......but we would not have flattened the world. I can tell you this, I remember when Reagan was shot. I remember teacher strikes in the 70's. I remember Kent State. I remember the first time I every saw Moasaic.
Too old for GenX, tool old for babyboomer. I can tell you this: I never thought the wall would fall and I never thought I'd read Russian websites/bloggs like they were around the corner or in the next town. The Internet, more specifically the WWW *HAS* flattened the world in that respect. Imagine what "Reporters Without Borders" would be without it? It is hard now for people to imagine the world without it.
Mr Lee should continue to receive high recognition for what he and CERN have given us.
I always scratch my head when I see/hear comments like this. OK, we get it. "True" *nix admins do EVERYTHING from the command line. For years I was among the "command line is better" camp but I had an epiphany. The unwashed masses WANT a simplified GUI. And that includes many system admins who are overloaded and don't have time to write a script to streamline their process. Just because someone finds a GUI easier to use than a command line does not make them inept. A properly coded GUI SHOULD be easier to use. Right there is a problem. Writing those scripts *IS* your job. You can never be too busy to do your job unless your management is uninformed or very bad at their job. No arguing, because all you'll have to argue with are excuses. period. If you are too busy to do your job your problems are bigger than system administration.
The pioneers of early computing trudged along coding first in machine code or Binary and eventually they developed assembly language which made things much easier. Assembly eventually lead to "high level" languages like C that had to be compiled back into its binary form to run. Etc, etc. Computing has evolved and if the dinosaurs don't evolve with it they will get left behind. Doing it right is not about evolution per se'. Toilet paper has evolved, but I bet you still wipe your ass the same way? no? Administrating the systems is about using the best tools you can get to do the best job you can as efficiently as you can. If a GUI suits you, go ahead and use it. What do you do if the GUI is not working? If you can't do anything without it, are you only half an admin?
If you don't want this tool Microsoft is offering to become the de-facto standard in all *nix/Microsoft environments I suggest you come down off your high horse and get coding a FOSS alternative GUI which runs on Windows as well as Linux. First, it's arguable that MS' tool will become a standard. I don't think you've been in the average data center lately.
Otherwise all your PHB will see when you present your case and Microsoft presents theirs is that the Microsoft tool is polished and colorful and yours is just an ugly black box with a blinking cursor. The command line isn't going away any time soon. Neither is machine language but can you remember the last time you had to code in it? BTDT, in spades. Guess what, the F/OSS alternative won on price alone. The PHB doesn't care how it's done as long as it IS done, and the PHB doesn't have budget for fancy stuff like administration tools. I quote the PHB: "can't you just write a script and do this?" He says it often.
BTW, yes I can remember the last time I coded in machine language. CS is not restricted to PHP.
I did not point out the average fail of this in the first post, but lets look at them briefly:
MS' options costs money, and requires a MS server to run on (more money).
MS' options are not required to support anything in particular. The end user is dependent on MS to make their product work in the end user's environment. MS' options are closed source, not modifiable by the end users.
If you want something that MS' options won't do, you have to write your own anyway.
If you want a *nix GUI admin program, Webmin is pretty handy. It's open, modifiable, and you can write your own modules. Support is free. It runs on the *nix box you are trying to admin, and uses a web browser for interfacing. Yes, Webmin supports Windows already. I support and use Webmin, I don't need to go write my own.
Indeed... webmin can be quicker for stuff you can't remember the command line for, but it is ALWAYS best to learn the text/terminal/shell commands for the very same thing.
I like a lot of webmin, but would rather just script quite a bit of stuff where I can. Much simpler than clickety clicks -- YMMV
The REAL question is: Are there *ANY* *nix system admins out there that WANT MS to manage their systems? My head about exploded when I read the title. On second reading, well, it makes sense to be able to deal with all things in the data center. I'm just not sure if MS has the m4d sk1l5 for doing so. I have yet to see a well managed MS data center installation.
An interesting point, and once the government begins opening bids for such equipment to other than approved government contractors/bidders it just probably will happen.
Measure pain and liability against reward. Developing a KDE app comes out positive. Giving the government something will likely turn out negative in balance. The trouble is not just the contracting issues, but also the fact that support systems are not there for OSS developments. So, yes, the Cathedral will have more resources to push at the problem and yet as it is painfully obvious not the right design or software resources to throw at it.
There are several glaringly stupid and overtly fucking obvious security flaws in the machines I've seen so far.
Using a common toilet towel dispenser key to lock the box???
Keeping the operational code on a removable drive/device ??? WTF
If you can plug a USB device and load your own malicious code into the machine... well, they missed another obvious lock mechanism.
The government has been buying circuit boards covered in conformal coatings for years. The protects the board from various maladies including prying eyes and hackers.
Can you say paper trail?
Can you say redundant electronic accounting for each vote?
Can you... never mind. There are so many obvious ways to improve what has been put out there so far that it's like picking on the small kid at recess.
see another story about vote machine problems. If it was a NASA rocket motor there would be congressional investigations, news people camped out waiting for news of the investigation at NASA headquarters etc.
But this gets shoved under the carpet at every turn like a bit of dirt that not even MSM wants to report on.
It makes me sad to be American, well, sad that such things happen in America. We are supposed to be better than this. We were (I think) and I hope that we are better than this soon. It's disgusting.
The machines themselves are not complex pieces of equipment that take rocket scientists to develop or maintain. According to someone that should know, they are not even as secure as an ATM machine. How fucking sad is that?
