In a sense you can with defaults in software. If your OS and/or browser default to a certain page, then many users either won't make the effort to change it, or don't know how to. Where I work, msn.com is the home page on every company computer by default. So even when people want to hit internal sites, they end up generating a page view for msn.com first.
Microsoft has been removing Silverlight from their own websites and replacing it with HTML5. And Metro Tiles and Windows App Store apps won't support Silverlight. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest your project probably could have been accomplished with Ruby. JS, Python or a number of other technologies just as fast.
The terms of service for Google+ clearly state that you own your data. The FB terms of service claim they own your data.
FB never let you export your data until Google offered that. Even still, you can't remove your profile and truly delete it from Facebook. That is their data and they won't delete it. Google allows you to completely remove your profile if you want.
Google has never been able to fight off entrenched competition?
Have you ever heard of Android?
Microsoft also shut down their blogging product, because Google dominated that market. Google isn't first in every market, but that doesn't mean that Google fails in every market.
Web mail numbers are always skeptical. How many people create throwaway Hotmail and Yahoo accounts simply because they can? How many spammers create Hotmail and Yahoo accounts?
Google makes it harder to create throwaway and spam accounts, and thusly has fewer Gmail accounts. That doesn't mean the service is failing. I wouldn't be shocked if Gmail had more real users than Hotmail.
Facebook lost 12 million members in May (6 million in the US alone) before Google+ launched. Meanwhile, in a limited beta, Google+ became the fasting growing social networking platform in history.
Facebook is aping some of the features, but they'll never change in some the areas that matter. Facebook believes they own your data. They refuse to allow you to fully delete your account. They move privacy settings all the time and refuse to set sane defaults because they want to expose your data against your will. Facebook won't set sane defaults for apps because they want advertisers to have your data. Clicking on a simple link in Facebook can lead to spamming your while friend's list, and Facebook never intends to change that.
Facebook has been around for over 7 years. It took 4 years to reach 100 million members. Google+ got 14 million in a few weeks in a closed beta. I wouldn't be shocked to see them reach 100 million in a year.
It would only be evil Google lied about data collection and truly violated your privacy, Google sold your data without asking you, and you didn't get something in exchange for your data.
Google openly admits their business model is based upon showing your relevant ads, which means scraping your data. Google doesn't sell your ads, though other businesses do. Google provides you free services in exchange for your data. If you don't like the deal, then don't use Google services.
No one is being violated and this isn't evil. This is just an option for consumers who want to take part. That is not evil.
Microsoft patents a technology to spy on VOIP calls without telling you while purchasing Skype. Google tells you that they're scraping your data to serve up ads. If you don't use Google services, they never see your private data.
If you can't understand the distinction, then I don't know what to tell you. People demand/expect free services, but don't think seeing ads is a fair trade-off. The markets that Google have entered have all greatly improved thanks to Google being a competitor. They tend to offer free services that trump other company's paid services. If you think merely offering free services in exchange for ads is inherently evil, then why not blast the entire over-the-air TV and radio industries?
Microsoft censored everything and didn't try to work around it at all. They also agreed to let China have full access to Microsoft controlled email. Yahoo handed over email as well, which led to a journalist going to jail. RIM hands over messages and email to help put dissidents in jail.
Google doesn't. Which one do you hear getting called evil each day? Why are the others getting a free pass?
Option 1 - Don't have any in roads in China. Option 2 - Establish in roads in China and try to actively circumvent censorship so that individuals can find information they wouldn't otherwise, and make it clear to them that they are being censored by they government.
It is said that you don't recognize what they were doing, that you call evil.
They had no choice but to comply with laws, or they wouldn't be allowed to operate in China. But they did their best to circumvent the laws such as redirecting traffic to Hong Kong serves that didn't have to censor results. And any results that were censored flatly said on the page "These search results have been censored." China didn't like that, but it didn't violate the law.
If you're on the internet, people are collecting your data. One company is open about it, and goes to length to protect your private data. That is decidedly not evil. And again, they're the only company that allow you to remove all your data from their services if you ever want to opt-out.
I asked Facebook to delete my account and it never went away. They won't remove your data if you want. Though they reserve the right to delete your data against your wishes how they feel like it, such as deleting all photos that were uploaded via Digikam.
I want to support companies who produce content for me. I know many providers make money off ads. But enough ads are full of malicious code that I feel I need to block ads from a security standpoint. I usually block everything but Google Ads.
That "super-slow-loading" Wired page that someone complained about loaded for me in less than 3 seconds. I made the initial post at home, and just loaded it from work where it isn't in my cache. Ad blockers work wonders.
