You don't want that, trust me. There's a lot of pain down that road (obstruction of judice, destruction of evidence, etc.)
What you do want is a "login with side-effects" password. One of which would be to destroy, say, your private/illegal/whatever stuff and nothing else. Now they have to prove that there was something there before they can even start prosecuting you for destroying it.
When you deal with the legal system, you want deniability at all steps.
This will certainly provide a boost to deniable encryption, which so far has been a bit of a bastard child (mostly due to the really hard math involved and the sheer difficulty of implementing it - such as how to not overwrite data that you shouldn't even know to be there?).
They really can't afford for Windows 7 to get the same public backlash that Vista got.
And yet, it will. News are made today, not reported, and the media found out with Vista that "new OS by redmond monopolist sucks" makes for more headlines, better headlines, over a longer time period, than "next windos version exactly as expected".
The media will eat them, because they're sharks and they can smell blood.
2.8 million pieces of different hardware, and over 7.5 million installations had all drivers included, "almost all" could be downoaded easily. No matter what you think of Microsoft, that information is pretty much astonishing.
Not really, no. Ten or even five years ago, I would have been impressed a lot more. Since then, hardware has come a long way. Just count the number of different connectors on a new PC and compare it to an older one. Almost all new hardware is connected via a very short list of connectors (USB, PCI, nothing for a long time, AGP, firewire, analog line in/out, etc.) At the same time, the variety in the market has gone down. How many video card manufacturers do you know? Seven, eight years ago, most geeks could have easily listed half a dozen without any hard thinking.
I am, in fact a lot more astonished by the fact that Linux includes almost as many drivers, with practically no third party writing them for them.
So in summary: Yeah, they write an OS that works with almost all the hardware that is usually designed specifically so that it works with their OS. Sorry for my failure to be mightily impressed.
That's a nice misleading argument if I've ever seen one. It smells a lot like prepared PR material, in fact.
Removing IE doesn't break Windows - it breaks other programs.
Some of those "other programs" are part of windos. In fact, about the only part that doesn't break is the kernel itself.
But, there's nothing stopping you from deleting c:\program files\Internet Explorer.
Which removes something that's hardly more than a launcher anyways (iexplore.exe is 93184 bytes). The actual "IE" code has long since been moved into libraries that are scattered all over the system, include other vital code parts as well, and can not be removed without either major effort or making your windos unusable. In fact:
. It exports a nice COM interface and has.NET components. (In fact, you can make a "tabbed browser" in 3 clicks in C#.)
That is exactly why you can do that - because IE isn't contained in "Internet Explorer.exe", it is contained in those components. Your "tabbed browser in C#" is nothing but an alternative launcher for the IE core code.
This isn't even about the consumer. This is just a political/corporate game.
Maybe, maybe not. No matter how, it is a known fact and an integral part of the whole "free market" and "capitalism" and pretty much every serious economic theory, that monopolies are bad for everyone except the monopolist, and as such must be avoided or if they appear, strictly limited.
And that's what the EU appears to be doing. In fact, the economic damage of a monopoly is so astronomical that they would have to do an unbelievable amount of political gaming to come up with more cost than benefit.
'The web is becoming an integral part of the computer and the basic distinction between the OS and the browser doesn't matter very much any more', he says."
Outch. After this quote, I know I'm never going to test Chrome.
There is an absolutely vital distinction. The damn browser will happily run any code embedded in any website I visit. My OS (don't know about yours, but mine) only runs stuff that I explicitly tell it to, usually after explicitly installing it. In fact, I'd prefer even tighter limits on that.
If you don't get that distinction, your security mindset is fucked up.
No, what's there to think about? There are literally millions of companies who are doing well in a local market and don't matter on a global scale. There are easily hundreds, if not thousands of international corporations who do 90%+ of their business in the US and Europe.
Success and failure of a company shouldn't be measured by what some fanboys or freaks would wish for, but by the company goals. I don't think Apple has ever listed "market domination in Africa" on their list.
