That made it too clear that you were trying to manipulate me.
I don't think anyone was trying to manipulate you. But it does seem that your zeal to hate the great "evil" makes you look like you have a chip on your shoulder.
Of course Microsoft has made decisions people disagree with politically. The thing is, businesses are profit-making machines and not elected political leaders. That's what governments are for. If a government and market allows a business to convince them of certain policies to implement, then we should be blaming those elected to the decision-making positions who go along with it, not the businesses themselves.
A legal right to broadband in every home is *up to* 2Mb only. I know people who "technically" have broadband and *at best* up to 512Mb.
This is just wrong. The proposal is that ISPs be obliged to be capable of providing at least 2 megabit connections to every home in the UK.
Intrestingly the European Human Rights act guarantees an individual's right to privacy - as far as I know the U.K. have not officailly signed-up to it yet.
There is no such thing as the European Human Rights act. There is, however, the European Convention on Human Rights. This is a treaty to which all EU members are signatories, and have been for a long time (the UK has been since 1965 I think).
However, because the UK's legal system is dualist (international law does not take effect until it is enshrined in UK legislation), in order for the ECHR to be enforceable in domestic courts, domestic laws have to be passed giving effect to it.
And they were: the Human Rights Act (1998) does exactly this. Article 8 of the ECHR to which you allude ("the right to respect for private and family life") exists under UK law in the HRA. Also note that courts can declare current legislation incompatible with convention rights (although this doesn't invalidate legislation, it puts a lot of pressure on the government) and ministers introducing new bills have to declare that they are compatible with convention rights before they proceed.
Also, note s 3 of HRA which requires that courts read existing law in a way which is compatible with Convention rights.
If a £20 "tax" were introduced, the piracy rate would increase because people will want to justify the increased cost
Yes this is a good point. If the government were to use the money to compensate the industry, then it would effectively allow filesharing of copyrighted works because they would be paid for, and so it wouldn't be piracy.
Unfortunately, as is typical, it was decided instead to wrap everything in a layer of bureaucracy that isn't going to benefit anyone: consumers have to pay out without getting anything in return, the industry has to fight endless court battles with defendants who don't have the funds to provide much, if any, substantial compensation and the government has to spend time and money overseeing the whole thing.
It's also interesting to consider the sums involved. At £20 per year, with 13.8 million broadband subscribers in the UK, the tax will generate £276 million (~$393 million).
"muslim" is exactly as much a race as "white" or "black".
That's not correct at all. A Muslim is someone who adheres to Islam. Islam is a religion. Religion is an idea.
Race, on the other hand, is a way of categorising people by their physical traits, such as skin colour. The two things are very different, and people who subscribe to religion should be no more immune to criticism, ridicule etc. than any other person in a society that values free speech.
To put it simply, hating someone because their clothes imply they may think a certain way is stupid, but it isn't racist.
This is what people should be worried about. Social networking sites have privacy settings that essentially allow you to restrict access to your profile to a whitelist of other users. This makes it trivial to ensure that information you publish about yourself is not publicly available.
However, the problem is that other users can "tag" you (indicate if you are in a certain photo and where your face is) in their own photos. This means that you can't control whether these photos are public or not, as they are controlled by the uploader's (normally the person who took the photo and tagged you in it) privacy settings.
Last time I checked, Facebook allowed you to "untag" yourself in photos, thus removing the link to you, but not removing the photo itself. This really isn't a proper solution to the problem, though: people can just re-upload the same photo and re-tag you an infinite number of times. Also, the onus is then on the "tagee" to remove links to themselves - there's no provision to just disable tagging altogether, presumably because this would be seen as putting the "tag-happy" majority out.
Users will be told that their use of the software is only allowed given their acceptance of, and agreement to abide by, the terms of the EULA (e.g. that Mozilla are not liable for what the software does to their computer).
If users disagree with the terms, or aren't willing/able to abide by them, they won't be entitled to legally use the software.
