It is easy to replace the task manager by putting a single check in the menu.
And the only thing missing in my opinion is the 'Network' tab, I only use the task manager for this otherwise I would always use ProceXP (and I was told by Mark Russinovich this will be added sometime in the near future).
P.S. In my personal opinion Mark Russinovich is the *only* person at Microsoft who has any idea of what makes Windows actually tick... To any sysadmin he should be the hero that makes life a little easier.
The problem is the cost of the special made-in-USA-color-electron-microscope, they have to check each byte to see if it contains red, white and blue electrons.
You seem to be under the impression that the war (on drugs) has anything to do with logical reasoning...
It's a great idea though, and I bet it will in fact work *and* be cheaper.
If you study movies, Star Wars: A New Hope, must be included. It MIGHT be a simple story but its impact on society was enormous. If it had not been for Star Wars we would never have had Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but rather a new series. (Okay, so that is another thing we can blame lucas for).
If you study movies "The Hidden Fortress" must be included (see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051808/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Fortress).
This was the basis for the simple story of Star Wars: A New Hope... Although the movie is black and white and 2 decades older I found it very entertaining, and the parallels with Star Wars are obvious.
Real hardware backdoors should be in the chipset and/or CPU, they have access to both the USB and the LAN... no software firewall could ever block that... but the backdoor communication would still be very detectable!
As some have already pointed out also programmers have to trust work from unknown others:
- You have to trust your OS (unless you build one yourself)
- You have to trust your compiler (unless you create one yourself in assembler code)
- You have to trust your editor (unless you use punch-cards and create everything in binary yourself)
- You have to trust your hardware including the microcode (unless you design and build your own logic circuits)
It goes down many levels... and even *IF* you manage to build a complete computer, editor, compiler and a secure OS on top of it with all your needed apps also completely built for yourself... How do you know your own code does not contain flaws that leave you exposed? Especially if one man creates all this in a lifetime the chances of this all being bug free are zero!
You have to trust something, and I suppose there are levels of trust... You can at least trust the top-secret government backdoors in all hardware and software probably won't be used against you for some trivial purpose, since using them means exposing them, and exposing them means the game is over for that particular backdoor. If a government manages to get hidden backdoors into a large amount of computers their top priority will be to keep it hidden for as long as possible (possibly forever).
This level of basic trust in your hardware (mostly) should be the same for all users / programmers / and probably even presidents... If there is topsecret stuff involved assume everything is already compromised, and try to detect and prevent the actual leak to be able to expose the backdoor...
Think about this factor: if they keep record of the DNA and fingerprints of almost everyone, the usefulness will go down... If everyone is registered theoretically you would have no crime, since the detection should be 100%. But we all know that won't happen, crime will continue and smart people will find new ways to circumvent the fingerprint or DNA detection... I even read an article recently that DNA can be faked now (the tested markers), so you can impersonate any unlucky fuck. If you can prove that dozens of entities (including the government, hospital, insurance company and Disney) had (and probably have) access to this data, it can't be guaranteed that DNA or a fingerprint identifies you 100% anymore.
I have no problem with my fingerprint being registered somewhere for access purposes, it's useful. But since fingerprints can be faked even a fingerprint scan of me entering the secure area does not prove it was me entering... The simple fact is that the more people are registered the less reliable the detection rate will be!
The biggest problem is: the courts will probably blindly convict people on the basis of fingerprints and DNA even years after widespread abuse becomes commonplace... a lot of people will go to jail innocently before they will realize relying on these detection methods for 100% is deeply flawed. And guess what; the battle against this stupidity has already started: http://www.innocenceproject.org/
Information doesn't kill people. Informed people kill people!
Correction: Information doesn't kill people. Informed people abuse mis-informed people to kill people!
The greatest struggle of humanity in the recent past and coming future was and will be the struggle against mis-information... When the enemy uses it they are 'crazed terrorist-supporting liars', and when your own government does it it's 'justified propaganda'...
In the end everyone lies, and everyone is manipulated.
"You can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all the time..."
Hmmm... does "Slashdot reader" also constitute a 'sexual orientation and/or gender identity'?:-)
My non-scientific list of common gender-identities in least-to-most discriminated order:
- Heterosexuals
- Hot lesbians
- Bisexual women
- Metrosexuals
- Feminist lesbians
- Homosexuals (male)
- Bisexual males
- Fetishists / 'Deviant' sexuals
- Slashdot reader (virgins)
Since roughly 50% of the population sexually discriminates against the average Slashdot reader you have reached the bottom of the list... Please report anyone that deserves to suffer for this grave injustice.;-)
Scaring large groups of the population by threatening to report them for a terrorism-related fate of certain doom could in itself be considered an act of terrorism... Maybe not by the standards of the 2000 and 2006 laws, but surely by the future 2012 law am I required to proactively report your attempted terrorism on "slashdot.org".
