But that is precisely my point - when I first bought my computer, a megabyte was 1024 kilobytes, a kilobyte was 1024 bytes. I've never heard otherwise, and later on there came gigabyte (1024 megabytes) etcetera...
And now all of a sudden the concept of giga/mega/kilo is being changed within this context!
You compare it to filling your tank at the gas station. Suppose you have your license for over ten years. You go to fill up today, and suddenly find that one liter of gas is about 97% of what it used to be. Wouldn't you be surprised?
I'm not trying to defend initially giving the value 1024 to kilo, mega etc..., but I really detest the 'oh we are just trying to put things right' mentality companies use, basically only to rip us off.
Ah, sorry, now I understand it. Technically it would not be considered a worm as such, I think, but as with many technical terms they get interchanged a lot without good reason.
How would a worm work on a browser? I am curious. Does firefox listen on a particular port while it is running?
Why do you automatically assume that it is Firefox itself that becomes infected? Think about it this way: if Firefox could be used to smuggle the worm inside of the machine, it could run separately from the browser on it's own port.
I have broadband. If it's just one click, I don't care how much stuff it's downloading and executing.
Apart from the fact that there are still a lot of people on dial-up, I think it can be considered bad practice to download stuff you already have (like 90% of the program you are trying to update or patch).
I have broadband as well, but I'd rather save the extra bandwidth and used megabytes (yes, my connection has a limit) for something else.
By the way - suppose this was an Oracle database where the installer would be several gigabytes, would you still download it again?
A company I worked with had a very simple solution to deal with smokers. If you smoke (no matter how much or how frequently) you either: - work 25% longer than the non-smokers - get paid 25% less than the non-smokers - quit smoking Simple as that. At the moment I'm in a whole different situation: my boss smokes, so he doesn't care about non-smokers. Here the policy is reversed: if you want to breathe clean air for a while, go outside. Fortunately I spent 99% of my time for the past years at client sites, so this does not affect me that much.
Kick a dog, and kick a cat. The dog will come back for more; the cat will rip your curtains to shreds, then leave, never to return. Now tell me, which is the superior animal?
According to some dude mentioned in some bestseller (the bible I believe it was called), the dog would be the superior animal, because it turns the other cheek.
I actually did tell her that, but she failed to see the problem because she wasn't the one committing the crime. No matter how hard I explained that her computer could make her the number one suspect in such a case, she couldn't care less.
Besides, as soon as you start mentioning such possibilities to people, they give you that "isn't that a bit far fetched?" look. People believe stuff like that only happens in movies and such.
"What are we going to have to do to convince "ordinary users" to visit WindowsUpdate once in a while?"
Nothing - because some people just cannot be convinced. When I visited a neighbour some months ago, her PC was infected with just about any blend of spyware you can think of. "But what would they need my PC for?" she asked - I started explaining the basics (use the PC as a bot, online banking which she uses, etc...). Her reply? "Well, as long as they use it when I'm not working on it I'm fine with that, and the online banking bit? I don't care - it's not as if I'm rich now". Try to convince someone with *that* attitude.
By the way, speaking of attitudes: I never install patches. Why? Because I run a software firewall, a hardware firewall, a virusscanner and several spyware scanners. And since I bought the damn thing I think I have the right to decide WHAT I install and WHEN I install it. That includes the right to deny patches.
But there is no way he's selling 1000 pills EVERY night.
Actually, as I said this is a real life example. When the cops arrested him, the 1000 pills every night was mentioned as an average amount.
There is no way he can do it safely for long without getting caught, nor can he corner the market forever there.
Any idea on how large this market is? One club, 5000 people of whom at least half of them use the drug once a night (confirmed by the police and various razzias).
Someone will horn in on him. And he's going to end up dead or in jail.
In jail? Please don't make me laugh. With his amount of profit and cash, he just bribes the police and in case that doesn't work, he just pays the best lawyer he can find to get him out of trouble. He's been doing this for the last 3-4 years, count your profits.
If you've ever watched "The Sopranos", it's about mob guys nowadays.
That's the difference - my example was a real life example...
Doubt it. You have to be pretty high up to be making that kind of money.
Say what? I'll give you a real life example of a small time dealer in the neighbourhood.
The drug? Xtc. The volume? About 1000 pills a night (easily sold, one or two discos). The price paid? 1 euro per pill. The price sold? 10 euros per pill. Net profit for ONE NIGHT WORK: 9000 euros. Show me a McDonalds where I can start please!
I'll give you the benefit that I'm not factoring in jail time...
Something like mouse gestures where you have to make a complicted gesture using the mouse to get in. Sure they could still capture the data, but how would they know you were entering anything as opposed to simply waving the mouse around?