To a developer, consultant or corporate decision maker, it says that certain standards can be relied on and many assumptions can be seen as a given, which removes a lot of headaches and initial barriers to adoption.
Essentially, it doesn't make the sale, but it does get you on the shortlist.
The economy is in the dumps. Would you be worried about the over priced guy with no net book or the guy that's infiltrating the netbook space quite well when that's a fast growing sector?
Frankly, I would be very worried about a competitor who is growing in double-digits despite being considerably more expensive than I am. Very, very worried.
Get those letters regularily. Like whenever you take up a new position within the company. When you have three favourable letters, and the one when you left looks very different, your next employer should realize that there was something fishy going on.
Apple is not a convicted monopolist, Microsoft is. Different rules apply.
Repeat that 100 times or until you've got it, whatever comes first.
Really, is that so difficult? Next you know, you'll complain that convicted criminals are locked up in jails and can't go wherever they like to. It's the same, except that it's hard to lock up a corporation.
What happened to the freedom of a company to sell their own product without interference?
*sigh*
Same old strawman. How much does MS pay you for posting this each time?
So, for the reading-impaired, one more time, very slowly:
Apple is not a company convicted as abusing a monopoly position. Microsoft is.
Other rules apply to the convicted than to the innocent. For example, us innocents can go where we like and eat what we want, while the convicted in prison are locked up and get to eat whatever is on the menu today. For corporations, it works a little different, but the principle is that the convicted have restrictions on their freedoms.
I'm sure that won't stop you from posting the same comment again next time. Is it more than ten bucks?
Microsoft is going to fight this decision tooth and nail. They will appeal it and appeal it and appeal it.
Fortunately, the EU system works differently than the US system in this regard. This is not in the legal track, yet. The antitrust commission of the EU has very far-reaching powers. I think it can leverage restrictions that remain in effect while any legal proceedings are going on, so dragging things out isn't in the interest of the affected corporations.
It's not very democratic, but the EU has better abilities to stand against multinational corporations than the US government has. If it wants to. Bribery nad lobbying are the most important dangers.
Same old strawman. How much does MS pay you for posting this each time?
So, for the reading-impaired, one more time, very slowly:
Apple is not a company convicted as abusing a monopoly position. Microsoft is.
Other rules apply to the convicted than to the innocent. For example, us innocents can go where we like and eat what we want, while the convicted in prison are locked up and get to eat whatever is on the menu today. For corporations, it works a little different, but the principle is that the convicted have restrictions on their freedoms.
I'm sure that won't stop you from posting the same comment again next time. Is it more than ten bucks?
Germany used to have a law that makes "private copies" legal. Where "private copy" is defined as making a low number (five is generally regarded as the "magic number") of copies for personal use of friends (with "friend" being defined as persons you have a close personal relation with, so most of your 1624 Internet "friends" wouldn't count).
It was perfectly good and everyone was happy. This law was, for example, what made it legal over here to create a mix tape (or CD) for your girl-/boyfriend. Or to say "sure, no problem" when your best friend said "wow, that's a cool album. Can you make me a copy?" - even the music industry seemed to be ok with it (free advertisement) and it made sure that law enforcement didn't have to waste resources on the ridiculous.
For the past four years or so, the music industry has changed its mind and pressured, bought, lobbied, etc. our lawmakers into changing the law. And they've finally succeeded (last year, I think).
And that does apply to the non "Arrr!" crowd. These changes make 15 year old teenagers who are in love into criminals. It makes grandma a criminal if she records her favourite song from the radio. It makes you and your wife criminals if you put a copy of the CD you bought on both yours and hers MP3 player.
PS: Don't lecture about loopholes and exceptions in american copyright law, I'm talking about german law and this whole virtual property rights bullshit is highly international.
