If anyone's vulnerabilities ~should~ be actively exploited it's FF's, because the source is read and there is full disclosure on the vulnerabilities. But I know of almost none that have been, and none that were widespread.
FF has at least 10% market penetration, which is a HUGE number of computers, more than enough for some hacker to make money on.
I don't know anyone whose computer is full of spyware because they use FF, but almost everyone I know who regularly uses IE complains how slow their computer is, and I look at their browser and there are 3 search bars that they have no idea where they came from or how to uninstall them.
The reality is, FF discloses a vulnerability that ~could~ be exploited, then promptly fixes it, while IE doesn't disclose serious vulnerabilities that ~ARE~ being exploited and ~doesn't~ fix them. There are still ultra-critical IE exploits that have been in the wild for over a year, still resulting in drive-by installations, for which there still isn't a patch.
I feel and ~am~ much safer using FF and will continue to do so. All you have to look at is the reality, I've NEVER had a single piece of spyware installed since using FF (3 or 4 years). The same could not be said when I used IE, and cannot be said of friends that insist on still using IE.
Reading your reply made me think of those digital whiteboards that track where you write and transfer it to a PC in real time. I'll have to look into how they keep track of the pens (they even know which color you are using), and if any of them can track multiple colors at once.
Either hacking one of those or mimicking the principles they operate on may lead to something. Certainly they would work if the whiteboard were horizontal and a projector was projecting an image onto them...
This particular application requires an expensive table.
I'd love to see one that accomplishes the same thing with off the shelf, DIY hardware, even if it wasn't as fancy or didn't have all of the features.
The way they are accomplishing this is clever and unique (a small current goes through the chair, then the person, then the fingertip or hand which the table detects, even being able to tell multiple users apart), but won't likely be priced for home use anytime soon.
I want to build one so I can play Sea3D (Settlers of Catan) on an interactive table top!
I've wanted to build a table like that for 4 player Sea3D (Settlers of Catan), either with a projector or LCD under glass, where each player would have their own controls.
It's a really fun game, but playing it in the same room at the same table would make it even better.
That's the nice thing about this Toshiba plant, because the actual nuclear stuff is 100 feet underground, it is impervious to any kind of terrorist attack.
Our own bunker busters don't even reach 100 feet underground.
It seems to be a very safe plan.
Liquid sodium circulates to a steam generator on the surface, where the electricity is produced. The kwazy terrorists could disrupt the electricity (as with any plant) but wouldn't cause any kind of meltdown or fall out.
I'd love to see Toshiba's mini nuclear reactors widely deployed in the U.S., or at the bare minimum looked into with a few test deployments.
They are small, safe, and cost effective.
They are the size of a grain silo, buried 100 feet underground. They are idiot-proof (think of the causes of Chernobyl) because the nuclear reaction only happens while a plate is moving in front of the rods. If the plate stops, the reaction stops. The plate cannot move except intentionally, so the chance of a runaway meltdown approaches zero.
If the U.S. were smart it would take a months budget for the war in Iraq and just buy the technology outright from Toshiba, then deploy them as widely and cheaply as possible.
The violation only applied to EVDO compatible phones that had bluetooth.
I was ticked about this when I went to switch to Verizon. I asked the guy if I could use bluetooth on the MP3 phone I wanted, and he said "No, but you can on the $99 phone over there".
I was ticked. Basically, Verizon was intentionally crippling the higher end phones to try to create a market for higher speed internet.
That's probably because you design the whole thing, checking it regularly in IE, then when it's all done check it in Firefox and don't like what you see.
In reality, FF has way better adherence to CSS standards than IE does. IE is crap. Intentionally broken crap. 5 years outdated, full of holes crap.
"above the winds" was just a general statement, more specifically they sit at 13 miles up where the atmosphere is so thin that any wind there is has little enough affect that it can be compensated for.
I think that Stratellites would be better, when they are finally deployed.
One Stratellite will cover 100,000 square miles.
They remain aloft for months at a time, when it finally does need service another is sent up beside it, they electronically transfer control to the new one, and the other descends for servicing.
