All certs do age and expire if you don't keep them up, this is no different. If a pilot doesn't take his continuing testing, he's no longer a pilot. Same with Acccountants, presumably lawyers and doctors as well, but I can't say that for certain. Its *no* different with this. People just percieve it as different for some reason.
And MS does offer a shorter method if your already certifed. They offer an Advanced 'fast track' exam for people who are already certified in NT4. Its one exam you can do once (for free at that) and only once. If you pass it, you get all four 2000 core exams just like that. That means you only have to do 3 exams instead of 6 if your re-certifying instead of starting from scratch.
Ok... some background... first off, I'm an MCSE myself (yes people, you may mod this down now because I'm one of the bad guys;-) ), and I currently run an NT network environment... I have extensive experience with Windows and other MS products, and not a lot of experience in other products. (unfortunately)
Now here's the thing... right now, the fact that I am an MCSE is fairly useless, because it doesn't prove anything. I got it to try and show that I knew something about running an NT network, but the fact that there is so many "Paper MCSE's" out there right now basically makes it useless to me. Virtually all of these people know nothing about computers at all, its kinda sick. Actually, at the school where I was learning to get my MCSE, we had one of these people. She was certified, and knew nothing. She had to ask me how to do pratically everything. In a way it was kind of funny, but it shows the problem with the system.
What MS is doing is trying to listen to the people who want the certification to actually mean something. By retiring NT4 more quickly, they force people who actually use it to upgrade to 2000, thereby keeping them up to date. However, because a lot of books aren't going to be available for easy passage of 2000 exams for a while, its going to severely injure the Paper MCSE's... and I don't pity them one bit. They are also adding some different styles of testing to make it more difficult, and I hope it works as they plan.
They aren't being evil here... there is six exams needed to have an MCSE in 2000. However, you can take the Accelerated Exam, which counts as 4 of those 6. You can also take it for free if your already an MCSE. You only get one crack at it. If you fail, too bad. Thats a good thing, it really helps out the people who actually do know what they're doing get it with a lot less expense (like me), while severely hurting the people who don't actually know a whole lot about NT4 and 2k.
There has been a lot of complaints in this thread about MCSE's who don't know anything... and the steps MS is taking are an attempt to greatly reduce that problem, a problem which is rampant right now. But not all of us are total idiots. And not all of us are brainwashed either, its just a matter of using what your comfortable with. I know how to make NT do all the things I need it to, I don't know how to make Linux do it, so for the company, we go with NT. I do have a Linux box sitting here that I use whenever I have some spare time, and try to figure out how to make it do the things the NT boxes can't do very well. When I'm comfortable enough with it to actually put it into a production environment, then it'll go up, but not before.
I really hope that MS' efforts are successful in this, so that the general perception of an MCSE certified person is not "oh that guy is good at memorization", but rather "that guy is good with Windows 2000.". And that would be a good thing. If you think about it, Linux certifications should be the same. You want them to mean something, not "well that guy knows how to become a superuser, lets give him a certification!".
(ps - I really hate it when people say that all MCSE's are brainwashed... thats like saying that all Linux users are anti-social nerds who just hate Bill Gates because he's more successful then they are. Some probably are, just like some MCSE's are brainwashed, but its really unfair to those of us who aren't, just like its unfair to Linux users to dismiss them all like that. Thanks.)
All you can limit is the number of connections per user, you can't limit the number of users or the amount of bandwidth they use.
Its really stupid. I requested that feature be added back in beta3, and was ignored. Why they're missing it is beyond me... have you ever seen what happens when 5 people all try to download off my 56k modem at the same time? I can't do anything. *they* can't get anything. It sucks. If it was only one person at a time,then the data still flows along happily.
Thats actually why I prefer CuteMX, it has some actual throttling ability. You can set the number of users as well as the number of connections per user, and there is the ability to slow down connections (more like how you can slow down an icq file transfer rather then an absolute cutoff point for bandwidth usage).
