Oh, come on. First of all, the computer should never prevent you from doing something you want to do, regardless of how dangerous or stupid it might be. It should most definitely warn you that it is dangerous and stupid. If the user really does click 'yes' for everything, it should get installed. As long as you get stern warnings about it (and as long as an admin can prevent it from happening to work computers by locking it down), it's plenty secure.
But this is how we're in the mess we are now. One "would you like to install... Nutjob Inc assert that this is safe" box looks much like another. Novice users will blindly click Yes or OK here, even if the No button was flashing in yellow. And the biggest trouble comes from home users without an admin to lock things down.
Maybe this "dark horse" patching group should instead concentrate on releasing their own exploits that DISABLE Joe Bloggs' computer, that would soon galvanise him into action. As you pointed out, the blackhat stuff installs itself stealthily and the user could be none the wiser. But he'll soon do something if instead of getting his desktop he gets a message telling him his computer is insecure and he cannot use it until he takes these steps. It could even download & install Firefox for him.
Then the problem is obviously morons who click and buy via random adverts at rubbish domain-parked fake sites. If we could educate them to find things the proper way, there'd be no money in it. I suppose it's the same mentality as those who buy stuff advertised in email spam, I mean SOMEONE must do otherwise spammers would stop pretty damn quick. We need to teach these people or kick them off the Internet.
That's good because only this week a study was published indicating a rise in temperatures over Central England of 1C in the past fifty years. Perhaps eventually the two effects will cancel each other out, and we'll be back where we started.
We messed things up once by chucking stuff into the atmosphere. So this guy's solution is to chuck more stuff into the atmosphere to counterbalance what we've already chuucked up there. This is madness.
The stuff is somewhat exciting, but I don't really think it's newsworthy. I feel like it only made the news because it of the famous university name tacked on...
I feel like it only made the news because the pictures were fairly stunning...
if he's just 'evening up the odds', it's an arms race that can never be won by the modders, so if this is their actual motivation, you'd think they'd be supportive of developers that DO successfully provide counter measures to cheating.
It's sound thinking like this which proves that the cheaters don't do for some altruistic reason, to balance the experience for everyone... they do it so they can have big numbers next to their names.
Bad parenting is one reason, but as soon as the Prime Minister suggested that it might be a good idea to intervene in families with a known history of problems, a certain section of society threw their hands up in the air and shouted something about "nanny state".
Probably not, but then shoulder-surfing isn't a crime. What would be a crime is using that PIN number* to gain unauthorised access to the account.
* - (C) Department of Redundancy Department
Are you sure the white light wasn't just a flash to ensure that a useful picture would be taken? Sounds like a good idea - take a picture of everything that passes through a remotely-altered traffic signal, if it wasn't an ambulance then you have a nice pic of their registration.
You mustn't watch the right BBC nature docos then. Try 'Life In The Undergrowth', a fascinating series about insects, not a frame of CGI in sight, and an excellent classical score. The only technology was that in the cameras, super-slo-mo and rostrum cameras which add much to the experience. (actually there was one scene where a giant prehistoric insect fossil came to life, but it was still useful to see the scale of the ancient dragonfly)
Is it a good thing that a transportation device like the Segway could need a software update, as it threatens the safety of the user? What happens when software tech really makes it into our cars and other vehicles, and a company has to recall all their models because a 'minor software glitch' causes the brakes to fail? Hopefully there'll be a lot more safeguards built into the cars of the future.
It's great though that they brought in support for interactive, as well as DVB radio support, it really takes mythtv towards being the complete replacement for a Freeview box. I'd love to know if it copes with Red Button any better than my NTL box.
Perhaps there's more room to spread out and more time to use on a train? OP referred to the subway - I doubt you'd get much work done on the Tube. But you could happily sit and watch 'The Charlotte Church Show', if you were mad.