They are above the winds, airplanes, etc, and aren't dropping things every 24 hours like the balloons in the article.
I hope they hurry up, I'm ready to subscribe so I can use the same internet connection at home, on the road, and at my cabin.
The problem is, what happens when the power goes out because everyone who works at the powerplant is dead, infected, taking care of sick family, or unable / unwilling to come to work?
Same with the ISP, the hospital (which has no medicine anyway), the grocery store (which has no food anyway), the gas station (which has no gas or goodies to sell anyway).
People don't realize how much our society relies on JIT, Just In Time delivery. Most stores have less than a week of food on hand and it is constantly replenished. Most gas stations have less than a week of gas onhand. Most hospitals have less than a few weeks medicine on hand.
If the bird flu becomes human to human transmissible, it won't be pretty, and we won't be sitting at home surfing the `net with a Starbucks. Hopefully we'll have food, water, and electricity.
Oh you'll make it, right to the morgue when a Ford Excursion broadsides you (Your car is somewhere under the hood of the excursion).
The point is valid. In America we are addicted to big cars and big oil, as much as we like to complain about the price of gas.
There is a real market for small and efficient cars, but they do not do well in a crash with a big truck or SUV. Whereas two of these small and efficient cars get in the same crash and both parties do quite well.
The cars themselves are safe for their size, just like a Volvo is safe until it goes up against a semi...
One reason: Security. Anyone using Win95 and Win98 right now is living on borrowed time, on an OS with no support, not patches or updates, and no future.
You may say, "So what, that's their problem", but it isn't just they're problem. It's yours, mine, and everyone elses problem.
What nation is the largest provider of spam to the U.S.? The U.S. We like to blame it on China, Korea, or some other nation, but it's us. And the vast majority of that spam comes from compromised home computers, zombies. And I'd be willing to wager the majority of them are Win95, Win98, or XP without any service packs applied.
Who should I have to get 500+ spam emails a day because your grandma is too cheap or too stupid to keep her computer up to date in any sort of fashion? Why should my computer be constantly under siege from other computers that are compromised and doing constant port scans?
If people want to be part of something big, like the Internet, they need to take a little responsibility for their involvment and spend a very small amount of effort and/or money on being part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
Zombies and other security problems cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars a year to fight, not including the real cost, which is lost productivity. We probably haven't seen another Einstein because everyone with that potential is too busy trying to sift through their spam.
Spam filters are so strong now, especially among big ISP's like AOL, that email has lost much of it's value for business or serious communication. When I send someone an email I have very little confidence that they have received it, until I hear back from them. Way too many of the sent emails just disappear like a fart in the wind, without even a bounce message.
We owe much of that situation to zombies, and we all pay the price for the cheapness, stupidity, and laziness of the leechers who want to use the Internet, but don't want to put forth any effort to help it succeed.
Recently researchers were able to recreate the 1918 flu that killed 100 million around the world, and what they found was a little alarming. The 1918 flu jumped directly from birds to humans and became transmissable between humans.
If the current bird flu manages that, there will be an 18 month siege on the economy the likes of which our generations have never seen as borders are shut down and vital supply chains are broken.
Hopefully this new advance offers some hope. Who knows if a pandemic will happen (well, one will happen without a doubt because they have on average every 30 years for the last 300, but we just don't know if this bird flu is the next one), it's just a roll of the dice everytime a human gets infected whether it will mutate.
Old and outdated operating systems and browsers are FAR more likely to be riddled with spyware and viruses, and used for crime, sending out spam, and fraud.
That alone is reason enough to ditch Win95 and Win98, regardless of what OS you switch to. The same applies to old browsers. There is exactly zero reason for anyone, anywhere to be using a 4.x generation browser when FREE, secure replacements are available for almost any OS.
And Win95/Win98 will run Firefox just fine. So they don't have to upgrade their OS or spend a penny. They just have to give a crap enough to spend 10 minutes to stay semi-current (within the last 5 years would be nice).
I don't want to be everything to everyone. But I also don't want to cater to 50 different standards for every one of Microsofts bastardized browser versions.