Your right, there does have to be a middle ground. If your paying for the access, then you should be able to use it as you wish. Maybe throttling is the answer, I don't know.
It is a real problem though when people start sucking up rediculous amounts of bandwidth for something like Napster though... although I'm sure the mass bans were helped along by our good old friends at the RIAA.
Here's the problem though... many ftp sites went to throttling connections as a way to avoid people using up all the bandwidth... and then people went and wrote programs to just open up 10 connections to the server to get around it. So are we going to start to see people putting napster onto 10 computer instead of 1 just to get around the throttling?
I don't think you'd be terribly impressed if your trying to get some actual work done and you can't do anything because some loser two rooms over is busy draining all the network resources in the building to listen to Backstreet Boys.
The whole point of things like College Networks is that they're there for some kind of actual use, which trading music doesn't really qualify as.
When something frivolous like Napster is consuming 30% of a connection as big as an OC3, then you know there is a major problem. As an admin, what can you do? Let the network slow to a crawl, buy more bandwidth, or get rid of the single biggest waste of bandwidth on the network?
So, bearing in mind that you probably don't have a budget big enough to just add bigger lines whenever you want to, what would you do?
Hence, mass bans of Napster.
So, now we have people writing programs to try to get around those bans to continue to waste network resources. Don't these people learn, or are they just too selfish to care about anything but how much music they can collect?
What we'll probably see if this kind of abuse keeps up long enough is metered traffic. Just wait and see... if there is no way to block it, they'll just find a way to start charging you for extra bandwidth being used.
And then where are we? All because some people have to basically steal network bandwidth so they can have more music.
Actually, they're trying to see if there is a market for it. You can't seriously expect them to port the game and then say "oh well we're just going to give it away now"... Cd Keys? HA! There was a key generator out not long after the game.
Some kind of rebate program would be nice, but unlikely. I don't think they should port Starcraft at all, and instead focus on Diablo II.
(and for the record Starcraft is still a very well selling game, especially considering its age, so its not dead yet by any stretch of the imagination)
Unfortunately... best bets are to play on an alternate server like x-force.dhs.org, fsgs.com, or to just play in private channels with people you know.
You have to like Strategy games to like Starcraft... if you like action oriented games (like quake), look elsewhere. Personally I find quake to be interesting for about five seconds. But a good hour long game of Broodwar (thats the Starcraft Expansion) just leaves me wanting a rematch.
The reason why Starcraft is considered by many as the best RTS ever is a combination of things... the game comes with a kick ass map editor. Combined with other tools, you can make entire campaigns and do TC's and the like, not many other RTS's even come close to the level of editing you can do to Starcraft.
They actually managed to create three totally different yet basically equal races, so that as any one race you have a chance of beating any other race (assuming the players are the same skill level).
The game is actually *strategy* oriented. Try using a strategy that involves simply making lots of units and attacking (like you can do in C&C type games) a good player. They will absolutly shread you if they use any kind of actual strategy. Thats not because defenses are really strong, actually they are rather weak. Its because massing units doesn't work that well against experienced players, you need to actually have some level of strategy to beat them.
The singleplayer storyline actually exists and is actually good (especially in Broodwar). I know the idea of a storyline might be a stretch to any first person shooter fans, but it certainly adds something to the game.
Thats about all I can think of right now. But you really do have to be a fan of RTS games to like Starcraft, there is more then just killing stuff involved, so FPS fans will probably not like it.
