Law is a giant hammer you want to perform as a scalpel. It doesnt work that way.
Being beaten to death with a heavy rock or just bludgeoned into a puddle of mush with a stick or with bare hands and feet - dead is still dead. The lower tech versions usually involve a lot more time in agony before the merciful end. Even if you had a magical button that could eliminate firearms entirely, the end result would be more, not less, pain and hurt in this world. In a world of melee weapons the larger, younger, and stronger individuals have an even larger edge. In a world with firearms, the small, older and weaker folks at least have an equalizer.
The only thing you are even partially right on is that it doesnt trick you into installing it. However fanboys like you sure try to. What the company actually tried to do was *coerce* me into installing it by holding products I already purchased from them hostage (technically just degrading them to the point where they were worthless,) which is similar but different.
Just because people to some degree "know" they are installing it doesnt disqualify it from being effectively a rootkit. I can install a rootkit on my own computer for testing that doesnt make it any less a rootkit just because I know what I am doing. In this case there appears to be some trickery and social engineering going on here as well - in the form of a rabid pack of fanbois resorting to name-calling and mod-swarming to try and silence anyone that criticises your beloved steam.
Firearms manufacturers certainly do have an incentive to make their products safer. Just not an incentive so powerful as to completely over-ride other concerns, as the poster would like. Everyone would like a safer firearm and most are even happy to pay extra for it - IF it still functions reliably, IF it isnt TOO MUCH more. Systems currently available tend to be very expensive and have serious drawbacks, which limits their sales. As those systems are refined and perfected people sales will improve. But the manufacturers have to actually provide a system that the customers are happy with, rather than rushing to break things that we rely on in order to make victim-disarmament advocates... well, celebrate and then go right back on the attack shortly after, I am sure.
This is what really eats him up. He doesnt like firearms manufacturers offering what firearms buyers want in the first place, and he'd like to see any law passed that would interfere.
Seriously, how could it possibly be a good idea to have a state so omnipresent and intrusive that it has to specifically "let" you do something before you are able to do it?
In the real world, technology and technological objects exist just as surely as the sun and moon do, and the legislature is no more able to uninvent the firearm than they are to forbid the sun from setting or the moon from rising.
Weapons exist and some people will have them regardless. Better for everyone to have them than for only criminals and thugs to have them.
Ultimately the problem is not the technology, it's human behaviour. It was the same problem when we had flintlocks and the same problem when we had swords and spears and the same problem when we were bashing each others heads in with rough rocks. That is the problem we need to solve and victim disarmament laws not only dont help they are actively counterproductive, because they increase the rewards and decrease the risks for those who indulge in the problem behaviour.
It's very funny to see you make the ridiculous assumption that I am removing malware from my own machines. My own machines havent been infected in decades, outside of deliberate testing. I clean machines for employers and paying customers. If I relied on scanners to do my job I would be unemployed tomorrow - scanners only work on old threats and my paycheck depends on handling new ones quickly and efficiently. You dont have the first clue what you are talking about.
It doesnt hide the fact it's installed. Neither does Reverton. That's not the point.
It hides what it is doing. Why do you think it has to have constant super-user status? It abuses that status to mess with things that dont belong to it and to obfuscate and hide what it is doing from the system. Just like every other rootkit out there.
And you can tell me it isnt doing anything bad and should be trusted all you want, it's hot air. You cannot demonstrate that this thing is safe. It's not just a binary it's a deliberately obfuscated binary. *If* the source code were available and *thoroughly* audited then perhaps the argument would have some merit, but as is anyone making it is a fool. Unless you work for valve and have access to the source yourself, very free access so you can spend many hours auditing it in detail, and unless you have the expertise to do so, and have in fact done so, you dont know anything. Any guesses you make are just that - blind guesses. And even if you were in that position, you would be appealing to evidence you arent allowed to share, so why would you expect anyone to believe you?
I cannot understand how you cannot understand. Would you celebrate if someone ported Reveton as well? How could anyone that has gone to the considerable effort to get and learn to use a free operating system then turn around and install this on it? Why bother? If you want someone else to control your computer you can get that result much more quickly and easily with Windows.
Seriously, you stop the bullshit. It is what it is. If you so desperately crave the privilege of paying them good money to take over your computer and maybe let you play some games, if you pay for them and for as long as they feel like it (or until the next time they change the deal) that you dont mind to install this crap on your computer that's fine, your computer, install away. But quit trying to shout down the voices of those with better sense, thank you.
