Dammit! I've got mod points, and I cannot figure out whether to mod you insightful or funny... there should be a combo-mod or something that allows both at once... perhaps "+1 Insightfully Funny" or "+1 Humorously Insightful" (which would be the one I think applies to your post).
I'd rather pay 3$ per memory card than have a DMCA++ / ACTA laws enacted that just screws everything up!
You can't sue people who have paid a copying tax can you?
Yes, yes they can. Read the proposed law. They still plan on. This is solely to make up losses for their pathetic, outdated, ineffective business model.
Why don't they just tax RAM, the music is loaded into there all the time. Let's see each time the music is played.
What the hell is wrong with you?!?!?!? They're perfectly capable of coming up with idiotic, oddball ideas on their own! Don't go giving them any new ones!!!
I used to think the same thing about Ethernet cables. it's all digital right? And yet I've seen speeds increase 10 fold when replacing old one.
Define "old one". Are you referring to a 10/100 cable that does not support gigabit? I've seen quite a few such cables (heck, even being sold today) that only have two pairs and will not negotiate at gigabit speeds. I recently replaced a few at a client's office actually, and they were installed only 5 or so years ago.
I've even found some that have all four pairs - but only two actually crimped into the connector (the other two pairs simply terminate in the plug, uncrimped). Again, no gigabit speeds there.
I make my own ethernet cables from boxed wire bought at Home Depot or Lowes (Cat 5e - or occasionally Cat 6), and they all (even at various lengths, up to and including a few 100+ foot runs) perform just as well as any of the name brand, uber-expensive cables we've got lying around here. Oh - and I'm knowledgeable enough to actually check for things like retransmissions, "collisions" (ie: apparent ones due to echo/crosstalk, as switches shouldnt have such an issue), errors, etc. I can most definitely tell you, that unless you try very very hard to buy a crap cable, the results are generally within the norm regardless of price.
Now, if you MAKE cables, that's different. (1) I've found ones poorly crimped, (2) ones where the pairs have been unwound for feet, (3) ones where they used aluminum core wires for speeds such are not rated for, (4) ones where the wire gauge is not to spec (ie: smaller than it should be), (5) ones where the insulation is stripped off the wire before it's inserted into the plug, and so on.
But that's not a flaw in cheap cables - it's a flaw in having someone who doesn't know what they are doing making cables.
For short cable runs, any old HDMI cable will do. When you get into the 50-100 ft lengths, the cable quality absolutely matters.
HDMI signals may be digital, so there's none of the subjective analog concerns, but it's also a real-time signal, which makes it susceptible to even small delays in transmission across the cable. This isn't a concern in a sub-20 ft cable, but becomes noticeable in the cheap longer cables.
Mod parent REDUNDANT. This is CLEARLY stated in the article, MULTIPLE times, except using anything over 10' as the cutoff (and mentioning 25' numerous times). That is also why, as they mentioned, they picked 6' or 6.6' cables to test with.
Otherwise, not too bad for a first post, especially by an anon. Regardless, RTFA first...
OS/2 runs drivers in ring 0? Weird. I always thought it was the kernel and kernel helpers it ran in ring 0 - with the drivers (EXCEPT HPFS386) run in Ring 2 or ring 3 (depending on the driver layer or driver).
Anyway, IBM also managed a kernel for entirely different architecture - namely the PPC and it's different architecture. How odd that Microsoft couldn't manage such.
Not true... OS/2 1.x didnt support them, did they? When OS/2 2.x onwards was written/rewritten by IBM for 386 and better hardware, they seem to have managed fine - nor did they just simply "tack it on".
OS/2 1.x and 2.x are completely different codebases. Windows NT and, well, Windows NT are not.
Ah... I see... IBM, in little time, managed to rectify such a situation, but in nearly 2 decades, Microsoft has not?
And regardless, that does not explain Microsoft moving things into the incorrect ring(s). If they can move stuff into the wrong rings, why couldn't they move them into the correct ring(s) instead?
By which you mean...?
