One thing the tech crowd needs to understand: A non-technically-minded person will never want to learn how to use a computer. It's not a matter of ignorance or stupidity. It's simply that a computer is, for them, just another appliance, and while (to you and I) it is a fascinating appliance with limitless potential, it is (for non-technical folks) a tool to get something done.
Except it's a really horrible appliance.
Compare it to a Microwave. A Microwave is obvious - it heats up things. There are sometimes lots of buttons, but they're not scary, and if something happens that you don't like, there's a big read "Cancel" button sitting right there. So you're not afraid to play around with it. You'll hit some buttons until it does what you want, and then you'll always hit those same buttons because you know they work. Every time you hit those buttons, your food gets warm in exactly the same manner.
Compare this to a computer. They take time to boot (that's not useful!) and crash. Moreso, when they crash, it's usually not fixed by just unplugging. If you push the wrong buttons on a computer, stuff breaks, and more often than not when stuff on a computer breaks, you can't solve it quickly. Best case you have to wait for it to boot again (it's not doing anything!) and worst-case you have to take it into a repair guy.
Even assuming things don't break, per se, look at all that can go wrong. A Microwave will never try to attack you, but if I miss one button my computer becomes hostile! On a computer I have so many options... where to save a file? Who knows? I just want to put it somewhere and open it later. Organize? That's hard! What's a directory? Did I put it in "Pictures" or "Documents"? Or is it a Program File? I don't get it.
Now, my Microwave could have a dial on it that lets me control the fan speed. Another dial lets me control the microwave emitter's intensity. I could flip a switch and tune these dials just right, and cook my food just right. Cool! Or I could irradiate things lethally (or not, but it's a metaphor; suspend your imagination a little!) In fact, it's the very lack of options that makes the Microwave useful. I wouldn't judge a person for being too scared to change those dials, nor would I expect everyone to learn how.
To non-technical people, computers must be appliances, and they will prefer the OS and Software Suite that accomplishes this best. Right now that's Windows and Mac. Linux has too many dials. Things can go wrong. The end user cannot have anything go wrong ever. If you want Linux to reach the end-user, Linux has to be a better appliance than Windows or Mac. Some distros are better than others, but there are still way too many degrees of freedom. Software update sites, administrator accounts, audio not working, suspend issues, complex filesystems....
There are answers online for all of these questions. There is documentation for some, forums for others, and wikis for most. However, they all ignore the fact that these are problems that can not exist in a compelling appliance. Adding more documentation will make my job easier, but it will do nothing for a non-technical user.
Personally, the best appliance of all is looking like Chrome OS. And it's Linux!
This would be excellent advice, but unfortunately, he's using a netbook. This normally means an Intel Atom processor, which is sadly devoid of any hardware visualization support whatsoever, therefore stopping the otherwise excellent virtualbox from working. Some very good points otherwise though.
Hah, good point! I, unfortunately, misread the OP as "Notebook". The VM stuff is out the window, then. Although, looking at Wikipedia, it looks like models such as Atom Z520, Z530, Z540, Z550 will have VT-x extensions.
I humbly beg to differ. While doing everything mentioned is insane, I did open my post with more general advice to pick a subset of protections. Obviously some of those I mention are more burdensome than others, but there is a measurable tradeoff. The various tidbits of advice I mentioned are intended to be larger up-front investments that, when used in the field, will hopefully start up and shutdown fast enough to be practical.
Case in point the VM... the set-up is expensive, but afterwards he can pop in a USB wireless device, double-click an icon, and know 100% that his computer will not be affected by both his browsing session and generic network-level attacks. If that's not important to him, he doesn't have to do it. If it is, it's (I believe) a pretty good solution to the problem.
For #3. If that's the issue, just get a bootable DVD and run your OS from there. Every boot is a clean install of the OS, unless the compromise your BIOS or something. It's like #3, but a whole lot less trouble. If you want, store stuff to the HD, and don't run files from it, and when you get back, toss it in as an extra disk in a system, scan the files, and you have your pictures or whatever you wanted. But they can't compromise an OS on a DVD.
Booting from a DVD takes a lot longer than starting a saved-state VM. A LiveCD is a great solution to the overall problem, but I opted for the VM advice instead because the time from power-on to internet browsing is, in my experience, faster by a factor of over 20.
The LiveCD is a good suggestion, though, and should have been mentioned along with its pros and cons. I only wish you'd voiced it as an addendum instead of in the form of criticism.
Or #1. SSL to a bank site is insecure, but SSH to your home system is more secure? By a difference enough to make it worth the trouble setting it up? Really?
Uh... yes, for a lot of good reasons. With a SSH/Proxy you can browse non-HTTPS sites securely over wireless. There are numerous WiFi attacks, and hotspots aren't guaranteed to even be encrypted, so it's reasonable to assume that the traffic you're sending can be snooped in on. Hotspots are, in fact, known targets of this type of thing. SSH Proxy tunneling using pre-shared strong keys will let your entire conversation be exposed, HTTP or HTTPS, without the slightest threat of security compromise (well, at least on the WiFi side of things).
