I am guessing that the people who got infected probably saw the "you're infected" page as being normal [per earlier slashdot article] and once they realized they couldn't go anywhere else they blamed the ISP for it and went elsewhere.
Problem solved. In time, all the zombie machines would either be cleaned up or moved to a network that would become hideously slow, causing people with clean machines to use another ISP and enabling us to easily block spam.
Up for debate is the method they use to detect a rogue machine, but if they can perfect that then I'm all for this.
I'd go for no active monitoring except if someone reports spam coming from their network. Have SMTP blocked by default, opt-in to open it.
I'd be prepared to go through some spam emails from time to time and notify the ISP if I knew they would do something about it. I used to try this but as far as I can tell only one ISP ever acted on it so it wasn't worth the effort.
The best things in life are free
But you can keep them for the birds and bees
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want
You're lovin' gives me a thrill
But you're lovin' don't pay my bills
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want
Money don't get everything it's true
What it don't get, I can't use
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want, wah
Money don't get everything it's true
What it don't get, I can't use
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want
Well now give me money
Ow, money
Wow, yeah, I wanna be free
Oh I want money
That's what I want
That's what I want, well
Now give me money
ow, money
Wow, yeah, you need money
now, give me money
That's what I want, yeah
that's what I want, yeah
If the rest of the world wasn't so disorganized perhaps they could generate their own wealth. It is not Microsoft's fault, nor Libertarian001's fault... or either of their concerns.
Maybe I misunderstood him, but I took his post to be illustrating exactly that point. I think his last line "Perspective, it's what's for dinner" seems to indicate that.
lack of package management... it *is* a significant point. But you seem to have enumerated it as points 1, 2, *and* 4. That's really not fair.
The lack of package management on windows makes it 3 separate issues. I don't think that's unfair on my part.
Regarding backups, can I backup system wide configuration for individual applications that way? Seems like I'd need at least a registry backup. Wouldn't that be a hideous way to restore an applications config after OS upgrade? Also is email stored in the user directory now or still in windows with some obscure path impossible to remember. IIRC outlook express used to have a long string of letters and numbers in the path to the mail. (Well, I'm not using OE anyway so that doesn't matter really).
But that's another symptom of the lack of package management, which we've already covered.
Every symptom requires my time to solve it. It is not enough to say "package management, it's only one problem" when I have to spend real time on each issue, unless a package management solution is provided so I can fix those issues in one go. Your idea that these are all one issue comes entirely from linux showing you how it should work. Windows showing you how it doesn't work reveals multiple problems.
I don't know anything about Bluetooth... so I can't comment on that, except to note that normal users don't mess with it anyway.
It's on nearly every mobile phone. Surely transferring photos from a phone would be popular? Backing up the phone? It's not an obscure technology. If people aren't using it I presume it is a combination of it not working well on windows and people not realising it can be done so not knowing there is a problem.
I surely do appreciate the value of a good package manager, but really, if that were all Windows needed, it would be a pretty good product. I'd probably use it on my own desktop, if that were the only major thing wrong with it.
Broken updates is a deal killer for me. Not for my brother-in-law, but then I'm the one keeping them going, not him. I suppose there's no end of problems that can be solved by getting someone else to do it.
Windows doesn't "just work" for me. I am not an IT pro, but I've been using linux as my desktop since redhat 7.0. I am much more familiar with linux than windows. Yes, there has always been some configuration to solve with every OS update. However, recently I've been responsible for keeping my brother-in-law's 2 windows boxes going (small business, I'm relatively more computer literate than anyone else involved despite lack of windows experience).
Updates: Using linux I run "yum -y update" and the whole system is updated. Every application, done. Using windows, the auto-update keeps only the MS software updated, nothing else. Firefox, for example, will notify me of updates but won't auto-update because I don't run with admin rights. Neither (as far as I can tell) can I open a command prompt as admin to update unless I download the update manually first. I switch user to admin, log in to the GUI, run firefox update, log out and back in as user. This must be repeated for every non-MS application. This is not just a case of "takes a few hours to solve" as far as I know it is unsolvable.
