And you're for Handgun Regulation? How do you suppose to keep people off your lawn if you are unarmed? You see, you claim to be against one thing, not realizing it is required to do the thing you do want.
If you need a firearm to keep people off your lawn then there is either something fundamentally wrong with society or something fundamentally wrong with you.
And who is gonna protect you from abusive police powers, legal system run amok, and legislatures who write all sorts of nanny laws? Or perhaps you agree with the police state, crappy legal system and all the nanny laws.
I see, having your own gun will help keep the state in check... Oh, hold on, no it wont. Lets think about this for a second, if you need fundemental political change, i.e. there is a tyrannical central government, then the only way you are going to be able to deal with it is en-masse, lots of people all with the same aim, then you have a civil war, a revolution if you like. In a civil war the Army, Police etc.. will be just as split as the rest of the populace, and as a bonus they will have arms and training on how to use them. I see absolutely no benefit in an individual's right to a firearm, all it does is mean that there have to be even more firearms about (Police being routinely armed), and more violent and firearm related crime, not to mention accidents and stupidity.
1) Your code blew up, and you're about to get 0wn3d. Yup, it's exploitable, and the customers are not going to be happy.
2) Your code blew up, and maybe it is exploitable, maybe not. 3) Your code blew up, and you meant it to blow up, and it's clearly not exploitable.
Since you are not coding specifically for your application to crash (Or I hope not) surely there can be no 3. 2 is as good as it gets, you have done everything you can to prevent your code "blowing up" you have tried to handle anything that can be thrown at it gracefully, and you have done everything to ensure that when if and when things do go wrong they can do no damage, that's 2, not 3. If you cannot foresee and prevent every possible thing that could cause your application to crash (which you can't), then how can you foresee every possible way in which that unforeseeable crash could be exploited. All you can ever do is your best.
Next up, from the article:
Two of the three bugs result in a denial-of-service-like situation, with the PC's processor maxed out at 100%, making the machine unusable until it's rebooted. The third, Aharoni suggested, could be used to introduce remote attack code after an exploit causes an overflow of "wwlib.dll," a crucial Word library. But "code execution is not trivial," he added.
If described correctly then these bugs all pose a risk. sure the first two are minor risks, the later is major, but all three are bugs that should be listed as security vulnerabilities. I would suggest that the reason that they are currently not being seen as such by Microsoft, is simply that no one can be sure if the conditions required to trigger them could be utilised by anyone wishing to take advantage of them, and thus they are theoretically less threatening than many of the other issues that have plagued Microsoft Applications in the past.
In the end however we should be simply sating that a problem exists, it may be a security risk, and until it is fixed, we will treat it as such. Anything else (rightly or wrongly) simply smells like someone is covering up issues, and lets be frank, Microsoft doesn't have enough good will for that to be acceptable.
(Good job I don't run windows anywhere any more really, PDA, Routers, Servers & Desktop - there is always a better way.. (not that my routers ever did run windows...))
By definition web sites solicit visitors to visit them, people come and look at information that has been made available for that purpose, i.e. a web site is supposed to be visited by people. So the slashdot effect is a by-product of legitimate use, something that the web site owner intended, but beyond the scale that was expected. Dealing with bulk email contaminated with dodgy code sent from compromised PC's running malicious software isn't a valid comparison.
Email from this kind of attack is generated either with malicious intent, without the consent of the originator, without the consent of the recipient, outside of what should be expected by mail system administrators (well outside of what should be expected in an ideal world) or any combination of these.
In short exploiting a PC and then using it to DDOS mail systems (possibly as a by product of any number of other unacceptable activities such as spreading malicious code, spam etc..), is more akin to carrying out an intentional DDOS attack, or hacking into a system to install unwanted code.
The slashdot effect is more like having a huge email response to an advert, a response that wasn't expected and may be beyond what is capable of being managed, yet something that was intended.
Both may have a similar effect, the difference is intent.
As for suing the software manufacturers for negligence, I don't see a problem with that. Sufficient negligence for a prosecution is hard to prove, after all, a bug that could not have been foreseen being exploited is not negligence, failing to patch a known bug because you can't be bothered, even though you know it is going to have a significant impact on someone else is. It also comes down to scale, it would be hard to sue a one man software producer who is giving his software away for free, with no warranty. The hard part is (and this is something that should be highlighted) very few software companies will give any guarantee or warranty whatsoever regarding the suitability or utility of their software for any reason. Buying software that says it is potentially unsafe leaves you no excuse to claim manufacturer negligence, it is your own neglgence, you should have bough software that was guaranteed to work, or that came with some warranty. (which leads me on to... ->)
Taking that a step further I would suggest that any company of a certain size (say 200 staff) should be required to ensure that their on-line activities do not impact negatively on others, it should be their responsibility (legally) to ensure that their networks are not compromised and are not in a position where they may be exploited. This should also cover dodgy tactics like spamming (blog spam or email spam). If this were the case then companies that provide software may feel at least some requirement not to put their customers at risk.
Yeah I can see you have had some pretty poor experiences, to be honest I haven't seen that many problems (recently) with service, but I would hate to rely on an ISP for anything other than general connectivity, mail, DNS, etc.. are just too easy to break. as far as support is concerned its usually a non starter unless you have a vanilla set up. as for downtime - just don't accept it, - dont pay for anything you haven't received, and if you have an SLA go at them for breach of contract.
ahem, mail me your X configuration and I'll sort it for you if you want (or have a damn good go) - what you describe has become something of a regular occurrence in my part of the world, my email is shown but replace the domain with gmail.com as I'm out and about at the moment.
As for intel graphics on notebooks, I agree, there is nothing like having a component in a notebook where you don't have to worry about it being some bizarre non standard randomly hacked (or firmware crippled), especially when you are talking about the graphics card.
I think you are missing the point then, which may indicate that I wasn't clear in describing it, I'll try to do better;
They have shoved you a pricey piece of their "diagnostic" equipment and you can't use it (no configuration). Requiring you to buy a router for £159.99 was just so they can troubleshoot in case of problems. Their techs should do that for free if it was their fault and you would had pay if it wasn't.
They have and they should, but if I included the price of the hardware into the cost of the contract, (£159.99 + (12x£15.99)) and indeed added the cost of connection (£70) I get a total for the contract of £421.87, 0r £35.16 a month. That is a little more than I would have had to pay with some of the other contracts I was looking at, (mostly they were between £30 - £65pm) however, these other contracts also had either connection charges or other charges (invoice charges for a printed bill (£1.99) being the favourite), that when factored in brought the cost above the @£36. Now baring in mind that I did not have to pay the connection charge or for the router, and that they are only factors if I wish to cancel the contract, I currently have a net gain from the deal. Now if I had taken the contract and the service provider had not delivered an acceptable service, then I am certain that I would have been able to cancel the contract and had any expenditures returned to me.
So in short, I pay very little for a good service, the only risk to me as far as cost is concerned is early cancellation. Had I taken a non contract connection then a) I would not have gotten the service I would require, (often these are PAYG, capped, or otherwise limited, and none offered what I was after at reasonable cost) and b) would be in a worse position.
