That area is nowhere near San Francisco; it's a 5 hour drive north. Happens to be my favorite vacation area right there at Lassen Volcanic National Park http://www.nps.gov/lavo/lassen_volcanic_national_p ark_home.htm, one of the more beautiful areas around (and not 'cow-fouled'). While there I had taken a side trip to the radio telescopes there in the past. They used to be bigger ones owned by one of the universitys. They were removed to make way for this project. Anyway, the area is a nice place to visit and Hat Creek is awesome.
That's an easy one. It's even so old I doubt it is in syndication anymore. It's Space 1999. Anyone else remember those staple guns they used for weapons?
So, Pluto has been a planet "forever" (all of many of our lives). It should just STAY a planet. Now, if they want to re-define the term planet to mean "something a bit larger than Pluto", or even "most dominant thingy in its orbit" - that's all cool as long as Pluto gets grandfathered in and remains a planet.
How quickly and effectively were the Mozilla/Firefox vulnerabilities patched in comparison to IE?
The Mozilla ones weren't patched at all. Users had to download a replacement browser (at least for Firefox). So there wasn't a patch at all. Just a new browser.
Thanks - you saved me from writing that. Spot on - although you'll still get excoriated here for telling the truth since it doesn't match the party line here...
Come on - other and emerging standards are all great - but if you have terabytes of doc, xls, and ppt files to deal with the only thing that matters is compat with MS.
Money for licensing is nothing compared to the compat work.
While I agree with most of your points, there is one way in which accessing the running OS in the way that an exploit based on this vulnerability could is different than the boot CD method you mentioned. For example, my notebook has PointSec installed (full drive encryption). With this, the boot CD is useless (it can format my drive, but can't get the data). However, the USB key vulnerability if properly exploited can get my data since the machine is already booted into the target OS and encryption keys have already been provided.
You're an obvious troll, but what the hell - it's a slow day.
Let's see - since sanity vs. insanity is defined by the majority of the people (people "thinking" or "seeing" in a similar fashion will tend to define as "insane" people who think or see in an obviously different fashion), then I guess the 90% or so people who use Windows would beg to differ with you. They probably believe they are in their right minds, and hence could possibly have cause to believe that maybe you are not.
However, to the real issue you have rasied about "Times have changed and there is no reason anymore to use an operating system that is that insecure, prone to virues and spyware, and instable.". Let's see... We are just starting a project to replace our current crop of machines in early 2007. First thing- what OS? Is it Longhorn or something else like Linux or OSX? Every time we get some business unit suit asking us to go with Linux we (who wouldn't mind switching ourselves) ask them which of the 4,000 apps in use in the company they are willing to throw out and either buy a new version for Linux, re-write (if in-house), get a freeware community supported version, or try to make work using something like WINE. They ALWAYS without fail just go away.
There is just NO WAY that we could make the switch at this point. Software that runs under Windows is too entrenched in our environment and purchasing, re-writing, investigating freeware, testing under WINE, etc. would cost WAY MORE than just upgrading to Longhorn as we install new machines. I mean it isn't even CLOSE. Not to mention the business delay it would cause to do all of that work investigating whether we could get a functional environment for people. Look at how many MS Office macros (yes they are evil, but they exist in large numbers) would have to be thrown out and redone. It's just huge any way you look at it.
That all said, a company just starting could probably get going with something like SuSe or RedHat (or another) with no major problems. They could start out on Open Office (2.0 is looking good). They'd probably be able to stay on it for a long time (until they merged or got bought out - that might force a change).
But for the folks with thousands of users in 180 countries that have used MS for years - there is just no way to go back now. The stockholders would kill us if we tried to spend enough money to make it happen.
I agree completely with your rating of medium at best.
However, I'm not so sure about the "Few corporate workstations have RDP enabled." Part.
Remote Desktop was one of the selling factors of Windows XP over Windows 2000 as it enabled more remote support scenarios so that small sites don't have to have nearly as much on-site support. (There were other factors as well, but I distinctly remember that as one of the "bullet" items we used when working on a business case for deploying Windows XP in late 2001/2002 instead of deploying Windows 2000.) That's 60,000 machines in the "do allow RDP" category (the number we have).
Of course I agree that corps don't allow anonymous access; nobody does - you'd actually have to work pretty hard to enable that. Our default is administrators only (and our users aren't administrators). However, we do allow the primary user of a machine to add their own user ID to "Remote Desktop Users" on their own machine.
On client machines in a domain it should be ON if you want to do any support. It should also be appropriately ACL'ed. By default it is Administrators only, although you can put users or groups into the Remote Desktop Users group. However having it off in a large domain with distributed users (often with no on-site support at smaller sites) would just be silly. You'd get to tell management that you have to get on an airplane and fly to the damn location (really - WE have sites like that) because you thought it was a good idea to turn remote desktop off. OUR users aren't admins so they won't be turning it on for you...