Back-ups: Using linux I can back up/etc,/var and/home and the package list. That's it, nothing more required. Restore is simply a matter of extracting those files back to/etc,/var and/home and using yum to install the same list of packages. Without making full system image backups, there is nothing close to this simplicity with windows (well, maybe there is, but can I find a solution that works so well, works for both OS upgrades and restoring a system? Can I find it and implement it with less work than it takes me to solve a problem on linux?).
Bluetooth: a bluetooth USB dongle "just works" in linux. I can detect my phone and transfer files to and from it without trouble and write simple bash scripts for backups and repetitive tasks. Windows seems to require addon software to connect bluetooth (I'm sure this can't be right, it works on laptops out of the box right?) and I've seen no way to automate tasks requiring bluetooth access. In linux I can find the relevant program by running "yum search bluetooth" if it isn't already installed, leading to my next point:
Software installation: I understand to only get software from "trusted" sources, not to just download and install or I'll get malware. How do I tell what is a trusted source of software for windows? The linux distro I use has nearly everything I need, I have one additional repo configured. When I'm searching for software to do something like bluetooth, how do I know what sites to trust?
Seriously, until there's a decent solution for updates and backups I couldn't describe windows as working properly. Remember we're talking average users here, not system administrators. I am well aware there are solutions to these things for corporate networks with administrators looking after them, but how accessible are those things to the average user.
If I'm wrong and these things are easy then I'd love to know. Otherwise I will continue to view MS Windows as not merely more difficult than linux, but broken. Solve 1,2 and 3 for me and I'll be really glad, very happy to be wrong. I won't hold my breath waiting though.
Windows works for two groups of people: those who have professional level skills to solve the problems and those who don't know enough to realise there's a problem. The second situation is a fairly limited definition of "works" and is the cause of botnets etc. I suppose the botnets are run by people in the first group and are a great example of how well Windows works;)
The Pharma industry would love to destroy traditional placebo-based remedies as chicken soup, a nice cup of tea, a double Scotch or "kissing it better" so they could sell you expensive pills as well!!!! Its a conspiracy!!!!!!
If a double Scotch is considered a placebo, where do I sign up for the trials to test the effectiveness? I am dedicated to the advancement of science, I'm only thinking of the benefit to society!
And in most of these exceedingly rare cases of mass murder, it's been trained professionals that put an end to the incident, not some Joe Blow packing heat.
Hypothetical mass murders being an argument for concealed weapons is weak at best.
Yet the anti-gunners think they are a valid argument for gun bans. Do you criticize people for using examples of mass murders if they are advocating gun bans?
In Australia, gun laws were brought in as a response to a few multiple shooting incidents. Although they were horrific killings they were indeed very rare and not a valid reason for nationwide restrictions IMO. Only a very small fraction of murders in Australia have happened this way. Your argument seems to me like another anti-gun attempt to silence opposition rather than try to make a valid point.
Mass shootings mostly happen in places where the murderer knows the intended victims are disarmed. There are occasional exceptions, like an attack on a police station or similar, but most I've heard of have been colleges, schools, post offices etc. As a result it is expected that most of them would require police action. The deterrent effect of armed citizens would be similar to the effect of having armed police on site, much cheaper though since citizens are not paid wages to carry and purchase their own firearms. It is not unreasonable to conclude that the expected absence of armed resistance is a factor in the criminals decision making.
People seem to forget that police ARE citizens. If citizens cannot be trusted with firearms then that would apply to police and the defence forces as well. Murder by police is not unknown to happen yet the anti-gun lobby remains silent on disarming police. Why?
I have a Linux kernel on my computer. I would like to try the Linux desktop you talk about. You have a link? is better than Gnome?
Much better, it's a solid hardwood desktop. I don't have a link, I will send it to you. I've packaged it in sawdust format for ease of transportation. Just reassemble it and you're right to go.