I'm a longtime regular on the Battle.net (aka Blizzard) forums, and I guess this means that someone was paying attention. Its quite a regular thing seeing requests posted in the War Room asking for Starcraft/Broodwar/Diablo II to be ported over. The usual answer they get is "When there is enough marketshare, I'm sure Blizzard will", because they always port stuff over to Mac, eveuntally. Honestly, Diablo II is one that seems a lot more likely then Starcraft, considering how old Starcraft is now. But its still the best RTS game out there, no matter how old it is. Does anyone remember the game that was supposed to kill it? No? It was called Tiberian something... well whatever it was called isn't important. The problem with porting Starcraft is that a lot of the playerbase of people who want it ported already have Windows versions and either dual boot or play in WINE. So are these people who are asking for it actually willing to buy it *again* just to have a native linux version? Thats the real question with Starcraft.. not how many new players you can get that way (which isn't enough), but how many existing ones will buy it again to get a linux version. Its the existing ones who ask for a port. Diablo II on the other hand is another story, and could very well get ported happily. (ps - I saw another post where someone complaiend about how long DII is taking... all I have in reply is this: Do you want a bug riddled game released now, or a kick ass one released later? Personally, I'd rather not have to download an 18mb patch just to make the game playable out of the box)
Why would anyone want to support an inferior product just because they don't like MS? I mean really... not wanting to use their products is all fine and dandy, but RealPlayer *Sucks* in comparison. I mean really, horribly, and truly sucks.
So you'd rather us pay for a crappier product? Isn't that part of the reason that people wanted to boycott MS in the first place, they don't want to pay for an inferior product? So now we're supposed to pay for inferior products.
I'm confused.
It doesn't necessarily have to hold true that MS is only considering making a copy of media player for Linux because of some evil conspiracy. I guess it will never occur to anyone that *maybe*, just maybe, they actually just want to take over the streaming media market by making a better product, selling it for less (aka nothing), and then creating players for all the platforms.
I think they should be applauded for making a player for Linux. I mean they could not do it, and just continue taking over the streaming media market, and then you have a situation where 75% of the streaming media out there is in Windows Media format and isn't playable at all in Linux, thereby helping Windows in the desktop market. This move certainly doesn't help them in the desktop market, but it does help them in the media market. It also helps Linux in the media market.
So please, explain to me again why I should be shelling out a whole lot of money to pay for a lousy media player when I can use a better one for nothing?
You have got to be kidding me! The government won't give him back his information until they can crack it and see what it is! I think you'll find that there is way too may privacy supporters in here to make that fly, people who want to use encryption that could practically not be broken anytime soon.
Indeed, the government just seems to ignore its own rules when dealing with Kevin Mitnick, why the hell would we want to help them do this?
I know for sure that if a distributed computing project like that emerged, I'd be doing whatever I could to try and sabotage it (can anyone say faking results?), because it'd be just plain wrong. I bet I'm not alone in that either.
So now they're forging moderation headers to spam their message out to the Internet? Do these people have absolutly *no clue* at all?
Lets do a brief recount of the events...
1. @home creates an environment ripe for spam, which people take advantage of. Admins do nothing.
2. Usenet admins contact @home about fixing the problem, @home does nothing.
3. Usenet admins finally get sick and tired of waiting, and call for a UDP.
4. @home finally responds, by effectively spamming a meaningless PR reply.
Gee, I guess they are really apologetic eh? Their egos must be absolutely huge over there to think that they can get away with this.
I can see it now...
*The scene is a large tower, where the President of @home is sitting in a throne laughing and counting money. Someone comes in and tells him about the UDP*
Pres: Those worms dare to challenge me!? HA!! HAHAHAHAHA!
I hope the Usenet admins bash @home into the ground with this UDP until they actually admit to their problems, fix them, *AND* Apologize for forging the moderation information to get their post put up three times. Anything less is unacceptable at this point, they've crossed a line.
IF said white supremicists are spamming those messages, then yes hit them with the UDP, and hit them hard.
If they are posting legitimately to groups where such discussions take place, then they are not abusing the system, just stating an unpopular opinion. In which case then they should not be hit with a UDP, although any Admin could decide to stop accepting news from them if he/she chooses to do so. I wouldn't, but I can't speak for the Internet.
Thats one thing you didn't make clear in your message is how the White Supremicists would be broadcasting this. If they spam it, then a UDP is entirely fair. If they don't spam it, then a UDP would essentially be unfair. Even assholes should be treated under the same set of rules as everyone else is.