Why, yes, I do have some suggestions. Where is the forum for me to submit them?
I don't think you missed anything. Without commenting on his guilt(or not) or mental state, it can be said and seen that in other F/OSS projects developers come and go. Obviously the original designer is always a bad thing to lose but that hardly means the demise of the project if others understand what the originator intended and implemented.
Try to remember that the GNU/Linux family trees are diverse, yet not. Debian is what Ubuntu is built upon. I'm not sure the author of TFA has been drinking the right kind of tea lately.
Just because Windows is only a single sourced OS, and older versions are deprecated, it does not follow that ALL OS software follows the same crooked path.
How many versions of DOS were there? They all worked... well, till MS put them out of business. *nix systems will always exists as a group, not as a single player. Yes, I said always. This is due to the fact that each of them is customized to suit a particular hardware or purpose. There are several OS's for mobile devices and no one is questioning if they all need to be there or not... except for those with a vested interest in the others going away.
There are a lot of OS's that are not going to make a commercial fortune, and commercial fortunes are not the only measure of success. There are lots of people who benefit every day from WindRiver systems, fromi CentOS, and other operating systems that are not wild commercial successes like Windows or Mac et al.
This is a blind man picking race horses at the track by the smell of the beer spills next to the betting window.
IMO the large number of recalls reflects the excessive complexity of modern vehicles. I wouldn't want remote disable on any of my vehicles. Actually, paging networks are perfectly positioned (as are satellite networks) to send a signal to a device in your car that tells it to never start again once it is turned off. When you report your car stolen, activate that signal and it will remain (short of towing) where it is until the police find it.
The safety issues scare insurance companies and without their blessing the systems could not make anyone money. Tracking systems are good to a point, but you're right. The best is to prevent drive-away in the first place.
Incidentally, this type of question arises often for a great many things. Consider the DARPA Grand Challenge races. They have to consider safety from quite a few angles as do those making armed military robots. Physical safety is not something that coders often have to think about, but it is very important.
As mentioned, you'd be stupid to run a dialysis machine on XP and have it networked, but there are other scenarios that are not so far fetched: Say control systems for the electric grid? Hmmm nobody is ever going to be injured if the trains all stop running for lack of power, right? There are all sorts of places that it's not so hard to see a windows machine running that could instigate the butterfly effect to end up causing you and others harm.
BTW, you already have a remote disable on your car but nobody has the remote control yet. The computer that adds the complexity that you speak of is exactly that, if it fails. Being a computer it can be remotely made to 'fail' if the government gets automakers to cooperate with them on providing a remote control. As it is now, it functions like a black box also. The only thing we need now is technology like that from VW and other European automakers to ensure that truly bad drivers continue to be allowed on the roads. Eventually people will quit worrying about learning to drive because the vehicle takes care of that for them. (I could name a couple of scifi movies here).
If you are going to write friendly software worms, why not take a moment to figure out what the hell kind of computer you are on, and make some decisions about whether to risk it, or simply report to someone that the computer is infected?
Am I the only one that thinks this is too simple to be questioned? Friendly.... it's a word that suggests something that does no harm. If the software can't figure out if there is no risk, then it should take no action other than reporting.
Safety, it's a big issue. VW will not be sending their high tech stuff to the states next year because of litigation concerns. They are right to do so, if there is no method to ensure your product does no harm, do not deploy it. period. unless you would like to spend time in court.
There have been dozens of anti-theft systems that would turn a car off after it's been stolen but due to concerns that it might do so while the car was traveling at speed on the highways, such products were never deployed.
Safety first. kill bad bots second. Sort of what the US police forces are supposed to do. Well, until someone gave them a taser gun. Now, shoot first is the rule because they won't get sued, and don't have to worry about it.
If you're going to write anti-worm software, safety is a major concern if you are acting without the owner/user's permission. There is NO way around that without incurring litigation risk.
Re:Removing malware == DMCA violation, the next st
on
EULAs For Malware
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· Score: 1
But... but... wait a damn minute. When I bought my last pc it had windows installed without my consent.
Sure, sure, I realize there is a bit of difference here, but it sounds like they are taking the same business track as MS did in the 90s... well, more or less.
Foist it on them, sue anyone who disagrees. Buy the dissenters that you can, consolidate, conglomerate, soon you'll be the largest malware pimp in the world!
Yeah, and it makes you wonder... a glove with sensors? hmmmm wonder what flying the bird will blow up? oh oh oh, can they make like a toy gun with their fingers and shoot at stuff and have the.50 call on top of the humv fire?
This could be fun... point your finger for a few seconds of lead on target, then flip a bird and watch the RPGs go flying?
No, while working with Redmond, the folk at Area 51 released to the press a statement about Ununpentium 1.99, clearing the way for new math that would unempower us to create a flying saucer to travel the galaxy.
In a nod to this discovery, in Excel 2003, if you place the cursor on cell z-199 and press ctrl-alt-right_shift-ins while typing XFILES a little flying saucer icon will appear from the left side of the screen and then travel around the screen in the exact flight path that the first manned Mars mission will take.
Once you have completed this arduous task, z-100:z256 will forever be dedicated to processing data from SETI.
While I agree with you generally, I have to say that the three non-nerd non-geek members of my family have a problem: they were under the belief that Windows is the computer! They accessed the internet through Windows. They have a little trouble understanding why they have to have permissions to install software. They know what an iPod is but don't understand what a Mac is.