Microsoft has a patent specifically on how to best sell your private data to the highest bidder. I'm trying to find it at the moment, but searching for Microsoft and patents mainly returns results on Novell, Nortel, Android, etc. And why exactly did Microsoft file this patent in conjunction of their purchase of Skype:
Google never sells your data. They use your private data to determine which ad to show you. Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, etc. all sell your data. Google doesn't. That is a very important distinction.
And you can't say that Microsoft does all the above. They gladly supported censorship in China. They fight open standards and open source software. They're aggressively suing people over patents. They handed over data on all their users to the Bush Administration. etc, etc.
The project has been going on for years and years. I wish them luck, but their progress is extremely slow. Wine provides a better solution today for running Windows apps in Linux. Honestly, I think it would make a lot of sense to combine aspects of these two.
To get many apps working in Wine, you end up having to copy over Windows DLLs that ReactOS provides open-source replacements for. And ReactOS provides a desktop shell that Wine does not.
I'm not sure that ReactOS will ever be anything more than a hobbyist project.
Google is not evil points: * Google massively supports open-source software * Google pushes for open standards rather than lock-in * Google has fought for the defense of fair use * Google has fought for net-neutrality * Google provides free services * Google is wiling to take a loss on products to provide these free services * Google allows you to easily export your data from their services, and even fully delete your online data/profiles * Google is the cloud services provider that doesn't claim to own your data * Google is running a test in Kansas of gigabit internet for the whole town and another test of free city-wide wifi. * Google is the only search company to fight censorship in China * Google is the only search company that refused to hand over user data to the Bush Administration * Google fought Brazil as well to protect user data * Google developed an open-source phone platform and has been encouraging handset manufacturers to open up and let consumers flash custom roms
Google is evil points: * The Google Map street view team recorded data on open wifi networks. If people didn't want anyone to know you have a wireless network, you can turn off broadcasting the SSID. * Google eventually caved/compromised on one portion of net-neutrality. They have a joint proposal with Verizon that would ensure the internet itself is protected by net neutrality, but wireless phone providers would be allowed to provide unique content and services. Is this really all that evil of a compromise? * Google hasn't released the source code of Honeycomb because they don't want the market diluted with phones with a bad phone stack, but has promised to release the source code of Ice Cream Sandwich when it comes out in October/November. Man, that really is evil!
Seriously, the assumption that Google must be evil just because they are a big corporation is a flawed, simplistic view. I'd rather judge them on their actions. And according to their actions, they are the only major IT company out there I would trust given that my alternatives are Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, AOL, Yahoo, etc.
All the major OEMs were offering XP downgrades. You bought a Vista computer with a Vista license, but they'd send you a disc to legally downgrade to XP.
Re:Without remorse there is no rehabilitation.
on
Kevin Mitnick Answers
·
· Score: 1
He has said repeatedly (including this interview) that criminal activity is wrong, and that he discourages it.
He never distributed information. He looked at code personally. What price did his victims pay exactly?
Re:Without remorse there is no rehabilitation.
on
Kevin Mitnick Answers
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
He was already disproportionally punished, and is now actively working against hackers while discouraging people from breaking the law.
I can't imagine that he should continue to feel guilty because he has paid more than his fair share of punishment.
Google's datacenter design is an industry secret, but it is routinely reported they are amazingly efficient.
They have opened up about some things, such as their power supply design. They've asked the rest of the world to adopt this, so the entire world would reduce energy consumption. They also run on DC rather than AC. And they don't use mammoth UPS protection. They have a small battery built into each server.
It looks like this story is part of a smear campaign to make Google look like evil for using all this energy. But how much energy is Amazon using, or Facebook, or Apple, or Microsoft?
This just isn't as trivial as you make it out to be. When you've got software projects with millions of lines of code, it is extremely hard to properly debug that code. Finding all potential security vulnerabilities is even harder. And it isn't like every kid who spends 5 minutes looking finds an exploit. Large numbers of hackers spend lots and lots of time to discover an exploit.
And suggesting that criminals should just write the software is also a flawed premise. It isn't that hackers are inherently smarter than all software developers, though occasionally developers make stupid mistakes. Given enough time and enough people looking, you're going to find exploits in complex software. It is exceedingly difficult to write secure software.
Slashdot Mirror
In a sense you can with defaults in software. If your OS and/or browser default to a certain page, then many users either won't make the effort to change it, or don't know how to. Where I work, msn.com is the home page on every company computer by default. So even when people want to hit internal sites, they end up generating a page view for msn.com first.
