Ah yes. As we all know, you must have OSX, or your life is an utter failure.
It all depends upon what you are doing. Using the right tool for the right job is important. Right now I have in front of me OS X, Win XP, Net BSD, and Linux. I think I have a pretty good handle on the strengths and weaknesses of the various platforms. Whether you like or dislike OS X, is it so unbelievable that some people might consider the ability to run in a desired feature? Can you (as the previous poster put it) not imagine why someone might want the option of running it?
If so then you are assuredly a simpleton and I've just wasted 60 seconds typing this to you.
For some reason, I feel like I have the ability to tinker with the PC more.
Lets think about this rationally. With a PC you can replace most any of the hardware you want. With a mac you can replace most of the hardware, but you have a limited subset of motherboards and a harder time finding drivers for much of the hardware. Also, Apple has not yet shipped an Intel tower, which makes modification harder.
On the other side of things, OS X is 50% or so open source and has free compilers and dev tools. It also has multiple built in scripting languages , a fully functional command line with cat, sed, pipes, etc., and a GUI automation environment for those who fear scripting languages. Windows is completely closed source, all the code is locked away. Windows also lacks free dev tools and a real, integrated scripting environment.
In my book that means hardware tinkering is harder on the mac and software tinkering is much, much easier. I guess it is a matter of perspective.
Though I wouldn't put myself in the casual gamer category I can't see why a casual gamer would pay more for a Mac if a bit of casual gaming is one of the buying factors...
Quick, do most games run acceptably on said graphics card? No I don't mean can you get 82 fps instead of 75 fps, I mean will the casual gamer still have fun playing the game?
Now, can any machine other than a mac run OS X and all the associated software without extensive hacking?
Gee, why would someone pay more for a machine that only runs games acceptably if gaming is one of the many things they were going to use it for? Maybe because it can run OS X, which the other machines can't.
Why would a casual gamer spend more money on a Mac, when it's still got the same old Intel chip, Windows OS, and costs hundreds more than your average Dell?
First, Macs cost about the same as other machines with similar specs, customer service, and reliability ratings. Note, Dell sells cheap junk with lackluster support and passes the savings on to you. They make sense for a corporation that can have 10% extra in spares to swap out and has perfect backups. Second, If you're building a gaming desktop, AMD is probably the right choice. If, however, you're buying a laptop (as many gamers now do to make for easy LAN parties) the Intel core duo has leapfrogged AMD. It has better performance with less power usage. Only an AMD fanatic with no clue and no interest in getting one would look at the available laptop CPUs and conclude that any of the AMD offerings is superior. THis condition will likely persist at least until Q4 if AMD gets its new chips out. Third, some people like to have more capabilities. OS X offers a range of software unavailable on Windows and offers a work environment with significant advantages. When Windows catches up for CPU bound multitasking, system wide services, ease of installation, security, and a workable shell let me know.
I haven't purchased a MacBook, but it is a strong contender for my next laptop (in a year or so when the kinks are worked out). I will likely use this machine for some gaming, either by dual-booting (ala bootcamp) or using virtualization. I guess my point is, just because you don't see the market, does not mean it does not exist. It certainly does.
Am I the only one that sees the proliferation of WiFi as a major network security problem?
No. People who fear EM radiation causes cancer are also worried.
Someplace around my office has not just an open network, but an open intercontinental network. If I dont turn off the 802.11 function on my laptop I'll see computer systems in tokyo.
You automatically connect to wireless networks with your default setup? You have bigger problems than a city wi-fi program.
So the problem is thus, people in my office, connected to our LAN are also connected to this wide open network where all sorts of bad things could be roaming free.
So take control of the machines on your LAN already. If they are desktops you should have them locked down. If they are laptops, you should require authentication before you let them randomly join your network anyway and at that point you can enforce routing all internet through your servers. Have you ever heard of a VPN?
Windows and MacOS both seem to automaticly connect to these rogue networks and thus bypass any local network security I can enforce.
Some versions of Windows do, OS X does not in their default configurations. Nothing stops a user with full access to their own machine from using an external network so you should enforce policy. If people are breaking it, set up a wireless honey net and fire anyone who connects. Or just set up your own wireless and LAN and require all access to go through a VPN. Use wireless blocking paint if you have to. It is not like this is an unsolvable problem.
n any event, gamers are a crowd where looks matter. A Mac can be sexy, but an Alienware box is somehow simultaneously sexy and badass, and that's what gamers like.
It's funny you should mention that. I was talking to a few people the other day about what kinds of laptops they've been seeing lately and what they infer about others from them. We were talking about the security conventions. There are lots of mac laptops these days, which basically tells people that the user is not one of those "Windows people." That is to say, they probably don't spend their time securing a large corporate network that has bought into the MS way of doing things. Mac users tend to be old UNIX guys, or mixed environment people. Ultra small Sony or IBM laptops are seen as a sign of someone who probably has 16 virtual desktops containing 25 terminal windows, a browser, and a few other random graphical apps. You know the type. Someone even mentioned Alienware. "I saw some guy with an Alienware laptop. He must be completely clueless. Who would spend all that money for the same crappy hardware in a case with an alien logo on it?"
I guess it all depends upon the appearance you want to present to a given crowd. Since most gamers are more driven by marketing nonsense than real understanding of hardware, I can see why Alienware might make a good impression.
Ok, so I know I'm going to get a lot of AMD people agreeing with me and a lot of Intel people outright ripping me to shreds.
It is interesting that you start your comment by trying to build a dichotomy. Almost all the responses to your comment have been from people who (unlike you) don't care about the companies, only the products and results.
