I think a big detractor to "pay-to-play" online gaming services is that first you have to buy the game (usually at least $50/game) and then - ON TOP OF THAT - you have to pay for a high-speed 'Net connection which is $20-50/month depending on what kind you get. And then ON TOP OF ALL THAT you've gotta pay another $5-10/month to pay online? No, thanks, I'll stick to my fave FREE online games like all the Half-Life mods (DOD and NS are sweet!).
Sorry, guys - I think Nintendo got it right in this aspect.
I'm willing to bet that most people who play CS play online rather than with friends. Yes, they may play with friends sometimes, but most of the time they play online to "kick the crap out of all the people" rather than as a social thing.
Playing games together is something that happens more often when you can have many players on one system - same Xbox or PS2, but everyone has their own controller - or a bunch of people on one Xbox that's system-linked to another, or something like that. If everyone had to have their own box, it'd probably happen less often. And while this sort of gaming together may happen more frequently, it's still likely that most of the time gamers play alone in campaign mode.
"cyber crime has now outgrown illegal drug sales in annual proceeds, netting an estimated $105 billion in 2004, the report said."
. . . how do they know how much money drug lords make? Are they somehow monitoring ALL the drug deals and not making a move to stop drug deals that they KNOW ABOUT?
How do they know how many drugs are sold - surely not every drug user or dealer gets busted. . .
"cannot be used (1) for uploading, downloading or streaming of movies, music or games" There goes the LEGALIZED Napster, iTunes, and Steam.
"with server devices or with host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, Voice over IP (VoIP), automated machine-to-machine connections, or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing" There goes VoIP, Webcams, RSS feeds, that Windows "remote help" feature, P2P (even for legal downloads, such as through BitTorrent)
"as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections." There goes making VPN connections.
I wouldn't say it's a scam or "Trojan horse" so much as it is a double-edged sword - sure, it might help for blocking malware, but I would say with 99% certainty that most ISPs would use it to their advantage to block ANYTHING they don't like.
"d) i cant understand why would anyone need a robot that is stearing at mirrors."
Maybe they'll find a use for it, maybe they never will. However, I think they probably did it more because it's hard to do and has never been done before than any other reason.
How does it know about the key features of its face?
How do people know what they look like without looking in a mirror? They aren't born knowing what they look like, and facial features change over time.
Plus, if all the robots were designed the same and all look the same, then how would the robot recognizing key features of its own face help at all - the other robots would have the same "key features", wouldn't they?
Just because your niece changed doesn't mean there is a problem - change is normal. And it's also perfectly normal for kids to want to fit in with the rest of society.
That's what I'm saying - personally I like Linux, but if people want to try Mac or anything else. . . fine by me. There's just too many people sticking with Windows even though it's given them TONS of trouble. If they were to just TRY something else - learn on a friend's Mac, download a Knoppix CD, whatever - they'd be better off because at least then they'd know that there are other possibilities if they don't like Windows (and I know many people who don't - that's part of the reason why I mentioned the "I only used Windows for games" thing - there are plenty of people who use their PCs mostly for games, and if that's all that's keeping you back, you can install two OSes if you want - and I believe OSX comes with its own emulator).
It doesn't matter what OS they switch to so long as they switch (or at least give another OS a try).
"Boys are (often, typically, not always of course) encouraged to play with things like Legos, GI-Joe, Toy Trucks, etc; while girls are encouraged to play with barbies, dolls, and the like."
No, they aren't. It's just that it's assumed that guys are going to prefer trucks, dinosaurs, or army men or something, and that girls are going to prefer dolls and play makeup. And usually, that's the way it is.
It's instinct - females are typically gentler and more nurturing, and males are typically rougher. That's why if a boy is all alone, he's more likely to play with Ninja Turtles or GI Joe than Barbie and Ken, and why if a girl is all alone she'll probably prefer to play mother to a doll than pull out a bucket of plastic army men and stage a battle.
Not that boys would never play dolls if that's all they had - but if you've ever seen boys play with dolls, they're more likely to play with the Ken doll and race around in the sports car than play with Barbie. Same with girls - seems like if you give a girl a Ninja Turtle she's more likely to make it into a nurturing creature than a crime-fighting superhero.
Not that it's sexist or anything - that's just the way it is. Guys and girls are different, that's all.
The way I recall it, MS said that MOST users should use Win9x and that for HIGHER security purposes such as servers you should use NT. Although I can understand them wanting compatibility with DOS programs, they certainly could've done a better job.
