It took Sun a full five years to solve these issues with Solaris.
Solved? We should be so lucky. Things are far from solved. If Sun had released Solaris under the GPL, that would be good and done. Instead, it's under their own CDDL, which isn't easily compatible with the far-more-common GPL. This leads to issues for interesting projects like GNU/Solaris (Nexenta), which should have been quickly welcomed by the Open Source community. Instead, Sun's choice of the CDDL makes things complicated where they shouldn't be.
So, in short, I would not say that Sun 'solved' these 'problems' with Solaris, and I sincerely hope they do a better job with Java.
I'm not sure if it's a far-fetched theory, or just presented poorly, but consider this quote from TFA:
"The [snakes] had to do something to get better at finding their prey, so that's where venom comes in," Isbell said.
Venom helps snakes find their prey? (Yes, I am sure it's an honest mistake, but when presenting a radical theory, you'd better be careful what you say.)
I guess it sucks if your business requires some esoteric feature in Microsoft's expensive and proprietary office software, but it is outright incompetence for any CTO to not have migrated, in the process of migrating, or planning on migrating their workers to OpenOffice at this point.
Personally, I use OpenOffice, but from what I hear it's not that easy to use OpenOffice for many corporations. Some people I know are in the process of building a tech company, and they wanted to use OpenOffice, both because of the cost and because of the security. But some testing revealed that a single feature made that impossible for them: 'track changes' worked fine in OO, but opening a document from Office with change tracking never succeeded 100%. Apparently they plan to collaborate on documents with people outside their organization, so that's a problem. Sadly it looks like they will be buying Office licenses soon.
OpenOffice is great for a home user, but 'enterprise-oriented' features like tracking changes with people using Office are a must for some corporations. Until OpenOffice gets this sort of stuff to work, I can't completely agree with the quote above.
Although, given the security risk for Office users - which we can't even evaluate, as I'm assuming most corporate espionage is never discovered - it might be rational to find a way to live without some of the features in Office. Or, alternatively, to run Office on Crossover Office on Linux (assuming some of the trojan functionality, e.g. calling home, depends on ties with the underlying OS, which makes sense to me).
The count also surpasses the 20 flaws that Microsoft has fixed so far this year in Internet Explorer, a perennial favorite among vulnerability researchers.
This is in tune with the general movement of virus and trojan writers to make money for their work, that we have been seeing in recent years. Internet Explorer was a good way to reach as many people as possible, but such attacks are also quickly detected, since they affect many people. So you make some money (for porn ads, most likely), then stop. With Office, you can attack fewer targets, but get paid well for your efforts, and no-one ever hears about it.
This sort of corporate espionage can go on for years without any antivirus vendor even getting the chance to encounter the malware. In addition, virtually 100% of corporations use Office; it's easier to leave IE in favor of Firefox than Office for OpenOffice. So targetting Office makes a lot of sense.
Hatch, SCO's attorney, says SCO learned about the destruction of code when it took depositions from IBM programmers.
So, they don't have the code. But they claim they have depositions from IBM people that show the code existed. TFA says nothing about SCO bringing the depositions to court, but I assume that would be the next step, which would be interesting - if it actually took place. We'll have to wait and see, I guess. Most likely we'll start hearing "we lost the depositions" or something like that.
Google had a net income of $721 million, according to TFA. Microsoft's net income last quarter was $2.83 billion in their last report.
So, Microsoft still have a far greater net income than Google. Still, Google is rising fast. Will we someday see Google's net income overtake that of Microsoft, I wonder?
"Maisonnier believes the field of robotics to be "perfectly adapted" to the French culture, thanks to demands that include conceptual thinking, theoretical knowledge, practical capabilities, and resourcefulness."
"Is there anything that we really need good old fashioned Real Life for any more?"
Nope, nothing at all. Certainly not a job. Instead of real work, create a web site, post a witty article there, split it into 5 pages, each with about 40% ad content, some of that being flashy annoying banners.
