Offline mode still works. If not that, users should ask themselves if they are ethically and morally OK with pirating copies of games they legitimately own.
But it's been 17 years. MS does not support those versions of Windows any more. The writing has been on the wall for years. It's time to upgrade.
That doesn't make sense. You agree that Valve should not have to support an OS that came out 17 years ago, and then claim they should continue to support the OS that came out 17 years ago. That is literally what "support" means: "ensure it keeps working". Valve has been working on a complete rework of their client UI, the first piece of which just came out in beta. They will have to update every part of the client ultimately. And it is probably related to the announcement they're dropping support for XP/Vista. Only adding new features for 7 and up? The whole UI is a new feature. There literally will not be an old feature left for XP to run.
It could be exploited without a direct connection by spoofing the source IP address of a server the client is already talking to and generating a reasonable fake packet matching others recently received by the client. So if you could get access to hardware between the client/server you could exploit this on the client.
When IE6 came out, I seem to recall MS publicly stating they were ceasing development of IE. Unsurprisingly, once Firefox came out and started decimating their market share, they started up again.
The basic form of this problem was solved long ago by using user accounts and permissions to give everyone their own preferences and storage spaces and dictate who has access to what resources. It just needs to be extended to these assistant devices by using voice recognition. Then any attack would have to be personalized for you which solves any attack trying to throw a wide net. Personalized attacks would have to be addressed by having the assistant verify it sounds like a real voice by a previously-identifed user and not a synthetic voice that's been shifted into an inaudible range or whatever.
Yeah, it is in Google's best interest to not announce it and to just pass it off as human if they can possibly do so. If the person is told something unexpected (if they don't know what Google Assistant is) they may very well get confused, or may insist on not dealing with it. Then Google Assistant has already failed ad that call. And if it fails at enough calls users will stop using this function entirely as it is unreliable. The reliability of Google Duplex requires the people it talks to to be just as reliable as the Google Assistant end. Sometimes the best way to accomplish that is to Keep It Simple. No need to communicate details that are ultimately irrelevant.
Of course, as others have pointed out there might be legal aspects to this, such as recording laws and laws about robocalls. I can't speak to those.
Keep in mind some loot box systems give players items you can't get any other way. So "Time is money" would not apply to those cases. But, I would say that money is too narrow a definition for gambling... you can gamble for anything valuable to you, even digital items that cost nothing to produce* and have no assigned monetary value.
* - Yes, there are typically labor costs involved, but one time labor costs divided over a near-infinite quality of items is as close to 0 as you're going to get.
Yup. JS is, if anything, a bit better than other languages since you CAN go through the source code of packages you install. The only thing that keeps it from being better in this regard is that node can have native modules which are binary blobs, and so you won't be able to tell what those are doing, same as libraries you might link to in other languages.
The main problem with trying to detect if a program is compiling code dynamically is there are legitimate reasons to do it.
I made an app once with the goal of allowing me to map Wii Remote functionality to PC controls. To make it dynamic, I wanted a scripting engine. Since.NET can compile code at runtime, and I was making my app in.NET, it made sense to make the scripting in.NET as well. Worked pretty well!
I could see a game engine using this capability or one like it to power its own scripting language. It really helps when the programmers making game scripts don't have to compile the logic into the full game engine every time they change something. Currently.NET is slower than native so this isn't really done. Unity uses.NET, but not sure if the implementation they use with Mono has this capability or not.
Why do you think it was obviously faulty? "Higher than normal percentage of BSoDs" sounds to me like it takes into account BSoDs caused by non-Microsoft software and drivers. Microsoft can't be expected to hold up a release until they fix everyone else's buggy code. Using simple statistical analysis they determined that the % of BSoDs was higher in the new build, meaning there was likely a BSoD bug present in their own code, which they then rightly sought out to fix.
I think the original idea of the stickers was to keep users from mucking around in their own devices trying to fix something and just breaking it worse. So the warranty would be voided in those cases. But I am sure plenty of companies use that excuse to also block third-party repairs since they too would have to break the seal.
