How about the nuclear launch codes and how to use them? How about some top secret security codes used for encryption of data regarding national security? How about the security codes to your house alarm?
Yes. If somebody came across these details blowing in the wind and contacted the relevant authority who then said 'oh, we might look at that in a couple of months' then I would say that that person has every right to attempt to force said authority to look at the issue now when they are a concerned party.
For nuclear launch codes - well its obvious that they are a concerned party. For Excel then if they are also a user with data that becomes vulnerable with this then they are also concerned party.
I hope this publicity makes Microsoft stand up and do something immediately. This person has the information and now that the information is known to exist, others will be looking for it. When they find it they might not be so nice about it, hm?
I suspect he or she really was not intending to make a huge profit over this, but putting an auction on eBay is a very good way of getting publicity while deferring the release of the information.
Do you think that realistically, Microsoft could not release a patch for this in the 7 day timeframe of the original auction? (alternatively they could probably outbid everybody else in the entire world and keep the details secret for a while longer..)
Re:Theory and reality, explanation.
on
Artificial Tornadoes
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The theory behiond it was actually better than I expected. He's not trying to violate the second law of thermodynamics or anything. He's trying to use the tornado as dynamic heat chimney (an imaginary pipe carrying air up into the high cold atmosphere). Once he gets the tornado going he wants the warm air at the ground to naturally rise inside the chimney, then to harness this natural flow to extract energy.
I read TFA also, and was similarly impressed - but what I didnt see mentioned, and what struck me as a potential risk was that when you set up quite a few of these, you are in effect setting up pipes to pipe surface air up into the troposphere or ionosphere or whatever it is and will be setting up a circuit of sorts. Now, I am not a meteorologist but I'm fairly sure that the layers in the atmosphere are exactly that - layered - and usually there is not a lot of inter layer flow except for very light elements like hydrogen that pass right through.
I dont want to appear as an ignorant naysayer but I have read of 'issues' that people have as regards to water vapour introduced by jet engines and it strikes me that this could have a similar effect. I would like to know what that effect would be and how destructive in reality it could become if practiced on a large scale.
The real question should be, what's the purpose of the boycott? To kill the company or to make them change their ways? Everyone's answer would probably be different, but to me, a successful boycott would mean the company would apologize and change their ways to make the consumers happier.
Yeah, but how likely is the company to actually change its spots?
On a related issue, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestle_boycott about a boycott of a major (probably bigger than Sony?) company that has been going on for nearly 30 YEARS. For many years (in the UK at least) you did not see Nestle written on any consumer products because they just would not sell - in recent years they have reintroduced the name (in small writing at first, getting bigger each year) on many chocolate products (KitKat, Yorkie,...) which I welcome because it makes it easier to not buy them, heh. I know the Wiki article seems to indicate that Nestle has changed, but then the tone of the article seems to be treading delicately and I took that to imply that it has been influenced by lawyers from the big corp..
Nah, the point is io insure that if you're in an area that's suddenly become hot, you don't hop on a plane and bring it home without them knowing about it.
well surely its going to be a lot easier if an area suddenly becomes hot to either stop the flights from leaving, or quarantine them when they arrive..?
If the point is that you register at the airport with where you are going (or been), then when you have already come back and it turns out that the population at that location is dropping like flies (or birds:) then they can send the black helicopters to spray your house.
Give me a break. You are an "old-school" user, you should remember the days when Slashdot wasn't a pile of suckass shit. Where they didn't seem to be 7 days, 7 months, and 7 duplicates behind the rest of the technews sites.
Well, I'm not an old school user but here is a point you might consider. If you dont read any other technews sites, you wont know about being 'behind' anybody else! I find slashdot to be very interesting, but frankly I waste too much time on it already. If I were constantly searching out other sites so that I could be the first to know something, I'd never get any work done!
Well Kudos to Lego for realising this at least. Many large companies seem to be in it for the money they can get on THIS years profit sheet, so that the directors can get large bonuses THIS year and $sys$ the long haul.
Or maybe thats just because some industries (oil, music,...) can see that they have no life at all in the long term.
seriously, not trolling, but this really isn't that big a deal to do. most jukeboxes do this for you automatically anyway. Maybe not on linux - i don't know - but jeez even wmp does this. Are we really getting that lazy. Next your gonna tell me you code in JAVA and forgot C.
surely then, most jukeboxes would be considered to be that very thing - a type manager for music
even wmp
This is spyware, so it's main purpose is to install it without the user noticing, right?
well, I'm not sure about that - I took a brief look at their webpage and while there can be that aspect to it, they also promote installing it on a computer you own (as a parent, or employer) so that you can monitor other users usage of that computer (your kids, employees). While this shows you up for a control freak if they dont know about it, in theory it would be ok I guess since its your computer.
In any case, if the user (your kid, employee) does not know it is installed and wishes to check, I can't see any harm in that. At the end of the day, it IS spyware and a spyware checker should find it. Whether you wish to give your users admin rights so they can remove something like this would be a personal policy decision I guess.
plunky
To be honest, everyone I know with a yacht in deep waters already carries decent guns for protection. It is pretty easy to dump them if you're boarded by a coast guard or naval vessel.
