I was hit with identity theft as a WaMu customer last year. I don't know how it happened, I pay for most things in cash and I don't use my card on small/disreputable websites, I use Firefox with NoScript, don't click links in e-mail even when they look legit (always type the URL myself), etc.
However, I have to say that my experience with WaMu was really bad:
* They canceled my card while I was displaced during the California wildfires * If you call the number on the back of your bank card it's actually extremely hard to work out how to get through to an actual person to talk about card fraud * When I did get through to an actual person, using an alternative number they provided me at an actual bank, they tried to forward me to their fraud department. I sat on hold for an hour before deciding to give up and call back later * The would not reverse fraudulent charges to my account. They told me that they would send me an affidavit that I would have to sign before they would refund the charges, and then it would take 30 days or more to process. This affidavit never arrived. * I had much better luck calling the numbers listed on my statement and getting merchants to refund fraudulent charges * WaMu did refund one fraudulent charge eventually
Short story: If you're a fraud victim at WaMu don't expect them to go out of their way to help you as a customer. You may have better luck taking care of it yourself.
More recently, I tried to pay off a loan with my WaMu debit card. Big mistake. According to my statement there was a double-charge pending for thousands of dollars. I called WaMu immediately, here is how that conversation went:
Me: I'm looking at my statement, it looks like there is a double charge for several thousand dollars Them: Yes, we do see that, we see one charge has cleared and another pending Me: That's an unauthorized charge, and clearly a mistake Them: Well, the good news is that it that the money hasn't left your account yet, it is still pending Me: Okay, can you stop the charge? Them: No. But after it gets charged you could file a dispute with the merchant Me: But you just said that the money hasn't left my account yet, and I'm telling you it's unauthorized, so why don't you stop it? Them: We can't do that. Me: Well that's completely useless then, isn't it? Them: Yes, I understand, sorry about that..
It's not identity theft, per-say, but more indicitive of my experiences with WaMu so far. They don't exactly go out of their way to help you out during a bad situation.
So, yes, I believe this information should be published, and not only that, each and every customer affected should be questioned as to how well they feel their bank dealt with the situation and as to how secure they feel at their bank. WaMu would not be getting a very high rating from me at all.
They need to have something better then integrated video at $2500+ and even at the $1500+ price range While that may be nice from a performance perspective, the current crop of nVidia cards at the very least will kill the battery life. I was recently looking around at all types of laptops and it's rather consistent, if you want good battery life you'll be using integrated video.
Moore's Law works in favor of Ray-Tracing, because it assures us that computers will get faster - much faster - while monitor resolutions will grow at a much slower pace. Where did this "assurance" come from? Display resolutions grow as quickly as the latest games can run smoothly at the leading-edge dimensions. Since Moore's law is about doubling processing power, but doubling the display resolution means quadrupling the number of pixels, you may find the relationship is in fact much closer than you'd think.
Leave your computer in your bookbag or pocket. Put on your display glasses so you can see your "screen" hovering in your view. Use a headband (perhaps hidden in your hat) to control the interface (and perhaps one day type). Use speech recognition to type and control. Imagine an era where business people carry suitcases, wear shades, headbands, and seem to be walking around talking to themselves.
Haven't they gotten rid of activeX(ploit) by now? I can't recall the last time I saw it being used for anything useful. Flash? DivX Web Player? You don't use either?
IE7 running on Vista is also secured against many things these controls could do to a system maliciously, even if they were compromised. System APIs that provide access to the registry and file system are restricted for low integrity processes such that you can only address very specific, usually virtualized locations.
Firefox plug-ins, btw, are DLL files, and I don't see how that's so wildly different?
Final thought: I just used Vista and IE7 to defend Microsoft, I may have to go throw up now.
I bet pulling the RAM is not even necessary. Why don't you hard boot the system (no code gets to run to erase the last used encryption key, and the RAM remains powered and perfectly preserved), and run a bootloader whose sole purpose is to digg the key out of memory.