Why would they need to know? What would happen if they just replayed the data they just captured exactly as it was captured? Wouldn't they just make the same gesture you've just accepted as being secure?
... is probably when they start calculating how many times you can use that same gigabyte of data on your disk.
You have an 80GB drive Sir, which you can rewrite x times - so that means that you can possibly download, store and play y songs during the lifetime of your drive. With an average tax of 1 euro per song, that'll be a nice tax, won't it?
Seriously, isn't it about time the music industry changed it's tune? All this DRM stuff, taxes and other hassles only makes me want to buy LESS music and download MORE.
As long as they ensure that consumers have less rights than pirates (their term), they'll continue driving their customers away.
Sell the damn things without drives and have people buy the drives as DRIVES - separately.
Ok, let's see. In Belgium, we have to pay an additional tax on blanc media (CD-R, DVD-R, etc...). There is also an additional tax on CD burners, and now there is talk of an additional tax on multimedia machines.
In Holland, they propose a tax on MP3 players (per gigabyte). Now let's assume that this proposal is accepted, how long before the next tax, say on hard disks, follows?
So then you'll buy an MP3 device, pay a small tax, you buy a separate disk and pay lots of tax for lots of gigabytes!!
By the way, as I was reading the article I nearly fainted - about 3 euros tax, ok, but PER GIGABYTE? Are they insane?
That's a good bargain. Do you usually buy more than one CD per month?
Although I agree that this is a good bargain, I'd like to point out that you don't "get" those 25 songs as you would with a free CD. You can listen to 25 songs for free, which is a big difference.
Furthermore I'd also like to point out that there are people like me who usually buy more than one CD per month. Several years ago I bought CD's at a rate of 5-10 each and every week, but nowadays that number has dropped to the same amount monthly instead of weekly.
By the way, this does not mean I download more and buy less - if I download it, I still buy it.
... what I wrote, don't bother to reply. I merely stated that BOTH influence your ability to drive (albeit, not in the same matter), and that therefor there is a reason to ban one if the other is already banned.
Ever seen someone busy talking on their mobile while driving? Great drivers eh?
I do a lot of miles every year - people are always talking about how speed kills etc... Well, I'd rather have a focused driver pass me at 50 miles over the limit, than a driver who's talking on the phone at 10 miles over the limit.
I have to agree that phones are not the only evil distraction in a car, but I do not agree with what you are saying.
You would not believe how many drivers are out there talking on the phone while not paying attention to the road.
Besides, where do you draw the line? If talking on the phone is allowed, then why not drunk driving? Both of which have been proven to influence the level of concentration a person has.
OT, but I really do not understand the joke in that. What makes you less of a human being if you remain a virgin, no matter for what period of time? There are people enough out there who choose to remain a virgin.
30, virgin, male, and will remain like that for the rest of my life. Well, maybe not the 30 part:)
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I tried to convince my Ferrari dealer of the same fact, but after a few hugs she had me escorted out of her office. Go figure...
And now all of a sudden the concept of giga/mega/kilo is being changed within this context!
You compare it to filling your tank at the gas station. Suppose you have your license for over ten years. You go to fill up today, and suddenly find that one liter of gas is about 97% of what it used to be. Wouldn't you be surprised?
I'm not trying to defend initially giving the value 1024 to kilo, mega etc..., but I really detest the 'oh we are just trying to put things right' mentality companies use, basically only to rip us off.
If they don't laugh until you exit the store, I'll pay your disk. Please make sure you record the event and share it on the net.
For more (basic) information on worms and virii, see http://computer.howstuffworks.com/virus1.htm .
Why do you automatically assume that it is Firefox itself that becomes infected? Think about it this way: if Firefox could be used to smuggle the worm inside of the machine, it could run separately from the browser on it's own port.
Apart from the fact that there are still a lot of people on dial-up, I think it can be considered bad practice to download stuff you already have (like 90% of the program you are trying to update or patch).
I have broadband as well, but I'd rather save the extra bandwidth and used megabytes (yes, my connection has a limit) for something else.
By the way - suppose this was an Oracle database where the installer would be several gigabytes, would you still download it again?
I've thought of this myself, but what do you do with the CDRom drives, DVD drives, USB ports etc... ?
A company I worked with had a very simple solution to deal with smokers. If you smoke (no matter how much or how frequently) you either:
- work 25% longer than the non-smokers
- get paid 25% less than the non-smokers
- quit smoking
Simple as that.
At the moment I'm in a whole different situation: my boss smokes, so he doesn't care about non-smokers. Here the policy is reversed: if you want to breathe clean air for a while, go outside. Fortunately I spent 99% of my time for the past years at client sites, so this does not affect me that much.
According to some dude mentioned in some bestseller (the bible I believe it was called), the dog would be the superior animal, because it turns the other cheek.
