I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned "The Guild" web comedy series in this context yet. What's special about The Guild is how it started:
The Guild was inspired and written by Day, an avid gamer, who plays World of Warcraft in between acting roles in several US television shows and movies.[4] After two years of video game addiction, Day decided to make something productive from her experiences and wrote the series as a sitcom pilot."
Being an almost auto-biographical comedy, it had authenticity & heart. Its core appeared to be very close reality.
Regarding The Guild's finances:
After putting a donation link to PayPal, the fourth and fifth episodes were almost solely financed by donations
They went on to produce 34 episodes over 4 seasons, selling DVDs and hi-def downloads....and of course.. Felicia Day! OMG! She played NetHack... *waits for the sound of thousands of slashdotters running to buy the DVDs*
Unless you are running a well-designed web proxy that filters active content, chances are pretty high that someone has already created an undetected piece of malware for targeted attacks. The heuristic detection of anti-virus products is obviously beatable because otherwise the vendors wouldn't need to update any malware signatures. Malware heuristics have to work in a rather conservative way if you don't want to get false positives all the time. Quite a number of useful applications share characteristics with viruses or malware.
1. Copy protection & DRM schemes: Copy protection is probably the most vicious "useful" software that doesn't trigger anti-virus heuristics. Some of those programs lurk deep inside the operating system, using drivers, encrypted binaries, self-modifying code, anti-debugging techniques.
2. Debuggers - can attach themselves to running programs, modifying data & code.
3. Game recorders. 3D video recording software "injects" code into the running game executable or hooks system calls to intercept OpenGL/DirectX rendering functions. Malware might attach itself to a windows system process using the same or similar techniques.
As you, as an anti-virus vendor, don't want to annoy the users with false positives of any of the aforementioned applications, it becomes clear that there are most likely a lot of ways to circumvent the heuristics.
-- Not related to your post but the topic:
I for one know about one large corporation that still uses thousands of Windows XP(-32) machines with Internet Explorer as the only allowed browser. They do force all traffic through a web proxy that filters quite aggressively but naturally leaves all HTTPS traffic unchecked. Once you know what anti-virus solution they're using, NOD32 in this particular case, it's most likely very easy to get into their network until Microsoft publishes a fix for this problem.
The difference is that media like the ones you listed can be converted with relative ease, consuming only CPU time. If the owners of codec related imaginary property threaten to sue, it's mostly a matter of transcoding stuff to alternatives like Theora, Vorbis or VP9. Programs written in C# or another.NET dependent language however can't be converted to a different language without a lot of actual human work.
rdiff-backup backs up one directory to another, possibly over a network. The target directory ends up a copy of the source directory, but extra reverse diffs are stored in a special subdirectory of that target directory, so you can still recover files lost some time ago. The idea is to combine the best features of a mirror and an incremental backup. rdiff-backup also preserves subdirectories, hard links, dev files, permissions, uid/gid ownership, modification times, extended attributes, acls, and resource forks. Also, rdiff-backup can operate in a bandwidth efficient manner over a pipe, like rsync. Thus you can use rdiff-backup and ssh to securely back a hard drive up to a remote location, and only the differences will be transmitted. Finally, rdiff-backup is easy to use and settings have sensical defaults.
I can confirm that rdiff-backup is indeed easy to use.
Windows is missing an integrated centralized package manager. This results in programs with redundant update mechanisms, often implemented in a poor or annoying way. Many programs seem to update themselves during startup, the most inconvenient time because that's when you actually want to use them. Or they annoy the user with popups in the system tray.
A centralized package management would instead rely on a list of package repositories to which vendors could add their own URLs. Of course packages would be secured with public key cryptography infrastructure to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks and ensure integrity, much like it is implemented in Debian GNU/{Linux|kFreeBSD}.
The package manager keeps track of all packages' files. That allows the administrator to clean up a system very easily, by listing all files that weren't installed intentionally and deciding what to keep & delete. How many programs leave crap in the Windows directories?
Packages could, optionally, share dependencies instead of using a dozen copies of the same DLLs. Shared dependencies save disk space, eventually RAM and can increase security. When a security problem emerges in a library, the system only needs to update that one package instead of every program that ships with a redundant copy.
These are the some of the problems that keep Windows away from my systems.
Stereoscopic imaging is not real 3D. It doesn't allow you to change the focal point. That's why stereoscopy is fatiguing. Also, you can't change your point of view. Yes, there are some kludgy workarounds like head-tracking or displays that work like lenticular images. Still, it's not the same as real 3D.
Fighting this word abuse is an uphill battle that probably can't be won. Hacking isn't cracking either. Gotta go, have to shoo some kids off my lawn.
I don't want a Mac because I want an unencumbered, truly-free system.
I don't want their "technology" creeping into my PC, which runs nothing but Free and Open Source Software.
So you're not using your motherboard manufacturer's closed source BIOS but coreboot instead? Are you 100% sure that none of your devices use non-free kernel code either? Yes, the default Linux kernel contains non-free firmware.