Memory is not overwritten at boot time unless the BIOS is set to do a full POST, and no systems I know of are configured that way because it takes too long.
You can host your "ripper" utility in the first few kb's of memory, where there is almost zero chance that you will erase the encryption key, because normally the OS bootloader will go there, then there will be the OS kernel, driver code, etc. etc. before a driver like TrueCrypt is allocated - at least for container encryption. FDE may be a tougher case, but depending on the implementation you can probably work around any problematic issues.
Yanking the RAM is interesting though, a "solution" would be to have some RAM on the system (e.g. in the TPM) that was specifically designed so that a) It was physically incapable of persisting information with no power, and b) there was a power supply built into the chip itself that flushed that memory with garbage on power down (i.e. it is extremely difficult to remove this power source without physically damaging the memory also).
Gizmodo wrote:
This is a leaked official RIAA training video produced with the National District Attorneys Association telling U.S. prosecutors why they should bust music pirates: Because it'll lead them to "everything from handguns to large quantities of cocaine [and] marijuana," not to mention terrorists and murderers! Like the author of TFA, I haven't seen the video (yet), but I'd hope conversations with members of the judicial system go something like this:
RIAA: "When we followed leads gathered in the process of prosecuting people for piracy we found other people we could prosecute for drug possession, terrorism, and murder!"
J: "Are you trying to say that the people you originally investigated were guilty of drug possession, terrorism, and murder, and that all people you intend to have prosecuted for piracy will also be guilty of drug possession, terrorism, and murder?"
RIAA: "Well, erm.. no..."
J: "So.. what are you saying?"
RIAA: "Well, piracy could benefit drug dealers, terrorists, and murderers, and so you should prosecute pirates with heavy penalties!"
J: "Have you filed charges against, say, The Pirate Bay, for sponsoring drug dealing, terrorism, and murder?" RIAA: "Well... no..."
J: "Wouldn't you say that anybody providing a service to unknown clients, e.g. a website, may quite innocently service drug dealers, terrorists, and murderers in exactly the same way it would service law abiding citizens, making just as much differentiation between the two as your local laundromat?"
The above poster is a troll No, he isn't.
He claims he is a geek. Sorry, no he isn't. He is just one of those many people who over recent years have grasped basic windows operation and thinks that makes him a computer whiz. I develop software using C++/Win32 API. I may not be Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds, but neither am I Derek Zoolander.
He editted conf files with vi. No doubt because the tutorial he was following without understanding told him so ">vi somefile.conf" and never grasped the concept that he could substitute his preffered editor with vi. God forbid someone new to Linux follows a tutorial to get something done! I already commented that I also used gEdit when the graphical desktop was available.
I won't bother replying to the remainder of your accusations. The short story is that the article is a discussion on why Linux does not spread. I contributed my personal experience, clearly stated as "my personal experience", in the hope of furthering the discussion. That is all. Some of the other posters have echoed a few of my comments, others have disagreed. But if anyone deserves to be modded troll on this thread, that would be you.
You are unfortunately the person who stands in the way of widespread Linux adoption. You don't like to hear that Linux didn't meet someones expectations in every possible way. The fact that anyone could have seen any flaw in Linux is blasphemy to you, not to be tolerated, and clearly their mistake. Whereas those who will ultimately bring Linux to the mass consumer will listen to feedback submitted with good intention from me or from others and shape the platform into something incredibly successful in the desktop space, you will protest any and all criticism until that day arrives, where you will proudly proclaim "I told you so!", failing to realize the delay you caused by turning those of us who are interested, but not yet invested in the Linux platform away.
Enjoy the rest of your day, sorry I so obviously ruined it for you.
Because peer to peer refers to distribution of the content by peers, whereas FTP and HTTP are protocols where two end points service requests. For example, if we are both downloading something from an HTTP server our computers can't connect to each other and exchange parts of the download we each have received already.
According to the article, it only targets Peer to Peer technology, not FTP, HTTP or other protocols Awesome! Let's simply use HTTP with content-range requests instead of requests for specific blocks, and specify a standard URL query string such that a client can determine which content ranges the server has, then http post it's own content ranges.