"A rootkit is software that enables continued privileged access to a computer, while actively hiding its presence"
So your comments appear more apt as self-commentary. Yes, it has a specific meaning, and yes, it fits, and no, there isnt an exception for things YOU like.
I have probably been removing malware from PCs since you were a baby. You are not insightful you are clueless. I damn well know what a rootkit is.
There is no technical distinction between a malicious rootkit and a 'normal' one - a 'legit av' uses the same techniques the rogues do. If you intentionally install an antivirus (for example) that uses rootkit techniques then it's a rootkit, it just might not be a malicious one. For some values of malicious. Deep subject there.
If an antivirus program tricks you into installing it and 'doesnt support uninstallation' it goes from 'legit' to 'rogue' but the only difference is that removal techniques were made more limited. Whether it 'doesnt support uninstallation' on install, or lost that ability due to damage and brittleness, makes very little difference. Removing tdss and removing a damaged or incompatible installation of $big_av or cleaning that Sony crap off is all pretty much the same thing.
Personally I wont install that sort of AV on my machines either.
Don't assume that just because you posted the feel-good crap that people want to read and got moderated accordingly that you actually know what you are talking about. And get the fsck off my lawn.
Even if there were some way to guarantee that they wouldnt die or pull anything 'draconian' they are still requiring you to install a rootkit to access the software you bought. I wouldnt even install it on my windows box, and I wont give another penny to a company that already ripped me off in the past.
I would love to see a US ISP take the same stances, but it's actually easier for them to do it in au, precisely because Hollywood is so used to treating y'all as 'secondary markets' to be abused, which fact tends to swing the nationalist vote in on the side of the angels. If Hollywood were located outside Sydney I am sure they would never have the balls to stand up to them.
Keep in mind that the official story is he is NOT a suspect in the murder of the neighbor. Supposedly the cops in Belize just want to interview him as a witness. If there was any evidence to implicate him, dont you think they would file charges instead of issuing the equivelant of a material witness warrant?
No, if that was his logic he's just dense. Even though there are fundamentally distinct legal traditions with very different answers to certain questions, the vast majority of actions that are a crime in one jurisdiction will still constitute a crime in a different jurisdiction. Laws against theft and murder for instance are effectively universal, and with modern treaties even tertiary legislation such as copyright tends to be pretty darn uniform.
This old geezer remembers it a bit differently. He had a technically inferior product (a signature scanner of all things! not a good design) but it succeeded in large part due to buddies at MS breaking alternative approaches relentlessly, partly due to effective marketing, and perhaps partly due to questionable hiring practices as I recall. Nothing he did was innovative or praiseworthy from a technical standpoint, though perhaps from a marketing and business standpoint things are different.
What's truly shocking here is that you apparently have to 'download an open source app' to get a simple text editor. What a broken system! You would think basics like vi would come pre-installed with the OS in this day and age, they cant even get that right?!?
If they provided a way to narrow it down and see only the ones in your area, it would be very useful.
Big ISPs are killing the internet and any sort of consumer guide that presents their information without that of smaller competitors is ultimately a disservice.
That said, this information is very useful and interesting, and I would encourage them to continue posting it - just please make it more inclusive. My provider is a small customer-owned co-op and the service is extremely competitive - it would be helpful for that information to be available alongside ratings for the industry giants.
Yes, even assembly can still be considered source code
Nominating this for unintentional face-desk post of the day. Of course assembler isnt just 'considered' source code it is source code, or rather a language in which source code is written. Not sure what they are teaching (or smoking) in school these days but that made no sense at all. It's like saying 'the sky can still be considered blue.' Only sometimes the sky isnt blue, so even that analogy was too weak.
As another poster already aptly pointed out, it's more like a lock inside your house to prevent you from accessing some of the rooms without paying an additional 'unlocking fee.' Anyone who tries that kind of scam shouldnt be surprised if the homeowner avails himself of a less expensive method of unlocking.
No, my ability to alter bits on my hardware is not an 'attack' it's proper functioning of a general purpose computer. If people have invested in business models predicated on my inability to modify the bits on my hardware, that is their problem, but it's not an 'attack' it's simply their own short-sightedness and stupidity.
Slashdot Mirror
Law is a giant hammer you want to perform as a scalpel. It doesnt work that way.