Microsoft has been removing Silverlight from their own websites and replacing it with HTML5. And Metro Tiles and Windows App Store apps won't support Silverlight. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest your project probably could have been accomplished with Ruby. JS, Python or a number of other technologies just as fast.
Facebook can't possibly succeed as a new product, because MySpace is king!
The terms of service for Google+ clearly state that you own your data. The FB terms of service claim they own your data.
FB never let you export your data until Google offered that. Even still, you can't remove your profile and truly delete it from Facebook. That is their data and they won't delete it. Google allows you to completely remove your profile if you want.
Google has never been able to fight off entrenched competition?
Have you ever heard of Android?
Microsoft also shut down their blogging product, because Google dominated that market. Google isn't first in every market, but that doesn't mean that Google fails in every market.
Web mail numbers are always skeptical. How many people create throwaway Hotmail and Yahoo accounts simply because they can? How many spammers create Hotmail and Yahoo accounts?
Google makes it harder to create throwaway and spam accounts, and thusly has fewer Gmail accounts. That doesn't mean the service is failing. I wouldn't be shocked if Gmail had more real users than Hotmail.
Facebook lost 12 million members in May (6 million in the US alone) before Google+ launched. Meanwhile, in a limited beta, Google+ became the fasting growing social networking platform in history.
Facebook is aping some of the features, but they'll never change in some the areas that matter. Facebook believes they own your data. They refuse to allow you to fully delete your account. They move privacy settings all the time and refuse to set sane defaults because they want to expose your data against your will. Facebook won't set sane defaults for apps because they want advertisers to have your data. Clicking on a simple link in Facebook can lead to spamming your while friend's list, and Facebook never intends to change that.
Facebook has been around for over 7 years. It took 4 years to reach 100 million members. Google+ got 14 million in a few weeks in a closed beta. I wouldn't be shocked to see them reach 100 million in a year.
I made a logical argument. You made an ad hominem attack. What does that say?
It would only be evil Google lied about data collection and truly violated your privacy, Google sold your data without asking you, and you didn't get something in exchange for your data.
Google openly admits their business model is based upon showing your relevant ads, which means scraping your data.
Google doesn't sell your ads, though other businesses do.
Google provides you free services in exchange for your data. If you don't like the deal, then don't use Google services.
No one is being violated and this isn't evil. This is just an option for consumers who want to take part. That is not evil.
Invading privacy? That is a bit harsh, right?
Microsoft patents a technology to spy on VOIP calls without telling you while purchasing Skype. Google tells you that they're scraping your data to serve up ads. If you don't use Google services, they never see your private data.
If you can't understand the distinction, then I don't know what to tell you. People demand/expect free services, but don't think seeing ads is a fair trade-off. The markets that Google have entered have all greatly improved thanks to Google being a competitor. They tend to offer free services that trump other company's paid services. If you think merely offering free services in exchange for ads is inherently evil, then why not blast the entire over-the-air TV and radio industries?
Not to mention:
Microsoft censored everything and didn't try to work around it at all. They also agreed to let China have full access to Microsoft controlled email.
Yahoo handed over email as well, which led to a journalist going to jail.
RIM hands over messages and email to help put dissidents in jail.
Google doesn't. Which one do you hear getting called evil each day? Why are the others getting a free pass?
Stop letting astroturfers win.
Option 1 - Don't have any in roads in China.
Option 2 - Establish in roads in China and try to actively circumvent censorship so that individuals can find information they wouldn't otherwise, and make it clear to them that they are being censored by they government.
It is said that you don't recognize what they were doing, that you call evil.
They had no choice but to comply with laws, or they wouldn't be allowed to operate in China. But they did their best to circumvent the laws such as redirecting traffic to Hong Kong serves that didn't have to censor results. And any results that were censored flatly said on the page "These search results have been censored." China didn't like that, but it didn't violate the law.
If you're on the internet, people are collecting your data. One company is open about it, and goes to length to protect your private data. That is decidedly not evil. And again, they're the only company that allow you to remove all your data from their services if you ever want to opt-out.
I asked Facebook to delete my account and it never went away. They won't remove your data if you want. Though they reserve the right to delete your data against your wishes how they feel like it, such as deleting all photos that were uploaded via Digikam.
I have a slight moral conflict.
I want to support companies who produce content for me. I know many providers make money off ads. But enough ads are full of malicious code that I feel I need to block ads from a security standpoint. I usually block everything but Google Ads.
That "super-slow-loading" Wired page that someone complained about loaded for me in less than 3 seconds. I made the initial post at home, and just loaded it from work where it isn't in my cache. Ad blockers work wonders.