I don't see anything contradictory about what I wrote.
Well I'll adapt the quote using the update in your current post:
Politicians haven't decided the matter. Climate scientists, the people best qualified to do so, have discovered the matter and provided reports to the politicians, who then decide that to do about it.
The only people you are attributing decision to are the politicians. Yet you appear to have made an assumption that a decision made by a judge would encroach on the scientists field rather than more closely be compared to the politicians. This is an attempt to affect public policy, that's the politicians arena more than the scientists.
You appear to be using the fallacy that because scientists are imperfect and make mistakes or get things wrong means that anyone else's opinion is equally likely to be correct.
No, I'm using real examples of important things that have been handed to qualified educated experts to handle where they are having disastrous consequences for those who trusted them because of their expertise. This is in response to your appeal to authority, ie your claim that only the expert can make meaningful judgements.
Scientists have bugger all power - the real power lies with politicians and businessmen.
Agreed. This justifies my original reply "In what way is this worse than having politicians decide the matter?" since the idea of a judge ruling on it is a play by the businessmen against the politicians. I can guarantee that if a judge gave a ruling contradicting science that the scientific journals will still be printing science rather than judges opinions. Where you would see the change would be in discussions regarding law.
I'm sure you do very well at your field, but your field obviously isn't argument. Judges are argument professionals. Their field of expertise includes to understand complex arguments and explain their relevance to non-experts (juries).
In Australia, what you get is to keep the plan you are on without being locked in to a contract. I have a cheap plan that isn't available anymore if you don't already have it. I easily recover the cost of paying for my own phone.
Politicians haven't decided the matter. Climate scientists, the people best qualified to do so, have decided the matter and provided reports to the politicians, who then decide that to do about it.
The only way for non-experts to make a meaningful judgement is to become experts.
Sorry, I've known too many experts to accept that. Perhaps the ones I haven't met personally could convince me. Wasn't it experts who were running the banks and financial system? How's that working out? I know that in my country, experts run the education system. How's that working out? I know, I know, science is different, blah, blah. Scientists come from the same educational institutions that have nearly half of their output functionally illiterate. Is it the degree that's supposed to inspire confidence? What about the MBA's, economists and teachers?
So now I, as a non-expert, am in the position of being confronted with divided experts. I suppose I'll have to rely on my own judgement after all. If you, as a scientist, can make the logical blunder in the first line I quoted, there's no way I'm giving in to a dictatorship made of the likes of you.
It means buying parts that are not fabricated specifically for your product.
Took me a while to realize where we had both gone wrong: MS is not fabricated specifically for Dell, Dell computers are fabricated specifically for Microsoft software. Many laptops have a label proclaiming this fact. "Designed for Windows $VERSION", not sure if Dell computers have this.
And if MS is correct and they don't infringe, why should they pay the bill in the first place?
um, because there is a judgement against them saying they are infringing? Because there is an injunction against them selling Word with that functionality without permission from i4i and they want to continue doing it?
If MS is wrong and they do infringe, why can't i4i just wait until after the lawsuit has been completely settled to start collecting royalties?
um, because there is a judgement in their favour? Because they've already lost a heap of money (and quite a few people have lost their jobs) due to microsoft's behaviour already? Why should they have to wait? They shouldn't have had to wait this long, it's been years.
Microsoft has a substantial legal team. You can't tell me they couldn't come up with a temporary licensing contract with payment contingent on the judgement standing. As things stand, MS owes royalties to i4i if they use that patent. Therefore if they wish to use it they should be approaching i4i, not the court.
aren't/. readers against this abuse of the patent system?
Yes
Very bad idea, even if its just Microsoft.
He who lives by the sword will die by the sword. Just like most of us don't agree with murder but don't shed a tear if a mercenary gets killed in action.
Software patents shouldn't be considered valid but MS has lobbied and argued for them so it is justice for them to be harmed by them.
Slashdot Mirror
He started the engine, floored the accelerator and kept it floored until he found a town, many miles later.
Being in an outback town would not necessarily solve that problem.
Never watched Braveheart obviously.
... Uh, I see your ";-)" now, I'll post anyway though.
How, exactly, did you think the various (non-English) parts of the United Kingdom became united under an English monarch?
I am guessing that the people who got infected probably saw the "you're infected" page as being normal [per earlier slashdot article] and once they realized they couldn't go anywhere else they blamed the ISP for it and went elsewhere.
Problem solved. In time, all the zombie machines would either be cleaned up or moved to a network that would become hideously slow, causing people with clean machines to use another ISP and enabling us to easily block spam.
Up for debate is the method they use to detect a rogue machine, but if they can perfect that then I'm all for this.
I'd go for no active monitoring except if someone reports spam coming from their network. Have SMTP blocked by default, opt-in to open it.
I'd be prepared to go through some spam emails from time to time and notify the ISP if I knew they would do something about it. I used to try this but as far as I can tell only one ISP ever acted on it so it wasn't worth the effort.
Seems to me that the bigger the city, the more stupid the voters are...
Didn't the US start off that only landowners could vote?
The best things in life are free
But you can keep them for the birds and bees
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want
You're lovin' gives me a thrill
But you're lovin' don't pay my bills
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want
Money don't get everything it's true
What it don't get, I can't use
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want, wah
Money don't get everything it's true
What it don't get, I can't use
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want
Well now give me money
Ow, money
Wow, yeah, I wanna be free
Oh I want money
That's what I want
That's what I want, well
Now give me money
ow, money
Wow, yeah, you need money
now, give me money
That's what I want, yeah
that's what I want, yeah
If the rest of the world wasn't so disorganized perhaps they could generate their own wealth. It is not Microsoft's fault, nor Libertarian001's fault... or either of their concerns.
Maybe I misunderstood him, but I took his post to be illustrating exactly that point. I think his last line "Perspective, it's what's for dinner" seems to indicate that.
lack of package management ... it *is* a significant point. But you seem to have enumerated it as points 1, 2, *and* 4. That's really not fair.
The lack of package management on windows makes it 3 separate issues. I don't think that's unfair on my part.
Regarding backups, can I backup system wide configuration for individual applications that way? Seems like I'd need at least a registry backup. Wouldn't that be a hideous way to restore an applications config after OS upgrade? Also is email stored in the user directory now or still in windows with some obscure path impossible to remember. IIRC outlook express used to have a long string of letters and numbers in the path to the mail. (Well, I'm not using OE anyway so that doesn't matter really).
But that's another symptom of the lack of package management, which we've already covered.
Every symptom requires my time to solve it. It is not enough to say "package management, it's only one problem" when I have to spend real time on each issue, unless a package management solution is provided so I can fix those issues in one go. Your idea that these are all one issue comes entirely from linux showing you how it should work. Windows showing you how it doesn't work reveals multiple problems.
I don't know anything about Bluetooth ... so I can't comment on that, except to note that normal users don't mess with it anyway.
It's on nearly every mobile phone. Surely transferring photos from a phone would be popular? Backing up the phone? It's not an obscure technology. If people aren't using it I presume it is a combination of it not working well on windows and people not realising it can be done so not knowing there is a problem.
I surely do appreciate the value of a good package manager, but really, if that were all Windows needed, it would be a pretty good product. I'd probably use it on my own desktop, if that were the only major thing wrong with it.
Broken updates is a deal killer for me. Not for my brother-in-law, but then I'm the one keeping them going, not him. I suppose there's no end of problems that can be solved by getting someone else to do it.
"With about 100 nodes". The average windows botnet (at least the one that make into the news) have from hundreds of thousands to millons of nodes.
That's irrelevant. A linux botnet would be so much more productive than a windows botnet that you don't need nearly as many nodes.<\straightface>
Seriously, until there's a decent solution for updates and backups I couldn't describe windows as working properly. Remember we're talking average users here, not system administrators. I am well aware there are solutions to these things for corporate networks with administrators looking after them, but how accessible are those things to the average user.
;)
If I'm wrong and these things are easy then I'd love to know. Otherwise I will continue to view MS Windows as not merely more difficult than linux, but broken. Solve 1,2 and 3 for me and I'll be really glad, very happy to be wrong. I won't hold my breath waiting though.
Windows works for two groups of people: those who have professional level skills to solve the problems and those who don't know enough to realise there's a problem. The second situation is a fairly limited definition of "works" and is the cause of botnets etc. I suppose the botnets are run by people in the first group and are a great example of how well Windows works
The Pharma industry would love to destroy traditional placebo-based remedies as chicken soup, a nice cup of tea, a double Scotch or "kissing it better" so they could sell you expensive pills as well!!!! Its a conspiracy!!!!!!
If a double Scotch is considered a placebo, where do I sign up for the trials to test the effectiveness? I am dedicated to the advancement of science, I'm only thinking of the benefit to society!
And in most of these exceedingly rare cases of mass murder, it's been trained professionals that put an end to the incident, not some Joe Blow packing heat.
Hypothetical mass murders being an argument for concealed weapons is weak at best.
Yet the anti-gunners think they are a valid argument for gun bans. Do you criticize people for using examples of mass murders if they are advocating gun bans?
In Australia, gun laws were brought in as a response to a few multiple shooting incidents. Although they were horrific killings they were indeed very rare and not a valid reason for nationwide restrictions IMO. Only a very small fraction of murders in Australia have happened this way. Your argument seems to me like another anti-gun attempt to silence opposition rather than try to make a valid point.
Mass shootings mostly happen in places where the murderer knows the intended victims are disarmed. There are occasional exceptions, like an attack on a police station or similar, but most I've heard of have been colleges, schools, post offices etc. As a result it is expected that most of them would require police action. The deterrent effect of armed citizens would be similar to the effect of having armed police on site, much cheaper though since citizens are not paid wages to carry and purchase their own firearms. It is not unreasonable to conclude that the expected absence of armed resistance is a factor in the criminals decision making.
People seem to forget that police ARE citizens. If citizens cannot be trusted with firearms then that would apply to police and the defence forces as well. Murder by police is not unknown to happen yet the anti-gun lobby remains silent on disarming police. Why?
I guess he really wanted to become rich, whether it was through mroal or immortal ways.
I like to use immortal ways myself. Mroality is for suckers.
I have a Linux kernel on my computer. I would like to try the Linux desktop you talk about. You have a link? is better than Gnome?
Much better, it's a solid hardwood desktop. I don't have a link, I will send it to you. I've packaged it in sawdust format for ease of transportation. Just reassemble it and you're right to go.
I don't see anything contradictory about what I wrote.
Well I'll adapt the quote using the update in your current post:
Politicians haven't decided the matter. Climate scientists, the people best qualified to do so, have discovered the matter and provided reports to the politicians, who then decide that to do about it.
The only people you are attributing decision to are the politicians. Yet you appear to have made an assumption that a decision made by a judge would encroach on the scientists field rather than more closely be compared to the politicians. This is an attempt to affect public policy, that's the politicians arena more than the scientists.
You appear to be using the fallacy that because scientists are imperfect and make mistakes or get things wrong means that anyone else's opinion is equally likely to be correct.
No, I'm using real examples of important things that have been handed to qualified educated experts to handle where they are having disastrous consequences for those who trusted them because of their expertise. This is in response to your appeal to authority, ie your claim that only the expert can make meaningful judgements.
Scientists have bugger all power - the real power lies with politicians and businessmen.
Agreed. This justifies my original reply "In what way is this worse than having politicians decide the matter?" since the idea of a judge ruling on it is a play by the businessmen against the politicians. I can guarantee that if a judge gave a ruling contradicting science that the scientific journals will still be printing science rather than judges opinions. Where you would see the change would be in discussions regarding law.