So the problem is not @home users spamming usenet, the problem is @home users setting up proxies incorrectly so that external users can spam usenet. Is that right?
Well, its Creative... I'll give them that.
This really is the best they could come up with on short notice. I mean they can't possibly get their staff to actually enforce usenet spam rules, considering that would require hiring more staff who have a clue what usenet *is*.
Considering how small @home's user base is compaired to someone like AOL, the fact that they are being targeted by the UDP shows just how bad the problem is, their users must be generating tremendous amounts of spam per user to cause such problems.
I for one don't believe this solution of theirs is a real solution at all, and until the numbers show that the problem has gone down dramatically, I say hit them with the UDP as planned. If the numbers between now and then do show that they are having an impact in their efforts, then give them more time. But make them be the first to move, don't give an inch until they do something about it. Its the only way to deal with big corporations that don't actually give a damn about the Net itself or anything except their own bottom line.
Your right, this is absolutly rediculous. Exactly why do I care about two morons chatting CTV NewsNet about some party tonight when there are major political events taking shape. Had it not been for the story on slashdot, I may not have noticed this at all.
What a joke, the mainstream media sucks ass more and more every day.
Probably the best thing going for Open Source right now is that the "normal" software companies are shooting themselves in the foot with all this nonsense. I mean really... I *like* certain Microsoft products (flame away), and can't really be considered an advocate of Open Source at all.
But the more of these kinds of cases pile up, they slowly change my mind. I look down at my System Tray right now and wonder just how many of those programs are sending information back to the company about what I do. I wonder what else they're doing. This was never a problem a couple of years ago.
Can we really trust anything that big software companies put out at this point? Time and time again they have proven that self-regulation doesn't work. They've proven they can't be trusted to make software with privacy or security in mind. For that matter, it seems that many of them can't even be trusted to make high quality software at all. (all the bug laiden games out there come to mind... most notably SiN and the 18MB patch required to make it run at all straight out of the box)
If we have any software developers and/or PR people who work for software companies, can you please explain to me how anyone can ever trust anything you put out ever again? Please don't use the "well we don't use the information we collect" lame execuse, I'm not falling for it. Why would you collect it at all if you don't intend to use it? You shouldn't be collecing it at all, you don't have any right to. I want an audio player that *gasp* plays audio! I don't want it monitoring me, if I wanted that I'd install a monitoring program.
No TRUSTe sort of had a moment in the spotlight a few years ago, and then essentially fell off the users radar. For some reason the average user doesn't care about privacy, I don't understand why.
But if you haven't been around for a long time, its understandable that you wouldn't know about TRUSTe, I had forgotten about them until I saw the article.
Has anyone tried sending email? I just logged into a friends account using this exploit, and sent myself an email using his acccount. It showed up here at my ISP's server.
This is really really really bad. What can't you do with this?
Or at least it used to, they may have fixed it by now. I went in and looked at three people's accounts with my own two eyes (including mine), so I know it works. Unless they download every single hotmail account to fake, this is/was a real exploit.
Apparently it was a screwup on the part of whoever programmed that part of the CGI running Hotmail. I'd love to know who made that mistake.:)
Well.. yes that happened, and it was really tragic.. but it was an isolated and increadibly rare incident.
Statisticaly (per capita)the US is a much more dangerous place, especially from Gun Deaths.
Saying that we should fear the government is just plain silly, maybe that one public servant who screwed up and let him get his gun, but if you can tell me that no employee in the US ever screws up, then maybe you will have a case.
Slashdot Mirror
Or maybe they jus don't want to be accused of it by a bunch of anti-MS zealots every time they endorse something?
(not that something as simple as an faq entry will stop those people, but you know...)
All certs do age and expire if you don't keep them up, this is no different. If a pilot doesn't take his continuing testing, he's no longer a pilot. Same with Acccountants, presumably lawyers and doctors as well, but I can't say that for certain. Its *no* different with this. People just percieve it as different for some reason.
