Yeah, but now that the malware was created, it shouldn't be long before for someone prevents another screensaver from doing this again... that's what I was getting at.
Even if it isn't patched immediately, a Linux screensaver has lower potential of screwing up the entire system folder with it's payload.
But there is a way to minimize the impact, correct? Take this vulnerability for example. It might have had an effect on just the one user, but it wasn't going to be able to infect the system folder...
Windows is getting better with this, but a Windows user still has more potential system destructive powers than an equivalent Linux user.
The Flash player isn't open source. The Compiler is, the player is not. As I said, the idea behind open source being more secure is that you could have potentially thousands of different solutions to prevent this thing in the future. The best one is chosen and patched into the main tree. If you have the source, you can do this in a few minutes (or put in your own temporary patch) with the proper skill and be back up and more secure than someone waiting for "Patch Tuesday." Even if a patch comes in that resolves that problem, it could have been the first solution to said problem and might have problems itself that will need to be fixed later.
It's really the potential quantity of solutions to the problem.
I could argue with you that this vulnerability might have been fixed sooner with more market share.
I can still use Yahoo, Bing, or one of many other search engines or email providers, get my work done, and people using the other services can still communicate with me and share information. I cannot however use Linux (as much as I want to) or Mac and expect the same. I still rate Microsoft as the bigger threat here. If/when I can run all my applications flawlessly in Linux and still communicate and interact with others (and the company gets off the "approved PCs only" kick...) then I'll be happy to remove Microsoft from my threat list. Google is merely a case of convenience in my world right now.
It would be like moving into a new house. All my appliances will still work and my mail will come through. I just need to notify everyone of my new address. As it is right now, all my appliances use special Microsoft licensed power and plugs and I have to leave everything behind because it won't work with my new house.
How would that be any different from having a major nationwide newspaper publish said pictures? Facebook isn't private... you know that, right? There is an option to privatize your profile to only those you want to see as well.
Then don't post pictures of your private parts on the net if you want them kept private. If you feel that strongly about it... you probably don't want to be taking pictures of your private parts or hanging out in public places wearing something that could expose them either.
For instance, if you ask a librarian where to find books on bald eagles, there is nothing but her own conscience and possibly local policy or statute to prevent her [from] saying "That guy just asked about bald eagles." And if she is required to testify at your trial for hunting bald eagles, she is compelled to tell the truth to the best of her ability. She has no relationship with you involving [privileged] communication. And neither does Google. Don't like it? Change the law.
That's probably the best example I've read yet... but I have one addition to it. The catch to this is, in Google's case, they are a librarian with a camera in every store in town and they could provide the authorities with information stating you were in the gun shop the day before looking for a rifle for hunting flying game.
They are not prohibited from doing so, but it's not quite as simple as a single location query.
It's a strange situation you get into. I mean, if I were to walk into a store and ask the clerk for cocaine is the store manager obligated by law to call the authorities? I'm not sure, but I think searching Google could be along the same lines. You are walking into their lobby and asking for solicitation of illegal activities.
Now, there's a fine line between someone searching for cocaine to buy, and someone looking for research/term paper purposes so I don't know.
That's kind of the way I see it. China gave them conditions to work in their country. You wouldn't blame Levi Strauss for not selling American flag print jeans in China if China forbid the import of said product. Levi (and Google) have no say in what products they provide if the government of China considers it's use unlawful... no matter what WE think about it. Sure, you might be able to blame Google for doing business there in the first place, but China has enough people and ad revenue that they'd be stupid not to. Google has to play by their rules.
I was thinking the same thing... I hope they rented out the whole theater because if I was in a theater and someone started singing when I was trying to watch a movie, I'd be pissed!
How does the buyer not spending 15 minutes to walk to the other isle and check ink prices a consequence of the labor standards?
Whenever I go to buy a product, I research as much as I can find. With the Internet, this makes it an easy proposition. I can buy a $30,000 car and get reviews and complaints from other owners. A $50 printer could be researched in little under an hour and they could last you for years (unless you did what the OP did and impulse buy...) I'm currently looking for a house. Not being an expert on every aspect, I can still spend a few days looking into different aspects of homes. I can find ups and downs of poured foundations, siding types, elevations, taxes, maintenance fees and all kinds of useful information to make an informed decision. Yes, it's a huge purchase and it's only prudent to do so, but I'd argue that buying a computer or accessory is just as prudent. Even when I needed a new pair of earphones for listening to music at work, I spent a couple hours to find the right pair. I'm not an audio expert, but I could get enough information to make an informed decision on a product that will last me years.
The world may be more complicated and you can't be a master of all, but the information is out there and it takes no time to get good information. It doesn't take any time at all and my "rigorous" salaried work schedule of 40 hours doesn't impact my ability to do so.