When they sit down at (first 7.10) Ubuntu 8.04 there are a couple of things I've noticed like the GP. If there is already a folder called photos and the camera automatically downloads pictures to that folder... well, they understand that. If they have to create a folder and tell the software to put the photos... well, it's a pain and they'll just pass. seriously!
My dad explained it to me like this: If a computer was a hammer it would not be a good one. FerChrisAkes, I want to hit nails, NOT learn how to make hammers. While that analogy only goes so far, it's true. Some just want the 'tool' to work (that's what she said!) and other's want to fiddle with it a lot (no comment).
IMHO, Ubuntu is giving us a hammer that doesn't need instructions or assembly. It's not perfect, but it IS damned good.
... In my opinion it would be unfeasible to maintain two sites, one for narrow band users and one for high speed users.... I disagree on this point, the WWW is basically built by software, is run by computers, and is automated. That is to say no human intervention is required when you request a web page via your browser.
If HTML editors were what they should be, generating a lightweight site along with the mighty and powerful web 2.0 version should be no problem. You are using a computer to generate your website pages, NOT an abacus, and the computer should be doing more for you than it is. I think that the basic narrow band/broad band gap in functionality can be blamed on HTML editors easier than blaming the end user because they don't have broadband.
A simple enough standard would be to tack the/lite/index.html in place of the standard/index.html location.
You might even think about it a bit and see that the same HTML editor could also be producing wap compatible web pages for mobile compatability also. If you are writing code and NOT considering the end user of your code, you're doing it wrong.
Well, I agree, phony signs are stupid. My dogs don't bark so you might believe the beware of dog signs are phony, but I hope the camera gets your picture when you find out:)
WARNING: Blatant plug follows:
FWIW, I recommend alarm.com... you can get wireless connectivity that works even if they cut your phone line... yeah yeah, if they cut the cable line it still works, and the alarm.com web interface is fairly awesome if you ask me.
They sell for $40/month-ish around here. I think it's an awesome system, has X10 interfacing, supports wireless sensors blah blah blah...
From a security standpoint I'm not sure what a would-be burglar would think of the combination of signs in front of my house. One is a protected by xyz security system and above it is a beware of dog sign.
I only put the sign up as a friendly police type person told me that liability with the police and emergency services decreases if you let them know you have pets. Both my dogs are docile, but are the breeds that people assume will eat any of their kids up to age of 16.
I have the security rather sewn up here, but tinkering with the video option is a fun project:)
I agree, deterrence is the first line of home security (thus big signs saying protected by xyz alarm company etc.) and the second is having actual security video. High quality video is hardly necessary for security purposes. Generally one half decent quality face photo will be good enough for the police, but there is ALWAYS the question of whether or not they will do anything with it.
When my car was broken into, the thief had greasy fingers and left large as life well made finger prints on the window. I couldn't even pay the police to take them as evidence. I'm not kidding. Property theft is hardly high on the list when they have terrorists and war protester to chase after.
I was thinking of a motion activated camera (low lux black and white) with software control on the pan/tilt and all remoted to the computer room I have. The latest addition on that is to mount a laser pointer on the camera so that it will point at whatever the camera is following.
This could be either lots of fun with the dog, or quite menacing to a would be robber:)
I fail to see how the statement "And soon, the conclusion will be... uh, why pay for that. Spybot search and destroy is free, and ClamAV is free. I can just give them a one time donation and get just as good of protection..." is not true?
Solution: Update to version 0.93.
The vulnerabilities are reported in versions prior to 0.92.1.
Solution: Update to version 0.92.1. This is exactly what I was saying, and is true of all antivirus software. If you don't stay updated, you are vulnerable. The POINT was why pay so much for it?
What would happen if Ralph got involved in the computer antivirus field?
lets translate FTFA
"It will do more harm than good to our company," said Paul Ferguson, a researcher with antivirus vendor TrendMicro. "Responsible disclosure is one thing, but now actually encouraging people to do this (as if the NSA isn't already doing so), as a contest is a little over the top.When really smart people start working on malicious software, we won't be able to keep up" Bold edits added by me.
How about this slogan "Unsafe with any version!"
I think they are afraid that regular joe end users are about to find out that programs meant to protect your pc are always an after the fact effort which leaves you vulnerable until you update and that there is no way to keep you safe from a zero-day facebook exploit. Even the government websites can be malicious until patched/fixed.
And soon, the conclusion will be... uh, why pay for that. Spybot search and destroy is free, and ClamAV is free. I can just give them a one time donation and get just as good of protection... hmmmm These pricey programs really can't do all that much.
Wow, it would be such a shame if joe bloggs end user found out the truth. tisk tisk
I have some news that is probably bad in your view. I saw this yesterday "Lars Ulrich suggests Metallica could follow Radiohead" http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9929031-7.html?tag=newsmap and then there is Radiohead, NIN, and hundreds of small less known bands that sell their products online.
Digital music is commoditized because without distribution the business is limited to where you can travel and play. The distribution channel propped up a usury business. Now it's gone and the music industry now has to add value to what they sell or lower prices. That is the effect commoditization has on an industry.
