The theory of e-ink is that you want something that lasts for endless hours so that you don't have to recharge it. In return, you'll be willing to accept page turning delays, type lagging, strange user interfaces, no backlighting, and a monochrome display.
I think e-ink is a step in the right direction. You list "no backlighting" as a drawback, but honestly I'd prefer no backlighting to required backlighting. It is a lot easier on the eyes to look at an opaque surface than at a light source for 8 hours. The UI is also unrelated to e-ink itself. That said, no it isn't good enough to replace a regular book or overcome the convenience and cost savings of just using an existing PDA.
Here's where our perspective differs. From my POV, Apple deploys OSX as a defensive strategy to lock in a customer base and create a barrier around its market.
Again, you misunderstand what monopoly influence is. Apple's customers, when unhappy, can buy a Dell and it will work for them. Sure there are minor bumps in the transition, but if Apple's hardware or software starts to suck or piss of customers, they can and do buy alternatives. Thus, Apple is competing, and does not have significant monopoly influence.
When Microsoft's customers get pissed off (and their customers are primarily OEMs) what alternative product can Dell buy to install on all their machines? Sure they could choose Linux, but there is no version of MS Office for Linux and it cannot perfectly read the existing files. It cannot properly interact with Exchange and MS's network filesystem. It cannot work with many Web pages designed for IE only. It cannot interact with WMP lock-in media services. It cannot work with many software and hardware solutions. In short, it is not a real alternative for the majority of Dell's users so it is not a real alternative for Dell except as a small, niche market. Further, many of those deficiencies exist because MS intentionally created them for the purpose of stifling competition.
Both Apple and MS apply lock-in strategies to the detriment of the consumer. Only MS, however, has a monopoly which makes those lock-ins both a way to artificially break competitors products and competition; and illegal. [Note: Apple is very close to having monopoly influence in the portable digital music player market, and they do have tying in that market, although it is decreasing as they phase out DRM. When the courts determine Apple's market share has crossed the line, I fully support forcing them to break those ties... well after they act against MS in the same market.]
The advent of things like Boot Camp and Parallels is interesting regarding Apple's long-term approach to the Mac.
The advent of things like Boot Camp and Parallels should be a red flag for anyone looking at a monopoly. When Apple has to have an official way for people to run Windows and provide encouragement for people to buy it, that is proof of how broken the market is. You know, if MS had been stopped from abusing their monopoly in the first place, we'd probably have cross-platform application standards that really worked and were in mainstream use (think Java runtimes with another 6 years of work). In any case, Boot Camp and Parallels are a good compromise for Apple, just as Windows emulators were in the past. Apple does not want developers to ignore native programming. Since very, very few Apple customers are willing to purchase and install Windows and one of these solutions (most users can't even install Windows themselves at all) only the most specifically targeted of developers would consider this opening up the Mac market to their Windows-only product. For the most part, this does nothing to remove incentive for Mac versions of products. Boot Camp is an incentive for people to switch (as they know they can go back easily and inexpensively) but for the most part that is its only real effect outside the tiny, power-user market segment.
I suspect there will be more influence due to WINE based solutions like Cider, which wrap Windows programs with a Windows API re-implementation and allow a way to make quick and dirty ports to the Mac. It should make ports cheaper and faster, but also possibly slower and buggier. The effect of that technology will be interesting.
Apple's monopoly on Mac opeating systems has served it well, but maybe along with its transformation from Apple Computer to simply Apple, new thinking on the long-term development of its monopoly strategy has changed.
If you're thinking Apple will abandon OS X, or move to selling it for commodity machines, don't hold your breath. Abandoning OS X, puts Apple at the mercy of MS. Selling
Children and Adults behavior is influenced the same way. They will do everything they can to prevent their lifestyle from changing for the worse. If the punishments were actually followed through with instead of matrixing out criminals the next day who should be in jail for months I believe the risk/reward will grow to the point where it is not worth it for most criminals.
Okay, there are several problems with this. First, we already imprison more people than almost any other country and keep them there longer. Second, our prison system is overloaded with nonviolent drug offenders. Third, punishment is not an effective means of rehabilitation according to pretty much every study. Prison tends to institutionalize people and turn them into even worse criminals, because of the psychological damage, culture, associations, and because their lives are largely destroyed and they have trouble getting a legal job once out. Fourth, draconian punishments rarely serve as effective deterrents because most criminals don't believe they will be caught; they do however lead to increasingly violent crime as criminals become more desperate to avoid capture and have been shown in past to motivate people to commit multiple murders to cover up fairly minor crimes.
You want my prescription for solving the crime problem in the US and making it manageable? Well here it anyway. First, the number one sociological correlation with violent crime is wealth disparity. The more difference between the ultra rich and very poor, and the smaller the middle class shrinks, the more we can expect crime rates to increase. Fix the tax system so that wealth stops consolidating through inheritances and starts to be redistributed according to an individual's merits. The ratio of money owned by the third or more generation of ultra-rich is insane. Next, decriminalize (not legalize) drug possession and use. Then, provide socialized drug treatment programs to actually help people with addictions, the cost is a pittance compared to the cost of not doing it we are paying now. Once that is done, we just have to hold out about 10 years and watch the crime rates fall away to levels similar to western Europe.
Note: at this point the FBI has reversed its decision, because of pressure caused by the 60 minutes report. Isn't it sad that it takes pressure from mainstream media in order to get the director of the FBI to make such a minor action that has such great potential for reversing injustices? What kind of a scumbag would put such a person in charge of the FBI?
That was the grounds for the retrial, but according to the report, the original prosecutor had been dead several years and the original defender refused interviews.
On a related note, if you ever go to trial and DNA matching is used, question the methodology and get the source to the software used. A friend of mine works at a company that makes DNA comparison devices and says they make some really, really, really questionable choices in their matching algorithms. Like if the DNA strand shows a sequence that is rare in the common populace (rarer than an arbitrarily chosen value) the algorithm assumes it is an error an substitutes the most common sequence for purposes of matching. He says it sometimes keeps him up at night worrying about who is going to jail.
... a troll will tie this issue to the "Bush administration", or even to "BushCo".
If you RTFA you'd know the problem is not that the test is wrong, it is that current FBI and DoJ officials who are the only people in a position to provide a list of all the cases where this evidence may have sent innocent people to jail, have not bothered to do so. They did stop performing the test, but in the letter informing police agencies of this, downplayed the issue and stated that they think the scientific basis is still valid. As a result, there are almost certainly innocent people who will not get an appeal despite all it would take is the FBI admitting the problem and handing over the list. Note the FBI director was one of the first people Bush appointed to office and he also appointed the head of the DoJ, so I think some blame rightly belongs with the Bush administration and their habit of politically expedient coverups, instead of justice.
Your lawyer should never accept anything as fact, and should attempt to prove in court that it is not valid.