I sense a disturbance in the force, as if millions of batteries cried out 'Windows 7 be damned' and bricked themselves.
From statistical viewpoint you have a valid argument, but remember: it's all just "Lies, damned lies, and statistics".
Or a more Homer-esque quote: "People can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.".:)
It only shows that warnings are never heeded when coming from the insiders and professionals. It takes global companies and several countries to ring the bell for MS to step up and patch exploits faster...
It's not really news that lots of exploits could (and probably were) abused for espionage (both corporate and international). But only now that 'teh evil chinese' are happily hacking along some action is taken.
This is exactly the kind of problem that could be avoided by listening to security experts.
Thanks M$ for giving a crap about the security of users, companies and countries... You're a few years too late stepping up the game, but please keep it up, we might as well have security as an afterthought instead of no security at all.
Sound like you get it...:) There is no movie style right and wrong... and as soon as people realize that no country/person is perfect and the only real change is change from within some real difference can be made.
A sidenote: I'd say that is exactly what the Obama election did: change people's mindset about the infallibility of the US, and show that when you change and improve *yourself* you improve the world... not the other way around. I have some hope for the US in the future now!
China (or any other country) doing something you do not agree with does not imply in any way that other governments (and especially the US for all you US-centered people) are any better or worse. In fact the statement should be like a mirror for the US, it only reads a little different in my opinion:
US to everyone: "Listen to us and obey our laws, even though they do not apply to us and we will abuse this power against our citizens and yours. Corporations are a different matter, donations here please...";-)
China to Google: "Listen to us and obey our laws, even though they do not apply to us and we will abuse this power against your company and your users."
Even worse is that Google probably fears their technology will fall in the hands of the Chinese who will just build an alternative google *exacly* as they like it, and not like before with 'cooperation' from google. This way China wins and Google is left without a market in China at all, leaving with a damaged reputation for 'helping' the Chinese oppression and gaining nothing in the end... Pulling out is the wise thing to do, but not on their own. They have only said 'until here and no further', if Google moves out of China it will be because China makes them, and then Google is the hero of the story and China will be the party losing face.
You agree that religious organizations are hypocritical, it is a consequence of the old 'power corrupts' law of life. But even on a personal level hypocrisy can be stimulated despite the good message of Christ himself.
The human mind can be trained to have double standards exactly by the cognitive dissonance that occurs when you are confronted with a conflict in your beliefs (for example that the earth is roughly 6000 years old) and facts (well, that it's obviously much much older)... So it's not the essence of the teachings causing this, but a byproduct of a very old world view. So there is no problem with the teachings of christ, only with how seriously and literally people take old scripture, because too much 'doublethink' trying to fit it all together will not do you any good. The message is good, but in reality people are quite arbitrary in the messages they actually 'live'.
A good quote to illustrate this is from Ghandi:
"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
You seem to forget the factor of hypocrisy. This strange behavior evolved exactly to give yourself advantage by preaching one thing and then doing another... I'd say most religions thrive with exactly this behavior (it's one of religions strongest point to always be able to claim one thing and do another without anyone questioning it)!
Before you say it's just a couple extremist people consider the fact that papal doctrine (or whatever the term for plans created by a man who says he is the #1 representative of god) kills far more people than deaths by terrorism, war and car-crashes combined...
In the netherlands we also have ID's that need to be refreshed every 5 years... but these things are already getting very complex, they have all kinds of hard-to-copy features like holographic images etc., the EU already added biometrics to new passports with chips that store all your info (supposedly 'easily' faked by the way) and they engrave your photo in it with a laser...
I'd say that getting that chip (already in the card) signed is they smallest step in the entire process of creating that card, it will probably cost around 5 cent more per card and hardly be a hassle.
- You can let the new card generate their own keypair and spit out the public one for signing by the government (no cheating there unless the cards hardware has some backdoor).
- You can let people get their own card at city hall by having it signed in a device disconnected from any communication, without any storage, only containing their private key (no cheating unless the device has some backdoor).
I know there must be enought ways to make this work... *technically*... but even if technically everything is trustworthy you are nowhere further because the goverment can't be trusted and could pull some trick out of their sleeve.
You call it unachievable, but it's only unachievable to the unimaginative... If the goverment is the one pissing over every solution that will actually add some safety and does not censor the people or create artificial inequalities the problem might be the government... not the technology. So i'd say you're barking up the wrong tree... Oppose the people trying to oppress you!
Slashdot Mirror
[...] who are in favor of drug use, rape, zoo sex and child abuse [...]
Anyone who ever read 4chan /b/ can attest to that. ;-)
It is easy to replace the task manager by putting a single check in the menu.
And the only thing missing in my opinion is the 'Network' tab, I only use the task manager for this otherwise I would always use ProceXP (and I was told by Mark Russinovich this will be added sometime in the near future).
P.S. In my personal opinion Mark Russinovich is the *only* person at Microsoft who has any idea of what makes Windows actually tick... To any sysadmin he should be the hero that makes life a little easier.
The problem is the cost of the special made-in-USA-color-electron-microscope, they have to check each byte to see if it contains red, white and blue electrons.
You seem to be under the impression that the war (on drugs) has anything to do with logical reasoning...
It's a great idea though, and I bet it will in fact work *and* be cheaper.
If you study movies, Star Wars: A New Hope, must be included. It MIGHT be a simple story but its impact on society was enormous. If it had not been for Star Wars we would never have had Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but rather a new series. (Okay, so that is another thing we can blame lucas for).
If you study movies "The Hidden Fortress" must be included (see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051808/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Fortress).
This was the basis for the simple story of Star Wars: A New Hope... Although the movie is black and white and 2 decades older I found it very entertaining, and the parallels with Star Wars are obvious.
Now this is finally a bet worthy of http://www.longbets.org/
Real hardware backdoors should be in the chipset and/or CPU, they have access to both the USB and the LAN... no software firewall could ever block that... but the backdoor communication would still be very detectable!
As some have already pointed out also programmers have to trust work from unknown others:
- You have to trust your OS (unless you build one yourself)
- You have to trust your compiler (unless you create one yourself in assembler code)
- You have to trust your editor (unless you use punch-cards and create everything in binary yourself)
- You have to trust your hardware including the microcode (unless you design and build your own logic circuits)
It goes down many levels... and even *IF* you manage to build a complete computer, editor, compiler and a secure OS on top of it with all your needed apps also completely built for yourself... How do you know your own code does not contain flaws that leave you exposed? Especially if one man creates all this in a lifetime the chances of this all being bug free are zero!
You have to trust something, and I suppose there are levels of trust... You can at least trust the top-secret government backdoors in all hardware and software probably won't be used against you for some trivial purpose, since using them means exposing them, and exposing them means the game is over for that particular backdoor. If a government manages to get hidden backdoors into a large amount of computers their top priority will be to keep it hidden for as long as possible (possibly forever).
This level of basic trust in your hardware (mostly) should be the same for all users / programmers / and probably even presidents... If there is topsecret stuff involved assume everything is already compromised, and try to detect and prevent the actual leak to be able to expose the backdoor...
Think about this factor: if they keep record of the DNA and fingerprints of almost everyone, the usefulness will go down... If everyone is registered theoretically you would have no crime, since the detection should be 100%. But we all know that won't happen, crime will continue and smart people will find new ways to circumvent the fingerprint or DNA detection... I even read an article recently that DNA can be faked now (the tested markers), so you can impersonate any unlucky fuck. If you can prove that dozens of entities (including the government, hospital, insurance company and Disney) had (and probably have) access to this data, it can't be guaranteed that DNA or a fingerprint identifies you 100% anymore.
I have no problem with my fingerprint being registered somewhere for access purposes, it's useful. But since fingerprints can be faked even a fingerprint scan of me entering the secure area does not prove it was me entering...
The simple fact is that the more people are registered the less reliable the detection rate will be!
The biggest problem is: the courts will probably blindly convict people on the basis of fingerprints and DNA even years after widespread abuse becomes commonplace... a lot of people will go to jail innocently before they will realize relying on these detection methods for 100% is deeply flawed. And guess what; the battle against this stupidity has already started: http://www.innocenceproject.org/
Information doesn't kill people. Informed people kill people!
Correction: Information doesn't kill people. Informed people abuse mis-informed people to kill people!
The greatest struggle of humanity in the recent past and coming future was and will be the struggle against mis-information... When the enemy uses it they are 'crazed terrorist-supporting liars', and when your own government does it it's 'justified propaganda'...
In the end everyone lies, and everyone is manipulated.
"You can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all the time..."
It makes you wonder if writing a story like this would still be legal today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta
sexual orientation or gender identity
Hmmm... does "Slashdot reader" also constitute a 'sexual orientation and/or gender identity'? :-)
;-)
My non-scientific list of common gender-identities in least-to-most discriminated order:
- Heterosexuals
- Hot lesbians
- Bisexual women
- Metrosexuals
- Feminist lesbians
- Homosexuals (male)
- Bisexual males
- Fetishists / 'Deviant' sexuals
- Slashdot reader (virgins)
Since roughly 50% of the population sexually discriminates against the average Slashdot reader you have reached the bottom of the list... Please report anyone that deserves to suffer for this grave injustice.