His point is that you have to connect to Microsoft and send them your licensing information in order to download a patch which THEN makes your connection secure.
And that makes more sense? Without WGA, you'd still have to connect to download the update. Or here's an idea: you could connect using an Ethernet cable, or enable a white list on your wireless router, if you deem it such a security concern!
And anyway, that's not his point, is it?
Apple may not publicly acknowledge bugs, but at least they're not forcing you ensure you've got a Genuine iPod before being allowed to get to a patch that adds functionality that was left out entirely to begin with.
His "point" is about license validation, not security, and is pretty absurd when you consider that he'd rather have his OS creator not acknowledge bugs than require clients to provide license authentication before they receive updates (which, by the way, are included in the licence price). As for his dig at MS not including functionality for WPA2, this really is wrong: for a start, and as I have said before, when you buy a licence for Windows, this includes these updates. WPA2 functionality has been available since 2005. The reason he is complaining is presumably because he has a pirated copy of Windows. Well cry me a fucking river. You don't like MS/Windows/proprietary software, fine, but by stealing it you're just as bad as those who steal code from OSS projects in my book. And you especially don't have the right to complain because your free use of a commercial product doesn't enable you to get further support from its developers.
People can discuss whatever they want here.
Then why would you presume to tell me what I can and can't say ("ease up on the anti-fanboy hipster angle")?
they have been discussing Windows security holes for a long, long, LONG time.
Neither you nor the GP has discussed a Windows security hole.
It's really sad to see people so beguiled by a company that they'll do anything, including reasoning like idiots, to defend it. Apple releases a product with a security problem, so the response is that Microsoft validates client licenses before allowing updates to be downloaded.
is provided by a non-critical hotfix that requires WGA authentication to download
So you have to prove that you paid for the software license before using it? Don't get me wrong, I don't like DRM, but I don't like people who share and use things that they haven't paid for, either. In my experience, Microsoft's product authentication has been pretty damn painless, but this really is beside the point.
We're talking about a WPA implementation that doesn't work properly. That has nothing to do with WGA (on a side note, if you don't like Windows or don't want to pay for it, just use an alternative).
As for your explanation of where you think the bug came from, that is again irrelevant. The issue is that a product was released with a pretty serious flaw in it. No amount of fanboyism or MS-bashing changes that.
this just stinks of the same quality as the occasional "MS did something not noteworthy, but we can spin it to be negative"
Broken WPA is pretty bad. I mean this is a product that has supposedly finished testing and gone to market, and a basic network security/authentication feature isn't working. This is definitely news.
As for your comparison with Microsoft, consider what you would be saying if this had happened with the Zune.
if this poll posted earlier today [engadget.com] is any indication, it would seem the majority do [have their iPhones jailbroken]
You're not serious? Not only is that statement contrary to all common sense, but that poll has all the statistical reliability of a Slashdot poll. For a start, non-technical users tend not to read Engadget, let alone know how to get an iPhone jailbroken.
I take your point that you can jailbreak your iPhone to allow third-party software, but it's far from the same thing as Apple allowing any third-party software on their phone.
For a start, most iPhone users won't have the first clue who iphone-dev are, what Cydia or even a GUI is, what apt is or what Debian/Ubuntu are. To the average user, iPhone applications come from the app store - that's the end of it. For these users, who I imagine make up the vast majority, Apple controls the software they're allowed to install on their iPhone.
which is not the only possible channel of distribution
I thought it was? Is there another way (that doesn't include modifying hardware or system software or invalidating the warranty) of getting apps onto an iPhone?
Not only are restrictions placed on the app store, but on the device itself. It wouldn't be a problem if anyone could set up their own app store to distribute software to iPhone users.
no one is bitching about not being able to buy windows vista or a Zen at an apple retail location.
A better analogy would be buying a Mac and then only being allowed to buy software from Apple retail locations.
that would indicate a level of incompetence which even I wouldn't expect out of MS
You vastly underestimate the power of advertising. Consider that most people who see these ads aren't anti-Microsoft Slashdotters, but people who have other interests and for whom Microsoft products are just part of the scenery along with different cars, cereals and soft drinks.