Microsoft has a patent specifically on how to best sell your private data to the highest bidder. I'm trying to find it at the moment, but searching for Microsoft and patents mainly returns results on Novell, Nortel, Android, etc. And why exactly did Microsoft file this patent in conjunction of their purchase of Skype:
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/72771.html
And you may want to read these:
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-18/social-media/29443159_1_facebook-profiles-status-updates-advertisers
http://mashable.com/2010/05/20/facebook-caught-sending-user-data-to-advertisers/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_sells_your_data.php
http://www.financetechnews.com/how-facebook-sells-your-personal-info-and-gets-away-with-it/
Except that claim is an outright lie.
Google never sells your data. They use your private data to determine which ad to show you. Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, etc. all sell your data. Google doesn't. That is a very important distinction.
And you can't say that Microsoft does all the above. They gladly supported censorship in China. They fight open standards and open source software. They're aggressively suing people over patents. They handed over data on all their users to the Bush Administration. etc, etc.
The project has been going on for years and years. I wish them luck, but their progress is extremely slow. Wine provides a better solution today for running Windows apps in Linux. Honestly, I think it would make a lot of sense to combine aspects of these two.
To get many apps working in Wine, you end up having to copy over Windows DLLs that ReactOS provides open-source replacements for. And ReactOS provides a desktop shell that Wine does not.
I'm not sure that ReactOS will ever be anything more than a hobbyist project.
Google is not evil points:
* Google massively supports open-source software
* Google pushes for open standards rather than lock-in
* Google has fought for the defense of fair use
* Google has fought for net-neutrality
* Google provides free services
* Google is wiling to take a loss on products to provide these free services
* Google allows you to easily export your data from their services, and even fully delete your online data/profiles
* Google is the cloud services provider that doesn't claim to own your data
* Google is running a test in Kansas of gigabit internet for the whole town and another test of free city-wide wifi.
* Google is the only search company to fight censorship in China
* Google is the only search company that refused to hand over user data to the Bush Administration
* Google fought Brazil as well to protect user data
* Google developed an open-source phone platform and has been encouraging handset manufacturers to open up and let consumers flash custom roms
Google is evil points:
* The Google Map street view team recorded data on open wifi networks. If people didn't want anyone to know you have a wireless network, you can turn off broadcasting the SSID.
* Google eventually caved/compromised on one portion of net-neutrality. They have a joint proposal with Verizon that would ensure the internet itself is protected by net neutrality, but wireless phone providers would be allowed to provide unique content and services. Is this really all that evil of a compromise?
* Google hasn't released the source code of Honeycomb because they don't want the market diluted with phones with a bad phone stack, but has promised to release the source code of Ice Cream Sandwich when it comes out in October/November. Man, that really is evil!
Seriously, the assumption that Google must be evil just because they are a big corporation is a flawed, simplistic view. I'd rather judge them on their actions. And according to their actions, they are the only major IT company out there I would trust given that my alternatives are Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, AOL, Yahoo, etc.
There are people on Slashdot who don't use ad blockers?
Their website is ugly as sin and a mess. They aren't the only the site on the web that does just one thing.
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_craigslist
All the major OEMs were offering XP downgrades. You bought a Vista computer with a Vista license, but they'd send you a disc to legally downgrade to XP.
He has said repeatedly (including this interview) that criminal activity is wrong, and that he discourages it.
He never distributed information. He looked at code personally. What price did his victims pay exactly?
He was already disproportionally punished, and is now actively working against hackers while discouraging people from breaking the law.
I can't imagine that he should continue to feel guilty because he has paid more than his fair share of punishment.
Google's datacenter design is an industry secret, but it is routinely reported they are amazingly efficient.
They have opened up about some things, such as their power supply design. They've asked the rest of the world to adopt this, so the entire world would reduce energy consumption. They also run on DC rather than AC. And they don't use mammoth UPS protection. They have a small battery built into each server.
It looks like this story is part of a smear campaign to make Google look like evil for using all this energy. But how much energy is Amazon using, or Facebook, or Apple, or Microsoft?
I'm just sayin'.
This just isn't as trivial as you make it out to be. When you've got software projects with millions of lines of code, it is extremely hard to properly debug that code. Finding all potential security vulnerabilities is even harder. And it isn't like every kid who spends 5 minutes looking finds an exploit. Large numbers of hackers spend lots and lots of time to discover an exploit.
And suggesting that criminals should just write the software is also a flawed premise. It isn't that hackers are inherently smarter than all software developers, though occasionally developers make stupid mistakes. Given enough time and enough people looking, you're going to find exploits in complex software. It is exceedingly difficult to write secure software.