The poor music industry, I feel so sorry for it. For years and years they have driven the marketing machine so that everyone absolutely must get the album on the day it's out, or as soon as possible. Mostly due to the way the charts are calculated by sales peaks, but also because everyone wants money now.
And now people can't wait for the release day anymore. Geez. Who would have guessed?
Like the GP, you miss the political component entirely.
PR stunts on this kind of stuff are important. If you ask the general public to give you a billion bucks for science, you better have something to show for it. Now the actual science, that isn't very show-worthy. But a remote-controlled car driving around on the surface of a foreign planet and sending home vacation pictures - that is something that John Doe can relate to.
It's like Vietnam, Iraq or whatever you have - the actual cruelty of war is never in the news. But one poor child suffering after a stray bomb wiped out its family - that is front-page stuff. That's how it is on this planet, with this race, in this society. Like it or not.
Give it to MS marketing to come up with a really grandmother-friendly name. I'm sure my mom and your average Joe will gladly text each other "hey can you windows-live-id-sign-in-assistant-send me that file?"
Whatever you think of Apple, at least they would've called this "iShare" or something.
Indeed, because I had a related problem. A series of related articles I wished to edit had considerable problems. I worked on the item described in one of the articles while I was in the Navy, I had the unclassified manuals at one elbow, at the other elbow I had a stack of expensive reference books... All were trumped because a handful of websites all referenced the same handful of coffee table books - and disagreed with me.
Those stories are probably legion. I've had problems having facts corrected on Wikipedia articles where I was the primary source (one about me in person, one about a project I lead) - and could easily prove so.
But to Wikipedia, if three newspapers all quote the same source that got, say, my birthdate wrong, that is "more reliable" than me sending in a scanned, signed and confirmed by a notary, copy of my birth certificate. In fact, that would be entirely discarded as a "primary source".
And that's why Wikipedia usually gets it right on common and readily available articles, and has a 50/50 on articles about obscure topics (other than nerdy geek stuff).
You should have posted the article to your blog, and then told some gaming magazine to link to it in some "no idea what to write today" newsbit. Then you could've cited that as a secondary source and bingo.
Not only that, experts frequently get things wrong, the idea that experts are monolithically better then amateurs and other experts also has serious problems. Given that there has always been contention about certain areas of knowledge, take history for example: How much important stuff is/was and is possibly currently being omitted from history by "experts" for any number of reasons that might bias their testimony?
Sources?
No, seriously, come on. You're making a bold claim there. I know of a guy who trolls any place he can get to with his "knowledge" that 300 years of medieval history are fake and all the experts are in on the conspiracy.
At least he provides some evidence for his claim that I can check for myself.
Since then, policies and procedures have been put in place. You can no longer get in to edits wars without [[WP:3RR]] stopping you. You can no longer belittle editors who disagree with you without getting blocked for [[WP:NPA]]. You can no longer edit the article about your small open-source project without getting slapped for [[WP:COI]]
That's the rules.
And then there's their application.
I've seen pages nominated for deletion again and again until finally a delete went through. I call that the deletion lottery, you can win it on almost any article that's not frontpage material.
We've all seen random edits made, reversed, re-made and it was pretty clear that persistance is often more important than rules, knowledge, or even fact.
And I have first-hand experience of how "well" these rules are sometimes enforced. I've had a COI case where you're told to contact an editor with your problem. Did that. His reply took so long that the monkeys were long done with their "work" before he woke up. Thank you, I'll certainly go that recommended route again.
No, the rules are nice in theory, but they don't work because idiots are usually experts in abusing rules for their personal profit, while experts are often idiots in rule-abusing.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't want that, trust me. There's a lot of pain down that road (obstruction of judice, destruction of evidence, etc.)
What you do want is a "login with side-effects" password. One of which would be to destroy, say, your private/illegal/whatever stuff and nothing else. Now they have to prove that there was something there before they can even start prosecuting you for destroying it.
When you deal with the legal system, you want deniability at all steps.