For the rare occasion where I write a batch file like that I use 127.255.255.255... it always fails by timing out (so you can specify a timeout to control batch delay) and it only uses the localhost virtual network adapter so you're not spamming over the LAN or internet.
Your questions are all answered in the Steam EULA. I would imagine Steam does have the legal right to DRM lock your games just like any other DRM, since you agreed to it with the Steam EULA. If you change your mind you are welcome to walk away but you don't "own" your games outright. Perhaps the courts will eventually decide that if you buy something you do indeed expect to own it and companies trying to subtly change the definition of ownership to licensing is misleading and unethical. But that hasn't happened yet.
It should also be noted you and Steam are not the only entities involved here. Third party publishers have their own agreements with Steam. Steam can't just give you un-DRMed copies of games (unless ordered to by the courts as you suggest) due to these agreements, even if Steam dissolves (before third party games were on Steam Valve said if Steam failed they would remove the DRM from their games in a final update. It is not clear if this would apply to third-party games but I doubt it... it would need to be part of Steam's contracts with publishers). Plus, third-party publishers sometimes put their own DRM on top of Steam's. Steam has no way to remove this DRM even if the courts order them to.
Perhaps Google looked at how Microsoft used to handle options relating to Windows Updates and how many Windows PCs ended up in botnets due to being unpatched.
The way Windows 10 handles updates may be annoying but also entirely understandable...
YouTube could mitigate this by linking to specific revisions of the articles. So it will deincentivize people to vandalize them snice YouTubers won't see it.
Well the problem with folder sizes is that to take the size of the folder you have to take the sizes of all the files in the folder. The more files there are, the more work this takes, and then you're doing a lot of disk I/O just to list a folder listing for folder sizes which you might not even want. It make sense for them to be hidden in the properties dialog where you have to intentionally open it to see the folder size.
One obvious solution is to cache the sizes and update them whenever a file changes, so they are always ready the go. This is great except it just takes one time for an OS which does not support folder sizes (eg pre-Windows 10, or older versions of Windows 10) accessing the drive directly and your caches are not only wrong, but won't fix themselves since noticing the cache is wrong would require Windows to count all the files, which we don't want it to do. At that point you can't trust the folder sizes anyway so they're useless!
Folder sizes would be great but it seems like something that would need to be introduced as a core part of a new filesystem to ensure any OS that uses it doesn't screw up the folder sizes.
The installer keeps the old Windows 7 install backed up locally so it can be restored if there's a problem with the upgrade. AFAIK there are only a few cases where it is removed::
1. You run Disk Cleanup inside of the upgraded Windows and remove the data.
2.. After some period of time the backup is removed as it is presumed the upgrade is working for the you, as you have not tried to restore the backup but have been using the upgraded PC.
3. You reinstall Windows 10, whereupon it, again, backs up your current Windows install to the backup folder, blowing away whatever is already there (found this out myself). I know this applies to Windows 10 major updates to Windows 10, I assume it also applies to upgrading from Windows 7 but I am not 100% sure.
In the first two cases, your Windows MUST be functional in order for those deletions to occur in the first place. In the latter, you're now taking technical steps to resolve your problem outside of what Microsoft would recommend you do (restore from the backup it made) and while I suppose there's some wiggle room as the replacement of the backup might be unexpected if you don't think it through, I think it's reasonable to say you've got to take some responsibility for monkeying with things trying to fix it but making it worse.
You seem to misunderstand. The entire thing from Microsoft is the part with the flaw. The way this works is something else would get you infected with malware, which would then leverage Skype's update process to gain administrative access to your system silently.
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Offline mode still works. If not that, users should ask themselves if they are ethically and morally OK with pirating copies of games they legitimately own.
But it's been 17 years. MS does not support those versions of Windows any more. The writing has been on the wall for years. It's time to upgrade.
That doesn't make sense. You agree that Valve should not have to support an OS that came out 17 years ago, and then claim they should continue to support the OS that came out 17 years ago. That is literally what "support" means: "ensure it keeps working". Valve has been working on a complete rework of their client UI, the first piece of which just came out in beta. They will have to update every part of the client ultimately. And it is probably related to the announcement they're dropping support for XP/Vista. Only adding new features for 7 and up? The whole UI is a new feature. There literally will not be an old feature left for XP to run.