As a disclaimer, I cannot say I've had the ability to try an Intel dual core but I'm just ever so happy with my AMD processor that I don't see why I should.
Okay, you've established yourself as a loyal customer who is not interested in evaluating all the options and making an informed and impartial decision. So why should anyone care what you have to say about it? You've just admitted you're both uninformed and biased.
I will now support the underdog even if Intel drops below AMD just to insure stiff competition. You can call me a young idealist about capitalism!
The idea behind capitalism is that people buy the best product, thus motivating companies to strive to be the best. Just buying product from whichever company has a smaller market share is anathema to said ideal.
In any case, it's going to be a while before I switch back to Intel. AMD has won me over for the time being.
I really don't understand this thinking. When I need a new system I look at all the available products and pick the best combination for my purposes and price range. I can understand the concept of a strategic purchase, but don't see the case for it here. My own evaluation of the market right now would lead me to look at either an AMD or IBM system for a desktop, AMD for servers, and Intel or IBM for a laptop. I don't care who makes them, just what they can do for me.
Most gvt[sic] agencies are required by law to keep all the old records. Many of wich[sic] were created during the days of windows 3.1 and 3.2. For some odd reason documents created back then (this is all assuming they were made with microsoft office) can not be oppened[sic] with openoffice or any other present day software excluding microsoft office.
What an interesting assertion. It contradicts both my personal experience and the general consensus among IT workers. I have inherited many old.doc files over the years. Many could not be opened by any currently available version of MS Word. Some of those that could not be opened in Word, could be opened by OpenOffice. Many IT people actually keep a copy of OpenOffice on hand just to open and update these old files.
So my question for you is, why do you believe the opposite? Have you personally encountered this, or did you read this somewhere?
The things I hated about Pine were that it unnecessarily reversed colors on the screen to look more "graphical," and its default editor was that horror known as Pico. I much preferred elm and vi.
My first year of college everyone was given a shell account set up with elm and vi. 99% of students could not figure it out on their own. The general engineering course where they taught the basics of vi and elm was a second year course. Needless to say, for that purpose the combination of elm and vi absolutely sucked.
The next year they switched the defaults to pine and pico. Most people figured it out on their own. Maybe that is because pico actually displays the basic commands to the user, rather than expecting them to try to figure out the esoteric help system or have read the man pages beforehand. "Obviously you hit escape-colon-q-bang to quit the editor and get back into your e-mail, what else would it be?" Yeah that is a lot better than cntrl-q with that command actually displayed all the time.
I think that the "big" antitrust trial with MS has showed EU officials that MS had decided not to play smoothly with European justice. So now, logically, they put under heavy scrutiny the actions of the Redmond's giant.
If by "heavy scrutiny" you mean they deny an application after the company they copied it from complains and sends them examples of prior art from forty years ago through the present and MS (while attempting to defend their application) admits that their font is identical to the prior art, then umm, okay. This is not the EU scrutinizing them, this is them getting caught by the people they were trying to rip-off.
Why not just get your company, and any others that you can, to each buy a handful of CDs? The project will still get money from them (although not as much as from a straight donation) and you get some useful CDs.
Actually, I'm pretty sure we did just that. Still, that is only a few hundred bucks (they're $50 a piece now right?). That is a business expense. If we want to drop a few grand then it is easier to get approval if it is a complete tax write-off. That means a non-profit.
I'm mostly in the same boat as you. I do use a Windows box with a remote desktop for most of those applications I use on Windows. Here's where many people differ. Laptops. A lot of people want to use OS X with the occasional use of Windows with their portable, especially when dealing with customers with many different setups and locations. Dual booting is an annoying solution for just running a Windows admin tool or testing a page in IE, but it works. Personally, I'm looking forward to some of the new virtual servers and the like. Between WINE and virtual machines I don't expect I'll be doing any dual booting by the time I pick up a MacBook.
But doesn't IBM's revenue stream depend on configuring and supporting Linux being so difficult that you have to employ legions of their consultants to keep it running?
IBM makes its money from services and hardware sales. Open source software provides value added for those businesses. Also, since that business requires a lot of infrastructure, they need software to use internally.
I agree that IBM does benefit by making software hard to configure and deploy, but that does not in any way nullify the useful code they have contributed. There are plenty of other companies, organizations, and individuals, however, that do not benefit from poor usability and they have done quite a bit to improve it.
They aren't into FOSS because they are nice guys.
No, they are in it for the same reason my company is, because it makes good business sense. It saves them and us a lot of money and works better than the alternatives. It benefits us and them and everyone else who uses and contributes to it. That is sort of the point. It does not require charity, only enlightened self interest.
The fact that something as hugely useful as OSSH is going around begging seriously undermines the whole "FOSS's success as an iron law of history" thinking.
Ummm, I have never seen anyone argue that being open source is the only criteria needed for software to become successful. As I said, OpenSSH is having money problems partly because they have not made it easy for people to donate, as most other major projects have.
It's simply a waste of time and talent to have these people process the huge amount of paperwork a non-profit entails.
If gathering money to support the cause is waste of time for them, then they should not complain about the fact that it is not getting done.
If you don't want to do it in your free time, why should they?
Because they want the money. Listen, almost every other open source project has done it, even much smaller projects. If they don't want to go to the effort, then they can't really complain when people don't donate.
Why don't you do so yourself? Establish a "Friends of OpenBSD" foundation and register it with the local authorities.
I thought the, "so fix it yourself newbie!" attitude was mostly confined to actual coding. Theo is the one who asked others to donate. If the easiest way is to establish my own non-profit organization, which I would then have to manage from then on, I think I'll just skip the whole thing. It's not like I have piles of cash lying around that I just don't know what to do with. Myself and others in my company, however, could probably get management to throw some cash at a non-profit as a tax write-off, if we told them it was to our benefit (which it is). The fact that there is not a non-profit means that is unlikely to happen.
