"Hmm, according to the article the culprit is "HP Software Updates", a program I unistalled long ago"
How does you uninstalling the program make all the other laptops safe. Is this an example of quantum entanglement; action at a distance. You uninstall 'Software Updates' and simultaneously it gets uninstalled on all other HP laptops.
"HP issued an update that simply disabled the vulnerable software.. Simple disabling of the vulnerable control.. [could still] result in the machine.. [being] compromised,"
How did you manage to remove it since HP only managed to disable it and according to the article it still leaves the machines vulnerable to the exploit.
"The reason that Linux is largely unaffected is that it is not very widely used.. If/when we succeed in bringing Linux to the masses, this layer of protection will be torn away"
If that were true, where are all the Linux server exploits being actively being used it the wild. A Linux desktop logged in as standard user is safe from the numpties and is still usable. The dangers of screensavers wouldn't even apply here; even if a user managed to run some malware script it would most probably be confined to the users home dir, the core system would remain immune.
Use a Linux desktop distro, disable exec on the/home and/tmp directories, don't allow users to install software, case closed..
Yes, I know what you're going to say, there aren't any Linux viruses because there aren't many Linux desktops out there. But where are all the server exploits out there being actively used in the wild. I'm talking about commercial servers being hacked not some msging board..
Why are we still talking about this in late 2007. What have the supreme innovators being doing the past decade. Ranum laid out the solution here:
"if I were to simply track the 30 pieces of Goodness on my machine, and allow nothing else to run, I would have simultaneously solved the following problems":
* Spyware
* Viruses
* Remote Control Trojans
* Exploits that involve executing pre-installed code that you don't use regularly
He was running Foxfire, teacher told him to stop, he didn't, got detention, ergo.. he was punished for running FOxfire. Else enlighten us as to what he was really being punished for.
"Today in class AAA had a program launched called Foxfire.exe. I had told AAA to close the program and to resume work"
It's curious that none of this was in the original detention report, merely a mention of Foxfire.exe. It will be interesting hearing from the student himself, lets wait until tomorrow before passing judgement.
What document was scanned, what alteration was done. If Word was required then why did the teacher insist he use Internet Explorer. What exactly did the student admit to, why would the student need to post a retraction, a retraction of what. The report specifically refers to detention for using Foxfire.exe. This gets more curiouser by the minute.
Re:UPDATE! Cory Doctorow just reported.. (Score:5, Informative)
"Considering the teacher reported it as ".exe" that leads me to believe there was some sort of process monitoring going on"
There's process monitoring going on on a PC an 11th grader is using, I don't think so. The teacher also refered to the program as Foxfire.exe, not what an alleged monitoring program would report.
"Incident Description: Today in class AAA had a program launched called Foxfire.exe.." P. Bcalmear
So basically what we have here is a dumb teacher penalizing a pupil for not using INTERN~1 EXPLOR~1
"If a you or I encountered a bug in our Linux downloaded from the Web for free, we would have no immediate remedy to our problem. We must wait for the next release, which could take weeks"
Well, personally speaking I emailed one of the developers and got back a reply within the same day. Contrast that with the 'commercial model'. What 'Guarantee of Reliability' does the commercial software sector offer, ninety days or your money back. Certainly no guarantee against some crooks running off with your entire customer database.
was Re:Guarantee of Reliability is not Free (Score:5, Interesting) yet another mod troll..
"The NYSE's shift toward Linux and x86-based hardware illustrates why consulting firm Gartner Inc. is predicting a slight decline in Unix server revenues over the next five years"
Is it true that people are only moving from Unix to Linux. If a CIO installs Linux on a new site, how is this a loss for 'Unix' but not for Windows, the logic escapes me.
I see a lot of negative mod-up-insightful posts here. I really can't be bothered refuting them all. Cmdrtaco is this what slashdot is reduced to, a platfrom for the MS astroturfing department?
Like take this comment could be taken straight from the MS legal brief:
"A browser is an integral part of an operating system in 2007. It's a standardized document display application. The operating system depends on it being there" Reality Master 101 (Score:2, Insightful) HAA..
The submissions firehose system is also being totally abused. Stories being buried almost instantly..
