>I had that phoney malware thing come in through a Flash/Javascript hole (thanks Microsoft for not rewriting or adopting Google's re-write, you jerks) and totally hose my PC a while back.
Mohamed Hassan, MSIA, CISSP, CISA is the founder of NetSec Consulting Corp, a firm that specializes in information security consulting services. He is a senior IT Security consultant and an adjunct professor of Information Systems in the School of Business at the University of Phoenix
Then a whole lot of fluff about the Sony root kit fiasco.
The money quote:
The findings are false-positive proof since I have used the tool that discovered it for six years now and I am yet to see it misidentify an item throughout the years.
That seems to be some very concrete proof.
Then some ramblings about how a class action lawsuit will come out of this. I too smell a lawsuit but not against Samsung.
Yet another Web based operating system? Isn't that was WebOS was supposed to be before it flopped and started allowign native apps? And take a look at the top mobile OSes now, iOS has its roots in NeXT and BSD, which in turn has roots in UNIX philosophy which are really old. Android is based on Linux, which is 20 years old and has it's roots in UNIX which is even older. Windows Phone 7 has it's roots in Windows CE which in turn has it's roots in DOS and Win NT which are really old. Even QNX that Blackberry is moving to has a long history and roots in UNIX and WebOS is based on Linux.
The point here is that although people think it's easy to build OSes, building one that's full featured and modern is extremely hard and can't be done by just throwing money at people . It takes years for bugs to be found and shaken off. See how Nokia failed inspite of employing tens of thousands of people to work on Symbian and Meego/Maemo. If Motorola is looking to build something from scratch, I am not optimistic.
On top of that, hardware companies and OEMs seem to universally suck at making software and they don't stop trying. Motorola's skins on Android all lag even on dual cores, OEM software on PC is the worst junk imaginable with crashes, bloat and what not, printer and webcam software is just pathetic. It's like they don't even have a indepented QA team. HTC's Sense UI is appreciated by some, but my experience is that it's laggy and bloated, heavy on features but low on performance. I think part of it is that the OEMs treat software development just like hardware which is a major mistake to make. Software is extremely hard to get right, especially when building OSes, developer APIs etc. which require a LOT of coordination among extremely large number of teams. The competition is no longer about devices or OSes but about platforms, which are extremely hard to build.
I am sure Motorola doesn't just want to be another Android OEM, but it sure needs to get its act exactly right. Expect multiyear delays and cost overruns. Maybe they can team up with HP on WebOS or Blackberry with QNX.
Being descriptive alone is not and should not be the only metric. Even if it is a little descriptive, they grant trademarks because companies want people associate the product with the brand. The problem comes when companies turn around and sue descriptive uses of the name, like in this case. As I said, Adobe cannot sue someone for naming their store that sells photos as Joe's Photo Shop
None of those are similar to 'app store' and the current lawsuit because they're not self descriptive. Facebook is the closest though, but if they sue someone making, lets say Anonymous Coward's face book, they will be laughed out of court because such use precedes the trademark. Microsoft can't sue people using the 'word' to describe words, only if someone makes word processors with that name. The problem isn't that 'app store' is generic, but that it describes itself without Apple even entering into the picture. You cannot trademark words like Television and then sue people calling their product a television. On the other surely you can use the word 'Television' to sell apples in the supermarket and trademark it for fruit. Adobe cannot sue shops that sell photos for calling themselves a photo shop, which is similar to what Apple is trying to do here.
Ideas are easy, implementation is hard. MS allegedly has some pieces of paper that say "we thought of this first! you can't use my idea!" Google has an actual piece of software that works pretty well. If patents worked at all like they should, MS could only patent their actual implementation of something, not the mere concept itself.
Well, Apple had lot of functionality iPhone software before Google and Apple sued HTC and Motorola over. So you mean Apple has a valid reason to sue and stop Android?
That said, the reason that many US employers prefer foreign labor over US labor have nothing to do with the costs, and everything to do with foreign labor having less ability to go find another job when they get mistreated.
That's why Norman's arguments for not increasing permanent visa numbers doesn't make any sense. If these workers don't wait for decades for green cards, the employers will have less leeway on them and will make it far easier to switch jobs thus leveling the playing field.