This will certainly provide a boost to deniable encryption, which so far has been a bit of a bastard child (mostly due to the really hard math involved and the sheer difficulty of implementing it - such as how to not overwrite data that you shouldn't even know to be there?).
They really can't afford for Windows 7 to get the same public backlash that Vista got.
And yet, it will. News are made today, not reported, and the media found out with Vista that "new OS by redmond monopolist sucks" makes for more headlines, better headlines, over a longer time period, than "next windos version exactly as expected".
The media will eat them, because they're sharks and they can smell blood.
2.8 million pieces of different hardware, and over 7.5 million installations had all drivers included, "almost all" could be downoaded easily. No matter what you think of Microsoft, that information is pretty much astonishing.
Not really, no. Ten or even five years ago, I would have been impressed a lot more. Since then, hardware has come a long way. Just count the number of different connectors on a new PC and compare it to an older one. Almost all new hardware is connected via a very short list of connectors (USB, PCI, nothing for a long time, AGP, firewire, analog line in/out, etc.)
At the same time, the variety in the market has gone down. How many video card manufacturers do you know? Seven, eight years ago, most geeks could have easily listed half a dozen without any hard thinking.
I am, in fact a lot more astonished by the fact that Linux includes almost as many drivers, with practically no third party writing them for them.
So in summary: Yeah, they write an OS that works with almost all the hardware that is usually designed specifically so that it works with their OS. Sorry for my failure to be mightily impressed.
That's a nice misleading argument if I've ever seen one. It smells a lot like prepared PR material, in fact.
Removing IE doesn't break Windows - it breaks other programs.
Some of those "other programs" are part of windos. In fact, about the only part that doesn't break is the kernel itself.
But, there's nothing stopping you from deleting c:\program files\Internet Explorer.
Which removes something that's hardly more than a launcher anyways (iexplore.exe is 93184 bytes). The actual "IE" code has long since been moved into libraries that are scattered all over the system, include other vital code parts as well, and can not be removed without either major effort or making your windos unusable. In fact:
. It exports a nice COM interface and has .NET components. (In fact, you can make a "tabbed browser" in 3 clicks in C#.)
That is exactly why you can do that - because IE isn't contained in "Internet Explorer.exe", it is contained in those components. Your "tabbed browser in C#" is nothing but an alternative launcher for the IE core code.
This isn't even about the consumer. This is just a political/corporate game.
Maybe, maybe not. No matter how, it is a known fact and an integral part of the whole "free market" and "capitalism" and pretty much every serious economic theory, that monopolies are bad for everyone except the monopolist, and as such must be avoided or if they appear, strictly limited.
And that's what the EU appears to be doing. In fact, the economic damage of a monopoly is so astronomical that they would have to do an unbelievable amount of political gaming to come up with more cost than benefit.
'The web is becoming an integral part of the computer and the basic distinction between the OS and the browser doesn't matter very much any more', he says."
Outch. After this quote, I know I'm never going to test Chrome.
There is an absolutely vital distinction. The damn browser will happily run any code embedded in any website I visit. My OS (don't know about yours, but mine) only runs stuff that I explicitly tell it to, usually after explicitly installing it. In fact, I'd prefer even tighter limits on that.
If you don't get that distinction, your security mindset is fucked up.
No, what's there to think about? There are literally millions of companies who are doing well in a local market and don't matter on a global scale. There are easily hundreds, if not thousands of international corporations who do 90%+ of their business in the US and Europe.
Success and failure of a company shouldn't be measured by what some fanboys or freaks would wish for, but by the company goals. I don't think Apple has ever listed "market domination in Africa" on their list.
To a home user, no.
To a developer, consultant or corporate decision maker, it says that certain standards can be relied on and many assumptions can be seen as a given, which removes a lot of headaches and initial barriers to adoption.
Essentially, it doesn't make the sale, but it does get you on the shortlist.