And MS does offer a shorter method if your already certifed. They offer an Advanced 'fast track' exam for people who are already certified in NT4. Its one exam you can do once (for free at that) and only once. If you pass it, you get all four 2000 core exams just like that. That means you only have to do 3 exams instead of 6 if your re-certifying instead of starting from scratch.
Ok... some background... first off, I'm an MCSE myself (yes people, you may mod this down now because I'm one of the bad guys ;-) ), and I currently run an NT network environment... I have extensive experience with Windows and other MS products, and not a lot of experience in other products. (unfortunately)
Now here's the thing... right now, the fact that I am an MCSE is fairly useless, because it doesn't prove anything. I got it to try and show that I knew something about running an NT network, but the fact that there is so many "Paper MCSE's" out there right now basically makes it useless to me. Virtually all of these people know nothing about computers at all, its kinda sick. Actually, at the school where I was learning to get my MCSE, we had one of these people. She was certified, and knew nothing. She had to ask me how to do pratically everything. In a way it was kind of funny, but it shows the problem with the system.
What MS is doing is trying to listen to the people who want the certification to actually mean something. By retiring NT4 more quickly, they force people who actually use it to upgrade to 2000, thereby keeping them up to date. However, because a lot of books aren't going to be available for easy passage of 2000 exams for a while, its going to severely injure the Paper MCSE's... and I don't pity them one bit. They are also adding some different styles of testing to make it more difficult, and I hope it works as they plan.
They aren't being evil here... there is six exams needed to have an MCSE in 2000. However, you can take the Accelerated Exam, which counts as 4 of those 6. You can also take it for free if your already an MCSE. You only get one crack at it. If you fail, too bad. Thats a good thing, it really helps out the people who actually do know what they're doing get it with a lot less expense (like me), while severely hurting the people who don't actually know a whole lot about NT4 and 2k.
There has been a lot of complaints in this thread about MCSE's who don't know anything... and the steps MS is taking are an attempt to greatly reduce that problem, a problem which is rampant right now. But not all of us are total idiots. And not all of us are brainwashed either, its just a matter of using what your comfortable with. I know how to make NT do all the things I need it to, I don't know how to make Linux do it, so for the company, we go with NT. I do have a Linux box sitting here that I use whenever I have some spare time, and try to figure out how to make it do the things the NT boxes can't do very well. When I'm comfortable enough with it to actually put it into a production environment, then it'll go up, but not before.
I really hope that MS' efforts are successful in this, so that the general perception of an MCSE certified person is not "oh that guy is good at memorization", but rather "that guy is good with Windows 2000.". And that would be a good thing. If you think about it, Linux certifications should be the same. You want them to mean something, not "well that guy knows how to become a superuser, lets give him a certification!".
(ps - I really hate it when people say that all MCSE's are brainwashed... thats like saying that all Linux users are anti-social nerds who just hate Bill Gates because he's more successful then they are. Some probably are, just like some MCSE's are brainwashed, but its really unfair to those of us who aren't, just like its unfair to Linux users to dismiss them all like that. Thanks.)
All you can limit is the number of connections per user, you can't limit the number of users or the amount of bandwidth they use.
Its really stupid. I requested that feature be added back in beta3, and was ignored. Why they're missing it is beyond me... have you ever seen what happens when 5 people all try to download off my 56k modem at the same time? I can't do anything. *they* can't get anything. It sucks. If it was only one person at a time,then the data still flows along happily.
Thats actually why I prefer CuteMX, it has some actual throttling ability. You can set the number of users as well as the number of connections per user, and there is the ability to slow down connections (more like how you can slow down an icq file transfer rather then an absolute cutoff point for bandwidth usage).
Your right, there does have to be a middle ground. If your paying for the access, then you should be able to use it as you wish. Maybe throttling is the answer, I don't know.