A lawyer I know once described public defenders as always falling into one of two categories:
Young, altruistic, energetic, and so inexperienced and incompetent they don't know how to file a motion, let alone properly get evidence examined.
Older guys, there for a paycheck, who do as little as possible, even choosing unnecessary plea bargains just so they have less paperwork to do.
I'd like to think he's being cynical, but I haven't seen much evidence that contradicts his claim. I saw a true crime special the other day about a woman who spent four years in jail after being convicted of murder. The supposed method was LSD poisoning, even though there has never been a human fatality attributed directly to LSD. The test they used to convict her was a preliminary test that was only supposed to show if there was reason to do the more expensive test. The test was run on tissue from a exhumed cadaver, when the test was only useful applied to fresh urine from a living person. The state did perform the follow up test, but it showed up as negative, so they pretended they had not performed it. Somehow, her defendant did not question any of this evidence, at all despite it being scientifically unsound to pretty much any pathologist you could consult. That lawyer is still a practicing public defender.
However, your benefits assume that coporations haven't solved these issues...
Almost any problem can be solved using thrid party tools, if the problem is recognized and considered important, but usually they are not, and often such solutions cannot work as well as one integrated into the OS.
Indexed Searching: Free on XP, you've got Copernic desktop search, Windows desktop search, Google Desktop whatever, or do what I do and use Locate32...
I don't know a lot of corporations that use any of those solutions, because the value is not always obvious to those making the decisions. Also, they only partially solve the problem, allowing global searching from within that app, but not providing the same searching on behalf of individual apps and within that app's UI. On the other hand, some of those solutions offer wider indexing support by file type.
Improved Handling of Wireless networks: Hard for me to speak to this, but most laptops come with thier own wireless management, though the built in XPSP2 version worked better most of the time. I just don't see a failure in the XP version.
Vista fixes a lot of issues with wireless, providing better options for which networks to join and assigning other OS settings, by location. This has been a continuing headache for at least one company I've done business with.
Improved backup? I don't know of any coporation that uses NTBackup. As I understand it the replacement is actually more gimped, not less. Doesn't everyone use dedicated backup software to their SAN or tape drives?
As I specified, this is for backup while mobiles are on the road or at the user's home and SAN is not available. This is for backup of specific, important files, not the entire machine. To clarify, backup is improved for the corporate versions of Vista, it is worse in the home editions.
...we don't have a problem currently.
Obviously the above won't all be an issue for every company, and maybe none of them are important to most companies. I'm just saying, security improvements are not the only benefit, even if they may be the only one you care about.
I think I'm starting to see where you are coming from. You have a huge axe to grind with Microsoft because of their monopoly.
No! No! No! I pointed out real ways in which MS's monopoly leads to them producing software that is worse for users and which intentionally breaks other software. The point is, MS is likely to be behind in security so long as they have a monopoly. I'm not saying MS is bad, I'm saying their monopoly is detrimental and showing why. It is not in any way personal, I am a Windows user by choice (among other OS's).
No matter what OS you work with, you are going to have to code around problems and implement fixes to make things work.
Yes, but with any OS made by MS while they monopolize the market, there will be more of them because it makes MS money. Worse yet, while MS monopolizes the market, there will be more of them in other products in the market, because MS intentionally creates those problems, again to make money.
Just so, but that does not mean anything to the previous poster's point. Dell has a "monopoly" on all Inspiron computers. Lenovo has a "monopoly" on all Thinkpad computers... or they would by your twisted definition of "monopoly." Monopolies are defined by markets. Apple competes in the personal computer system market, the mainstream version of which includes a bundle of hardware, OS, and some packaged software. Apple competes against Dell and HP and Lenovo and the competition is relatively healthy. A purchaser can choose to buy a computer from any of these manufacturers based upon price and quality and anything else they value.
Microsoft competes in the desktop OS market. For the most part, OS's are purchased by the sellers in the above market. Dell and HP and Lenovo are the buyers. Realistically, how many choices does Dell have to buy and pre-install on their Inspirons? If they want to reach the mainstream market, they have no choice and must buy Windows from MS. There are too many lock-ins to Windows (IE and IE only Web sites, software availability, proprietary protocols that only work with Windows, hardware that only has drivers for Windows, etc. That is a monopoly, when the buyer has only one real option and it gives MS a lot of power over those customers. (Note, OS X is not a competitor in this market because Apple does not sell it to OEMs to install on other systems. Apple just uses it to bypass MS's monopoly so they don't have to pay, but do have to overcome all the lock-ins).
I am constantly amazed with the people who flock to Apple when they do the same thing at the hardware level that Microsoft does at the software level and that is product line lock in.
Apple does tie their hardware and OS and it is a huge drawback to using their products. Of course if they didn't do it, they'd go out of business because they'd be directly competing with MS in the OS space, which given MS's ability to illegally leverage their monopoly is a losing proposition, regardless of the relative quality of the products. That said, aside from that one tie in, Apple doesn't do a lot to tie other products to their OS or computers. They work with standard compliant devices, connectors, APIs, protocols, etc. A lot of what they use is not the most popular, but for the most part it is open and can be implemented freely by others.
The only free choice comes when you use commodity hardware with a Linux or Free/Open/Net BSD OS.
For some people, freedom is not the only aspect they care about, nor even the most important. If I was building a corporate infrastructure today, from the ground up, I'd probably build it on Linux on the server and for most of the desktops, with Windows and OS X, where it made sense. When given a choice of which desktop to use personally, however, OS X is my first pick for the majority of tasks and if that means Apple hardware, so be it. Their hardware is top shelf and independently evaluated as among the most reliable and well made in the industry. I use Windows, Kubuntu, and OS X daily, and I can tell you, all the Linux distros I've used have significant work to do before they catch up to OS X, not just in overall functionality, but also in some important back end technologies (like openstep and system services). I'm not the only one who thinks so either. I know nearly 100 professional Linux an BSD developers who have switched to OS X on the desktop in the last few years and of all of them only one switched back. He did so not because he disliked using OS X, but because his hobby was a Linux desktop distro and he did not like dual booting all the time.
Maybe another thing to think about is not everyone objects to non-free software. I, personally have no problem with closed source software made for pay. It is the business model with the best results in some software markets. I don't object to MS because they use tying and bundling and closed source. I object to them because they use tying and bundling with a product they have monopolized, and thus undercut free market forces and hinder innovation. If MS was split in two and both companies had all the rights to Windows, I'd have no objection to them continuing to bundle and use nonstandard protocols and tie products because the market would sort it out and the best product would win. I object to it now because they artificially force a lot of us to use the worse product in order to interoperate with everyone else.
I don't see a reason for businesses to switch to Vista, unless you play games at work. Does anyone see any real benefit for a business user to switch to Vista?