The economy is in the dumps. Would you be worried about the over priced guy with no net book or the guy that's infiltrating the netbook space quite well when that's a fast growing sector?
Frankly, I would be very worried about a competitor who is growing in double-digits despite being considerably more expensive than I am. Very, very worried.
Ok, not much use this time, but for the future:
Get those letters regularily. Like whenever you take up a new position within the company. When you have three favourable letters, and the one when you left looks very different, your next employer should realize that there was something fishy going on.
How much does IBM pay you to cut and paste the same same response to anything that questions the FOSS party line ?
Nothing, and you have a very loose definition of "same same" and "anything" if your count of that starts at twice.
Microsoft is an attractive target for the EU, and when they're finished with them Apple will be next in line..
Yeah, sure. I heard the easter bunny is also a nice cuddly thing to believe in, maybe you want to add it to your list? :-)
Apple is not a convicted monopolist, Microsoft is. Different rules apply.
Repeat that 100 times or until you've got it, whatever comes first.
Really, is that so difficult? Next you know, you'll complain that convicted criminals are locked up in jails and can't go wherever they like to. It's the same, except that it's hard to lock up a corporation.
What happened to the freedom of a company to sell their own product without interference?
*sigh*
Same old strawman. How much does MS pay you for posting this each time?
So, for the reading-impaired, one more time, very slowly:
Apple is not a company convicted as abusing a monopoly position.
Microsoft is.
Other rules apply to the convicted than to the innocent. For example, us innocents can go where we like and eat what we want, while the convicted in prison are locked up and get to eat whatever is on the menu today. For corporations, it works a little different, but the principle is that the convicted have restrictions on their freedoms.
I'm sure that won't stop you from posting the same comment again next time. Is it more than ten bucks?
Microsoft is going to fight this decision tooth and nail. They will appeal it and appeal it and appeal it.
Fortunately, the EU system works differently than the US system in this regard. This is not in the legal track, yet. The antitrust commission of the EU has very far-reaching powers. I think it can leverage restrictions that remain in effect while any legal proceedings are going on, so dragging things out isn't in the interest of the affected corporations.
It's not very democratic, but the EU has better abilities to stand against multinational corporations than the US government has. If it wants to. Bribery nad lobbying are the most important dangers.
*sigh*
Same old strawman. How much does MS pay you for posting this each time?
So, for the reading-impaired, one more time, very slowly:
Apple is not a company convicted as abusing a monopoly position.
Microsoft is.
Other rules apply to the convicted than to the innocent. For example, us innocents can go where we like and eat what we want, while the convicted in prison are locked up and get to eat whatever is on the menu today. For corporations, it works a little different, but the principle is that the convicted have restrictions on their freedoms.
I'm sure that won't stop you from posting the same comment again next time. Is it more than ten bucks?
Here is what has changed:
Germany used to have a law that makes "private copies" legal. Where "private copy" is defined as making a low number (five is generally regarded as the "magic number") of copies for personal use of friends (with "friend" being defined as persons you have a close personal relation with, so most of your 1624 Internet "friends" wouldn't count).
It was perfectly good and everyone was happy. This law was, for example, what made it legal over here to create a mix tape (or CD) for your girl-/boyfriend. Or to say "sure, no problem" when your best friend said "wow, that's a cool album. Can you make me a copy?" - even the music industry seemed to be ok with it (free advertisement) and it made sure that law enforcement didn't have to waste resources on the ridiculous.
For the past four years or so, the music industry has changed its mind and pressured, bought, lobbied, etc. our lawmakers into changing the law. And they've finally succeeded (last year, I think).
And that does apply to the non "Arrr!" crowd. These changes make 15 year old teenagers who are in love into criminals. It makes grandma a criminal if she records her favourite song from the radio. It makes you and your wife criminals if you put a copy of the CD you bought on both yours and hers MP3 player.
PS: Don't lecture about loopholes and exceptions in american copyright law, I'm talking about german law and this whole virtual property rights bullshit is highly international.