Well, I was not referring to this specific message, but the general trend on Slashdot to discount opinions and call people shills. I usually feel that most people accused as paid shills either genuinely believe in what they say, are trolls or just like to argue for/against something passionately. I seriously doubt any company would pay people to post on sites like Slashdot.
But keep shilling. It gives more opportunity to refute your arguments.
What's up with this obsession on/. that anyone that says anything that can remotely construed as anti-Linux or pro-MS are paid shills? Can't geeks have an argument in peace without throwing baseless accusations around?
Slashdot did its share of shilling and spreading FUD in the case of Vista DRM etc. and was even publishing results of fake benchmarks against Windows 7.
PS: If anyone from MS reads this, please contact me to pay me for my shilling. Looks like I am missing out on all the actions Thanks./joke
is simply this... when a new version of the GPL comes out and you wish to continue using the GPL, all future licensed software must be released under the new GPL license. GPL 3 is amazing, but too few people are using it.
First, the GPL forbids that sort of restriction.
Second, what if some future version of the GPL contains something that makes it less free?
Third, the GPL v3 has some flaws. Android wouldn't be commercially possible if linux were GPL v3.
Is Linux getting any benefit from Android? The public doesn't even know it's based on Linux. Maybe Maemo and Meego give things back because they are like mobile distros but Android and Chrome OS?
Those 3 people have 10,000 apps to use though...growed faster than Android or iOS stores, silly Slashdot with it's anti-MS bias and tunnel vision from reading only the posted news and comments.
What about allowing people to only add text to the comments at the end and then that text gets marked with a timestamp as an edit? You could clarify things about the text above and avoid the problem that you stated.
Maybe you missed all the brouhaha over Vista and UAC from users and developers? Anyway, injecting security in XP piecemeal now is not a good solution at all since any changes will frustrate users as well as break programs, the real solution is to get people off XP, especially when they're due for a hardware upgrade anyway.
>>If you subscribe to Netflix via the iDevice app then yes, Apple takes their 30% cut, as Apple brought you a subscriber. Think of it as a referral fee.
I know lots of people bought an iPad just to watch Netflix and read Kindle books. Can they demand that Apple give 30% of the iPads retail price as a referral price to them if the user logs in those apps with pre-existing Kindle/Netflix accounts within a day of the purchase? Why or why not?
Face it, Apple receives a big benefit from having such apps in the app store, and without them the iDevices will be a lot less attractive for consumers. But they're trying to light the candle on both ends of the stick... just like Comcast etc. with Net neutrality.
And due to Apple's rules of having the same price in-app, this can increase prices for everyone, not just people using Apple products.
They might have some detection code running on the iPhone drivers etc. that's unremovable because of all the drm and signed apps requirements unless it's jailbroken? I dunno, just a plausible guess.
>But Vista and 7 offer a better security model with things like UAC. XP has an obviously a very old and flawed security model. Don't run as Admin on XP...then? Why should MS be forced to backport all new features many of which need faster hardware anyway? They still provide security updates to XP. And they have one of the best backward and forward compatibility track record in the industry, see how quickly Apple drops support for their OS versions, forcing users to pay to run the latest version of the apps.
They would need to backport everything related as well, because of dependencies to the kernel, explorer etc. , it would cost hundreds of millions if not billions at which point they might as well provide the Windows 7 upgrade free... and then people would complain that their hardware is too slow to run the new features... and then people like you would say MS should pay for new hardware because users shouldn't be forced to pay for security... and then they do that and close the company due to lack of revenue.:)
And the iPad comes with a 30% tax on developers...
And developers don't have to pay anything for the bandwidth to have their app downloaded; nor do they have to with companies like Digital River and pay them a percentage of sales; nor do they have to try to get into various distribution channels since they're included in the now de-facto standard distribution channel for all Macs. Developers are getting something in return for that 30%. Also, for free apps, 30% of $0 is $0.
Your point would be more valid if it was an optional thing instead of forced. Then people would've gone to the best choice.If Digital River changed to take only 10%, some developers might go there putting pressure on Apple. But there's nothing of that sort allowed.
They provide nothing of what you said for in app subscriptions(except exposure), but they still want a 30% cut of revenue. You know what would happen to Apple if someone took 30% of their revenue? They would end up with billions in loss per quarter.