HyperText Torrent Transfer Protocoal (H3TP), coming to an Internet near you!
Australia is still under the sovereignty of the Queen, so what is the problem? She only had a license for personal viewing, and imposing it upon Australia is a public performance.
A mitigation of possible or theoretical financial losses could be had through something like a generalized tax on recording media like CD-ROMs and tape cassettes that we have here in Canada. This is of course not ideal for the consumer or any industry groups seeking compensation, but it is a more fair compromise than the overbearing and arbitrary punishments given to P2P violators. The studios (movie/recording) already have a very good deal as far as holding copyrights are concerned - they exclusively can sell or negotiate contracts for sale of the works, and they have this exclusivity for a very long time (depending on the country, 50+ years).
I don't know why we don't change the law in the other direction - the public is free to copy works as much as they like, but not make any revenue from them, and the rights holder is free to sell the works as much as they like. The labels can still sell CDs, t-shirts, have online stores with cover art, a nice experience, a "one place for all your wants" store, memorabilia, concert tickets, and so on.
Maybe then, these things would happen: * CDs would become reasonably prices - you would buy them for the added extras (a real physical thing with inserts etc.) and to support the artist, but they'd have to compete with free * Artists would make more of their money from actual performances/appearances * "Non-commercial" artists would enjoy more of a level playing field
Okay, it sounds like a crazy solution, and maybe it is, but the answer doesn't have to involve bending over backwards and putting taxes on the public to fill the coffers of the studios, money which we all know will barely make it to the artists themselves.
Copyright has to reflect societies valuation of the works, and in essence societies acceptance of payment terms. Right now, the deal seems very heavily lop-sided. Moving the needle in the other direction (i.e. away from the all-powerful studios) through change in the law is probably the best plan at this point. Yes, there will be fallout. But in the long term, a better balance can be sought. Either society will realize that we didn't loose much, and so we keep the more "consumer friendly" law, or we realize that no good works are produced any longer, and so we actually recognize a legitimate value in copyright taxes (and other proposals).
Do you ever look forward twenty or thirty years and wonder what the world of technology will deliver to us? What it's potential is and what will actually be realized?
In the last 20 years we've gone from home computer systems with half a meg of ram or less to a worldwide network of high powered PC's in every home, evolving human interaction from e-mail, IRC, web pages, instant messages, internet radio, internet video, 3D virtual worlds, online stores, the participation of a global audience in projects ran by NASA, live news coverage from hundreds of vendors - it's impressive. And we have more to look forward to: 3D TV, space elevators, nanotechnology, advanced AI, accessible quantum computing, artificial limbs that interface with our nervous system, maybe even space travel to other worlds.
Sometimes I catch myself wondering about all the things I can't even imagine today that will come along after my death and I'll never experience. Then I think about modern day issues such as this ludicrous copyright legislation, in my home nation (UK) no less, and I wonder if in ten years time if the Internet will even be recognizable as a free, neutral foundation for furthering mankind, or will it simply be transformed into a Government regulated and observed, pay per use, pricing-tiered no-man's land destroyed by industries seeking to motivate individuals to purchase their products or works as a product of fear mongering and contorted calculations of "damages" that haven't even been shown to have occurred?
Copyright is necessary such that those who spend their lives creating works valued our societies can continue to do so. It is a balance between the needs and desires of our societies and the needs and desires of our artists, authors, and musicians. It is not a tool to be wielded by industry associations to sue individuals who can't afford to buy a dozen CDs, let alone defend themselves in court, into bankruptcy for the purposes of a public scare campaign, nor a tool to twist the laws of a society against itself solely in the interests of those agencies - those agencies who themselves are not the artists, authors, and musicians who create the works they claim to protect, and who they have recently announced they seek to pay less.
Please stop this madness. The world will suffer greatly at the hands of a small group of greedy executives and their shareholders if this nonsense continues much further down its current path.