On the one hand, this is another of those "it's our intellectual property, dammit" cases that seem so ridiculous - what is to stop lyrics sites from setting up shop in e.g. Russia, where it might be legally impossible to shut them down?
On the other hand, I hate those lyrics sites so much, I wish they would find a way to shut them down. They contain ads, popups, sometimes malicious content, and on top of that they often have mistakes in the lyrics.
So, I'm not sure I care that much about this one, personally.
Yeah, because OpenOffice never has security problems!!11one!!
A) Who said OpenOffice didn't have security problems? Of course it does.
B) As the dominant Office suite, MS Office has both security problems and actual exploits. TFA mentions one such. Of course OpenOffice is going to have fewer actual exploits, because it has less market share; all the money is in breaking into MS Office.
"[...] people [...] won't switch unless the alternative is 100% in every way, shape, and form 'compatible' with [...] Office"
Exactly. This is why we need to get these security vulnerabilities in MS Office to work in OpenOffice, ASAP. It's all about compatibility, baby.
Seriously, though, I don't agree with the quote. Of course people want compatibility. But they also want security. Using MS office is a tradeoff: more compatibility, less security. When the tradeoff gets less comfortable, rational people will reconsider their options.
... predicting Intel would reduce its work force by more than 10,000 employees
and
...Intel had about 100,000 employees
So, the 1,000 managers will be followed by some 9,000 more, for a total of about 10% of the workforce - if the predictions / estimations are correct. If so, then this is very significant.
I personally know three people who worked at Intel, one who still does. All worked in the same division, so this isn't a representative sample. But all of them saw money thrown around quite freely, including on hardware and on salaries (which are among the highest in the area here). I hope they tried to cut other things before they started firing.
"School PCs are likely more at risk. Win9x PCs used regularly on the Internet need up to date security software. Some of these users -- companies, schools and governments -- may switch to Linux or Mac[.]" (emphasis mine)
The article doesn't focus on old PCs in people's kitchen that only run Word. It specifically mentions schools, companies and governments - places that might have lots of old computers that still do something, and that need to know that those machines aren't going to be botted (those places DO have people who worry about such things, as opposed to the "average home user" that you seem to refer to). For such places, installing Linux might be a nice option instead of just throwing the hardware out.
Henderson_Presentation_2005.doc is HENDER~1.doc, Henderson_Presentation_2006.doc is HENDER~2.doc, Henderson_Presentation_2006 (unedited).doc is HENDER~3.doc.
Clearly, we are reaping the benefits of a well-thought-out platform here.
There is some non-free software included with the non-free version (e.g. Flash). But you can get it for the free version, you just need to do a few clicks. Another difference is that the free version is meant to be sort of a 'testing ground' for the non-free one (like Fedora and Red Hat). So you might find things aren't as stabile.
As for Ubuntu, I use it. But I would recommend you try both Ubuntu and Suse (the free version, for starters), since they're free. See which is better for you.
Slashdot Mirror
It took Sun a full five years to solve these issues with Solaris.
Solved? We should be so lucky. Things are far from solved. If Sun had released Solaris under the GPL, that would be good and done. Instead, it's under their own CDDL, which isn't easily compatible with the far-more-common GPL. This leads to issues for interesting projects like GNU/Solaris (Nexenta), which should have been quickly welcomed by the Open Source community. Instead, Sun's choice of the CDDL makes things complicated where they shouldn't be.
So, in short, I would not say that Sun 'solved' these 'problems' with Solaris, and I sincerely hope they do a better job with Java.
I'm not sure if it's a far-fetched theory, or just presented poorly, but consider this quote from TFA:
"The [snakes] had to do something to get better at finding their prey, so that's where venom comes in," Isbell said.
Venom helps snakes find their prey? (Yes, I am sure it's an honest mistake, but when presenting a radical theory, you'd better be careful what you say.)
What's Alzheimers?
This drug may be too late for me.