> they're still responsible for patching security holes in old systems.
What security holes in which old systems are unpatched? WGA doesn't stop security updates, MS even provides known pirated machines security. Stop spouting BS.
I completely agree. For the great majority of users, computers have become just too complicated and confusing to operate, and the great majority of users are also stupid. Microsoft is part of the problem because, in its effort to gain consumer market share, it has just allowed those users to do far too much, in ignorance.
The same thing happened with cars; when they were rare and and expensive, the people who bought them either employed someone to drive them or were sufficiently interested to learn to do it properly themselves. When the mass market really took off, driving licences followed, along with compulsory insurance. But, at the same time, the "user interface" got simplified and standardised.
The iPad, or a laptop equivalent, is what most people actually want. But Microsoft's entire consumer business model is currently based around not giving it to them. It looks as if we are going to have to rely (currently) on Apple, HP and perhaps Motorola to come up with a reasonably secure solution to letting the monkeys into the banana plantation, since most of us are never going to be in a position to force them to use Windows 7 with a non-Administrator account.
I call BS. Anytime MS even tries to look at that route, Slashdot screams bloody murder.
And the iPad comes with a 30% tax on developers and services like Netflix which they or users have to pay. Do you want a future where companies can reject their competitors' apps 'just because' ? See what happened to Google Voice on the app store, and how an Android magazine app was banned. Do you really want to go that route? There would be no Firefox or Chrome, or even podcast players for 'duplicating functionality' because that would confuse users.
Slashdot Mirror
>I had that phoney malware thing come in through a Flash/Javascript hole (thanks Microsoft for not rewriting or adopting Google's re-write, you jerks) and totally hose my PC a while back.
What are you talking about?
First line of the article:
Mohamed Hassan, MSIA, CISSP, CISA is the founder of NetSec Consulting Corp, a firm that specializes in information security consulting services. He is a senior IT Security consultant and an adjunct professor of Information Systems in the School of Business at the University of Phoenix
Then a whole lot of fluff about the Sony root kit fiasco.
The money quote:
The findings are false-positive proof since I have used the tool that discovered it for six years now and I am yet to see it misidentify an item throughout the years.
That seems to be some very concrete proof.
Then some ramblings about how a class action lawsuit will come out of this. I too smell a lawsuit but not against Samsung.
Yet another Web based operating system? Isn't that was WebOS was supposed to be before it flopped and started allowign native apps? And take a look at the top mobile OSes now, iOS has its roots in NeXT and BSD, which in turn has roots in UNIX philosophy which are really old. Android is based on Linux, which is 20 years old and has it's roots in UNIX which is even older. Windows Phone 7 has it's roots in Windows CE which in turn has it's roots in DOS and Win NT which are really old. Even QNX that Blackberry is moving to has a long history and roots in UNIX and WebOS is based on Linux.
The point here is that although people think it's easy to build OSes, building one that's full featured and modern is extremely hard and can't be done by just throwing money at people . It takes years for bugs to be found and shaken off. See how Nokia failed inspite of employing tens of thousands of people to work on Symbian and Meego/Maemo. If Motorola is looking to build something from scratch, I am not optimistic.
On top of that, hardware companies and OEMs seem to universally suck at making software and they don't stop trying. Motorola's skins on Android all lag even on dual cores, OEM software on PC is the worst junk imaginable with crashes, bloat and what not, printer and webcam software is just pathetic. It's like they don't even have a indepented QA team. HTC's Sense UI is appreciated by some, but my experience is that it's laggy and bloated, heavy on features but low on performance. I think part of it is that the OEMs treat software development just like hardware which is a major mistake to make. Software is extremely hard to get right, especially when building OSes, developer APIs etc. which require a LOT of coordination among extremely large number of teams. The competition is no longer about devices or OSes but about platforms, which are extremely hard to build.
I am sure Motorola doesn't just want to be another Android OEM, but it sure needs to get its act exactly right. Expect multiyear delays and cost overruns. Maybe they can team up with HP on WebOS or Blackberry with QNX.