Books were just not hit as fast with commoditization because there is no common method for reading texts that people readily enjoy. I get 7 tech mags electronically every month. They send them to me as PDF files. They would be free in print too, but my point is that originally several of these publishers tried proprietary formats. For the most part that was cool, but then you couldn't take it anywhere with you easily, couldn't share it like you could a print copy. Eventually, over the course of several years, they all stopped that and moved to PDF format in order to make their business model work. If they have no readers they have no ad revenue. Books are about to get the same treatment and all it will take is ONE publisher to put out electronic and paper texts. It's not about free, it's about freedom. Paying pumped up prices for a product is never good, and I'll wager that you can't find anyone that thinks text book prices for college classes are NOT pumped up ridiculously. If you think text books are priced well I'd ask you to explain their value in the 1/2 price books store. $100+ this year, $15 next year????? WTF? Did polysci202 change THAT much in a year?
Remember back when online colleges were thought to be a bit of a joke? Not anymore. I don't want free. I want reasonably priced. I have donated to all the F/OSS projects that I use regularly. I don't have any illegal copies of Windows or Mac OS.
The ONLY reason to get rid of the RIAA is because they are litigating asshats. If they had properly predicted what was going to happen to them, and directed their industry down a path of cooperation with the new technologies they would be just fine. What they did was completely the opposite and absolutely something deserving of punishment.
You see, it's not just about free. It's about freedom, common sense, and a sense of fair play. The electronic distribution channel has changed music, print, entertainment, and multimedia forever whether you or those industries like it or not.
The users 'get it' and slowly every other industry will 'get it' or die off. That is just how progress works... go ask a buggy whip maker?
Actually, it's Saturday night, I'm not going out, so I'll point out that it was not mac fanboism that I thought of. If you read the summary you 'd see that it was 'edited' to say 1/4 of US pc's, and there are way more than 10,000 pc's in the US business world. The math did not add up. I had to read TFA to figure out what the hell they were talking about. The summary was written very poorly, my friend. I said nothing about Mac fanbois... nada, zip, nil, null, nothing. In fact I did mention that Mac has seriously positive points. My gripe was with the summary and the overt optimism of TFA.
I nearly spit beer on the screen laughing at that. I've been imprisoned by the ring... wedding, not precious.
So posting on a Saturday night (after mowing the yard, organizing the garage, picking up brake parts to put on the car tomorrow, and fixing a bathroom faucet) is just a bit of relaxation before bed.
I was only trying to put a big-picture-business-analyst slant on the story. I'm not angry at all. I just don't think the business values, market trends, and predicted market conditions will sustain this growth so it's not much to clamor about. Same would be true of previous fanatical posts about Linux on the Desktop so to speak. I think we all want to see the results we desire and see them in anything that even remotely looks like it. For the same reasons that Linux won't replace the majority of PCs in the workplace soon, the Mac won't either. There is a LOT to be said for investment in technology. Once you're in the boat and headed down the rapids it's terribly hard to turn around for most people.
FTFA
"We're seeing more requests outside of creative services to switch to Macs from PCs," notes David Plavin, operations manager for Mac systems engineering at the U.S. IT division of Publicis Groupe, a global advertising conglomerate. There are so many requests that Plavin now supports 2,500 Macs across the U.S. -- nearly a quarter of all Publicis' U.S. PCs. There that sorts it out, 2500 is no where near 1/4 of all US pc's... damn
Besides, uhmmmm, ok, so Mac is gaining ground. How much is that about the Mac vs. about Microsoft being shit for the last three years? Vista did more than an 'own goal' they are giving points away to EVERYONE else. Of course Mac will get some of them. It doesn't hurt that the iWHATEVER has been so popular. It's called the halo effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect and so Mac gets more customers right now. Lets see how long they keep them? The halo effect has been shown to be quite a peak-then-die thing unless the product has real staying power.
Don't get me wrong, Mac has some serious positive qualities and I'm not going to bash it (other than being proprietary and expensive) but this story is not taking into account the halo effect nor the gains made from MS defectors. Defectors? Why don't we just describe them as passengers on the titanic looking for a life raft without having to resort to building their own?
I have a couple of friends (who have obvious desires for Mac due to musical or creative arts reasons) who have opted for a flashy balls out Mac because, and I quote "I just want something that works and I don't have to fuck with it, no matter what the cost is."
Mac will get those votes. With the looming recession I don't think there will end up being all that many of those votes, especially when GNU/Linux is making so much headway. I'm not declaring a winner or anything, just saying that the optimistic view of this FA is.. well, overly optimistic given the other facts of life.
Slightly overlooked here is the fact that the Internet has commoditized information. That is to say, it has done to book sellers what it has done to the **AA.
While it is not in the public eye as much, several here have pointed out the huge monetary waste in buying/selling text books, and the book sellers/education system keep updating so that users are caught in a continual upgrade cycle. When there is a method of cheap updates the continued use of repetitive upgrade cycles in paper issued texts is nothing short of usury.
Any educational institution that wants to be a valued place to attend should be flowing with the times and 'getting it' now, not 4 years from now, or not when the board members want to think about it. This technology is here NOW, and it's yesterday's news, not some high tech promise for the future.
Yes, it only takes one meeting to start the ball rolling to ensure that the electronic texts match what classes and professors teach, and that the paper and electronic forms are identical in content. The fact that they are not yet is nothing less than gouging.
Yes, damn it, it is THAT simple. We will NOT buy your text books UNLESS you provide electronic access to the same identical texts. That is ALL it takes. Publishers will jump to get the business.
