I used to have a car that would hit going 5 MPH through parking lots (it would hit right on the oil pan - and no, it didn't have a skid plate covering it). I found that by going over the speed bumps at 10 MPH it would bounce high enough that it would not hit. Normally I wouldn't go that fast in most areas of a parking lot, but to avoid damage to my car I had to go faster. It was interesting to see how the speed bumps made me less of a safe driver. For kicks, see if you Honda Fit will clear at a higher speed.
I guess for those people who shut down their computers more than once a day it would be fine. For those of us who reboot about once a month and use sleep / resume the rest of the time it is a terrible idea to be rebooting all the time to do banking (maybe twice a day sometimes, but at least a couple of times a week). Why would anyone want to put up with that? Even for folks willing to accept it, the bank would inevitably get a smattering of "the wireless doesn't work on my netbook" or something (even though Ubuntu live CD's are pretty good about support they can't manage to support every device). I would be more accepting of a VM or something though than a live CD for my own use.
While that is absolutely true, most systems don't then let you immediately logon with a recovered password. They generally mail a new password to you. So you need to already know the password to the user's email account so that you can logon there and actually get the password. Systems that aren't doing at least that are not very secure.
Interesting comment. However, Shuttleworth didn't move his buttons. I, and many others, complained to the Microsoft Office folks during the beta program for Office 2007 when they moved the Outlook send button over to the far right side. They moved it back to the left based on our feedback (against the output of their usability study). Take that as you will - its an anecdote (although a true one), but it does show that your premise does not describe an absolute.
Sure, that's the knee jerk reaction many people give. However, we could also decide to be helpful instead. Now, we don't know much about the computing environment this person has but we can assume it is some flavor of Windows. So here are some fairly straightforward things they could do to help prevent this:
- Don't allow the users to have admin rights. (Also, don't run Windows XP or older as it doesn't work well without admin)
- Consider setting up AppLocker whitelisting (or SRP if you are running Vista instead of Windows 7)
- Check security sites, firewall vendor sites, etc. to see if there are rules you can use to prevent botnets from talking to their C&C servers
- Turn off autorun / autoplay via policy.
- Lock down the current user startup folder and current user registry run areas (non admins can still write to those as they are profile specific - but you can lock them down and prevent code from running on every logon/startup)
With the number of really smart folks we have here on/. I am sure we can come up with a whole bunch more than that starter list.
Are you running a 9 year old version of OSX too, or are you comparing a two generation old Windows version to a nice new Mac version? It really sounds like you are comparing apples (snicker) to oranges. After all, both Vista and Windows 7 have no problem running for a long, long time between reboots and don't get slow during that time.
Well, you really don't need a 3rd party security application to make your machine secure. We just saw the other day http://ask.slashdot.org/story/10/03/18/1831246/What-Free-Antivirus-Do-You-Install-On-Windows that many people have good things to say about MS Security Essentials as an anti-virus program. As advanced users, we also all know what the weak link is: end users who click on and run any old thing. Honestly, take a modern version of Windows (Vista or Windows 7) and the out of box (and on by default) firewall coupled with the automatic "run programs as a standard user even if you are an administrator" (UAC) and Windows itself isn't "insecure" like it was in the days of Windows XP. This is why current attacks are mostly social engineering / trojan ("run this for free stuff!" or "enter your password here"), or instead application level attacks (Adobe Reader, IE, Firefox). Gone are the days of the Blaster type "you are owned if your machine is just on the network" attacks. Even the most recent SMBv2 vulnerability and subsequent attacks required that you modified your default firewall settings to allow serving files from your machine.
There really isn't a need for a 3rd party product here and the major ones (McAfee, Symantec, etc.) slow your machine and act like malware themselves.
If anything, user education about what they should trust and what they can safely run goes much farther than anti-virus or anti-malware can.
Sophos is pretty loud too in terms of messages. Pops up all the time saying that it quarantined something due to a heuristics match (but the thing it "quarantined" doesn't actually get prevented from running which is stupid). It also pops up saying "updating failed" all the time when you take your machine out of sleep with no network available. Very "noisy" software.