Well I guess you are an american then, most US cruisers I've met had a gun on board, but very few other nationalities ever would have.
I fully expect some company to start up Pirate Cruises in the near future, actually getting harassed by pirates or your money back!
Slashdot Mirror
Man, have you not seen 'Revenge of the Nerds'?
We have power, oh yes.
Yes. If somebody came across these details blowing in the wind and contacted the relevant authority who then said 'oh, we might look at that in a couple of months' then I would say that that person has every right to attempt to force said authority to look at the issue now when they are a concerned party.
For nuclear launch codes - well its obvious that they are a concerned party. For Excel then if they are also a user with data that becomes vulnerable with this then they are also concerned party.
I hope this publicity makes Microsoft stand up and do something immediately. This person has the information and now that the information is known to exist, others will be looking for it. When they find it they might not be so nice about it, hm?
I suspect he or she really was not intending to make a huge profit over this, but putting an auction on eBay is a very good way of getting publicity while deferring the release of the information.
Do you think that realistically, Microsoft could not release a patch for this in the 7 day timeframe of the original auction? (alternatively they could probably outbid everybody else in the entire world and keep the details secret for a while longer..)
I read TFA also, and was similarly impressed - but what I didnt see mentioned, and what struck me as a potential risk was that when you set up quite a few of these, you are in effect setting up pipes to pipe surface air up into the troposphere or ionosphere or whatever it is and will be setting up a circuit of sorts. Now, I am not a meteorologist but I'm fairly sure that the layers in the atmosphere are exactly that - layered - and usually there is not a lot of inter layer flow except for very light elements like hydrogen that pass right through.
I dont want to appear as an ignorant naysayer but I have read of 'issues' that people have as regards to water vapour introduced by jet engines and it strikes me that this could have a similar effect. I would like to know what that effect would be and how destructive in reality it could become if practiced on a large scale.
Yeah, but how likely is the company to actually change its spots?
On a related issue, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestle_boycott about a boycott of a major (probably bigger than Sony?) company that has been going on for nearly 30 YEARS. For many years (in the UK at least) you did not see Nestle written on any consumer products because they just would not sell - in recent years they have reintroduced the name (in small writing at first, getting bigger each year) on many chocolate products (KitKat, Yorkie, ...) which I welcome because it makes it easier to not buy them, heh. I know the Wiki article seems to indicate that Nestle has changed, but then the tone of the article seems to be treading delicately and I took that to imply that it has been influenced by lawyers from the big corp..
cynically,
plunky
"How many people including yourself have access to free computer"
"Me, my five kids and their friends"
so, at least six. seems more likely that it was not her than that it was her.
well surely its going to be a lot easier if an area suddenly becomes hot to either stop the flights from leaving, or quarantine them when they arrive..?
If the point is that you register at the airport with where you are going (or been), then when you have already come back and it turns out that the population at that location is dropping like flies (or birds :) then they can send the black helicopters to spray your house.
Well, I'm not an old school user but here is a point you might consider. If you dont read any other technews sites, you wont know about being 'behind' anybody else! I find slashdot to be very interesting, but frankly I waste too much time on it already. If I were constantly searching out other sites so that I could be the first to know something, I'd never get any work done!
I'll not mention dupes, thats just silly.
Well Kudos to Lego for realising this at least. Many large companies seem to be in it for the money they can get on THIS years profit sheet, so that the directors can get large bonuses THIS year and $sys$ the long haul.
Or maybe thats just because some industries (oil, music, ...) can see that they have no life at all in the long term.
Gosh but I'm cynical sometimes..
Come on Mickey, are you a MAN or a MOUSE?
AAAAAAAAAGGHHHH!
surely then, most jukeboxes would be considered to be that very thing - a type manager for music
even wmp
what about Spacewar, written way back in the sixties at MIT http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa090198 .htm
hm?
This is spyware, so it's main purpose is to install it without the user noticing, right? well, I'm not sure about that - I took a brief look at their webpage and while there can be that aspect to it, they also promote installing it on a computer you own (as a parent, or employer) so that you can monitor other users usage of that computer (your kids, employees). While this shows you up for a control freak if they dont know about it, in theory it would be ok I guess since its your computer. In any case, if the user (your kid, employee) does not know it is installed and wishes to check, I can't see any harm in that. At the end of the day, it IS spyware and a spyware checker should find it. Whether you wish to give your users admin rights so they can remove something like this would be a personal policy decision I guess. plunky
To be honest, everyone I know with a yacht in deep waters already carries decent guns for protection. It is pretty easy to dump them if you're boarded by a coast guard or naval vessel.
Well I guess you are an american then, most US cruisers I've met had a gun on board, but very few other nationalities ever would have.
I fully expect some company to start up Pirate Cruises in the near future, actually getting harassed by pirates or your money back!