Furthermore, SSL uses negotiable security protocols and has numerous trust factors (the certificate, DNS, etc.). There's no guarantee that it will choose the strongest available encryption. Even then, there's no guarantee that some man-in-the-middle attack isn't happening that could disrupt or unhinge the SSL key exchange itself. There have been Slashdot articles about such things. On the other hand, using a pre-generated SSH key and choosing the strongest encryption scheme available lets you not only set the security bar, but also pre-establish your trust, narrowing the trust factors to exactly one (directly under your control) and providing you minimally the same protection you enjoyed at home.
Finally, even if the SSL is assumed to be secure and proper, the handshake itself sends information in plaintext (the site you're connecting to, for instance) which would let malicious people know, for example, that "I am doing banking right now" when their sniffer picks up an SSL connection initiated to "bankofamerica.com". That's never a good thing, and so easy to avoid!
#5 What keys? He knows his passwords. He has sites like Bank of America where they authenticate themselves to him with pictures to make sure he's on the right site, so he's not getting fished. Maybe have a DNS server of his own manually coded, and could even run occasional traceroutes to make sure there isn't something doing a DNS redirect. But to have to carry keys with you to check a couple secure sites? Overkill.
Really, security is best done in layers. The tightest system will be burdensome to operate, so don't take every suggestion you see. Instead, evaluate some basic thoughts, such as:
Where will my sensitive data be stored?
Ideally, you want this to be a remote machine, either cloud or at home, with your Notebook acting as a gateway.
What am I exposing to attackers?
Be aware of potential vectors of attack (mostly wireless / network based, but don't forget physical access) and have a defense against them.
How am I protecting my data?
Ideally, everything (and, more practically, everything sensitive) will pass through some pipe that uses the strongest available encryption.
Here is a general set of guidelines that I use:
Are you sure you can't have a computer at home? A cheap decade-old server with a constant internet connection? How about trusted family or friends?
As others here have mentioned, having pre-exchanged SSH keys and doing all of your sensitive browsing / business over an SSH-tunneled Proxy to a machine back home will do wonders to help with any inherent wi-fi (or untrustworthy ISP) issues.
Protect In Advance
Get your system hardened before you start your journey. Make sure you're running the latest operating system versions with the latest security patches. Make sure you've configured your firewall and updated your antivirus software. Pick a secure software suite to use for your important actions. For any OS, shut down daemons and services that you're not going to need, as each is a potential point of attack.
If you are worried about viruses on your machine, only let Virtual Machine snapshots connect to a network
Buy a USB-based wireless device (they're only $20 or so). Disable the wireless device on your Notebook's OS. Before you leave, build a Virtual Machine running an OS of your choice (Linux works nicely). Install the OS from scratch, boot it, update it, and then open up a browser instance. Configure it so that the USB wireless device is forwarded directly to the VM, and install its drivers in the VM. Snapshot the Virtual Machine's state. When you're travelling, turn off your Notebook's wireless signal the entire time. If you want to use the Internet, plug in the USB wireless device, start your VM, and use the Internet through it. When you're done, shut down the VM and revert its state to the saved snapshot state that you made before you started your trip. This should help ensure that any viruses you are hit with only survive the duration of that single VM session.
Encrypt your Hard Drive
The options vary based on your OS. Any standard encryption scheme will do - complete drive encryption, partition encryption, filesystem-based encryption, etc. The real goal here is to make sure that neither your private files nor your runtime-generated files (Internet history, cookies, etc.) are accessible.
Store your Keys Externally
Buy some cheap USB stick to store your SSH and/or Hard Drive encryption keys separately, and carry it with you at all times. If you're truly paranoid, you can even encrypt its filesystem with a password-based key for extra protection.
Don't Suspend / Hibernate your Machine
Fully power down your Notebook when you're not using it. If you Suspend / Hibernate, not only will memory-resident viruses etc. still be running when you resume, but decrypted information is accessible in-memory, should it be seized in this state.
Don't Do Anything Stupid / Illegal
There are a lot of threats you can face in another country, but it's wisest to stay away from the government-level threats. Don't give them a reason to seize your laptop and you'll have mitigated many truly serious issues.
But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board”
So in effect, this device will justify my search of anyone that I feel has a bomb. Even if I know it's bogus (and I'd not be surprised if the Iraqis do know this), it permits me to search anyone I want just because I feel they may have a bomb. I'd not be surprised if there was some correlation between suspicious-looking-folks and folks-with-bombs, so the power of unbounded searching is probably (somewhat) effective.
On the other hand, if they really do believe that these devices work, then the bombers may share those beliefs. That, also, could deter bombings.
Either way, it's a win for Iraq... well, if you don't care about human rights and the millions of dollars.