It is a real problem though when people start sucking up rediculous amounts of bandwidth for something like Napster though... although I'm sure the mass bans were helped along by our good old friends at the RIAA.
Here's the problem though... many ftp sites went to throttling connections as a way to avoid people using up all the bandwidth... and then people went and wrote programs to just open up 10 connections to the server to get around it. So are we going to start to see people putting napster onto 10 computer instead of 1 just to get around the throttling?
Finally someone else realizes this!
Its not sysadmins people.
I don't think you'd be terribly impressed if your trying to get some actual work done and you can't do anything because some loser two rooms over is busy draining all the network resources in the building to listen to Backstreet Boys.
The whole point of things like College Networks is that they're there for some kind of actual use, which trading music doesn't really qualify as.
When something frivolous like Napster is consuming 30% of a connection as big as an OC3, then you know there is a major problem. As an admin, what can you do? Let the network slow to a crawl, buy more bandwidth, or get rid of the single biggest waste of bandwidth on the network?
So, bearing in mind that you probably don't have a budget big enough to just add bigger lines whenever you want to, what would you do?
Hence, mass bans of Napster.
So, now we have people writing programs to try to get around those bans to continue to waste network resources. Don't these people learn, or are they just too selfish to care about anything but how much music they can collect?
What we'll probably see if this kind of abuse keeps up long enough is metered traffic. Just wait and see... if there is no way to block it, they'll just find a way to start charging you for extra bandwidth being used.
And then where are we? All because some people have to basically steal network bandwidth so they can have more music.
Yeah, thats just great.
I just checked the d.net homepage and it now says that they're starting on tuesday.
Wonder what happened there, I guess I'll have to go onto irc and ask.
Actually, they're trying to see if there is a market for it. You can't seriously expect them to port the game and then say "oh well we're just going to give it away now"... Cd Keys? HA! There was a key generator out not long after the game.
Some kind of rebate program would be nice, but unlikely. I don't think they should port Starcraft at all, and instead focus on Diablo II.
(and for the record Starcraft is still a very well selling game, especially considering its age, so its not dead yet by any stretch of the imagination)
Unfortunately... best bets are to play on an alternate server like x-force.dhs.org, fsgs.com, or to just play in private channels with people you know.
You have to like Strategy games to like Starcraft... if you like action oriented games (like quake), look elsewhere. Personally I find quake to be interesting for about five seconds. But a good hour long game of Broodwar (thats the Starcraft Expansion) just leaves me wanting a rematch.
The reason why Starcraft is considered by many as the best RTS ever is a combination of things... the game comes with a kick ass map editor. Combined with other tools, you can make entire campaigns and do TC's and the like, not many other RTS's even come close to the level of editing you can do to Starcraft.
They actually managed to create three totally different yet basically equal races, so that as any one race you have a chance of beating any other race (assuming the players are the same skill level).
The game is actually *strategy* oriented. Try using a strategy that involves simply making lots of units and attacking (like you can do in C&C type games) a good player. They will absolutly shread you if they use any kind of actual strategy. Thats not because defenses are really strong, actually they are rather weak. Its because massing units doesn't work that well against experienced players, you need to actually have some level of strategy to beat them.
The singleplayer storyline actually exists and is actually good (especially in Broodwar). I know the idea of a storyline might be a stretch to any first person shooter fans, but it certainly adds something to the game.
Thats about all I can think of right now. But you really do have to be a fan of RTS games to like Starcraft, there is more then just killing stuff involved, so FPS fans will probably not like it.