Being descriptive alone is not and should not be the only metric. Even if it is a little descriptive, they grant trademarks because companies want people associate the product with the brand. The problem comes when companies turn around and sue descriptive uses of the name, like in this case. As I said, Adobe cannot sue someone for naming their store that sells photos as Joe's Photo Shop
None of those are similar to 'app store' and the current lawsuit because they're not self descriptive. Facebook is the closest though, but if they sue someone making, lets say Anonymous Coward's face book, they will be laughed out of court because such use precedes the trademark. Microsoft can't sue people using the 'word' to describe words, only if someone makes word processors with that name. The problem isn't that 'app store' is generic, but that it describes itself without Apple even entering into the picture. You cannot trademark words like Television and then sue people calling their product a television. On the other surely you can use the word 'Television' to sell apples in the supermarket and trademark it for fruit. Adobe cannot sue shops that sell photos for calling themselves a photo shop, which is similar to what Apple is trying to do here.
Ideas are easy, implementation is hard. MS allegedly has some pieces of paper that say "we thought of this first! you can't use my idea!" Google has an actual piece of software that works pretty well. If patents worked at all like they should, MS could only patent their actual implementation of something, not the mere concept itself.
Well, Apple had lot of functionality iPhone software before Google and Apple sued HTC and Motorola over. So you mean Apple has a valid reason to sue and stop Android?
Does your statements equally apply to Apple? Just curious. Apple sued HTC and Motorola over Android for patent infringement..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/02/AR2010030203916.html
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/12/04/apple_adds_12_more_patents_to_lawsuit_against_motorola.html
What's wrong with Hotmail?
Let me guess, you call Microsoft M$ don't you?.
Read up on it's history before talking nonsense.
That said, the reason that many US employers prefer foreign labor over US labor have nothing to do with the costs, and everything to do with foreign labor having less ability to go find another job when they get mistreated.
That's why Norman's arguments for not increasing permanent visa numbers doesn't make any sense. If these workers don't wait for decades for green cards, the employers will have less leeway on them and will make it far easier to switch jobs thus leveling the playing field.
Do you have citations for your numbers? Seem to be inflated by a lot at first look unless you're double counting extensions, company transfers etc. .
See http://www.justsharethis.net/indian-ceos-list-in-big-u-s-companies/
And there are a bunch of immigrants in executive level roles in Yahoo, Google and Microsoft etc.
Well, I was not referring to this specific message, but the general trend on Slashdot to discount opinions and call people shills. I usually feel that most people accused as paid shills either genuinely believe in what they say, are trolls or just like to argue for/against something passionately. I seriously doubt any company would pay people to post on sites like Slashdot.
But keep shilling. It gives more opportunity to refute your arguments.
What's up with this obsession on /. that anyone that says anything that can remotely construed as anti-Linux or pro-MS are paid shills? Can't geeks have an argument in peace without throwing baseless accusations around?
Slashdot did its share of shilling and spreading FUD in the case of Vista DRM etc. and was even publishing results of fake benchmarks against Windows 7.
PS: If anyone from MS reads this, please contact me to pay me for my shilling. Looks like I am missing out on all the actions Thanks. /joke
is simply this... when a new version of the GPL comes out and you wish to continue using the GPL, all future licensed software must be released under the new GPL license. GPL 3 is amazing, but too few people are using it.
First, the GPL forbids that sort of restriction.
Second, what if some future version of the GPL contains something that makes it less free?
Third, the GPL v3 has some flaws. Android wouldn't be commercially possible if linux were GPL v3.
Is Linux getting any benefit from Android? The public doesn't even know it's based on Linux. Maybe Maemo and Meego give things back because they are like mobile distros but Android and Chrome OS?
Those 3 people have 10,000 apps to use though...growed faster than Android or iOS stores, silly Slashdot with it's anti-MS bias and tunnel vision from reading only the posted news and comments.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/windows-phone-marketplace-fastest-to-hit-10000-app-milestone/5596
http://wpcentral.com/milestone-windows-phone-marketplace-hits-10-000-will-overtake-rim-6-months
What about allowing people to only add text to the comments at the end and then that text gets marked with a timestamp as an edit? You could clarify things about the text above and avoid the problem that you stated.
Maybe you missed all the brouhaha over Vista and UAC from users and developers? Anyway, injecting security in XP piecemeal now is not a good solution at all since any changes will frustrate users as well as break programs, the real solution is to get people off XP, especially when they're due for a hardware upgrade anyway.