So your suggestion is that we issue less drivers licenses. I won't object to that, good luck trying to push that though, in contrast to just prohibiting people from drinking coffee. If you do, I'll be right rooting for you. Until then I'll root for other suggestions which may also save my precious legs.
syousef is completely correct, in my opinion. I think it is obvious to anyone that it's possible to drive and operate devices (handheld or otherwise) at the same time without the slightest compromise of safety. It's just a matter of exercising good judgment. Therein lies the problem: there are several motorists who simply lack the common sense required to exercise that good judgment.
These are the folks who slam their brakes to slow down for a turn before they hit their turn signals (if they use them to begin with). These are the folks who fly down the highway at 80 MPH with a pie plate on their stomachs, a fork on one hand, and a knife in the other, driving with their knees and gut (yes, I've seen this). These folks stare at their phone and use both hands to text, watch their GPS screen while driving, etc.
The issue at hand isn't the handheld devices or their misuse. It's the safety compromise that society accepts when they allow someone utterly lacking in common sense to utilize public roadways. Lately, that compromise has manifested itself through handheld devices, but only because they are such a low-hanging fruit. Legislating against that fruit will only make the others more appealing; idiots will always partake, and idiots will cause accidents as long as idiots can drive.
You are right to say that it's unlikely there will be fewer driver's license issuances. However, you're incorrect when you state that this law is a step forwards for anybody. It does nothing to even peripherally address the real issue at hand. Until the issue of persons who are clearly incapable of operating heavy machinery (e.g., cars) are removed from the roadways, they will continue to harm the general public, with or without their handheld devices. At best, this law is a cheap and ineffective response that will distract and deter further analysis, and thus quite dangerous.
There are some basic problems with this - specifically, iRobot's demonstration uses the addition and removal of air to control both size and hardness. In bodily cavities, not only would air be in limited supply, but in some areas (i.e. blood stream) it's downright not welcome!
It's not just a matter of disk / process size. DLLs (and dynamically-linked libraries, in general) are also an important buffer between API and ABI differences that exist between OSes (Windows 7, Vista, XP, etc.) and OS versions (SP1, SP2, and even minor updates...). Dynamically-linked Libraries act as a buffer between the API / ABI layer and the application layer, allowing the OS to fundamentally change how it works (e.g., add a field to the Create a Window system call structure), update the associated DLL(s) (e.g., rewrite the "CreateWindow" function in core.dll), and have all of the applications installed on the system still work perfectly without needing a single update.
Additionally, DLLs can enhance security. If there's a bug in MSVCRT.DLL, Microsoft can patch it and release it as an update. In a static world, every application that had that buggy code compiled into it would have to be rebuilt and redistributed.
In a statically-linked world, every application would need to be rebuilt (on Windows, redistributed) every time an API / ABI change was released, as well as every time a bug was fixed. Furthermore, download sites would either have to release binaries for every API / ABI combination (that's a ton of releases per version) and deal with users downloading the wrong one, or do the open-source model and release the source, forcing the users to build the application on their system and rebuild every API / ABI update. And somehow I don't think the latter solution would fly with the Windows community.
Like other posters have said, Microsoft's solution is actually not a bad one. Allowing multiple DLLs to be loaded simultaneously is not a pretty solution, but it's not a pretty problem that they have to solve, either. Advance with backwards-compatibility in mind as much as it makes sense to, and use SxS DLLs when it doesn't.
I agree with your point; on one hand, there are a lot of data that can be collected from the economies of video games. The challenge, as you mentioned, is making that data relevant outside of the realm of that video game (or of video games, in general). I agree that the games probably can't be valid models of real economies (or cities, etc.).
That said, I'd not be surprised if they could extract useful behavioral information out of the data. Not information about how the economy works, but rather how people act when faced with various economic events and circumstances. Players could probably be mapped to social and regional demographics by qualities such as their characters' net values, activity, and primary sources of income. Patches, updates, and expansions can be mapped to technological breakthroughs and innovations, and resource scarcity and overfarming can be mapped to depressions or natural disasters.
There are plenty of real-world economic events that might be mapped and studied to research how the players in various "classes" react, such as:
Willingness to purchase (and purchase at risk) given stable versus inflated economies
Price fixing behaviors between autonomous sellers
Purchasing behaviors of players when faced with the forced obsoleteness of their assets (*cough* Blizzard *cough)
General life cycles and paths that any given item takes between creation and final acquisition
Distribution of wealth versus playtime, and how it varies under game circumstance
etc.
To me, the practice seems legit (if done carefully), although I doubt any results are particularly useful by themselves.
"This was a warning. Microsoft will continue to produce and air this chain of advertisements as both conventional and viral marketing campaigns until you and everyone you know has purchased Windows 7. See you at the Superbowl."
T=5:43: Can you believe that Microsoft put the launch of Windows 7 in our hands?
Couldn't have said it better myself.