Unless you tried Fedora 8, you haven't tried the current offerings, so you can't have an informed opinion about linux. Isn't that a bit like saying unless I've used Windows Vista, I can't have an opinion about Windows?
I tried Fedora 7. But you are right, I can't have an informed opinion about Linux - I didn't use it nearly long enough. I also wasn't aiming to post an opinion, but elements of my experience that lead me away from Linux, and that probably will lead others away also.
And yes, you shouldn't be STARTING with Fedora. It isn't meant to be a beginner distro for several reasons. That's nice to know, now:) But there isn't a banner on Fedora's home page that says "Hey, are you a beginner? If so, you might want to try Ubuntu instead"? Nor on the Debian page, and probably not on many other distro sites one might happen to land on while searching for popular distributions. One answer to "Why Linux Doesn't Spread" is that there are many options out there, and you can easily end up at one that isn't really suited to you.
Free open source software is not like commercial software. In some projects, 3 month old code is practically ancient. While that may be true, I'm going to bet that most people aren't going to try switching OS's every 3 months. Therefore I don't see why posting about an experience I had 12 months ago is such a terrible concept. When we're talking about "Why Linux doesn't spread" it does not help to get angry at people because they didn't try the particular distribution you think they ought to have, or because they didn't try the absolute latest version, or because they're wrong and you know better.
Wouldn't it be nice if you could simply tell all those people who have tried Linux and walked away in the last couple of years that you know better and so they should change back immediately?:)
Indeed, Ubuntu is one distribution I did not try yet.
Maybe that's part of the problem, though: If different distributions can be so diverse in terms of target user, it's easy to go down the wrong path and simply turn back with the wrong impression.
I'm not so sure. By now there ought to be a whole generation of tech-savvy people in their 20s-30s who grew up "doing the things with computers" that their parents just couldn't fathom. That group of people ought to be a big market, and I fall into the category. I've also installed a few different distros of Linux over the years, played with them for a bit, and then went back to using Windows.
I know that many of the following points will be disputed, but here are some of the reasons I personally have stuck with Windows:
* It's what I'm used to. * I have a lot invested in Windows software that isn't available natively on Linux. (Yes, some of it could run under Wine) * Graphics drivers. I installed Fedora about a year ago and installing their graphics drivers felt like I was hacking my own computer. Maybe that's part of the fun of Linux (heck, of course it is!), but for a wide base of consumers it's also part of the fear. * Installing software. There's so many distro's of linux and seemingly packages built for individual flavors, installing new software "feels" risky, and running into package conflicts is a bit nasty. Do I trust the people who seem to build and redistribute packages on random websites? I don't know. There's a bit of a difference between commercial vendors and some guy with a popular FTP repository. I also downloaded and compiled some apps myself because I couldn't find packages for certain things for the version of Fedora I was using. Are regular consumers expected to do this? * Accessing my Windows files was a bit of a PITA. I had to install an NTFS driver manually, which meant editing some conf files to auto-mount partitions. Again, that ought to have been automatic to make switching OS's easier. Maybe it's included in more recent distros? * Back to the nVidia graphics drivers: I quickly discovered that something like gEdit was very simple to use, much like Notepad. Then I tried editing some conf files from the shell. With vi. Enough said. * I had a nice soundcard (Creative Audigy 2), and when I installed Linux some of it's advanced features were not working (e.g. CMSS), and the mixer application showed dozens of sliders to set the volume, some of which I couldn't even identify. Then there is the whole issue of using two separate sound architectures. * Which desktop environment do I want to use? I have no clue. Am I supposed to get familiar with one for a while, then try the other, then finally decide?
I think the problem is this: Linux can be made to vastly lessen the learning curve for new users, and at it's heart it's a very powerful and flexible OS. You can tweak it to work any way you want it to work. But that's part of the problem - eventually (and usually for me, not too long after installing it) you run into situations where to make your Linux system do what you want/need it to do you have to delve a little into the "customization" piece. Sometimes that means editing some conf files. Sometimes that means running commands that you found on some website that look like they might do what you want, according to the comments posted by others. It's a different experience to Windows, where most people will never have much cause to turn to the command prompt, for example - or at least it will be to fix a problem after it occurs, not to make something work in the first place. Of course, you get out of the OS what you put in, but there are still far too many people in the world who wouldn't even try editing their registry on Windows with a graphical utility.