The best way to get donations is to make it easy to donate. Some of us got started in coding because we are lazy, lazy people who figured there had to be an easier way. (inspirational thanks to Heinlein's "the man who was too lazy to fail").
The worst part is, no one has figured out a source for an actual revenue stream.
Where do people get ideas like this? Revenue comes from the same place as most software, the end users. How many people does IBM pay to work on open source software they use internally? When companies want features added, customization, or support for open source software they pay someone to provide it. It is not like this is anything new. Right now I work for a company that sells hardware with a lot of customized, closed source software on it. The boxes also include a lot of open source software on them. They run Linux or a BSD as the OS and make use of lots of popular server software. We do our development using mostly open source tools. What happens when we find a bug in something? We report it. That is free QA work. Sometimes we fix it; free coding. Sometimes we need more functionality; again free coding.
That is all work our company paid someone to do and went into open source projects. That money comes from our investors and customers. So you might say, "so what?" That is only 40-50 engineers spending maybe 5% of their time. But that is what we need, so that is what we do. There are thousands of companies out there, of all sizes, doing the same thing. Some contribute a few hours a month from one developer and some hire people full-time to just improve a project, help steer the project's direction, and be an in-house expert on it. The developers are being paid. The code is being written. The end users are getting a very good deal. That is the primary business model of open source software, and it has been working for decades.
P.S. more people would donate to Theo's cause if he could establish a proper non-profit for the US.
Ultimately, you're bringing the compromised system down and bringing the system back up in a known state.
This is only 70% of the equation. The rest is data recovery, scanning, and restoration.
For most environments, I prefer reloading the OS and reinstalling the applications. This ensures that there is a direct relationship between what is in the installation media or server and what's running on the machines.
That is unscalable.
For multiuser systems where lots of users can install their own little applications in their home directories, it's going to be difficult to ensure that there isn't something weird hiding out somewhere on the system. That problem never goes away, but at least the potential for privilege escalation from a system account in minimized.
Ouch, what a weak idea. With mandatory access of jails the risk of escalations is mostly gone. Further, if you aren't identifying the vector, escalation (if present), and scanning for it you lose all the data created since the last known to be clean backup. I'd hate to work in such an environment. "Oops sorry guys, there was a zero-day exploit. We're going to throw away all your work for the last five weeks."
Here's what you do. You have a known good image (license properly and this is not an issue). You grab a copy of the data from the machine and restore it from the image. You patch the exploited vulnerability and make a new image. Then you scan the copied data/software for the malware that cause the infection and escalation as well as other rootkit elements. The data and applications that are now clean go back on the machine and the user sees no difference, unless they installed a trojan, which is now gone. On a tight system data and user apps basically can never cause an escalation unless something really new is found, and you should have found that in your post mortem. Then you go through and make sure the vulnerability is patched in the rest of your network.
"lesser attention from malware authors
At the end of the day this is the key phrase.
I disagree. It is one of many factors, not some all-important factor by itself. Having reasonable default settings for network services is probably a more important contributing factor. As any biologist or security expert can tell you, having a monoculture is a liability. Diverging from that monoculture, even with no other benefits, will add security. If Linux, Windows, and OS X each had 33% of the market as of today, in one year Windows would still be the least secure and most compromised.
In other words, you have to rely on systems below the level of the penetration - which, if you look carefully, is exactly what I said.:-)
I make it a point to never point out spelling or grammar issues unless I'm quoting someone, they specifically bring up grammar or spelling, or it makes the meaning of the writing unclear. You wrote, "you can't trust anything - including security tools and diagnostic information - that runs at that level or above."
What I believe, based upon your comment, that you meant to write was, "you can't trust anything, including security tools and diagnostic information which runs at that level or above." The meaning of these two sentences is very different. The former contains the implicit statement that security tools run at that level or above, the latter places it as a condition of the first clause. So, no, it is not exactly what you wrote, but it was merely a miscommunication.
You could never recover a compromised system reliably anyway. Once someone's got through your security to a certain level, you can't trust anything - including security tools and diagnostic information - that runs at that level or above. For a typical desktop PC or office server, that basically means you can't trust anything left on the system.
Actually, this not completely true. You just run your tools on another machine known to be uncompromised. Also, there are hardware level recovery systems that will restore to a known, clean state.
And no, running Linux or MacOS X instead of Windows doesn't change this, despite the number of people flippantly suggesting these alternatives.
Running OS X is somewhat beneficial since it is less susceptible to malware due to architectural choices and lesser attention from malware authors. Just not being Windows can be a great help, practically speaking. Also, all OS X machines can be put into Firewire target mode, facilitating easy recovery of data from compromised systems with greatly reduced risk of infection.
Running Linux can make an even bigger difference. Since Linux supports virtualization technologies, mandatory access schemes, and the like you can not only reliably recover data, but be fairly confident that once a escalation vector is detected and patched, the data from that particular machine will not cause a new machine to be re-infected. This means you can say with reasonable certainty that there will be zero data loss as a result of wiping a machine and the process can be automated.
This is, of course, on top of the greatly increased security that can be obtained by using certain, secure Linux distributions. Arguing that SELinux or OS X won't make a difference, even though both contain functionality designed to do just that, is simply incorrect. (Note, before someone gets uppity, I am not equating the level of security provided by SELinux with OS X.)
Here is my take on what is happening. As network management tools become easier to use and more widely deployed, more and more people are starting to have a real understanding of their management and business networks. It used to be that the network engineers might or might not have a good idea about what kinds of traffic were flowing where. Now, a middle manager with only the most basic idea of how networks work can log into a Web interface and see what programs are being run by what people, connecting to what sites. As a result, they are more prone to hand down policy decisions based upon this new information.
At the same time, the workplace has become much more mercenary. Companies don't take care of their employees and employees just want to milk companies for as much as possible. No one trusts anyone. Managers want to get as much work out of their hirelings as possible and many don't care about the health, stress, happiness, etc. of those employees. In sociological terms, they are imposing physical barriers in an attempt to replace crumbling social ones. The problem for them, is they are usually way behind the technology curve. An employee who wants to play hardball can probably raid the company for all the info they want and carry it out on their cellphone or iPod. It's like moving from an honor system where captured soldiers swear they will stay until ransomed, to a military jail with as many bars as possible, except the prison is designed by a bureaucratic committee, each member of which is just trying to make as much money off of kickbacks and saved funds as possible. Time will tell which is more effective.
You're mistaken. Again, dumping software doesn't get these companies in trouble -- bundling it does. If you applied your logic to every company, Apple should be in trouble for iTunes, Sun for Java and Macromedia for Flash.
While I mostly agree with your comments, I can't let you slide on this one. It is very much illegal for a monopoly to practice "dumping" or "predatory pricing" in a market using funds from their existing monopoly. It is one of six specific examples of illegal behavior in US antitrust law. Apple, Sun, and Macromedia are not monopolies and can thus do whatever they want (as far as pricing goes). The rules are different for monopolies due to their unique and dangerous leverage.
In this particular instance, things are more than a little muddy. VMWare is also giving away applications, but charging for support. MS is giving away the product and the support (but their support is almost non-existent). In this case it may or may not be illegal, but in general you're wrong about what monopolies can and can't do.
You're mistaken. That's not how anti-trust law (in the US works). The question is whether consumers are harmed, not competitors.
Who in the world mods this crap up? No one could take the 30 seconds with Google it takes to notice this completely incorrect? US antitrust law is founded on the principal that monopolies should not be allowed to undermine the free market. Tacked onto this is the justification that the free market benefits the US and citizens. All the legal tests for anti-trust action is based upon markets and not consumers.
This particular action may be illegal under the predatory pricing and tying rules for monopolies. Is free below the normal market price for this software? That is to say, if MS did not have a monopoly and the assured constant stream of money for it would it be giving this product away for free? If not and it can be proved they are breaking the law. The second aspect, tying, is due to the fact that this product only works with the professional versions of their OS, thus it is tied to their existing monopoly (warning oversimplification).
In future, please actually read the Sherman and Clayton acts, or at least a well written summary of them before making uninformed comments like this.
Who gets to decide what is porn? Pakistan would object to women in bikinis. What's ".xxx"? What's suitable for.com?
The person registering TLD decides what kind they want, of course. Anything that is a commercial business is suitable for.com, including porn if the company is so inclined. The think is, most porn companies would find value in customer have a more accurate idea of what will be on a site before they load it. They don't want children loading their site. It is a hassle and can cost them money. If they move to.xxx they have a better choice of names and they avoid that headache.
Do we really want an organization trolling the other TLDs and marking up porn?
Why would anyone troll other TLDs for porn and if they did who cares? It's not like anything forces current TLDs to change their policies and exclude paying customers.
But you can bet money Microsoft would try and sue someone into oblivion for registering Microsoft.xxx. And whether or not they win or not, or whether or not they're right, you can be sure that the financial strain would destroy any company.
So what? If someone wants to fight a trademark case with MS who cares. microsoft.xxx would not be a particularly valuable site. No one is likely to accidentally type.xxx as the domain. Foot.xxx would be worth money. Blonde.xxx would be worth money. These sites are no available in.com because regular businesses have them. Creating a.xxx domain provides new real estate that is actually useful. People with foot problems know where to go and can remember the address. Foot fetishists are happy too.
Because, as much as you want to point out flaws in my logic, it's based on reality..edu and.gov are ran well because they have strict controls. Are you proposing more strict controls over other TLDs?
I'm proposing no such thing. Several TLDs have failed..info and.biz were not really anything new. Anyone looking at a website wants into and biz is the same thing as com. Thus they are just clones of one another..xxx is actually useful information and I think it would be successful.
I'm just saying they will not go exclusively to.xxx...
A lot of them probably won't, certainly not right away. But there are advantages. They lose the troublesome traffic from.com, it costs less and.com fees are going up. Most will just redirect their existing.com to their.xxx (and gain memorability) for a few years and then eventually drop the.com if all goes well.
I don't want a bunch of puritan morons deciding what gets to stay in the other TLDs.
Who does, but this might be what is needed to keep them from using "please think of the children" to make porn illegal on the internet in certain jurisdiction regardless of TLD.
.xxx gets regulated, just like you like it
What? I never said anything of the sort.
Tipper Gore and Joe Lieberman pressure ISPs not to allow access to.xxx, or to charge more for it, or some other such bullshit.
Yeah that would work. ISPs sure do want to give up all those transit fees they are paid for porn. Sorry, the right may bluster, but they don't have the money to stop the telcos. I'm not buying it.
Get with the times. That hasn't been true for a while. The current list includes: Abiword 2.4, eZ publish, IBM Workplace Documents 2.6+, KWord 1.4+, NeoOffice 1.2 Writer, OpenOffice.org Writer, Scribus 1.2.2+ , StarOffice 8 Writer, TEA text editor , TextMaker 2005, Visioo Writer 0.6, and Writely for the word processor portion of the format, with similar lists for the other components. There are a lot more that have announced support on the way.
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Ah yes. As we all know, you must have OSX, or your life is an utter failure.
It all depends upon what you are doing. Using the right tool for the right job is important. Right now I have in front of me OS X, Win XP, Net BSD, and Linux. I think I have a pretty good handle on the strengths and weaknesses of the various platforms. Whether you like or dislike OS X, is it so unbelievable that some people might consider the ability to run in a desired feature? Can you (as the previous poster put it) not imagine why someone might want the option of running it?
If so then you are assuredly a simpleton and I've just wasted 60 seconds typing this to you.
For some reason, I feel like I have the ability to tinker with the PC more.
Lets think about this rationally. With a PC you can replace most any of the hardware you want. With a mac you can replace most of the hardware, but you have a limited subset of motherboards and a harder time finding drivers for much of the hardware. Also, Apple has not yet shipped an Intel tower, which makes modification harder.
On the other side of things, OS X is 50% or so open source and has free compilers and dev tools. It also has multiple built in scripting languages , a fully functional command line with cat, sed, pipes, etc., and a GUI automation environment for those who fear scripting languages. Windows is completely closed source, all the code is locked away. Windows also lacks free dev tools and a real, integrated scripting environment.
In my book that means hardware tinkering is harder on the mac and software tinkering is much, much easier. I guess it is a matter of perspective.
Though I wouldn't put myself in the casual gamer category I can't see why a casual gamer would pay more for a Mac if a bit of casual gaming is one of the buying factors...
Quick, do most games run acceptably on said graphics card? No I don't mean can you get 82 fps instead of 75 fps, I mean will the casual gamer still have fun playing the game?
Now, can any machine other than a mac run OS X and all the associated software without extensive hacking?
Gee, why would someone pay more for a machine that only runs games acceptably if gaming is one of the many things they were going to use it for? Maybe because it can run OS X, which the other machines can't.
Why would a casual gamer spend more money on a Mac, when it's still got the same old Intel chip, Windows OS, and costs hundreds more than your average Dell?
First, Macs cost about the same as other machines with similar specs, customer service, and reliability ratings. Note, Dell sells cheap junk with lackluster support and passes the savings on to you. They make sense for a corporation that can have 10% extra in spares to swap out and has perfect backups. Second, If you're building a gaming desktop, AMD is probably the right choice. If, however, you're buying a laptop (as many gamers now do to make for easy LAN parties) the Intel core duo has leapfrogged AMD. It has better performance with less power usage. Only an AMD fanatic with no clue and no interest in getting one would look at the available laptop CPUs and conclude that any of the AMD offerings is superior. THis condition will likely persist at least until Q4 if AMD gets its new chips out. Third, some people like to have more capabilities. OS X offers a range of software unavailable on Windows and offers a work environment with significant advantages. When Windows catches up for CPU bound multitasking, system wide services, ease of installation, security, and a workable shell let me know.
I haven't purchased a MacBook, but it is a strong contender for my next laptop (in a year or so when the kinks are worked out). I will likely use this machine for some gaming, either by dual-booting (ala bootcamp) or using virtualization. I guess my point is, just because you don't see the market, does not mean it does not exist. It certainly does.
Am I the only one that sees the proliferation of WiFi as a major network security problem?
No. People who fear EM radiation causes cancer are also worried.
Someplace around my office has not just an open network, but an open intercontinental network. If I dont turn off the 802.11 function on my laptop I'll see computer systems in tokyo.
You automatically connect to wireless networks with your default setup? You have bigger problems than a city wi-fi program.
So the problem is thus, people in my office, connected to our LAN are also connected to this wide open network where all sorts of bad things could be roaming free.
So take control of the machines on your LAN already. If they are desktops you should have them locked down. If they are laptops, you should require authentication before you let them randomly join your network anyway and at that point you can enforce routing all internet through your servers. Have you ever heard of a VPN?
Windows and MacOS both seem to automaticly connect to these rogue networks and thus bypass any local network security I can enforce.
Some versions of Windows do, OS X does not in their default configurations. Nothing stops a user with full access to their own machine from using an external network so you should enforce policy. If people are breaking it, set up a wireless honey net and fire anyone who connects. Or just set up your own wireless and LAN and require all access to go through a VPN. Use wireless blocking paint if you have to. It is not like this is an unsolvable problem.
n any event, gamers are a crowd where looks matter. A Mac can be sexy, but an Alienware box is somehow simultaneously sexy and badass, and that's what gamers like.
It's funny you should mention that. I was talking to a few people the other day about what kinds of laptops they've been seeing lately and what they infer about others from them. We were talking about the security conventions. There are lots of mac laptops these days, which basically tells people that the user is not one of those "Windows people." That is to say, they probably don't spend their time securing a large corporate network that has bought into the MS way of doing things. Mac users tend to be old UNIX guys, or mixed environment people. Ultra small Sony or IBM laptops are seen as a sign of someone who probably has 16 virtual desktops containing 25 terminal windows, a browser, and a few other random graphical apps. You know the type. Someone even mentioned Alienware. "I saw some guy with an Alienware laptop. He must be completely clueless. Who would spend all that money for the same crappy hardware in a case with an alien logo on it?"
I guess it all depends upon the appearance you want to present to a given crowd. Since most gamers are more driven by marketing nonsense than real understanding of hardware, I can see why Alienware might make a good impression.
Ok, so I know I'm going to get a lot of AMD people agreeing with me and a lot of Intel people outright ripping me to shreds.
It is interesting that you start your comment by trying to build a dichotomy. Almost all the responses to your comment have been from people who (unlike you) don't care about the companies, only the products and results.
As a disclaimer, I cannot say I've had the ability to try an Intel dual core but I'm just ever so happy with my AMD processor that I don't see why I should.
Okay, you've established yourself as a loyal customer who is not interested in evaluating all the options and making an informed and impartial decision. So why should anyone care what you have to say about it? You've just admitted you're both uninformed and biased.
I will now support the underdog even if Intel drops below AMD just to insure stiff competition. You can call me a young idealist about capitalism!
The idea behind capitalism is that people buy the best product, thus motivating companies to strive to be the best. Just buying product from whichever company has a smaller market share is anathema to said ideal.
In any case, it's going to be a while before I switch back to Intel. AMD has won me over for the time being.
I really don't understand this thinking. When I need a new system I look at all the available products and pick the best combination for my purposes and price range. I can understand the concept of a strategic purchase, but don't see the case for it here. My own evaluation of the market right now would lead me to look at either an AMD or IBM system for a desktop, AMD for servers, and Intel or IBM for a laptop. I don't care who makes them, just what they can do for me.
Most gvt[sic] agencies are required by law to keep all the old records. Many of wich[sic] were created during the days of windows 3.1 and 3.2. For some odd reason documents created back then (this is all assuming they were made with microsoft office) can not be oppened[sic] with openoffice or any other present day software excluding microsoft office.
What an interesting assertion. It contradicts both my personal experience and the general consensus among IT workers. I have inherited many old .doc files over the years. Many could not be opened by any currently available version of MS Word. Some of those that could not be opened in Word, could be opened by OpenOffice. Many IT people actually keep a copy of OpenOffice on hand just to open and update these old files.
So my question for you is, why do you believe the opposite? Have you personally encountered this, or did you read this somewhere?
The things I hated about Pine were that it unnecessarily reversed colors on the screen to look more "graphical," and its default editor was that horror known as Pico. I much preferred elm and vi.
My first year of college everyone was given a shell account set up with elm and vi. 99% of students could not figure it out on their own. The general engineering course where they taught the basics of vi and elm was a second year course. Needless to say, for that purpose the combination of elm and vi absolutely sucked.
The next year they switched the defaults to pine and pico. Most people figured it out on their own. Maybe that is because pico actually displays the basic commands to the user, rather than expecting them to try to figure out the esoteric help system or have read the man pages beforehand. "Obviously you hit escape-colon-q-bang to quit the editor and get back into your e-mail, what else would it be?" Yeah that is a lot better than cntrl-q with that command actually displayed all the time.
I think that the "big" antitrust trial with MS has showed EU officials that MS had decided not to play smoothly with European justice. So now, logically, they put under heavy scrutiny the actions of the Redmond's giant.
If by "heavy scrutiny" you mean they deny an application after the company they copied it from complains and sends them examples of prior art from forty years ago through the present and MS (while attempting to defend their application) admits that their font is identical to the prior art, then umm, okay. This is not the EU scrutinizing them, this is them getting caught by the people they were trying to rip-off.
Why not just get your company, and any others that you can, to each buy a handful of CDs? The project will still get money from them (although not as much as from a straight donation) and you get some useful CDs.
Actually, I'm pretty sure we did just that. Still, that is only a few hundred bucks (they're $50 a piece now right?). That is a business expense. If we want to drop a few grand then it is easier to get approval if it is a complete tax write-off. That means a non-profit.
I'm mostly in the same boat as you. I do use a Windows box with a remote desktop for most of those applications I use on Windows. Here's where many people differ. Laptops. A lot of people want to use OS X with the occasional use of Windows with their portable, especially when dealing with customers with many different setups and locations. Dual booting is an annoying solution for just running a Windows admin tool or testing a page in IE, but it works. Personally, I'm looking forward to some of the new virtual servers and the like. Between WINE and virtual machines I don't expect I'll be doing any dual booting by the time I pick up a MacBook.
But doesn't IBM's revenue stream depend on configuring and supporting Linux being so difficult that you have to employ legions of their consultants to keep it running?
IBM makes its money from services and hardware sales. Open source software provides value added for those businesses. Also, since that business requires a lot of infrastructure, they need software to use internally.
I agree that IBM does benefit by making software hard to configure and deploy, but that does not in any way nullify the useful code they have contributed. There are plenty of other companies, organizations, and individuals, however, that do not benefit from poor usability and they have done quite a bit to improve it.
They aren't into FOSS because they are nice guys.
No, they are in it for the same reason my company is, because it makes good business sense. It saves them and us a lot of money and works better than the alternatives. It benefits us and them and everyone else who uses and contributes to it. That is sort of the point. It does not require charity, only enlightened self interest.
The fact that something as hugely useful as OSSH is going around begging seriously undermines the whole "FOSS's success as an iron law of history" thinking.
Ummm, I have never seen anyone argue that being open source is the only criteria needed for software to become successful. As I said, OpenSSH is having money problems partly because they have not made it easy for people to donate, as most other major projects have.
It's simply a waste of time and talent to have these people process the huge amount of paperwork a non-profit entails.
If gathering money to support the cause is waste of time for them, then they should not complain about the fact that it is not getting done.
If you don't want to do it in your free time, why should they?
Because they want the money. Listen, almost every other open source project has done it, even much smaller projects. If they don't want to go to the effort, then they can't really complain when people don't donate.
Why don't you do so yourself? Establish a "Friends of OpenBSD" foundation and register it with the local authorities.
I thought the, "so fix it yourself newbie!" attitude was mostly confined to actual coding. Theo is the one who asked others to donate. If the easiest way is to establish my own non-profit organization, which I would then have to manage from then on, I think I'll just skip the whole thing. It's not like I have piles of cash lying around that I just don't know what to do with. Myself and others in my company, however, could probably get management to throw some cash at a non-profit as a tax write-off, if we told them it was to our benefit (which it is). The fact that there is not a non-profit means that is unlikely to happen.
The best way to get donations is to make it easy to donate. Some of us got started in coding because we are lazy, lazy people who figured there had to be an easier way. (inspirational thanks to Heinlein's "the man who was too lazy to fail").
The worst part is, no one has figured out a source for an actual revenue stream.
Where do people get ideas like this? Revenue comes from the same place as most software, the end users. How many people does IBM pay to work on open source software they use internally? When companies want features added, customization, or support for open source software they pay someone to provide it. It is not like this is anything new. Right now I work for a company that sells hardware with a lot of customized, closed source software on it. The boxes also include a lot of open source software on them. They run Linux or a BSD as the OS and make use of lots of popular server software. We do our development using mostly open source tools. What happens when we find a bug in something? We report it. That is free QA work. Sometimes we fix it; free coding. Sometimes we need more functionality; again free coding.
That is all work our company paid someone to do and went into open source projects. That money comes from our investors and customers. So you might say, "so what?" That is only 40-50 engineers spending maybe 5% of their time. But that is what we need, so that is what we do. There are thousands of companies out there, of all sizes, doing the same thing. Some contribute a few hours a month from one developer and some hire people full-time to just improve a project, help steer the project's direction, and be an in-house expert on it. The developers are being paid. The code is being written. The end users are getting a very good deal. That is the primary business model of open source software, and it has been working for decades.
P.S. more people would donate to Theo's cause if he could establish a proper non-profit for the US.
Ultimately, you're bringing the compromised system down and bringing the system back up in a known state.
This is only 70% of the equation. The rest is data recovery, scanning, and restoration.
For most environments, I prefer reloading the OS and reinstalling the applications. This ensures that there is a direct relationship between what is in the installation media or server and what's running on the machines.
That is unscalable.
For multiuser systems where lots of users can install their own little applications in their home directories, it's going to be difficult to ensure that there isn't something weird hiding out somewhere on the system. That problem never goes away, but at least the potential for privilege escalation from a system account in minimized.
Ouch, what a weak idea. With mandatory access of jails the risk of escalations is mostly gone. Further, if you aren't identifying the vector, escalation (if present), and scanning for it you lose all the data created since the last known to be clean backup. I'd hate to work in such an environment. "Oops sorry guys, there was a zero-day exploit. We're going to throw away all your work for the last five weeks."
Here's what you do. You have a known good image (license properly and this is not an issue). You grab a copy of the data from the machine and restore it from the image. You patch the exploited vulnerability and make a new image. Then you scan the copied data/software for the malware that cause the infection and escalation as well as other rootkit elements. The data and applications that are now clean go back on the machine and the user sees no difference, unless they installed a trojan, which is now gone. On a tight system data and user apps basically can never cause an escalation unless something really new is found, and you should have found that in your post mortem. Then you go through and make sure the vulnerability is patched in the rest of your network.
"lesser attention from malware authors
At the end of the day this is the key phrase.
I disagree. It is one of many factors, not some all-important factor by itself. Having reasonable default settings for network services is probably a more important contributing factor. As any biologist or security expert can tell you, having a monoculture is a liability. Diverging from that monoculture, even with no other benefits, will add security. If Linux, Windows, and OS X each had 33% of the market as of today, in one year Windows would still be the least secure and most compromised.
In other words, you have to rely on systems below the level of the penetration - which, if you look carefully, is exactly what I said. :-)
I make it a point to never point out spelling or grammar issues unless I'm quoting someone, they specifically bring up grammar or spelling, or it makes the meaning of the writing unclear. You wrote, "you can't trust anything - including security tools and diagnostic information - that runs at that level or above."
What I believe, based upon your comment, that you meant to write was, "you can't trust anything, including security tools and diagnostic information which runs at that level or above." The meaning of these two sentences is very different. The former contains the implicit statement that security tools run at that level or above, the latter places it as a condition of the first clause. So, no, it is not exactly what you wrote, but it was merely a miscommunication.
You could never recover a compromised system reliably anyway. Once someone's got through your security to a certain level, you can't trust anything - including security tools and diagnostic information - that runs at that level or above. For a typical desktop PC or office server, that basically means you can't trust anything left on the system.
Actually, this not completely true. You just run your tools on another machine known to be uncompromised. Also, there are hardware level recovery systems that will restore to a known, clean state.
And no, running Linux or MacOS X instead of Windows doesn't change this, despite the number of people flippantly suggesting these alternatives.
Running OS X is somewhat beneficial since it is less susceptible to malware due to architectural choices and lesser attention from malware authors. Just not being Windows can be a great help, practically speaking. Also, all OS X machines can be put into Firewire target mode, facilitating easy recovery of data from compromised systems with greatly reduced risk of infection.
Running Linux can make an even bigger difference. Since Linux supports virtualization technologies, mandatory access schemes, and the like you can not only reliably recover data, but be fairly confident that once a escalation vector is detected and patched, the data from that particular machine will not cause a new machine to be re-infected. This means you can say with reasonable certainty that there will be zero data loss as a result of wiping a machine and the process can be automated.
This is, of course, on top of the greatly increased security that can be obtained by using certain, secure Linux distributions. Arguing that SELinux or OS X won't make a difference, even though both contain functionality designed to do just that, is simply incorrect. (Note, before someone gets uppity, I am not equating the level of security provided by SELinux with OS X.)
Here is my take on what is happening. As network management tools become easier to use and more widely deployed, more and more people are starting to have a real understanding of their management and business networks. It used to be that the network engineers might or might not have a good idea about what kinds of traffic were flowing where. Now, a middle manager with only the most basic idea of how networks work can log into a Web interface and see what programs are being run by what people, connecting to what sites. As a result, they are more prone to hand down policy decisions based upon this new information.
At the same time, the workplace has become much more mercenary. Companies don't take care of their employees and employees just want to milk companies for as much as possible. No one trusts anyone. Managers want to get as much work out of their hirelings as possible and many don't care about the health, stress, happiness, etc. of those employees. In sociological terms, they are imposing physical barriers in an attempt to replace crumbling social ones. The problem for them, is they are usually way behind the technology curve. An employee who wants to play hardball can probably raid the company for all the info they want and carry it out on their cellphone or iPod. It's like moving from an honor system where captured soldiers swear they will stay until ransomed, to a military jail with as many bars as possible, except the prison is designed by a bureaucratic committee, each member of which is just trying to make as much money off of kickbacks and saved funds as possible. Time will tell which is more effective.
You're mistaken. Again, dumping software doesn't get these companies in trouble -- bundling it does. If you applied your logic to every company, Apple should be in trouble for iTunes, Sun for Java and Macromedia for Flash.
While I mostly agree with your comments, I can't let you slide on this one. It is very much illegal for a monopoly to practice "dumping" or "predatory pricing" in a market using funds from their existing monopoly. It is one of six specific examples of illegal behavior in US antitrust law. Apple, Sun, and Macromedia are not monopolies and can thus do whatever they want (as far as pricing goes). The rules are different for monopolies due to their unique and dangerous leverage.
In this particular instance, things are more than a little muddy. VMWare is also giving away applications, but charging for support. MS is giving away the product and the support (but their support is almost non-existent). In this case it may or may not be illegal, but in general you're wrong about what monopolies can and can't do.
You're mistaken. That's not how anti-trust law (in the US works). The question is whether consumers are harmed, not competitors.
Who in the world mods this crap up? No one could take the 30 seconds with Google it takes to notice this completely incorrect? US antitrust law is founded on the principal that monopolies should not be allowed to undermine the free market. Tacked onto this is the justification that the free market benefits the US and citizens. All the legal tests for anti-trust action is based upon markets and not consumers.
This particular action may be illegal under the predatory pricing and tying rules for monopolies. Is free below the normal market price for this software? That is to say, if MS did not have a monopoly and the assured constant stream of money for it would it be giving this product away for free? If not and it can be proved they are breaking the law. The second aspect, tying, is due to the fact that this product only works with the professional versions of their OS, thus it is tied to their existing monopoly (warning oversimplification).
In future, please actually read the Sherman and Clayton acts, or at least a well written summary of them before making uninformed comments like this.
Who gets to decide what is porn? Pakistan would object to women in bikinis. What's ".xxx"? What's suitable for .com?
The person registering TLD decides what kind they want, of course. Anything that is a commercial business is suitable for .com, including porn if the company is so inclined. The think is, most porn companies would find value in customer have a more accurate idea of what will be on a site before they load it. They don't want children loading their site. It is a hassle and can cost them money. If they move to .xxx they have a better choice of names and they avoid that headache.
Do we really want an organization trolling the other TLDs and marking up porn?
Why would anyone troll other TLDs for porn and if they did who cares? It's not like anything forces current TLDs to change their policies and exclude paying customers.
But you can bet money Microsoft would try and sue someone into oblivion for registering Microsoft.xxx. And whether or not they win or not, or whether or not they're right, you can be sure that the financial strain would destroy any company.
So what? If someone wants to fight a trademark case with MS who cares. microsoft.xxx would not be a particularly valuable site. No one is likely to accidentally type .xxx as the domain. Foot.xxx would be worth money. Blonde.xxx would be worth money. These sites are no available in .com because regular businesses have them. Creating a .xxx domain provides new real estate that is actually useful. People with foot problems know where to go and can remember the address. Foot fetishists are happy too.
Because, as much as you want to point out flaws in my logic, it's based on reality. .edu and .gov are ran well because they have strict controls. Are you proposing more strict controls over other TLDs?
I'm proposing no such thing. Several TLDs have failed. .info and .biz were not really anything new. Anyone looking at a website wants into and biz is the same thing as com. Thus they are just clones of one another. .xxx is actually useful information and I think it would be successful.
I'm just saying they will not go exclusively to .xxx...
A lot of them probably won't, certainly not right away. But there are advantages. They lose the troublesome traffic from .com, it costs less and .com fees are going up. Most will just redirect their existing .com to their .xxx (and gain memorability) for a few years and then eventually drop the .com if all goes well.
I don't want a bunch of puritan morons deciding what gets to stay in the other TLDs.
Who does, but this might be what is needed to keep them from using "please think of the children" to make porn illegal on the internet in certain jurisdiction regardless of TLD.
What? I never said anything of the sort.
Tipper Gore and Joe Lieberman pressure ISPs not to allow access to .xxx, or to charge more for it, or some other such bullshit.
Yeah that would work. ISPs sure do want to give up all those transit fees they are paid for porn. Sorry, the right may bluster, but they don't have the money to stop the telcos. I'm not buying it.
Note: Said software doesn't exist.
Get with the times. That hasn't been true for a while. The current list includes: Abiword 2.4, eZ publish, IBM Workplace Documents 2.6+, KWord 1.4+, NeoOffice 1.2 Writer, OpenOffice.org Writer, Scribus 1.2.2+ , StarOffice 8 Writer, TEA text editor , TextMaker 2005, Visioo Writer 0.6, and Writely for the word processor portion of the format, with similar lists for the other components. There are a lot more that have announced support on the way.