I actually did tell her that, but she failed to see the problem because she wasn't the one committing the crime. No matter how hard I explained that her computer could make her the number one suspect in such a case, she couldn't care less.
Besides, as soon as you start mentioning such possibilities to people, they give you that "isn't that a bit far fetched?" look. People believe stuff like that only happens in movies and such.
Nothing - because some people just cannot be convinced. When I visited a neighbour some months ago, her PC was infected with just about any blend of spyware you can think of. "But what would they need my PC for?" she asked - I started explaining the basics (use the PC as a bot, online banking which she uses, etc...). Her reply? "Well, as long as they use it when I'm not working on it I'm fine with that, and the online banking bit? I don't care - it's not as if I'm rich now". Try to convince someone with *that* attitude.
By the way, speaking of attitudes: I never install patches. Why? Because I run a software firewall, a hardware firewall, a virusscanner and several spyware scanners. And since I bought the damn thing I think I have the right to decide WHAT I install and WHEN I install it. That includes the right to deny patches.
Actually, as I said this is a real life example. When the cops arrested him, the 1000 pills every night was mentioned as an average amount.
There is no way he can do it safely for long without getting caught, nor can he corner the market forever there.
Any idea on how large this market is? One club, 5000 people of whom at least half of them use the drug once a night (confirmed by the police and various razzias).
Someone will horn in on him. And he's going to end up dead or in jail.
In jail? Please don't make me laugh. With his amount of profit and cash, he just bribes the police and in case that doesn't work, he just pays the best lawyer he can find to get him out of trouble. He's been doing this for the last 3-4 years, count your profits.
If you've ever watched "The Sopranos", it's about mob guys nowadays.
That's the difference - my example was a real life example...
Say what? I'll give you a real life example of a small time dealer in the neighbourhood.
The drug? Xtc. The volume? About 1000 pills a night (easily sold, one or two discos). The price paid? 1 euro per pill. The price sold? 10 euros per pill. Net profit for ONE NIGHT WORK: 9000 euros. Show me a McDonalds where I can start please!
I'll give you the benefit that I'm not factoring in jail time...
Why would they need to know? What would happen if they just replayed the data they just captured exactly as it was captured? Wouldn't they just make the same gesture you've just accepted as being secure?
Sex was invented? Don't tell Microsoft, they'll try to get a patent!
You have an 80GB drive Sir, which you can rewrite x times - so that means that you can possibly download, store and play y songs during the lifetime of your drive. With an average tax of 1 euro per song, that'll be a nice tax, won't it?
Seriously, isn't it about time the music industry changed it's tune? All this DRM stuff, taxes and other hassles only makes me want to buy LESS music and download MORE.
As long as they ensure that consumers have less rights than pirates (their term), they'll continue driving their customers away.
Ok, let's see. In Belgium, we have to pay an additional tax on blanc media (CD-R, DVD-R, etc...). There is also an additional tax on CD burners, and now there is talk of an additional tax on multimedia machines.
In Holland, they propose a tax on MP3 players (per gigabyte). Now let's assume that this proposal is accepted, how long before the next tax, say on hard disks, follows?
So then you'll buy an MP3 device, pay a small tax, you buy a separate disk and pay lots of tax for lots of gigabytes!!
By the way, as I was reading the article I nearly fainted - about 3 euros tax, ok, but PER GIGABYTE? Are they insane?
Although I agree that this is a good bargain, I'd like to point out that you don't "get" those 25 songs as you would with a free CD. You can listen to 25 songs for free, which is a big difference.
Furthermore I'd also like to point out that there are people like me who usually buy more than one CD per month. Several years ago I bought CD's at a rate of 5-10 each and every week, but nowadays that number has dropped to the same amount monthly instead of weekly.
By the way, this does not mean I download more and buy less - if I download it, I still buy it.
Then again, you've never met a female...
Hah, see you hack that, I dare you!
Man you're bumb - I've just hacked your machine in less than 5 minutes... Your machine is wide open!
You did not mention the planet those 500 companies were on - the anonymous coward sticker that sticks on your post says enough...
Ever seen someone busy talking on their mobile while driving? Great drivers eh?
I do a lot of miles every year - people are always talking about how speed kills etc... Well, I'd rather have a focused driver pass me at 50 miles over the limit, than a driver who's talking on the phone at 10 miles over the limit.
I have to agree that phones are not the only evil distraction in a car, but I do not agree with what you are saying. You would not believe how many drivers are out there talking on the phone while not paying attention to the road. Besides, where do you draw the line? If talking on the phone is allowed, then why not drunk driving? Both of which have been proven to influence the level of concentration a person has.
I wouldn't know since I'm not a Star Wars fan.
30, virgin, male, and will remain like that for the rest of my life. Well, maybe not the 30 part :)