These adverts are designed to make Microsoft stand out on the skyline by associating with it a more comfortable, personal feeling.
Microsoft's operating system - appearing where not wanted, hard to remove, causing administration headaches, and finally being forced out in hopes of getting one's living space back.
Well you know you could just avoid giving Microsoft all this publicity if you feel so strongly about the quality of their products.
As for the advert, I thought it was quite funny. It didn't mention any specific products, but that's not really the point: the very personification of Microsoft (good ol' Bill) is given a soft, friendly image that will inevitably reflect onto the company and its products. It's got a kind of quirkiness that works really well - this will no doubt help improve sales of more personal product line (such as the Zune) that aren't really compatible with the hygienic, corporate image of Windows and Office.
Parent is being sarcastic and implying that because as intelligent beings, if we create life, it is evidence that ID is correct.
Your argument is based on a logical fallacy: just because one life form was created by an intelligent being, it doesn't mean that all life forms were created by intelligent beings.
they were all stupid [...] Today, we're much smarter than that
Out of interest, how do you rationalise something other than God creating life?
I ask because I noticed on the page your sig links to you write "the Bible is God's infallible word, and that he guided the translators perfectly to copy it." From the Bible:
God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves
Slashdot Mirror
That made it too clear that you were trying to manipulate me.
I don't think anyone was trying to manipulate you. But it does seem that your zeal to hate the great "evil" makes you look like you have a chip on your shoulder.
Of course Microsoft has made decisions people disagree with politically. The thing is, businesses are profit-making machines and not elected political leaders. That's what governments are for. If a government and market allows a business to convince them of certain policies to implement, then we should be blaming those elected to the decision-making positions who go along with it, not the businesses themselves.
A legal right to broadband in every home is *up to* 2Mb only. I know people who "technically" have broadband and *at best* up to 512Mb.
This is just wrong. The proposal is that ISPs be obliged to be capable of providing at least 2 megabit connections to every home in the UK.
Intrestingly the European Human Rights act guarantees an individual's right to privacy - as far as I know the U.K. have not officailly signed-up to it yet.
There is no such thing as the European Human Rights act. There is, however, the European Convention on Human Rights. This is a treaty to which all EU members are signatories, and have been for a long time (the UK has been since 1965 I think).
However, because the UK's legal system is dualist (international law does not take effect until it is enshrined in UK legislation), in order for the ECHR to be enforceable in domestic courts, domestic laws have to be passed giving effect to it.
And they were: the Human Rights Act (1998) does exactly this. Article 8 of the ECHR to which you allude ("the right to respect for private and family life") exists under UK law in the HRA. Also note that courts can declare current legislation incompatible with convention rights (although this doesn't invalidate legislation, it puts a lot of pressure on the government) and ministers introducing new bills have to declare that they are compatible with convention rights before they proceed.
Also, note s 3 of HRA which requires that courts read existing law in a way which is compatible with Convention rights.
If a £20 "tax" were introduced, the piracy rate would increase because people will want to justify the increased cost
Yes this is a good point. If the government were to use the money to compensate the industry, then it would effectively allow filesharing of copyrighted works because they would be paid for, and so it wouldn't be piracy.
Unfortunately, as is typical, it was decided instead to wrap everything in a layer of bureaucracy that isn't going to benefit anyone: consumers have to pay out without getting anything in return, the industry has to fight endless court battles with defendants who don't have the funds to provide much, if any, substantial compensation and the government has to spend time and money overseeing the whole thing.
It's also interesting to consider the sums involved. At £20 per year, with 13.8 million broadband subscribers in the UK, the tax will generate £276 million (~$393 million).
Anecdotal, but nonetheless: I was born in 1987 and love The Beatles, as do many of my friends!
"muslim" is exactly as much a race as "white" or "black".