I'm a longtime regular on the Battle.net (aka Blizzard) forums, and I guess this means that someone was paying attention. Its quite a regular thing seeing requests posted in the War Room asking for Starcraft/Broodwar/Diablo II to be ported over. The usual answer they get is "When there is enough marketshare, I'm sure Blizzard will", because they always port stuff over to Mac, eveuntally. Honestly, Diablo II is one that seems a lot more likely then Starcraft, considering how old Starcraft is now. But its still the best RTS game out there, no matter how old it is. Does anyone remember the game that was supposed to kill it? No? It was called Tiberian something... well whatever it was called isn't important. The problem with porting Starcraft is that a lot of the playerbase of people who want it ported already have Windows versions and either dual boot or play in WINE. So are these people who are asking for it actually willing to buy it *again* just to have a native linux version? Thats the real question with Starcraft.. not how many new players you can get that way (which isn't enough), but how many existing ones will buy it again to get a linux version. Its the existing ones who ask for a port. Diablo II on the other hand is another story, and could very well get ported happily. (ps - I saw another post where someone complaiend about how long DII is taking... all I have in reply is this: Do you want a bug riddled game released now, or a kick ass one released later? Personally, I'd rather not have to download an 18mb patch just to make the game playable out of the box)
Why would anyone want to support an inferior product just because they don't like MS? I mean really... not wanting to use their products is all fine and dandy, but RealPlayer *Sucks* in comparison. I mean really, horribly, and truly sucks.
So you'd rather us pay for a crappier product? Isn't that part of the reason that people wanted to boycott MS in the first place, they don't want to pay for an inferior product? So now we're supposed to pay for inferior products.
I'm confused.
It doesn't necessarily have to hold true that MS is only considering making a copy of media player for Linux because of some evil conspiracy. I guess it will never occur to anyone that *maybe*, just maybe, they actually just want to take over the streaming media market by making a better product, selling it for less (aka nothing), and then creating players for all the platforms.
I think they should be applauded for making a player for Linux. I mean they could not do it, and just continue taking over the streaming media market, and then you have a situation where 75% of the streaming media out there is in Windows Media format and isn't playable at all in Linux, thereby helping Windows in the desktop market. This move certainly doesn't help them in the desktop market, but it does help them in the media market. It also helps Linux in the media market.
So please, explain to me again why I should be shelling out a whole lot of money to pay for a lousy media player when I can use a better one for nothing?
You have got to be kidding me! The government won't give him back his information until they can crack it and see what it is! I think you'll find that there is way too may privacy supporters in here to make that fly, people who want to use encryption that could practically not be broken anytime soon.
Indeed, the government just seems to ignore its own rules when dealing with Kevin Mitnick, why the hell would we want to help them do this?
I know for sure that if a distributed computing project like that emerged, I'd be doing whatever I could to try and sabotage it (can anyone say faking results?), because it'd be just plain wrong. I bet I'm not alone in that either.
So now they're forging moderation headers to spam their message out to the Internet? Do these people have absolutly *no clue* at all?
Lets do a brief recount of the events...
1. @home creates an environment ripe for spam, which people take advantage of. Admins do nothing.
2. Usenet admins contact @home about fixing the problem, @home does nothing.
3. Usenet admins finally get sick and tired of waiting, and call for a UDP.
4. @home finally responds, by effectively spamming a meaningless PR reply.
Gee, I guess they are really apologetic eh? Their egos must be absolutely huge over there to think that they can get away with this.
I can see it now...
*The scene is a large tower, where the President of @home is sitting in a throne laughing and counting money. Someone comes in and tells him about the UDP*
Pres: Those worms dare to challenge me!? HA!! HAHAHAHAHA!
I hope the Usenet admins bash @home into the ground with this UDP until they actually admit to their problems, fix them, *AND* Apologize for forging the moderation information to get their post put up three times. Anything less is unacceptable at this point, they've crossed a line.
IF said white supremicists are spamming those messages, then yes hit them with the UDP, and hit them hard.
If they are posting legitimately to groups where such discussions take place, then they are not abusing the system, just stating an unpopular opinion. In which case then they should not be hit with a UDP, although any Admin could decide to stop accepting news from them if he/she chooses to do so. I wouldn't, but I can't speak for the Internet.