Look, if I can buy the book for $90 or get access to it from a school server in electronic form for $25, I'll probably go for the electronic. The costs of books is about 30% printing/distribution. The rest has to be done for both formats.
I stopped buying programming books some time ago because all I need is behind that Google screen. Even very high quality PhD materials are available on the Internet.
While people are worried how they will make money they have missed out on the fact that information itself has now become a commodity. Time for change, here and now, not next year. The **AA is having to deal with it and their example of doing so is not one that publishers really want to go with. They need to look at social websites and other popular websites to ensure that their chosen method of 'upgrade' is going to work.
My suggestions? Offer electronic texts, sell paper based Q/A sections. DRM won't work, so there will be copying, can't get around that. The photocopier put paid to any such scheme long ago. Now it's just easier. Make it easily available. Make it fun. If an account based system is used, make it more useful than just retrieving texts. Add value to the account. Charge for the account through the school system so that students have an EASY way to pay if they wish. When you have done it right students will be making your website their homepage, if you're looking for milestones in your effort.
As far as information goes, give people readers for your content for free, and make them work on ANYTHING. Charge a service fee for the account, and only charge for premium content beyond that. Yes, there will be copying, but then people borrowed books all the time before this anyway. Quit fretting and suing, just make your content the best available and work out how to survive on lower margins in a commoditized market.
Slashdot Mirror
......but we would not have flattened the world. I can tell you this, I remember when Reagan was shot. I remember teacher strikes in the 70's. I remember Kent State. I remember the first time I every saw Moasaic.Too old for GenX, tool old for babyboomer. I can tell you this: I never thought the wall would fall and I never thought I'd read Russian websites/bloggs like they were around the corner or in the next town. The Internet, more specifically the WWW *HAS* flattened the world in that respect. Imagine what "Reporters Without Borders" would be without it? It is hard now for people to imagine the world without it.
Mr Lee should continue to receive high recognition for what he and CERN have given us.
Yes, car analogy time:
It's nice to have cruise control, but you should know how to drive the car without it too.
Likewise, it's nice to have a nailing gun but you should know how to use a hammer also.
Not sure which one is a better analogy...
read the summary and understood the Whitehouse is blaming Microsoft? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
There is nothing that will happen for the rest of the week that can make me more light hearted than this. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
BTW, yes I can remember the last time I coded in machine language. CS is not restricted to PHP.
I did not point out the average fail of this in the first post, but lets look at them briefly:
MS' options costs money, and requires a MS server to run on (more money).
MS' options are not required to support anything in particular. The end user is dependent on MS to make their product work in the end user's environment. MS' options are closed source, not modifiable by the end users.
If you want something that MS' options won't do, you have to write your own anyway.
If you want a *nix GUI admin program, Webmin is pretty handy. It's open, modifiable, and you can write your own modules. Support is free. It runs on the *nix box you are trying to admin, and uses a web browser for interfacing. Yes, Webmin supports Windows already. I support and use Webmin, I don't need to go write my own.
Indeed... webmin can be quicker for stuff you can't remember the command line for, but it is ALWAYS best to learn the text/terminal/shell commands for the very same thing.
I like a lot of webmin, but would rather just script quite a bit of stuff where I can. Much simpler than clickety clicks -- YMMV
The REAL question is: Are there *ANY* *nix system admins out there that WANT MS to manage their systems? My head about exploded when I read the title. On second reading, well, it makes sense to be able to deal with all things in the data center. I'm just not sure if MS has the m4d sk1l5 for doing so. I have yet to see a well managed MS data center installation.
Just an opinion
An interesting point, and once the government begins opening bids for such equipment to other than approved government contractors/bidders it just probably will happen.
... never mind. There are so many obvious ways to improve what has been put out there so far that it's like picking on the small kid at recess.
Measure pain and liability against reward. Developing a KDE app comes out positive. Giving the government something will likely turn out negative in balance. The trouble is not just the contracting issues, but also the fact that support systems are not there for OSS developments. So, yes, the Cathedral will have more resources to push at the problem and yet as it is painfully obvious not the right design or software resources to throw at it.
There are several glaringly stupid and overtly fucking obvious security flaws in the machines I've seen so far.
Using a common toilet towel dispenser key to lock the box???
Keeping the operational code on a removable drive/device ??? WTF
If you can plug a USB device and load your own malicious code into the machine... well, they missed another obvious lock mechanism.
The government has been buying circuit boards covered in conformal coatings for years. The protects the board from various maladies including prying eyes and hackers.
Can you say paper trail?
Can you say redundant electronic accounting for each vote?
Can you
see another story about vote machine problems. If it was a NASA rocket motor there would be congressional investigations, news people camped out waiting for news of the investigation at NASA headquarters etc.
But this gets shoved under the carpet at every turn like a bit of dirt that not even MSM wants to report on.
It makes me sad to be American, well, sad that such things happen in America. We are supposed to be better than this. We were (I think) and I hope that we are better than this soon. It's disgusting.
The machines themselves are not complex pieces of equipment that take rocket scientists to develop or maintain. According to someone that should know, they are not even as secure as an ATM machine. How fucking sad is that?
Why, yes, I do have some suggestions. Where is the forum for me to submit them?
I don't think you missed anything. Without commenting on his guilt(or not) or mental state, it can be said and seen that in other F/OSS projects developers come and go. Obviously the original designer is always a bad thing to lose but that hardly means the demise of the project if others understand what the originator intended and implemented.