I love the token nerd, attractive woman, old-but-hip person, and black guy. It's like they hired marketing undergraduates to design the video.
New Dell laptop! Comes with Windows 7 and Office 2007!
In that example, the user will actually directly interact with both of those products. It's immediately relevant to the user what software they are buying the right to use.
With respect to the net radio, the end-user will never see anything close to the Linux kernel unless something goes horribly wrong. It's an utterly irrelevant piece of information for the average user.
Now, ideally, the Liunx trademark would have such a nice reputation that some form of "Linux Inside" sticker would actually increase its market value. Maybe their marketing department is as poorly-thought-out as your analogy.
As the linked article mentions, the cited article only mentions "copyright" in the headline. Nowhere in the actual article does it mention that Malaysia is making any copyright claims (or with which copyright entity).
Rather, the article details Malaysia's claim that the food originated from Malaysia, not that it's owned by Malaysia. I read it as just a semantic claim.
It's the equivalent to Germany asserting that the hot dog is German.
What makes them so smart? Is TI selling more calculators because you can play games on them, or because some kid has to buy one to do his homework? I had a TI-85 in high school and played games all through whatever math class I was in at the time, but I would have had one regardless of whether it did anything other than my homework.
My stance on the subject is that TI would stand to benefit financially to one degree or another from any and all of the following:
Enthusiasts who prefer TI calculators because they are easier to explore
Increased interest in a TI calculator because an enthusiast has built software for it that doesn't exist on other calculators
Increased overall interest in TI calculators due to available software
Increased quality of their product by observing the nature and intent of third-party changes
Increased usage of their products by third parties (professors, etc.) who have co-opted their functionality into other areas
Greater competitive edge through direct exposure to user feedback, also by monitoring enthusiast communities
Increased sales of higher-powered (i.e., more expensive) calculators since they are capable of more resource-intensive modifications than the lower models
Classes they can sell to schools about modifying their calculators
Literature that they can sell on the subject of modifying their products
Identification of quality persons from the enthusiast community for future hire
This is off the top of my head. As one who participated in the ticalc.org modding community when it was all Z-shell and assembly hacks, I can say for sure that I benefited from third-party applications and learned quite a lot by programming low-level software. A lot has changed since then, but I can attest firsthand to the benefits of an open TI calculator.
Really, though, what does TI have to lose? Has the enthusiast community as it stands actually harmed them? If so, I'm not aware of it.
I really have to wonder what dope modded the parent post as insightful. Enthusiasts aren't any manufacturer's target audience. There are (say) 10 million kids who need a graphing calculator for college or high school, and (say) 100 that are hacking them. Claiming those few are the key to success is just plain wrong.
There are countless instances where enthusiasts, with or without support from the parent company, have been a source of significant innovation. Smart companies realize this and encourage that innovation, both for product advancement and as a vast source of design feedback. Even TI could take some very minimal steps to greatly enable enthusiasts (i.e. release these keys, or just not have them).
Look only as far as Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft series for a very vivid example. Enthusiasts built massive tools and communities centered around modifying their games, and Blizzard engaged them and they responded by greatly opening up future releases. DotA started as a map mod and has progressed into its own complete video game. In expansions (and even moreso in new games), Blizzard has identified the enthusiasts' interests and worked to further enable them. Their appreciation of enthusiasts and community has them labeled as a Smart Company in my book.
If TI were smart, they'd make their calculators as open as possible. There's clearly an interest among the capable, and I'd infer from that a greater interest among the general populous. They could do workshops, partner with schools, market it as "open", and even recruit from the enthusiast base.
Ultimately, interest is interest; even non-enthusiasts appreciate the work: "Hey, I can load games onto this calculator!"
I, for one, believe that the advent of the Internet signified not only the inter-connection of global computer systems, but of humanity as a whole. Knowledge, the most controlled and valuable resource known to man, has trickled down in various forms to be potentially accessible to any person anywhere. Try and think of the scope of that statement, and how a few oceans and the current tectonic formation really pales in comparison. The Internet obsoleted, among other things, boundaries.
The move is far from immediate, but certainly inevitable. Throughout history, social growth has directly paced our capability to interact and communicate. As travel became more capable and communication more instantaneous, so too increases the integration of economies, nations, cultures, cuisines, traditions, religions, sciences, and technologies. Now, with the Internet, we have, in the last 15 years, maxed out the scope of interaction and communication. What we see, with a global economy and international politics, are some of the immediate downsides of old, limited systems reacting to the recent rapid development like a cornered animal.
Until you have that big picture in mind, you're not even aware enough to decide whether or not to ignore the Middle East, much less assess the consequences of such an action. It's not just a progressive mindset... it's an admission of the nature of our species. Your stance will go the way of printed media: It will be viewed as inherently flawed by those with real influence (innovators) and, over numerous iterations, addressed until it is obsolete. You, as an individual, choose to either move on or go down kicking and screaming.