I do see more reasons than you list. While I don't recommend businesses to upgrade until the driver and software compatibility issues are hashed out (and probably then only if there is a hardware upgrade cycle) I think you are under representing some of the benefits of Vista. In addition to security improvements, I'd include:
Indexed searching - I never thought I'd use this when Apple introduced it in 10.4, but it now is vital to my workflows
Improved included applications - gee you can finally burn a presentation to DVD without third party software
Improved handling of wireless networks and mobile locations
Improved backup of selected files - for when users are on the road or cannot access the corporate backup servers
It isn't enough, but there are real benefits to them.
I'd contend that they do have to keep users happy in the face of increasing competition and alternatives that are springing up.
What alternatives? Linux has been at 1-2% for years and years. OS X does not even compete directly, having bypassed the OS market by bundling into the retail system market. Sorry, but MS has little or no credible competition in the desktop OS space.
If you don't think that Microsoft perceives that as financial incentive to get their house in order then you're a bit out of touch with the dynamics you profess to understand. But maybe you aren't. Maybe you can further explain your statement that "...they have significant financial motiviation NOT to fix it." ??
Engineering good security costs time and money. MS can devote time to working on security, but they've had lousy security for years and it has had very little impact on their market share or bottom line. If they devote that same time and money to expanding their monopoly into a new market, they payoff is much, much greater. Given that MS is a for-profit corporation, I don't think it is unreasonable to assume they will continue to focus on more profitable ventures.
You seem to be working with the logical fallacy that security isn't possible in a Microsoft environment.
Not at all, it is simply unlikely. Monopolies retard innovation and lead to changes that do not benefit customers. MS has shown itself to be no exception. MS will almost certainly do what is most profitable for them. I think it unlikely security will be effectively addressed at MS, until it is profitable for MS, which will happen when they no loner have significant monopoly influence.
You might notice the trend that Microsoft has created a huge swath of third party vendors who do "Microsoft" better than Microsoft does.
The problem is, most of those functions work better if they're properly built into the system, so the end result is a bunch of band-aids that work okay, but not as well as they could.
Microsoft networks can be secured. I do it all the time. I'm talking about enterprise level networks.
My last employer created and sold devices to secure enterprise level networks. None of them are ever completely secure, but most enterprises use damage control methods to make it workable. Heck the Pentagon uses our devices, but it doesn't stop them from having breaches that require them to isolate chunks of the network upon occasion. The wrost part is, the majority of what our products do would not even be needed if MS had done a good job with security in the first place.
When I read your statement about Apple and Linux and their security, and then I take that to a logical conclusion, it almost seems like you'd advocate vendor specific lockin to Apple or Linux (as much as vendor/platform specific lockin is possible on Linux). Am I wrong there?
You're wrong. I don't advocate any vendor. I assert, however, that any vendor that makes money from making sure their users are happy and secure will do a better job than MS, simply because they are all looking out for their own best interests. If Apple ignores security and users are compromised, Apple loses money. When the same thing happens to a person who bought a Dell with Windows pre-installed, it almost never results in MS losing money and sometimes makes them money. I've seen more than one person throw away a compromised machine and buy a new one, from a different vendor who also pre-installs Windows. Until MS starts losing money when users are compromised, I don't see them devoting the time and money to fixing it.
Do you think that Apple should do everything from soup to nuts and they would if it wasn't for that evil Microsoft getting in the way and brain washing people against Apple?
Nope, I think the market should be restored to a competitive one, so users can choose to buy an OS from
Uhhh, Bullshit. Apple does not listen to their users.
Do you even know what article you're posting about? It is the one where Apple's users complained, and a week later Apple fixed the problem the way users were asking them to. Your assertion is nonsensical in this context.
Can the "Microsoft Big Evil", "Apple Little Good" crap.
This is called a strawman argument and it is a logical fallacy. Nowhere in my post did I claim either MS or Apple was either good or evil. What I said was, both act out of greed and try to make a profit, but because of Apple's market position, their greed works in favor of promoting innovation and quality, while because of mS's monopoly position their greed promotes the opposite.
Really? Care to share any public documents on that?
No, I value my anonymity here, but I'm sure other users can vouch for some of the original data I posted.
That might well be true as a practical statement, but in theory since everything has vulnerabilities, they aren't really reducing anything.
Not all vulnerabilities are exploitable, and certainly not by a particular attacker. Reducing the number of them, decreases the chances your machine will be compromised.
A few laptops at security conferences != place in corporate world.
A few? 50%+ is not a few and most security experts work for corporations. The Mac has taken the security space by storm, going from being a rarity to dominating the scene in a few years. That is indeed a place in the corporate world (among other corporate niches it is popular in like advertising, graphic design, video production, etc.
Besides just because you say it doesn't mean its true.
Ask anyone who has been going, or better yet, go to a conference yourself. If you're going to be making assertions here that are contrary to the majority opinion in the field, the least you can do is educate yourself.
If they cant ( You didnt said that, just making a point) secure a Linux or windows box, I'd think twice before calling them experts.
Yeah, and a trained killer can probably kill you with a nail file, nonetheless for some reason the special forces carry guns. It doesn't make someone less of an expert when they choose the best tool for the job. For a lot of security experts that is OS X, for others it is OpenBSD, Linux, or Solaris. Heck for a few it is a version of Windows. The point is, OS X works for security and it does it well and people interested in having a secure machine and who are not experts, are almost always better of from a security standpoint if they choose OS X.
The people who think that Microsoft is less secure than Apple or Linux don't really know security or the security market well at all. They simply have formed an opinion by listening to fanboys, advertisements and the uninformed.
Well, I've been working at a network security company for the last four years and have been reading detailed weekly reports for internal consumption, written by well regarded professionals. What, exactly is your expertise?
The average linux / apple system in production is no more secure than the average microsoft system ---- in reality they BOTH have tons of vulnerabilities.
Everything has vulnerabilities. Linux and OS X boxes, have fewer, exposed for shorter periods of time, and less regularly exploited, especially in an automated fashion.
IF (and thats a BIG if) a linux system is configured properly, including SE Linux...
You did note that the new version of OS X ships with a MAC ported from SELinux and comes with all the services exposed by default preconfigured to run in sandboxes. And because it is included by default, unlike Linux distros, applications developed from now on can count on it and come preconfigured as well.
...they are ALL just as vulnerable to directed attacks.
No, they're not because default Linux and OS X install have fewer exposed services and fewer known, unfixed vulnerabilities at any given point. Aside from that, most exploits are not directed, but automated and Windows is vastly more exposed to those attacks.
People who buy MAC / Linux for the 'security benefits' are simply deluding themselves into thinking they've improved anything.
Please. The numbers belie your assertion. The average user, simply buying a Mac significantly reduces their risk of having their machine compromised.