They aren't going to stop it completely from running, Windows will because it won't understand the Windows 7 API calls it will be using.
It could be exploited without a direct connection by spoofing the source IP address of a server the client is already talking to and generating a reasonable fake packet matching others recently received by the client. So if you could get access to hardware between the client/server you could exploit this on the client.
More details here: https://www.contextis.com/blog/frag-grenade-a-remote-code-execution-vulnerability-in-the-steam-client
When IE6 came out, I seem to recall MS publicly stating they were ceasing development of IE. Unsurprisingly, once Firefox came out and started decimating their market share, they started up again.
The basic form of this problem was solved long ago by using user accounts and permissions to give everyone their own preferences and storage spaces and dictate who has access to what resources. It just needs to be extended to these assistant devices by using voice recognition. Then any attack would have to be personalized for you which solves any attack trying to throw a wide net. Personalized attacks would have to be addressed by having the assistant verify it sounds like a real voice by a previously-identifed user and not a synthetic voice that's been shifted into an inaudible range or whatever.
Yeah, it is in Google's best interest to not announce it and to just pass it off as human if they can possibly do so. If the person is told something unexpected (if they don't know what Google Assistant is) they may very well get confused, or may insist on not dealing with it. Then Google Assistant has already failed ad that call. And if it fails at enough calls users will stop using this function entirely as it is unreliable. The reliability of Google Duplex requires the people it talks to to be just as reliable as the Google Assistant end. Sometimes the best way to accomplish that is to Keep It Simple. No need to communicate details that are ultimately irrelevant.
Of course, as others have pointed out there might be legal aspects to this, such as recording laws and laws about robocalls. I can't speak to those.
Keep in mind some loot box systems give players items you can't get any other way. So "Time is money" would not apply to those cases. But, I would say that money is too narrow a definition for gambling... you can gamble for anything valuable to you, even digital items that cost nothing to produce* and have no assigned monetary value.
* - Yes, there are typically labor costs involved, but one time labor costs divided over a near-infinite quality of items is as close to 0 as you're going to get.
Yup. JS is, if anything, a bit better than other languages since you CAN go through the source code of packages you install. The only thing that keeps it from being better in this regard is that node can have native modules which are binary blobs, and so you won't be able to tell what those are doing, same as libraries you might link to in other languages.
So I guess we should just give up on Linux with yum, rpm, and apt?
Also nuget for .NET stuff but Linux makes a better example.
The main problem with trying to detect if a program is compiling code dynamically is there are legitimate reasons to do it.
I made an app once with the goal of allowing me to map Wii Remote functionality to PC controls. To make it dynamic, I wanted a scripting engine. Since .NET can compile code at runtime, and I was making my app in .NET, it made sense to make the scripting in .NET as well. Worked pretty well!
I could see a game engine using this capability or one like it to power its own scripting language. It really helps when the programmers making game scripts don't have to compile the logic into the full game engine every time they change something. Currently .NET is slower than native so this isn't really done. Unity uses .NET, but not sure if the implementation they use with Mono has this capability or not.
Why do you think it was obviously faulty? "Higher than normal percentage of BSoDs" sounds to me like it takes into account BSoDs caused by non-Microsoft software and drivers. Microsoft can't be expected to hold up a release until they fix everyone else's buggy code. Using simple statistical analysis they determined that the % of BSoDs was higher in the new build, meaning there was likely a BSoD bug present in their own code, which they then rightly sought out to fix.
I think the original idea of the stickers was to keep users from mucking around in their own devices trying to fix something and just breaking it worse. So the warranty would be voided in those cases. But I am sure plenty of companies use that excuse to also block third-party repairs since they too would have to break the seal.
Meh, that happens to me with any new topic I watch. Usually takes 2-3 videos for it to kick in and flood my recommended playlist though.