>>If you subscribe to Netflix via the iDevice app then yes, Apple takes their 30% cut, as Apple brought you a subscriber. Think of it as a referral fee.
I know lots of people bought an iPad just to watch Netflix and read Kindle books. Can they demand that Apple give 30% of the iPads retail price as a referral price to them if the user logs in those apps with pre-existing Kindle/Netflix accounts within a day of the purchase? Why or why not?
Face it, Apple receives a big benefit from having such apps in the app store, and without them the iDevices will be a lot less attractive for consumers. But they're trying to light the candle on both ends of the stick... just like Comcast etc. with Net neutrality.
And due to Apple's rules of having the same price in-app, this can increase prices for everyone, not just people using Apple products.
They might have some detection code running on the iPhone drivers etc. that's unremovable because of all the drm and signed apps requirements unless it's jailbroken? I dunno, just a plausible guess.
Keep it simple, it's Cognitive Dissonance
http://www.skepdic.com/cognitivedissonance.html
>But Vista and 7 offer a better security model with things like UAC. XP has an obviously a very old and flawed security model.
Don't run as Admin on XP...then? Why should MS be forced to backport all new features many of which need faster hardware anyway? They still provide security updates to XP. And they have one of the best backward and forward compatibility track record in the industry, see how quickly Apple drops support for their OS versions, forcing users to pay to run the latest version of the apps.
They would need to backport everything related as well, because of dependencies to the kernel, explorer etc. , it would cost hundreds of millions if not billions at which point they might as well provide the Windows 7 upgrade free... and then people would complain that their hardware is too slow to run the new features... and then people like you would say MS should pay for new hardware because users shouldn't be forced to pay for security... and then they do that and close the company due to lack of revenue. :)
And developers don't have to pay anything for the bandwidth to have their app downloaded; nor do they have to with companies like Digital River and pay them a percentage of sales; nor do they have to try to get into various distribution channels since they're included in the now de-facto standard distribution channel for all Macs. Developers are getting something in return for that 30%. Also, for free apps, 30% of $0 is $0.
Your point would be more valid if it was an optional thing instead of forced. Then people would've gone to the best choice.If Digital River changed to take only 10%, some developers might go there putting pressure on Apple. But there's nothing of that sort allowed.
And maybe you missed the latest news ?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021902399.html
They provide nothing of what you said for in app subscriptions(except exposure), but they still want a 30% cut of revenue. You know what would happen to Apple if someone took 30% of their revenue? They would end up with billions in loss per quarter.
http://www.cultofmac.com/did-apple-order-cops-to-raid-gizmodo-editors-house/40211
> they're still responsible for patching security holes in old systems.
What security holes in which old systems are unpatched? WGA doesn't stop security updates, MS even provides known pirated machines security. Stop spouting BS.
I completely agree. For the great majority of users, computers have become just too complicated and confusing to operate, and the great majority of users are also stupid. Microsoft is part of the problem because, in its effort to gain consumer market share, it has just allowed those users to do far too much, in ignorance.
The same thing happened with cars; when they were rare and and expensive, the people who bought them either employed someone to drive them or were sufficiently interested to learn to do it properly themselves. When the mass market really took off, driving licences followed, along with compulsory insurance. But, at the same time, the "user interface" got simplified and standardised.
The iPad, or a laptop equivalent, is what most people actually want. But Microsoft's entire consumer business model is currently based around not giving it to them. It looks as if we are going to have to rely (currently) on Apple, HP and perhaps Motorola to come up with a reasonably secure solution to letting the monkeys into the banana plantation, since most of us are never going to be in a position to force them to use Windows 7 with a non-Administrator account.
I call BS. Anytime MS even tries to look at that route, Slashdot screams bloody murder.
Read the comments:
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/16/2259257
http://it.slashdot.org/story/08/07/30/204241/Dual-Boot-Not-Trusted-Rejected-By-Vista-SP1
And the iPad comes with a 30% tax on developers and services like Netflix which they or users have to pay. Do you want a future where companies can reject their competitors' apps 'just because' ? See what happened to Google Voice on the app store, and how an Android magazine app was banned. Do you really want to go that route? There would be no Firefox or Chrome, or even podcast players for 'duplicating functionality' because that would confuse users.