I don't care about Iran / the Middle East as an American. I care about it as a member of humanity.
cryfreedomlove's point was that the rights are inherent to humanity, not tied to a nation. That such a right is codified only provides a statement of intent by a government to respect and enforce that right. He speaks of an an underlying entitlement to those rights shared by human beings as a species. Oppressive governments and cultures seek to suppress that sense of entitlement, and succeed largely by doing so. The rights themselves transcend governments and circumstance, and their denial in any situation is oppressive, regardless of the international and local legalities involved.
Iranians, consisting mostly of human beings*, share these inalienable rights on virtue of their humanity. And the Iranian government, by suppressing them, is evil in the greater moral sense.
Granted the specific set of rights and the significances behind them are quite subjective, but the principle stands. Also granted the USA's specific track record on respecting and enforcing its statement of such rights is sketchy at times, but remember that a flawed implementation doesn't signify a flawed underlying principle.
* One of my ex-girlfriends was Iranian and proved to be an exception to the rule:)
Slashdot Mirror
It's a cartoon wildebeest.
Except it's a really horrible appliance.
Compare it to a Microwave. A Microwave is obvious - it heats up things. There are sometimes lots of buttons, but they're not scary, and if something happens that you don't like, there's a big read "Cancel" button sitting right there. So you're not afraid to play around with it. You'll hit some buttons until it does what you want, and then you'll always hit those same buttons because you know they work. Every time you hit those buttons, your food gets warm in exactly the same manner.
Compare this to a computer. They take time to boot (that's not useful!) and crash. Moreso, when they crash, it's usually not fixed by just unplugging. If you push the wrong buttons on a computer, stuff breaks, and more often than not when stuff on a computer breaks, you can't solve it quickly. Best case you have to wait for it to boot again (it's not doing anything!) and worst-case you have to take it into a repair guy.
Even assuming things don't break, per se, look at all that can go wrong. A Microwave will never try to attack you, but if I miss one button my computer becomes hostile! On a computer I have so many options ... where to save a file? Who knows? I just want to put it somewhere and open it later. Organize? That's hard! What's a directory? Did I put it in "Pictures" or "Documents"? Or is it a Program File? I don't get it.
Now, my Microwave could have a dial on it that lets me control the fan speed. Another dial lets me control the microwave emitter's intensity. I could flip a switch and tune these dials just right, and cook my food just right. Cool! Or I could irradiate things lethally (or not, but it's a metaphor; suspend your imagination a little!) In fact, it's the very lack of options that makes the Microwave useful. I wouldn't judge a person for being too scared to change those dials, nor would I expect everyone to learn how.
To non-technical people, computers must be appliances, and they will prefer the OS and Software Suite that accomplishes this best. Right now that's Windows and Mac. Linux has too many dials. Things can go wrong. The end user cannot have anything go wrong ever. If you want Linux to reach the end-user, Linux has to be a better appliance than Windows or Mac. Some distros are better than others, but there are still way too many degrees of freedom. Software update sites, administrator accounts, audio not working, suspend issues, complex filesystems....
There are answers online for all of these questions. There is documentation for some, forums for others, and wikis for most. However, they all ignore the fact that these are problems that can not exist in a compelling appliance. Adding more documentation will make my job easier, but it will do nothing for a non-technical user.
Personally, the best appliance of all is looking like Chrome OS. And it's Linux!
We can call it 1 / Memento.
This would be excellent advice, but unfortunately, he's using a netbook. This normally means an Intel Atom processor, which is sadly devoid of any hardware visualization support whatsoever, therefore stopping the otherwise excellent virtualbox from working. Some very good points otherwise though.
Hah, good point! I, unfortunately, misread the OP as "Notebook". The VM stuff is out the window, then. Although, looking at Wikipedia, it looks like models such as Atom Z520, Z530, Z540, Z550 will have VT-x extensions.
Regardless, thanks for pointing that out!
Case in point the VM ... the set-up is expensive, but afterwards he can pop in a USB wireless device, double-click an icon, and know 100% that his computer will not be affected by both his browsing session and generic network-level attacks. If that's not important to him, he doesn't have to do it. If it is, it's (I believe) a pretty good solution to the problem.
For #3. If that's the issue, just get a bootable DVD and run your OS from there. Every boot is a clean install of the OS, unless the compromise your BIOS or something. It's like #3, but a whole lot less trouble. If you want, store stuff to the HD, and don't run files from it, and when you get back, toss it in as an extra disk in a system, scan the files, and you have your pictures or whatever you wanted. But they can't compromise an OS on a DVD.
Booting from a DVD takes a lot longer than starting a saved-state VM. A LiveCD is a great solution to the overall problem, but I opted for the VM advice instead because the time from power-on to internet browsing is, in my experience, faster by a factor of over 20.
The LiveCD is a good suggestion, though, and should have been mentioned along with its pros and cons. I only wish you'd voiced it as an addendum instead of in the form of criticism.