The poor music industry, I feel so sorry for it. For years and years they have driven the marketing machine so that everyone absolutely must get the album on the day it's out, or as soon as possible. Mostly due to the way the charts are calculated by sales peaks, but also because everyone wants money now.
And now people can't wait for the release day anymore. Geez. Who would have guessed?
Like the GP, you miss the political component entirely.
PR stunts on this kind of stuff are important. If you ask the general public to give you a billion bucks for science, you better have something to show for it. Now the actual science, that isn't very show-worthy. But a remote-controlled car driving around on the surface of a foreign planet and sending home vacation pictures - that is something that John Doe can relate to.
It's like Vietnam, Iraq or whatever you have - the actual cruelty of war is never in the news. But one poor child suffering after a stray bomb wiped out its family - that is front-page stuff. That's how it is on this planet, with this race, in this society. Like it or not.
"Windows Live ID Sign-in Assistant 6.5,"
Give it to MS marketing to come up with a really grandmother-friendly name. I'm sure my mom and your average Joe will gladly text each other "hey can you windows-live-id-sign-in-assistant-send me that file?"
Whatever you think of Apple, at least they would've called this "iShare" or something.
I didn't say I have a solution.
But when it is this obvious, you can't close your eyes and go "lalalala", pretending that there isn't a problem here.
Indeed, because I had a related problem. A series of related articles I wished to edit had considerable problems. I worked on the item described in one of the articles while I was in the Navy, I had the unclassified manuals at one elbow, at the other elbow I had a stack of expensive reference books... All were trumped because a handful of websites all referenced the same handful of coffee table books - and disagreed with me.
Those stories are probably legion. I've had problems having facts corrected on Wikipedia articles where I was the primary source (one about me in person, one about a project I lead) - and could easily prove so.
But to Wikipedia, if three newspapers all quote the same source that got, say, my birthdate wrong, that is "more reliable" than me sending in a scanned, signed and confirmed by a notary, copy of my birth certificate. In fact, that would be entirely discarded as a "primary source".
And that's why Wikipedia usually gets it right on common and readily available articles, and has a 50/50 on articles about obscure topics (other than nerdy geek stuff).
You should have posted the article to your blog, and then told some gaming magazine to link to it in some "no idea what to write today" newsbit. Then you could've cited that as a secondary source and bingo.
Laughable, isn't it?
Not only that, experts frequently get things wrong, the idea that experts are monolithically better then amateurs and other experts also has serious problems. Given that there has always been contention about certain areas of knowledge, take history for example: How much important stuff is/was and is possibly currently being omitted from history by "experts" for any number of reasons that might bias their testimony?
Sources?
No, seriously, come on. You're making a bold claim there. I know of a guy who trolls any place he can get to with his "knowledge" that 300 years of medieval history are fake and all the experts are in on the conspiracy.
At least he provides some evidence for his claim that I can check for myself.
Since then, policies and procedures have been put in place. You can no longer get in to edits wars without [[WP:3RR]] stopping you. You can no longer belittle editors who disagree with you without getting blocked for [[WP:NPA]]. You can no longer edit the article about your small open-source project without getting slapped for [[WP:COI]]
That's the rules.
And then there's their application.
I've seen pages nominated for deletion again and again until finally a delete went through. I call that the deletion lottery, you can win it on almost any article that's not frontpage material.
We've all seen random edits made, reversed, re-made and it was pretty clear that persistance is often more important than rules, knowledge, or even fact.
And I have first-hand experience of how "well" these rules are sometimes enforced. I've had a COI case where you're told to contact an editor with your problem. Did that. His reply took so long that the monkeys were long done with their "work" before he woke up. Thank you, I'll certainly go that recommended route again.
No, the rules are nice in theory, but they don't work because idiots are usually experts in abusing rules for their personal profit, while experts are often idiots in rule-abusing.