I just can't believe you somehow want to blame companies "overworking" people on you/their inability to do research.
The "first post" was a troll/off-topic post. His was not on-topic to the thread. It was on topic ot the story, but not the thread it was contained in. By your argument, we may as well not have threaded replies because all comments are prudent to all conversations.
Maybe they modded it redundant for posting a reply to an obviously pointless post to get their post up near the top of the page instead of in a separate thread on it's own. Some of us have our comments sorted by rating to hide threads like such. Now, redundant certainly is the wrong mod, however you could consider it trolling for karma, or off-topic.
Yes people don't want to tweak config files to give it an extra 10% speed improvement.
On the flip side there are tons of people who tweak configuration files and the registry in Windows to get it to perform 10% faster all the time.
All the technology and people who go is to flushing your toilet making sure that nasty stuff leaving your body doesn't come back to haunt you again.
Sure, but someone taught you to push that little handle down to flush the toilet at one time... either through visual monitoring or active teaching. I could argue that it's not very intuitive being so far away from the bowl and having no markings to denote a flushing action. For all I know it could be a lever to release the toilet seat. And how did you know how to put that down instead of just sitting on the bowl? Both will get the job done, but one is a little more comfortable./devil's_advocate
I agree on user simplicity... sometimes Linux can be too simple actually. I've had my mom ask me how to install her printer drivers. I told her she didn't have to and she was thoroughly confused on how her printer could work without it.
Well, not really. GP never said anything about being rich. Just being in control. Whether that leads to money could be debated. Mainly they have a problem with one company dictating the market rather than the consumer.
environmentalists will fight to make vat meat more affordable
... and our national debt goes further through the roof as someone obtains another subsidy to artificial farmers and a secondary subsidy to "real meat" farmers to not grow livestock to appease these people...
Not trolling, I'm serious. How do you expect the "vat meat" to be pushed as a viable alternative in the time lines these folks desire? They are going to go straight to "The Hill" to get it done.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but now that the malware was created, it shouldn't be long before for someone prevents another screensaver from doing this again... that's what I was getting at.
Even if it isn't patched immediately, a Linux screensaver has lower potential of screwing up the entire system folder with it's payload.
But there is a way to minimize the impact, correct? Take this vulnerability for example. It might have had an effect on just the one user, but it wasn't going to be able to infect the system folder...
Windows is getting better with this, but a Windows user still has more potential system destructive powers than an equivalent Linux user.
One major difference is that malware on Windows can screw up the entire system where Linux will most likely only screw up one profile.
The Flash player isn't open source. The Compiler is, the player is not. As I said, the idea behind open source being more secure is that you could have potentially thousands of different solutions to prevent this thing in the future. The best one is chosen and patched into the main tree. If you have the source, you can do this in a few minutes (or put in your own temporary patch) with the proper skill and be back up and more secure than someone waiting for "Patch Tuesday." Even if a patch comes in that resolves that problem, it could have been the first solution to said problem and might have problems itself that will need to be fixed later.
It's really the potential quantity of solutions to the problem.
I could argue with you that this vulnerability might have been fixed sooner with more market share.
The idea behind it is so that someone will put out a patch for said vulnerability without having to wait for parent company to do so...
It's not more secure because of it's market share, it's more secure because anyone can fix it.
I personally enjoyed your particular twist to that meme.
I can still use Yahoo, Bing, or one of many other search engines or email providers, get my work done, and people using the other services can still communicate with me and share information. I cannot however use Linux (as much as I want to) or Mac and expect the same. I still rate Microsoft as the bigger threat here. If/when I can run all my applications flawlessly in Linux and still communicate and interact with others (and the company gets off the "approved PCs only" kick...) then I'll be happy to remove Microsoft from my threat list. Google is merely a case of convenience in my world right now.
It would be like moving into a new house. All my appliances will still work and my mail will come through. I just need to notify everyone of my new address. As it is right now, all my appliances use special Microsoft licensed power and plugs and I have to leave everything behind because it won't work with my new house.
Where the police can ask the librarian for the books you were inquiring about.
How would that be any different from having a major nationwide newspaper publish said pictures? Facebook isn't private... you know that, right? There is an option to privatize your profile to only those you want to see as well.
Then don't post pictures of your private parts on the net if you want them kept private. If you feel that strongly about it... you probably don't want to be taking pictures of your private parts or hanging out in public places wearing something that could expose them either.
For instance, if you ask a librarian where to find books on bald eagles, there is nothing but her own conscience and possibly local policy or statute to prevent her [from] saying "That guy just asked about bald eagles." And if she is required to testify at your trial for hunting bald eagles, she is compelled to tell the truth to the best of her ability. She has no relationship with you involving [privileged] communication. And neither does Google. Don't like it? Change the law.