""First off, this isn't something that's coming in the future, it's something that McKesson has already done and has been doing for years. So I think it hardly counts as news""
Well, yea, the first few lines of the article actually says so. But why would any of the points raised in the article be rendered void because it happened before/after some arbitrary time frame set by you. If this was Usnet I would suspect you of doing a time shuffle..;)
"In 2004, health care software vendor McKesson Provider Technologies began focusing on ways to cut IT costs for customers, including hospitals and medical offices"
"Secondly, speaking as someone who has worked many years in hospital IT with a number of software vendors"
Secondly, if this was Usenet I would also suspect you trolling as you would have to invoke imaginary personal anecdotes to support your opinions.
"I'm pretty sure that they were talking about saving 60% on OS licensing and hardware purchasing costs, not overall savings
Thirdly, you distort what the article actually said and respond to imaginary quotes, a classic straw.man, have a nice troll day..:)
"If this sort of thing did catch on, which would be a long ways in the future and a big if at that, the effect on the price of care would be almost unnoticeable"
But think of all the savings that can go towards increased salaries for the consultants. Not only that, what is this project doing for the starving babies in Africa.
According to Microsoft the government is imposing unnecessary restrictions on itself as the ODF standard is still hardly used. Users of Microsoft software will have to look to third party software to read the format, thereby acting to exclude Microsoft from the process. Microsoft also critcises the use of open source software as this imposes restrictions on the commercial developement process...
'How can otherwise perfectly normal people who KNOW they are in an experiment, KNOW they were randomly selected to be either a guard or a prisoner act in such ways?'
Because when you take 'perfectly normal people' out of the social context they no longer have the contstraints to not act on their baser instincts. Generally in a socal context, we expect and give a modicum of 'respert' to the other fella. If the guards acted like that at home or work they would be punished by others by withdrawl of the social support network. In Stanford, those rules didn't apply. The guards were only acting normally.
'It's a hard point to argue if you had only two options, food, or a laptop, the food seems a better choice'
The reason they are starving is they have been displaced from their land. The choice given them is getting shot or starving. The choice is usually made for them..
Does anyone but me see the OLPC XO-1 as an insulting "let them eat cake" sort of message to the world's poor?
Let them buy guns would be a more apt analagy. This is yet another repeat of that total BS regarding the OLPC diverting resources that could be better spent on feeding the worlds hunger. The fact is that there is no shortage of food in these areas. Generally where you see famine it is invariable accompanied by wars and inter-ethnic strife.
For instance the current situation in Darfur is caused by the Government engaging in a little ethnic clensing of the non-Arab population.
'I'll donate my money to hunger relief'
Mr. Dvorak, you would be better occupied asking who sold them the guns to engage in such attrocities and who gave them the bank loans..:)
"1) The MS tutorial mentions older operating systems as a generic, it does not diss XP"
Do you mean that what they really mean is that Vista is not more secure, has less TCO and doesn't save money than Vista. If so then why the need to write an article on 'How to Justify a Desktop Upgrade'.
The hidden cost of vulnerability
'What management may not realize, however, is that they are already paying a hefty hidden cost by having outdated systems in place, "because you are paying for an administrator's time to deal with these issues," Johnson said.'
'2) "newer operating system, such as Windows Vista"'
Newer that what, please tell us what newer is refering to. Vista is newer then Vista doesn't make sense.
Re:Lead slashdot post is a lie (score: 5 EXCUSES~1)
Slashdot Mirror
"Hmm, according to the article the culprit is "HP Software Updates", a program I unistalled long ago"
.. Simple disabling of the vulnerable control .. [could still] result in the machine .. [being] compromised,"
How does you uninstalling the program make all the other laptops safe. Is this an example of quantum entanglement; action at a distance. You uninstall 'Software Updates' and simultaneously it gets uninstalled on all other HP laptops.
"HP issued an update that simply disabled the vulnerable software
How did you manage to remove it since HP only managed to disable it and according to the article it still leaves the machines vulnerable to the exploit.
Re:"Most HP and Compaq Laptops"
Re:I effectively bricked my compaq with linux!