Moving parts of (or entire) drivers into ring 0 that don't belong there (Rings 1-2 were intended for that, as you probably already know), moving other Windows code there (c'mon, just fix the damn speed problems... don't try to make Windows faster by trying to minimize ring/mode switching - OS/2 handled CONTINUAL ring switching with far better speed than the NT line, even with the NT line minimizing such)...
Anyway... Microsoft's official statement on the reasons is:
"In order to maintain compatibility with non-Intel systems, the Windows operating systems support only two levels of privilege--Ring 0 and Ring 3"
...even though other architectures did support similar, as is evidenced by operating systems on such architectures taking advantage of such capabilities. Odd...
He's correct. The only "mainstream" (past/present) OS that actually utilized the CPU's protection levels to any decent extent was OS/2 - which is also why it was a bitch to run in numerous virtual machines (most notably due to poor virtual Ring 2 support). And in reality, Microsoft glomming a whole bunch of things into Ring 0 is a step backwards.
Windows NT only uses two rings because that's all some of its historically support platforms had. I imagine it's something that's rather difficult to tack on later.
Not true... OS/2 1.x didnt support them, did they? When OS/2 2.x onwards was written/rewritten by IBM for 386 and better hardware, they seem to have managed fine - nor did they just simply "tack it on".
And regardless, that does not explain Microsoft moving things into the incorrect ring(s). If they can move stuff into the wrong rings, why couldn't they move them into the correct ring(s) instead?
From reading all of your posts on this topic, I swear you must work for Microsoft, or for an advertising/marketing company they pay, or for benefits given to you by them.
Of all the infected machines I see, that are running, FULLY up to date anti-malware software on FULLY up to date versions of Windows, the top two culprits for missing things are (in this order) McAfee and MSE.
Again, I am only counting machines where the software is up to date and where Windows is up to date (and verifying the malware infected the machine AFTER the anti-malware software was installed).
The truth is, as anyone who's dealt with such stuff for a living will tell you, it catches near nothing. I've had (recently, and for the last few years) machines come in with hundreds, or even thousands of infections... Win 7, Vista, XP... and on only ONE occasion (out of a few hundred machines in the last year or so), did it notice anything (and it was one infection out of about 700 on that particular machine that it noticed).
I suspect any stats generated using a highly useless tool are equally useless. While the MSRT is great for a few SPECIFIC pieces of malware, that has nothing to do with the plethora of other infections it doesn't even notice. So, again, it makes these stats very useless.
Microsoft's kernels simply aren't built right to take advantage of i386 as illustrated by the device driver model.
Huh ?
He's correct. The only "mainstream" (past/present) OS that actually utilized the CPU's protection levels to any decent extent was OS/2 - which is also why it was a bitch to run in numerous virtual machines (most notably due to poor virtual Ring 2 support). And in reality, Microsoft glomming a whole bunch of things into Ring 0 is a step backwards.
Well, that wouldn't be enough. They probably couldn't filter out someone with just a couple of plants anyway. But if you have say 3kW of growing lamps going on and off at the same second every day then maybe, if added to other suspicious activity it could warrant some form of action.
I've been told that this is one way police look for marijuana farms here in sweden.. whether there's any truth to that I do not know.
Hence the problem. I have 3kW of 2 tons worth of servers and UPS, and rack and misc equipment always running in a garage-converted-to-office. There's a very decent (ie: noticeably large) variance, at roughly the same times every day, caused by the AC cycling from fan to cool. And my only drug is Iron Maiden, which AFAIK, isn't illegal in this state.
Being a night person (and programmer/designer), I am in and out at odd hours of the night. I've got customers who come in during the afternoons and evenings to drop off computer repairs - which creates certain appearances for the casual observer, since they run in, drop off a machine, give us some info and run out (with similar appearances for pickups).
So, the only thing they will be noting is (a) I repair computers from a legitimate business, (b) I run the Star Trek Phase 2 websites and production servers (and a few other sites) and (c) I like programming late evening into the night, when it's quieter (less interruptions, AC cycling from fan to cool a lot less).
I am sure I am not the only one with similar "incriminating" scenarios (at least a few of my friends fit under similar scenarios).
Such actions without additional solid basis, are simply fishing expeditions.