I'll second the plug for MS Security Essentials. My current machine came with a three year subscription to McAfee. It was basically "free to me" - but it was utter crap. It wanted me to reboot about once a week to install something (at one point they even emailed everyone registered with a "we're sorry" note because it went through 2 weeks of a reboot every day). I removed it in favor of another "free to me" version - Symantec. That one was because our work license has provisions for home use. It was better than McAfee in that it didn't ever ask for a reboot, but as people know it slows your machine down more than it should. As soon as MS Security Essentials shipped, I dumped that "free to me" Symantec and have never looked back. My wife, both kids, and my machine are all running MSE. I even signed up for the perpetual beta so I am testing the newest version on the machine I am typing this on. I really wouldn't even bother with any other one at this point.
Well as already mentioned it doesn't make a lot of sense to do that. When you try, you get cab drivers refusing to take people to locations where they are unlikely to get a return fare. This makes for unhappy people since they can't get a ride. Getting a ride at a premium price is preferable and allows the cab driver to still make money on the fare. There are other areas (not sure about New York as I've never been there, but definitely both Singapore and London) where they have "congestion zones" where they charge people to drive into them and the cab charges a higher rate when you want a ride into those zones. In general it makes a lot of sense to have different rates to different places.
I'm pretty sure he means that Flash will want to update, Adobe Reader will complain, Windows will want to patch itself, etc. For folks using iTunes - it will want to throw down the latest iTunes and Quicktime. Firefox will want to update, etc., etc. ad nauseum.
The real issue is that Windows doesn't have a centralized update mechanism. Quite frankly the ISV's resisted the idea as they didn't want to have anything seem like Microsoft controlled it. More and more I am leaning towards the belief that Microsoft needs to build a centralized update service and allow ISV's to opt in to it. After they realize they can post their updates without being metered or anything by Microsoft they will find that they don't have to build custom updaters, write services to do it so that they don't have UAC prompts for patches, etc.
Thanks for calling that out. I do hope that these provisions require that someone be damaged in order for there to be a judgment. I'd also hope that the damaged party (if indeed there is one) would get the judgment and not the "relator". Otherwise it seems likely that many of these cases would have merit (on the grounds that fallacious patent protection was claimed) but really be poorly veiled attempts to grab money when there was no actual injury.
Right; the point of "random" was just that Microsoft didn't PICK the order that the browsers would show up in. For the business purpose required, the solutions selected was adequate and met the requirement. This guy is talking about trying to get highly random stuff like you might need in encryption or quantum physics simulations. While interesting, those higher randomness generators aren't required by the need here.
Yes, exactly. My wife and I were in a hotel room the other day and had to sit through commercials to watch TV (none of that at home!). One was for some product that claimed to alleviate tinnitus. It called itself homeopathic, but it clearly seemed to be saying it had some actual ingredients. I sneered at it and my wife said something like, "what's wrong with natural remedies?". I had to educate her on what homeopathy means. However it seemed this product was trying to say it was homeopathic and that it had ingredients too. Definitely trying to play itself up as a "natural" remedy to some folks.
What exactly were you hoping for? Agreement that censorship is good? I think most agree that it may be in poor taste, but should be allowed as censorship is worse than poor taste. Wasn't there a famous quote that covers this:
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall. I think most folks here are of the opinion that blocking material that may be objectionable to some is much worse than allowing it to stand on its own.
Not a lawyer here, but I would imagine that their intent was that if you embed the font you are no longer licensed to use it at all. Your license is revoked. So now you can't distribute your document to anyone because you would be breaking their copyright on the font. Now, I am NOT saying that their license SAYS that - but I would guess it is what they meant.
How did you come up with that? Does "gasoline" pay for the actual printing / ink / paper? Does it pay the distribution manager and the folks that bundle the papers up? Does it pay the delivery guy? Yeah, that isn't a good job, but he doesn't drive around dropping the papers off for free. I remember when I was much younger getting a tour of our newspaper. I know the "distribution department" folks had several people working in it and most of them dealt with physical paper issues. So I think "gasoline" is a bit naive.
Although to a certain extent you are correct, you aren't accounting for the scale of the operation. Now, I'm not saying all electric plants are clean - not by any means. However in a large plant it is much easier to have the correct systems in place to clean the exhaust air than it is with small gasoline engines (especially mobile ones like in a car as weight is much more of a consideration). So yes, the electric plants can certainly be a bit of the NIMBY and also the "out of sight, out of mind" that you mention. But really the scale they operate on can work towards better systems to prevent noxious emissions.