"The reason that Linux is largely unaffected is that it is not very widely used .. If/when we succeed in bringing Linux to the masses, this layer of protection will be torn away"
If that were true, where are all the Linux server exploits being actively being used it the wild. A Linux desktop logged in as standard user is safe from the numpties and is still usable. The dangers of screensavers wouldn't even apply here; even if a user managed to run some malware script it would most probably be confined to the users home dir, the core system would remain immune.
Re:yeah, but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Use a Linux desktop distro, disable exec on the /home and /tmp directories, don't allow users to install software, case closed ..
..
Yes, I know what you're going to say, there aren't any Linux viruses because there aren't many Linux desktops out there. But where are all the server exploits out there being actively used in the wild. I'm talking about commercial servers being hacked not some msging board
Why are we still talking about this in late 2007. What have the supreme innovators being doing the past decade. Ranum laid out the solution here:
"if I were to simply track the 30 pieces of Goodness on my machine, and allow nothing else to run, I would have simultaneously solved the following problems":
* Spyware
* Viruses
* Remote Control Trojans
* Exploits that involve executing pre-installed code that you don't use regularly
"Ok, I spell it out simple for the stupid:"
OK, where is the 'followup/correction/retraction', apart from a mention on the boingboing site I can't find any original source.
The detention was for arguing with the teacher
.. he was punished for running FOxfire. Else enlighten us as to what he was really being punished for.
He was running Foxfire, teacher told him to stop, he didn't, got detention, ergo
"Today in class AAA had a program launched called Foxfire.exe. I had told AAA to close the program and to resume work"
Re:Disobedience (Score:5, Interesting)
"wasn't sure if the school's monitoring software would work with it. "
Where does it mention 'school monitoring software'
was Re:How about the possibility.. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's curious that none of this was in the original detention report, merely a mention of Foxfire.exe. It will be interesting hearing from the student himself, lets wait until tomorrow before passing judgement.
What document was scanned, what alteration was done. If Word was required then why did the teacher insist he use Internet Explorer. What exactly did the student admit to, why would the student need to post a retraction, a retraction of what. The report specifically refers to detention for using Foxfire.exe. This gets more curiouser by the minute.
Re:UPDATE! Cory Doctorow just reported.. (Score:5, Informative)
"The issue here was he was told not to use it and refused to comply"
..
..
No the real issue here is a teacher penalizing a pupil for using Firefox
Who modded this up Insightful
was Re:so what? Score:4, Insightful)
"Considering the teacher reported it as ".exe" that leads me to believe there was some sort of process monitoring going on"
.." P. Bcalmear
..
There's process monitoring going on on a PC an 11th grader is using, I don't think so. The teacher also refered to the program as Foxfire.exe, not what an alleged monitoring program would report.
"Incident Description: Today in class AAA had a program launched called Foxfire.exe
So basically what we have here is a dumb teacher penalizing a pupil for not using INTERN~1 EXPLOR~1
Who modded this up Score:4 Insightful
"mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile $outfile.ra $thestream"
What do you put in the parameters, how do you find the name of the stream, does it work for videos as well ?
"If a you or I encountered a bug in our Linux downloaded from the Web for free, we would have no immediate remedy to our problem. We must wait for the next release, which could take weeks"
..
Well, personally speaking I emailed one of the developers and got back a reply within the same day. Contrast that with the 'commercial model'. What 'Guarantee of Reliability' does the commercial software sector offer, ninety days or your money back. Certainly no guarantee against some crooks running off with your entire customer database.
was Re:Guarantee of Reliability is not Free (Score:5, Interesting) yet another mod troll
"The NYSE's shift toward Linux and x86-based hardware illustrates why consulting firm Gartner Inc. is predicting a slight decline in Unix server revenues over the next five years"
Is it true that people are only moving from Unix to Linux. If a CIO installs Linux on a new site, how is this a loss for 'Unix' but not for Windows, the logic escapes me.
standby for all the mod trolls .. atn: Rob Malda (Score:1, Offtopic)
"Isn't that just you announcing your ignorant of which tools to use?"
What tools would you use to do the same job?
Re:Microsoft and logs do not compute (Score:5, Interesting)
I see a lot of negative mod-up-insightful posts here. I really can't be bothered refuting them all. Cmdrtaco is this what slashdot is reduced to, a platfrom for the MS astroturfing department?