Or #1. SSL to a bank site is insecure, but SSH to your home system is more secure? By a difference enough to make it worth the trouble setting it up? Really?
Uh ... yes, for a lot of good reasons. With a SSH/Proxy you can browse non-HTTPS sites securely over wireless. There are numerous WiFi attacks, and hotspots aren't guaranteed to even be encrypted, so it's reasonable to assume that the traffic you're sending can be snooped in on. Hotspots are, in fact, known targets of this type of thing. SSH Proxy tunneling using pre-shared strong keys will let your entire conversation be exposed, HTTP or HTTPS, without the slightest threat of security compromise (well, at least on the WiFi side of things).
Furthermore, SSL uses negotiable security protocols and has numerous trust factors (the certificate, DNS, etc.). There's no guarantee that it will choose the strongest available encryption. Even then, there's no guarantee that some man-in-the-middle attack isn't happening that could disrupt or unhinge the SSL key exchange itself. There have been Slashdot articles about such things. On the other hand, using a pre-generated SSH key and choosing the strongest encryption scheme available lets you not only set the security bar, but also pre-establish your trust, narrowing the trust factors to exactly one (directly under your control) and providing you minimally the same protection you enjoyed at home.
Finally, even if the SSL is assumed to be secure and proper, the handshake itself sends information in plaintext (the site you're connecting to, for instance) which would let malicious people know, for example, that "I am doing banking right now" when their sniffer picks up an SSL connection initiated to "bankofamerica.com". That's never a good thing, and so easy to avoid!
#5 What keys? He knows his passwords. He has sites like Bank of America where they authenticate themselves to him with pictures to make sure he's on the right site, so he's not getting fished. Maybe have a DNS server of his own manually coded, and could even run occasional traceroutes to make sure there isn't something doing a DNS redirect. But to have to carry keys with you to check a couple secure sites? Overkill.
Ideally, you want this to be a remote machine, either cloud or at home, with your Notebook acting as a gateway.
Be aware of potential vectors of attack (mostly wireless / network based, but don't forget physical access) and have a defense against them.
Ideally, everything (and, more practically, everything sensitive) will pass through some pipe that uses the strongest available encryption.
Here is a general set of guidelines that I use:
As others here have mentioned, having pre-exchanged SSH keys and doing all of your sensitive browsing / business over an SSH-tunneled Proxy to a machine back home will do wonders to help with any inherent wi-fi (or untrustworthy ISP) issues.
Get your system hardened before you start your journey. Make sure you're running the latest operating system versions with the latest security patches. Make sure you've configured your firewall and updated your antivirus software. Pick a secure software suite to use for your important actions. For any OS, shut down daemons and services that you're not going to need, as each is a potential point of attack.
Buy a USB-based wireless device (they're only $20 or so). Disable the wireless device on your Notebook's OS. Before you leave, build a Virtual Machine running an OS of your choice (Linux works nicely). Install the OS from scratch, boot it, update it, and then open up a browser instance. Configure it so that the USB wireless device is forwarded directly to the VM, and install its drivers in the VM. Snapshot the Virtual Machine's state. When you're travelling, turn off your Notebook's wireless signal the entire time. If you want to use the Internet, plug in the USB wireless device, start your VM, and use the Internet through it. When you're done, shut down the VM and revert its state to the saved snapshot state that you made before you started your trip. This should help ensure that any viruses you are hit with only survive the duration of that single VM session.
The options vary based on your OS. Any standard encryption scheme will do - complete drive encryption, partition encryption, filesystem-based encryption, etc. The real goal here is to make sure that neither your private files nor your runtime-generated files (Internet history, cookies, etc.) are accessible.
Buy some cheap USB stick to store your SSH and/or Hard Drive encryption keys separately, and carry it with you at all times. If you're truly paranoid, you can even encrypt its filesystem with a password-based key for extra protection.
Fully power down your Notebook when you're not using it. If you Suspend / Hibernate, not only will memory-resident viruses etc. still be running when you resume, but decrypted information is accessible in-memory, should it be seized in this state.
There are a lot of threats you can face in another country, but it's wisest to stay away from the government-level threats. Don't give them a reason to seize your laptop and you'll have mitigated many truly serious issues.
That's TOTALLY moronic. That's like saying "get 5 or 15 people to guess your birthday and go with the answer that it gives most often."
Are people accurate 79% of the time? In the examples you gave? Then no, it's not like that at all.
How stupid can you get?
Many thanks for demonstrating!
Coming soon: The Worminator!
But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board”
So in effect, this device will justify my search of anyone that I feel has a bomb. Even if I know it's bogus (and I'd not be surprised if the Iraqis do know this), it permits me to search anyone I want just because I feel they may have a bomb. I'd not be surprised if there was some correlation between suspicious-looking-folks and folks-with-bombs, so the power of unbounded searching is probably (somewhat) effective.