Why did I give up on Fedora (for now)? Because I have a full time job and as much as I would love to spend time learning Linux, I just don't have the time to. I have an unreasonable expectation that I should just be able to use a new OS without much effort. But it's the same unreasonable expectation that consumers have in general. It's also one that Linux can fulfill so long as newer distros keep doing more and more out-of-the-box, and at some point having to run a few commands in the shel
How dare you parody this a year earlier than me? I claim fair use of your fair use! Hah! I'll never take it down! (No seriously, this website has no delete button...;))
Young man, I was once in your shoes, I said, I was.. downloading torrent files too, But it's stealing, and there is licensing due, So you've got.. to.. know.. this.. one thing:
DUN DUN DUN DUNNUN
It's fun to sue with the D.M.C.A., It's fun to sue with the D.M.C.A., They have everything there for lawyers to enjoy, Ain't no safe harbor for Pirate Bay, boys!
Anyone want to march to the Capitol?! No, people don't care to protest against the illegal acts of their government or to protect their rights. Protesting Scientology OTOH...
controlling the computers of consumers at 'a rate never before seen on the Internet' Before remote control of computers starting occurring on the Internet the majority of hacks came from psychics, thus explaining the ever popular tinfoil hat.
The possibilities for denial of service are endless. Don't like someone on the net? Does his IP address resolve to a UK ISP? Send them an e-mail claiming he's illegally downloading files from your server.
I think the article is about hacking an enterprise authentication/key server, and not local volumes with local key storage, but the same applies: Backup your keys.
Slashdot Mirror
I was hit with identity theft as a WaMu customer last year. I don't know how it happened, I pay for most things in cash and I don't use my card on small/disreputable websites, I use Firefox with NoScript, don't click links in e-mail even when they look legit (always type the URL myself), etc.
However, I have to say that my experience with WaMu was really bad:
* They canceled my card while I was displaced during the California wildfires
* If you call the number on the back of your bank card it's actually extremely hard to work out how to get through to an actual person to talk about card fraud
* When I did get through to an actual person, using an alternative number they provided me at an actual bank, they tried to forward me to their fraud department. I sat on hold for an hour before deciding to give up and call back later
* The would not reverse fraudulent charges to my account. They told me that they would send me an affidavit that I would have to sign before they would refund the charges, and then it would take 30 days or more to process. This affidavit never arrived.
* I had much better luck calling the numbers listed on my statement and getting merchants to refund fraudulent charges
* WaMu did refund one fraudulent charge eventually
Short story: If you're a fraud victim at WaMu don't expect them to go out of their way to help you as a customer. You may have better luck taking care of it yourself.
More recently, I tried to pay off a loan with my WaMu debit card. Big mistake. According to my statement there was a double-charge pending for thousands of dollars. I called WaMu immediately, here is how that conversation went:
Me: I'm looking at my statement, it looks like there is a double charge for several thousand dollars
Them: Yes, we do see that, we see one charge has cleared and another pending
Me: That's an unauthorized charge, and clearly a mistake
Them: Well, the good news is that it that the money hasn't left your account yet, it is still pending
Me: Okay, can you stop the charge?
Them: No. But after it gets charged you could file a dispute with the merchant
Me: But you just said that the money hasn't left my account yet, and I'm telling you it's unauthorized, so why don't you stop it?
Them: We can't do that.
Me: Well that's completely useless then, isn't it?
Them: Yes, I understand, sorry about that..
It's not identity theft, per-say, but more indicitive of my experiences with WaMu so far. They don't exactly go out of their way to help you out during a bad situation.