While it is too bad that Unix had "Morris", let's not forget that the Internet was still not a very common thing back then and was a much different place than it is today (reminds me of Dave Chappelle's "What if the Internet was a Place" skit:) ). Before the 90's the Internet was still mainly just for universities and research facilities and was a fairly small community. People trusted each other on the Internet more and probably thought that no one would ever even dream of attacking their servers.
"The comparison of the age of windows the age of linux isn't very fair. Linux has been a 32 bit operating system since it's birth in 1991 an it's overall design (a unix type OS) has not changed. Windows started being a true 32 bit OS with NT 4.0 which was released around 94 I believe, ad has absolutely nothng to do, in regards to it's core design, with any of the Windows 9x versions."
What I was doing was trying to project an idea of how much progress has been made. Before Linux, open-source was little more than some guy's idea of how the computer world should be. Now open-source has become a business model for many software companies and is seen to have some real potential.
Open-source programs are made and improved by the people who use them - meaning that they weren't made by a big corporation, but rather by an individual or group of individuals who knew how to code and decided to write a program that suits their purposes. Now, for whatever reason, these groups of hobbyist programmers are giving professional code-writers a run for their money. Which really says something about the inferiority of closed-source and big corporations when they're put up against a group of motivated individuals, many of which aren't even getting paid for their hard work. They may be open-source zealots or groupies or whatever, but they're giving MS a run for its money. And that doesn't seem right that a group of "weekend warriors" is on close to the same level as a high-paid, big-business software company, but it seems like that's the case.
"All of your experience with Windows is with the 9x series which sole purpose was to transition customers over from a DOS based OS's to NT based OSs without breaking compatibility with legacy DOS programs. Obviosuly the transition was a rough one for many, for history has shown (read: Apple's transition from the Apple IIe to the Macintosh) that completely abandoning legacy technology and trying to force your customers straight into a new and improved technology without providing any legacy support is market suicide."
The problem I had. . . was that I had no problem. I didn't need to be babied. I probably could've gotten used to NT just as easily as I got used to 98 - I had been used to Win3.1 and Win95 (I never owned a PC with 95 but I had used them). I used DOS before but by the time I got Win98 all my programs were Windows. I never even heard of NT until later on after I got 98 and the Internet, and I thought that since 98 was newer it was supposed to be better until I heard about the future releases of Win2k and WinME, and why two releases for the same year are somehow different and why one works and one doesn't.
"Something that spreads via an Intenet Explorer exploit requires user to go to a specially crafted web page to get infected. It's still bad, but IE has a very long history of being repeatedly exploited, much like sendmail in the 80's and 90's, so the security conscience probably not even be using it, would they?"
First of all, the exploit probably could have been put into text ads that might appear on "trustworthy" sites - which would then infect you with the virus. Also, people could have put the code into their signatures on user groups a
"That's like me saying desktop linux sucks because when I tried slackware 96 it took me an hour just to get my serial mouse to work, and even longer just to get the vesa driver to work with XFree86."
If you ask me, it's not. I paid good money for both Win98 and Win98 SE, both of which claimed to be made with the Internet in mind and claimed to be secure. If they had the Internet in mind and made it secure, why did they make it with so many Internet security holes?
Linux never claimed anything to me except higher security and more stability. To this day my Linux box has never been hacked, and both whole-system freezes and single-program freezes are very rare. Plus, if you ask me, this comment shows how much Linux has progressed - as a four-year-old product, you were already willing to give Linux a shot, and for me, when it was a nine-year-old product, I thought it was good enough to switch over. When Windows was thirteen years old (Windows was first released as Interface Manager back in 1985), it still sucked and lacked good security - so much that they had to release two separate versions in the same year because of all the problems, and so much that some people thought even a FREE OS could have better security.
"millions of people would bitch and moan about it. People want to have their cake and eat it too. They want their computer to be secure, but they want total control over their computer too."
First of all, IMO if you want total control over your PC you should be using an open-source system, where you can change every little detail to your heart's desire.
Second of all, MS could just show people how to turn it off. They've expected people to know how to turn it on all this time, can't they just tell people if they don't want auto updates they can turn it off?
"The fact is tons of people run as admin in windows because that how Microsoft made it by default."