I guess it sucks if your business requires some esoteric feature in Microsoft's expensive and proprietary office software, but it is outright incompetence for any CTO to not have migrated, in the process of migrating, or planning on migrating their workers to OpenOffice at this point.
Personally, I use OpenOffice, but from what I hear it's not that easy to use OpenOffice for many corporations. Some people I know are in the process of building a tech company, and they wanted to use OpenOffice, both because of the cost and because of the security. But some testing revealed that a single feature made that impossible for them: 'track changes' worked fine in OO, but opening a document from Office with change tracking never succeeded 100%. Apparently they plan to collaborate on documents with people outside their organization, so that's a problem. Sadly it looks like they will be buying Office licenses soon.
OpenOffice is great for a home user, but 'enterprise-oriented' features like tracking changes with people using Office are a must for some corporations. Until OpenOffice gets this sort of stuff to work, I can't completely agree with the quote above.
Although, given the security risk for Office users - which we can't even evaluate, as I'm assuming most corporate espionage is never discovered - it might be rational to find a way to live without some of the features in Office. Or, alternatively, to run Office on Crossover Office on Linux (assuming some of the trojan functionality, e.g. calling home, depends on ties with the underlying OS, which makes sense to me).
The count also surpasses the 20 flaws that Microsoft has fixed so far this year in Internet Explorer, a perennial favorite among vulnerability researchers.
This is in tune with the general movement of virus and trojan writers to make money for their work, that we have been seeing in recent years. Internet Explorer was a good way to reach as many people as possible, but such attacks are also quickly detected, since they affect many people. So you make some money (for porn ads, most likely), then stop. With Office, you can attack fewer targets, but get paid well for your efforts, and no-one ever hears about it.
This sort of corporate espionage can go on for years without any antivirus vendor even getting the chance to encounter the malware. In addition, virtually 100% of corporations use Office; it's easier to leave IE in favor of Firefox than Office for OpenOffice. So targetting Office makes a lot of sense.
They could of gone with MsPod.
or uPod
or PenisEnvy
Pod.Net
TFA says:
Once this type of attack is out, it's very unusual for it to be limited to just one company. I think it's safe to assume that it's ongoing.
Me, I think it's safe to assume there are 10 undiscovered corporate espionage trojans out there for every one we hear about. Scary.
Hatch, SCO's attorney, says SCO learned about the destruction of code when it took depositions from IBM programmers.
So, they don't have the code. But they claim they have depositions from IBM people that show the code existed. TFA says nothing about SCO bringing the depositions to court, but I assume that would be the next step, which would be interesting - if it actually took place. We'll have to wait and see, I guess. Most likely we'll start hearing "we lost the depositions" or something like that.
"Ms would never do that because they are about to go into the ad business themselves."
Pro: f**king kill off Google
Con: lose potential future ad revenue
Tough choice?
Even if you look at it rationally, it makes sense to do this. With Google dead, Microsoft lose a lot of risk to their existing revenue streams.
Google had a net income of $721 million, according to TFA. Microsoft's net income last quarter was $2.83 billion in their last report.
So, Microsoft still have a far greater net income than Google. Still, Google is rising fast. Will we someday see Google's net income overtake that of Microsoft, I wonder?
"Maisonnier believes the field of robotics to be "perfectly adapted" to the French culture, thanks to demands that include conceptual thinking, theoretical knowledge, practical capabilities, and resourcefulness."
Good thing they aren't trying to make warbots.
(Sorry, but the parent post started...)
TFA misses out on the interesting bit of the article:
"His assailants held what felt like a semi-automatic weapon to the back of Cocker's head"
Wow, he can differentiate a semi-automatic from a nonautomatic from an automatic, just based on how it presses against the back of his head.
Note how the Slashdot summary changes things:
"The muggers held 'a semi-automatic weapon to the back of Cocker's head"
"The logos link to Google search results about the topic, which can drive a lot of traffic to unsuspecting sites."