Well, not only would they get you for mucking about with government property (that you couldn't have known was actually there)... but, I suspect if you laid such a trap, you might find yourself running afoul of several other laws.
I suspect you might get yourself a couple of felony charges out of the deal.
Throw it away, stick it to another car... sure, it's a foreign object attached to your car with nothing to indicate it has any official status. But, really, I think if you leave something with acid in it to be "discovered" by these guys you will have likely entered into territory you might live to regret.
Scared of what will happen if you resist the governments attempts to track you? Does this sound healthy to you?
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
Healthy (and I presume you are talking about for our society/country)? No.
Wise, as an individual, heck yes.
Smart move for anyone who (like most people do) claim they wish to see our country continue to improve? No.
Tough balancing act between survival and progress.
Wow, trolling as an AC too? UNLESS YOU SPECIFICALLY OPT IN TO SHARE YOUR INFORMATION, or to facilitate services such as payment & order processing, where there is an EXPECTATION that the information needs to be shared to complete the transaction, Google actually clearly states (as I myself have quoted and linked to) that they do not sell your data.
I take it you haven't heard about geo ip then. Yes, IP ranges have locations stored. Not in the number itself of course, but in separate databases.
And it's not just ip and keywords you're seeing. You're also able to see where people click on the page. Since slashdot also has Google Analytics, all your individual clicks are all the time transferred to Google. Maybe they even store typing, I know several other web analytics services do. They know *exactly* what you're doing on the page, where you're clicking, what you're typing. Typed something and removed it afterwards? Yeah, they see that too.
Wow, you are clueless. My IP comes up wrong in almost every database, and took MANUAL correction, because it simply is tied to a known node location - as were 180 MILES worth of other people (a few MILLION other people) until the info was manually refined.
And don't talk to me about google Analytics. I use it - on a VERY busy site. ADVERTISERS do not know who you are. ADVERTISERS are not given any personal, or even identifying information on you.
Google, OTOH, does not - and instead markets on behalf of the advertiser without passing along your info to them.
LOL. Have you ever seen Google Analytics? They tell you what you were looking for (keywords) and your IP address. How do you think marketers end up targetting you? Your ISP stores a location in your ip address. They even mine your email for relevant information.
Wow, you've got no clue. They tell YOU what YOU were looking for. Where's the privacy violation? And THEY handle ad targeting - marketers (and I have been one) select KEYWORDS and are given NO personal data about who it is shown to).
And locations cannot be stored in an IP. An IP is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx - just a number.
No, it does not. Checking the upstream router, your DNS servers, or perhaps even where you are trying to visit would work much better without the privacy issue.
It will be interesting to see how this is affected by the planned increase in commercial space traffic, as well as government space traffic from other nations. That aside, it's nice to see we are so far behind Reagan's ridiculous "SDI"/"Star Wars Defense Initiatave" and wasting a LOT of money on heat sensors in space.
It's actually an interesting thing among slashthink. This is one thing Microsoft is doing right. You don't see Microsoft among the privacy invasive companies like MPAA, Time-Warner, Google, Facebook, ESA etc.. That's because they don't want to track your every movement. Microsoft sells you software. You buy it, they're happy, and you don't lose your privacy. Still most here think MS is evil and Google is some kind of white knight.
What an odd, incorrect conclusion that is! First, Microsoft has filed for MULTIPLE patents (covered right here on/. multiple times) to allow them to track their users' every move for not just their Live! product line, but for Office as well. Second, Microsoft's "Help Microsoft improve _____ (insert name of software her)" program does EXACTLY that - tracks your every move - and they sell the information to their "Business Partners" (or so their ToS and EULA claim). You can find the "Help Microsoft..." things in Internet Explorer, various Live! technologies, the Bing Toolbar and more (this too has been covered on/. recently, including Google pointing out just how well IE and the Bing Bar do such things). As things/time progress, Microsoft is adding MORE tracking and MORE data mining technologies into each of it's products and online services, and makes it very clear they don't sell or give away any of it... oh, except to their "Business Partners" which is a term that covers... well, a vast array of Microsoft "Partner Programs" due to the lack of specific definitions of which business partner group the statement applies to.
So, yes, while Microsoft hasn't taken a lot of flack over privacy issues - other than perhaps bowing to government pressure numerous times to either censor results (other countries), provide user information without proper due process (this country and others), the rest of your statement is pure nonsense. That they haven't been taken to the mat for it does not mean that they haven't done it (as it's been proven they have), nor does it prove their mindset is against doing such things (as, once again, it's been proven that (a) they DO such things, (b) have filed multiple patents that cover such technologies, and (c) are expanding the reach of such efforts to include more of their online and "offline" properties/programs/tools.
So, not to slam Microsoft, as of course many companies do such things... the point simply is, you're wrong on all points except them being (recently) taken to the mat over such practices. Get the facts straight, please.
Now, the difference between Microsoft/Facebook and Google is this. Microsoft claims they may or will or do sell the information to their "Business Partners". Facebook, we know does just that. Google, OTOH, does not - and instead markets on behalf of the advertiser without passing along your info to them. While all may be considered some level of evil, Google seems to be the lesser of these evils, since they keep the data to themselves - and are much clearer over the privacy implications of what options you choose to enabled (like also covered on/. recently regarding the $50M lawsuit against them over Android location tracking, where it actually clearly states that enabling the feature that tracks you and shares that information... hmmm... enables tracking and shares that information (Wow! that's surprising!)).
LoL, I think you just proved my point. Historically, and present, virtually every other platform has had better mechanisms to deal with such things. Windows, with a lot of cobbled together technologies, still is not quite there. So, figured I'd simply help you avoid the troll mod by pointing out the lack of sarcasm that should have been in your post.
After all, "works most of the time" isnt "works all the time" and generally is not acceptable for such things. Thus, I thought your response was actually the perfect solution - "just dont do it";-)
ARPA created the internet about as much as Edison created the worldwide telephony network.
Wake-up call: What we know as the internet today could only have been created through the voluntary collaboration of thousands of independent organizations. ARPA couldn't even have imagined it back in the 70s, let alone created it single-handedly.
Which, with the **AA's mentality, and that of these other garbage... err... content... creators, it would make perfect sense (to them) to sue ARPA - if only ARPA had as much money they could potentially win.
Slashdot Mirror
Regardless, RTFA first...
This...is...Slashdot! /kicks Robert into the lolrtfa pit.
LoL, right you are! I stand corrected!!! ;-P
Disney copyright lawyers.
Dammit! I've got mod points, and I cannot figure out whether to mod you insightful or funny... there should be a combo-mod or something that allows both at once... perhaps "+1 Insightfully Funny" or "+1 Humorously Insightful" (which would be the one I think applies to your post).
I'd rather pay 3$ per memory card than have a DMCA++ / ACTA laws enacted that just screws everything up! You can't sue people who have paid a copying tax can you?
Yes, yes they can. Read the proposed law. They still plan on. This is solely to make up losses for their pathetic, outdated, ineffective business model.
Why don't they just tax RAM, the music is loaded into there all the time. Let's see each time the music is played.
What the hell is wrong with you?!?!?!? They're perfectly capable of coming up with idiotic, oddball ideas on their own! Don't go giving them any new ones!!!
I used to think the same thing about Ethernet cables. it's all digital right? And yet I've seen speeds increase 10 fold when replacing old one.
Define "old one". Are you referring to a 10/100 cable that does not support gigabit? I've seen quite a few such cables (heck, even being sold today) that only have two pairs and will not negotiate at gigabit speeds. I recently replaced a few at a client's office actually, and they were installed only 5 or so years ago.
I've even found some that have all four pairs - but only two actually crimped into the connector (the other two pairs simply terminate in the plug, uncrimped). Again, no gigabit speeds there.
I make my own ethernet cables from boxed wire bought at Home Depot or Lowes (Cat 5e - or occasionally Cat 6), and they all (even at various lengths, up to and including a few 100+ foot runs) perform just as well as any of the name brand, uber-expensive cables we've got lying around here. Oh - and I'm knowledgeable enough to actually check for things like retransmissions, "collisions" (ie: apparent ones due to echo/crosstalk, as switches shouldnt have such an issue), errors, etc. I can most definitely tell you, that unless you try very very hard to buy a crap cable, the results are generally within the norm regardless of price.
Now, if you MAKE cables, that's different. (1) I've found ones poorly crimped, (2) ones where the pairs have been unwound for feet, (3) ones where they used aluminum core wires for speeds such are not rated for, (4) ones where the wire gauge is not to spec (ie: smaller than it should be), (5) ones where the insulation is stripped off the wire before it's inserted into the plug, and so on.
But that's not a flaw in cheap cables - it's a flaw in having someone who doesn't know what they are doing making cables.
For short cable runs, any old HDMI cable will do. When you get into the 50-100 ft lengths, the cable quality absolutely matters.
HDMI signals may be digital, so there's none of the subjective analog concerns, but it's also a real-time signal, which makes it susceptible to even small delays in transmission across the cable. This isn't a concern in a sub-20 ft cable, but becomes noticeable in the cheap longer cables.
Mod parent REDUNDANT. This is CLEARLY stated in the article, MULTIPLE times, except using anything over 10' as the cutoff (and mentioning 25' numerous times). That is also why, as they mentioned, they picked 6' or 6.6' cables to test with.
Otherwise, not too bad for a first post, especially by an anon. Regardless, RTFA first...
OS/2 runs drivers in ring 0? Weird. I always thought it was the kernel and kernel helpers it ran in ring 0 - with the drivers (EXCEPT HPFS386) run in Ring 2 or ring 3 (depending on the driver layer or driver).
Anyway, IBM also managed a kernel for entirely different architecture - namely the PPC and it's different architecture. How odd that Microsoft couldn't manage such.
Not true... OS/2 1.x didnt support them, did they? When OS/2 2.x onwards was written/rewritten by IBM for 386 and better hardware, they seem to have managed fine - nor did they just simply "tack it on".
OS/2 1.x and 2.x are completely different codebases. Windows NT and, well, Windows NT are not.
Ah... I see... IBM, in little time, managed to rectify such a situation, but in nearly 2 decades, Microsoft has not?
And regardless, that does not explain Microsoft moving things into the incorrect ring(s). If they can move stuff into the wrong rings, why couldn't they move them into the correct ring(s) instead?
By which you mean...?
Moving parts of (or entire) drivers into ring 0 that don't belong there (Rings 1-2 were intended for that, as you probably already know), moving other Windows code there (c'mon, just fix the damn speed problems... don't try to make Windows faster by trying to minimize ring/mode switching - OS/2 handled CONTINUAL ring switching with far better speed than the NT line, even with the NT line minimizing such)...
Anyway... Microsoft's official statement on the reasons is:
"In order to maintain compatibility with non-Intel systems, the Windows operating systems support only two levels of privilege--Ring 0 and Ring 3"
...even though other architectures did support similar, as is evidenced by operating systems on such architectures taking advantage of such capabilities. Odd...
Windows NT only uses two rings because that's all some of its historically support platforms had. I imagine it's something that's rather difficult to tack on later.
Not true... OS/2 1.x didnt support them, did they? When OS/2 2.x onwards was written/rewritten by IBM for 386 and better hardware, they seem to have managed fine - nor did they just simply "tack it on".
And regardless, that does not explain Microsoft moving things into the incorrect ring(s). If they can move stuff into the wrong rings, why couldn't they move them into the correct ring(s) instead?
That's why now days I just run this.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security_essentials/default.aspx
From reading all of your posts on this topic, I swear you must work for Microsoft, or for an advertising/marketing company they pay, or for benefits given to you by them.
Of all the infected machines I see, that are running, FULLY up to date anti-malware software on FULLY up to date versions of Windows, the top two culprits for missing things are (in this order) McAfee and MSE.
Again, I am only counting machines where the software is up to date and where Windows is up to date (and verifying the malware infected the machine AFTER the anti-malware software was installed).
The truth is, as anyone who's dealt with such stuff for a living will tell you, it catches near nothing. I've had (recently, and for the last few years) machines come in with hundreds, or even thousands of infections... Win 7, Vista, XP... and on only ONE occasion (out of a few hundred machines in the last year or so), did it notice anything (and it was one infection out of about 700 on that particular machine that it noticed).
I suspect any stats generated using a highly useless tool are equally useless. While the MSRT is great for a few SPECIFIC pieces of malware, that has nothing to do with the plethora of other infections it doesn't even notice. So, again, it makes these stats very useless.
Huh ?
He's correct. The only "mainstream" (past/present) OS that actually utilized the CPU's protection levels to any decent extent was OS/2 - which is also why it was a bitch to run in numerous virtual machines (most notably due to poor virtual Ring 2 support). And in reality, Microsoft glomming a whole bunch of things into Ring 0 is a step backwards.
I think as long as you play the Iron Maiden loudly enough your neighbours can hear, you should be fine. Pink Floyd and Phish, not so much.
LoL, yep, but that worked too well... noise complaints and all.
Well, that wouldn't be enough. They probably couldn't filter out someone with just a couple of plants anyway. But if you have say 3kW of growing lamps going on and off at the same second every day then maybe, if added to other suspicious activity it could warrant some form of action.
I've been told that this is one way police look for marijuana farms here in sweden.. whether there's any truth to that I do not know.
Hence the problem. I have 3kW of 2 tons worth of servers and UPS, and rack and misc equipment always running in a garage-converted-to-office. There's a very decent (ie: noticeably large) variance, at roughly the same times every day, caused by the AC cycling from fan to cool. And my only drug is Iron Maiden, which AFAIK, isn't illegal in this state.
Being a night person (and programmer/designer), I am in and out at odd hours of the night. I've got customers who come in during the afternoons and evenings to drop off computer repairs - which creates certain appearances for the casual observer, since they run in, drop off a machine, give us some info and run out (with similar appearances for pickups).
So, the only thing they will be noting is (a) I repair computers from a legitimate business, (b) I run the Star Trek Phase 2 websites and production servers (and a few other sites) and (c) I like programming late evening into the night, when it's quieter (less interruptions, AC cycling from fan to cool a lot less).
I am sure I am not the only one with similar "incriminating" scenarios (at least a few of my friends fit under similar scenarios).
Such actions without additional solid basis, are simply fishing expeditions.
Scared of what will happen if you resist the governments attempts to track you? Does this sound healthy to you?
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - Thomas Jefferson
Healthy (and I presume you are talking about for our society/country)? No.
Wise, as an individual, heck yes.
Smart move for anyone who (like most people do) claim they wish to see our country continue to improve? No.
Tough balancing act between survival and progress.
Wow, trolling as an AC too? UNLESS YOU SPECIFICALLY OPT IN TO SHARE YOUR INFORMATION, or to facilitate services such as payment & order processing, where there is an EXPECTATION that the information needs to be shared to complete the transaction, Google actually clearly states (as I myself have quoted and linked to) that they do not sell your data.
http://www.google.com/privacy/privacy-policy.html
Get a fucking clue.
I take it you haven't heard about geo ip then. Yes, IP ranges have locations stored. Not in the number itself of course, but in separate databases.
And it's not just ip and keywords you're seeing. You're also able to see where people click on the page. Since slashdot also has Google Analytics, all your individual clicks are all the time transferred to Google. Maybe they even store typing, I know several other web analytics services do. They know *exactly* what you're doing on the page, where you're clicking, what you're typing. Typed something and removed it afterwards? Yeah, they see that too.
Wow, you are clueless. My IP comes up wrong in almost every database, and took MANUAL correction, because it simply is tied to a known node location - as were 180 MILES worth of other people (a few MILLION other people) until the info was manually refined.
And don't talk to me about google Analytics. I use it - on a VERY busy site. ADVERTISERS do not know who you are. ADVERTISERS are not given any personal, or even identifying information on you.
Google, OTOH, does not - and instead markets on behalf of the advertiser without passing along your info to them.
LOL. Have you ever seen Google Analytics? They tell you what you were looking for (keywords) and your IP address. How do you think marketers end up targetting you? Your ISP stores a location in your ip address. They even mine your email for relevant information.
Wow, you've got no clue. They tell YOU what YOU were looking for. Where's the privacy violation? And THEY handle ad targeting - marketers (and I have been one) select KEYWORDS and are given NO personal data about who it is shown to).
And locations cannot be stored in an IP. An IP is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx - just a number.
Get a clue.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2134294&cid=36058152
Makes damn good sense.
No, it does not. Checking the upstream router, your DNS servers, or perhaps even where you are trying to visit would work much better without the privacy issue.
It will be interesting to see how this is affected by the planned increase in commercial space traffic, as well as government space traffic from other nations. That aside, it's nice to see we are so far behind Reagan's ridiculous "SDI"/"Star Wars Defense Initiatave" and wasting a LOT of money on heat sensors in space.
It's actually an interesting thing among slashthink. This is one thing Microsoft is doing right. You don't see Microsoft among the privacy invasive companies like MPAA, Time-Warner, Google, Facebook, ESA etc.. That's because they don't want to track your every movement. Microsoft sells you software. You buy it, they're happy, and you don't lose your privacy. Still most here think MS is evil and Google is some kind of white knight.
What an odd, incorrect conclusion that is! First, Microsoft has filed for MULTIPLE patents (covered right here on /. multiple times) to allow them to track their users' every move for not just their Live! product line, but for Office as well. Second, Microsoft's "Help Microsoft improve _____ (insert name of software her)" program does EXACTLY that - tracks your every move - and they sell the information to their "Business Partners" (or so their ToS and EULA claim). You can find the "Help Microsoft..." things in Internet Explorer, various Live! technologies, the Bing Toolbar and more (this too has been covered on /. recently, including Google pointing out just how well IE and the Bing Bar do such things). As things/time progress, Microsoft is adding MORE tracking and MORE data mining technologies into each of it's products and online services, and makes it very clear they don't sell or give away any of it... oh, except to their "Business Partners" which is a term that covers... well, a vast array of Microsoft "Partner Programs" due to the lack of specific definitions of which business partner group the statement applies to.
So, yes, while Microsoft hasn't taken a lot of flack over privacy issues - other than perhaps bowing to government pressure numerous times to either censor results (other countries), provide user information without proper due process (this country and others), the rest of your statement is pure nonsense. That they haven't been taken to the mat for it does not mean that they haven't done it (as it's been proven they have), nor does it prove their mindset is against doing such things (as, once again, it's been proven that (a) they DO such things, (b) have filed multiple patents that cover such technologies, and (c) are expanding the reach of such efforts to include more of their online and "offline" properties/programs/tools.
So, not to slam Microsoft, as of course many companies do such things... the point simply is, you're wrong on all points except them being (recently) taken to the mat over such practices. Get the facts straight, please.
Now, the difference between Microsoft/Facebook and Google is this. Microsoft claims they may or will or do sell the information to their "Business Partners". Facebook, we know does just that. Google, OTOH, does not - and instead markets on behalf of the advertiser without passing along your info to them. While all may be considered some level of evil, Google seems to be the lesser of these evils, since they keep the data to themselves - and are much clearer over the privacy implications of what options you choose to enabled (like also covered on /. recently regarding the $50M lawsuit against them over Android location tracking, where it actually clearly states that enabling the feature that tracks you and shares that information... hmmm... enables tracking and shares that information (Wow! that's surprising!)).
LoL, I think you just proved my point. Historically, and present, virtually every other platform has had better mechanisms to deal with such things. Windows, with a lot of cobbled together technologies, still is not quite there. So, figured I'd simply help you avoid the troll mod by pointing out the lack of sarcasm that should have been in your post.
After all, "works most of the time" isnt "works all the time" and generally is not acceptable for such things. Thus, I thought your response was actually the perfect solution - "just dont do it" ;-)
Just don't. [/notsarcasm]
FTFY! ;-)
ARPA created the internet about as much as Edison created the worldwide telephony network.
Wake-up call: What we know as the internet today could only have been created through the voluntary collaboration of thousands of independent organizations. ARPA couldn't even have imagined it back in the 70s, let alone created it single-handedly.
Which, with the **AA's mentality, and that of these other garbage... err... content... creators, it would make perfect sense (to them) to sue ARPA - if only ARPA had as much money they could potentially win.