The support situation is even more convoluted, primarily because no ISP is capable of giving decent support to all their customers, me in particular. Having far too much time on my hands means that my internal network is growing to ridiculous proportions, 4 PC's in server roles (3x Debian 1x Solaris) 2 PDA's (Familiar Linux) (wireless access), 2 Laptops (Debian, wireless access), 1 Desktop (Debian again but wired), not to mention internal DNS and DHCP servers, 2 Internal routers with wireless and their own firewalls, and a switch. I cant figure out a way to spell it all out sensibly here (nor cover what I am doing with them all:) ) but its quite a large amount of kit.
Now if I have an issue with network access I know that I need to do my own fault finding, if it IS a problem with the service I need to identify that, the best way of doing that (after fault finding my own kit) is simply to drop my router, plug the supplied router and see if the issue is still present (using one of the laptops, but wired). If so then I can contact support (and pretend I am running XP with internet explorer to get any sort of support or escalation). I can hardly call my ISP to complain that their is a problem with their service because my Debian Laptop that is wireless and behind 2 firewalls, cannot connect to a POP3 server...)
So I think that covers your first point,
Secondly:
Signing for an unspecified time and then changing to a fixed time contract would be a good idea if you don't know about their Quality of Service. Most ISPs should allow you to get all the discounts you'd get when signing for a fixed time service straight-away (if there are any). But in your case this is more of an afterthought because you seem to be satisfied.
I haven't seen a single ISP who will allow you to "try before you buy" this may be a location thing, but the only options are 1) huge layout (connection, router, on site installation etc..) and no contract, or 2) contract, typically 1 year.
as far as QOS is concerned, they must supply what they claim to supply (always read the TOS), if they don't, cancel, they are in breach of contract, you are unlikely to get any kind of SLA (I haven't seen one) without a contract.
to answer your question, Its a fixed contract - But I'm confused;
I'm not sure what ISP BS I am supposed to have sucked up... the router and the connection charges are either present in all the contracts that I looked at or are obviously reflected in the monthly cost of the plans, some are bare bones plans that require neither, however they are often capped, not something I could accept. As far as their service is concerned, it is decent, everything happened on time, and billing has been smooth. Connectivity is good, no down time at all so far and a connection at either the claimed rate or faster. The only problem I have with them is their DNS servers, they will redirect to an advert laden page rather than return a negative (but that is becoming common), so I use my own DNS server.
SO are you suggesting that after looking at all the varied contracts available I was duped? or that there was some sort of action I could have taken to get the same contract at the same terms without the negatives (router, connection fee, DNS issues)? As far as I see it, I have a range of options and considered them all, then made a decision based on what I needed, and what the various contracts, and TOS's offered, sure I didn't get everything that I wanted, but I got as much as I could, and much better than most.
this is one of those weird areas where the charges sound sane but are often not - for example, my current broadband provider waived a connection fee (£70) and the cost of a router ("valued at" £159.99).
Sound reasonable except that the connection doesn't actually cost them anything (it was an existing phone line that I had used with broadband before - I checked with my phone company when I dumped their broadband and was told that if I was getting a different supplier they would simply move the line I'd pay a termination fee (£1.99) that covers the administration and the other company could simply enable it, they gave me a number, which apparently identified my line and all would be well (not sure what that means in terms of adsl, but it was implied that it was an update on a computer). So that's £70 that probably is simply profit, with no service to render, or at least not £70 worth.
Next to the router, I didn't ask for a router, I didn't want a router (I have a couple of Linksys boxes that I use). I was told however that I had to have the router, and that I would have to use the router. I did get the router (nasty box with no access whatsoever) plugged in set up (as you do) found that there was a firewall on board that I couldn't play with (no way to pass through to the router that I actually trust to do my fire-walling...).
One phone call to customer services and it turns out that I can use whatever router I want with the service (which I was pretty much going to do anyway), but that I have to keep the router so that I can have no excuse about not being able to use the service, and also so that if there is a problem they can trouble-shoot directly. So again £159.99 for no benefit. If I cancel the contract, then I owe them both sums (and nope I can't return the router) plus some additional fees for early termination (three months service I think...). So that's a pain. However, I did walk into this with open eyes, and frankly, their service is good (well if you don't use their kit or their DNS, and I have never even looked at the free web space or email bits that were bundled...). I guess the main thing is that you need to go and find the best deal you can, and include any fees or other costs in your comparison and then stick with it.
After all (warning - poor car analogy) its not as though you can buy a petrol car and then return it three months down the line because you have found that diesel is cheaper and expect not to lose out on some cash, or indeed return a car after you have bought it with no consequence simply because you have found a different car that is cheaper or better etc...
Where's that "population bomb" that was supposed to result in hundreds of millions of starvation deaths? I believe it was widely heralded in the '60s as arriving in the '80s. Strangely enough, far from wide-spread starvation the world is experiencing a wide-spread lack of starvation.
In 1960 the world population was about 3,021,475, it is now 6,453,628, in the same period we have one of the most populous countries in the world, chine, implementing what can be seen as an inhumane population control policy (the one child policy), yet the population has exploded. The growth rate is massive, and no longer self correcting (well it probably will be corrected at some point). Realistically, given the current trends, and out inability to do anything about them, there WILL be a major problem regarding how we feed all those people. As for wide-spread starvation, approximately @800 million people are undernourished (using the medical definition rather than just people who missed lunch), 11 million people die each year due to issues related to this. that is hundreds of millions of people over the period you describe, even if we halve the figure, and more over it is something that is increasing (as a result of population growth, and foreign policy in 'the west').
Now looking at all that again, remember that its not as though nothing has been done to try and fix this problem (that you seem to believe doesn't exist), there has been an influx of aid, food, medical help etc... programs to introduce farming and educate people, and this is ongoing. and as I mentioned before, China will only allow couple's to have one child, precisely because of the issues that country faces regarding population growth.
So in short I think your point is rather lost, no the most dire predictions mad in the 60's have not been met, however that is because people took action, not because it wouldn't have happened. The situation would be a hell of a lot worse if nothing had been done, it could be a hell of a lot better, however, saying that the predictions were all false because it didn't happen is plainly stupid, as action was taken to prevent them from coming true (and I am sure some where exaggerations).
As for your other points, - fresh water is scarce in quite a few places, including the usual places (Africa, Parts of Asia etc.) and in parts of Europe (like the UK). There are also issues with the contamination of groundwater where it is available.
What we need to do when we see these predictions, or scare stories is simple, get the best scientific advice, and then decide on the risk that any given scenario parents. If there is significant risk, or the chance of significant risk, we should take action to minimize it. what we shouldn't do is a collective head in the sand, if something that appears to be a risk doesn't fit in with our view point, or maybe impacts on some of our interests, we need to work round it, not simply ignore the issue in the hope that it will go away.