Actually many people run both. Since many of them like to run games, they still need Windows. I'd guess a good portion run warez though - so Microsoft may or may not let them patch...
I haven't looked into any of this, but it seems like it could be done by the same model as they have now. You fill out a list of things you "want" and they send them when they have them (today). So, in this model couldn't they then dribble them down and notify you when they are done? I agree it doesn't sound like a "movie on demand" thing.
You're right. Agreed. However on the Firefox comment - I do get a popup when visiting www.dilbert.com - IN FIREFOX. It shows that it blocked a popup, but one comes up anyway - typically from tribalfusion (which I block so the popup is just blank), but is a real, honest popup window. Funny how IE blocks that one fine, but not firefox. Annoying, since that's my favorite comic, and Firefox is my browser of choice...
you are right; they out and out lie in their ads and do anything they can to trick you. They are much, much worse than used-car salesmen. If they want us to view their ads, they need to police themselves (yeah right) and not try to lie, cheat, obfuscate, etc.
You'd think that they can figure out that if they have to do all that, then the product isn't something we actually WANT to buy anyway...
Sure they know the difference... If they install RealPlayer, it takes over their system. (does anyone allow crap from Real on their machine anymore)? If they install Quicktime, it takes an act of god (to a standard user) to get that damn Q out of their task tray, etc. That's the difference they see. WMP just works, and is there. The others go out of their way to annoy people...
I guess that activation thing is a pain for smaller shops (I've heard a lot of ranting about it). I must say, working in a large company and being the desktop design guy - I've never seen the activation since large companies usually use VL (Volume License ) media - same as the warez guys. No activation on VL...
Have fun going out of business. The rest of the developers in the world will eat your lunch. Wait until your marketing folks try to sell services to a large (50,000+ computers) company and they get laughed out of the office when they won't work on IE. Wonder who the marketing suits will come after?
Tower, yes this is flight 281. Ah, we're in this new plane with no internal cockpit door, and I - well, where's the head? I need to take a pee...
Sure, we could redesign the planes in the way you suggest, but seeing as how the darn things last like 30 years (and it would be more expensive and less efficient to have to have a head in the cockpit), I don't see this happening...
Slashdot Mirror
Won't the Ghost division close up too now that Microsoft is offering imaging tools with the OS?
That area is nowhere near San Francisco; it's a 5 hour drive north. Happens to be my favorite vacation area right there at Lassen Volcanic National Park http://www.nps.gov/lavo/lassen_volcanic_national_p ark_home.htm, one of the more beautiful areas around (and not 'cow-fouled'). While there I had taken a side trip to the radio telescopes there in the past. They used to be bigger ones owned by one of the universitys. They were removed to make way for this project. Anyway, the area is a nice place to visit and Hat Creek is awesome.
That's an easy one. It's even so old I doubt it is in syndication anymore. It's Space 1999 . Anyone else remember those staple guns they used for weapons?
So, Pluto has been a planet "forever" (all of many of our lives). It should just STAY a planet. Now, if they want to re-define the term planet to mean "something a bit larger than Pluto", or even "most dominant thingy in its orbit" - that's all cool as long as Pluto gets grandfathered in and remains a planet.
How quickly and effectively were the Mozilla/Firefox vulnerabilities patched in comparison to IE?
The Mozilla ones weren't patched at all. Users had to download a replacement browser (at least for Firefox). So there wasn't a patch at all. Just a new browser.
firefox is still exploitable today since it doesn't have real, working, automatic update.
Thanks - you saved me from writing that. Spot on - although you'll still get excoriated here for telling the truth since it doesn't match the party line here...
Come on - other and emerging standards are all great - but if you have terabytes of doc, xls, and ppt files to deal with the only thing that matters is compat with MS. Money for licensing is nothing compared to the compat work.
While I agree with most of your points, there is one way in which accessing the running OS in the way that an exploit based on this vulnerability could is different than the boot CD method you mentioned. For example, my notebook has PointSec installed (full drive encryption). With this, the boot CD is useless (it can format my drive, but can't get the data). However, the USB key vulnerability if properly exploited can get my data since the machine is already booted into the target OS and encryption keys have already been provided.
I heard they were going to name it "Linix Professional Edition".
You're an obvious troll, but what the hell - it's a slow day.
Let's see - since sanity vs. insanity is defined by the majority of the people (people "thinking" or "seeing" in a similar fashion will tend to define as "insane" people who think or see in an obviously different fashion), then I guess the 90% or so people who use Windows would beg to differ with you. They probably believe they are in their right minds, and hence could possibly have cause to believe that maybe you are not.
However, to the real issue you have rasied about "Times have changed and there is no reason anymore to use an operating system that is that insecure, prone to virues and spyware, and instable.". Let's see... We are just starting a project to replace our current crop of machines in early 2007. First thing- what OS? Is it Longhorn or something else like Linux or OSX? Every time we get some business unit suit asking us to go with Linux we (who wouldn't mind switching ourselves) ask them which of the 4,000 apps in use in the company they are willing to throw out and either buy a new version for Linux, re-write (if in-house), get a freeware community supported version, or try to make work using something like WINE.