Did they do the same thing to you in Boston that they did here in the SF bay area of California? Forced us to digital even though the digital conversion the Govt. mandated didn't apply to cable? Reduced the service level and increased the prices (I have 6 tuners in the house and they all worked for all channels before, but now with the digital force out I have 5 comcast boxes - 2 masters and three little ones which cost more than I paid before, but only gave me 5 tuners). The 6th tuner - an older TV in the garage that I use when on the treadmill - now only gets to channel 29 because of the digital force comcast pulled. Oh, and the channels? Three of them are Mexican (Mexican Spanish) and three are some form of Chinese. Like I want to pay for that!!!
Yes, I absolutely blame the criminal. After all, many of us here on slashdot have the technical ability (or could get it easily: some of these folks are really smart) to do this same type of criminal activity. They don't do it because they aren't criminals. Who the heck else would we blame but the person responsible for committing the crime? Now, if you want to talk about "the system" (justice system, not the banking system) and how unfortunate it is that it is nearly impossible to get a job after being in prison once - yes, that is tough and the summary alludes to the "hard times" iceman fell on probably due to the stigma of his earlier crime and resulting prison sentence. This can, and often is, extremely difficult to overcome and can mean years of living on handouts from relatives, living in campgrounds, etc. (can you tell I have a brother in law who has been through this?). However, the fact remains that the crime is the responsibility of the criminal and not the banking system. If the credit card system was more secure, this criminal would have went after the next most lucrative thing.
Well the claim is that they have to have two people lift your bag if it is over the weight that their labor agreement calls for - hence the handling costs them more money. However, I have never seen this done in practice and I have seen bags marked with the overweight tags being lifted onto the belt and into the plane by one person (which seems to be standard practice; I've never seen them use two people to do it). Of course YOU carry your carry on so they don't have to worry as much about the weight. Although if you look closely you will see that the overhead compartments do list total weight limits. I've never seen the onboard flight attendants attempt to enforce those limits though.
Changing currency is easy compared to dealing with conversions in things like maintenance. "We need some new bolts to replace these old ones on the bridge. The manual says they are 7/8". What, we can only get 19 cm ones? Those don't fit." Equipment in refineries, pipelines, trucks, etc. all have long lifetimes and need replacement parts. I think we SHOULD change over, but it isn't simple and it isn't easy.
Slashdot Mirror
I used to have a car that would hit going 5 MPH through parking lots (it would hit right on the oil pan - and no, it didn't have a skid plate covering it). I found that by going over the speed bumps at 10 MPH it would bounce high enough that it would not hit. Normally I wouldn't go that fast in most areas of a parking lot, but to avoid damage to my car I had to go faster. It was interesting to see how the speed bumps made me less of a safe driver. For kicks, see if you Honda Fit will clear at a higher speed.
I guess for those people who shut down their computers more than once a day it would be fine. For those of us who reboot about once a month and use sleep / resume the rest of the time it is a terrible idea to be rebooting all the time to do banking (maybe twice a day sometimes, but at least a couple of times a week). Why would anyone want to put up with that? Even for folks willing to accept it, the bank would inevitably get a smattering of "the wireless doesn't work on my netbook" or something (even though Ubuntu live CD's are pretty good about support they can't manage to support every device). I would be more accepting of a VM or something though than a live CD for my own use.
While that is absolutely true, most systems don't then let you immediately logon with a recovered password. They generally mail a new password to you. So you need to already know the password to the user's email account so that you can logon there and actually get the password. Systems that aren't doing at least that are not very secure.
Interesting comment. However, Shuttleworth didn't move his buttons. I, and many others, complained to the Microsoft Office folks during the beta program for Office 2007 when they moved the Outlook send button over to the far right side. They moved it back to the left based on our feedback (against the output of their usability study). Take that as you will - its an anecdote (although a true one), but it does show that your premise does not describe an absolute.
Sure, that's the knee jerk reaction many people give. However, we could also decide to be helpful instead. Now, we don't know much about the computing environment this person has but we can assume it is some flavor of Windows. So here are some fairly straightforward things they could do to help prevent this:
/. I am sure we can come up with a whole bunch more than that starter list.
- Don't allow the users to have admin rights. (Also, don't run Windows XP or older as it doesn't work well without admin)
- Consider setting up AppLocker whitelisting (or SRP if you are running Vista instead of Windows 7)
- Check security sites, firewall vendor sites, etc. to see if there are rules you can use to prevent botnets from talking to their C&C servers
- Turn off autorun / autoplay via policy.