My point exactly. And if they allowed you to install programs WITHOUT admin's password (in Linux any program can be compiled and installed by any user - you only need the root password if you want to install it for all users), then maybe people would be a little more cautious when a program requires them to supply admin's password. If most apps could be installed by the user and only needed the admin's password to be installed for ALL users, you might not have this problem since most people only use one account on their computer (and even if they did, they could just install the program on demand). This would be perfect for the completely computer-illiterate people who use Windows.
"Sony's CD would simply say "You must enter your administrator password to view the special feature on this CD", and you can bet that most people would blindly do it, not realizing (or caring about) the potential consequences."
It wouldn't be too hard to make the OS tell you if the program's trying to change important system files, would it? If you have antivirus programs, they will tell you if another program is modifying your boot sector; why can't Windows tell you that a program isn't simply installing itself and needs the admin password to make it so that all users can use the program, and that it's actually trying to modify crucial system files that may cause your PC not to work if they're corrupted or missing.
"Sorry, I never said there weren't any zero day exploits for Windows. There have been (and will be) zero day exploits for every operating system until the end of time. I said there have not been any *worms* that have exploited zero day exploits."
Bill Gates makes more money in an hour than some of us make in a year. If I made as much money as him, I'd gladly donate 70-90% - you simply don't need that much money.
I'm sure Bill Gates, as a person, is very nice. But MS's business practices are questionable, and their products have quite a low "bang for the buck" ratio.
This has nothing to do with the Gateses as people - what they did to help out the people of Africa is great. That has nothing to do with MS.
"No, you don't pull things out of your ass - You regurgitate propaganda that's been fed to you. That's even worse, because propaganda always has a partial truth to it and thus can easily be mistaken for fact. Just because some dude at linuxismygod.com told you so, doesn't make it so. Here's an excersize for you. Go to securityfocus.com or some other security site and compare the amount of vulnerabilities found in IIS6 vs the amount of vulnerabilities found in apache (version 1 or 2, take your pick) in the last two years. Then come back and tell me "Windows has more security holes". Or are you trying compare just the Linux kernel with the entire Windows operating system?"
Actually, contrary to what many believe on/., I DON'T go to Linux propaganda sites, and I have actually never heard of linuxismygod.com. The closest things to a "propaganda site" that I visit are/. and www.linux.org which is actually a Linux news site which is really just a Linux news site that puts Linux news and reviews, both for and against Linux. And Apache is for ALL OS's, isn't it? Plus, a LOT of web servers run Apache, both Linux and otherwise - don't you think that if there was some HUGE vulnerability - for all those exploits of IIS like Code Red and others - SOMEONE would've made a virus for Apache?
Sure, Windows and Linux both have holes, but from what I've seen, Linux holes seem to get fixed a lot quicker.
"But they would use apps like Firefox aned GAIM which from time to time have security flaws. You really missed the point when I made that comparison."
You know what, it's strange, though, that even though Firefox now has - what is it, 10%? - of the browser marketshare -- making it the second most popular browser next to IE -- I still don't think I've heard of more than one actual exploit, and that exploit also affected IE (and was Windows-only). And GAIM users - though GAIM uses the same networks as MSN and AIM - don't get the viruses that people who use MSN Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger do.
"I'm sorry to hear that. That says more about you than it does about windows. If linux was the dominant OS, my bet is you would still get spyware and viruses. Operating systems can't protect you. They can only give you the tools to protect yourself. Right now, the obscurity of desktop linux is protecting you. Since linux will probably never gain much marketshare on the desktop, you should continue to be safe, so enjoy it."
You know, you really piss me off. You seem to assume that I actually downloaded the viruses I got or something. I didn't, I got them through IE. I figured, well, my patches are installed, Norton is updated, I'm good to go. But no.
What do you want me to do, never browse the Web? I wasn't downloading stuff when I got infected. One day I ran my routine Norton scan, it found a virus, I told it to clean it, it said I needed to reboot, and then I rebooted and poof. All gone.
And what's this about the "obscurity of desktop linux" protecting me? Didn't you say earlier that a single shell script or ELF executable would run on almost all Linux/Unix systems?
"Yay for you! Would you like a medal? I used FreeBSD as my desktop for about eight months, but I got a TV tuner card that didn't work with it, so I switched back to Windows. *nix is now relegated to web serving and routing in my house. I don't carry an emotional attachment to operating systems, like some others. They are tools, some more useful for certain applications than others."
Why are you getting so angry? I was stating a mere fact.
My bias against Windows didn't just one day appear, you know. I used to run Windows, too, and liked it. It would crash a bit, but you'd reboot and it'd be okay for a while. And then once the Internet became more common there were all sorts of viruses and stuff. I was perfectly fine with Windows (not perfectly happy with it, but it was OK) until I found out about Linux and discovered how
"You are living in the 90's dude. Outlook and Outlook express are actually very secure email clients nowadays, and won't do shit by default."
No, I'm pretty sure they were exploited in 2000 or 2001. I don't remember exactly when, but it was around when I decided to switch.
" Outlook won't even render regular html email by default."
I bet that looks pretty.
Are you serious? There's a security problem with OE. . . so they disable HTML rendering? Simply not making OE able to handle scripts would've done the trick. But I guess no HTML, no scripts so I guess that's one quick and dirty way to "fix" the problem.
"Regardless, features like these aren't needed. If the program accept user input, it has the potential to be exploited. Again, go look up what a buffer overflow is and what they can do."
The way I understand it, buffer overflows don't even need the user except for him/her to open the file. Any program can have a buffer overflow.
I'm still waiting for one to happen to me, though. If you'd like maybe you could e-mail me some Linux code and we'll see what happens. I've got HTML rendering and "Load images from the Internet" turned on in KMail - it should be interesting to see what happens.
"You also don't have to run as an administrator in Windows. I don't. Right now, I could download all of the viruses in the world and run them and they couldn't do shit to my Windows installation because the account I'm logged on as right now doesn't have the rights."
Depends on how much you're willing to pay. I paid $100 or so for my copy of Windows 98 and it sucked, so I don't see why I should have to pay that much again for XP. That's just too much money if you ask me.
And after all this time, I would certainly hope that they finally got smart enough to not have all users running as admin. Next thing you know, maybe they'll do what the Linux distros do and help them set up an underprivileged account!
"The like I said, be nice and report it. If they ignore you force them to act by releasing a POC on the net."
And if they ignore the POC?
"The Mozilla dev team has done it multiple times since the release of Firefox 1.0."
Has the Mozilla dev team ever rejected any fixes to code? That's what really matters. Now that they're in the spotlight and are under pressure to be better than IE, it's perfectly normal for them to prioritize things. However, I'm sure they haven't rejected anyone's working code fixes to Firefox.
"Because Malware authors today are in it for the money. There is a ton of money to made on owned machines, and peoples' idientities. Weather the dominant platform has a Window a Penquin or an Apple for a mascot means nothing to the people who are out to make money."
So if malware authors are in it for the money, why don't they aim at the corporations with the big money?
Could it be because (gasp!) Windows is easier to hack and they're less likely to get caught hacking Windows?
Contrary to what many seem to think here on/., I don't just pull things out of my ass. I do use actual statistics that I've heard of elsewhere. Windows does have more security holes, and hackers don't just hack Windows because of the money but also because there are plenty of tools on the 'Net for "script kiddies" to use.
"Perhaps. If everyone's grandma started using Linux, it would become a haven for malware, and thus not as appealing as other good free OSs like FreeBSD or Solaris."
But I thought you said that other Unix-type systems would also be vulnerable. . .
A Linux virus is a reason to improve Linux, not abandon it.
"Firefox users are supposedly 'savy' web users yet they continue to click around the net using exteremely vulberable versions."
"Firefox users are supposedly 'savy' web users". Where'd you hear that from?
What browser you use doesn't make you any more or less savvy. Most Firefox users are ordinary users who "heard through the grapevine" that Firefox was more secure (which is true - but it does have vulnerabilities, no software is perfect).
"How exactly are worms like this for linux any different?"
Right. Because I'm sure Grandma uses XML-RPC for her PHP server, AWStats, and Webhints on her DESKTOP Linux PC like all the other DESKTOP Linux users.
When I used Windows, I ALWAYS installed all my patches, updated my software, ran regular spyware and virus checks. . . everything. And I still got spyware and viruses.
I've been using Linux for about 5 or 6 years now (for a while I kept Windows just for games but now I'm all Linux) and have been sitting back laughing when everyone else was worried about "Code Red" and "Netsky" and "BugleBoy" and whatever else. So far I've had NO problems with hackers, viruses, spyware, rootkits. . . nothing. And yet Windows users can't even listen to a music CD without worrying about rootkits anymore.
"Sure, I'll be found out, but not straight away and I can do a lot of damage in the meantime."
No, you can't "do a lot of damage". How do people find out about a Linux app? They hear about it from the Linux sites where the Linux nerds tear them apart and look at their code to analyze it and learn from it. Sure, some misfortunate user might stumble across your code, but it's not likely that they'll ever hear about it unless you trick them into running it - and even then, they might not know how to run/install it.
Plus, you wouldn't believe how hard it is to make an app capture keypresses that occurred in another app. Of course, it can be done, but it's not just as simple as using GetKey() or something.
"The last point you mention, linux getting better as more people use it, I find very hard to believe at all."
No. If you go to a school - any school - and walk into a computer programming class where they're learning, say, C++ or Java. . . 99% guaranteed they'll be learning to do it on a Windows computer. If more students and schools used Linux, there'd be a much higher chance that they'll be learning to do it in Linux. So in effect you actually would have more people programming in Linux (or at least learning to do so).
"The more people switch to linux, the higher the number of absolutely clueless people will be."
The amazing thing about people is that most of them tend to learn from their mistakes. So, while you could do this, many people would find out and learn the hard way from their mistake. After all, even most Windows users have started to wise up about just clicking anything that appears in their inbox - in fact, a good portion of them have even realized that, hey, the last virus they got, they got from IE so maybe it'd be better if they used Firefox or something else.
Slashdot Mirror
Correction: Slashdot has become a new discussion board. It started out as CmdrTaco's own personal blog to post commentary on tech news.
Turning blogs into business? Sounds like another site I know. . . (Hint: it starts with "S" and ends with "lashdot")
Sorry, guys - I think Nintendo got it right in this aspect.
Could be wrong though.
That might not be ALL live does, but it's mostly what it's for.
Playing games together is something that happens more often when you can have many players on one system - same Xbox or PS2, but everyone has their own controller - or a bunch of people on one Xbox that's system-linked to another, or something like that. If everyone had to have their own box, it'd probably happen less often. And while this sort of gaming together may happen more frequently, it's still likely that most of the time gamers play alone in campaign mode.
. . . how do they know how much money drug lords make? Are they somehow monitoring ALL the drug deals and not making a move to stop drug deals that they KNOW ABOUT?
How do they know how many drugs are sold - surely not every drug user or dealer gets busted. . .
"cannot be used (1) for uploading, downloading or streaming of movies, music or games"
There goes the LEGALIZED Napster, iTunes, and Steam.
"with server devices or with host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, Voice over IP (VoIP), automated machine-to-machine connections, or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing"
There goes VoIP, Webcams, RSS feeds, that Windows "remote help" feature, P2P (even for legal downloads, such as through BitTorrent)
"as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections."
There goes making VPN connections.
I wouldn't say it's a scam or "Trojan horse" so much as it is a double-edged sword - sure, it might help for blocking malware, but I would say with 99% certainty that most ISPs would use it to their advantage to block ANYTHING they don't like.
Maybe they'll find a use for it, maybe they never will. However, I think they probably did it more because it's hard to do and has never been done before than any other reason.
How do people know what they look like without looking in a mirror? They aren't born knowing what they look like, and facial features change over time.
Plus, if all the robots were designed the same and all look the same, then how would the robot recognizing key features of its own face help at all - the other robots would have the same "key features", wouldn't they?
Now if only they had this for license plates so they couldn't get a picture of you speeding. . .
Just because your niece changed doesn't mean there is a problem - change is normal. And it's also perfectly normal for kids to want to fit in with the rest of society.
It doesn't matter what OS they switch to so long as they switch (or at least give another OS a try).
No, they aren't. It's just that it's assumed that guys are going to prefer trucks, dinosaurs, or army men or something, and that girls are going to prefer dolls and play makeup. And usually, that's the way it is.
It's instinct - females are typically gentler and more nurturing, and males are typically rougher. That's why if a boy is all alone, he's more likely to play with Ninja Turtles or GI Joe than Barbie and Ken, and why if a girl is all alone she'll probably prefer to play mother to a doll than pull out a bucket of plastic army men and stage a battle.
Not that boys would never play dolls if that's all they had - but if you've ever seen boys play with dolls, they're more likely to play with the Ken doll and race around in the sports car than play with Barbie. Same with girls - seems like if you give a girl a Ninja Turtle she's more likely to make it into a nurturing creature than a crime-fighting superhero.
Not that it's sexist or anything - that's just the way it is. Guys and girls are different, that's all.
Ouch. That's harsh.
While it is too bad that Unix had "Morris", let's not forget that the Internet was still not a very common thing back then and was a much different place than it is today (reminds me of Dave Chappelle's "What if the Internet was a Place" skit :) ). Before the 90's the Internet was still mainly just for universities and research facilities and was a fairly small community. People trusted each other on the Internet more and probably thought that no one would ever even dream of attacking their servers.