Try to remember that the GNU/Linux family trees are diverse, yet not. Debian is what Ubuntu is built upon. I'm not sure the author of TFA has been drinking the right kind of tea lately.
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/debian_choosing_distribution.html is a place to find some of the Debian based distributions.
Just because Windows is only a single sourced OS, and older versions are deprecated, it does not follow that ALL OS software follows the same crooked path.
How many versions of DOS were there? They all worked... well, till MS put them out of business. *nix systems will always exists as a group, not as a single player. Yes, I said always. This is due to the fact that each of them is customized to suit a particular hardware or purpose. There are several OS's for mobile devices and no one is questioning if they all need to be there or not... except for those with a vested interest in the others going away.
There are a lot of OS's that are not going to make a commercial fortune, and commercial fortunes are not the only measure of success. There are lots of people who benefit every day from WindRiver systems, fromi CentOS, and other operating systems that are not wild commercial successes like Windows or Mac et al.
This is a blind man picking race horses at the track by the smell of the beer spills next to the betting window.
The safety issues scare insurance companies and without their blessing the systems could not make anyone money. Tracking systems are good to a point, but you're right. The best is to prevent drive-away in the first place.
Incidentally, this type of question arises often for a great many things. Consider the DARPA Grand Challenge races. They have to consider safety from quite a few angles as do those making armed military robots. Physical safety is not something that coders often have to think about, but it is very important.
As mentioned, you'd be stupid to run a dialysis machine on XP and have it networked, but there are other scenarios that are not so far fetched: Say control systems for the electric grid? Hmmm nobody is ever going to be injured if the trains all stop running for lack of power, right? There are all sorts of places that it's not so hard to see a windows machine running that could instigate the butterfly effect to end up causing you and others harm.
BTW, you already have a remote disable on your car but nobody has the remote control yet. The computer that adds the complexity that you speak of is exactly that, if it fails. Being a computer it can be remotely made to 'fail' if the government gets automakers to cooperate with them on providing a remote control. As it is now, it functions like a black box also. The only thing we need now is technology like that from VW and other European automakers to ensure that truly bad drivers continue to be allowed on the roads. Eventually people will quit worrying about learning to drive because the vehicle takes care of that for them. (I could name a couple of scifi movies here).
If you are going to write friendly software worms, why not take a moment to figure out what the hell kind of computer you are on, and make some decisions about whether to risk it, or simply report to someone that the computer is infected?
Am I the only one that thinks this is too simple to be questioned? Friendly.... it's a word that suggests something that does no harm. If the software can't figure out if there is no risk, then it should take no action other than reporting.
Safety, it's a big issue. VW will not be sending their high tech stuff to the states next year because of litigation concerns. They are right to do so, if there is no method to ensure your product does no harm, do not deploy it. period. unless you would like to spend time in court.
There have been dozens of anti-theft systems that would turn a car off after it's been stolen but due to concerns that it might do so while the car was traveling at speed on the highways, such products were never deployed.
Safety first. kill bad bots second. Sort of what the US police forces are supposed to do. Well, until someone gave them a taser gun. Now, shoot first is the rule because they won't get sued, and don't have to worry about it.
If you're going to write anti-worm software, safety is a major concern if you are acting without the owner/user's permission. There is NO way around that without incurring litigation risk.
But... but... wait a damn minute. When I bought my last pc it had windows installed without my consent.
Sure, sure, I realize there is a bit of difference here, but it sounds like they are taking the same business track as MS did in the 90s... well, more or less.
Foist it on them, sue anyone who disagrees. Buy the dissenters that you can, consolidate, conglomerate, soon you'll be the largest malware pimp in the world!
Yeah, and it makes you wonder... a glove with sensors? hmmmm wonder what flying the bird will blow up? oh oh oh, can they make like a toy gun with their fingers and shoot at stuff and have the .50 call on top of the humv fire?
This could be fun... point your finger for a few seconds of lead on target, then flip a bird and watch the RPGs go flying?
No, while working with Redmond, the folk at Area 51 released to the press a statement about Ununpentium 1.99, clearing the way for new math that would unempower us to create a flying saucer to travel the galaxy.
In a nod to this discovery, in Excel 2003, if you place the cursor on cell z-199 and press ctrl-alt-right_shift-ins while typing XFILES a little flying saucer icon will appear from the left side of the screen and then travel around the screen in the exact flight path that the first manned Mars mission will take.
Once you have completed this arduous task, z-100:z256 will forever be dedicated to processing data from SETI.
While I agree with you generally, I have to say that the three non-nerd non-geek members of my family have a problem: they were under the belief that Windows is the computer! They accessed the internet through Windows. They have a little trouble understanding why they have to have permissions to install software. They know what an iPod is but don't understand what a Mac is.
When they sit down at (first 7.10) Ubuntu 8.04 there are a couple of things I've noticed like the GP. If there is already a folder called photos and the camera automatically downloads pictures to that folder... well, they understand that. If they have to create a folder and tell the software to put the photos... well, it's a pain and they'll just pass. seriously!
My dad explained it to me like this: If a computer was a hammer it would not be a good one. FerChrisAkes, I want to hit nails, NOT learn how to make hammers. While that analogy only goes so far, it's true. Some just want the 'tool' to work (that's what she said!) and other's want to fiddle with it a lot (no comment).
IMHO, Ubuntu is giving us a hammer that doesn't need instructions or assembly. It's not perfect, but it IS damned good.