There IS a place for Linux in the corporate world. There is also a place for Microsoft. I'm not so sure about Apple ---
Interested in finding Apple's place? Go to BlackHat, or DefCon, or one of the other big security conferences in the next year. When there, take a quick count of how many Mac laptops you see in use among security experts. It was upwards of 50% at the last one I went to, and it was a private conference for security experts at tier 1 network operators. Why do you suppose that is, because all those security experts are idiots and just not as brilliant as you are?
ISPs are not, and never have been, common carriers.
Legally, ones that are also regular voice carriers are. Those that aren't are still granted most of the privileges under the law, but not the same legal restrictions. This is because they paid a lot of money to various political campaigns and it paid off.
Were you actively using computers when ActiveX was introduced?... Perhaps you can realize that at the time that Microsoft introduced ActiveX, there weren't any other technologies out there that allowed the content delivery and functionality with the ease that ActiveX and IE did.
Yup, one year after Sun introduced a Java runtime for Windows and MS started bundling a broken version to undermine the platform (perhaps you recall the antitrust conviction).
However the reason that they rolled it out was to enable developers to target web users with applications.
... and to make sure those applications were tied to Windows so that people could to easily target multiple platforms using the Web, a strategy they still pursue with their refusal to support newer Web technologies, or even older and capable Web technologies fully and in accordance with the specs.
You can't argue that it didn't allow content developers to get their content out there... even if 85% of it was unwanted.;)
I can and do, however, argue that it only allowed developers to get their content to Windows users, not to all Web users and I can further argue, that was very intentional.
I disagree that Microsoft doesn't have any financial motivation to fix the problems in ActiveX and their various technologies. Take a look at IE7. Where are all the ActiveX exploits that target IE7?
MS has incentive to appear to be making security improvements and actually are making a few in response to competition from Linux on the desktop in corporate environments. Some of their general security work is helping, but in truth since most users have no other option, they just don't care to devote the resources, especially when they can use them to expand into console gaming, or online media delivery, or publishing tools, or one of the many markets they don't already have locked-in.
Microsoft has a HUGE installed userbase that depends on IE/IIS and Visual Studio for development. They have a huge incentive to keep that cash cow secure.
They have incentive to keep IIS secure because they have to compete with Apache in the server space, but not really end users of Windows on the desktop.
As Apple moves forward, they are going to have to face the same challenges that Microsoft faced... balancing the user expectation of an easy to use interface and "it just works" mentality with security needs.
Oh, I think they already are facing that same problem. They're a smaller target, but they also have a better track record so far. My point, however, is that Apple and Linux will both do a better job of it than MS, simply because they have more significant financial motivations. The best way to fix MS's security problems is to provide them with similar motivation.
What ??? Do you even read what you type? Since when is making money bad and trying to get maximum market share for your platform/service bad?
Making money and maximizing market share is fine, when they lead to increased efficiency and innovation in the market. That is why capitalism is so successful, because in a capitalist system competition for custom leads to innovation and efficiency. The problem is monopolies break capitalism and lead to reduced innovation and inefficiency. It is sort of like combining the worst aspects of socialism and the worst aspects of capitalism. That is why abusing monopolies is illegal, pretty much everywhere. They were made illegal when giant companies lowered the quality of life significantly for the average person.
People weren't forced to **DEVELOP** applications for activeX even if it came installed with the OS.
No it was just made artificially profitable, breaking the normal way innovation works in capitalism. Monopolies don't have to force anyone, all they have to do is undermine the normal functioning of the market.
They were certainly not tied in or locked in any way shape or form.
Bundling is a classic form of tying, as called out in US antitrust law.
Technically competent people were capable of easily disabling it...
Sigh, way to completely miss the point.
Other software firms still had the option of creating their own standard. Hello... Java??
And did Sun have the option of simultaneously bundling Java with every desktop OS, while at the same time bundling a broken version of ActiveX? No, they didn't because MS had a desktop OS monopoly to leverage while Sun did not. Thus there was no fair competition between the two for many years. You'll recall MS lost in court eventually on that count? I take it you did not understand why?
So the thousands of Windows Server installations are being hacked 24/7?
Great way to illustrate my point. MS does not have a monopoly on server OS's, they have to compete with Linux. They do have a monopoly on desktop OS's and they are hacked en masse every day.
Get real... Linux or OS X is in *NO* way more secure than windows given a competent sys-admin.
Windows is less secure, demonstrable simply by the numbers hacked. For real users, Windows is insecure by comparison as any competent and objective securty expert will tell you.
Get real... Linux or OS X is in *NO* way more secure than windows given a competent sys-admin.
Good for you, too bad that is not the general case. Most people are not so lucky or careful.
If you aren't competent enough to secure your installation, get someone else to do it, stop blaming the OS. No *OS* can ever be 100% secure.
No, but it could be a lot better and the average person could have a choice of which OS comes with the computer they buy so they can make purchasing decisions based upon which is more secure. Are you telling me you honestly don't think security would be better if you had a choice between Windows A or Windows B and could vote with your wallet as to which is more secure? It is a rare user (like you) who argues against choice. Someone drank the kool-aid.
Really? How many people sell kit for Apple hardware?
Kit? Lots of people sell hardware and software for Apple systems.
How many can people sell FairPlay tracks for ipods?
Umm, since FairPlay is an Apple brand, none. Lots of people sell music that plays on iPods now, and Apple is phasing out Fairplay anyway and moving to non-DRMed music.
Apple's as much of a monopolist as MS, it's just not as successful (yet).
It is quite obvious you have no idea what a monopolist is.
The only market Apple is close to being a monopoly in is portable digital music players, and as they gain in market share (they are near the 70% level where some jurisdictions begin investigating). As that shore increases, they've been decreasing their behaviors that could potentially qualify as an abuse of monopoly power.
The scenario has you in a hostile environment. It is untrusted. You shouldn't want to expose anything except the bare minimum.
Funny. Technically, I don't need to use the Web at all in coffee shops, so by your argument I should block all traffic. On the other hand, I prefer my computer to be functional, when that functionality does not pose a significant security risk. Guess what, I also have SSH enabled for access, even though I only need to access it occasionally. The service I originally referred to (Bonjour) is unlikely to pose a security risk, especially since in addition to finding an exploit in it, an attacker would have to find an exploit in the Mandatory Access Control sandbox OS X runs it in by default. I'm a lot more likely to be exploited by an attack on my Mail.app than by an attack on Bonjour. Do you also advocate that I do not check my e-mail while at the coffee shop?
Save the "nice" services for when you are on a trusted network.
Screw that. Half the benefit of Bonjour enabled chatting is that I can easily talk to people I don't have in my "buddy" list while at conferences and coffee shops. Sacrificing function out of unjustified fear is not my cup of tea.
I don't want 3rd party.
Umm, okay, then don't use it. Good luck finding a capable first party GUI firewall configuration tool on a platform that is not riddled with security holes.
Honestly, it sounds to me like you're looking for something to complain about. I really wish people with your sort of an attitude on security would revisit your basic assumptions. Security is about allowing users to do what they want with a system, and prevent things they don't want from happening, especially without their permission. Reducing functionality just means users turn off security features or move to a system where they have more functionality. If I had a dollar for every time I've seen someone at a LAN party shut off their firewall completely because it was restricting something they wanted to do and was too hard to enable just that application/behavior... well, I'd have enough cash to buy a good steak and some scotch anyway.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with common carrier. It is called DMCA Safe Harbor provisions.
The DMCA regards the distribution of tools that can be used to bypass encryption based DRM on copyrighted materials. The safe harbor provision mostly apply to online publishers hosting content, not ISPs. The DMCA does not grant ISPs the right to make and distribute copies of copyrighted works, like every time they transmit a copy of a Web page from router to router to an eventual client.
the flawed firewall application is just a GUI app for a standard UN*X firewall, so the firewall wasn't flawed, just the settings and GUI for the settings.
I'd argue that the GUI an CLI are both standard interfaces to the firewall. A flaw where either of them incorrectly informs the user about the settings is a flaw in the firewall. I'd further argue that since the GUI is the more used interface, the flaw reflected there is more serious than a flaw in the CLI.
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I think e-ink is a step in the right direction. You list "no backlighting" as a drawback, but honestly I'd prefer no backlighting to required backlighting. It is a lot easier on the eyes to look at an opaque surface than at a light source for 8 hours. The UI is also unrelated to e-ink itself. That said, no it isn't good enough to replace a regular book or overcome the convenience and cost savings of just using an existing PDA.
Here's where our perspective differs. From my POV, Apple deploys OSX as a defensive strategy to lock in a customer base and create a barrier around its market.
Again, you misunderstand what monopoly influence is. Apple's customers, when unhappy, can buy a Dell and it will work for them. Sure there are minor bumps in the transition, but if Apple's hardware or software starts to suck or piss of customers, they can and do buy alternatives. Thus, Apple is competing, and does not have significant monopoly influence.
When Microsoft's customers get pissed off (and their customers are primarily OEMs) what alternative product can Dell buy to install on all their machines? Sure they could choose Linux, but there is no version of MS Office for Linux and it cannot perfectly read the existing files. It cannot properly interact with Exchange and MS's network filesystem. It cannot work with many Web pages designed for IE only. It cannot interact with WMP lock-in media services. It cannot work with many software and hardware solutions. In short, it is not a real alternative for the majority of Dell's users so it is not a real alternative for Dell except as a small, niche market. Further, many of those deficiencies exist because MS intentionally created them for the purpose of stifling competition.
Both Apple and MS apply lock-in strategies to the detriment of the consumer. Only MS, however, has a monopoly which makes those lock-ins both a way to artificially break competitors products and competition; and illegal. [Note: Apple is very close to having monopoly influence in the portable digital music player market, and they do have tying in that market, although it is decreasing as they phase out DRM. When the courts determine Apple's market share has crossed the line, I fully support forcing them to break those ties... well after they act against MS in the same market.]
The advent of things like Boot Camp and Parallels is interesting regarding Apple's long-term approach to the Mac.
The advent of things like Boot Camp and Parallels should be a red flag for anyone looking at a monopoly. When Apple has to have an official way for people to run Windows and provide encouragement for people to buy it, that is proof of how broken the market is. You know, if MS had been stopped from abusing their monopoly in the first place, we'd probably have cross-platform application standards that really worked and were in mainstream use (think Java runtimes with another 6 years of work). In any case, Boot Camp and Parallels are a good compromise for Apple, just as Windows emulators were in the past. Apple does not want developers to ignore native programming. Since very, very few Apple customers are willing to purchase and install Windows and one of these solutions (most users can't even install Windows themselves at all) only the most specifically targeted of developers would consider this opening up the Mac market to their Windows-only product. For the most part, this does nothing to remove incentive for Mac versions of products. Boot Camp is an incentive for people to switch (as they know they can go back easily and inexpensively) but for the most part that is its only real effect outside the tiny, power-user market segment.
I suspect there will be more influence due to WINE based solutions like Cider, which wrap Windows programs with a Windows API re-implementation and allow a way to make quick and dirty ports to the Mac. It should make ports cheaper and faster, but also possibly slower and buggier. The effect of that technology will be interesting.
Apple's monopoly on Mac opeating systems has served it well, but maybe along with its transformation from Apple Computer to simply Apple, new thinking on the long-term development of its monopoly strategy has changed.
If you're thinking Apple will abandon OS X, or move to selling it for commodity machines, don't hold your breath. Abandoning OS X, puts Apple at the mercy of MS. Selling
Okay, there are several problems with this. First, we already imprison more people than almost any other country and keep them there longer. Second, our prison system is overloaded with nonviolent drug offenders. Third, punishment is not an effective means of rehabilitation according to pretty much every study. Prison tends to institutionalize people and turn them into even worse criminals, because of the psychological damage, culture, associations, and because their lives are largely destroyed and they have trouble getting a legal job once out. Fourth, draconian punishments rarely serve as effective deterrents because most criminals don't believe they will be caught; they do however lead to increasingly violent crime as criminals become more desperate to avoid capture and have been shown in past to motivate people to commit multiple murders to cover up fairly minor crimes.
You want my prescription for solving the crime problem in the US and making it manageable? Well here it anyway. First, the number one sociological correlation with violent crime is wealth disparity. The more difference between the ultra rich and very poor, and the smaller the middle class shrinks, the more we can expect crime rates to increase. Fix the tax system so that wealth stops consolidating through inheritances and starts to be redistributed according to an individual's merits. The ratio of money owned by the third or more generation of ultra-rich is insane. Next, decriminalize (not legalize) drug possession and use. Then, provide socialized drug treatment programs to actually help people with addictions, the cost is a pittance compared to the cost of not doing it we are paying now. Once that is done, we just have to hold out about 10 years and watch the crime rates fall away to levels similar to western Europe.
Umm, isn't that the format used in the most popular voting machines to store all our votes?
Note: at this point the FBI has reversed its decision, because of pressure caused by the 60 minutes report. Isn't it sad that it takes pressure from mainstream media in order to get the director of the FBI to make such a minor action that has such great potential for reversing injustices? What kind of a scumbag would put such a person in charge of the FBI?
That was the grounds for the retrial, but according to the report, the original prosecutor had been dead several years and the original defender refused interviews.
On a related note, if you ever go to trial and DNA matching is used, question the methodology and get the source to the software used. A friend of mine works at a company that makes DNA comparison devices and says they make some really, really, really questionable choices in their matching algorithms. Like if the DNA strand shows a sequence that is rare in the common populace (rarer than an arbitrarily chosen value) the algorithm assumes it is an error an substitutes the most common sequence for purposes of matching. He says it sometimes keeps him up at night worrying about who is going to jail.
... a troll will tie this issue to the "Bush administration", or even to "BushCo".If you RTFA you'd know the problem is not that the test is wrong, it is that current FBI and DoJ officials who are the only people in a position to provide a list of all the cases where this evidence may have sent innocent people to jail, have not bothered to do so. They did stop performing the test, but in the letter informing police agencies of this, downplayed the issue and stated that they think the scientific basis is still valid. As a result, there are almost certainly innocent people who will not get an appeal despite all it would take is the FBI admitting the problem and handing over the list. Note the FBI director was one of the first people Bush appointed to office and he also appointed the head of the DoJ, so I think some blame rightly belongs with the Bush administration and their habit of politically expedient coverups, instead of justice.
A lawyer I know once described public defenders as always falling into one of two categories:
I'd like to think he's being cynical, but I haven't seen much evidence that contradicts his claim. I saw a true crime special the other day about a woman who spent four years in jail after being convicted of murder. The supposed method was LSD poisoning, even though there has never been a human fatality attributed directly to LSD. The test they used to convict her was a preliminary test that was only supposed to show if there was reason to do the more expensive test. The test was run on tissue from a exhumed cadaver, when the test was only useful applied to fresh urine from a living person. The state did perform the follow up test, but it showed up as negative, so they pretended they had not performed it. Somehow, her defendant did not question any of this evidence, at all despite it being scientifically unsound to pretty much any pathologist you could consult. That lawyer is still a practicing public defender.
Almost any problem can be solved using thrid party tools, if the problem is recognized and considered important, but usually they are not, and often such solutions cannot work as well as one integrated into the OS.
Indexed Searching: Free on XP, you've got Copernic desktop search, Windows desktop search, Google Desktop whatever, or do what I do and use Locate32...I don't know a lot of corporations that use any of those solutions, because the value is not always obvious to those making the decisions. Also, they only partially solve the problem, allowing global searching from within that app, but not providing the same searching on behalf of individual apps and within that app's UI. On the other hand, some of those solutions offer wider indexing support by file type.
Improved Handling of Wireless networks: Hard for me to speak to this, but most laptops come with thier own wireless management, though the built in XPSP2 version worked better most of the time. I just don't see a failure in the XP version.Vista fixes a lot of issues with wireless, providing better options for which networks to join and assigning other OS settings, by location. This has been a continuing headache for at least one company I've done business with.
Improved backup? I don't know of any coporation that uses NTBackup. As I understand it the replacement is actually more gimped, not less. Doesn't everyone use dedicated backup software to their SAN or tape drives?As I specified, this is for backup while mobiles are on the road or at the user's home and SAN is not available. This is for backup of specific, important files, not the entire machine. To clarify, backup is improved for the corporate versions of Vista, it is worse in the home editions.
...we don't have a problem currently.Obviously the above won't all be an issue for every company, and maybe none of them are important to most companies. I'm just saying, security improvements are not the only benefit, even if they may be the only one you care about.
No! No! No! I pointed out real ways in which MS's monopoly leads to them producing software that is worse for users and which intentionally breaks other software. The point is, MS is likely to be behind in security so long as they have a monopoly. I'm not saying MS is bad, I'm saying their monopoly is detrimental and showing why. It is not in any way personal, I am a Windows user by choice (among other OS's).
No matter what OS you work with, you are going to have to code around problems and implement fixes to make things work.Yes, but with any OS made by MS while they monopolize the market, there will be more of them because it makes MS money. Worse yet, while MS monopolizes the market, there will be more of them in other products in the market, because MS intentionally creates those problems, again to make money.
Just so, but that does not mean anything to the previous poster's point. Dell has a "monopoly" on all Inspiron computers. Lenovo has a "monopoly" on all Thinkpad computers... or they would by your twisted definition of "monopoly." Monopolies are defined by markets. Apple competes in the personal computer system market, the mainstream version of which includes a bundle of hardware, OS, and some packaged software. Apple competes against Dell and HP and Lenovo and the competition is relatively healthy. A purchaser can choose to buy a computer from any of these manufacturers based upon price and quality and anything else they value.
Microsoft competes in the desktop OS market. For the most part, OS's are purchased by the sellers in the above market. Dell and HP and Lenovo are the buyers. Realistically, how many choices does Dell have to buy and pre-install on their Inspirons? If they want to reach the mainstream market, they have no choice and must buy Windows from MS. There are too many lock-ins to Windows (IE and IE only Web sites, software availability, proprietary protocols that only work with Windows, hardware that only has drivers for Windows, etc. That is a monopoly, when the buyer has only one real option and it gives MS a lot of power over those customers. (Note, OS X is not a competitor in this market because Apple does not sell it to OEMs to install on other systems. Apple just uses it to bypass MS's monopoly so they don't have to pay, but do have to overcome all the lock-ins).
Apple does tie their hardware and OS and it is a huge drawback to using their products. Of course if they didn't do it, they'd go out of business because they'd be directly competing with MS in the OS space, which given MS's ability to illegally leverage their monopoly is a losing proposition, regardless of the relative quality of the products. That said, aside from that one tie in, Apple doesn't do a lot to tie other products to their OS or computers. They work with standard compliant devices, connectors, APIs, protocols, etc. A lot of what they use is not the most popular, but for the most part it is open and can be implemented freely by others.
The only free choice comes when you use commodity hardware with a Linux or Free/Open/Net BSD OS.For some people, freedom is not the only aspect they care about, nor even the most important. If I was building a corporate infrastructure today, from the ground up, I'd probably build it on Linux on the server and for most of the desktops, with Windows and OS X, where it made sense. When given a choice of which desktop to use personally, however, OS X is my first pick for the majority of tasks and if that means Apple hardware, so be it. Their hardware is top shelf and independently evaluated as among the most reliable and well made in the industry. I use Windows, Kubuntu, and OS X daily, and I can tell you, all the Linux distros I've used have significant work to do before they catch up to OS X, not just in overall functionality, but also in some important back end technologies (like openstep and system services). I'm not the only one who thinks so either. I know nearly 100 professional Linux an BSD developers who have switched to OS X on the desktop in the last few years and of all of them only one switched back. He did so not because he disliked using OS X, but because his hobby was a Linux desktop distro and he did not like dual booting all the time.
Maybe another thing to think about is not everyone objects to non-free software. I, personally have no problem with closed source software made for pay. It is the business model with the best results in some software markets. I don't object to MS because they use tying and bundling and closed source. I object to them because they use tying and bundling with a product they have monopolized, and thus undercut free market forces and hinder innovation. If MS was split in two and both companies had all the rights to Windows, I'd have no objection to them continuing to bundle and use nonstandard protocols and tie products because the market would sort it out and the best product would win. I object to it now because they artificially force a lot of us to use the worse product in order to interoperate with everyone else.
I do see more reasons than you list. While I don't recommend businesses to upgrade until the driver and software compatibility issues are hashed out (and probably then only if there is a hardware upgrade cycle) I think you are under representing some of the benefits of Vista. In addition to security improvements, I'd include:
It isn't enough, but there are real benefits to them.
I'd contend that they do have to keep users happy in the face of increasing competition and alternatives that are springing up.
What alternatives? Linux has been at 1-2% for years and years. OS X does not even compete directly, having bypassed the OS market by bundling into the retail system market. Sorry, but MS has little or no credible competition in the desktop OS space.
If you don't think that Microsoft perceives that as financial incentive to get their house in order then you're a bit out of touch with the dynamics you profess to understand. But maybe you aren't. Maybe you can further explain your statement that "...they have significant financial motiviation NOT to fix it." ??
Engineering good security costs time and money. MS can devote time to working on security, but they've had lousy security for years and it has had very little impact on their market share or bottom line. If they devote that same time and money to expanding their monopoly into a new market, they payoff is much, much greater. Given that MS is a for-profit corporation, I don't think it is unreasonable to assume they will continue to focus on more profitable ventures.
You seem to be working with the logical fallacy that security isn't possible in a Microsoft environment.
Not at all, it is simply unlikely. Monopolies retard innovation and lead to changes that do not benefit customers. MS has shown itself to be no exception. MS will almost certainly do what is most profitable for them. I think it unlikely security will be effectively addressed at MS, until it is profitable for MS, which will happen when they no loner have significant monopoly influence.
You might notice the trend that Microsoft has created a huge swath of third party vendors who do "Microsoft" better than Microsoft does.
The problem is, most of those functions work better if they're properly built into the system, so the end result is a bunch of band-aids that work okay, but not as well as they could.
Microsoft networks can be secured. I do it all the time. I'm talking about enterprise level networks.
My last employer created and sold devices to secure enterprise level networks. None of them are ever completely secure, but most enterprises use damage control methods to make it workable. Heck the Pentagon uses our devices, but it doesn't stop them from having breaches that require them to isolate chunks of the network upon occasion. The wrost part is, the majority of what our products do would not even be needed if MS had done a good job with security in the first place.
When I read your statement about Apple and Linux and their security, and then I take that to a logical conclusion, it almost seems like you'd advocate vendor specific lockin to Apple or Linux (as much as vendor/platform specific lockin is possible on Linux). Am I wrong there?
You're wrong. I don't advocate any vendor. I assert, however, that any vendor that makes money from making sure their users are happy and secure will do a better job than MS, simply because they are all looking out for their own best interests. If Apple ignores security and users are compromised, Apple loses money. When the same thing happens to a person who bought a Dell with Windows pre-installed, it almost never results in MS losing money and sometimes makes them money. I've seen more than one person throw away a compromised machine and buy a new one, from a different vendor who also pre-installs Windows. Until MS starts losing money when users are compromised, I don't see them devoting the time and money to fixing it.
Do you think that Apple should do everything from soup to nuts and they would if it wasn't for that evil Microsoft getting in the way and brain washing people against Apple?
Nope, I think the market should be restored to a competitive one, so users can choose to buy an OS from
Do you even know what article you're posting about? It is the one where Apple's users complained, and a week later Apple fixed the problem the way users were asking them to. Your assertion is nonsensical in this context.
Can the "Microsoft Big Evil", "Apple Little Good" crap.This is called a strawman argument and it is a logical fallacy. Nowhere in my post did I claim either MS or Apple was either good or evil. What I said was, both act out of greed and try to make a profit, but because of Apple's market position, their greed works in favor of promoting innovation and quality, while because of mS's monopoly position their greed promotes the opposite.
No, I value my anonymity here, but I'm sure other users can vouch for some of the original data I posted.
That might well be true as a practical statement, but in theory since everything has vulnerabilities, they aren't really reducing anything.Not all vulnerabilities are exploitable, and certainly not by a particular attacker. Reducing the number of them, decreases the chances your machine will be compromised.
A few laptops at security conferences != place in corporate world.A few? 50%+ is not a few and most security experts work for corporations. The Mac has taken the security space by storm, going from being a rarity to dominating the scene in a few years. That is indeed a place in the corporate world (among other corporate niches it is popular in like advertising, graphic design, video production, etc.
Besides just because you say it doesn't mean its true.Ask anyone who has been going, or better yet, go to a conference yourself. If you're going to be making assertions here that are contrary to the majority opinion in the field, the least you can do is educate yourself.
If they cant ( You didnt said that, just making a point) secure a Linux or windows box, I'd think twice before calling them experts.Yeah, and a trained killer can probably kill you with a nail file, nonetheless for some reason the special forces carry guns. It doesn't make someone less of an expert when they choose the best tool for the job. For a lot of security experts that is OS X, for others it is OpenBSD, Linux, or Solaris. Heck for a few it is a version of Windows. The point is, OS X works for security and it does it well and people interested in having a secure machine and who are not experts, are almost always better of from a security standpoint if they choose OS X.
Well, I've been working at a network security company for the last four years and have been reading detailed weekly reports for internal consumption, written by well regarded professionals. What, exactly is your expertise?
The average linux / apple system in production is no more secure than the average microsoft system ---- in reality they BOTH have tons of vulnerabilities.Everything has vulnerabilities. Linux and OS X boxes, have fewer, exposed for shorter periods of time, and less regularly exploited, especially in an automated fashion.
IF (and thats a BIG if) a linux system is configured properly, including SE Linux...You did note that the new version of OS X ships with a MAC ported from SELinux and comes with all the services exposed by default preconfigured to run in sandboxes. And because it is included by default, unlike Linux distros, applications developed from now on can count on it and come preconfigured as well.
No, they're not because default Linux and OS X install have fewer exposed services and fewer known, unfixed vulnerabilities at any given point. Aside from that, most exploits are not directed, but automated and Windows is vastly more exposed to those attacks.
People who buy MAC / Linux for the 'security benefits' are simply deluding themselves into thinking they've improved anything.Please. The numbers belie your assertion. The average user, simply buying a Mac significantly reduces their risk of having their machine compromised.
There IS a place for Linux in the corporate world. There is also a place for Microsoft. I'm not so sure about Apple ---Interested in finding Apple's place? Go to BlackHat, or DefCon, or one of the other big security conferences in the next year. When there, take a quick count of how many Mac laptops you see in use among security experts. It was upwards of 50% at the last one I went to, and it was a private conference for security experts at tier 1 network operators. Why do you suppose that is, because all those security experts are idiots and just not as brilliant as you are?
Legally, ones that are also regular voice carriers are. Those that aren't are still granted most of the privileges under the law, but not the same legal restrictions. This is because they paid a lot of money to various political campaigns and it paid off.
Yup, one year after Sun introduced a Java runtime for Windows and MS started bundling a broken version to undermine the platform (perhaps you recall the antitrust conviction).
However the reason that they rolled it out was to enable developers to target web users with applications.... and to make sure those applications were tied to Windows so that people could to easily target multiple platforms using the Web, a strategy they still pursue with their refusal to support newer Web technologies, or even older and capable Web technologies fully and in accordance with the specs.
You can't argue that it didn't allow content developers to get their content out there... even if 85% of it was unwanted.I can and do, however, argue that it only allowed developers to get their content to Windows users, not to all Web users and I can further argue, that was very intentional.
I disagree that Microsoft doesn't have any financial motivation to fix the problems in ActiveX and their various technologies. Take a look at IE7. Where are all the ActiveX exploits that target IE7?MS has incentive to appear to be making security improvements and actually are making a few in response to competition from Linux on the desktop in corporate environments. Some of their general security work is helping, but in truth since most users have no other option, they just don't care to devote the resources, especially when they can use them to expand into console gaming, or online media delivery, or publishing tools, or one of the many markets they don't already have locked-in.
Microsoft has a HUGE installed userbase that depends on IE/IIS and Visual Studio for development. They have a huge incentive to keep that cash cow secure.They have incentive to keep IIS secure because they have to compete with Apache in the server space, but not really end users of Windows on the desktop.
As Apple moves forward, they are going to have to face the same challenges that Microsoft faced... balancing the user expectation of an easy to use interface and "it just works" mentality with security needs.Oh, I think they already are facing that same problem. They're a smaller target, but they also have a better track record so far. My point, however, is that Apple and Linux will both do a better job of it than MS, simply because they have more significant financial motivations. The best way to fix MS's security problems is to provide them with similar motivation.
Making money and maximizing market share is fine, when they lead to increased efficiency and innovation in the market. That is why capitalism is so successful, because in a capitalist system competition for custom leads to innovation and efficiency. The problem is monopolies break capitalism and lead to reduced innovation and inefficiency. It is sort of like combining the worst aspects of socialism and the worst aspects of capitalism. That is why abusing monopolies is illegal, pretty much everywhere. They were made illegal when giant companies lowered the quality of life significantly for the average person.
People weren't forced to **DEVELOP** applications for activeX even if it came installed with the OS.No it was just made artificially profitable, breaking the normal way innovation works in capitalism. Monopolies don't have to force anyone, all they have to do is undermine the normal functioning of the market.
They were certainly not tied in or locked in any way shape or form.Bundling is a classic form of tying, as called out in US antitrust law.
Technically competent people were capable of easily disabling it...Sigh, way to completely miss the point.
Other software firms still had the option of creating their own standard. Hello... Java??And did Sun have the option of simultaneously bundling Java with every desktop OS, while at the same time bundling a broken version of ActiveX? No, they didn't because MS had a desktop OS monopoly to leverage while Sun did not. Thus there was no fair competition between the two for many years. You'll recall MS lost in court eventually on that count? I take it you did not understand why?
So the thousands of Windows Server installations are being hacked 24/7?Great way to illustrate my point. MS does not have a monopoly on server OS's, they have to compete with Linux. They do have a monopoly on desktop OS's and they are hacked en masse every day.
Get real... Linux or OS X is in *NO* way more secure than windows given a competent sys-admin.Windows is less secure, demonstrable simply by the numbers hacked. For real users, Windows is insecure by comparison as any competent and objective securty expert will tell you.
Get real... Linux or OS X is in *NO* way more secure than windows given a competent sys-admin.Good for you, too bad that is not the general case. Most people are not so lucky or careful.
If you aren't competent enough to secure your installation, get someone else to do it, stop blaming the OS. No *OS* can ever be 100% secure.No, but it could be a lot better and the average person could have a choice of which OS comes with the computer they buy so they can make purchasing decisions based upon which is more secure. Are you telling me you honestly don't think security would be better if you had a choice between Windows A or Windows B and could vote with your wallet as to which is more secure? It is a rare user (like you) who argues against choice. Someone drank the kool-aid.
Kit? Lots of people sell hardware and software for Apple systems.
How many can people sell FairPlay tracks for ipods?Umm, since FairPlay is an Apple brand, none. Lots of people sell music that plays on iPods now, and Apple is phasing out Fairplay anyway and moving to non-DRMed music.
Apple's as much of a monopolist as MS, it's just not as successful (yet).It is quite obvious you have no idea what a monopolist is.
The only market Apple is close to being a monopoly in is portable digital music players, and as they gain in market share (they are near the 70% level where some jurisdictions begin investigating). As that shore increases, they've been decreasing their behaviors that could potentially qualify as an abuse of monopoly power.
Funny. Technically, I don't need to use the Web at all in coffee shops, so by your argument I should block all traffic. On the other hand, I prefer my computer to be functional, when that functionality does not pose a significant security risk. Guess what, I also have SSH enabled for access, even though I only need to access it occasionally. The service I originally referred to (Bonjour) is unlikely to pose a security risk, especially since in addition to finding an exploit in it, an attacker would have to find an exploit in the Mandatory Access Control sandbox OS X runs it in by default. I'm a lot more likely to be exploited by an attack on my Mail.app than by an attack on Bonjour. Do you also advocate that I do not check my e-mail while at the coffee shop?
Save the "nice" services for when you are on a trusted network.Screw that. Half the benefit of Bonjour enabled chatting is that I can easily talk to people I don't have in my "buddy" list while at conferences and coffee shops. Sacrificing function out of unjustified fear is not my cup of tea.
I don't want 3rd party.Umm, okay, then don't use it. Good luck finding a capable first party GUI firewall configuration tool on a platform that is not riddled with security holes.
Honestly, it sounds to me like you're looking for something to complain about. I really wish people with your sort of an attitude on security would revisit your basic assumptions. Security is about allowing users to do what they want with a system, and prevent things they don't want from happening, especially without their permission. Reducing functionality just means users turn off security features or move to a system where they have more functionality. If I had a dollar for every time I've seen someone at a LAN party shut off their firewall completely because it was restricting something they wanted to do and was too hard to enable just that application/behavior... well, I'd have enough cash to buy a good steak and some scotch anyway.
The DMCA regards the distribution of tools that can be used to bypass encryption based DRM on copyrighted materials. The safe harbor provision mostly apply to online publishers hosting content, not ISPs. The DMCA does not grant ISPs the right to make and distribute copies of copyrighted works, like every time they transmit a copy of a Web page from router to router to an eventual client.
I'd argue that the GUI an CLI are both standard interfaces to the firewall. A flaw where either of them incorrectly informs the user about the settings is a flaw in the firewall. I'd further argue that since the GUI is the more used interface, the flaw reflected there is more serious than a flaw in the CLI.