They ALWAYS without fail just go away.
There is just NO WAY that we could make the switch at this point. Software that runs under Windows is too entrenched in our environment and purchasing, re-writing, investigating freeware, testing under WINE, etc. would cost WAY MORE than just upgrading to Longhorn as we install new machines. I mean it isn't even CLOSE. Not to mention the business delay it would cause to do all of that work investigating whether we could get a functional environment for people. Look at how many MS Office macros (yes they are evil, but they exist in large numbers) would have to be thrown out and redone. It's just huge any way you look at it.
That all said, a company just starting could probably get going with something like SuSe or RedHat (or another) with no major problems. They could start out on Open Office (2.0 is looking good). They'd probably be able to stay on it for a long time (until they merged or got bought out - that might force a change).
But for the folks with thousands of users in 180 countries that have used MS for years - there is just no way to go back now. The stockholders would kill us if we tried to spend enough money to make it happen.
I agree completely with your rating of medium at best.
However, I'm not so sure about the "Few corporate workstations have RDP enabled."
Part.
Remote Desktop was one of the selling factors of Windows XP over Windows 2000 as it enabled more remote support scenarios so that small sites don't have to have nearly as much on-site support. (There were other factors as well, but I distinctly remember that as one of the "bullet" items we used when working on a business case for deploying Windows XP in late 2001/2002 instead of deploying Windows 2000.) That's 60,000 machines in the "do allow RDP" category (the number we have).
Of course I agree that corps don't allow anonymous access; nobody does - you'd actually have to work pretty hard to enable that. Our default is administrators only (and our users aren't administrators). However, we do allow the primary user of a machine to add their own user ID to "Remote Desktop Users" on their own machine.
On client machines in a domain it should be ON if you want to do any support. It should also be appropriately ACL'ed. By default it is Administrators only, although you can put users or groups into the Remote Desktop Users group. However having it off in a large domain with distributed users (often with no on-site support at smaller sites) would just be silly. You'd get to tell management that you have to get on an airplane and fly to the damn location (really - WE have sites like that) because you thought it was a good idea to turn remote desktop off. OUR users aren't admins so they won't be turning it on for you...
Actually many people run both. Since many of them like to run games, they still need Windows. I'd guess a good portion run warez though - so Microsoft may or may not let them patch...
I haven't looked into any of this, but it seems like it could be done by the same model as they have now. You fill out a list of things you "want" and they send them when they have them (today). So, in this model couldn't they then dribble them down and notify you when they are done? I agree it doesn't sound like a "movie on demand" thing.
I know, I know - he said MOVIES... But I always liked the beam the sunflowers on Ringworld produced... Nothing like clean solar power, eh?
You're right. Agreed. However on the Firefox comment - I do get a popup when visiting www.dilbert.com - IN FIREFOX. It shows that it blocked a popup, but one comes up anyway - typically from tribalfusion (which I block so the popup is just blank), but is a real, honest popup window. Funny how IE blocks that one fine, but not firefox. Annoying, since that's my favorite comic, and Firefox is my browser of choice...
Very nicely stated. I totally agree.
you are right; they out and out lie in their ads and do anything they can to trick you. They are much, much worse than used-car salesmen. If they want us to view their ads, they need to police themselves (yeah right) and not try to lie, cheat, obfuscate, etc.
You'd think that they can figure out that if they have to do all that, then the product isn't something we actually WANT to buy anyway...
Sure they know the difference... If they install RealPlayer, it takes over their system. (does anyone allow crap from Real on their machine anymore)? If they install Quicktime, it takes an act of god (to a standard user) to get that damn Q out of their task tray, etc. That's the difference they see. WMP just works, and is there. The others go out of their way to annoy people...
Absolutely right - it's from either the "too much time on our hands" or the "Who cares" department...
I guess that activation thing is a pain for smaller shops (I've heard a lot of ranting about it). I must say, working in a large company and being the desktop design guy - I've never seen the activation since large companies usually use VL (Volume License ) media - same as the warez guys. No activation on VL...
Nah, the founders of the site should take the money and run; just like other scams...
Have fun going out of business. The rest of the developers in the world will eat your lunch. Wait until your marketing folks try to sell services to a large (50,000+ computers) company and they get laughed out of the office when they won't work on IE. Wonder who the marketing suits will come after?
Tower, yes this is flight 281. Ah, we're in this new plane with no internal cockpit door, and I - well, where's the head? I need to take a pee...
Sure, we could redesign the planes in the way you suggest, but seeing as how the darn things last like 30 years (and it would be more expensive and less efficient to have to have a head in the cockpit), I don't see this happening...