... In my opinion it would be unfeasible to maintain two sites, one for narrow band users and one for high speed users.... I disagree on this point, the WWW is basically built by software, is run by computers, and is automated. That is to say no human intervention is required when you request a web page via your browser.If HTML editors were what they should be, generating a lightweight site along with the mighty and powerful web 2.0 version should be no problem. You are using a computer to generate your website pages, NOT an abacus, and the computer should be doing more for you than it is. I think that the basic narrow band/broad band gap in functionality can be blamed on HTML editors easier than blaming the end user because they don't have broadband.
A simple enough standard would be to tack the
You might even think about it a bit and see that the same HTML editor could also be producing wap compatible web pages for mobile compatability also. If you are writing code and NOT considering the end user of your code, you're doing it wrong.
Well, I agree, phony signs are stupid. My dogs don't bark so you might believe the beware of dog signs are phony, but I hope the camera gets your picture when you find out :)
... you can get wireless connectivity that works even if they cut your phone line... yeah yeah, if they cut the cable line it still works, and the alarm.com web interface is fairly awesome if you ask me.
:)
WARNING: Blatant plug follows:
FWIW, I recommend alarm.com
They sell for $40/month-ish around here. I think it's an awesome system, has X10 interfacing, supports wireless sensors blah blah blah...
From a security standpoint I'm not sure what a would-be burglar would think of the combination of signs in front of my house. One is a protected by xyz security system and above it is a beware of dog sign.
I only put the sign up as a friendly police type person told me that liability with the police and emergency services decreases if you let them know you have pets. Both my dogs are docile, but are the breeds that people assume will eat any of their kids up to age of 16.
I have the security rather sewn up here, but tinkering with the video option is a fun project
I agree, deterrence is the first line of home security (thus big signs saying protected by xyz alarm company etc.) and the second is having actual security video. High quality video is hardly necessary for security purposes. Generally one half decent quality face photo will be good enough for the police, but there is ALWAYS the question of whether or not they will do anything with it.
:)
When my car was broken into, the thief had greasy fingers and left large as life well made finger prints on the window. I couldn't even pay the police to take them as evidence. I'm not kidding. Property theft is hardly high on the list when they have terrorists and war protester to chase after.
I was thinking of a motion activated camera (low lux black and white) with software control on the pan/tilt and all remoted to the computer room I have. The latest addition on that is to mount a laser pointer on the camera so that it will point at whatever the camera is following.
This could be either lots of fun with the dog, or quite menacing to a would be robber
Update to version 0.93.
The vulnerabilities are reported in versions prior to 0.92.1.
Solution:
Update to version 0.92.1. This is exactly what I was saying, and is true of all antivirus software. If you don't stay updated, you are vulnerable. The POINT was why pay so much for it?
lets translate FTFA "It will do more harm than good to our company," said Paul Ferguson, a researcher with antivirus vendor TrendMicro. "Responsible disclosure is one thing, but now actually encouraging people to do this (as if the NSA isn't already doing so), as a contest is a little over the top.When really smart people start working on malicious software, we won't be able to keep up" Bold edits added by me.
How about this slogan "Unsafe with any version!"
I think they are afraid that regular joe end users are about to find out that programs meant to protect your pc are always an after the fact effort which leaves you vulnerable until you update and that there is no way to keep you safe from a zero-day facebook exploit. Even the government websites can be malicious until patched/fixed.
And soon, the conclusion will be
Wow, it would be such a shame if joe bloggs end user found out the truth. tisk tisk
I have some news that is probably bad in your view. I saw this yesterday "Lars Ulrich suggests Metallica could follow Radiohead" http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9929031-7.html?tag=newsmap and then there is Radiohead, NIN, and hundreds of small less known bands that sell their products online.
Digital music is commoditized because without distribution the business is limited to where you can travel and play. The distribution channel propped up a usury business. Now it's gone and the music industry now has to add value to what they sell or lower prices. That is the effect commoditization has on an industry.
Books were just not hit as fast with commoditization because there is no common method for reading texts that people readily enjoy. I get 7 tech mags electronically every month. They send them to me as PDF files. They would be free in print too, but my point is that originally several of these publishers tried proprietary formats. For the most part that was cool, but then you couldn't take it anywhere with you easily, couldn't share it like you could a print copy. Eventually, over the course of several years, they all stopped that and moved to PDF format in order to make their business model work. If they have no readers they have no ad revenue. Books are about to get the same treatment and all it will take is ONE publisher to put out electronic and paper texts. It's not about free, it's about freedom. Paying pumped up prices for a product is never good, and I'll wager that you can't find anyone that thinks text book prices for college classes are NOT pumped up ridiculously. If you think text books are priced well I'd ask you to explain their value in the 1/2 price books store. $100+ this year, $15 next year????? WTF? Did polysci202 change THAT much in a year?
Remember back when online colleges were thought to be a bit of a joke? Not anymore. I don't want free. I want reasonably priced. I have donated to all the F/OSS projects that I use regularly. I don't have any illegal copies of Windows or Mac OS.
The ONLY reason to get rid of the RIAA is because they are litigating asshats. If they had properly predicted what was going to happen to them, and directed their industry down a path of cooperation with the new technologies they would be just fine. What they did was completely the opposite and absolutely something deserving of punishment.