On the other hand, if they really do believe that these devices work, then the bombers may share those beliefs. That, also, could deter bombings.
Either way, it's a win for Iraq ... well, if you don't care about human rights and the millions of dollars.
So your suggestion is that we issue less drivers licenses. I won't object to that, good luck trying to push that though, in contrast to just prohibiting people from drinking coffee. If you do, I'll be right rooting for you. Until then I'll root for other suggestions which may also save my precious legs.
syousef is completely correct, in my opinion. I think it is obvious to anyone that it's possible to drive and operate devices (handheld or otherwise) at the same time without the slightest compromise of safety. It's just a matter of exercising good judgment. Therein lies the problem: there are several motorists who simply lack the common sense required to exercise that good judgment.
These are the folks who slam their brakes to slow down for a turn before they hit their turn signals (if they use them to begin with). These are the folks who fly down the highway at 80 MPH with a pie plate on their stomachs, a fork on one hand, and a knife in the other, driving with their knees and gut (yes, I've seen this). These folks stare at their phone and use both hands to text, watch their GPS screen while driving, etc.
The issue at hand isn't the handheld devices or their misuse. It's the safety compromise that society accepts when they allow someone utterly lacking in common sense to utilize public roadways. Lately, that compromise has manifested itself through handheld devices, but only because they are such a low-hanging fruit. Legislating against that fruit will only make the others more appealing; idiots will always partake, and idiots will cause accidents as long as idiots can drive.
You are right to say that it's unlikely there will be fewer driver's license issuances. However, you're incorrect when you state that this law is a step forwards for anybody. It does nothing to even peripherally address the real issue at hand. Until the issue of persons who are clearly incapable of operating heavy machinery (e.g., cars) are removed from the roadways, they will continue to harm the general public, with or without their handheld devices. At best, this law is a cheap and ineffective response that will distract and deter further analysis, and thus quite dangerous.
There are some basic problems with this - specifically, iRobot's demonstration uses the addition and removal of air to control both size and hardness. In bodily cavities, not only would air be in limited supply, but in some areas (i.e. blood stream) it's downright not welcome!
Additionally, DLLs can enhance security. If there's a bug in MSVCRT.DLL, Microsoft can patch it and release it as an update. In a static world, every application that had that buggy code compiled into it would have to be rebuilt and redistributed.
In a statically-linked world, every application would need to be rebuilt (on Windows, redistributed) every time an API / ABI change was released, as well as every time a bug was fixed. Furthermore, download sites would either have to release binaries for every API / ABI combination (that's a ton of releases per version) and deal with users downloading the wrong one, or do the open-source model and release the source, forcing the users to build the application on their system and rebuild every API / ABI update. And somehow I don't think the latter solution would fly with the Windows community.
Like other posters have said, Microsoft's solution is actually not a bad one. Allowing multiple DLLs to be loaded simultaneously is not a pretty solution, but it's not a pretty problem that they have to solve, either. Advance with backwards-compatibility in mind as much as it makes sense to, and use SxS DLLs when it doesn't.
I agree with your point; on one hand, there are a lot of data that can be collected from the economies of video games. The challenge, as you mentioned, is making that data relevant outside of the realm of that video game (or of video games, in general). I agree that the games probably can't be valid models of real economies (or cities, etc.).
That said, I'd not be surprised if they could extract useful behavioral information out of the data. Not information about how the economy works, but rather how people act when faced with various economic events and circumstances. Players could probably be mapped to social and regional demographics by qualities such as their characters' net values, activity, and primary sources of income. Patches, updates, and expansions can be mapped to technological breakthroughs and innovations, and resource scarcity and overfarming can be mapped to depressions or natural disasters.
There are plenty of real-world economic events that might be mapped and studied to research how the players in various "classes" react, such as:
To me, the practice seems legit (if done carefully), although I doubt any results are particularly useful by themselves.
And what's with the pile of lemons?
The lemons are clearly metaphors for other Windows 7 systems. Don't ask about the baguette.
"This was a warning. Microsoft will continue to produce and air this chain of advertisements as both conventional and viral marketing campaigns until you and everyone you know has purchased Windows 7. See you at the Superbowl."
I wonder why...
My guess is that they were originally enabled, but Google didn't have the bandwidth to process the torrent of 0.0 votes.
T=5:43: Can you believe that Microsoft put the launch of Windows 7 in our hands? Couldn't have said it better myself. I love the token nerd, attractive woman, old-but-hip person, and black guy. It's like they hired marketing undergraduates to design the video.
I believe the original game mentioned is Valve's "Portal".
I can't wait for this to become playable over GaiKai or OnLive! Although there may be some serious competition...
New Dell laptop! Comes with Windows 7 and Office 2007!
In that example, the user will actually directly interact with both of those products. It's immediately relevant to the user what software they are buying the right to use.