So, yes, I believe this information should be published, and not only that, each and every customer affected should be questioned as to how well they feel their bank dealt with the situation and as to how secure they feel at their bank. WaMu would not be getting a very high rating from me at all.
It's like a bad 80s/00s hybrid!
IE7 running on Vista is also secured against many things these controls could do to a system maliciously, even if they were compromised. System APIs that provide access to the registry and file system are restricted for low integrity processes such that you can only address very specific, usually virtualized locations.
Firefox plug-ins, btw, are DLL files, and I don't see how that's so wildly different?
Final thought: I just used Vista and IE7 to defend Microsoft, I may have to go throw up now.
I bet pulling the RAM is not even necessary. Why don't you hard boot the system (no code gets to run to erase the last used encryption key, and the RAM remains powered and perfectly preserved), and run a bootloader whose sole purpose is to digg the key out of memory.
Memory is not overwritten at boot time unless the BIOS is set to do a full POST, and no systems I know of are configured that way because it takes too long.
You can host your "ripper" utility in the first few kb's of memory, where there is almost zero chance that you will erase the encryption key, because normally the OS bootloader will go there, then there will be the OS kernel, driver code, etc. etc. before a driver like TrueCrypt is allocated - at least for container encryption. FDE may be a tougher case, but depending on the implementation you can probably work around any problematic issues.
Yanking the RAM is interesting though, a "solution" would be to have some RAM on the system (e.g. in the TPM) that was specifically designed so that a) It was physically incapable of persisting information with no power, and b) there was a power supply built into the chip itself that flushed that memory with garbage on power down (i.e. it is extremely difficult to remove this power source without physically damaging the memory also).
RIAA: "When we followed leads gathered in the process of prosecuting people for piracy we found other people we could prosecute for drug possession, terrorism, and murder!"
J: "Are you trying to say that the people you originally investigated were guilty of drug possession, terrorism, and murder, and that all people you intend to have prosecuted for piracy will also be guilty of drug possession, terrorism, and murder?"
RIAA: "Well, erm.. no..."
J: "So.. what are you saying?"
RIAA: "Well, piracy could benefit drug dealers, terrorists, and murderers, and so you should prosecute pirates with heavy penalties!"
J: "Have you filed charges against, say, The Pirate Bay, for sponsoring drug dealing, terrorism, and murder?"
RIAA: "Well... no..."
J: "Wouldn't you say that anybody providing a service to unknown clients, e.g. a website, may quite innocently service drug dealers, terrorists, and murderers in exactly the same way it would service law abiding citizens, making just as much differentiation between the two as your local laundromat?"
RIAA: "Ummm... we need a recess..."
Pics or it didn't happen!
Oh, I was not disagreeing with you. Sorry if it sounded that way, just adding some further talking points :)
I won't bother replying to the remainder of your accusations. The short story is that the article is a discussion on why Linux does not spread. I contributed my personal experience, clearly stated as "my personal experience", in the hope of furthering the discussion. That is all. Some of the other posters have echoed a few of my comments, others have disagreed. But if anyone deserves to be modded troll on this thread, that would be you.
You are unfortunately the person who stands in the way of widespread Linux adoption. You don't like to hear that Linux didn't meet someones expectations in every possible way. The fact that anyone could have seen any flaw in Linux is blasphemy to you, not to be tolerated, and clearly their mistake. Whereas those who will ultimately bring Linux to the mass consumer will listen to feedback submitted with good intention from me or from others and shape the platform into something incredibly successful in the desktop space, you will protest any and all criticism until that day arrives, where you will proudly proclaim "I told you so!", failing to realize the delay you caused by turning those of us who are interested, but not yet invested in the Linux platform away.
Enjoy the rest of your day, sorry I so obviously ruined it for you.
Because peer to peer refers to distribution of the content by peers, whereas FTP and HTTP are protocols where two end points service requests. For example, if we are both downloading something from an HTTP server our computers can't connect to each other and exchange parts of the download we each have received already.
HyperText Torrent Transfer Protocoal (H3TP), coming to an Internet near you!