That's not correct at all. A Muslim is someone who adheres to Islam. Islam is a religion. Religion is an idea.
Race, on the other hand, is a way of categorising people by their physical traits, such as skin colour. The two things are very different, and people who subscribe to religion should be no more immune to criticism, ridicule etc. than any other person in a society that values free speech.
To put it simply, hating someone because their clothes imply they may think a certain way is stupid, but it isn't racist.
People realized fairly quickly that XP Home was utter crap. If you wanted reliability at all you had to go to XP professional.
Come on, if you're going to be a fanboy, try and hide the blind hate with nonsense that could be at least a little credible.
Mod parent up.
This is what people should be worried about. Social networking sites have privacy settings that essentially allow you to restrict access to your profile to a whitelist of other users. This makes it trivial to ensure that information you publish about yourself is not publicly available.
However, the problem is that other users can "tag" you (indicate if you are in a certain photo and where your face is) in their own photos. This means that you can't control whether these photos are public or not, as they are controlled by the uploader's (normally the person who took the photo and tagged you in it) privacy settings.
Last time I checked, Facebook allowed you to "untag" yourself in photos, thus removing the link to you, but not removing the photo itself. This really isn't a proper solution to the problem, though: people can just re-upload the same photo and re-tag you an infinite number of times. Also, the onus is then on the "tagee" to remove links to themselves - there's no provision to just disable tagging altogether, presumably because this would be seen as putting the "tag-happy" majority out.
Object Pascal reference & C reference.
Users will be told that their use of the software is only allowed given their acceptance of, and agreement to abide by, the terms of the EULA (e.g. that Mozilla are not liable for what the software does to their computer).
If users disagree with the terms, or aren't willing/able to abide by them, they won't be entitled to legally use the software.
His point is that you have to connect to Microsoft and send them your licensing information in order to download a patch which THEN makes your connection secure.
And that makes more sense? Without WGA, you'd still have to connect to download the update. Or here's an idea: you could connect using an Ethernet cable, or enable a white list on your wireless router, if you deem it such a security concern!
And anyway, that's not his point, is it?
Apple may not publicly acknowledge bugs, but at least they're not forcing you ensure you've got a Genuine iPod before being allowed to get to a patch that adds functionality that was left out entirely to begin with.
His "point" is about license validation, not security, and is pretty absurd when you consider that he'd rather have his OS creator not acknowledge bugs than require clients to provide license authentication before they receive updates (which, by the way, are included in the licence price). As for his dig at MS not including functionality for WPA2, this really is wrong: for a start, and as I have said before, when you buy a licence for Windows, this includes these updates. WPA2 functionality has been available since 2005. The reason he is complaining is presumably because he has a pirated copy of Windows. Well cry me a fucking river. You don't like MS/Windows/proprietary software, fine, but by stealing it you're just as bad as those who steal code from OSS projects in my book. And you especially don't have the right to complain because your free use of a commercial product doesn't enable you to get further support from its developers.
People can discuss whatever they want here.
Then why would you presume to tell me what I can and can't say ("ease up on the anti-fanboy hipster angle")?
they have been discussing Windows security holes for a long, long, LONG time.
Neither you nor the GP has discussed a Windows security hole.
It's really sad to see people so beguiled by a company that they'll do anything, including reasoning like idiots, to defend it. Apple releases a product with a security problem, so the response is that Microsoft validates client licenses before allowing updates to be downloaded.
Absolutely ridiculous.
is provided by a non-critical hotfix that requires WGA authentication to download
So you have to prove that you paid for the software license before using it? Don't get me wrong, I don't like DRM, but I don't like people who share and use things that they haven't paid for, either. In my experience, Microsoft's product authentication has been pretty damn painless, but this really is beside the point.
We're talking about a WPA implementation that doesn't work properly. That has nothing to do with WGA (on a side note, if you don't like Windows or don't want to pay for it, just use an alternative).