It takes all the fun out of being a web developer and serves no one.
I could care less about fancy new features. I just want standards, and that is finally starting to happen (until IE 7 comes out and probably screws it all up again, who knows?).
IE 5 and 5.5 are a nightmare. There are still people running on 4.x browsers on Win98 or even Win95. Those PC's are WAY more likely to be spambots or riddled with spyware and viruses. I'm just asking for a little more encouragement for people to upgrade to something more recent, like a browser and OS made this century.
I think it's time for the internet to stop catering to the past.
Can you imagine our interstates if we still catered to stage coaches, horse drawn carriages, and Model T's?
Can you imagine television if we still catered to black and white TV's?
Change happens. Get over it. It's not like Firefox cost's $3,995.00 per copy.
When people can no longer recognize the sites they like, they'll get the hint and upgrade.
It won't be sites like Amazon.com that bring about this change, it will be sites like HomeStarRunner.com, JibJab, that don't have billions of dollars in sales to lose, but can be just as influential in a grassroots way.
I'm familiar with the NPT, it's the same treaty that Bush thumbed his nose at for 2 years while trying to get nuclear, excuse me, "nucular" bunker busters in the name of the are on terror.
Hmm, let's see, I can support global warming and get chewed apart by every pundit on the planet and gain nothing, or I can say nothing, risk nothing, and gain nothing.
I think the people that stand behind global warming do so because they have done their research and believe we are in jeopardy.
As opposed to the current administration who just covers both ears, screams "nah nah nah nah nah nah", and lets big industry do everything they want to maximize profits without having to worry about the expensive upgrades to be environmentally friendly.
If you are looking for ulterior motives, I think you have to look at big industry and big government, not at the scientists.
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Here's the difference:
If anyone's vulnerabilities ~should~ be actively exploited it's FF's, because the source is read and there is full disclosure on the vulnerabilities. But I know of almost none that have been, and none that were widespread.
FF has at least 10% market penetration, which is a HUGE number of computers, more than enough for some hacker to make money on.
I don't know anyone whose computer is full of spyware because they use FF, but almost everyone I know who regularly uses IE complains how slow their computer is, and I look at their browser and there are 3 search bars that they have no idea where they came from or how to uninstall them.
The reality is, FF discloses a vulnerability that ~could~ be exploited, then promptly fixes it, while IE doesn't disclose serious vulnerabilities that ~ARE~ being exploited and ~doesn't~ fix them. There are still ultra-critical IE exploits that have been in the wild for over a year, still resulting in drive-by installations, for which there still isn't a patch.
I feel and ~am~ much safer using FF and will continue to do so. All you have to look at is the reality, I've NEVER had a single piece of spyware installed since using FF (3 or 4 years). The same could not be said when I used IE, and cannot be said of friends that insist on still using IE.
Ahh, come on.
A few dead spammers never hurt anyone...
Capital punishment.
Reading your reply made me think of those digital whiteboards that track where you write and transfer it to a PC in real time. I'll have to look into how they keep track of the pens (they even know which color you are using), and if any of them can track multiple colors at once.
Either hacking one of those or mimicking the principles they operate on may lead to something. Certainly they would work if the whiteboard were horizontal and a projector was projecting an image onto them...
This particular application requires an expensive table. I'd love to see one that accomplishes the same thing with off the shelf, DIY hardware, even if it wasn't as fancy or didn't have all of the features. The way they are accomplishing this is clever and unique (a small current goes through the chair, then the person, then the fingertip or hand which the table detects, even being able to tell multiple users apart), but won't likely be priced for home use anytime soon. I want to build one so I can play Sea3D (Settlers of Catan) on an interactive table top!
I've wanted to build a table like that for 4 player Sea3D (Settlers of Catan), either with a projector or LCD under glass, where each player would have their own controls.
It's a really fun game, but playing it in the same room at the same table would make it even better.
You'll get no argument from me there.
That's the nice thing about this Toshiba plant, because the actual nuclear stuff is 100 feet underground, it is impervious to any kind of terrorist attack.
Our own bunker busters don't even reach 100 feet underground.