I don't know why we don't change the law in the other direction - the public is free to copy works as much as they like, but not make any revenue from them, and the rights holder is free to sell the works as much as they like. The labels can still sell CDs, t-shirts, have online stores with cover art, a nice experience, a "one place for all your wants" store, memorabilia, concert tickets, and so on.
Maybe then, these things would happen:
* CDs would become reasonably prices - you would buy them for the added extras (a real physical thing with inserts etc.) and to support the artist, but they'd have to compete with free
* Artists would make more of their money from actual performances/appearances
* "Non-commercial" artists would enjoy more of a level playing field
Okay, it sounds like a crazy solution, and maybe it is, but the answer doesn't have to involve bending over backwards and putting taxes on the public to fill the coffers of the studios, money which we all know will barely make it to the artists themselves.
Copyright has to reflect societies valuation of the works, and in essence societies acceptance of payment terms. Right now, the deal seems very heavily lop-sided. Moving the needle in the other direction (i.e. away from the all-powerful studios) through change in the law is probably the best plan at this point. Yes, there will be fallout. But in the long term, a better balance can be sought. Either society will realize that we didn't loose much, and so we keep the more "consumer friendly" law, or we realize that no good works are produced any longer, and so we actually recognize a legitimate value in copyright taxes (and other proposals).
Do you ever look forward twenty or thirty years and wonder what the world of technology will deliver to us? What it's potential is and what will actually be realized?
In the last 20 years we've gone from home computer systems with half a meg of ram or less to a worldwide network of high powered PC's in every home, evolving human interaction from e-mail, IRC, web pages, instant messages, internet radio, internet video, 3D virtual worlds, online stores, the participation of a global audience in projects ran by NASA, live news coverage from hundreds of vendors - it's impressive. And we have more to look forward to: 3D TV, space elevators, nanotechnology, advanced AI, accessible quantum computing, artificial limbs that interface with our nervous system, maybe even space travel to other worlds.
Sometimes I catch myself wondering about all the things I can't even imagine today that will come along after my death and I'll never experience. Then I think about modern day issues such as this ludicrous copyright legislation, in my home nation (UK) no less, and I wonder if in ten years time if the Internet will even be recognizable as a free, neutral foundation for furthering mankind, or will it simply be transformed into a Government regulated and observed, pay per use, pricing-tiered no-man's land destroyed by industries seeking to motivate individuals to purchase their products or works as a product of fear mongering and contorted calculations of "damages" that haven't even been shown to have occurred?
Copyright is necessary such that those who spend their lives creating works valued our societies can continue to do so. It is a balance between the needs and desires of our societies and the needs and desires of our artists, authors, and musicians. It is not a tool to be wielded by industry associations to sue individuals who can't afford to buy a dozen CDs, let alone defend themselves in court, into bankruptcy for the purposes of a public scare campaign, nor a tool to twist the laws of a society against itself solely in the interests of those agencies - those agencies who themselves are not the artists, authors, and musicians who create the works they claim to protect, and who they have recently announced they seek to pay less.
Please stop this madness. The world will suffer greatly at the hands of a small group of greedy executives and their shareholders if this nonsense continues much further down its current path.
I tried Fedora 7. But you are right, I can't have an informed opinion about Linux - I didn't use it nearly long enough. I also wasn't aiming to post an opinion, but elements of my experience that lead me away from Linux, and that probably will lead others away also. And yes, you shouldn't be STARTING with Fedora. It isn't meant to be a beginner distro for several reasons. That's nice to know, now
Wouldn't it be nice if you could simply tell all those people who have tried Linux and walked away in the last couple of years that you know better and so they should change back immediately?
I'll give Ubuntu a shot
Indeed, Ubuntu is one distribution I did not try yet.
Maybe that's part of the problem, though: If different distributions can be so diverse in terms of target user, it's easy to go down the wrong path and simply turn back with the wrong impression.
I tried Fedora. Last year.
;)
Not everyone starts with Ubuntu. Are you telling me that Linux is prime time, but only one distribution? In that case, my mistake...
