Except for violating the license for LAME and DVD-Jon's work? Will developers of both of these products sue Sony blind for stealing (and then trying the public's patience with this PR agency directed campaign to clean up their image?) If Johansen gets a big settlement would it cripple DRM permanently? Will the lawsuits include pressure from governments, who now realize they could leak secrets just because their secretary listened to a music CD at work? And that's only the accidental espionage...
As disturbing as everything about this case is, the scarier part is how Marc stumbled across this rootkit. Are there enough genius-level diagnosticians amoung us to find the dozens of rootkits that are better crafted than this F4I junk? Rootkits used by governments to spy on each other, AND US? Who was it that called the internet the greatest boon to covert intelligence gathering since the submarine cables in the North Atlantic?
Mr Russinovich, PLEASE open a trade craft school to teach the best and brightest how to detect and code for removal of these threats. Corporations and governments will pay for their security experts to learn, professors will seek the knowledge to teach others, and AV companies will pay to send programmers to learn how to code removal tools for a lucrative new market, Ignore pleas by our overlords at MS and the Fed. Hopefully the designers of removal tools will not bow to pressure from the lazy spook types, who won't be able to sit back and snoop PCs for much longer before being found out.
No wishful thinking. The number of downloads of the extension "User Agent String" should give a sense of the number of folks who have felt the need to pose their browser as something else. While not everyone who downloads the extension is using it at any one time, or posing as IE -at any one time-, that may be offset by the large number of folks who use proxy or proxy-like anonymity software like Webwasher, which changes the User Agent String on demand, and IS set to IE by default. Whether this business affects ten thousand or one hundred thousand users, my point stands. Claims made by web data collection firms are statistically flawed, and companies promoting flawed data surely know it. This is like selling drugs with hazardous health effects, and making snake oil claims their vendors know are flawed. It's up to our critical reasoning skills to recognize flaws, bias, and outright payola.
BTW, I never claimed to have changed FF "to get in to Windows Update". I won't ask anyone to reread what I wrote. It wasn't that important to begin with. Just another plea for critical thinking.
Re:slows? Webstat data collection is flawed.
on
Firefox Momentum Slows
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Firefox is not slowing. It's users are getting better as manipulating the browser. One of the first Firefox extensions many of us add is User String Agent, so we can get into "IE only" websites. Many of us use Webwasher or anon-surfing products, many of which also change the user string. To a webstat gathering firm, I'm an IE user whether I'm using Firefox or Opera, and I don't want to be counted as using IE for anything except Windows Update or badly written websites.
I didn't give up on Firefox, it's my primary browser. But I'm not counted by the web statistic collection firms, so their data is a fraud. These firms must develop better data-collection methodologies or be exposed as frauds and face legal sanction.
Slashdot Mirror
But I, somehow, some way, keep coming up with funky ass slashdot like every single day.
Before or after Christians allow gay hyoomonz to marry?
Except for violating the license for LAME and DVD-Jon's work? Will developers of both of these products sue Sony blind for stealing (and then trying the public's patience with this PR agency directed campaign to clean up their image?) If Johansen gets a big settlement would it cripple DRM permanently? Will the lawsuits include pressure from governments, who now realize they could leak secrets just because their secretary listened to a music CD at work? And that's only the accidental espionage...
As disturbing as everything about this case is, the scarier part is how Marc stumbled across this rootkit. Are there enough genius-level diagnosticians amoung us to find the dozens of rootkits that are better crafted than this F4I junk? Rootkits used by governments to spy on each other, AND US? Who was it that called the internet the greatest boon to covert intelligence gathering since the submarine cables in the North Atlantic?
Mr Russinovich, PLEASE open a trade craft school to teach the best and brightest how to detect and code for removal of these threats. Corporations and governments will pay for their security experts to learn, professors will seek the knowledge to teach others, and AV companies will pay to send programmers to learn how to code removal tools for a lucrative new market, Ignore pleas by our overlords at MS and the Fed. Hopefully the designers of removal tools will not bow to pressure from the lazy spook types, who won't be able to sit back and snoop PCs for much longer before being found out.
A lot of work just to bust CAPTCHAs
Whoa. Obscure Robocop reference. Nicely done!
Parent deserved that karma kicker, just for resisting the come-on$ of the "speed enforcement vendors."
God Bless Texas.
You mean spooge?
Why can't they just use the intarweb like the rest of do?
I hear the latest Mozilla FireCow browser has an extension
for easy one-hoof prawn-trieval...
Linux? DRM-free! Works with any moosic player !
Do we have DVD-Jon to thank for the price of milk?
No wishful thinking. The number of downloads of the extension "User Agent String" should give a sense of the number of folks who have felt the need to pose their browser as something else. While not everyone who downloads the extension is using it at any one time, or posing as IE -at any one time-, that may be offset by the large number of folks who use proxy or proxy-like anonymity software like Webwasher, which changes the User Agent String on demand, and IS set to IE by default. Whether this business affects ten thousand or one hundred thousand users, my point stands. Claims made by web data collection firms are statistically flawed, and companies promoting flawed data surely know it. This is like selling drugs with hazardous health effects, and making snake oil claims their vendors know are flawed. It's up to our critical reasoning skills to recognize flaws, bias, and outright payola.
BTW, I never claimed to have changed FF "to get in to Windows Update". I won't ask anyone to reread what I wrote. It wasn't that important to begin with. Just another plea for critical thinking.
Firefox is not slowing. It's users are getting better as manipulating the browser. One of the first Firefox extensions many of us add is User String Agent, so we can get into "IE only" websites. Many of us use Webwasher or anon-surfing products, many of which also change the user string. To a webstat gathering firm, I'm an IE user whether I'm using Firefox or Opera, and I don't want to be counted as using IE for anything except Windows Update or badly written websites.
I didn't give up on Firefox, it's my primary browser. But I'm not counted by the web statistic collection firms, so their data is a fraud. These firms must develop better data-collection methodologies or be exposed as frauds and face legal sanction.