..
..
Like take this comment could be taken straight from the MS legal brief:
"A browser is an integral part of an operating system in 2007. It's a standardized document display application. The operating system depends on it being there" Reality Master 101 (Score:2, Insightful) HAA
The submissions firehose system is also being totally abused. Stories being buried almost instantly
""First off, this isn't something that's coming in the future, it's something that McKesson has already done and has been doing for years. So I think it hardly counts as news""
.. ;)
.. :)
Well, yea, the first few lines of the article actually says so. But why would any of the points raised in the article be rendered void because it happened before/after some arbitrary time frame set by you. If this was Usnet I would suspect you of doing a time shuffle
"In 2004, health care software vendor McKesson Provider Technologies began focusing on ways to cut IT costs for customers, including hospitals and medical offices"
"Secondly, speaking as someone who has worked many years in hospital IT with a number of software vendors"
Secondly, if this was Usenet I would also suspect you trolling as you would have to invoke imaginary personal anecdotes to support your opinions.
"I'm pretty sure that they were talking about saving 60% on OS licensing and hardware purchasing costs, not overall savings
Thirdly, you distort what the article actually said and respond to imaginary quotes, a classic straw.man, have a nice troll day
Re:I declare shenannigans!
"If this sort of thing did catch on, which would be a long ways in the future and a big if at that, the effect on the price of care would be almost unnoticeable"
But think of all the savings that can go towards increased salaries for the consultants. Not only that, what is this project doing for the starving babies in Africa.
Re:Affordable health care
"I don't know how big these customers are, but Linux is not as stable as people seem to think"
was Bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)
According to Microsoft the government is imposing unnecessary restrictions on itself as the ODF standard is still hardly used. Users of Microsoft software will have to look to third party software to read the format, thereby acting to exclude Microsoft from the process. Microsoft also critcises the use of open source software as this imposes restrictions on the commercial developement process...
Microsoft hekelt belied open standaarden
'How can otherwise perfectly normal people who KNOW they are in an experiment, KNOW they were randomly selected to be either a guard or a prisoner act in such ways?'
Because when you take 'perfectly normal people' out of the social context they no longer have the contstraints to not act on their baser instincts. Generally in a socal context, we expect and give a modicum of 'respert' to the other fella. If the guards acted like that at home or work they would be punished by others by withdrawl of the social support network. In Stanford, those rules didn't apply. The guards were only acting normally.
Re:well DOH
'It's a hard point to argue if you had only two options, food, or a laptop, the food seems a better choice'
..
The reason they are starving is they have been displaced from their land. The choice given them is getting shot or starving. The choice is usually made for them
Re:he's got a point. (Score:3, Bogus analogy)
Does anyone but me see the OLPC XO-1 as an insulting "let them eat cake" sort of message to the world's poor?
.. :)
Let them buy guns would be a more apt analagy. This is yet another repeat of that total BS regarding the OLPC diverting resources that could be better spent on feeding the worlds hunger. The fact is that there is no shortage of food in these areas. Generally where you see famine it is invariable accompanied by wars and inter-ethnic strife.
For instance the current situation in Darfur is caused by the Government engaging in a little ethnic clensing of the non-Arab population.
'I'll donate my money to hunger relief'
Mr. Dvorak, you would be better occupied asking who sold them the guns to engage in such attrocities and who gave them the bank loans
'Eritrea and Ethiopia - two of the world's poorest countries - spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the war'
Who loaned them the money to buy the weapons. The answer to that is the real obsenity, as is this bogus concern coming from you.
"1) The MS tutorial mentions older operating systems as a generic, it does not diss XP"
Do you mean that what they really mean is that Vista is not more secure, has less TCO and doesn't save money than Vista. If so then why the need to write an article on 'How to Justify a Desktop Upgrade'.
The hidden cost of vulnerability
'What management may not realize, however, is that they are already paying a hefty hidden cost by having outdated systems in place, "because you are paying for an administrator's time to deal with these issues," Johnson said.'
'2) "newer operating system, such as Windows Vista"'
Newer that what, please tell us what newer is refering to. Vista is newer then Vista doesn't make sense.
Re:Lead slashdot post is a lie (score: 5 EXCUSES~1)