From TFA: "There is no built-in networking, but the micro-SD storage card slot supports several SDIO WiFi cards." There are hybrid SDIO cards with both WiFi & gibibytes of storage!
Aye. Christopher McCandless looks pretty happy to me despite having spent the time between his university graduation and death with hiking and working as a farm aid. Theodore Kaczynski decided against pursuing a career in the industrial society, despite his undeniably high intelligence and a PhD in mathematics. Different people have different needs.
The free (libre) derivative of Ubuntu should not be left unmentioned: gNewSense.
Even if you don't use gNewSense, their homepage can serve as a guide for hardware shopping. They only list devices that work without non-free firmware or drivers.
From their website:
gNewSense is derived from Ubuntu, and thus has most of the same functionality. There are a number of differences though.
Non-free firmware removed from kernel in main*
Non-free firmware removed from linux-ubuntu-modules**
Builder, a tool to produce a distribution
Restricted removed
Multiverse removed
Ubuntu logos replaced
Universe enabled by default
Emacs, bsdgames, nethack and build-essential part of the default install
The hard drive manufacturers are already doing this with large 2.5" drives. The first 1 TB 2.5" hard drive was 12.5mm thick, instead of the usual 9.5mm It doesn't fit in most notebooks but is still small enough to serve as a portable external storage medium.
There's a simple workaround for the MBR problem with 2TB+ hard drives - for Linux.
1) Store your boot files on a small secondary device, e.g. a USB stick. That includes: Master Boot Record, boot loader (e.g. GRUB or LILO), kernel, initrd - about 10 megabytes are easily enough. 2) Boot the USB stick. The initrd mounts your hard drive and starts the actual/sbin/init process.
This comes with several nice options: - Encrypt every single byte of your hard drive. A script in the initial ram disk asks for the passphrase, creates the dm-crypt device and mounts/. - You don't need a partition table. Just use the LVM2 inside the encrypted block device. - Add a Live CD image to the USB stick (separate FAT32 partition, convert isolinux config to syslinux, chainload from GRUB)
I'm using all 3 of the aforementioned options and you'd have to take them from my cold, dead hands;)
Slashdot Mirror
it was meant to be a reply to the GP.
Foot + ball = Football
Hand + egg = Handegg
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned "The Guild" web comedy series in this context yet. What's special about The Guild is how it started:
The Guild was inspired and written by Day, an avid gamer, who plays World of Warcraft in between acting roles in several US television shows and movies.[4] After two years of video game addiction, Day decided to make something productive from her experiences and wrote the series as a sitcom pilot."
Being an almost auto-biographical comedy, it had authenticity & heart. Its core appeared to be very close reality.
Regarding The Guild's finances:
After putting a donation link to PayPal, the fourth and fifth episodes were almost solely financed by donations
They went on to produce 34 episodes over 4 seasons, selling DVDs and hi-def downloads. ...and of course.. Felicia Day! OMG! She played NetHack... *waits for the sound of thousands of slashdotters running to buy the DVDs*
Slashdot offers HTTPS to subscribers.
I'm not sure but there's GMailfs, a FUSE filesystem that uses GMail's IMAP interface.
Unless you are running a well-designed web proxy that filters active content, chances are pretty high that someone has already created an undetected piece of malware for targeted attacks. The heuristic detection of anti-virus products is obviously beatable because otherwise the vendors wouldn't need to update any malware signatures. Malware heuristics have to work in a rather conservative way if you don't want to get false positives all the time. Quite a number of useful applications share characteristics with viruses or malware.
1. Copy protection & DRM schemes:
Copy protection is probably the most vicious "useful" software that doesn't trigger anti-virus heuristics. Some of those programs lurk deep inside the operating system, using drivers, encrypted binaries, self-modifying code, anti-debugging techniques.
2. Debuggers - can attach themselves to running programs, modifying data & code.
3. Game recorders. 3D video recording software "injects" code into the running game executable or hooks system calls to intercept OpenGL/DirectX rendering functions. Malware might attach itself to a windows system process using the same or similar techniques.
As you, as an anti-virus vendor, don't want to annoy the users with false positives of any of the aforementioned applications, it becomes clear that there are most likely a lot of ways to circumvent the heuristics.
--
Not related to your post but the topic:
I for one know about one large corporation that still uses thousands of Windows XP(-32) machines with Internet Explorer as the only allowed browser. They do force all traffic through a web proxy that filters quite aggressively but naturally leaves all HTTPS traffic unchecked. Once you know what anti-virus solution they're using, NOD32 in this particular case, it's most likely very easy to get into their network until Microsoft publishes a fix for this problem.
When I said VP9 I actually meant VP8.
The difference is that media like the ones you listed can be converted with relative ease, consuming only CPU time. If the owners of codec related imaginary property threaten to sue, it's mostly a matter of transcoding stuff to alternatives like Theora, Vorbis or VP9. Programs written in C# or another .NET dependent language however can't be converted to a different language without a lot of actual human work.