I'm sure you do very well at your field, but your field obviously isn't argument. Judges are argument professionals. Their field of expertise includes to understand complex arguments and explain their relevance to non-experts (juries).
In Australia, what you get is to keep the plan you are on without being locked in to a contract. I have a cheap plan that isn't available anymore if you don't already have it. I easily recover the cost of paying for my own phone.
Are you sure you would have been like that if you hadn't spent most of your formative years in school? IMO school is primarily designed to produce people who will take orders. In my country Bureau of Statistics data shows that almost half of all working Australians have less than the minimum literacy and numeracy levels required to meet the demands of everyday work. Logically, if school was really about education they would have corrected this before now. So what is the real purpose of school?
Politicians haven't decided the matter. Climate scientists, the people best qualified to do so, have decided the matter and provided reports to the politicians, who then decide that to do about it.
The only way for non-experts to make a meaningful judgement is to become experts.
Sorry, I've known too many experts to accept that. Perhaps the ones I haven't met personally could convince me. Wasn't it experts who were running the banks and financial system? How's that working out? I know that in my country, experts run the education system. How's that working out? I know, I know, science is different, blah, blah. Scientists come from the same educational institutions that have nearly half of their output functionally illiterate. Is it the degree that's supposed to inspire confidence? What about the MBA's, economists and teachers?
Then you have experts that disagree:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/02/first-woman-to-earn-phd-in-meteorology-speaks-out/
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/another_ipcc_dissenter_speaks_out
So now I, as a non-expert, am in the position of being confronted with divided experts. I suppose I'll have to rely on my own judgement after all. If you, as a scientist, can make the logical blunder in the first line I quoted, there's no way I'm giving in to a dictatorship made of the likes of you.
It means buying parts that are not fabricated specifically for your product.
Took me a while to realize where we had both gone wrong: MS is not fabricated specifically for Dell, Dell computers are fabricated specifically for Microsoft software. Many laptops have a label proclaiming this fact. "Designed for Windows $VERSION", not sure if Dell computers have this.
Yea, and when somebody does it they get an article on Slashdot questioning their ethics. Good point.
Irrelevant to my point and generally irrelevant anyway. What can you do that someone won't criticize?
Oh, and it's a real cash cow, too. Don't make me laugh. The only way to make money from GPL'ed software is to sell support.
RedHat doesn't sell copies? Where are the free downloads of RHEL binaries? Or is RedHat not making money now?
And if MS is correct and they don't infringe, why should they pay the bill in the first place?
um, because there is a judgement against them saying they are infringing? Because there is an injunction against them selling Word with that functionality without permission from i4i and they want to continue doing it?
If MS is wrong and they do infringe, why can't i4i just wait until after the lawsuit has been completely settled to start collecting royalties?
um, because there is a judgement in their favour? Because they've already lost a heap of money (and quite a few people have lost their jobs) due to microsoft's behaviour already? Why should they have to wait? They shouldn't have had to wait this long, it's been years.
Microsoft has a substantial legal team. You can't tell me they couldn't come up with a temporary licensing contract with payment contingent on the judgement standing. As things stand, MS owes royalties to i4i if they use that patent. Therefore if they wish to use it they should be approaching i4i, not the court.
Just because GPL allows selling commercial software, it doesn't mean that it is very feasible.
I hear that said, yet it happens.
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/09/08/01/169247/The-Ethics-of-Selling-GPLed-Software-For-the-iPhone
http://redhat.com/
http://www.novell.com/linux/
Troll? WTF?
aren't /. readers against this abuse of the patent system?
Yes
Very bad idea, even if its just Microsoft.
He who lives by the sword will die by the sword. Just like most of us don't agree with murder but don't shed a tear if a mercenary gets killed in action.
Software patents shouldn't be considered valid but MS has lobbied and argued for them so it is justice for them to be harmed by them.