- Lock down the current user startup folder and current user registry run areas (non admins can still write to those as they are profile specific - but you can lock them down and prevent code from running on every logon/startup)
With the number of really smart folks we have here on
Are you running a 9 year old version of OSX too, or are you comparing a two generation old Windows version to a nice new Mac version? It really sounds like you are comparing apples (snicker) to oranges. After all, both Vista and Windows 7 have no problem running for a long, long time between reboots and don't get slow during that time.
Well, you really don't need a 3rd party security application to make your machine secure. We just saw the other day http://ask.slashdot.org/story/10/03/18/1831246/What-Free-Antivirus-Do-You-Install-On-Windows that many people have good things to say about MS Security Essentials as an anti-virus program. As advanced users, we also all know what the weak link is: end users who click on and run any old thing. Honestly, take a modern version of Windows (Vista or Windows 7) and the out of box (and on by default) firewall coupled with the automatic "run programs as a standard user even if you are an administrator" (UAC) and Windows itself isn't "insecure" like it was in the days of Windows XP. This is why current attacks are mostly social engineering / trojan ("run this for free stuff!" or "enter your password here"), or instead application level attacks (Adobe Reader, IE, Firefox). Gone are the days of the Blaster type "you are owned if your machine is just on the network" attacks. Even the most recent SMBv2 vulnerability and subsequent attacks required that you modified your default firewall settings to allow serving files from your machine.
There really isn't a need for a 3rd party product here and the major ones (McAfee, Symantec, etc.) slow your machine and act like malware themselves.
If anything, user education about what they should trust and what they can safely run goes much farther than anti-virus or anti-malware can.
Sophos is pretty loud too in terms of messages. Pops up all the time saying that it quarantined something due to a heuristics match (but the thing it "quarantined" doesn't actually get prevented from running which is stupid). It also pops up saying "updating failed" all the time when you take your machine out of sleep with no network available. Very "noisy" software.
I'll second the plug for MS Security Essentials. My current machine came with a three year subscription to McAfee. It was basically "free to me" - but it was utter crap. It wanted me to reboot about once a week to install something (at one point they even emailed everyone registered with a "we're sorry" note because it went through 2 weeks of a reboot every day). I removed it in favor of another "free to me" version - Symantec. That one was because our work license has provisions for home use. It was better than McAfee in that it didn't ever ask for a reboot, but as people know it slows your machine down more than it should. As soon as MS Security Essentials shipped, I dumped that "free to me" Symantec and have never looked back. My wife, both kids, and my machine are all running MSE. I even signed up for the perpetual beta so I am testing the newest version on the machine I am typing this on. I really wouldn't even bother with any other one at this point.
Well as already mentioned it doesn't make a lot of sense to do that. When you try, you get cab drivers refusing to take people to locations where they are unlikely to get a return fare. This makes for unhappy people since they can't get a ride. Getting a ride at a premium price is preferable and allows the cab driver to still make money on the fare. There are other areas (not sure about New York as I've never been there, but definitely both Singapore and London) where they have "congestion zones" where they charge people to drive into them and the cab charges a higher rate when you want a ride into those zones. In general it makes a lot of sense to have different rates to different places.
I'm pretty sure he means that Flash will want to update, Adobe Reader will complain, Windows will want to patch itself, etc. For folks using iTunes - it will want to throw down the latest iTunes and Quicktime. Firefox will want to update, etc., etc. ad nauseum.
The real issue is that Windows doesn't have a centralized update mechanism. Quite frankly the ISV's resisted the idea as they didn't want to have anything seem like Microsoft controlled it. More and more I am leaning towards the belief that Microsoft needs to build a centralized update service and allow ISV's to opt in to it. After they realize they can post their updates without being metered or anything by Microsoft they will find that they don't have to build custom updaters, write services to do it so that they don't have UAC prompts for patches, etc.
Thanks for calling that out. I do hope that these provisions require that someone be damaged in order for there to be a judgment. I'd also hope that the damaged party (if indeed there is one) would get the judgment and not the "relator". Otherwise it seems likely that many of these cases would have merit (on the grounds that fallacious patent protection was claimed) but really be poorly veiled attempts to grab money when there was no actual injury.
Right; the point of "random" was just that Microsoft didn't PICK the order that the browsers would show up in. For the business purpose required, the solutions selected was adequate and met the requirement. This guy is talking about trying to get highly random stuff like you might need in encryption or quantum physics simulations. While interesting, those higher randomness generators aren't required by the need here.