"The comparison of the age of windows the age of linux isn't very fair. Linux has been a 32 bit operating system since it's birth in 1991 an it's overall design (a unix type OS) has not changed. Windows started being a true 32 bit OS with NT 4.0 which was released around 94 I believe, ad has absolutely nothng to do, in regards to it's core design, with any of the Windows 9x versions."
What I was doing was trying to project an idea of how much progress has been made. Before Linux, open-source was little more than some guy's idea of how the computer world should be. Now open-source has become a business model for many software companies and is seen to have some real potential.
Open-source programs are made and improved by the people who use them - meaning that they weren't made by a big corporation, but rather by an individual or group of individuals who knew how to code and decided to write a program that suits their purposes. Now, for whatever reason, these groups of hobbyist programmers are giving professional code-writers a run for their money. Which really says something about the inferiority of closed-source and big corporations when they're put up against a group of motivated individuals, many of which aren't even getting paid for their hard work. They may be open-source zealots or groupies or whatever, but they're giving MS a run for its money. And that doesn't seem right that a group of "weekend warriors" is on close to the same level as a high-paid, big-business software company, but it seems like that's the case.
"All of your experience with Windows is with the 9x series which sole purpose was to transition customers over from a DOS based OS's to NT based OSs without breaking compatibility with legacy DOS programs. Obviosuly the transition was a rough one for many, for history has shown (read: Apple's transition from the Apple IIe to the Macintosh) that completely abandoning legacy technology and trying to force your customers straight into a new and improved technology without providing any legacy support is market suicide."
The problem I had. . . was that I had no problem. I didn't need to be babied. I probably could've gotten used to NT just as easily as I got used to 98 - I had been used to Win3.1 and Win95 (I never owned a PC with 95 but I had used them). I used DOS before but by the time I got Win98 all my programs were Windows. I never even heard of NT until later on after I got 98 and the Internet, and I thought that since 98 was newer it was supposed to be better until I heard about the future releases of Win2k and WinME, and why two releases for the same year are somehow different and why one works and one doesn't.
"Something that spreads via an Intenet Explorer exploit requires user to go to a specially crafted web page to get infected. It's still bad, but IE has a very long history of being repeatedly exploited, much like sendmail in the 80's and 90's, so the security conscience probably not even be using it, would they?"
First of all, the exploit probably could have been put into text ads that might appear on "trustworthy" sites - which would then infect you with the virus. Also, people could have put the code into their signatures on user groups a
If you ask me, it's not. I paid good money for both Win98 and Win98 SE, both of which claimed to be made with the Internet in mind and claimed to be secure. If they had the Internet in mind and made it secure, why did they make it with so many Internet security holes?
Linux never claimed anything to me except higher security and more stability. To this day my Linux box has never been hacked, and both whole-system freezes and single-program freezes are very rare. Plus, if you ask me, this comment shows how much Linux has progressed - as a four-year-old product, you were already willing to give Linux a shot, and for me, when it was a nine-year-old product, I thought it was good enough to switch over. When Windows was thirteen years old (Windows was first released as Interface Manager back in 1985), it still sucked and lacked good security - so much that they had to release two separate versions in the same year because of all the problems, and so much that some people thought even a FREE OS could have better security.
"millions of people would bitch and moan about it. People want to have their cake and eat it too. They want their computer to be secure, but they want total control over their computer too."
First of all, IMO if you want total control over your PC you should be using an open-source system, where you can change every little detail to your heart's desire.
Second of all, MS could just show people how to turn it off. They've expected people to know how to turn it on all this time, can't they just tell people if they don't want auto updates they can turn it off?
"The fact is tons of people run as admin in windows because that how Microsoft made it by default."
My point exactly. And if they allowed you to install programs WITHOUT admin's password (in Linux any program can be compiled and installed by any user - you only need the root password if you want to install it for all users), then maybe people would be a little more cautious when a program requires them to supply admin's password. If most apps could be installed by the user and only needed the admin's password to be installed for ALL users, you might not have this problem since most people only use one account on their computer (and even if they did, they could just install the program on demand). This would be perfect for the completely computer-illiterate people who use Windows.
"Sony's CD would simply say "You must enter your administrator password to view the special feature on this CD", and you can bet that most people would blindly do it, not realizing (or caring about) the potential consequences."