With respect to the net radio, the end-user will never see anything close to the Linux kernel unless something goes horribly wrong. It's an utterly irrelevant piece of information for the average user.
Now, ideally, the Liunx trademark would have such a nice reputation that some form of "Linux Inside" sticker would actually increase its market value. Maybe their marketing department is as poorly-thought-out as your analogy.
As the linked article mentions, the cited article only mentions "copyright" in the headline. Nowhere in the actual article does it mention that Malaysia is making any copyright claims (or with which copyright entity).
Rather, the article details Malaysia's claim that the food originated from Malaysia, not that it's owned by Malaysia. I read it as just a semantic claim.
It's the equivalent to Germany asserting that the hot dog is German.
What makes them so smart? Is TI selling more calculators because you can play games on them, or because some kid has to buy one to do his homework? I had a TI-85 in high school and played games all through whatever math class I was in at the time, but I would have had one regardless of whether it did anything other than my homework.
My stance on the subject is that TI would stand to benefit financially to one degree or another from any and all of the following:
This is off the top of my head. As one who participated in the ticalc.org modding community when it was all Z-shell and assembly hacks, I can say for sure that I benefited from third-party applications and learned quite a lot by programming low-level software. A lot has changed since then, but I can attest firsthand to the benefits of an open TI calculator.
Really, though, what does TI have to lose? Has the enthusiast community as it stands actually harmed them? If so, I'm not aware of it.
I really have to wonder what dope modded the parent post as insightful. Enthusiasts aren't any manufacturer's target audience. There are (say) 10 million kids who need a graphing calculator for college or high school, and (say) 100 that are hacking them. Claiming those few are the key to success is just plain wrong.
There are countless instances where enthusiasts, with or without support from the parent company, have been a source of significant innovation. Smart companies realize this and encourage that innovation, both for product advancement and as a vast source of design feedback. Even TI could take some very minimal steps to greatly enable enthusiasts (i.e. release these keys, or just not have them).
Look only as far as Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft series for a very vivid example. Enthusiasts built massive tools and communities centered around modifying their games, and Blizzard engaged them and they responded by greatly opening up future releases. DotA started as a map mod and has progressed into its own complete video game. In expansions (and even moreso in new games), Blizzard has identified the enthusiasts' interests and worked to further enable them. Their appreciation of enthusiasts and community has them labeled as a Smart Company in my book.
If TI were smart, they'd make their calculators as open as possible. There's clearly an interest among the capable, and I'd infer from that a greater interest among the general populous. They could do workshops, partner with schools, market it as "open", and even recruit from the enthusiast base.
Ultimately, interest is interest; even non-enthusiasts appreciate the work: "Hey, I can load games onto this calculator!"
I, for one, believe that the advent of the Internet signified not only the inter-connection of global computer systems, but of humanity as a whole. Knowledge, the most controlled and valuable resource known to man, has trickled down in various forms to be potentially accessible to any person anywhere. Try and think of the scope of that statement, and how a few oceans and the current tectonic formation really pales in comparison. The Internet obsoleted, among other things, boundaries.
The move is far from immediate, but certainly inevitable. Throughout history, social growth has directly paced our capability to interact and communicate. As travel became more capable and communication more instantaneous, so too increases the integration of economies, nations, cultures, cuisines, traditions, religions, sciences, and technologies. Now, with the Internet, we have, in the last 15 years, maxed out the scope of interaction and communication. What we see, with a global economy and international politics, are some of the immediate downsides of old, limited systems reacting to the recent rapid development like a cornered animal.
Until you have that big picture in mind, you're not even aware enough to decide whether or not to ignore the Middle East, much less assess the consequences of such an action. It's not just a progressive mindset ... it's an admission of the nature of our species. Your stance will go the way of printed media: It will be viewed as inherently flawed by those with real influence (innovators) and, over numerous iterations, addressed until it is obsolete. You, as an individual, choose to either move on or go down kicking and screaming.
I don't care about Iran / the Middle East as an American. I care about it as a member of humanity.
And if Iran was the USA, you'd have a point.
cryfreedomlove's point was that the rights are inherent to humanity, not tied to a nation. That such a right is codified only provides a statement of intent by a government to respect and enforce that right. He speaks of an an underlying entitlement to those rights shared by human beings as a species. Oppressive governments and cultures seek to suppress that sense of entitlement, and succeed largely by doing so. The rights themselves transcend governments and circumstance, and their denial in any situation is oppressive, regardless of the international and local legalities involved.
Iranians, consisting mostly of human beings*, share these inalienable rights on virtue of their humanity. And the Iranian government, by suppressing them, is evil in the greater moral sense.
Granted the specific set of rights and the significances behind them are quite subjective, but the principle stands. Also granted the USA's specific track record on respecting and enforcing its statement of such rights is sketchy at times, but remember that a flawed implementation doesn't signify a flawed underlying principle.
* One of my ex-girlfriends was Iranian and proved to be an exception to the rule :)