Haha, nice! The response at that URL sums it up perfectly. :-)
Scaring large groups of the population by threatening to report them for a terrorism-related fate of certain doom could in itself be considered an act of terrorism... Maybe not by the standards of the 2000 and 2006 laws, but surely by the future 2012 law am I required to proactively report your attempted terrorism on "slashdot.org".
I sense a disturbance in the force, as if millions of batteries cried out 'Windows 7 be damned' and bricked themselves.
:)
From statistical viewpoint you have a valid argument, but remember: it's all just "Lies, damned lies, and statistics".
Or a more Homer-esque quote: "People can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.".
Virtual numbers are very useful, but nowhere to be found on the site. Do you have an URL?
It only shows that warnings are never heeded when coming from the insiders and professionals. It takes global companies and several countries to ring the bell for MS to step up and patch exploits faster...
It's not really news that lots of exploits could (and probably were) abused for espionage (both corporate and international). But only now that 'teh evil chinese' are happily hacking along some action is taken.
This is exactly the kind of problem that could be avoided by listening to security experts.
Thanks M$ for giving a crap about the security of users, companies and countries... You're a few years too late stepping up the game, but please keep it up, we might as well have security as an afterthought instead of no security at all.
Sound like you get it... :) There is no movie style right and wrong... and as soon as people realize that no country/person is perfect and the only real change is change from within some real difference can be made.
A sidenote: I'd say that is exactly what the Obama election did: change people's mindset about the infallibility of the US, and show that when you change and improve *yourself* you improve the world... not the other way around. I have some hope for the US in the future now!
China (or any other country) doing something you do not agree with does not imply in any way that other governments (and especially the US for all you US-centered people) are any better or worse. In fact the statement should be like a mirror for the US, it only reads a little different in my opinion:
;-)
US to everyone: "Listen to us and obey our laws, even though they do not apply to us and we will abuse this power against our citizens and yours. Corporations are a different matter, donations here please..."
I highly doubt any core Google IP is developed in China... They are very protective of their software (algorithms).
China to Google: "Listen to us and obey our laws, even though they do not apply to us and we will abuse this power against your company and your users."
Even worse is that Google probably fears their technology will fall in the hands of the Chinese who will just build an alternative google *exacly* as they like it, and not like before with 'cooperation' from google. This way China wins and Google is left without a market in China at all, leaving with a damaged reputation for 'helping' the Chinese oppression and gaining nothing in the end... Pulling out is the wise thing to do, but not on their own. They have only said 'until here and no further', if Google moves out of China it will be because China makes them, and then Google is the hero of the story and China will be the party losing face.
You agree that religious organizations are hypocritical, it is a consequence of the old 'power corrupts' law of life. But even on a personal level hypocrisy can be stimulated despite the good message of Christ himself.
The human mind can be trained to have double standards exactly by the cognitive dissonance that occurs when you are confronted with a conflict in your beliefs (for example that the earth is roughly 6000 years old) and facts (well, that it's obviously much much older)... So it's not the essence of the teachings causing this, but a byproduct of a very old world view. So there is no problem with the teachings of christ, only with how seriously and literally people take old scripture, because too much 'doublethink' trying to fit it all together will not do you any good. The message is good, but in reality people are quite arbitrary in the messages they actually 'live'.
A good quote to illustrate this is from Ghandi: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
You seem to forget the factor of hypocrisy. This strange behavior evolved exactly to give yourself advantage by preaching one thing and then doing another... I'd say most religions thrive with exactly this behavior (it's one of religions strongest point to always be able to claim one thing and do another without anyone questioning it)!
Before you say it's just a couple extremist people consider the fact that papal doctrine (or whatever the term for plans created by a man who says he is the #1 representative of god) kills far more people than deaths by terrorism, war and car-crashes combined...
In the netherlands we also have ID's that need to be refreshed every 5 years... but these things are already getting very complex, they have all kinds of hard-to-copy features like holographic images etc., the EU already added biometrics to new passports with chips that store all your info (supposedly 'easily' faked by the way) and they engrave your photo in it with a laser...
I'd say that getting that chip (already in the card) signed is they smallest step in the entire process of creating that card, it will probably cost around 5 cent more per card and hardly be a hassle.
- You can let the new card generate their own keypair and spit out the public one for signing by the government (no cheating there unless the cards hardware has some backdoor).
- You can let people get their own card at city hall by having it signed in a device disconnected from any communication, without any storage, only containing their private key (no cheating unless the device has some backdoor).
I know there must be enought ways to make this work... *technically*... but even if technically everything is trustworthy you are nowhere further because the goverment can't be trusted and could pull some trick out of their sleeve.
You call it unachievable, but it's only unachievable to the unimaginative... If the goverment is the one pissing over every solution that will actually add some safety and does not censor the people or create artificial inequalities the problem might be the government... not the technology. So i'd say you're barking up the wrong tree... Oppose the people trying to oppress you!