That's probably the best example I've read yet... but I have one addition to it. The catch to this is, in Google's case, they are a librarian with a camera in every store in town and they could provide the authorities with information stating you were in the gun shop the day before looking for a rifle for hunting flying game.
They are not prohibited from doing so, but it's not quite as simple as a single location query.
It's a strange situation you get into. I mean, if I were to walk into a store and ask the clerk for cocaine is the store manager obligated by law to call the authorities? I'm not sure, but I think searching Google could be along the same lines. You are walking into their lobby and asking for solicitation of illegal activities.
Now, there's a fine line between someone searching for cocaine to buy, and someone looking for research/term paper purposes so I don't know.
That's kind of the way I see it. China gave them conditions to work in their country. You wouldn't blame Levi Strauss for not selling American flag print jeans in China if China forbid the import of said product. Levi (and Google) have no say in what products they provide if the government of China considers it's use unlawful... no matter what WE think about it. Sure, you might be able to blame Google for doing business there in the first place, but China has enough people and ad revenue that they'd be stupid not to. Google has to play by their rules.
I was thinking the same thing... I hope they rented out the whole theater because if I was in a theater and someone started singing when I was trying to watch a movie, I'd be pissed!
How does the buyer not spending 15 minutes to walk to the other isle and check ink prices a consequence of the labor standards?
Whenever I go to buy a product, I research as much as I can find. With the Internet, this makes it an easy proposition. I can buy a $30,000 car and get reviews and complaints from other owners. A $50 printer could be researched in little under an hour and they could last you for years (unless you did what the OP did and impulse buy...) I'm currently looking for a house. Not being an expert on every aspect, I can still spend a few days looking into different aspects of homes. I can find ups and downs of poured foundations, siding types, elevations, taxes, maintenance fees and all kinds of useful information to make an informed decision. Yes, it's a huge purchase and it's only prudent to do so, but I'd argue that buying a computer or accessory is just as prudent. Even when I needed a new pair of earphones for listening to music at work, I spent a couple hours to find the right pair. I'm not an audio expert, but I could get enough information to make an informed decision on a product that will last me years.
The world may be more complicated and you can't be a master of all, but the information is out there and it takes no time to get good information. It doesn't take any time at all and my "rigorous" salaried work schedule of 40 hours doesn't impact my ability to do so.
I just can't believe you somehow want to blame companies "overworking" people on you/their inability to do research.
The "first post" was a troll/off-topic post. His was not on-topic to the thread. It was on topic ot the story, but not the thread it was contained in. By your argument, we may as well not have threaded replies because all comments are prudent to all conversations.
I miss the days of the informed buyer. :( What changed that people don't research their purchases anymore that requires government oversight?
Maybe they modded it redundant for posting a reply to an obviously pointless post to get their post up near the top of the page instead of in a separate thread on it's own. Some of us have our comments sorted by rating to hide threads like such. Now, redundant certainly is the wrong mod, however you could consider it trolling for karma, or off-topic.
Yes people don't want to tweak config files to give it an extra 10% speed improvement.
On the flip side there are tons of people who tweak configuration files and the registry in Windows to get it to perform 10% faster all the time.
All the technology and people who go is to flushing your toilet making sure that nasty stuff leaving your body doesn't come back to haunt you again.
Sure, but someone taught you to push that little handle down to flush the toilet at one time... either through visual monitoring or active teaching. I could argue that it's not very intuitive being so far away from the bowl and having no markings to denote a flushing action. For all I know it could be a lever to release the toilet seat. And how did you know how to put that down instead of just sitting on the bowl? Both will get the job done, but one is a little more comfortable. /devil's_advocate
I agree on user simplicity... sometimes Linux can be too simple actually. I've had my mom ask me how to install her printer drivers. I told her she didn't have to and she was thoroughly confused on how her printer could work without it.
Jealous? ;)
Well, not really. GP never said anything about being rich. Just being in control. Whether that leads to money could be debated. Mainly they have a problem with one company dictating the market rather than the consumer.
At least, that's how I read it.
It may be obvious, but in today's world: lobbyists make the laws and if you want to change patent laws... Microsoft losing is probably the best way.
You are not going to scare away patent trolls by simply making them lose because some of them will win and provide enough incentive to continue.
Just wait for Cloud 2.0!
environmentalists will fight to make vat meat more affordable
... and our national debt goes further through the roof as someone obtains another subsidy to artificial farmers and a secondary subsidy to "real meat" farmers to not grow livestock to appease these people...
Not trolling, I'm serious. How do you expect the "vat meat" to be pushed as a viable alternative in the time lines these folks desire? They are going to go straight to "The Hill" to get it done.
I suddenly picture the technicolor world of the 50s future worlds. White everything with neon bright colored foods.