You are right. Sudo doesn't help much at all on a single-user linux desktop, either. You could still accidentally wipe all your data. You could still execute destructive viral malware, all without using sudo. The system files protected by UAC and the sudo security model are the least important files on the machine.
No. The least privilage model, and the Sudo, UAC, and other things stop malware from becoming part of *the system*.
Your data resides in that system, and yes, the fact you could be a click happy fool along side being a fucking idiot in general can't be helpful.
Now, your data can't be protected from you, or your idiocy. And it really never will be. Anything you happen to agree to run is your own fault. The fact you think that because anything you run might cause you a problem = you should run as an admin anyway.
I am a Windows programmer. C/C++, ASM, and even VB.
None of these languages inherently produces binaries which trigger UAC prompts. Not a single one.
One of your mistakes is the presumption that the concept of an installation procedure, known as the "installer," is something mandatory.
That in fact, none of these languages inherently produce installers, that the production of an installer is an additional development step that a programmer goes through. He does this when it is advantageous to do so, and that is only when his program has many dependencies, letting the installer navigate the minefield known as "DLL HELL" for him.
Walware does not have DLL HELL style dependencies, instead leveraging only what is considered the standard WIN32 API. You can drop an executable file in a folder (such as My Documents) and execute it, and as long as that executable does not do anything above the privileges of the user running it there will be absolutely no UAC prompt period and end of story.
As a point of fact, Windows now prevents the standard API's from being deleted/overwritten, so a malware author can now depend on them being there.
UAC protects the system from some malware, expecialy rootkits, but as the poster rightly pointed out.. malware authors will adapt and simply (it really is!) avoid triggering UAC prompts. That UAC is actualy determintal to the do-it-yourselfers who would go to great lengths to protect their own system, by protecting standard API's, is just more mud on the face of your arguement.
OK, I challenge you. Drop an Exe in my documents, and then find a way that it autostarts on machine start up.
Now, extend this so that I, as the user lose control over your exe, and its hidden from the system.
You get no access apart from my own user hive, you can't reach windows or system 32, you can't change or affect program files.
Calling yourself a Windows programmer, let me correct you. You're an idiot.
And the normal user is a restricted account. 99% of malware does not try to delete your fucking data shithead, it tries to insert itself into the system, so it runs for all users, and so it runs at start up, and so it can try to key log you or take your credit card details, or pour spam out from your badly run system.
You overgeneralized about UAC, and you completely misstated my comments.
UAC is intended to prevent malware from harming the user. The idea is that malware running as a normal user (not as an administrator) can't harm the user or spread to other users. That's an absolutely false assumption--one which has its roots in the multi-user servers of yore, not the single-user desktops of today.
Today, malware running as a normal user can both spread and destroy all data on a system which the user values. When UAC deployment is common, malware authors will simply adjust their software so that it doesn't trigger UAC. No significant security benefit; large associated cost.
It can't spread beyond the user, and it has far more trouble getting in. The fact you don't understand this means you have no idea at all about the shit you are shovelling.
Did you read all the way to the end of my post? Because most machines do not use this "feature," it can screw up much existing malware. But as soon as the feature becomes standard, it will be a worthless expense. The mistake you are making is that you are forgetting that the data, not the system files, is all that matters to the end user.
You are the one making repeated mistakes. The data resides within the system.
Your car stereo or home computer reside within your car and house respectively. You have keys for a reason, try using them. Or aternatively, leave all the doors open.
How you got a score of 2 for your incredible stupidity is a slur on Slashdot.
For a single-user system (the majority of Windows desktops), it doesn't matter whether or not the user is an Administrator, at least from a security perspective. What threats are you protecting against by subjecting users to extra authentication buttons when installing apps? The only thing the single user really cares about is his own data! Malware running with his (non-administratior) access can destroy his data just as well as malware running as administrator. With either permission, the malware can spread via sockets, file infections, or web access.
This obsession with UAC on single-user desktop systems is simply misguided. Yes, some existing malware may break if it runs with non-admin privileges. But once non-admin becomes common, malware authors will just stop presupposing admin access when coding.
Who the hell deemed this posting insightful. The writer, and those who dared to write 'insightful' on this are idiots. And I mean idiots of the highest caliber.
The 'at least from the security perspective' comment is a classic. So the fact you run your box as an admin, open yourself to all the securiity problems that brings, and make it exceptionally easy to infect yourself, means it makes no sense to you to run as a user instead. That's just marvellous.
Just so you know, after you're stupendously cretinously, ill educated behaviour infects your own machine, your stupidity costs everyone else.
When you idiocy leaves your bot netted machine infested and causing others problems, it actually goes to show that idiots like you should be banned from use until you actually get a clue.
erm 1) its easier to remove non-root malware 2) there are still many exploits for many programs, reducing the effect of these is still a good thing. 3) not all problems are malicious, buggy programs as root can cause much more trouble than the same program in a jail/chroot
Its very much harder for alien, malware, spyware code to run under a user than as admin, and still retain the hard to see, hard to kill, hard to remove, harder to embed on startup locations basis that much of it has today. Oh, it can still run, and cause a headache, but the context is important.
Exploits are a different animal, and in many cases are not reliant on the user run level, which is unfortunate, but a harsh reality. In this level, hoping for good vendor action in closing holes, and keeping systems updated, patched, or for example, blocked by security (firewalls or similar) is required. If a vendor becomes very poor in this area (Hello Adobe circa 2009) its worth throwing them out.
And you are correct, not running as admin limits damage made by simple user error or mistake.
Its accepted in the unix world that running as root is a bad idea. In the windows world, that is a battle still being fought.
And one I have to fight every single day.
*And no, running as admin, but having some security products on your box won't save you, won't protect you (the readers if applicable), please stop being dumb.
well, instead of "lazy developer" he should have written "lazy software vendor".
The vendors do not write the applications, the developers do. They are employed by the vendors, and writing the apps wrongly now costs their employers time and effort for their idiocy.
Yes, in respect to building the windows application it is always, always the developers fault.
And I mean - Always. Devs have no business writing code that accesses the wrong part of the Registry hive, and they have no business for example, storing settings or program configs in a none user area, and thus forcing the user to run as admin when using the program.
The windows system, contrary to what some people peddle, is not so hard to handle or understand from a Dev point of view.
And I'll go even so far as to say it is not a vendor issue. A vendor whom employs a 'windows developer' as cited on a dev's CD should rightly expect a developer to produce code in a sensible way, along the lines of the well read and understood system.
If you or anyone reading this classes themselves as a windows dev, and you or they do not understand and know how to make a program run and work happily as a none admin user POST installation, you are not a dev, you are an only an amataur pertaining to be one, and you or they have some study and reading to do..
If you were really shafted, then the shims is worth a go.
In many many cases, applications can be fixed to run without admin rights. By checking using regmon, filemon, and similar, you can get a handle on what an app is opening and where the permissions issue lies.
This is a bit time consuming, and its a negative, but it is do-able.
There are four things that proceed the problem. Lazy users Very lazy developers. -- The prime cause of security failures in Windows. People only too happy to simply run as admin -- Bad practice MS setting users as admin to fit point 1,2,3
Windows is not insecure, not any level worse than anything else, but developers, users, and vendor run it insecurely, and worse, have an encouraging attitude for doing so.
MS have gone about the UAC thing very badly, but overall the step and move towards a UAC alike structure is long overdue, and is badly needed.
Years pass and people still argue over the pointless portions of OS argumentation.
Here is the core fact that everyone needs to really grasp. The OS does not really matter. If it brings noce things to the table, that is nice. The Applications, Tools, Productivity, and output capability matter 100% more than wether the underlying core is called Ubuntu or Windows.
When Linux provides the API's, Tools, Support for the wider world, people will use it. Linux has a wide range of software, that is true. It also has enormous gaping holes in coverage of widely known applications, and in areas like Gaming, and well beyond. I'm not saying it has no API's, I'm saying that if I were writing an app, I can't write it for Linux, because there is no 'Linux', there is only thousands of distributions, usually with their own cookie issues.