If you feel that the software in question is hard to use due to the lack of user-centred design then bring a suitable user in and the two of you demonstrate some of the problems to an audience of the bean counters. If you can show that bad UI could lead to lost sales due to user frustration then you're talking their language.
But as long as you are behind a firewall (which any geek would be), and use a competent virus scanner (Clamwin will do), the only threat comes from IE bugs, and who in our community uses IE?
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Indeed, wiki tells us it was first released in 1985 - it's nearly as old as Word itself.
Doubly so if they are under 20.
And this site has a fair go at searching through all the best BT sites - http://torrent-finder.com/index.wld
Try sysinternal's PSSHUTDOWN command with the force flag.
How do they know they need it if they can't see it? Must admit I've never hit this problem, but maybe it's for the reason I just outlined.
Maybe this "dark horse" patching group should instead concentrate on releasing their own exploits that DISABLE Joe Bloggs' computer, that would soon galvanise him into action. As you pointed out, the blackhat stuff installs itself stealthily and the user could be none the wiser. But he'll soon do something if instead of getting his desktop he gets a message telling him his computer is insecure and he cannot use it until he takes these steps. It could even download & install Firefox for him.
Then the problem is obviously morons who click and buy via random adverts at rubbish domain-parked fake sites. If we could educate them to find things the proper way, there'd be no money in it. I suppose it's the same mentality as those who buy stuff advertised in email spam, I mean SOMEONE must do otherwise spammers would stop pretty damn quick. We need to teach these people or kick them off the Internet.
That's good because only this week a study was published indicating a rise in temperatures over Central England of 1C in the past fifty years. Perhaps eventually the two effects will cancel each other out, and we'll be back where we started.
We messed things up once by chucking stuff into the atmosphere. So this guy's solution is to chuck more stuff into the atmosphere to counterbalance what we've already chuucked up there. This is madness.
Public access is already happening - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4752167.stm
Bad parenting is one reason, but as soon as the Prime Minister suggested that it might be a good idea to intervene in families with a known history of problems, a certain section of society threw their hands up in the air and shouted something about "nanny state".
Probably not, but then shoulder-surfing isn't a crime. What would be a crime is using that PIN number* to gain unauthorised access to the account. * - (C) Department of Redundancy Department
Are you sure the white light wasn't just a flash to ensure that a useful picture would be taken? Sounds like a good idea - take a picture of everything that passes through a remotely-altered traffic signal, if it wasn't an ambulance then you have a nice pic of their registration.
You mustn't watch the right BBC nature docos then. Try 'Life In The Undergrowth', a fascinating series about insects, not a frame of CGI in sight, and an excellent classical score. The only technology was that in the cameras, super-slo-mo and rostrum cameras which add much to the experience. (actually there was one scene where a giant prehistoric insect fossil came to life, but it was still useful to see the scale of the ancient dragonfly)
Is it a good thing that a transportation device like the Segway could need a software update, as it threatens the safety of the user? What happens when software tech really makes it into our cars and other vehicles, and a company has to recall all their models because a 'minor software glitch' causes the brakes to fail? Hopefully there'll be a lot more safeguards built into the cars of the future.
Wow, you posted that in a deep voice.
It's great though that they brought in support for interactive, as well as DVB radio support, it really takes mythtv towards being the complete replacement for a Freeview box. I'd love to know if it copes with Red Button any better than my NTL box.
Perhaps there's more room to spread out and more time to use on a train? OP referred to the subway - I doubt you'd get much work done on the Tube. But you could happily sit and watch 'The Charlotte Church Show', if you were mad.
If you feel that the software in question is hard to use due to the lack of user-centred design then bring a suitable user in and the two of you demonstrate some of the problems to an audience of the bean counters. If you can show that bad UI could lead to lost sales due to user frustration then you're talking their language.
But as long as you are behind a firewall (which any geek would be), and use a competent virus scanner (Clamwin will do), the only threat comes from IE bugs, and who in our community uses IE?