It seems to be a very safe plan.
Liquid sodium circulates to a steam generator on the surface, where the electricity is produced. The kwazy terrorists could disrupt the electricity (as with any plant) but wouldn't cause any kind of meltdown or fall out.
I'd love to see Toshiba's mini nuclear reactors widely deployed in the U.S., or at the bare minimum looked into with a few test deployments.
They are small, safe, and cost effective.
They are the size of a grain silo, buried 100 feet underground. They are idiot-proof (think of the causes of Chernobyl) because the nuclear reaction only happens while a plate is moving in front of the rods. If the plate stops, the reaction stops. The plate cannot move except intentionally, so the chance of a runaway meltdown approaches zero.
If the U.S. were smart it would take a months budget for the war in Iraq and just buy the technology outright from Toshiba, then deploy them as widely and cheaply as possible.
The violation only applied to EVDO compatible phones that had bluetooth.
I was ticked about this when I went to switch to Verizon. I asked the guy if I could use bluetooth on the MP3 phone I wanted, and he said "No, but you can on the $99 phone over there".
I was ticked. Basically, Verizon was intentionally crippling the higher end phones to try to create a market for higher speed internet.
That's probably because you design the whole thing, checking it regularly in IE, then when it's all done check it in Firefox and don't like what you see.
In reality, FF has way better adherence to CSS standards than IE does. IE is crap. Intentionally broken crap. 5 years outdated, full of holes crap.
Correct. It does use your minutes, so you don't want to fall asleep and forget it's connected!
Even where EVDO isn't supported you get on the order of 220kbps.
I've even used my phone --> laptop via bluetooth to get internet access at my cabin where no other internet access is available.
If you're on the fringes of the network (like at my cabin) you only get on the order of 50kbps, but it's better than nothing.
Time will tell.
"above the winds" was just a general statement, more specifically they sit at 13 miles up where the atmosphere is so thin that any wind there is has little enough affect that it can be compensated for.
I think that Stratellites would be better, when they are finally deployed.
One Stratellite will cover 100,000 square miles.
They remain aloft for months at a time, when it finally does need service another is sent up beside it, they electronically transfer control to the new one, and the other descends for servicing.
They are above the winds, airplanes, etc, and aren't dropping things every 24 hours like the balloons in the article.
I hope they hurry up, I'm ready to subscribe so I can use the same internet connection at home, on the road, and at my cabin.
The problem is, what happens when the power goes out because everyone who works at the powerplant is dead, infected, taking care of sick family, or unable / unwilling to come to work?
Same with the ISP, the hospital (which has no medicine anyway), the grocery store (which has no food anyway), the gas station (which has no gas or goodies to sell anyway).
People don't realize how much our society relies on JIT, Just In Time delivery. Most stores have less than a week of food on hand and it is constantly replenished. Most gas stations have less than a week of gas onhand. Most hospitals have less than a few weeks medicine on hand.
If the bird flu becomes human to human transmissible, it won't be pretty, and we won't be sitting at home surfing the `net with a Starbucks. Hopefully we'll have food, water, and electricity.
Oh you'll make it, right to the morgue when a Ford Excursion broadsides you (Your car is somewhere under the hood of the excursion).
The point is valid. In America we are addicted to big cars and big oil, as much as we like to complain about the price of gas.
There is a real market for small and efficient cars, but they do not do well in a crash with a big truck or SUV. Whereas two of these small and efficient cars get in the same crash and both parties do quite well.
The cars themselves are safe for their size, just like a Volvo is safe until it goes up against a semi...
One reason: Security. Anyone using Win95 and Win98 right now is living on borrowed time, on an OS with no support, not patches or updates, and no future.
You may say, "So what, that's their problem", but it isn't just they're problem. It's yours, mine, and everyone elses problem.
What nation is the largest provider of spam to the U.S.? The U.S. We like to blame it on China, Korea, or some other nation, but it's us. And the vast majority of that spam comes from compromised home computers, zombies. And I'd be willing to wager the majority of them are Win95, Win98, or XP without any service packs applied.