The whole platform benefits from the aspect of having a lot of tools and API's and other things going on, but people need to understand that if you continue to change the core stuff like sound, desktop managers, installers, in a constant churn, you're creating a hostile environment to applications. This 'strength' is also the primary weakness.
The long term support and stability of Ubuntu I am sure is somewhat helpful in this regard, but again, Ubuntu is merely one distribution, not the platform.
If you are a game dev, or Adobe, or THQ, you'll look at Linux and its overall state, and view it as hostile, and a support/dev nightmare. Most development that does happen, is done under the safe wrapper of Wine, rather than boldly coding native (example) - and its very clear why that short cut happens.
Is Linux based technology ready to be deployed in the 'Enterprise'.
This 'enterprise', is it small, medium, big ? What criteria does the 'enterprise' have - did anyone bother to ask in the time they were declaring conformity?
Each case would be something examined on it's own merits.
To be honest, it is ready, for some things. It is not ready for others, and in many cases, it is _so_ far from actually being ready that only idiots would claim it to be so.
Further, enterprise ready means one core thing, it does not mean you can have the code and fit it yourself, it means you sign up with some big fat company that if you hit a problem you can call them and they help you fix it.
In this respect, actually all software, be it 'proprietry' or FOSS is the same. And I laugh in the face of any idiot who sits down with the starting premise that 'you have the code, you can fix it yourself!'
Some claim licensing and terms has an effect. True, but licensing 'enterprise' Linux products costs, just as licensing proprietry software does, and in both cases, if the vendor goes bust, you could be left in serious trouble. That is the nature of the beast.
It's sad to see, but par for the course to see the vendors (proprietry) being hammered here, and the sun shining out of rectum in terms of FOSS. Neither is perfect, neither is going to be perfect, and in either case, best tool for the job, taking into account_everything_, fully, and in an examined way.
The problem with this, is everyone who needs to know already know's it's an issue. Those who did not know, will still be none the wiser, and will shruug their shoulders, try to do what the BBC says - 'secure' the computer, and in a few months any instructions laid out will be stale, broken, old, or incomplete.
Lagality To my mind, its clearly illegal. But being illegal and being punished, are two very distant worlds. For years now, entire governments, corporate entities, criminals, and everyone else has run round committing this 'crime', and it's never been dealt with. The massive waves of Malware and spyware, often being shipped by companies that exist openly are simply a symptom of a system that has failed.
I can probably count on one hand the times that in raw clear daylight, entities are tackled and dealt with criminally in this subject. Wether it be Sony installing a root-kit, or the BBC doing this, it's become an everyday crime. Your computer is not as some claim, akin to a house with no lock, its clearly your land, and stepping on it is 'tresspassing' and doing something you should not be.
Its probably far too late now, the horse has gone, but companies that breach the law to this extent should be prosecuted and made to answer for this.
My problem with the BBC is that by making this nonsense - they have once again, invited kiddies to the underground, and created a level of encouragement. After all, the kids will say, if the BBC can do it and not be criminalised, so can I.
It's really time that companies that are like the BBC, legit, and when they do things like this, that they be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. That applies to Sony and it's root kit and others. We need to get back to the basis in law that someone else's computer is not yours, and if you decide to screw with it, you face criminal charges.
Further, it would be very interesting to see what the BBC IT structure and management make of this, and wether they would be happy were it someone else hacking and using their systems and networks.
It sounds like we need to redesign what antitrust is for.
Not really. We just need to enforce our existing antitrust laws. Apple gets away with this sort of stuff because the market is so broken. If there were multiple, practical alternatives for desktop OS's with fast paced innovation driven by competition, Apple would not even be able to bundle their OS and hardware without losing money. The only way they get away with charging as much as they do for some of their upgrades is by leveraging OS X. Fix the market and they'll unbundle those products out of economic necessity.
The real problem I see here is MS has bribed the US courts and the EU courts have been trying to be super diplomatic to MS. Top that off with all the courts being painfully slow compared to high tech industry and we see these sorts of inefficient, consumer unfriendly behaviors in dozens of markets peripheral to the desktop OS market.
Apple does not get 'away' with this because the 'market is broken'. Apple gets away with this because this is business, and they are there to make a profit. At the same time, they will argue that they put in the effort to provide the hardware, and software combination, and they will claim that doing so has a cost element.
There is no 'market' in terms of Apple, because they are the designers and creators of their technology, AND thus its their market to do with whatever they wish. They are entitled to control and sell it how they see fit. You - as a consumer have completely FREE choice in this matter. Enough information exists that if you do not like the cost of 'Apple' taking extra time and stocktaking to fit your additional parts, Google will provide you with the answer to the fitting, and also pricing of what you require. And if you can't do the work yourself, You don't have to buy an Apple at all. The market for computers is vast, and is not restricted in any way for the consumer. Or talk to a friend technical enough they can help you do it.
As for you MS court bribery nonsense, what rot.
This is a non story, who the hell got it past the review..
Before you know it, they'll need 42 days to sift through your windows DLLs and files. After all, being able to say hundreds of thousands of files and by implication 'this is hard' means a reasonable premise(not). But only to the stupid.
The UK already has enormous monitoring and invasive abuse of its citizens, bad enough before 'companies' start attempting to take the law into their own hands and begin illicit and comprehensive invasion of people's privacy to support their monopoly.
As for Virgin, first we've seen they have an agenda in terms of net neutrality (they don't believe in it), and they also happen to believe in everyone else's rights but not their users, PAYING customers.
I hope they do send out their stupid letters, and I hope the ensuing customer response tells them exactly where to get off, along side the numbers of people leaving the services.
From FTA: "Five years ago Jane Longhurst, a teacher from Brighton, was murdered. It later emerged her killer had been compulsively accessing websites such as Club Dead and Rape Action, which contained images of women being abused and violated."
I agree that a substantial number of rapists and molesters and whatnot probably do get off on "violent" porn. But so do quite a few very normal people who will never rape someone. Consensual kink is a gorgeous thing, an expression of incredible trust. The fact that some rapists get off on it is insufficient to justify banning it, after all, last I heard quite a few rapists drink water and eat bread.
Of course, this parallels some sex laws already enacted where I live. It's legal to have sex with someone who's 16, provided you're not in a position of authority over them... But have a picture of you having sex with your 16 year old girlfriend? Not a wise move.
I think that both laws are ridiculous personally. If it's not illegal to do, then it shouldn't be illegal to represent digitally with a bunch of 1s and 0s. The one thing I will say to you is this. This is the same state that has:-
Full prisons.
A continual release cycle where Paedo's, Terrorists, People with mental problems, Rapists and others are RE-released and not imprisoned.
A very very bad record of extending invasive systems to monitor far beyond the supposed intended use, operations, and limits
A very bad record of taking said systems, and using them abusively to either create new 'crimes' or as a method of unfairly taxing citizens trying to go about their business.
Oh, and before I forget, a hilarious record of releasing captured data that should be kept private, into the public or criminal domain.
This is also the very same Government that brought in the Terrorist and criminal aiding 'Human Rights Act' and the very same that bends over backwards supporting terrorism (check the friends of Ken Livingstone) and trying to bring back people from Guantanamo.
I am fine with this. People who have pics of people doing corpses or animals, or pics of people basicly ripping someone apart or killing them are screwed up big time. Anyone that gets off on that sort of thing needs to have their head checked. This law dosent affect soft stuff like bondage, it just affects the stuff that would be illegal to do to another person. So let me get this right. You are telling me you can tell from a picture that its a corpse, can you?
The WHOLE problem with this 'Law' is that its whole premise is stupid. Who decides what is extreme? You? The Judge? A Porn Inspector skilled in making a call between art and porn?
No, enough of this stupidity, this law is breathtaking in its crass idiocy, and should not be 'accepted'. And its not merely this law, its the monitoring and invasive levels of 'Policing' that will be applied. And no, you can forget taking the stupid 'If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear' horsecrap. These laws come in at a low water mark and before you know it envelope everyone. No no no.