For the rare occasion where I write a batch file like that I use 127.255.255.255... it always fails by timing out (so you can specify a timeout to control batch delay) and it only uses the localhost virtual network adapter so you're not spamming over the LAN or internet.
Your questions are all answered in the Steam EULA. I would imagine Steam does have the legal right to DRM lock your games just like any other DRM, since you agreed to it with the Steam EULA. If you change your mind you are welcome to walk away but you don't "own" your games outright. Perhaps the courts will eventually decide that if you buy something you do indeed expect to own it and companies trying to subtly change the definition of ownership to licensing is misleading and unethical. But that hasn't happened yet.
It should also be noted you and Steam are not the only entities involved here. Third party publishers have their own agreements with Steam. Steam can't just give you un-DRMed copies of games (unless ordered to by the courts as you suggest) due to these agreements, even if Steam dissolves (before third party games were on Steam Valve said if Steam failed they would remove the DRM from their games in a final update. It is not clear if this would apply to third-party games but I doubt it... it would need to be part of Steam's contracts with publishers). Plus, third-party publishers sometimes put their own DRM on top of Steam's. Steam has no way to remove this DRM even if the courts order them to.
Perhaps Google looked at how Microsoft used to handle options relating to Windows Updates and how many Windows PCs ended up in botnets due to being unpatched.
The way Windows 10 handles updates may be annoying but also entirely understandable...
.NET Core and Xamarin allow use of C# on other platforms.
It tests using Netflix so you can compare to other speed testers.
https://fast.com/
...this airtight hatchway."
"Yes, all the flaws require admin [privileges] but all are flaws, not expected functionality."
Relevant: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ablogs.msdn.com%2Fb%2Foldnewthing%2F+%22airtight+hatchway%22
If there is no privilege escalation, they are not security flaws, just boring ol' bugs.
YouTube could mitigate this by linking to specific revisions of the articles. So it will deincentivize people to vandalize them snice YouTubers won't see it.
Well the problem with folder sizes is that to take the size of the folder you have to take the sizes of all the files in the folder. The more files there are, the more work this takes, and then you're doing a lot of disk I/O just to list a folder listing for folder sizes which you might not even want. It make sense for them to be hidden in the properties dialog where you have to intentionally open it to see the folder size.
One obvious solution is to cache the sizes and update them whenever a file changes, so they are always ready the go. This is great except it just takes one time for an OS which does not support folder sizes (eg pre-Windows 10, or older versions of Windows 10) accessing the drive directly and your caches are not only wrong, but won't fix themselves since noticing the cache is wrong would require Windows to count all the files, which we don't want it to do. At that point you can't trust the folder sizes anyway so they're useless!
Folder sizes would be great but it seems like something that would need to be introduced as a core part of a new filesystem to ensure any OS that uses it doesn't screw up the folder sizes.
You can skip validation at install time and validate later once Windows is fully installed and booted. It will be able to validate online then.
The installer keeps the old Windows 7 install backed up locally so it can be restored if there's a problem with the upgrade. AFAIK there are only a few cases where it is removed::
1. You run Disk Cleanup inside of the upgraded Windows and remove the data.
2.. After some period of time the backup is removed as it is presumed the upgrade is working for the you, as you have not tried to restore the backup but have been using the upgraded PC.
3. You reinstall Windows 10, whereupon it, again, backs up your current Windows install to the backup folder, blowing away whatever is already there (found this out myself). I know this applies to Windows 10 major updates to Windows 10, I assume it also applies to upgrading from Windows 7 but I am not 100% sure.
In the first two cases, your Windows MUST be functional in order for those deletions to occur in the first place. In the latter, you're now taking technical steps to resolve your problem outside of what Microsoft would recommend you do (restore from the backup it made) and while I suppose there's some wiggle room as the replacement of the backup might be unexpected if you don't think it through, I think it's reasonable to say you've got to take some responsibility for monkeying with things trying to fix it but making it worse.
You seem to misunderstand. The entire thing from Microsoft is the part with the flaw. The way this works is something else would get you infected with malware, which would then leverage Skype's update process to gain administrative access to your system silently.