Thats one thing you didn't make clear in your message is how the White Supremicists would be broadcasting this. If they spam it, then a UDP is entirely fair. If they don't spam it, then a UDP would essentially be unfair. Even assholes should be treated under the same set of rules as everyone else is.
So the problem is not @home users spamming usenet, the problem is @home users setting up proxies incorrectly so that external users can spam usenet. Is that right?
Well, its Creative... I'll give them that.
This really is the best they could come up with on short notice. I mean they can't possibly get their staff to actually enforce usenet spam rules, considering that would require hiring more staff who have a clue what usenet *is*.
Considering how small @home's user base is compaired to someone like AOL, the fact that they are being targeted by the UDP shows just how bad the problem is, their users must be generating tremendous amounts of spam per user to cause such problems.
I for one don't believe this solution of theirs is a real solution at all, and until the numbers show that the problem has gone down dramatically, I say hit them with the UDP as planned. If the numbers between now and then do show that they are having an impact in their efforts, then give them more time. But make them be the first to move, don't give an inch until they do something about it. Its the only way to deal with big corporations that don't actually give a damn about the Net itself or anything except their own bottom line.
Your right, this is absolutly rediculous. Exactly why do I care about two morons chatting CTV NewsNet about some party tonight when there are major political events taking shape. Had it not been for the story on slashdot, I may not have noticed this at all.
What a joke, the mainstream media sucks ass more and more every day.
Probably the best thing going for Open Source right now is that the "normal" software companies are shooting themselves in the foot with all this nonsense. I mean really... I *like* certain Microsoft products (flame away), and can't really be considered an advocate of Open Source at all.
But the more of these kinds of cases pile up, they slowly change my mind. I look down at my System Tray right now and wonder just how many of those programs are sending information back to the company about what I do. I wonder what else they're doing. This was never a problem a couple of years ago.
Can we really trust anything that big software companies put out at this point? Time and time again they have proven that self-regulation doesn't work. They've proven they can't be trusted to make software with privacy or security in mind. For that matter, it seems that many of them can't even be trusted to make high quality software at all. (all the bug laiden games out there come to mind... most notably SiN and the 18MB patch required to make it run at all straight out of the box)
If we have any software developers and/or PR people who work for software companies, can you please explain to me how anyone can ever trust anything you put out ever again? Please don't use the "well we don't use the information we collect" lame execuse, I'm not falling for it. Why would you collect it at all if you don't intend to use it? You shouldn't be collecing it at all, you don't have any right to. I want an audio player that *gasp* plays audio! I don't want it monitoring me, if I wanted that I'd install a monitoring program.
I mean they only have really stupid things to say, and they're all cowards, not willing to sign their real name to their idiocy!
Anonymous Cowards should be shot and never heard from again.
- the above sarcasm is brought to you by the society for the abolition of annoying people.
No TRUSTe sort of had a moment in the spotlight a few years ago, and then essentially fell off the users radar. For some reason the average user doesn't care about privacy, I don't understand why.
But if you haven't been around for a long time, its understandable that you wouldn't know about TRUSTe, I had forgotten about them until I saw the article.
Has anyone tried sending email? I just logged into a friends account using this exploit, and sent myself an email using his acccount. It showed up here at my ISP's server.
This is really really really bad. What can't you do with this?
Well, this one works.
:)
http://area51.slashnet.org/~drw/hotmail.phtml
Or at least it used to, they may have fixed it by now. I went in and looked at three people's accounts with my own two eyes (including mine), so I know it works. Unless they download every single hotmail account to fake, this is/was a real exploit.
Apparently it was a screwup on the part of whoever programmed that part of the CGI running Hotmail. I'd love to know who made that mistake.
Well.. yes that happened, and it was really tragic.. but it was an isolated and increadibly rare incident.
Statisticaly (per capita)the US is a much more dangerous place, especially from Gun Deaths.
Saying that we should fear the government is just plain silly, maybe that one public servant who screwed up and let him get his gun, but if you can tell me that no employee in the US ever screws up, then maybe you will have a case.