As for your explanation of where you think the bug came from, that is again irrelevant. The issue is that a product was released with a pretty serious flaw in it. No amount of fanboyism or MS-bashing changes that.
this just stinks of the same quality as the occasional "MS did something not noteworthy, but we can spin it to be negative"
Broken WPA is pretty bad. I mean this is a product that has supposedly finished testing and gone to market, and a basic network security/authentication feature isn't working. This is definitely news.
As for your comparison with Microsoft, consider what you would be saying if this had happened with the Zune.
it's easy enough to spy on the USB port and get the protocol
Your definition of easy isn't the same as mine!
if this poll posted earlier today [engadget.com] is any indication, it would seem the majority do [have their iPhones jailbroken]
You're not serious? Not only is that statement contrary to all common sense, but that poll has all the statistical reliability of a Slashdot poll. For a start, non-technical users tend not to read Engadget, let alone know how to get an iPhone jailbroken.
I take your point that you can jailbreak your iPhone to allow third-party software, but it's far from the same thing as Apple allowing any third-party software on their phone.
For a start, most iPhone users won't have the first clue who iphone-dev are, what Cydia or even a GUI is, what apt is or what Debian/Ubuntu are. To the average user, iPhone applications come from the app store - that's the end of it. For these users, who I imagine make up the vast majority, Apple controls the software they're allowed to install on their iPhone.
which is not the only possible channel of distribution
I thought it was? Is there another way (that doesn't include modifying hardware or system software or invalidating the warranty) of getting apps onto an iPhone?
Not only are restrictions placed on the app store, but on the device itself. It wouldn't be a problem if anyone could set up their own app store to distribute software to iPhone users.
no one is bitching about not being able to buy windows vista or a Zen at an apple retail location.
A better analogy would be buying a Mac and then only being allowed to buy software from Apple retail locations.
RTFA - his site is more than just a collection of ads. It's a huge searchable directory that had some ads on it to generate profit.
I know reading the article isn't popular, but on this occasion it's important. Parent really isn't being insightful.
Van Baker, an analyst at Gartner Inc.
does anyone get a "Napoleon Dynamite" vibe from these ads? If that is what they are shooting for, no wonder they are so boring.
Maybe you're not their target demographic? Maybe the teenagers looking to buy a new MP3 player are?
that would indicate a level of incompetence which even I wouldn't expect out of MS
You vastly underestimate the power of advertising. Consider that most people who see these ads aren't anti-Microsoft Slashdotters, but people who have other interests and for whom Microsoft products are just part of the scenery along with different cars, cereals and soft drinks.
These adverts are designed to make Microsoft stand out on the skyline by associating with it a more comfortable, personal feeling.
Does not even make sense. How would the scammers tie your MAC address to your email?
Yes, there are a lot of things that don't make sense!
Microsoft's operating system - appearing where not wanted, hard to remove, causing administration headaches, and finally being forced out in hopes of getting one's living space back.
Well you know you could just avoid giving Microsoft all this publicity if you feel so strongly about the quality of their products.
As for the advert, I thought it was quite funny. It didn't mention any specific products, but that's not really the point: the very personification of Microsoft (good ol' Bill) is given a soft, friendly image that will inevitably reflect onto the company and its products. It's got a kind of quirkiness that works really well - this will no doubt help improve sales of more personal product line (such as the Zune) that aren't really compatible with the hygienic, corporate image of Windows and Office.
you can even access the mp3s stored within
This is simply wrong.
After writing a reply, I learned that Ctrl+R refreshes the page in Firefox.
;-)
I'll reply tomorrow when my frustration has subsided
Your argument is based on a logical fallacy: just because one life form was created by an intelligent being, it doesn't mean that all life forms were created by intelligent beings.
they were all stupid [...] Today, we're much smarter than that
Oh! The irony!
Personally, I know God exists
Out of interest, how do you rationalise something other than God creating life?
I ask because I noticed on the page your sig links to you write "the Bible is God's infallible word, and that he guided the translators perfectly to copy it." From the Bible:
God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves