I was fucking serious. I know a professor who works in quantum optics. He told that this field of physics got a lot of funding in Reagan's times, because of the SDI.
The problem is, what scienca came out of space shuttles and ISS? Space probes, Hubble telescope -- this is all extremely useful stuff. But it's all rocket-driven. Can you imagine how many space probes one can build for $ 250 bn.?
Of course, such contests bear little resemblance to real-world programming. Programming being a trade or a technology, not a science, such contests cannot prove that someone will succeed in business. But they do prove that the winner is a smart person, and provide an incentive for young people to be good at programming.
It is mostly highschool aged students pushed by their respective schools so the school can get some local press.
This guy Cygan is from the Warsaw University, not from a high school. His colleagues from the same departament already won other prizes:
ACM IPC and Top Coder 2003.
Ten thousand bucks is a good year's salary in Poland. So, it's a lot of money for a 3rd grade student, but not a fortune. He can buy himself a reaaaally good computer and a decent car, too.
Read more carefully now. I'm not saying that Saddam had WMD's one. Everybody knows that. But there was no statement from the US government after 2003 saying "WE HAVE THE PROOF SADDAM WAS LYING". GWB admitted that the US Army did not find any evidence that the Hussein did not destroy his weapons as ordered. Anyway, I can see no reason why Saddam would be that stupid not to destroy them. He was a cautious, even paranoid man. He only invaded Kuwait after securing an apparent "OK" from the US ambassador (she was dismissed). Well, that was one hell of a mistake, but he tried to secure his ass in the first place. Even if Saddam had WMD's -- and he did not have them by 2003 -- he'd never let them be used against the US. Fear of retaliation, my friend. He knew perfectly what happened to the Taliban. Plus, Saddam wasn't a religious maniac (Iraq was a secular tyranny, in the past heavily influenced by socialism), and he'd have no reason to give the weapons to Al-Qaeda. The only cases when he used the weapons was against his own citizens -- no retaliation -- and against Iran -- again, Iran had no possibility to throw Saddam out of office. So, the position that Saddam + WMD's, even if such a combination had existed, would be a threat to the US -- just doesn't fly. Saddam was a madman, but not a fool.
And he didn't realize that Junior would learn from Daddy's mistake - wouldn't stop short of deposing him because he thought his UN mandate had run out and again leave him in power to slaughter our allies among Iraq's population.)
You're insulting Bush Senior. Old GB was not making a mistake, he was wise. He knew he'd get bogged down in Iraq like it happened now (to the extent it can't deal with North Korea effectively, nor even send enough National Guard to figh a hurricane). And don't tell me that "lack of the U.N. mandate" would prevent Americans from going to Bagdad if Bush Sr. saw it fit. They had tanks, aircrat, warships and infrantry there, for God's sake. If Bush had wanted to oust Saddam, he'd have done it. But he was wise and he didn't want it.
What does one have to do with the other? Are you saying that because Saddam already killed a lot of people, Iraqi people wouldn't mind if the US caused some deaths, too? They would, like, not notice?
You DO have other sources besides Wikipedia for the first one?
The original allegiation was that the US did not stop overthrowing democratical governments. If you cite something which happened in 1953 as a proof... just think a little.
He never had them IN THE PERIOD WHEN GWB LIED TO US THAT HE (S.H.) HA THEM. Try understanding other people's posts before replying to them, for a change.
We're not children. If you have a significant amount of something as deadly as anthrax (remember Colin Powell in the UN?), there MUST be some trace. No matter what you do with it, truck it to Syria, sell it to the Martians, burn it, put in a rocket and shoot in space -- there must be some trace, some papers, some empty cans, some people. If after 2 years of free inspections in Iraq, the Americans did not discover a SINGLE TRACE -- the answer is obvious. There were no such weapons in the first place.
The only solution is international pressure. No internal opposition to an authoriarian regime will survive if it does not receive support from abroad. For example, in Poland in the eighties people were publishing illegally books. When caught, their equipment was confiscated and they received some jail sentences -- but that was just about everything the government did to them. Why they were not killed? Because the West would make a ruccus about it, Radio Free Europe would make a ruccus about it and Polish communists would have problems with, say, economical negotiations or face sanctions. That saved Polish dissident's asses. If West (America and the EU) don't do the same with China, things won't change there for the better for a long time.
Maybe because this is not government's main job? I mean, the government protects my right to free speech by maintaining a judicial system which I can use as a weapon against those who try to impede by right of speech. Publishing booklets like this one is an addon, useful but just it.
How many of these vulnerabilities were discovered or aided because of the very fact that the Mozilla family of products are open source, open to the intense peer scrutiny of the community, one of the core, fundamental facets of the Mozilla products, and open source projects in general, that will help quickly make them more secure? Do they even grasp this concept?
Throwing OS marketspeak at the reader is no way to talk. It doesn't matter in which way were the vulnerabilities discovered. If by "most secure" you uderstand "the one with less flaws being discovered" (as Symantec does), then what it matters is how many there were discovered.
How quickly and effectively were the Mozilla/Firefox vulnerabilities patched in comparison to IE?
Again, it doesn't matter. They were counting only new vulnerabilities. OTOH, I read on Slashdot reports about old, unpatched bugs in Mozilla.
Is there any consideration given to the fact that Internet Explorer is a decade old and integral to the OS, and STILL routinely has extremely critical vulnerabilities, and may have an untold number of yet-to-be-discovered critical vulnerabilities?
No, because it doesn't matter from the "which browser has less new vulnerabilities". Users do not care how their browser is to make them secure, so telling them "IE has it easier, because it is integrated to the OS and a decade old" does not have any sense -- it's just whining. OTOH, some IE vulnerabilities are just graver because of the fact that it IS integrated with its OS, so what kind of defence for Mozilla/Firefox is that?
Assuming customer choice is important, a customer can elect to not use Firefox and remove it from their system. Can the customer remove IE? Can the customer even elect to not use IE, or does the OS still force them to use IE for some tasks?
Again, ease of removal has nothing to do with the security of the browser per se.
I could go on, but I think it goes without saying that at best this "report" uses extremely flawed logic to draw its conclusions, and at worst, Symantec is shilling for Microsoft.
At the end of every propaganda tirade we usual hear that opponents are mischevious bastards.
To throw my $.002 in the debate: I choose heavily Firefox over IE, but mostly for usability reasons (tabbed browsing, adblocker, gmail notifier), not for security. With my level of paranoia, I feel only slightly more secure with Firefox than with the IE. If I were more paranoid about security, I'd give the whole MS Windows a wide berth and just stick to Linux all the time, anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
I was fucking serious. I know a professor who works in quantum optics. He told that this field of physics got a lot of funding in Reagan's times, because of the SDI.
The problem is, what scienca came out of space shuttles and ISS? Space probes, Hubble telescope -- this is all extremely useful stuff. But it's all rocket-driven. Can you imagine how many space probes one can build for $ 250 bn.?
Or all the laser stuff which came out of Reagan's SDI.
Of course, such contests bear little resemblance to real-world programming. Programming being a trade or a technology, not a science, such contests cannot prove that someone will succeed in business. But they do prove that the winner is a smart person, and provide an incentive for young people to be good at programming.
It is mostly highschool aged students pushed by their respective schools so the school can get some local press.
This guy Cygan is from the Warsaw University, not from a high school. His colleagues from the same departament already won other prizes: ACM IPC and Top Coder 2003.
Ten thousand bucks is a good year's salary in Poland. So, it's a lot of money for a 3rd grade student, but not a fortune. He can buy himself a reaaaally good computer and a decent car, too.
Read more carefully now. I'm not saying that Saddam had WMD's one. Everybody knows that. But there was no statement from the US government after 2003 saying "WE HAVE THE PROOF SADDAM WAS LYING". GWB admitted that the US Army did not find any evidence that the Hussein did not destroy his weapons as ordered. Anyway, I can see no reason why Saddam would be that stupid not to destroy them. He was a cautious, even paranoid man. He only invaded Kuwait after securing an apparent "OK" from the US ambassador (she was dismissed). Well, that was one hell of a mistake, but he tried to secure his ass in the first place. Even if Saddam had WMD's -- and he did not have them by 2003 -- he'd never let them be used against the US. Fear of retaliation, my friend. He knew perfectly what happened to the Taliban. Plus, Saddam wasn't a religious maniac (Iraq was a secular tyranny, in the past heavily influenced by socialism), and he'd have no reason to give the weapons to Al-Qaeda. The only cases when he used the weapons was against his own citizens -- no retaliation -- and against Iran -- again, Iran had no possibility to throw Saddam out of office. So, the position that Saddam + WMD's, even if such a combination had existed, would be a threat to the US -- just doesn't fly. Saddam was a madman, but not a fool. And he didn't realize that Junior would learn from Daddy's mistake - wouldn't stop short of deposing him because he thought his UN mandate had run out and again leave him in power to slaughter our allies among Iraq's population.)
You're insulting Bush Senior. Old GB was not making a mistake, he was wise. He knew he'd get bogged down in Iraq like it happened now (to the extent it can't deal with North Korea effectively, nor even send enough National Guard to figh a hurricane). And don't tell me that "lack of the U.N. mandate" would prevent Americans from going to Bagdad if Bush Sr. saw it fit. They had tanks, aircrat, warships and infrantry there, for God's sake. If Bush had wanted to oust Saddam, he'd have done it. But he was wise and he didn't want it.
What does one have to do with the other? Are you saying that because Saddam already killed a lot of people, Iraqi people wouldn't mind if the US caused some deaths, too? They would, like, not notice?
You DO have other sources besides Wikipedia for the first one?
The original allegiation was that the US did not stop overthrowing democratical governments. If you cite something which happened in 1953 as a proof... just think a little.
He never had them IN THE PERIOD WHEN GWB LIED TO US THAT HE (S.H.) HA THEM. Try understanding other people's posts before replying to them, for a change.
Venezuela? When did the US government try to topple Chavez? Iran's government is not democratically elected. Plus, the US is not going to attack Iran.
Stop toppling democratically elected governments.
You mean Hussein's democratically elected government?
We're not children. If you have a significant amount of something as deadly as anthrax (remember Colin Powell in the UN?), there MUST be some trace. No matter what you do with it, truck it to Syria, sell it to the Martians, burn it, put in a rocket and shoot in space -- there must be some trace, some papers, some empty cans, some people. If after 2 years of free inspections in Iraq, the Americans did not discover a SINGLE TRACE -- the answer is obvious. There were no such weapons in the first place.
It's not whether Microsoft IS innovative, it's about whether it APPEARS innovating.
I'm going to go cry in the corner and question my reason for living now
No need to waste time on mere rhetorics.
Like, we didn't have trouble with spotting an improvement of quality going from Windows 3.11 through Windows 95 to XP?
At least you think you read something funny. I did not have the chance.
You're WEAK.
He or his lawyers?
What is so outlandish in the suggestion that someone's insanity should be evaluated by independent experts?
The only solution is international pressure. No internal opposition to an authoriarian regime will survive if it does not receive support from abroad. For example, in Poland in the eighties people were publishing illegally books. When caught, their equipment was confiscated and they received some jail sentences -- but that was just about everything the government did to them. Why they were not killed? Because the West would make a ruccus about it, Radio Free Europe would make a ruccus about it and Polish communists would have problems with, say, economical negotiations or face sanctions. That saved Polish dissident's asses. If West (America and the EU) don't do the same with China, things won't change there for the better for a long time.
Maybe because this is not government's main job? I mean, the government protects my right to free speech by maintaining a judicial system which I can use as a weapon against those who try to impede by right of speech. Publishing booklets like this one is an addon, useful but just it.
How many of these vulnerabilities were discovered or aided because of the very fact that the Mozilla family of products are open source, open to the intense peer scrutiny of the community, one of the core, fundamental facets of the Mozilla products, and open source projects in general, that will help quickly make them more secure? Do they even grasp this concept?
Throwing OS marketspeak at the reader is no way to talk. It doesn't matter in which way were the vulnerabilities discovered. If by "most secure" you uderstand "the one with less flaws being discovered" (as Symantec does), then what it matters is how many there were discovered.
How quickly and effectively were the Mozilla/Firefox vulnerabilities patched in comparison to IE?
Again, it doesn't matter. They were counting only new vulnerabilities. OTOH, I read on Slashdot reports about old, unpatched bugs in Mozilla.
Is there any consideration given to the fact that Internet Explorer is a decade old and integral to the OS, and STILL routinely has extremely critical vulnerabilities, and may have an untold number of yet-to-be-discovered critical vulnerabilities?
No, because it doesn't matter from the "which browser has less new vulnerabilities". Users do not care how their browser is to make them secure, so telling them "IE has it easier, because it is integrated to the OS and a decade old" does not have any sense -- it's just whining. OTOH, some IE vulnerabilities are just graver because of the fact that it IS integrated with its OS, so what kind of defence for Mozilla/Firefox is that?
Assuming customer choice is important, a customer can elect to not use Firefox and remove it from their system. Can the customer remove IE? Can the customer even elect to not use IE, or does the OS still force them to use IE for some tasks?
Again, ease of removal has nothing to do with the security of the browser per se.
I could go on, but I think it goes without saying that at best this "report" uses extremely flawed logic to draw its conclusions, and at worst, Symantec is shilling for Microsoft.
At the end of every propaganda tirade we usual hear that opponents are mischevious bastards.
To throw my $.002 in the debate: I choose heavily Firefox over IE, but mostly for usability reasons (tabbed browsing, adblocker, gmail notifier), not for security. With my level of paranoia, I feel only slightly more secure with Firefox than with the IE. If I were more paranoid about security, I'd give the whole MS Windows a wide berth and just stick to Linux all the time, anyway.
Uncyclopedia stands for everything Wikipedia cannot have: misinformation, satire, and lies. Oh yes, it can!
Or he's insane enough not to make an insanity defense... that's why we have independent experts evaluating that. Or maybe there are no such in Texas?