disgustingly, if she throws them at you while you are playing a show, you also in the clear to sniff them.
Conversely, if she puts even the slightest effort into keeping you from smelling them, you do not.
Sounds reasonable to me. I didn't read the article, but the summary doesn't say that they were forced to do this. If it is voluntary, it is far more than I would expect from other companies.
A very good example is when you look at weight. There is a large percentage of people who would say that I don't take part because my lean body mass, as in not counting any fat on my body, puts me in the "overweight" category. Ironically, I know plenty of people that are in the "normal" category who easily have 30 or 35 pounds of excess body fat.
This http://www.schwarzenegger.it/mro/schwarzenegger.html would be considered "not participating" by a huge portion of our population because he is obese.
You are simply wrong. The "just count the calories" diet has been a miserable failure. It is irresponsible, and it is a shame that it isn't a fad. Have you seen these huge people that are like 400 lbs? Could you get to that size, even if you put in a real effort? I couldn't. I just don't have the genes for it. I also don't have the genes to get to a "normal" weight as defined by the BMI. Not only because my genetics makes my body want to store fat, but because my lean body weight alone defines me as "over weight".
Mayonnaise, fatty burgers, straight sesame oil are all low GI foods. You obviously don't know what you are talking about concerning that.
As for body fat, the ONLY way that I can get body fat down is to not only avoid sugars (yes, that includes high sugar fruits and breads), but to keep my fat intake up. If I don't eat enough fat, I get fat. Personally, I can easily gain weight on a 2500 calorie a day diet, and lose it on a 4000 calorie a day diet. It is all about WHAT I heat, and has very little to do with HOW MUCH I eat.
The human body is a complex system. Thinking that thinking that weight control is just about calories is about as rational as thinking the universe is made up of the 4 elements earth, wind, fire, and water.
"Possible" is not what the problem of Spam is even about. "Massive enough to drown everything else" is what the problem is.
That is a false dichotomy. If it is possible, and it can make money then someone will do it. Your cost calculations are irrelevant when you factor in the third world, although it is unlikely to become so expensive that it needs to go to the third world. Of course, your own papers point out that remote exploits are totally unnecessary to propagate malware. What you say in this thread directly contradicts the papers you wrote and published on your website.
I do no such thing. There is also color depth that I have indeed mentioned. Everything else is processing power. The processing power increases with color depth and resolution. PCs have historically as well as currently been plenty powerful enough to process the images as well or better than consoles at the color depth and resolutions that the consoles max out at. In an apples to apples comparison, PCs have matched consoles since the VGA was introduced with no more upgrading than with a console.
Historically TVs only had 720x576, and PCs played that just fine without regular updates. The screen resolution has changed, but the principle hasn't. When comparing apples to apples, since the advent of VGA, the PC has looked just as good and played just as well as the consoles.
A single data point does not make a trend.
No, it doesn't make a trend. It does show it is possible though, and unless you are claiming that spammers would refuse to spam from anything but Windows, we must come to the conclusion that the spamming would continue on another system. The claim that spammers would refuse to work on other system that meet their needs is an extraordinary claim that would need extraordinary proof.
True, but we're talking volume here. Do you really think that 98% of e-mail would be spam if it weren't for the botnets?
There would continue to be compromised systems. People install botnet clients all the time. There is nothing in Linux or OSX that prevents users from installing software that sends email, so your making a false assumption that there wouldn't be botnets without Windows.
Botnets are automated Social Networks. Just like social networks, greater membership brings more members which increases membership. You want some research that supports my position? Here is a link for you to read http://web.lemuria.org/
If you will excuse the dead links, the papers that are posted there point out that there are far more vectors than just Windows, and that if all else fails, it is simple enough to just get users to install your botnet software. Go ahead. Read the articles. What is in them might seem familiar to you, even if they contradict what you are saying here on Slashdot.
I've shown you yours, so now come up with something that contradicts me or YOU shut up.
True, 6 is a WAG. The thing is, it is more legit of a number for counting users than using login accounts. It is well know that creating extra accounts for Facebook games is extremely common. We don't know how many users Facebook really has, but we know that it is less than the number of accounts on the system.
I'm not sure what definition of "behaviors" you are using, but the definition everyone else uses means that SMTP certainly does have behaviors. SMTP does not identify the sender. It allows the sender to offer up their identity if the so choose. Yes, I am splitting hair by saying that securely identifying the sender isn't the same as just taking their word for it, but that is the crux of the problem.
Stopping spam is a two part problem. The first part is identifying who the mail comes from. Without a secure way of doing that, there is little beyond what we do today that can be done about it. The second part is throwing the spammers into a pit with hungry tigers and poisonous snakes. You can't do part two until you have done part one.
Well, having personally seen spam spewing from an open relay on a linux box, seems like pretty decent evidence. The Linux and MacOS system that spit out spam now are do not disappear if Windows goes away. In fact, there would be more of them. Now, do you have any supporting evidence to the contrary? Not guesses, theories, thoughts, I mean evidence.
You don't have to log into MySpace to see the bands website or even to listen to the music they post. Myspace IS a low-cost (or free) hosting provider. They also supply the tools to easily put bands pages up. Basically, what you said was "Do exactly what you are doing, but with a different company because I am too hip to see you of MySpace".
The FBI never could pull off black ops like the CIA.
http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/
With an average of 6 accounts per player, that equals 450 million fake accounts. Sounds like the previous poster had a pretty good estimate.