Take a look at rdiff-backup.
rdiff-backup backs up one directory to another, possibly over a network. The target directory ends up a copy of the source directory, but extra reverse diffs are stored in a special subdirectory of that target directory, so you can still recover files lost some time ago. The idea is to combine the best features of a mirror and an incremental backup. rdiff-backup also preserves subdirectories, hard links, dev files, permissions, uid/gid ownership, modification times, extended attributes, acls, and resource forks. Also, rdiff-backup can operate in a bandwidth efficient manner over a pipe, like rsync. Thus you can use rdiff-backup and ssh to securely back a hard drive up to a remote location, and only the differences will be transmitted. Finally, rdiff-backup is easy to use and settings have sensical defaults.
I can confirm that rdiff-backup is indeed easy to use.
Windows is missing an integrated centralized package manager. This results in programs with redundant update mechanisms, often implemented in a poor or annoying way. Many programs seem to update themselves during startup, the most inconvenient time because that's when you actually want to use them. Or they annoy the user with popups in the system tray.
A centralized package management would instead rely on a list of package repositories to which vendors could add their own URLs. Of course packages would be secured with public key cryptography infrastructure to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks and ensure integrity, much like it is implemented in Debian GNU/{Linux|kFreeBSD}.
The package manager keeps track of all packages' files. That allows the administrator to clean up a system very easily, by listing all files that weren't installed intentionally and deciding what to keep & delete. How many programs leave crap in the Windows directories?
Packages could, optionally, share dependencies instead of using a dozen copies of the same DLLs. Shared dependencies save disk space, eventually RAM and can increase security. When a security problem emerges in a library, the system only needs to update that one package instead of every program that ships with a redundant copy.
These are the some of the problems that keep Windows away from my systems.
You're right of course, Theremins are not things that people associate with rock stars. However there's Jimmy Page with a modified Theremin.
Stereoscopic imaging is not real 3D. It doesn't allow you to change the focal point. That's why stereoscopy is fatiguing. Also, you can't change your point of view. Yes, there are some kludgy workarounds like head-tracking or displays that work like lenticular images. Still, it's not the same as real 3D.
Fighting this word abuse is an uphill battle that probably can't be won. Hacking isn't cracking either. Gotta go, have to shoo some kids off my lawn.
I don't want a Mac because I want an unencumbered, truly-free system.
I don't want their "technology" creeping into my PC, which runs nothing but Free and Open Source Software.
So you're not using your motherboard manufacturer's closed source BIOS but coreboot instead? Are you 100% sure that none of your devices use non-free kernel code either? Yes, the default Linux kernel contains non-free firmware.
From TFA: "There is no built-in networking, but the micro-SD storage card slot supports several SDIO WiFi cards."
There are hybrid SDIO cards with both WiFi & gibibytes of storage!
It supports networking through SDIO. "There is no built-in networking, but the micro-SD storage card slot supports several SDIO WiFi cards."
Aye. Christopher McCandless looks pretty happy to me despite having spent the time between his university graduation and death with hiking and working as a farm aid.
Theodore Kaczynski decided against pursuing a career in the industrial society, despite his undeniably high intelligence and a PhD in mathematics.
Different people have different needs.
Encrypt your data to avoid such hassles in the future. Encryption makes theft or loss of your medium a non-problem, besides the lost material value.
He actually meant a game called Handegg.
Foot + Ball = Football
Hand + Egg = Handegg
Double whoosh :P
http://theinfosphere.org/The_Scary_Door#The_Last_Man_on_Earth - a parody of the aforementioned Twilight Zone episode.
Well, lucky I know how to read Braille.
John Slattery for Prescott Financial urges you to diversify your gold portfolio with women and sheep.
The free (libre) derivative of Ubuntu should not be left unmentioned: gNewSense.
Even if you don't use gNewSense, their homepage can serve as a guide for hardware shopping. They only list devices that work without non-free firmware or drivers.
From their website:
gNewSense is derived from Ubuntu, and thus has most of the same functionality. There are a number of differences though.
The hard drive manufacturers are already doing this with large 2.5" drives. The first 1 TB 2.5" hard drive was 12.5mm thick, instead of the usual 9.5mm It doesn't fit in most notebooks but is still small enough to serve as a portable external storage medium.
I forgot to add... that's a prime example for why I love free software.
There's a simple workaround for the MBR problem with 2TB+ hard drives - for Linux.
1) Store your boot files on a small secondary device, e.g. a USB stick. That includes: Master Boot Record, boot loader (e.g. GRUB or LILO), kernel, initrd - about 10 megabytes are easily enough. /sbin/init process.
2) Boot the USB stick. The initrd mounts your hard drive and starts the actual
This comes with several nice options: /.
- Encrypt every single byte of your hard drive. A script in the initial ram disk asks for the passphrase, creates the dm-crypt device and mounts
- You don't need a partition table. Just use the LVM2 inside the encrypted block device.
- Add a Live CD image to the USB stick (separate FAT32 partition, convert isolinux config to syslinux, chainload from GRUB)
I'm using all 3 of the aforementioned options and you'd have to take them from my cold, dead hands ;)