You see, it's not just about free. It's about freedom, common sense, and a sense of fair play. The electronic distribution channel has changed music, print, entertainment, and multimedia forever whether you or those industries like it or not.
The users 'get it' and slowly every other industry will 'get it' or die off. That is just how progress works... go ask a buggy whip maker?
Actually, it's Saturday night, I'm not going out, so I'll point out that it was not mac fanboism that I thought of. If you read the summary you 'd see that it was 'edited' to say 1/4 of US pc's, and there are way more than 10,000 pc's in the US business world. The math did not add up. I had to read TFA to figure out what the hell they were talking about. The summary was written very poorly, my friend. I said nothing about Mac fanbois... nada, zip, nil, null, nothing. In fact I did mention that Mac has seriously positive points. My gripe was with the summary and the overt optimism of TFA.
I nearly spit beer on the screen laughing at that. I've been imprisoned by the ring... wedding, not precious.
So posting on a Saturday night (after mowing the yard, organizing the garage, picking up brake parts to put on the car tomorrow, and fixing a bathroom faucet) is just a bit of relaxation before bed.
I was only trying to put a big-picture-business-analyst slant on the story. I'm not angry at all. I just don't think the business values, market trends, and predicted market conditions will sustain this growth so it's not much to clamor about. Same would be true of previous fanatical posts about Linux on the Desktop so to speak. I think we all want to see the results we desire and see them in anything that even remotely looks like it. For the same reasons that Linux won't replace the majority of PCs in the workplace soon, the Mac won't either. There is a LOT to be said for investment in technology. Once you're in the boat and headed down the rapids it's terribly hard to turn around for most people.
FTFA "We're seeing more requests outside of creative services to switch to Macs from PCs," notes David Plavin, operations manager for Mac systems engineering at the U.S. IT division of Publicis Groupe, a global advertising conglomerate. There are so many requests that Plavin now supports 2,500 Macs across the U.S. -- nearly a quarter of all Publicis' U.S. PCs. There that sorts it out, 2500 is no where near 1/4 of all US pc's... damn
Besides, uhmmmm, ok, so Mac is gaining ground. How much is that about the Mac vs. about Microsoft being shit for the last three years? Vista did more than an 'own goal' they are giving points away to EVERYONE else. Of course Mac will get some of them. It doesn't hurt that the iWHATEVER has been so popular. It's called the halo effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect and so Mac gets more customers right now. Lets see how long they keep them? The halo effect has been shown to be quite a peak-then-die thing unless the product has real staying power.
Don't get me wrong, Mac has some serious positive qualities and I'm not going to bash it (other than being proprietary and expensive) but this story is not taking into account the halo effect nor the gains made from MS defectors. Defectors? Why don't we just describe them as passengers on the titanic looking for a life raft without having to resort to building their own?
I have a couple of friends (who have obvious desires for Mac due to musical or creative arts reasons) who have opted for a flashy balls out Mac because, and I quote "I just want something that works and I don't have to fuck with it, no matter what the cost is."
Mac will get those votes. With the looming recession I don't think there will end up being all that many of those votes, especially when GNU/Linux is making so much headway. I'm not declaring a winner or anything, just saying that the optimistic view of this FA is
Slightly overlooked here is the fact that the Internet has commoditized information. That is to say, it has done to book sellers what it has done to the **AA.
While it is not in the public eye as much, several here have pointed out the huge monetary waste in buying/selling text books, and the book sellers/education system keep updating so that users are caught in a continual upgrade cycle. When there is a method of cheap updates the continued use of repetitive upgrade cycles in paper issued texts is nothing short of usury.
Any educational institution that wants to be a valued place to attend should be flowing with the times and 'getting it' now, not 4 years from now, or not when the board members want to think about it. This technology is here NOW, and it's yesterday's news, not some high tech promise for the future.
Yes, it only takes one meeting to start the ball rolling to ensure that the electronic texts match what classes and professors teach, and that the paper and electronic forms are identical in content. The fact that they are not yet is nothing less than gouging.
Yes, damn it, it is THAT simple. We will NOT buy your text books UNLESS you provide electronic access to the same identical texts. That is ALL it takes. Publishers will jump to get the business.
Look, if I can buy the book for $90 or get access to it from a school server in electronic form for $25, I'll probably go for the electronic. The costs of books is about 30% printing/distribution. The rest has to be done for both formats.
I stopped buying programming books some time ago because all I need is behind that Google screen. Even very high quality PhD materials are available on the Internet.
While people are worried how they will make money they have missed out on the fact that information itself has now become a commodity. Time for change, here and now, not next year. The **AA is having to deal with it and their example of doing so is not one that publishers really want to go with. They need to look at social websites and other popular websites to ensure that their chosen method of 'upgrade' is going to work.
My suggestions?
Offer electronic texts, sell paper based Q/A sections. DRM won't work, so there will be copying, can't get around that. The photocopier put paid to any such scheme long ago. Now it's just easier. Make it easily available. Make it fun. If an account based system is used, make it more useful than just retrieving texts. Add value to the account. Charge for the account through the school system so that students have an EASY way to pay if they wish. When you have done it right students will be making your website their homepage, if you're looking for milestones in your effort.
As far as information goes, give people readers for your content for free, and make them work on ANYTHING. Charge a service fee for the account, and only charge for premium content beyond that. Yes, there will be copying, but then people borrowed books all the time before this anyway. Quit fretting and suing, just make your content the best available and work out how to survive on lower margins in a commoditized market.