Who should I have to get 500+ spam emails a day because your grandma is too cheap or too stupid to keep her computer up to date in any sort of fashion? Why should my computer be constantly under siege from other computers that are compromised and doing constant port scans?
If people want to be part of something big, like the Internet, they need to take a little responsibility for their involvment and spend a very small amount of effort and/or money on being part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
Zombies and other security problems cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars a year to fight, not including the real cost, which is lost productivity. We probably haven't seen another Einstein because everyone with that potential is too busy trying to sift through their spam.
Spam filters are so strong now, especially among big ISP's like AOL, that email has lost much of it's value for business or serious communication. When I send someone an email I have very little confidence that they have received it, until I hear back from them. Way too many of the sent emails just disappear like a fart in the wind, without even a bounce message.
We owe much of that situation to zombies, and we all pay the price for the cheapness, stupidity, and laziness of the leechers who want to use the Internet, but don't want to put forth any effort to help it succeed.
Recently researchers were able to recreate the 1918 flu that killed 100 million around the world, and what they found was a little alarming. The 1918 flu jumped directly from birds to humans and became transmissable between humans.
If the current bird flu manages that, there will be an 18 month siege on the economy the likes of which our generations have never seen as borders are shut down and vital supply chains are broken.
Hopefully this new advance offers some hope. Who knows if a pandemic will happen (well, one will happen without a doubt because they have on average every 30 years for the last 300, but we just don't know if this bird flu is the next one), it's just a roll of the dice everytime a human gets infected whether it will mutate.
Only one reason is needed: security.
Old and outdated operating systems and browsers are FAR more likely to be riddled with spyware and viruses, and used for crime, sending out spam, and fraud.
This costs the U.S. alone billions of dollars every year, not to mention the value of the lost productivity.
That alone is reason enough to ditch Win95 and Win98, regardless of what OS you switch to. The same applies to old browsers. There is exactly zero reason for anyone, anywhere to be using a 4.x generation browser when FREE, secure replacements are available for almost any OS.
You can get a new computer with operating system for $328 or .
And Win95/Win98 will run Firefox just fine. So they don't have to upgrade their OS or spend a penny. They just have to give a crap enough to spend 10 minutes to stay semi-current (within the last 5 years would be nice).
I don't want to be everything to everyone. But I also don't want to cater to 50 different standards for every one of Microsofts bastardized browser versions.
It takes all the fun out of being a web developer and serves no one.
I could care less about fancy new features. I just want standards, and that is finally starting to happen (until IE 7 comes out and probably screws it all up again, who knows?).
IE 5 and 5.5 are a nightmare. There are still people running on 4.x browsers on Win98 or even Win95. Those PC's are WAY more likely to be spambots or riddled with spyware and viruses. I'm just asking for a little more encouragement for people to upgrade to something more recent, like a browser and OS made this century.
I think it's time for the internet to stop catering to the past.
Can you imagine our interstates if we still catered to stage coaches, horse drawn carriages, and Model T's?
Can you imagine television if we still catered to black and white TV's?
Change happens. Get over it. It's not like Firefox cost's $3,995.00 per copy.
When people can no longer recognize the sites they like, they'll get the hint and upgrade.
It won't be sites like Amazon.com that bring about this change, it will be sites like HomeStarRunner.com, JibJab, that don't have billions of dollars in sales to lose, but can be just as influential in a grassroots way.
I'm familiar with the NPT, it's the same treaty that Bush thumbed his nose at for 2 years while trying to get nuclear, excuse me, "nucular" bunker busters in the name of the are on terror.
We'll just agree to disagree. Good day.
Hmm, let's see, I can support global warming and get chewed apart by every pundit on the planet and gain nothing, or I can say nothing, risk nothing, and gain nothing.
I think the people that stand behind global warming do so because they have done their research and believe we are in jeopardy.
As opposed to the current administration who just covers both ears, screams "nah nah nah nah nah nah", and lets big industry do everything they want to maximize profits without having to worry about the expensive upgrades to be environmentally friendly.
If you are looking for ulterior motives, I think you have to look at big industry and big government, not at the scientists.