It wouldn't be too hard to make the OS tell you if the program's trying to change important system files, would it? If you have antivirus programs, they will tell you if another program is modifying your boot sector; why can't Windows tell you that a program isn't simply installing itself and needs the admin password to make it so that all users can use the program, and that it's actually trying to modify crucial system files that may cause your PC not to work if they're corrupted or missing.
"Sorry, I never said there weren't any zero day exploits for Windows. There have been (and will be) zero day exploits for every operating system until the end of time. I said there have not been any *worms* that have exploited zero day exploits."
Sorry, but Google says otherwise. First item on the page - New Version of MyDoom Worm in Zero-Day Attack.
"The main difference between Windows and other operating
Bill Gates makes more money in an hour than some of us make in a year. If I made as much money as him, I'd gladly donate 70-90% - you simply don't need that much money.
Umm. . . what do you have against the Wall family? The Waltons are the people who own Wal-Mart (you know, Sam Walton - hence the name "Sam's Club").
This has nothing to do with the Gateses as people - what they did to help out the people of Africa is great. That has nothing to do with MS.
Actually, contrary to what many believe on /., I DON'T go to Linux propaganda sites, and I have actually never heard of linuxismygod.com. The closest things to a "propaganda site" that I visit are /. and www.linux.org which is actually a Linux news site which is really just a Linux news site that puts Linux news and reviews, both for and against Linux. And Apache is for ALL OS's, isn't it? Plus, a LOT of web servers run Apache, both Linux and otherwise - don't you think that if there was some HUGE vulnerability - for all those exploits of IIS like Code Red and others - SOMEONE would've made a virus for Apache?
Sure, Windows and Linux both have holes, but from what I've seen, Linux holes seem to get fixed a lot quicker.
"But they would use apps like Firefox aned GAIM which from time to time have security flaws. You really missed the point when I made that comparison."
You know what, it's strange, though, that even though Firefox now has - what is it, 10%? - of the browser marketshare -- making it the second most popular browser next to IE -- I still don't think I've heard of more than one actual exploit, and that exploit also affected IE (and was Windows-only). And GAIM users - though GAIM uses the same networks as MSN and AIM - don't get the viruses that people who use MSN Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger do.
"I'm sorry to hear that. That says more about you than it does about windows. If linux was the dominant OS, my bet is you would still get spyware and viruses. Operating systems can't protect you. They can only give you the tools to protect yourself. Right now, the obscurity of desktop linux is protecting you. Since linux will probably never gain much marketshare on the desktop, you should continue to be safe, so enjoy it."
You know, you really piss me off. You seem to assume that I actually downloaded the viruses I got or something. I didn't, I got them through IE. I figured, well, my patches are installed, Norton is updated, I'm good to go. But no.
What do you want me to do, never browse the Web? I wasn't downloading stuff when I got infected. One day I ran my routine Norton scan, it found a virus, I told it to clean it, it said I needed to reboot, and then I rebooted and poof. All gone.
And what's this about the "obscurity of desktop linux" protecting me? Didn't you say earlier that a single shell script or ELF executable would run on almost all Linux/Unix systems?
"Yay for you! Would you like a medal? I used FreeBSD as my desktop for about eight months, but I got a TV tuner card that didn't work with it, so I switched back to Windows. *nix is now relegated to web serving and routing in my house. I don't carry an emotional attachment to operating systems, like some others. They are tools, some more useful for certain applications than others."
Why are you getting so angry? I was stating a mere fact.
My bias against Windows didn't just one day appear, you know. I used to run Windows, too, and liked it. It would crash a bit, but you'd reboot and it'd be okay for a while. And then once the Internet became more common there were all sorts of viruses and stuff. I was perfectly fine with Windows (not perfectly happy with it, but it was OK) until I found out about Linux and discovered how
No, I'm pretty sure they were exploited in 2000 or 2001. I don't remember exactly when, but it was around when I decided to switch.
" Outlook won't even render regular html email by default."
I bet that looks pretty.
Are you serious? There's a security problem with OE. . . so they disable HTML rendering? Simply not making OE able to handle scripts would've done the trick. But I guess no HTML, no scripts so I guess that's one quick and dirty way to "fix" the problem.
"Regardless, features like these aren't needed. If the program accept user input, it has the potential to be exploited. Again, go look up what a buffer overflow is and what they can do."
The way I understand it, buffer overflows don't even need the user except for him/her to open the file. Any program can have a buffer overflow.