Now finally, the problem with dealing with any of these issues today is that the media whips up a storm about pretty much anything they can, they prefer conflict to cooperation. If the media whips up a storm or introduces controversy into the equation then politicians (who probably want to remain in power, or get into power) cannot act as they see fit. For example; If I close a factory tomorrow to save the lives of 10,000 people in 10 years time, I can guarantee that most of the people who relied on that factory (workers family etc..) will vote against me in the next election. It stands to reason (after all politics are local not global). I have caused problems for them, never mind the consequences 10 years down the line, they don't want me to be their elected representative any more. Now if I can get them all jobs and revitalise the local economy, then hell I might get those votes even if I close the factory, problem is that is hard work and may take more than one election cycle.
The next step is obviously to protect their IP, so look for patents such as:
"a method of injecting code into a web-browser to steal credit card details.... on the internet" "a method of using many remote controlled computer's, without the owners express consent* to send unwanted advertising material, to many, many people... on the internet"
After that expect to see Exploit Genuine Advantage programs to ensure that the stolen data you are using is from genuinely advantageous exploits, and not from some half baked knock off malware or virus, duplicated by a disreputable individual.
Obviously the last step will be the mergers, (after all the above should ensure a profitable market is created and grows). Symantec will merge with EvilCode PLC, to produce Evil-Symantec, McAfee will merge with McNasty, to produce McNastfee. These new entities will be able to leverage both the illegal exploit market and provide protection services simultaneously, probably all in one product... , Finally Microsoft will change its OS so that it no longer "works" with all these wondrous exploits and... hell will freeze over:)
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, - and you shouldn't look for legal advice on the internet...
I'm going to be bankrupt and my entire life will be ruined from that point forward.
There are other differences in the UK as far as bankruptcy is concerned. I believe that after a change in the law - the Enterprise Act 2000 (?) - Bankruptcy only lasts about 12 months. I think the law was changed so that enterprising individuals could get back into business after a major failure without much in the way of barriers (Personal opinion is that that may be an excellent way of letting poor business men continue to fleece the public and then screw up their own businesses without penalties, but hey..). Unsurprisingly the result is that bankruptcies are on the increase, and coupled with the amount of debt people in the UK have on a per person basis, mostly for mortgages (avg house price is £137000 after all) I would expect that to increase.
Moreover I think that UK courts take into account personal circumstances when making awards or issuing fines, mostly to ensure that they are payable by the guilty party, they also attempt to set up terms on the payment. In aa criminal case you may find yourself owing £50,000 in fines and having to pay back £50 a week / month / year, depending on your circumstances. In a civil case the awards must be actual, and demonstrable, so they should be a number someone picked for media impact, and again should be within your means or deferred until they are, whilst with regard to costs, the way it works is that the court will make a "Costs Order" against you, but say that it is not to be enforced until it can be shown that you have the money to pay, which may be never.
Also remember that in the UK you have access to public money when fighting your defence if you are not able to pay for it yourself. There are also an array of groups that will assist you in your defence in certain areas (this case would be one of them) where you would be able to get help. The help available is often very, very good, not simply solicitors who can't get other work. Depending on the case, top solicitors are available and willing to fight your case, plus advice from senior barristers (juniors or even QC's) in certain circumstances. In short it 'shouldn't' be all that easy in the UK for a rich corporation to simply brow beat individuals into submission on the basis of cost. Sure court cases will still have an impact on the party having to defend themselves, but if they are innocent they have every means to defend themselves, whether they are wealthy or not.
In practice of course some people would still shy away from court even when innocent of any wrong doing, but generally more through fear of the legal process (or simply getting a legal sounding letter) or because they think that they are guilty of something even if they are not. (think about the trailers you get on DVD'S now - you know the ones that equate making a backup of a DVD to stealing a car, a handbag and then shooting a party of school children... (well almost:) )
Anyway, back to your point, bankruptcy, not nice - but no longer the end of the world, even if it is a a major inconvenience. and on top of that if you are innocent of a crime or an infraction of civil law there is no reason not to fight any allegations, and you shouldn't lose out by having to pay your own costs. If you are guilty of something however (i.e. mass copyright infringement for personal gain) and you lose a case and then have to pay damages and costs, well that's your own fault isn't it.
I should point out that it is the UK tax payer who shoulders the burden of much of what I have described above, but then justice should be available to all, and no one should ever be in the position where they cannot mount a vigorous defence against any allegation, civil or criminal. There are currently efforts to reduce the amount of help that is available (using the fact that terrorism suspects are having their defences and appeals paid by the tax payer as a rallying cry) this effort can only make it easier for the RIAA equivalents of this world to twist the law to their benefit.
This may go a long way to help people finding those little applications (or large applications:) ) that you don't know exist and don't know you need until you stumble across them. You know, the ones you find out about from someone in IRC or on a random blog or forum, usually out of context and often without knowing how the application name is spelled or what package would provide it... yakuake anyone? - or am I just slow on the uptake...).
Now if someone where to be really clever then they would integrate this site into a nice gui package manager and make it available with Ubuntu, or any of the other distro's aimed at new Linux users. It would be nice to get some additional info (screen shots etc..) above and beyond the descriptions that are normally availale when using apt. -- if its already been done then excuse me for not having come across it yet.
PC James Smith (now Lord Smith of Whitekirk) and Det Sgt Margaret Jackson (now Dame Jackson of Drumadoon) have said that nothing of interest was found. The supervising officer Det Insp Michael Parks (Now Lord Parks of Worth Matravers) stated that whilst nothing untoward had been identified, the procedures surrounding the "hacking" and its legality would be revised. "This revision is to be taken as the intrusion into downing street computers has caused undue distress and concern to members of the British government, and is therefore probably in contravention of the European Unions Human Rights Legislation" said a downing street media official Martin Smith-Spinalot. Lord Parks also noted that Mr John Hackeby, the home office official that had authorised the intrusion had been fired from the home office for theft of office supples and is in the process of being extradited to the United States due to his involvement in online gambling, terrorist funding and drugs trafficing, for which the US State department has said it probably has some sort of evidence, or could find some by strengthening or introduction legislation to allow it to do "anything it wants to do to fight bad things".
(just in case anybody missed it, the above is fictitious and intended as light humour)
This is an old problem - the banks / merchants etc... want to make it easy enough for you to spend your money or to get credit that you do it on a regular basis. If banks decided to make it harder - in order to increase their / your security / privacy then it means that they lose business, especially if they are the first to do it. Basically they don't mind losing a bit of money to make a lot of money.
Of course as long as its easy to get hold of your cash or get credit, someone will want to exploit that to get hold of cash or credit in your name. So making it harder to commit fraud or identity theft is really only beneficial to the customer, which in turn means that the only path to making it harder to commit fraud or identity theft is to introduce legislation or regulation to make it happen. That of course is opposed by the banks and merchants (as they lose out) and opposed by the majority of customers as they don't see that there is a problem until it happens to them.
So yeah, apart from not seeing an easy solution for the banks and merchants, I also don't really see a will to implement any solution which decreases the amount of spending or credit applications, or one that will cost money to roll out (after all most organisations are looking at short term profit not long term strategy's).
You are correct, I have no empirical data to back up my hypothesis, but nonetheless from what I have seen of average computer buyers, the vast majority are Windows users exclusively, while the vast minority are OSX users. The number of Linux/UNIX/etc users are so small that I do not believe there would be a significant market.
So you say the above and you dont think that this has anythiing to do with the fact that the customers often never even see the possibility oof using something other than windows?
Im not sure that this should be forced on Hrdware manufacturers, but I am damn sure that the reason everyone uses windows is not because they choose to but because there is no percieed alternative. Its a lack of understanding, leading to, and because of a lack of choice.
On your acceptance of Project as a good piece of MS software Id like to add Visio (project is OK but I have managed to replace it with planner - but then Im not a project manager full time... - Visio is the only thing I cant replace - but thats what crossover office is for I guess - the only non-free software packages I run these days.
I wish I were more competent writing that kind of softare, because Visio needs an FOSS replacement that is more fully featured than Dia, not that Dia wont get there:) .
Every time I see stuff like this it makes me sigh.
Yes occasionally you may have a problem with X, and your chosen GUI, this is generally either hardware that isn't working properly or you have some obscure hardware.
I can not give one example where I have been unable to use *any* graphics card / monitor combo (and I have had some really old / generic kit running purely to play with, and the more usual modern kit for day to day use) with *any* Linux flavour I chose (primarily Debian these days, but also occasionally SUSE or Red Hat).
Moreover I have never come across an single situation where using a VESA driver didn't work, laptops included.
This is exactly the same situation as with windows (I have had problems with windows refusing to accept what I thought was a valid driver for an old MGI card, and was stuck in 640x480 at 256colors...) Basically for most people it just works, for some people you may have to find a driver (Windows or Linux) and for some people you will end up with a bodge and a generic driver (again Windows and Linux?.
Even more interestingly I have found that multi monitor support in Linux - especially with differing graphics cards (i.e. 3 different cards for three different monitors in this case) is far far better than that offered in Windows
Now in the interests of helping you with your opinion of Linux, I would be honoured to assist you with your graphical problem, feel free to post any relevant info here (or email me (the address is with the post obfusticated but I'm sure you'll get it) and I will take a look and see if I cant prevail where your guys failed. A copy of your X server log, X config file and the output of lspci -X (if it is a PCI card) would help, as would any version info for your kernel and X server. a quick fix - depending on your setup would be to run X -configure as root.
Oh and no one is forcing you to run Gentoo:) it does exactly what you want it to, but I would only ever use it in very specific roles
Not intending to take anything away from your post, I would just like to say that Microsoft's monopoly position is not the problem, nor is it a legal issue (as such). Its the leveraging of that monopoly to gain market share in other markets. (also possibly the use of that monopoly to maintain their monopoly, - I'm pretty sure that's an antitrust issue).
This case is in Hong Kong, a SAR of China so how biassed/corrupted the US legal system can be by corporate power is largely immaterial, I would also suggest that the penalties for Rape and Murder are somewhat harsher, at least in China and I assume in Hong Kong to a certain degree as well (Saying that I am unsure precisely what the situation is in Hong Kong, and what amount of transitioning there has been in the legal sphere since the UK handed the territory back to China).
In any case, this is certainly not one of those times where US intervention will have had much of an impact if it was even attempted, (which I doubt but cannot confirm).
As for the general topic of copyright infringement, I can quite honestly say that I support the fact that there are laws with hefty penalties in place (whether civil or criminal). After all Copyright law does do its part in protecting content producers. Patents are another matter entirely. As for materials subject to copyright, I think it is down to the creator to decide how, where and under what conditions it is distributed and used, I and the company I run prefer to release things under permissive licenses, primarily the GPL (It gives customers and consumers a choice as to what to do with the product we supply and prevents us being the sole option for them when it comes to alteration or expansion which is good and bad but still something I prefer, after all if we are better than everyone else they will come back, if we are not we must try harder..), but I wouldn't force that upon others.
Funny, Last time I checked slashdot had a fairly global user base. From where I'm sitting there doesn't seem to be all that much US control over the company's that provide the jobs and bring in the wealth to the area I'm in, its 70% Local, 20% European (mostly German to be fair) and 10% US at best, and even then its UK based organisations with US parents - (The European companies seem to find it easier than the US ones to operate here directly), or majority US shareholding.
Sure we can buy a large number of US products, and no doubt that brings money into the US. Its not as though I am suddenly not going to be able to buy hardware for my company or its clients, and its not as though I wont be able to provide services to my clients, (or for that matter get support from my up stream suppliers).
What I am saying is that whatever happens it wont kill support, development, or deployment of Linux where I am, or in many other places, and that the issue is centred on countries that have software patents within their legal frameworks. That would be bad for the US in some ways as it means that there is a whole potential market that the US would miss out on, and its a market that's getting bigger all the time. Probably the worst scenario would be that US companies would not be seen as viable to supply those services in the run up to or during the course of any legal action or threat thereof, allowing the companies that I work with and others in the area to become even more xenophobic (and they already are to a degree) in their sourcing, without the usual inducement toward US suppliers on the basis of brand and cost.
The only losers under your theoretical scenario are those support providers who also provide the Distribution, and where they are operating in a country where software patents are valid, so that probably means that the effected group would be quite small. As I see it, the whole argument that the Novel / Microsoft deal is bad hinges on Patents rather than copyright, so for a large number of companies, there is simply no problem. Different story if you are in the US I guess, and a problem if changes are made to legislation else where, but until then quite a few of the companies providing support, services or even software are in fine shape.
But pray that not many users will follow your advice or you will get the attention of the spammers and the situation will be the same with your "perfectly secure OS". So enjoy your minority while you can. This isn't an OS problem, sure its currently a Windows problem but it will happen to any OS where the user blindly installs software, and where that process is overly simple and in some cases automatic.
Of course saying that, I doubt very much that even if Linux had a user base as large as the one Microsoft currently enjoys that the problem would be of the same scale, primarily because as a Linux user, even as a totally novice user, you can get all of your software from direct from whoever provided the distribution you are using, and it becomes less likely that you would want to install some random screen saver or other application that you find on the web.
Moreover it is considerably harder if not impossible to have a browser install software without user intervention under Linux. Furthermore I have so far never seen, and would find it difficult to see how an application could be installed under Linux that is as persistent as it is under Windows.
So I guess what I am saying is that the argument that Linux would be as badly effected by Viruses, Spyware and Malware if it were as prevalent as windows is simply not true, as the two operating systems, from a user perspective are not very alike. Not to mention the fact that Linux IS more secure, not just because of its relative obscurity but also because of the security measures in place within the OS. None of which will protect the OS if the user really wants to hose his or her machine. It does make that hosing more diffucult, and considerably reduces if not eliminates the threats posed by automated attacks similar to those seen agains Windows machines.
I would have thought that predicting events that have not yet occurred would negate the need for FTL communication. Being able to predict future activity based on current activity would be useful, although any predictions would have to be accurate and timely, i.e. time for communication to get back to earth + time required to do something about it.
Slashdot Mirror
And you're for Handgun Regulation? How do you suppose to keep people off your lawn if you are unarmed? You see, you claim to be against one thing, not realizing it is required to do the thing you do want.
If you need a firearm to keep people off your lawn then there is either something fundamentally wrong with society or something fundamentally wrong with you.
And who is gonna protect you from abusive police powers, legal system run amok, and legislatures who write all sorts of nanny laws? Or perhaps you agree with the police state, crappy legal system and all the nanny laws.
I see, having your own gun will help keep the state in check... Oh, hold on, no it wont. Lets think about this for a second, if you need fundemental political change, i.e. there is a tyrannical central government, then the only way you are going to be able to deal with it is en-masse, lots of people all with the same aim, then you have a civil war, a revolution if you like. In a civil war the Army, Police etc.. will be just as split as the rest of the populace, and as a bonus they will have arms and training on how to use them. I see absolutely no benefit in an individual's right to a firearm, all it does is mean that there have to be even more firearms about (Police being routinely armed), and more violent and firearm related crime, not to mention accidents and stupidity.
From the linked blog...
1) Your code blew up, and you're about to get 0wn3d. Yup, it's exploitable, and the customers are not going to be happy.
2) Your code blew up, and maybe it is exploitable, maybe not.
3) Your code blew up, and you meant it to blow up, and it's clearly not exploitable.
Since you are not coding specifically for your application to crash (Or I hope not) surely there can be no 3. 2 is as good as it gets, you have done everything you can to prevent your code "blowing up" you have tried to handle anything that can be thrown at it gracefully, and you have done everything to ensure that when if and when things do go wrong they can do no damage, that's 2, not 3. If you cannot foresee and prevent every possible thing that could cause your application to crash (which you can't), then how can you foresee every possible way in which that unforeseeable crash could be exploited. All you can ever do is your best.
Next up, from the article:
Two of the three bugs result in a denial-of-service-like situation, with the PC's processor maxed out at 100%, making the machine unusable until it's rebooted. The third, Aharoni suggested, could be used to introduce remote attack code after an exploit causes an overflow of "wwlib.dll," a crucial Word library. But "code execution is not trivial," he added.
If described correctly then these bugs all pose a risk. sure the first two are minor risks, the later is major, but all three are bugs that should be listed as security vulnerabilities. I would suggest that the reason that they are currently not being seen as such by Microsoft, is simply that no one can be sure if the conditions required to trigger them could be utilised by anyone wishing to take advantage of them, and thus they are theoretically less threatening than many of the other issues that have plagued Microsoft Applications in the past.
In the end however we should be simply sating that a problem exists, it may be a security risk, and until it is fixed, we will treat it as such. Anything else (rightly or wrongly) simply smells like someone is covering up issues, and lets be frank, Microsoft doesn't have enough good will for that to be acceptable.
Touché
(Good job I don't run windows anywhere any more really, PDA, Routers, Servers & Desktop - there is always a better way.. (not that my routers ever did run windows...))
By definition web sites solicit visitors to visit them, people come and look at information that has been made available for that purpose, i.e. a web site is supposed to be visited by people. So the slashdot effect is a by-product of legitimate use, something that the web site owner intended, but beyond the scale that was expected. Dealing with bulk email contaminated with dodgy code sent from compromised PC's running malicious software isn't a valid comparison.
Email from this kind of attack is generated either with malicious intent, without the consent of the originator, without the consent of the recipient, outside of what should be expected by mail system administrators (well outside of what should be expected in an ideal world) or any combination of these.
In short exploiting a PC and then using it to DDOS mail systems (possibly as a by product of any number of other unacceptable activities such as spreading malicious code, spam etc..), is more akin to carrying out an intentional DDOS attack, or hacking into a system to install unwanted code.
The slashdot effect is more like having a huge email response to an advert, a response that wasn't expected and may be beyond what is capable of being managed, yet something that was intended.
Both may have a similar effect, the difference is intent.
As for suing the software manufacturers for negligence, I don't see a problem with that. Sufficient negligence for a prosecution is hard to prove, after all, a bug that could not have been foreseen being exploited is not negligence, failing to patch a known bug because you can't be bothered, even though you know it is going to have a significant impact on someone else is. It also comes down to scale, it would be hard to sue a one man software producer who is giving his software away for free, with no warranty. The hard part is (and this is something that should be highlighted) very few software companies will give any guarantee or warranty whatsoever regarding the suitability or utility of their software for any reason. Buying software that says it is potentially unsafe leaves you no excuse to claim manufacturer negligence, it is your own neglgence, you should have bough software that was guaranteed to work, or that came with some warranty. (which leads me on to... ->)
Taking that a step further I would suggest that any company of a certain size (say 200 staff) should be required to ensure that their on-line activities do not impact negatively on others, it should be their responsibility (legally) to ensure that their networks are not compromised and are not in a position where they may be exploited. This should also cover dodgy tactics like spamming (blog spam or email spam). If this were the case then companies that provide software may feel at least some requirement not to put their customers at risk.
Yeah I can see you have had some pretty poor experiences, to be honest I haven't seen that many problems (recently) with service, but I would hate to rely on an ISP for anything other than general connectivity, mail, DNS, etc.. are just too easy to break. as far as support is concerned its usually a non starter unless you have a vanilla set up. as for downtime - just don't accept it, - dont pay for anything you haven't received, and if you have an SLA go at them for breach of contract.
ahem, mail me your X configuration and I'll sort it for you if you want (or have a damn good go) - what you describe has become something of a regular occurrence in my part of the world, my email is shown but replace the domain with gmail.com as I'm out and about at the moment.
As for intel graphics on notebooks, I agree, there is nothing like having a component in a notebook where you don't have to worry about it being some bizarre non standard randomly hacked (or firmware crippled), especially when you are talking about the graphics card.
I think you are missing the point then, which may indicate that I wasn't clear in describing it, I'll try to do better;
:) ) but its quite a large amount of kit.
They have shoved you a pricey piece of their "diagnostic" equipment and you can't use it (no configuration). Requiring you to buy a router for £159.99 was just so they can troubleshoot in case of problems. Their techs should do that for free if it was their fault and you would had pay if it wasn't.
They have and they should, but if I included the price of the hardware into the cost of the contract, (£159.99 + (12x£15.99)) and indeed added the cost of connection (£70) I get a total for the contract of £421.87, 0r £35.16 a month. That is a little more than I would have had to pay with some of the other contracts I was looking at, (mostly they were between £30 - £65pm) however, these other contracts also had either connection charges or other charges (invoice charges for a printed bill (£1.99) being the favourite), that when factored in brought the cost above the @£36. Now baring in mind that I did not have to pay the connection charge or for the router, and that they are only factors if I wish to cancel the contract, I currently have a net gain from the deal. Now if I had taken the contract and the service provider had not delivered an acceptable service, then I am certain that I would have been able to cancel the contract and had any expenditures returned to me.
So in short, I pay very little for a good service, the only risk to me as far as cost is concerned is early cancellation. Had I taken a non contract connection then a) I would not have gotten the service I would require, (often these are PAYG, capped, or otherwise limited, and none offered what I was after at reasonable cost) and b) would be in a worse position.
The support situation is even more convoluted, primarily because no ISP is capable of giving decent support to all their customers, me in particular. Having far too much time on my hands means that my internal network is growing to ridiculous proportions, 4 PC's in server roles (3x Debian 1x Solaris) 2 PDA's (Familiar Linux) (wireless access), 2 Laptops (Debian, wireless access), 1 Desktop (Debian again but wired), not to mention internal DNS and DHCP servers, 2 Internal routers with wireless and their own firewalls, and a switch. I cant figure out a way to spell it all out sensibly here (nor cover what I am doing with them all
Now if I have an issue with network access I know that I need to do my own fault finding, if it IS a problem with the service I need to identify that, the best way of doing that (after fault finding my own kit) is simply to drop my router, plug the supplied router and see if the issue is still present (using one of the laptops, but wired). If so then I can contact support (and pretend I am running XP with internet explorer to get any sort of support or escalation). I can hardly call my ISP to complain that their is a problem with their service because my Debian Laptop that is wireless and behind 2 firewalls, cannot connect to a POP3 server...)
So I think that covers your first point,
Secondly:
Signing for an unspecified time and then changing to a fixed time contract would be a good idea if you don't know about their Quality of Service. Most ISPs should allow you to get all the discounts you'd get when signing for a fixed time service straight-away (if there are any). But in your case this is more of an afterthought because you seem to be satisfied.
I haven't seen a single ISP who will allow you to "try before you buy" this may be a location thing, but the only options are 1) huge layout (connection, router, on site installation etc..) and no contract, or 2) contract, typically 1 year.
as far as QOS is concerned, they must supply what they claim to supply (always read the TOS), if they don't, cancel, they are in breach of contract, you are unlikely to get any kind of SLA (I haven't seen one) without a contract.
Hope that covers it, and clarifies my point.
to answer your question, Its a fixed contract - But I'm confused;
I'm not sure what ISP BS I am supposed to have sucked up... the router and the connection charges are either present in all the contracts that I looked at or are obviously reflected in the monthly cost of the plans, some are bare bones plans that require neither, however they are often capped, not something I could accept. As far as their service is concerned, it is decent, everything happened on time, and billing has been smooth. Connectivity is good, no down time at all so far and a connection at either the claimed rate or faster. The only problem I have with them is their DNS servers, they will redirect to an advert laden page rather than return a negative (but that is becoming common), so I use my own DNS server.
SO are you suggesting that after looking at all the varied contracts available I was duped? or that there was some sort of action I could have taken to get the same contract at the same terms without the negatives (router, connection fee, DNS issues)? As far as I see it, I have a range of options and considered them all, then made a decision based on what I needed, and what the various contracts, and TOS's offered, sure I didn't get everything that I wanted, but I got as much as I could, and much better than most.
Gates in space? Is that "SpaceLikeWord95" or "SpaceLikeOnASoyuz"?
this is one of those weird areas where the charges sound sane but are often not - for example, my current broadband provider waived a connection fee (£70) and the cost of a router ("valued at" £159.99).
Sound reasonable except that the connection doesn't actually cost them anything (it was an existing phone line that I had used with broadband before - I checked with my phone company when I dumped their broadband and was told that if I was getting a different supplier they would simply move the line I'd pay a termination fee (£1.99) that covers the administration and the other company could simply enable it, they gave me a number, which apparently identified my line and all would be well (not sure what that means in terms of adsl, but it was implied that it was an update on a computer). So that's £70 that probably is simply profit, with no service to render, or at least not £70 worth.
Next to the router, I didn't ask for a router, I didn't want a router (I have a couple of Linksys boxes that I use). I was told however that I had to have the router, and that I would have to use the router. I did get the router (nasty box with no access whatsoever) plugged in set up (as you do) found that there was a firewall on board that I couldn't play with (no way to pass through to the router that I actually trust to do my fire-walling...).
One phone call to customer services and it turns out that I can use whatever router I want with the service (which I was pretty much going to do anyway), but that I have to keep the router so that I can have no excuse about not being able to use the service, and also so that if there is a problem they can trouble-shoot directly. So again £159.99 for no benefit. If I cancel the contract, then I owe them both sums (and nope I can't return the router) plus some additional fees for early termination (three months service I think...). So that's a pain. However, I did walk into this with open eyes, and frankly, their service is good (well if you don't use their kit or their DNS, and I have never even looked at the free web space or email bits that were bundled...). I guess the main thing is that you need to go and find the best deal you can, and include any fees or other costs in your comparison and then stick with it.
After all (warning - poor car analogy) its not as though you can buy a petrol car and then return it three months down the line because you have found that diesel is cheaper and expect not to lose out on some cash, or indeed return a car after you have bought it with no consequence simply because you have found a different car that is cheaper or better etc...
in response to your first point;
Where's that "population bomb" that was supposed to result in hundreds of millions of starvation deaths? I believe it was widely heralded in the '60s as arriving in the '80s. Strangely enough, far from wide-spread starvation the world is experiencing a wide-spread lack of starvation.
In 1960 the world population was about 3,021,475, it is now 6,453,628, in the same period we have one of the most populous countries in the world, chine, implementing what can be seen as an inhumane population control policy (the one child policy), yet the population has exploded. The growth rate is massive, and no longer self correcting (well it probably will be corrected at some point). Realistically, given the current trends, and out inability to do anything about them, there WILL be a major problem regarding how we feed all those people. As for wide-spread starvation, approximately @800 million people are undernourished (using the medical definition rather than just people who missed lunch), 11 million people die each year due to issues related to this. that is hundreds of millions of people over the period you describe, even if we halve the figure, and more over it is something that is increasing (as a result of population growth, and foreign policy in 'the west').
Now looking at all that again, remember that its not as though nothing has been done to try and fix this problem (that you seem to believe doesn't exist), there has been an influx of aid, food, medical help etc... programs to introduce farming and educate people, and this is ongoing. and as I mentioned before, China will only allow couple's to have one child, precisely because of the issues that country faces regarding population growth.
So in short I think your point is rather lost, no the most dire predictions mad in the 60's have not been met, however that is because people took action, not because it wouldn't have happened. The situation would be a hell of a lot worse if nothing had been done, it could be a hell of a lot better, however, saying that the predictions were all false because it didn't happen is plainly stupid, as action was taken to prevent them from coming true (and I am sure some where exaggerations).
As for your other points, - fresh water is scarce in quite a few places, including the usual places (Africa, Parts of Asia etc.) and in parts of Europe (like the UK). There are also issues with the contamination of groundwater where it is available.
What we need to do when we see these predictions, or scare stories is simple, get the best scientific advice, and then decide on the risk that any given scenario parents. If there is significant risk, or the chance of significant risk, we should take action to minimize it. what we shouldn't do is a collective head in the sand, if something that appears to be a risk doesn't fit in with our view point, or maybe impacts on some of our interests, we need to work round it, not simply ignore the issue in the hope that it will go away.
Now finally, the problem with dealing with any of these issues today is that the media whips up a storm about pretty much anything they can, they prefer conflict to cooperation. If the media whips up a storm or introduces controversy into the equation then politicians (who probably want to remain in power, or get into power) cannot act as they see fit. For example; If I close a factory tomorrow to save the lives of 10,000 people in 10 years time, I can guarantee that most of the people who relied on that factory (workers family etc..) will vote against me in the next election. It stands to reason (after all politics are local not global). I have caused problems for them, never mind the consequences 10 years down the line, they don't want me to be their elected representative any more. Now if I can get them all jobs and revitalise the local economy, then hell I might get those votes even if I close the factory, problem is that is hard work and may take more than one election cycle.
It really is
The next step is obviously to protect their IP, so look for patents such as:
:)
"a method of injecting code into a web-browser to steal credit card details.... on the internet"
"a method of using many remote controlled computer's, without the owners express consent* to send unwanted advertising material, to many, many people... on the internet"
After that expect to see Exploit Genuine Advantage programs to ensure that the stolen data you are using is from genuinely advantageous exploits, and not from some half baked knock off malware or virus, duplicated by a disreputable individual.
Obviously the last step will be the mergers, (after all the above should ensure a profitable market is created and grows). Symantec will merge with EvilCode PLC, to produce Evil-Symantec, McAfee will merge with McNasty, to produce McNastfee. These new entities will be able to leverage both the illegal exploit market and provide protection services simultaneously, probably all in one product... , Finally Microsoft will change its OS so that it no longer "works" with all these wondrous exploits and... hell will freeze over
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, - and you shouldn't look for legal advice on the internet...
:) )
I'm going to be bankrupt and my entire life will be ruined from that point forward.
There are other differences in the UK as far as bankruptcy is concerned. I believe that after a change in the law - the Enterprise Act 2000 (?) - Bankruptcy only lasts about 12 months. I think the law was changed so that enterprising individuals could get back into business after a major failure without much in the way of barriers (Personal opinion is that that may be an excellent way of letting poor business men continue to fleece the public and then screw up their own businesses without penalties, but hey..). Unsurprisingly the result is that bankruptcies are on the increase, and coupled with the amount of debt people in the UK have on a per person basis, mostly for mortgages (avg house price is £137000 after all) I would expect that to increase.
Moreover I think that UK courts take into account personal circumstances when making awards or issuing fines, mostly to ensure that they are payable by the guilty party, they also attempt to set up terms on the payment. In aa criminal case you may find yourself owing £50,000 in fines and having to pay back £50 a week / month / year, depending on your circumstances. In a civil case the awards must be actual, and demonstrable, so they should be a number someone picked for media impact, and again should be within your means or deferred until they are, whilst with regard to costs, the way it works is that the court will make a "Costs Order" against you, but say that it is not to be enforced until it can be shown that you have the money to pay, which may be never.
Also remember that in the UK you have access to public money when fighting your defence if you are not able to pay for it yourself. There are also an array of groups that will assist you in your defence in certain areas (this case would be one of them) where you would be able to get help. The help available is often very, very good, not simply solicitors who can't get other work. Depending on the case, top solicitors are available and willing to fight your case, plus advice from senior barristers (juniors or even QC's) in certain circumstances. In short it 'shouldn't' be all that easy in the UK for a rich corporation to simply brow beat individuals into submission on the basis of cost. Sure court cases will still have an impact on the party having to defend themselves, but if they are innocent they have every means to defend themselves, whether they are wealthy or not.
In practice of course some people would still shy away from court even when innocent of any wrong doing, but generally more through fear of the legal process (or simply getting a legal sounding letter) or because they think that they are guilty of something even if they are not. (think about the trailers you get on DVD'S now - you know the ones that equate making a backup of a DVD to stealing a car, a handbag and then shooting a party of school children... (well almost
Anyway, back to your point, bankruptcy, not nice - but no longer the end of the world, even if it is a a major inconvenience. and on top of that if you are innocent of a crime or an infraction of civil law there is no reason not to fight any allegations, and you shouldn't lose out by having to pay your own costs. If you are guilty of something however (i.e. mass copyright infringement for personal gain) and you lose a case and then have to pay damages and costs, well that's your own fault isn't it.
I should point out that it is the UK tax payer who shoulders the burden of much of what I have described above, but then justice should be available to all, and no one should ever be in the position where they cannot mount a vigorous defence against any allegation, civil or criminal. There are currently efforts to reduce the amount of help that is available (using the fact that terrorism suspects are having their defences and appeals paid by the tax payer as a rallying cry) this effort can only make it easier for the RIAA equivalents of this world to twist the law to their benefit.
This may go a long way to help people finding those little applications (or large applications :) ) that you don't know exist and don't know you need until you stumble across them. You know, the ones you find out about from someone in IRC or on a random blog or forum, usually out of context and often without knowing how the application name is spelled or what package would provide it... yakuake anyone? - or am I just slow on the uptake...).
Now if someone where to be really clever then they would integrate this site into a nice gui package manager and make it available with Ubuntu, or any of the other distro's aimed at new Linux users. It would be nice to get some additional info (screen shots etc..) above and beyond the descriptions that are normally availale when using apt. -- if its already been done then excuse me for not having come across it yet.
Luckily....
PC James Smith (now Lord Smith of Whitekirk) and Det Sgt Margaret Jackson (now Dame Jackson of Drumadoon) have said that nothing of interest was found. The supervising officer Det Insp Michael Parks (Now Lord Parks of Worth Matravers) stated that whilst nothing untoward had been identified, the procedures surrounding the "hacking" and its legality would be revised. "This revision is to be taken as the intrusion into downing street computers has caused undue distress and concern to members of the British government, and is therefore probably in contravention of the European Unions Human Rights Legislation" said a downing street media official Martin Smith-Spinalot. Lord Parks also noted that Mr John Hackeby, the home office official that had authorised the intrusion had been fired from the home office for theft of office supples and is in the process of being extradited to the United States due to his involvement in online gambling, terrorist funding and drugs trafficing, for which the US State department has said it probably has some sort of evidence, or could find some by strengthening or introduction legislation to allow it to do "anything it wants to do to fight bad things".
(just in case anybody missed it, the above is fictitious and intended as light humour)
This is an old problem - the banks / merchants etc... want to make it easy enough for you to spend your money or to get credit that you do it on a regular basis. If banks decided to make it harder - in order to increase their / your security / privacy then it means that they lose business, especially if they are the first to do it. Basically they don't mind losing a bit of money to make a lot of money.
Of course as long as its easy to get hold of your cash or get credit, someone will want to exploit that to get hold of cash or credit in your name. So making it harder to commit fraud or identity theft is really only beneficial to the customer, which in turn means that the only path to making it harder to commit fraud or identity theft is to introduce legislation or regulation to make it happen. That of course is opposed by the banks and merchants (as they lose out) and opposed by the majority of customers as they don't see that there is a problem until it happens to them.
So yeah, apart from not seeing an easy solution for the banks and merchants, I also don't really see a will to implement any solution which decreases the amount of spending or credit applications, or one that will cost money to roll out (after all most organisations are looking at short term profit not long term strategy's).
You are correct, I have no empirical data to back up my hypothesis, but nonetheless from what I have seen of average computer buyers, the vast majority are Windows users exclusively, while the vast minority are OSX users. The number of Linux/UNIX/etc users are so small that I do not believe there would be a significant market.
So you say the above and you dont think that this has anythiing to do with the fact that the customers often never even see the possibility oof using something other than windows?
Im not sure that this should be forced on Hrdware manufacturers, but I am damn sure that the reason everyone uses windows is not because they choose to but because there is no percieed alternative. Its a lack of understanding, leading to, and because of a lack of choice.
On your acceptance of Project as a good piece of MS software Id like to add Visio (project is OK but I have managed to replace it with planner - but then Im not a project manager full time ... - Visio is the only thing I cant replace - but thats what crossover office is for I guess - the only non-free software packages I run these days.
:) .
I wish I were more competent writing that kind of softare, because Visio needs an FOSS replacement that is more fully featured than Dia, not that Dia wont get there
Every time I see stuff like this it makes me sigh.
Yes occasionally you may have a problem with X, and your chosen GUI, this is generally either hardware that isn't working properly or you have some obscure hardware.
I can not give one example where I have been unable to use *any* graphics card / monitor combo (and I have had some really old / generic kit running purely to play with, and the more usual modern kit for day to day use) with *any* Linux flavour I chose (primarily Debian these days, but also occasionally SUSE or Red Hat).
Moreover I have never come across an single situation where using a VESA driver didn't work, laptops included.
This is exactly the same situation as with windows (I have had problems with windows refusing to accept what I thought was a valid driver for an old MGI card, and was stuck in 640x480 at 256colors...) Basically for most people it just works, for some people you may have to find a driver (Windows or Linux) and for some people you will end up with a bodge and a generic driver (again Windows and Linux?.
Even more interestingly I have found that multi monitor support in Linux - especially with differing graphics cards (i.e. 3 different cards for three different monitors in this case) is far far better than that offered in Windows
Now in the interests of helping you with your opinion of Linux, I would be honoured to assist you with your graphical problem, feel free to post any relevant info here (or email me (the address is with the post obfusticated but I'm sure you'll get it) and I will take a look and see if I cant prevail where your guys failed. A copy of your X server log, X config file and the output of lspci -X (if it is a PCI card) would help, as would any version info for your kernel and X server. a quick fix - depending on your setup would be to run X -configure as root.
Oh and no one is forcing you to run Gentoo :) it does exactly what you want it to, but I would only ever use it in very specific roles
Not intending to take anything away from your post, I would just like to say that Microsoft's monopoly position is not the problem, nor is it a legal issue (as such). Its the leveraging of that monopoly to gain market share in other markets. (also possibly the use of that monopoly to maintain their monopoly, - I'm pretty sure that's an antitrust issue).
This case is in Hong Kong, a SAR of China so how biassed/corrupted the US legal system can be by corporate power is largely immaterial, I would also suggest that the penalties for Rape and Murder are somewhat harsher, at least in China and I assume in Hong Kong to a certain degree as well (Saying that I am unsure precisely what the situation is in Hong Kong, and what amount of transitioning there has been in the legal sphere since the UK handed the territory back to China).
In any case, this is certainly not one of those times where US intervention will have had much of an impact if it was even attempted, (which I doubt but cannot confirm).
As for the general topic of copyright infringement, I can quite honestly say that I support the fact that there are laws with hefty penalties in place (whether civil or criminal). After all Copyright law does do its part in protecting content producers. Patents are another matter entirely. As for materials subject to copyright, I think it is down to the creator to decide how, where and under what conditions it is distributed and used, I and the company I run prefer to release things under permissive licenses, primarily the GPL (It gives customers and consumers a choice as to what to do with the product we supply and prevents us being the sole option for them when it comes to alteration or expansion which is good and bad but still something I prefer, after all if we are better than everyone else they will come back, if we are not we must try harder..), but I wouldn't force that upon others.
Funny, Last time I checked slashdot had a fairly global user base. From where I'm sitting there doesn't seem to be all that much US control over the company's that provide the jobs and bring in the wealth to the area I'm in, its 70% Local, 20% European (mostly German to be fair) and 10% US at best, and even then its UK based organisations with US parents - (The European companies seem to find it easier than the US ones to operate here directly), or majority US shareholding.
Sure we can buy a large number of US products, and no doubt that brings money into the US. Its not as though I am suddenly not going to be able to buy hardware for my company or its clients, and its not as though I wont be able to provide services to my clients, (or for that matter get support from my up stream suppliers).
What I am saying is that whatever happens it wont kill support, development, or deployment of Linux where I am, or in many other places, and that the issue is centred on countries that have software patents within their legal frameworks. That would be bad for the US in some ways as it means that there is a whole potential market that the US would miss out on, and its a market that's getting bigger all the time. Probably the worst scenario would be that US companies would not be seen as viable to supply those services in the run up to or during the course of any legal action or threat thereof, allowing the companies that I work with and others in the area to become even more xenophobic (and they already are to a degree) in their sourcing, without the usual inducement toward US suppliers on the basis of brand and cost.
The only losers under your theoretical scenario are those support providers who also provide the Distribution, and where they are operating in a country where software patents are valid, so that probably means that the effected group would be quite small. As I see it, the whole argument that the Novel / Microsoft deal is bad hinges on Patents rather than copyright, so for a large number of companies, there is simply no problem. Different story if you are in the US I guess, and a problem if changes are made to legislation else where, but until then quite a few of the companies providing support, services or even software are in fine shape.
Of course saying that, I doubt very much that even if Linux had a user base as large as the one Microsoft currently enjoys that the problem would be of the same scale, primarily because as a Linux user, even as a totally novice user, you can get all of your software from direct from whoever provided the distribution you are using, and it becomes less likely that you would want to install some random screen saver or other application that you find on the web.
Moreover it is considerably harder if not impossible to have a browser install software without user intervention under Linux. Furthermore I have so far never seen, and would find it difficult to see how an application could be installed under Linux that is as persistent as it is under Windows.
So I guess what I am saying is that the argument that Linux would be as badly effected by Viruses, Spyware and Malware if it were as prevalent as windows is simply not true, as the two operating systems, from a user perspective are not very alike. Not to mention the fact that Linux IS more secure, not just because of its relative obscurity but also because of the security measures in place within the OS. None of which will protect the OS if the user really wants to hose his or her machine. It does make that hosing more diffucult, and considerably reduces if not eliminates the threats posed by automated attacks similar to those seen agains Windows machines.
I would have thought that predicting events that have not yet occurred would negate the need for FTL communication. Being able to predict future activity based on current activity would be useful, although any predictions would have to be accurate and timely, i.e. time for communication to get back to earth + time required to do something about it.