The money spent on blocking individual viruses could be better used in stopping flaws that allow viruses access.
Users are willing to run software from untrusted sources and give it administrative access when prompted. In my limited experience, this is far and away the most common cause of infections. There is nothing that can be done to prevent this (in any operating system). This can be somewhat mitigated by providing a repository for trusted software (as implemented in most Linux distributions), but there will still be many users willing to do anything to install some kitty cat cursors they saw in a banner ad.
Which, as everyone who knows anything about technology knows, Windows is one big security hole.
No, this is just crap people like to spew on Slashdot. NT (in its time), 2000 (again, in its time), and XP are all reasonably secure compared to Linux (Vista contains a great deal of new code, so exploits for it will likely pop up for some time to come). Of course, if you are really serious about security, then OpenBSD blows both Windows and most Linux distributions out of the water.
if a thug tries to bully you into voting the way they say, you refuse. If they try to behave violently afterward, they go to jail. No different from any other thug.
It is far more likely that you'll come up short a few fingers, and nothing will happen to the thugs.
The GPL takes nothing away. It grants you permission to distribute software licensed under it (a right you would normally not have due to copyright law) under a specific set of conditions.
and if the software world consisted of only theory then we could all get 90% for our efforts and be happy with that.
University is not occupational training.
In practice systems have to work 100%, and when your graph search algorithm (by Dijkstra naturally) segfaults due to dereferencing a wrong pointer then computer science is very much about computers.
Or, to put it more simply: If you want to use some copyrighted software, you need a license. If you can't get a license you want to accept, then you don't get a license, and can't use the software.
The GPL doesn't govern use. It governs distribution.
You merely need to increase the sensitivity so that turning your head a small amount corresponds to a large amount of movement in-game.
TrackIR does the same thing, and has been used by many people playing flight simulators for a number of years now. It is leaps and bounds ahead of using a view hat and/or taking your hands off your HOTAS setup to fumble with a mouse.
UACs goal is to protect the stupid OS, *not your stuff*
Well written malware installed with unlimited access will not be able to be detected without booting the machine from some read-only media. Your data could be compromised (and for a long period of time) and you would never know. On the other hand, if some malware is running with limited privileges then it will not (or at least should not) have the rights necessary to remain undetectable (barring any privilege escalation exploits).
Aside from that, a user should not be able to clobber his installation with his default rights. That's just poor design.
its obsessive requirement of human interaction to clear security dialogue box warnings
How should an operating system handle an application that requires elevated privileges? If applications just bailed out after attempting to accomplish something they don't have the proper privileges for, I'm sure nontechnical users would be far more unhappy than they currently are.
A laptop I recently purchased came with Vista preinstalled, and I've been using it fairly regularly for these last few months. Personally I only see UAC prompts when I am configuring settings that should require administrative access, or when I run poorly written applications.
If you use inflammatory language, then the mods will likely mod you flamebait. Personally I just about always mod down for things like that, irrespective of whether or not I agree with the poster.
Does online activation tweak people? I could understand this, if they weren't able to play in offline mode after activating once. This a perfectly reasonable method of copy protection
I shouldn't have to activate, period. I should not be treated like a criminal by a company I have purchased a product from.
(I'm sure you can dig up some obscure title that actually did it first, but Halo was the first popular game to use this approach)
'SubSpace', which was a fairly popular game, had this mechanic. There are still a number of players playing it to this day (the client is now called 'Continuum').
Preventing a company like Tivo from distributing GPLv3 software on a closed device doesn't increase the freedom of the software. It doesn't even have anything to do with the freedom of the software
Software doesn't have freedom - users do. In this case the GPL is ensuring that the end users of GPLed software retain the freedom to modify it. The GPL only restricts your ability to restrict the freedoms of others.
Excuse me? Punks who vandalize things usually are punished?
I was speaking more in regards to breaking windows, plugging car exhausts, and dumping sugar into fuel tanks. I doubt the majority of spammers and malware writers will ever have action taken against them.
There is no 'argument' to be made. Punks who vandalize things should be punished, and they usually are. A permanent record is a perfect punishment (at least in lieu of breaking their fucking legs).
Slashdot Mirror
Users are willing to run software from untrusted sources and give it administrative access when prompted. In my limited experience, this is far and away the most common cause of infections. There is nothing that can be done to prevent this (in any operating system). This can be somewhat mitigated by providing a repository for trusted software (as implemented in most Linux distributions), but there will still be many users willing to do anything to install some kitty cat cursors they saw in a banner ad.
No, this is just crap people like to spew on Slashdot. NT (in its time), 2000 (again, in its time), and XP are all reasonably secure compared to Linux (Vista contains a great deal of new code, so exploits for it will likely pop up for some time to come). Of course, if you are really serious about security, then OpenBSD blows both Windows and most Linux distributions out of the water.
Use '>' and '<' for '>' and '<', respectively.
It is far more likely that you'll come up short a few fingers, and nothing will happen to the thugs.
You merely need to increase the sensitivity so that turning your head a small amount corresponds to a large amount of movement in-game.
TrackIR does the same thing, and has been used by many people playing flight simulators for a number of years now. It is leaps and bounds ahead of using a view hat and/or taking your hands off your HOTAS setup to fumble with a mouse.
Aside from that, a user should not be able to clobber his installation with his default rights. That's just poor design.
A laptop I recently purchased came with Vista preinstalled, and I've been using it fairly regularly for these last few months. Personally I only see UAC prompts when I am configuring settings that should require administrative access, or when I run poorly written applications.
Or they could just call 911 from a landline in the restaurant, which would work perfectly fine.
How is this troll-mod worthy?
I've found that Lua is also very elegant, and fun to program in.
I'm an atheist and I still found the post in question to be unreasonably rude. Modding it down was the correct thing to do.