I am playing devil's advocate here, but the government has a job to maintain a safe and working society. There are laws that restrict personal freedoms because they have a bad effect on society. For example, guns were banned. Again I'm not saying any individual action is correct, but they do have that power. A logical argument could be made that consensual acts in private by a small number of people does not have the same negative impact on society that wide distribution of depictions of those acts would. So, the importnat questions here are: are there things that the UK government _cannot_ restrict in the interest of protecting society? Is the material in question one of those things? Are the materials really harmful (and, according to who) to the extent that they need to be banned? If you are going to make an argument either pro or con regarding banning, you need to answer questions like these.
It should be said that this 'Law' is I believe brought about after a deluded individual, basically killed someone and somewhere in the case there was a link between 'extreme' porn, and the committed offense.
The family campaigned for this law.
The problems only begin here. The legal system in the UK is in meltdown, and has been for sometime. But at the same time, you have an Orwellian state that just cannot help itself. When its not putting in new methods of citizen monitoring, its losing the data its collecting into either public domain, or into criminal hands.
The monitoring it has brought in, usually under the dubious anti-terrorism - war on terror claims, are now globally used against an ever more persecuted civilian population. Its being used via gold plating and additional use never talked about when these laws and systems were being discussed. Children are being monitored by systems that were supposed to only monitor terrorist activity. Your walking the dog is being monitored by the local council to make sure it only poops in designated areas, and in cases where it does not, a juicy fat fine is going to automagically end up on your doorstep.
In the meantime, the real criminal, and terrorists whom these systems were originally supposedly to be aimed at laugh at the overfilled prisons, and at the abject comedy that is the EU human rights laws, - end result, Terrorism in the UK is rampant and operates without being affected.
In the meantime, these systems are turned upon people, legitimate people, and new 'crimes' are being created. These systems are then used to persue the individual - usually poor bastards who have little choice, the system is designed to ensnare and cap people.
These systems are becoming an every day thing. Boil the frog. Drive your car in London, its a 'congestion charge'. That'll be £8. No, wait, its a Green charge now, that will be £25 - thank you, pay - do not pass go.
You overfilled you bin sir, that will be a £200 fine. Your dog pooped in a none pooping area, you environmental scum, pay £100.
I have little doubt that anyone with some time can go and look into the disturbing direction this is taking, but let me put this into context for anyone whom does not understand.
In terms of 'Extreme Pornography' I can tell you how this will progress.
1. Some form of invasive monitoring will be required. 2. Some form of invasive Policing will be required. 3. The prisons are actually full. So its going to lead to some sort of civil 'fine', its going to again affect the bulk of the populace, and miss the real 'fiends' that this stupid law supposedly goes after. 4. They will need some clever assholes who can tell the difference between porn and extreme porn. Don't expect consistency either, because one man's art is another's disgusting extreme porn.
I'll add that Porn availability in the UK is already covered under existing laws. What this is aimed at is the massive underground. The problem is its a very very bad law, as most of these Orwellian bastard la
The fact is that Linux is still utterly stuck in providing a 'desktop' for programmers.
What this actually means, is that its got a Kernel, and a whole bunch of applications thrown on top, and its a best a mish mash, at worst, its only something people claim they like after they 'tweak' it to how they want it to be.
This Ubuntu 'experience' is not at all uncommon. In fact its the default outcome of Linux installation. Its got a very long way to go.
I had fun yesterday. I'd just finished installing an OpenSuse 10.3 install, and I'd moved some MP3s to the home directory. In some of the directories, I found some WMA files. The home directory was full. So I used a provided 'Search tool' from the Available applications menu. Just like an end user would. In the list of files I hunted down the WMA files, and with a shift select, I chose them all, and chose the 'move to wastebasket' option.
What proceeded to happen, was that the system then proceeded to open 2107 warning boxes, with no options in them, on top of each other, over and over. After a long period, all the boxes were up, and the top box said 'Wastebasket full, cannot move file'. And the system was locked, I could not click on the boxes, nor access a menu, nor do anything else.
I had to reboot the box. No big deal, but this is really the tip of the iceberg.
Linux is not ready for the desktop, oh, I know, I'll get the knashing of teeth from lots of people who *Make* it serve as their desktop. But that, and this are not one in the same.
Only when user testing is down as this fellow did, in large scale, and a response from the programming and dev side is matched, will real progress be made. And it is being made, no doubt at all. But progress does not make it ready.
Even then, the very distributed methods of Linux work against it. Harnessing distributions, and software developers to really work on a true intergrated desktop will remain a real challenge for a long time to come.
Basically its grim. What few people really get into, or really discuss, is what is really going on. You'll hear a lot about hate speech. The liberal left, and no end of NGOs, and media types will jump up and down about things, but only one side of things, and its a warped view. In a moment I will post an interesting thing.
Before then, the people who claim Islam is peaceful, and the usual political correct claptrap are as guilty of generalising as anyone whom attacks Islam. Its not easy to define or comment on because in the WEST, a great many Islamists have a different view to others. But there is plenty of Islamic jihad going on and you do not have to go very far to find it.
For those who talk about Christian or other crimes in terms of other religion, feel free to quite what you like, and remember, each time you do, in a more general sense, you don't get the lunatic response. If you make a joke about the Pope, you are less likely to have people burning effigies of you in the street, of have priests issuing dictates to have you killed.
There are ongoing efforts to contort, and restrict freedom when discussing Islam, and there is a significant and disturbing wish not to upset the nut jobs. If I was to replace Islam with mad christians, or Nazi's or any other grouping in the US, or in many places in the west, you would not see this response. I cannot talk about others, But I grew up with it being IMPORTANT and required to make fun of and question religion. I'm British, and I am sure you have heard of monty python. Nuff said.
Now, to cut to the chase, if you really are going to limit 'hate crimes', then the first port of call should be those coming from the Islamic quarter. With due regard to the leftists, liberals, media types, There seems to be no end of publishers, papers, TV programs fawning of that bastard Bin Laden's every word, no matter how gut wrenchingly disgusting or provocative it is, and yet anyone who counters that gets censored.
I appreciate Islamics may not like my point of view, but you either have an Umma, or you don't, and if you do, then people in MY civilisation have a right to ask what the hell its playing at, its basically how the Christian church was handled.
I think what I am trying to say, is we are granting Islam, and *some* of its followers things which are not our values, and are extremely contrary to our values.
Now, back to the hosting, I found this, which is reasonably interesting.
Network Solution's Easter Egg For Islamism March 23, 2008
Network Solutions, the oldest domain name registration company, has marked Easter by censoring one of its customers for potentially being beastly to Islamists. We should thank them for exposing this vulnerability - then deep six them.
This story is hat tip LGF.
The censoree is the Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who is planning to post a 15 minute video that apparently suggests Islamists are prone to oppression of their women and kids, and killing the rest of us.
Wilders' site is registered with and (I think) hosted by Network Solutions and you can see it here. As at 16:23 GMT, it says:
This site has been suspended while Network Solutions is investigating whether the site's content is in violation of the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy. Network Solutions has received a number of complaints regarding this site that are under investigation.
That's a reminder that the Internet is a very fragile vehicle for free speech, since terrorists can infiltrate, bribe, or cow the people we pay to register and host our domains.
There's some safety in numbers - it's harder for them to shut down a multi-user service such as Wordpress or Blogspot. But not impossible.
Here's a good suggestion from an LGF commenter (comment #67):
If Wilders wants to distribute the film on the net, then he is going to have to pack it up and stick it up on hosting sites like rapidshare and torrent the thing and let pe
You are right. Today the real bastion of PC gaming is RTS, and for RTS, its a brilliant platform. Well, it could _be_a brilliant platform.
If we rewind back to the beginning of PC gaming, you had a very simple system, DOS, and the peripherals allowed devs to come up with to me anyway the killer game changer, that being multiplayer, lan, and later internet gaming. And while Doom still had some hardware limits, in general, the PC could be used for it. Today is a whole different kettle of fish.