According to MS, you can allocate up to 8TB in Windows x64 for a 64 bit process compiled with the default flags.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx
Yes, exactly. My wife and I were in a hotel room the other day and had to sit through commercials to watch TV (none of that at home!). One was for some product that claimed to alleviate tinnitus. It called itself homeopathic, but it clearly seemed to be saying it had some actual ingredients. I sneered at it and my wife said something like, "what's wrong with natural remedies?". I had to educate her on what homeopathy means. However it seemed this product was trying to say it was homeopathic and that it had ingredients too. Definitely trying to play itself up as a "natural" remedy to some folks.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall. I think most folks here are of the opinion that blocking material that may be objectionable to some is much worse than allowing it to stand on its own.
Not a lawyer here, but I would imagine that their intent was that if you embed the font you are no longer licensed to use it at all. Your license is revoked. So now you can't distribute your document to anyone because you would be breaking their copyright on the font. Now, I am NOT saying that their license SAYS that - but I would guess it is what they meant.
How did you come up with that? Does "gasoline" pay for the actual printing / ink / paper? Does it pay the distribution manager and the folks that bundle the papers up? Does it pay the delivery guy? Yeah, that isn't a good job, but he doesn't drive around dropping the papers off for free. I remember when I was much younger getting a tour of our newspaper. I know the "distribution department" folks had several people working in it and most of them dealt with physical paper issues. So I think "gasoline" is a bit naive.
Although to a certain extent you are correct, you aren't accounting for the scale of the operation. Now, I'm not saying all electric plants are clean - not by any means. However in a large plant it is much easier to have the correct systems in place to clean the exhaust air than it is with small gasoline engines (especially mobile ones like in a car as weight is much more of a consideration). So yes, the electric plants can certainly be a bit of the NIMBY and also the "out of sight, out of mind" that you mention. But really the scale they operate on can work towards better systems to prevent noxious emissions.
Did they do the same thing to you in Boston that they did here in the SF bay area of California? Forced us to digital even though the digital conversion the Govt. mandated didn't apply to cable? Reduced the service level and increased the prices (I have 6 tuners in the house and they all worked for all channels before, but now with the digital force out I have 5 comcast boxes - 2 masters and three little ones which cost more than I paid before, but only gave me 5 tuners). The 6th tuner - an older TV in the garage that I use when on the treadmill - now only gets to channel 29 because of the digital force comcast pulled. Oh, and the channels? Three of them are Mexican (Mexican Spanish) and three are some form of Chinese. Like I want to pay for that!!!
Yes, I absolutely blame the criminal. After all, many of us here on slashdot have the technical ability (or could get it easily: some of these folks are really smart) to do this same type of criminal activity. They don't do it because they aren't criminals. Who the heck else would we blame but the person responsible for committing the crime? Now, if you want to talk about "the system" (justice system, not the banking system) and how unfortunate it is that it is nearly impossible to get a job after being in prison once - yes, that is tough and the summary alludes to the "hard times" iceman fell on probably due to the stigma of his earlier crime and resulting prison sentence. This can, and often is, extremely difficult to overcome and can mean years of living on handouts from relatives, living in campgrounds, etc. (can you tell I have a brother in law who has been through this?). However, the fact remains that the crime is the responsibility of the criminal and not the banking system. If the credit card system was more secure, this criminal would have went after the next most lucrative thing.
Well the claim is that they have to have two people lift your bag if it is over the weight that their labor agreement calls for - hence the handling costs them more money. However, I have never seen this done in practice and I have seen bags marked with the overweight tags being lifted onto the belt and into the plane by one person (which seems to be standard practice; I've never seen them use two people to do it). Of course YOU carry your carry on so they don't have to worry as much about the weight. Although if you look closely you will see that the overhead compartments do list total weight limits. I've never seen the onboard flight attendants attempt to enforce those limits though.
Changing currency is easy compared to dealing with conversions in things like maintenance. "We need some new bolts to replace these old ones on the bridge. The manual says they are 7/8". What, we can only get 19 cm ones? Those don't fit." Equipment in refineries, pipelines, trucks, etc. all have long lifetimes and need replacement parts. I think we SHOULD change over, but it isn't simple and it isn't easy.
Well, you see the Al Gore isms are only useful to Al Gore as he has copyright on them. Things like:
I invented the internet.
I am still green because I buy carbon credits.
An inconvenient truth
And other Al Gore isms all must be either attributed or licensed from Al.
True, and also have some friends in various locales around the world/country post things to your various accounts as well - without using any proxies.