Fill in your own comment here.
Obviously, given the current legal climate in the US, we can now expec-
Fill in your own 2nd half of this sentence here.
Faced with the threat of VMware, they'll cooperate with another underdog in the virtualization market, even if that underdog is a GPL hippie.
There will be plenty of time to finish off the hippie once VMware is contained, I'm sure they think to themselves.
"Is there anything that we really need good old fashioned Real Life for any more?"
Nope, nothing at all. Certainly not a job. Instead of real work, create a web site, post a witty article there, split it into 5 pages, each with about 40% ad content, some of that being flashy annoying banners.
On the one hand, this is another of those "it's our intellectual property, dammit" cases that seem so ridiculous - what is to stop lyrics sites from setting up shop in e.g. Russia, where it might be legally impossible to shut them down?
On the other hand, I hate those lyrics sites so much, I wish they would find a way to shut them down. They contain ads, popups, sometimes malicious content, and on top of that they often have mistakes in the lyrics.
So, I'm not sure I care that much about this one, personally.
Good points. My post above was a bit simplistic, I admit.
Yeah, because OpenOffice never has security problems!!11one!!
A) Who said OpenOffice didn't have security problems? Of course it does.
B) As the dominant Office suite, MS Office has both security problems and actual exploits. TFA mentions one such. Of course OpenOffice is going to have fewer actual exploits, because it has less market share; all the money is in breaking into MS Office.
Therefore, in practice, MS Office is less secure.
"[...] people [...] won't switch unless the alternative is 100% in every way, shape, and form 'compatible' with [...] Office"
Exactly. This is why we need to get these security vulnerabilities in MS Office to work in OpenOffice, ASAP. It's all about compatibility, baby.
Seriously, though, I don't agree with the quote. Of course people want compatibility. But they also want security. Using MS office is a tradeoff: more compatibility, less security. When the tradeoff gets less comfortable, rational people will reconsider their options.
TFA says:
... predicting Intel would reduce its work force by more than 10,000 employees
...Intel had about 100,000 employees
and
So, the 1,000 managers will be followed by some 9,000 more, for a total of about 10% of the workforce - if the predictions / estimations are correct. If so, then this is very significant.
I personally know three people who worked at Intel, one who still does. All worked in the same division, so this isn't a representative sample. But all of them saw money thrown around quite freely, including on hardware and on salaries (which are among the highest in the area here). I hope they tried to cut other things before they started firing.
No, no. OS X is Apple, and Apple is iPods, which only cool people have. *nix is for people who look like this. So OS X can't be *nix.
It just can't.
And 1.5% of replies will amount to "I'm so cool I know what the replies to this story will be".
From TFA:
"School PCs are likely more at risk. Win9x PCs used regularly on the Internet need up to date security software. Some of these users -- companies, schools and governments -- may switch to Linux or Mac[.]" (emphasis mine)
The article doesn't focus on old PCs in people's kitchen that only run Word. It specifically mentions schools, companies and governments - places that might have lots of old computers that still do something, and that need to know that those machines aren't going to be botted (those places DO have people who worry about such things, as opposed to the "average home user" that you seem to refer to). For such places, installing Linux might be a nice option instead of just throwing the hardware out.
Of course - this is a feature, not a bug.
Henderson_Presentation_2005.doc is HENDER~1.doc,
Henderson_Presentation_2006.doc is HENDER~2.doc,
Henderson_Presentation_2006 (unedited).doc is HENDER~3.doc.
Clearly, we are reaping the benefits of a well-thought-out platform here.
There is some non-free software included with the non-free version (e.g. Flash). But you can get it for the free version, you just need to do a few clicks. Another difference is that the free version is meant to be sort of a 'testing ground' for the non-free one (like Fedora and Red Hat). So you might find things aren't as stabile.
As for Ubuntu, I use it. But I would recommend you try both Ubuntu and Suse (the free version, for starters), since they're free. See which is better for you.