Being beaten to death with a heavy rock or just bludgeoned into a puddle of mush with a stick or with bare hands and feet - dead is still dead. The lower tech versions usually involve a lot more time in agony before the merciful end. Even if you had a magical button that could eliminate firearms entirely, the end result would be more, not less, pain and hurt in this world. In a world of melee weapons the larger, younger, and stronger individuals have an even larger edge. In a world with firearms, the small, older and weaker folks at least have an equalizer.
The only thing you are even partially right on is that it doesnt trick you into installing it. However fanboys like you sure try to. What the company actually tried to do was *coerce* me into installing it by holding products I already purchased from them hostage (technically just degrading them to the point where they were worthless,) which is similar but different.
Just because people to some degree "know" they are installing it doesnt disqualify it from being effectively a rootkit. I can install a rootkit on my own computer for testing that doesnt make it any less a rootkit just because I know what I am doing. In this case there appears to be some trickery and social engineering going on here as well - in the form of a rabid pack of fanbois resorting to name-calling and mod-swarming to try and silence anyone that criticises your beloved steam.
I am not talking about the main executable. Look closer.
Firearms manufacturers certainly do have an incentive to make their products safer. Just not an incentive so powerful as to completely over-ride other concerns, as the poster would like. Everyone would like a safer firearm and most are even happy to pay extra for it - IF it still functions reliably, IF it isnt TOO MUCH more. Systems currently available tend to be very expensive and have serious drawbacks, which limits their sales. As those systems are refined and perfected people sales will improve. But the manufacturers have to actually provide a system that the customers are happy with, rather than rushing to break things that we rely on in order to make victim-disarmament advocates... well, celebrate and then go right back on the attack shortly after, I am sure.
This is what really eats him up. He doesnt like firearms manufacturers offering what firearms buyers want in the first place, and he'd like to see any law passed that would interfere.
A new OS is difficult to get, install, and learn for the average user, whether it's Slackware 14 or Windows 8.
Seriously, how could it possibly be a good idea to have a state so omnipresent and intrusive that it has to specifically "let" you do something before you are able to do it?
In the real world, technology and technological objects exist just as surely as the sun and moon do, and the legislature is no more able to uninvent the firearm than they are to forbid the sun from setting or the moon from rising.
Weapons exist and some people will have them regardless. Better for everyone to have them than for only criminals and thugs to have them.
Ultimately the problem is not the technology, it's human behaviour. It was the same problem when we had flintlocks and the same problem when we had swords and spears and the same problem when we were bashing each others heads in with rough rocks. That is the problem we need to solve and victim disarmament laws not only dont help they are actively counterproductive, because they increase the rewards and decrease the risks for those who indulge in the problem behaviour.
It's very funny to see you make the ridiculous assumption that I am removing malware from my own machines. My own machines havent been infected in decades, outside of deliberate testing. I clean machines for employers and paying customers. If I relied on scanners to do my job I would be unemployed tomorrow - scanners only work on old threats and my paycheck depends on handling new ones quickly and efficiently. You dont have the first clue what you are talking about.
It doesnt hide the fact it's installed. Neither does Reverton. That's not the point.
It hides what it is doing. Why do you think it has to have constant super-user status? It abuses that status to mess with things that dont belong to it and to obfuscate and hide what it is doing from the system. Just like every other rootkit out there.
And you can tell me it isnt doing anything bad and should be trusted all you want, it's hot air. You cannot demonstrate that this thing is safe. It's not just a binary it's a deliberately obfuscated binary. *If* the source code were available and *thoroughly* audited then perhaps the argument would have some merit, but as is anyone making it is a fool. Unless you work for valve and have access to the source yourself, very free access so you can spend many hours auditing it in detail, and unless you have the expertise to do so, and have in fact done so, you dont know anything. Any guesses you make are just that - blind guesses. And even if you were in that position, you would be appealing to evidence you arent allowed to share, so why would you expect anyone to believe you?
Yes, anyone that disagrees with you is clearly trolling.
I think the entire article is a troll.
How many of those were already ported to linux without this? All 36 you say? That's what I thought.
I cannot understand how you cannot understand. Would you celebrate if someone ported Reveton as well? How could anyone that has gone to the considerable effort to get and learn to use a free operating system then turn around and install this on it? Why bother? If you want someone else to control your computer you can get that result much more quickly and easily with Windows.
Seriously, you stop the bullshit. It is what it is. If you so desperately crave the privilege of paying them good money to take over your computer and maybe let you play some games, if you pay for them and for as long as they feel like it (or until the next time they change the deal) that you dont mind to install this crap on your computer that's fine, your computer, install away. But quit trying to shout down the voices of those with better sense, thank you.
Hrmm. First definition google offers:
"A rootkit is software that enables continued privileged access to a computer, while actively hiding its presence"
So your comments appear more apt as self-commentary. Yes, it has a specific meaning, and yes, it fits, and no, there isnt an exception for things YOU like.
I have probably been removing malware from PCs since you were a baby. You are not insightful you are clueless. I damn well know what a rootkit is.
There is no technical distinction between a malicious rootkit and a 'normal' one - a 'legit av' uses the same techniques the rogues do. If you intentionally install an antivirus (for example) that uses rootkit techniques then it's a rootkit, it just might not be a malicious one. For some values of malicious. Deep subject there.
If an antivirus program tricks you into installing it and 'doesnt support uninstallation' it goes from 'legit' to 'rogue' but the only difference is that removal techniques were made more limited. Whether it 'doesnt support uninstallation' on install, or lost that ability due to damage and brittleness, makes very little difference. Removing tdss and removing a damaged or incompatible installation of $big_av or cleaning that Sony crap off is all pretty much the same thing.
Personally I wont install that sort of AV on my machines either.
Don't assume that just because you posted the feel-good crap that people want to read and got moderated accordingly that you actually know what you are talking about. And get the fsck off my lawn.
Even if there were some way to guarantee that they wouldnt die or pull anything 'draconian' they are still requiring you to install a rootkit to access the software you bought. I wouldnt even install it on my windows box, and I wont give another penny to a company that already ripped me off in the past.
Their website is non-functional. Not encouraging :(
I would love to see a US ISP take the same stances, but it's actually easier for them to do it in au, precisely because Hollywood is so used to treating y'all as 'secondary markets' to be abused, which fact tends to swing the nationalist vote in on the side of the angels. If Hollywood were located outside Sydney I am sure they would never have the balls to stand up to them.
Keep in mind that the official story is he is NOT a suspect in the murder of the neighbor. Supposedly the cops in Belize just want to interview him as a witness. If there was any evidence to implicate him, dont you think they would file charges instead of issuing the equivelant of a material witness warrant?
No, if that was his logic he's just dense. Even though there are fundamentally distinct legal traditions with very different answers to certain questions, the vast majority of actions that are a crime in one jurisdiction will still constitute a crime in a different jurisdiction. Laws against theft and murder for instance are effectively universal, and with modern treaties even tertiary legislation such as copyright tends to be pretty darn uniform.
This old geezer remembers it a bit differently. He had a technically inferior product (a signature scanner of all things! not a good design) but it succeeded in large part due to buddies at MS breaking alternative approaches relentlessly, partly due to effective marketing, and perhaps partly due to questionable hiring practices as I recall. Nothing he did was innovative or praiseworthy from a technical standpoint, though perhaps from a marketing and business standpoint things are different.
What's truly shocking here is that you apparently have to 'download an open source app' to get a simple text editor. What a broken system! You would think basics like vi would come pre-installed with the OS in this day and age, they cant even get that right?!?
If they provided a way to narrow it down and see only the ones in your area, it would be very useful. Big ISPs are killing the internet and any sort of consumer guide that presents their information without that of smaller competitors is ultimately a disservice. That said, this information is very useful and interesting, and I would encourage them to continue posting it - just please make it more inclusive. My provider is a small customer-owned co-op and the service is extremely competitive - it would be helpful for that information to be available alongside ratings for the industry giants.
Nominating this for unintentional face-desk post of the day. Of course assembler isnt just 'considered' source code it is source code, or rather a language in which source code is written. Not sure what they are teaching (or smoking) in school these days but that made no sense at all. It's like saying 'the sky can still be considered blue.' Only sometimes the sky isnt blue, so even that analogy was too weak.
As another poster already aptly pointed out, it's more like a lock inside your house to prevent you from accessing some of the rooms without paying an additional 'unlocking fee.' Anyone who tries that kind of scam shouldnt be surprised if the homeowner avails himself of a less expensive method of unlocking.
No, my ability to alter bits on my hardware is not an 'attack' it's proper functioning of a general purpose computer. If people have invested in business models predicated on my inability to modify the bits on my hardware, that is their problem, but it's not an 'attack' it's simply their own short-sightedness and stupidity.