I'm not so sure. By now there ought to be a whole generation of tech-savvy people in their 20s-30s who grew up "doing the things with computers" that their parents just couldn't fathom. That group of people ought to be a big market, and I fall into the category. I've also installed a few different distros of Linux over the years, played with them for a bit, and then went back to using Windows.
I know that many of the following points will be disputed, but here are some of the reasons I personally have stuck with Windows:
* It's what I'm used to.
* I have a lot invested in Windows software that isn't available natively on Linux. (Yes, some of it could run under Wine)
* Graphics drivers. I installed Fedora about a year ago and installing their graphics drivers felt like I was hacking my own computer. Maybe that's part of the fun of Linux (heck, of course it is!), but for a wide base of consumers it's also part of the fear.
* Installing software. There's so many distro's of linux and seemingly packages built for individual flavors, installing new software "feels" risky, and running into package conflicts is a bit nasty. Do I trust the people who seem to build and redistribute packages on random websites? I don't know. There's a bit of a difference between commercial vendors and some guy with a popular FTP repository. I also downloaded and compiled some apps myself because I couldn't find packages for certain things for the version of Fedora I was using. Are regular consumers expected to do this?
* Accessing my Windows files was a bit of a PITA. I had to install an NTFS driver manually, which meant editing some conf files to auto-mount partitions. Again, that ought to have been automatic to make switching OS's easier. Maybe it's included in more recent distros?
* Back to the nVidia graphics drivers: I quickly discovered that something like gEdit was very simple to use, much like Notepad. Then I tried editing some conf files from the shell. With vi. Enough said.
* I had a nice soundcard (Creative Audigy 2), and when I installed Linux some of it's advanced features were not working (e.g. CMSS), and the mixer application showed dozens of sliders to set the volume, some of which I couldn't even identify. Then there is the whole issue of using two separate sound architectures.
* Which desktop environment do I want to use? I have no clue. Am I supposed to get familiar with one for a while, then try the other, then finally decide?
I think the problem is this: Linux can be made to vastly lessen the learning curve for new users, and at it's heart it's a very powerful and flexible OS. You can tweak it to work any way you want it to work. But that's part of the problem - eventually (and usually for me, not too long after installing it) you run into situations where to make your Linux system do what you want/need it to do you have to delve a little into the "customization" piece. Sometimes that means editing some conf files. Sometimes that means running commands that you found on some website that look like they might do what you want, according to the comments posted by others. It's a different experience to Windows, where most people will never have much cause to turn to the command prompt, for example - or at least it will be to fix a problem after it occurs, not to make something work in the first place. Of course, you get out of the OS what you put in, but there are still far too many people in the world who wouldn't even try editing their registry on Windows with a graphical utility.
Why did I give up on Fedora (for now)? Because I have a full time job and as much as I would love to spend time learning Linux, I just don't have the time to. I have an unreasonable expectation that I should just be able to use a new OS without much effort. But it's the same unreasonable expectation that consumers have in general. It's also one that Linux can fulfill so long as newer distros keep doing more and more out-of-the-box, and at some point having to run a few commands in the shel
How dare you parody this a year earlier than me? I claim fair use of your fair use! Hah! I'll never take it down! (No seriously, this website has no delete button... ;))
Young man, I was once in your shoes,
:)
I said, I was.. downloading torrent files too,
But it's stealing, and there is licensing due,
So you've got.. to.. know.. this.. one thing:
DUN DUN DUN DUNNUN
It's fun to sue with the D.M.C.A.,
It's fun to sue with the D.M.C.A.,
They have everything there for lawyers to enjoy,
Ain't no safe harbor for Pirate Bay, boys!
P.S. Sorry, I had to..
The possibilities for denial of service are endless. Don't like someone on the net? Does his IP address resolve to a UK ISP? Send them an e-mail claiming he's illegally downloading files from your server.
I think the article is about hacking an enterprise authentication/key server, and not local volumes with local key storage, but the same applies: Backup your keys.