I was glad to see the other week interested parties came together in terms of PC gaming and said they would work together to try and attack some of the problems. And as a platform it has some very serious problems. I'm sure my list won't be contemorary, but just a few:-
Piracy. Hardware Requirements. Windows.
Piracy ------ There is no doubt piracy is a serious problem. But DRM has not helped, indeed I go as far as to say the DRM is so undesirable it has in fact increased to the point where players prefer the risk of alien code running on their system over the nasties the game companies chose to use, and in many a case I can't blame them.
In terms of the UK, Three observations. 1. PC gaming is actually dead man walking. Its in very bad shape indeed. 2. New games on release are far fewer than has been the case since perhaps the damn of PC games. 3. The 'bargain' bin game areas are bigger than new games, and TOO cheap. 4. New game areas in the shops are very small, and seriously over priced.
Hardware Requirements, The PC game industry needs to stop being a thrawl to Microsoft. Given Microsoft's once excellent work in the area of dev help in gaming, its now totally the reverse. DX10 is Vista only, PC's are to be shafted for the console, and a lot of other issues.
Windows. Which windows are you going to ship for? XP? Vista? You'll use DX10 or will you stay at 9?
There are things people in the PC gaming industry could do. Some of these things could be to define your own GPC standards. PC's that meet a base agreeable standard could get a GPC2008 sticker, next year a modified standard GPC2009 and so on. This standard, not the old ones could ensure you have some ground to stand on. You could even apply such a scheme to hardware, so users looking at mail order or in their local shop know that it meets criteria. The Game producers could state on their game that it meets (for example GPC2008) requirements.
But it goes further than this, why stay merely with windows? Why use DX10 and be trapped in world where the mother company is happiest shafting you in exchange for its console market? Given the market has impressive people, One would think that a new and open API to replace DX10/ Open GL could be thought about.
But putting aside some of the technical issues, the core problems remain. Piracy will still be there, and IS only a problem if you can't make revenue. The cost of new releases is too high. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but £35 games mean that I get a couple for Christmas, and one or two in the rest of the year. They *are* a luxury item for a large enough portion of the populace and in the UK are way way over priced. I know they cost a lot to produce, but you're better off selling large numbers at a lower price than have 10,000 ship at £35.
And if I wait, 6 months later, I pick up the same game for £5.99 or whatever in the bargain bin? If you as a market are willing to sell games long term at £5.99, then I ask, why the hell are your release prices a customer killer. Depreciation of product is an indicator of problems, and the bargain bin is now much bigger than your new games area.
What else? Oh, new games, yes. The majority of new games are in fact below reasonable quality. Good new releases are hard to find. Is someone supposed to be happy with a £35 game where they are in fact ripped of by poor quality goods? Chalk one up for the bad guys, the customer won't have £35 to keep g
"I can point out millions of problems with capitalism, all of which involves death."
Lets see, the 'capitalist' parts of the world have a better record than the despots whom use communism.
"Look at working conditions when it was pure capitalism."
As opposed to under communists? Did you ever examine conditions under communists? No, guess not. Take a trip to North Korea.
"Although there are problems today, there are less of them thanks to the progressive movement."
'The progressive movement'. What a crock of shit.
"Once we go totally towards communism, there will be no problems at all. We would also be a lot further along if M$ and all businesses were gone. and everything were indeed run by the government."
We are fortunate that we have history. And real cases where liars like you can be forced to face. Which communist model do you like? The North Korean? Stalin's? A Kymer Rouge model? Chinese, with its portable death Vans? Perhaps you like Robert Mugabe's redistribution of land to his people, tried over and over by asshole idiots spastic communist fucktards, now leaving his people starving just like all the other communists who have taken this path.
Let me guess, you agree with a model that works towards 1 in 5 humans getting AK47's - and exporting your form of human poverty across the Globe. Communism continues today to be a primary driver of death amongst humans on a scale never seen in History.
"I think you are mistaken. The commission ruled on the illegality as is their charter as an executive body (like the DoJ in the US)."
An unelected body, hand picked, usually with bad people like Mandelson, part of a totally undemocratic and appalling Executive that has documented failings in terms of democratic deficit?
"Microsoft then appealed the decision bringing it before the EU courts (judicial) and lost their appeal (in Sept 2007). MS then declined to further appeal the decision (announced in October 2007)."
These courts are kangeroo courts controlled, and owned by the executive. Hans Martin Tillack lost his case too, but don't be shocked. Thats how dictatorships work.
"This is a common misconception. In both the US and EU, antitrust abuse is a criminal offense, not a civil one. The confusion stems from the fact that most criminal cases begin as civil suits against the monopolist and are then taken over and made criminal cases by the executive body. If you recall, for example, it was the US Dept. of Justice V. Microsoft. Tat was not the DoJ suing MS in civil court for a contract violation against them."
No, its you that has a misconception. Read what is being said by these high handed none elected people. Lets review:-
"Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of E.U. competition policy that the commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision," the European Union's competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement. "I hope that today's decision closes a dark chapter in Microsoft's record of noncompliance with the commission's March 2004 decision."
(Doubtful, since you commissioner are still progressing two other cases against them.)
"In March 2004 the commission ordered Microsoft to disclose interoperability information to competitors within 120 days. Its antitrust regulators later found that the company was charging excessively high royalties and patent fees that effectively foreclosed rival vendors from obtaining the information."
(So, they complied, but you didn't like how they complied. Did you state how much this should be made available for? No.. didn't think so.)
"In a press conference, Ms. Kroes indicated that the fine was calculated on the basis that Microsoft was in breach of the commission's order for 488 days. She said that the amount represented 60 percent of the maximum $2.2 billion fine that the commission could have imposed.
She said, "It was never a pleasure" to impose a fine, but characterised the commission's action as a reasonable reaction to an "unreasonable" price charged by Microsoft for information crucial to competitors. "This has had a negative effect on millions of offices and companies and governments around the world," she said."
(Note carefully the comments. What you are seeing is the ambition of people out of control. Its not about MS in the EU, now its Millions of offices and companies and governments around the world. I did not know the EU was so brazen in its new model imperialism, but why hold back. Are the fines levied if MS fails to comply with the EU when outside the EU? Do tell, I'd really like to know..)
"With regard to Microsoft's offer of more information, she said "we don't want talk, we want compliance. If you cheat the rules, you will be caught."
(What you mean is, we have someone in our sights, and fully intend to rake in some very nice extra cash for our dictatorship, and there is fuck all anyone can do about it.)
"She added, "This should be a signal to the outside world, and in particular to Microsoft, that we stick to our line.""
(Its a warning sign of things to come. Microsoft is the first, it won't be the last.)
Microsoft's troubles in the European Union aren't anywhere near over yet. It's still facing two antitrust investigations there, one addressing interoperability and a second related to the alleged "tying" of unrelated software products.
No doubt our friend the unelected, totally unrepresentative, Nellie will not enjoy hitting Microsoft with fines. No, off course she won't. *Roll Eyes*
"Maybe you could actually supply some facts to back your claims up? or are you just trolling. BTW according to the Reporters sans frontieres Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007 (http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24025) almost every EU country ranks in front of the US. Ah but right it rather believe some slashdot troll then one of the most respected freedom of the press monitoring groups in the world."
http://englandexpects.blogspot.com/2008/02/eu-journalist-or-propagandist.html That must be why the IFJ is having to write letters to head off EU efforts to control the press. Did the www.rsf.org people place the illegal arrest of Hans Martin Tillack under Belgium where there is not even source privilage or under the EU who sanctioned it.
Oddly enough, seeing how many people here regard the EU as a state, its fun that its not even listed here. Which means its not being monitored.
"BTW I'm getting fcking fingerprinted every time I enter the US, so don't give me those stupid finger printing examples."
We are not talking about the butt of all Slashdot hatred here are we Mister Wizard, we are talking about the supposedly democratic, morally superior, open, transparent, better than the US EU, truth hurts. What exactly is it you deem the children have done to have the state finger printing them? They are not entering the United States, they only left their parents for a few hours.
Slashdot Mirror
You are right. Sudo doesn't help much at all on a single-user linux desktop, either. You could still accidentally wipe all your data. You could still execute destructive viral malware, all without using sudo. The system files protected by UAC and the sudo security model are the least important files on the machine.
No. The least privilage model, and the Sudo, UAC, and other things stop malware from becoming part of *the system*.
Your data resides in that system, and yes, the fact you could be a click happy fool along side being a fucking idiot in general can't be helpful.
Now, your data can't be protected from you, or your idiocy. And it really never will be. Anything you happen to agree to run is your own fault. The fact you think that because anything you run might cause you a problem = you should run as an admin anyway.
You'll also be able to go after it, find it, and kill it.
I am a Windows programmer. C/C++, ASM, and even VB.
None of these languages inherently produces binaries which trigger UAC prompts. Not a single one.
One of your mistakes is the presumption that the concept of an installation procedure, known as the "installer," is something mandatory.
That in fact, none of these languages inherently produce installers, that the production of an installer is an additional development step that a programmer goes through. He does this when it is advantageous to do so, and that is only when his program has many dependencies, letting the installer navigate the minefield known as "DLL HELL" for him.
Walware does not have DLL HELL style dependencies, instead leveraging only what is considered the standard WIN32 API. You can drop an executable file in a folder (such as My Documents) and execute it, and as long as that executable does not do anything above the privileges of the user running it there will be absolutely no UAC prompt period and end of story.
As a point of fact, Windows now prevents the standard API's from being deleted/overwritten, so a malware author can now depend on them being there.
UAC protects the system from some malware, expecialy rootkits, but as the poster rightly pointed out.. malware authors will adapt and simply (it really is!) avoid triggering UAC prompts. That UAC is actualy determintal to the do-it-yourselfers who would go to great lengths to protect their own system, by protecting standard API's, is just more mud on the face of your arguement.
OK, I challenge you. Drop an Exe in my documents, and then find a way that it autostarts on machine start up.
Now, extend this so that I, as the user lose control over your exe, and its hidden from the system.
You get no access apart from my own user hive, you can't reach windows or system 32, you can't change or affect program files.
Calling yourself a Windows programmer, let me correct you. You're an idiot.
And the normal user is a restricted account.
99% of malware does not try to delete your fucking data shithead, it tries to insert itself into the system, so it runs for all users, and so it runs at start up, and so it can try to key log you or take your credit card details, or pour spam out from your badly run system.
You overgeneralized about UAC, and you completely misstated my comments.
UAC is intended to prevent malware from harming the user. The idea is that malware running as a normal user (not as an administrator) can't harm the user or spread to other users. That's an absolutely false assumption--one which has its roots in the multi-user servers of yore, not the single-user desktops of today.
Today, malware running as a normal user can both spread and destroy all data on a system which the user values. When UAC deployment is common, malware authors will simply adjust their software so that it doesn't trigger UAC. No significant security benefit; large associated cost.
It can't spread beyond the user, and it has far more trouble getting in. The fact you don't understand this means you have no idea at all about the shit you are shovelling.
Did you read all the way to the end of my post? Because most machines do not use this "feature," it can screw up much existing malware. But as soon as the feature becomes standard, it will be a worthless expense. The mistake you are making is that you are forgetting that the data, not the system files, is all that matters to the end user.
You are the one making repeated mistakes.
The data resides within the system.
Your car stereo or home computer reside within your car and house respectively. You have keys for a reason, try using them. Or aternatively, leave all the doors open.
How you got a score of 2 for your incredible stupidity is a slur on Slashdot.
For a single-user system (the majority of Windows desktops), it doesn't matter whether or not the user is an Administrator, at least from a security perspective. What threats are you protecting against by subjecting users to extra authentication buttons when installing apps? The only thing the single user really cares about is his own data! Malware running with his (non-administratior) access can destroy his data just as well as malware running as administrator. With either permission, the malware can spread via sockets, file infections, or web access.
This obsession with UAC on single-user desktop systems is simply misguided. Yes, some existing malware may break if it runs with non-admin privileges. But once non-admin becomes common, malware authors will just stop presupposing admin access when coding.
Who the hell deemed this posting insightful.
The writer, and those who dared to write 'insightful' on this are idiots. And I mean idiots of the highest caliber.
The 'at least from the security perspective' comment is a classic. So the fact you run your box as an admin, open yourself to all the securiity problems that brings, and make it exceptionally easy to infect yourself, means it makes no sense to you to run as a user instead. That's just marvellous.
Just so you know, after you're stupendously cretinously, ill educated behaviour infects your own machine, your stupidity costs everyone else.
When you idiocy leaves your bot netted machine infested and causing others problems, it actually goes to show that idiots like you should be banned from use until you actually get a clue.
erm
1) its easier to remove non-root malware
2) there are still many exploits for many programs, reducing the effect of these is still a good thing.
3) not all problems are malicious, buggy programs as root can cause much more trouble than the same program in a jail/chroot
Its very much harder for alien, malware, spyware code to run under a user than as admin, and still retain the hard to see, hard to kill, hard to remove, harder to embed on startup locations basis that much of it has today. Oh, it can still run, and cause a headache, but the context is important.
Exploits are a different animal, and in many cases are not reliant on the user run level, which is unfortunate, but a harsh reality. In this level, hoping for good vendor action in closing holes, and keeping systems updated, patched, or for example, blocked by security (firewalls or similar) is required. If a vendor becomes very poor in this area (Hello Adobe circa 2009) its worth throwing them out.
And you are correct, not running as admin limits damage made by simple user error or mistake.
Its accepted in the unix world that running as root is a bad idea. In the windows world, that is a battle still being fought.
And one I have to fight every single day.
*And no, running as admin, but having some security products on your box won't save you, won't protect you (the readers if applicable), please stop being dumb.
well, instead of "lazy developer" he should have written "lazy software vendor".
The vendors do not write the applications, the developers do. They are employed by the vendors, and writing the apps wrongly now costs their employers time and effort for their idiocy.
Yes, in respect to building the windows application it is always, always the developers fault.
And I mean - Always.
Devs have no business writing code that accesses the wrong part of the Registry hive, and they have no business for example, storing settings or program configs in a none user area, and thus forcing the user to run as admin when using the program.
The windows system, contrary to what some people peddle, is not so hard to handle or understand from a Dev point of view.
And I'll go even so far as to say it is not a vendor issue. A vendor whom employs a 'windows developer' as cited on a dev's CD should rightly expect a developer to produce code in a sensible way, along the lines of the well read and understood system.
If you or anyone reading this classes themselves as a windows dev, and you or they do not understand and know how to make a program run and work happily as a none admin user POST installation, you are not a dev, you are an only an amataur pertaining to be one, and you or they have some study and reading to do..
If you were really shafted, then the shims is worth a go.
In many many cases, applications can be fixed to run without admin rights. By checking using regmon, filemon, and similar, you can get a handle on what an app is opening and where the permissions issue lies.
This is a bit time consuming, and its a negative, but it is do-able.
There are four things that proceed the problem.
Lazy users
Very lazy developers. -- The prime cause of security failures in Windows.
People only too happy to simply run as admin -- Bad practice
MS setting users as admin to fit point 1,2,3
Windows is not insecure, not any level worse than anything else, but developers, users, and vendor run it insecurely, and worse, have an encouraging attitude for doing so.
MS have gone about the UAC thing very badly, but overall the step and move towards a UAC alike structure is long overdue, and is badly needed.
Years pass and people still argue over the pointless portions of OS argumentation.
Here is the core fact that everyone needs to really grasp.
The OS does not really matter. If it brings noce things to the table, that is nice.
The Applications, Tools, Productivity, and output capability matter 100% more than wether the underlying core is called Ubuntu or Windows.
When Linux provides the API's, Tools, Support for the wider world, people will use it. Linux has a wide range of software, that is true. It also has enormous gaping holes in coverage of widely known applications, and in areas like Gaming, and well beyond. I'm not saying it has no API's, I'm saying that if I were writing an app, I can't write it for Linux, because there is no 'Linux', there is only thousands of distributions, usually with their own cookie issues.
The whole platform benefits from the aspect of having a lot of tools and API's and other things going on, but people need to understand that if you continue to change the core stuff like sound, desktop managers, installers, in a constant churn, you're creating a hostile environment to applications. This 'strength' is also the primary weakness.
The long term support and stability of Ubuntu I am sure is somewhat helpful in this regard, but again, Ubuntu is merely one distribution, not the platform.
If you are a game dev, or Adobe, or THQ, you'll look at Linux and its overall state, and view it as hostile, and a support/dev nightmare. Most development that does happen, is done under the safe wrapper of Wine, rather than boldly coding native (example) - and its very clear why that short cut happens.
Is Linux based technology ready to be deployed in the 'Enterprise'.
This 'enterprise', is it small, medium, big ?
What criteria does the 'enterprise' have - did anyone bother to ask in the time they were declaring conformity?
Each case would be something examined on it's own merits.
To be honest, it is ready, for some things. It is not ready for others, and in many cases, it is _so_ far from actually being ready that only idiots would claim it to be so.
Further, enterprise ready means one core thing, it does not mean you can have the code and fit it yourself, it means you sign up with some big fat company that if you hit a problem you can call them and they help you fix it.
In this respect, actually all software, be it 'proprietry' or FOSS is the same. And I laugh in the face of any idiot who sits down with the starting premise that 'you have the code, you can fix it yourself!'
Some claim licensing and terms has an effect. True, but licensing 'enterprise' Linux products costs, just as licensing proprietry software does, and in both cases, if the vendor goes bust, you could be left in serious trouble. That is the nature of the beast.
It's sad to see, but par for the course to see the vendors (proprietry) being hammered here, and the sun shining out of rectum in terms of FOSS. Neither is perfect, neither is going to be perfect, and in either case, best tool for the job, taking into account_everything_, fully, and in an examined way.
The BBC has done this to highlight an issue.
The problem with this, is everyone who needs to know already know's it's an issue. Those who did not know, will still be none the wiser, and will shruug their shoulders, try to do what the BBC says - 'secure' the computer, and in a few months any instructions laid out will be stale, broken, old, or incomplete.
Lagality
To my mind, its clearly illegal. But being illegal and being punished, are two very distant worlds. For years now, entire governments, corporate entities, criminals, and everyone else has run round committing this 'crime', and it's never been dealt with. The massive waves of Malware and spyware, often being shipped by companies that exist openly are simply a symptom of a system that has failed.
I can probably count on one hand the times that in raw clear daylight, entities are tackled and dealt with criminally in this subject. Wether it be Sony installing a root-kit, or the BBC doing this, it's become an everyday crime. Your computer is not as some claim, akin to a house with no lock, its clearly your land, and stepping on it is 'tresspassing' and doing something you should not be.
Its probably far too late now, the horse has gone, but companies that breach the law to this extent should be prosecuted and made to answer for this.
My problem with the BBC is that by making this nonsense - they have once again, invited kiddies to the underground, and created a level of encouragement. After all, the kids will say, if the BBC can do it and not be criminalised, so can I.
It's really time that companies that are like the BBC, legit, and when they do things like this, that they be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. That applies to Sony and it's root kit and others. We need to get back to the basis in law that someone else's computer is not yours, and if you decide to screw with it, you face criminal charges.
Further, it would be very interesting to see what the BBC IT structure and management make of this, and wether they would be happy were it someone else hacking and using their systems and networks.
It sounds like we need to redesign what antitrust is for.
Not really. We just need to enforce our existing antitrust laws. Apple gets away with this sort of stuff because the market is so broken. If there were multiple, practical alternatives for desktop OS's with fast paced innovation driven by competition, Apple would not even be able to bundle their OS and hardware without losing money. The only way they get away with charging as much as they do for some of their upgrades is by leveraging OS X. Fix the market and they'll unbundle those products out of economic necessity.
The real problem I see here is MS has bribed the US courts and the EU courts have been trying to be super diplomatic to MS. Top that off with all the courts being painfully slow compared to high tech industry and we see these sorts of inefficient, consumer unfriendly behaviors in dozens of markets peripheral to the desktop OS market.
Apple does not get 'away' with this because the 'market is broken'. Apple gets away with this because this is business, and they are there to make a profit. At the same time, they will argue that they put in the effort to provide the hardware, and software combination, and they will claim that doing so has a cost element.
There is no 'market' in terms of Apple, because they are the designers and creators of their technology, AND thus its their market to do with whatever they wish. They are entitled to control and sell it how they see fit. You - as a consumer have completely FREE choice in this matter. Enough information exists that if you do not like the cost of 'Apple' taking extra time and stocktaking to fit your additional parts, Google will provide you with the answer to the fitting, and also pricing of what you require. And if you can't do the work yourself, You don't have to buy an Apple at all. The market for computers is vast, and is not restricted in any way for the consumer. Or talk to a friend technical enough they can help you do it.
As for you MS court bribery nonsense, what rot.
This is a non story, who the hell got it past the review..
'Pirates' support Al Quida'.
Before you know it, they'll need 42 days to sift through your windows DLLs and files. After all, being able to say hundreds of thousands of files and by implication 'this is hard' means a reasonable premise(not). But only to the stupid.
The UK already has enormous monitoring and invasive abuse of its citizens, bad enough before 'companies' start attempting to take the law into their own hands and begin illicit and comprehensive invasion of people's privacy to support their monopoly.
As for Virgin, first we've seen they have an agenda in terms of net neutrality (they don't believe in it), and they also happen to believe in everyone else's rights but not their users, PAYING customers.
I hope they do send out their stupid letters, and I hope the ensuing customer response tells them exactly where to get off, along side the numbers of people leaving the services.
I agree that a substantial number of rapists and molesters and whatnot probably do get off on "violent" porn. But so do quite a few very normal people who will never rape someone. Consensual kink is a gorgeous thing, an expression of incredible trust. The fact that some rapists get off on it is insufficient to justify banning it, after all, last I heard quite a few rapists drink water and eat bread.
Of course, this parallels some sex laws already enacted where I live. It's legal to have sex with someone who's 16, provided you're not in a position of authority over them... But have a picture of you having sex with your 16 year old girlfriend? Not a wise move.
I think that both laws are ridiculous personally. If it's not illegal to do, then it shouldn't be illegal to represent digitally with a bunch of 1s and 0s. The one thing I will say to you is this. This is the same state that has:-
Full prisons.
A continual release cycle where Paedo's, Terrorists, People with mental problems, Rapists and others are RE-released and not imprisoned.
A very very bad record of extending invasive systems to monitor far beyond the supposed intended use, operations, and limits
A very bad record of taking said systems, and using them abusively to either create new 'crimes' or as a method of unfairly taxing citizens trying to go about their business.
Oh, and before I forget, a hilarious record of releasing captured data that should be kept private, into the public or criminal domain.
This is also the very same Government that brought in the Terrorist and criminal aiding 'Human Rights Act' and the very same that bends over backwards supporting terrorism (check the friends of Ken Livingstone) and trying to bring back people from Guantanamo.
The WHOLE problem with this 'Law' is that its whole premise is stupid. Who decides what is extreme? You? The Judge? A Porn Inspector skilled in making a call between art and porn?
No, enough of this stupidity, this law is breathtaking in its crass idiocy, and should not be 'accepted'. And its not merely this law, its the monitoring and invasive levels of 'Policing' that will be applied. And no, you can forget taking the stupid 'If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear' horsecrap. These laws come in at a low water mark and before you know it envelope everyone. No no no.
I am playing devil's advocate here, but the government has a job to maintain a safe and working society. There are laws that restrict personal freedoms because they have a bad effect on society. For example, guns were banned. Again I'm not saying any individual action is correct, but they do have that power. A logical argument could be made that consensual acts in private by a small number of people does not have the same negative impact on society that wide distribution of depictions of those acts would. So, the importnat questions here are: are there things that the UK government _cannot_ restrict in the interest of protecting society? Is the material in question one of those things? Are the materials really harmful (and, according to who) to the extent that they need to be banned? If you are going to make an argument either pro or con regarding banning, you need to answer questions like these.
It should be said that this 'Law' is I believe brought about after a deluded individual, basically killed someone and somewhere in the case there was a link between 'extreme' porn, and the committed offense.
The family campaigned for this law.
The problems only begin here. The legal system in the UK is in meltdown, and has been for sometime. But at the same time, you have an Orwellian state that just cannot help itself. When its not putting in new methods of citizen monitoring, its losing the data its collecting into either public domain, or into criminal hands.
The monitoring it has brought in, usually under the dubious anti-terrorism - war on terror claims, are now globally used against an ever more persecuted civilian population. Its being used via gold plating and additional use never talked about when these laws and systems were being discussed. Children are being monitored by systems that were supposed to only monitor terrorist activity. Your walking the dog is being monitored by the local council to make sure it only poops in designated areas, and in cases where it does not, a juicy fat fine is going to automagically end up on your doorstep.
In the meantime, the real criminal, and terrorists whom these systems were originally supposedly to be aimed at laugh at the overfilled prisons, and at the abject comedy that is the EU human rights laws, - end result, Terrorism in the UK is rampant and operates without being affected.
In the meantime, these systems are turned upon people, legitimate people, and new 'crimes' are being created. These systems are then used to persue the individual - usually poor bastards who have little choice, the system is designed to ensnare and cap people.
These systems are becoming an every day thing. Boil the frog. Drive your car in London, its a 'congestion charge'. That'll be £8. No, wait, its a Green charge now, that will be £25 - thank you, pay - do not pass go.
You overfilled you bin sir, that will be a £200 fine. Your dog pooped in a none pooping area, you environmental scum, pay £100.
I have little doubt that anyone with some time can go and look into the disturbing direction this is taking, but let me put this into context for anyone whom does not understand.
In terms of 'Extreme Pornography' I can tell you how this will progress.
1. Some form of invasive monitoring will be required.
2. Some form of invasive Policing will be required.
3. The prisons are actually full. So its going to lead to some sort of civil 'fine', its going to again affect the bulk of the populace, and miss the real 'fiends' that this stupid law supposedly goes after.
4. They will need some clever assholes who can tell the difference between porn and extreme porn. Don't expect consistency either, because one man's art is another's disgusting extreme porn.
I'll add that Porn availability in the UK is already covered under existing laws. What this is aimed at is the massive underground. The problem is its a very very bad law, as most of these Orwellian bastard la
The fact is that Linux is still utterly stuck in providing a 'desktop' for programmers.
What this actually means, is that its got a Kernel, and a whole bunch of applications thrown on top, and its a best a mish mash, at worst, its only something people claim they like after they 'tweak' it to how they want it to be.
This Ubuntu 'experience' is not at all uncommon. In fact its the default outcome of Linux installation. Its got a very long way to go.
I had fun yesterday. I'd just finished installing an OpenSuse 10.3 install, and I'd moved some MP3s to the home directory. In some of the directories, I found some WMA files. The home directory was full. So I used a provided 'Search tool' from the Available applications menu. Just like an end user would. In the list of files I hunted down the WMA files, and with a shift select, I chose them all, and chose the 'move to wastebasket' option.
What proceeded to happen, was that the system then proceeded to open 2107 warning boxes, with no options in them, on top of each other, over and over. After a long period, all the boxes were up, and the top box said 'Wastebasket full, cannot move file'. And the system was locked, I could not click on the boxes, nor access a menu, nor do anything else.
I had to reboot the box. No big deal, but this is really the tip of the iceberg.
Linux is not ready for the desktop, oh, I know, I'll get the knashing of teeth from lots of people who *Make* it serve as their desktop. But that, and this are not one in the same.
Only when user testing is down as this fellow did, in large scale, and a response from the programming and dev side is matched, will real progress be made. And it is being made, no doubt at all. But progress does not make it ready.
Even then, the very distributed methods of Linux work against it. Harnessing distributions, and software developers to really work on a true intergrated desktop will remain a real challenge for a long time to come.
Basically its grim. What few people really get into, or really discuss, is what is really going on. You'll hear a lot about hate speech. The liberal left, and no end of NGOs, and media types will jump up and down about things, but only one side of things, and its a warped view. In a moment I will post an interesting thing.
Before then, the people who claim Islam is peaceful, and the usual political correct claptrap are as guilty of generalising as anyone whom attacks Islam. Its not easy to define or comment on because in the WEST, a great many Islamists have a different view to others. But there is plenty of Islamic jihad going on and you do not have to go very far to find it.
For those who talk about Christian or other crimes in terms of other religion, feel free to quite what you like, and remember, each time you do, in a more general sense, you don't get the lunatic response. If you make a joke about the Pope, you are less likely to have people burning effigies of you in the street, of have priests issuing dictates to have you killed.
There are ongoing efforts to contort, and restrict freedom when discussing Islam, and there is a significant and disturbing wish not to upset the nut jobs. If I was to replace Islam with mad christians, or Nazi's or any other grouping in the US, or in many places in the west, you would not see this response. I cannot talk about others, But I grew up with it being IMPORTANT and required to make fun of and question religion. I'm British, and I am sure you have heard of monty python. Nuff said.
Now, to cut to the chase, if you really are going to limit 'hate crimes', then the first port of call should be those coming from the Islamic quarter. With due regard to the leftists, liberals, media types, There seems to be no end of publishers, papers, TV programs fawning of that bastard Bin Laden's every word, no matter how gut wrenchingly disgusting or provocative it is, and yet anyone who counters that gets censored.
I appreciate Islamics may not like my point of view, but you either have an Umma, or you don't, and if you do, then people in MY civilisation have a right to ask what the hell its playing at, its basically how the Christian church was handled.
I think what I am trying to say, is we are granting Islam, and *some* of its followers things which are not our values, and are extremely contrary to our values.
Now, back to the hosting, I found this, which is reasonably interesting.
Network Solution's Easter Egg For Islamism
March 23, 2008
Network Solutions, the oldest domain name registration company, has marked Easter by censoring one of its customers for potentially being beastly to Islamists. We should thank them for exposing this vulnerability - then deep six them.
This story is hat tip LGF.
The censoree is the Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who is planning to post a 15 minute video that apparently suggests Islamists are prone to oppression of their women and kids, and killing the rest of us.
Wilders' site is registered with and (I think) hosted by Network Solutions and you can see it here. As at 16:23 GMT, it says:
This site has been suspended while Network Solutions is investigating whether the site's content is in violation of the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy. Network Solutions has received a number of complaints regarding this site that are under investigation.
That's a reminder that the Internet is a very fragile vehicle for free speech, since terrorists can infiltrate, bribe, or cow the people we pay to register and host our domains.
There's some safety in numbers - it's harder for them to shut down a multi-user service such as Wordpress or Blogspot. But not impossible.
Here's a good suggestion from an LGF commenter (comment #67):
If Wilders wants to distribute the film on the net, then he is going to have to pack it up and stick it up on hosting sites like rapidshare and torrent the thing and let pe
You are right. Today the real bastion of PC gaming is RTS, and for RTS, its a brilliant platform. Well, it could _be_a brilliant platform.
If we rewind back to the beginning of PC gaming, you had a very simple system, DOS, and the peripherals allowed devs to come up with to me anyway the killer game changer, that being multiplayer, lan, and later internet gaming. And while Doom still had some hardware limits, in general, the PC could be used for it. Today is a whole different kettle of fish.
I was glad to see the other week interested parties came together in terms of PC gaming and said they would work together to try and attack some of the problems. And as a platform it has some very serious problems. I'm sure my list won't be contemorary, but just a few:-
Piracy.
Hardware Requirements.
Windows.
Piracy
------
There is no doubt piracy is a serious problem. But DRM has not helped, indeed I go as far as to say the DRM is so undesirable it has in fact increased to the point where players prefer the risk of alien code running on their system over the nasties the game companies chose to use, and in many a case I can't blame them.
In terms of the UK, Three observations.
1. PC gaming is actually dead man walking. Its in very bad shape indeed.
2. New games on release are far fewer than has been the case since perhaps the damn of PC games.
3. The 'bargain' bin game areas are bigger than new games, and TOO cheap.
4. New game areas in the shops are very small, and seriously over priced.
Hardware Requirements,
The PC game industry needs to stop being a thrawl to Microsoft. Given Microsoft's once excellent work in the area of dev help in gaming, its now totally the reverse. DX10 is Vista only, PC's are to be shafted for the console, and a lot of other issues.
Windows.
Which windows are you going to ship for? XP? Vista? You'll use DX10 or will you stay at 9?
There are things people in the PC gaming industry could do. Some of these things could be to define your own GPC standards. PC's that meet a base agreeable standard could get a GPC2008 sticker, next year a modified standard GPC2009 and so on. This standard, not the old ones could ensure you have some ground to stand on. You could even apply such a scheme to hardware, so users looking at mail order or in their local shop know that it meets criteria. The Game producers could state on their game that it meets (for example GPC2008) requirements.
But it goes further than this, why stay merely with windows? Why use DX10 and be trapped in world where the mother company is happiest shafting you in exchange for its console market? Given the market has impressive people, One would think that a new and open API to replace DX10/ Open GL could be thought about.
But putting aside some of the technical issues, the core problems remain. Piracy will still be there, and IS only a problem if you can't make revenue. The cost of new releases is too high. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but £35 games mean that I get a couple for Christmas, and one or two in the rest of the year. They *are* a luxury item for a large enough portion of the populace and in the UK are way way over priced. I know they cost a lot to produce, but you're better off selling large numbers at a lower price than have 10,000 ship at £35.
And if I wait, 6 months later, I pick up the same game for £5.99 or whatever in the bargain bin? If you as a market are willing to sell games long term at £5.99, then I ask, why the hell are your release prices a customer killer. Depreciation of product is an indicator of problems, and the bargain bin is now much bigger than your new games area.
What else? Oh, new games, yes. The majority of new games are in fact below reasonable quality. Good new releases are hard to find. Is someone supposed to be happy with a £35 game where they are in fact ripped of by poor quality goods? Chalk one up for the bad guys, the customer won't have £35 to keep g
"And there is a problem with communism, how?"
How stupid are you?
"I can point out millions of problems with capitalism, all of which involves death."
Lets see, the 'capitalist' parts of the world have a better record than the despots whom use communism.
"Look at working conditions when it was pure capitalism."
As opposed to under communists? Did you ever examine conditions under communists? No, guess not. Take a trip to North Korea.
"Although there are problems today, there are less of them thanks to the progressive movement."
'The progressive movement'. What a crock of shit.
"Once we go totally towards communism, there will be no problems at all. We would also be a lot further along if M$ and all businesses were gone. and everything were indeed run by the government."
We are fortunate that we have history. And real cases where liars like you can be forced to face. Which communist model do you like? The North Korean? Stalin's? A Kymer Rouge model? Chinese, with its portable death Vans? Perhaps you like Robert Mugabe's redistribution of land to his people, tried over and over by asshole idiots spastic communist fucktards, now leaving his people starving just like all the other communists who have taken this path.
Let me guess, you agree with a model that works towards 1 in 5 humans getting AK47's - and exporting your form of human poverty across the Globe. Communism continues today to be a primary driver of death amongst humans on a scale never seen in History.
"I think you are mistaken. The commission ruled on the illegality as is their charter as an executive body (like the DoJ in the US)."
An unelected body, hand picked, usually with bad people like Mandelson, part of a totally undemocratic and appalling Executive that has documented failings in terms of democratic deficit?
"Microsoft then appealed the decision bringing it before the EU courts (judicial) and lost their appeal (in Sept 2007). MS then declined to further appeal the decision (announced in October 2007)."
These courts are kangeroo courts controlled, and owned by the executive. Hans Martin Tillack lost his case too, but don't be shocked. Thats how dictatorships work.
"This is a common misconception. In both the US and EU, antitrust abuse is a criminal offense, not a civil one. The confusion stems from the fact that most criminal cases begin as civil suits against the monopolist and are then taken over and made criminal cases by the executive body. If you recall, for example, it was the US Dept. of Justice V. Microsoft. Tat was not the DoJ suing MS in civil court for a contract violation against them."
No, its you that has a misconception. Read what is being said by these high handed none elected people. Lets review:-
"Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of E.U. competition policy that the commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision," the European Union's competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement. "I hope that today's decision closes a dark chapter in Microsoft's record of noncompliance with the commission's March 2004 decision."
(Doubtful, since you commissioner are still progressing two other cases against them.)
"In March 2004 the commission ordered Microsoft to disclose interoperability information to competitors within 120 days. Its antitrust regulators later found that the company was charging excessively high royalties and patent fees that effectively foreclosed rival vendors from obtaining the information."
(So, they complied, but you didn't like how they complied. Did you state how much this should be made available for? No.. didn't think so.)
"In a press conference, Ms. Kroes indicated that the fine was calculated on the basis that Microsoft was in breach of the commission's order for 488 days. She said that the amount represented 60 percent of the maximum $2.2 billion fine that the commission could have imposed.
She said, "It was never a pleasure" to impose a fine, but characterised the commission's action as a reasonable reaction to an "unreasonable" price charged by Microsoft for information crucial to competitors. "This has had a negative effect on millions of offices and companies and governments around the world," she said."
(Note carefully the comments. What you are seeing is the ambition of people out of control. Its not about MS in the EU, now its Millions of offices and companies and governments around the world. I did not know the EU was so brazen in its new model imperialism, but why hold back. Are the fines levied if MS fails to comply with the EU when outside the EU? Do tell, I'd really like to know..)
"With regard to Microsoft's offer of more information, she said "we don't want talk, we want compliance. If you cheat the rules, you will be caught."
(What you mean is, we have someone in our sights, and fully intend to rake in some very nice extra cash for our dictatorship, and there is fuck all anyone can do about it.)
"She added, "This should be a signal to the outside world, and in particular to Microsoft, that we stick to our line.""
(Its a warning sign of things to come. Microsoft is the first, it won't be the last.)
Microsoft's troubles in the European Union aren't anywhere near over yet. It's still facing two antitrust investigations there, one addressing interoperability and a second related to the alleged "tying" of unrelated software products.
No doubt our friend the unelected, totally unrepresentative, Nellie will not enjoy hitting Microsoft with fines. No, off course she won't. *Roll Eyes*
"Maybe you could actually supply some facts to back your claims up? or are you just trolling. BTW according to the Reporters sans frontieres Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007 (http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24025) almost every EU country ranks in front of the US. Ah but right it rather believe some slashdot troll then one of the most respected freedom of the press monitoring groups in the world."
http://englandexpects.blogspot.com/2008/02/eu-journalist-or-propagandist.html
That must be why the IFJ is having to write letters to head off EU efforts to control the press.
Did the www.rsf.org people place the illegal arrest of Hans Martin Tillack under Belgium where there is not even source privilage or under the EU who sanctioned it.
Oddly enough, seeing how many people here regard the EU as a state, its fun that its not even listed here. Which means its not being monitored.
"BTW I'm getting fcking fingerprinted every time I enter the US, so don't give me those stupid finger printing examples."
We are not talking about the butt of all Slashdot hatred here are we Mister Wizard, we are talking about the supposedly democratic, morally superior, open, transparent, better than the US EU, truth hurts. What exactly is it you deem the children have done to have the state finger printing them? They are not entering the United States, they only left their parents for a few hours.