I'm still waiting for one to happen to me, though. If you'd like maybe you could e-mail me some Linux code and we'll see what happens. I've got HTML rendering and "Load images from the Internet" turned on in KMail - it should be interesting to see what happens.
"You also don't have to run as an administrator in Windows. I don't. Right now, I could download all of the viruses in the world and run them and they couldn't do shit to my Windows installation because the account I'm logged on as right now doesn't have the rights."
Depends on how much you're willing to pay. I paid $100 or so for my copy of Windows 98 and it sucked, so I don't see why I should have to pay that much again for XP. That's just too much money if you ask me.
And after all this time, I would certainly hope that they finally got smart enough to not have all users running as admin. Next thing you know, maybe they'll do what the Linux distros do and help them set up an underprivileged account!
And if they ignore the POC?
"The Mozilla dev team has done it multiple times since the release of Firefox 1.0."
Has the Mozilla dev team ever rejected any fixes to code? That's what really matters. Now that they're in the spotlight and are under pressure to be better than IE, it's perfectly normal for them to prioritize things. However, I'm sure they haven't rejected anyone's working code fixes to Firefox.
"Because Malware authors today are in it for the money. There is a ton of money to made on owned machines, and peoples' idientities. Weather the dominant platform has a Window a Penquin or an Apple for a mascot means nothing to the people who are out to make money."
So if malware authors are in it for the money, why don't they aim at the corporations with the big money?
Could it be because (gasp!) Windows is easier to hack and they're less likely to get caught hacking Windows?
Contrary to what many seem to think here on /., I don't just pull things out of my ass. I do use actual statistics that I've heard of elsewhere. Windows does have more security holes, and hackers don't just hack Windows because of the money but also because there are plenty of tools on the 'Net for "script kiddies" to use.
"Perhaps. If everyone's grandma started using Linux, it would become a haven for malware, and thus not as appealing as other good free OSs like FreeBSD or Solaris."
But I thought you said that other Unix-type systems would also be vulnerable. . .
A Linux virus is a reason to improve Linux, not abandon it.
"Firefox users are supposedly 'savy' web users yet they continue to click around the net using exteremely vulberable versions."
"Firefox users are supposedly 'savy' web users". Where'd you hear that from?
What browser you use doesn't make you any more or less savvy. Most Firefox users are ordinary users who "heard through the grapevine" that Firefox was more secure (which is true - but it does have vulnerabilities, no software is perfect).
"How exactly are worms like this for linux any different?"
Right. Because I'm sure Grandma uses XML-RPC for her PHP server, AWStats, and Webhints on her DESKTOP Linux PC like all the other DESKTOP Linux users.
When I used Windows, I ALWAYS installed all my patches, updated my software, ran regular spyware and virus checks. . . everything. And I still got spyware and viruses.
I've been using Linux for about 5 or 6 years now (for a while I kept Windows just for games but now I'm all Linux) and have been sitting back laughing when everyone else was worried about "Code Red" and "Netsky" and "BugleBoy" and whatever else. So far I've had NO problems with hackers, viruses, spyware, rootkits. . . nothing. And yet Windows users can't even listen to a music CD without worrying about rootkits anymore.
No, you can't "do a lot of damage". How do people find out about a Linux app? They hear about it from the Linux sites where the Linux nerds tear them apart and look at their code to analyze it and learn from it. Sure, some misfortunate user might stumble across your code, but it's not likely that they'll ever hear about it unless you trick them into running it - and even then, they might not know how to run/install it.
Plus, you wouldn't believe how hard it is to make an app capture keypresses that occurred in another app. Of course, it can be done, but it's not just as simple as using GetKey() or something.
"The last point you mention, linux getting better as more people use it, I find very hard to believe at all."
No. If you go to a school - any school - and walk into a computer programming class where they're learning, say, C++ or Java. . . 99% guaranteed they'll be learning to do it on a Windows computer. If more students and schools used Linux, there'd be a much higher chance that they'll be learning to do it in Linux. So in effect you actually would have more people programming in Linux (or at least learning to do so).
"The more people switch to linux, the higher the number of absolutely clueless people will be."
The amazing thing about people is that most of them tend to learn from their mistakes. So, while you could do this, many people would find out and learn the hard way from their mistake. After all, even most Windows users have started to wise up about just clicking anything that appears in their inbox - in fact, a good portion of them have even realized that, hey, the last virus they got, they got from IE so maybe it'd be better if they used Firefox or something else.