Wow, way to miss the point. If they ever add a "missing the point" event to the Olympics, you should compete-- oh but maybe you're not eligible because you're a pro and not amateur. Too bad.
Do you believe that it would be unfair of Microsoft to have a rule discouraging any Microsoft employee to actively promote Apple products while being identified as a *Microsoft* employee?
Oh, but, I guess that doesn't fit in with your "man Microsoft is SOOO EVIIIL" conspiracy theory. Sorry to ruin that for you.
Do you believe that the Coca Cola corporation tolerates employees drinking Pepsi Cola drinks on their premises?
Yup. I'm reasonably sure they don't have it in the vending machines, but I highly, highly doubt anybody would even give you a second glance if you, for example, brought a Gatorade to the plant.
Do you believe that Steve Jobs would tolerate even for a minute any Apple employee who took money from Microsoft in order to appear as an Apple employee in a Microsoft sponsored ad claiming the Microsoft Zune was light years better than the ipod?
That's the one point you're right on, for two reasons: 1) Jobs is a complete nazi, much more so than anybody at Coca-cola or Microsoft. 2) That employee is probably, in fact almost certainly, in violation of their employment contract. 3) Anybody who uses idiotic phrases like "light years better" deserves to be fired.
Since you've mentioned that you don't have much experience with the open source movement (which is NOT the same as the Free Software movement) I would urge you to learn more about Stallman and the Free Software Foundation by starting with wikipedia. I think you'll be surprised to discover that Stallman is... b) usually right.
Maybe if Ghandi had wanted all British to die horribly in a plague, rather than just leave his country alone, you might have a point. But still not, because that comparison is simply offensive.
Has a terrible UI, too. I had a debate with one of the game programmers last time this got posted to Slashdot. (Why!???! Is it really that slow of a news day?)
Which is why Google's CEO had a point, however close he was to the idea that mattered - if you don't want Google to know something, don't tell them.
That's not what he said.
What he said was closer to: "if you don't want Google to know something, don't do that thing." Which is completely different, and much worse.
It simultaneously promotes the idea that Google *should* know everything about you, and the principles of oppressively conforming to societal norms. Don't defend him unless you understand exactly what he said.
Part of the problem is that search engines assign more importance to sites that have been around longer. I think as far as judging a person, the older references should be *less* important than the recent ones... I wonder if anybody at Google is thinking on this problem.
I don't have time to replicate every single experiment I read about in the newspaper to make an informed position. Hell, I don't even have time to read enough background work and terminology to understand the papers written by people who *do* have the time to replicate those experiments.
People have to trust somebody at some point, you know.
By "up to date", I'll presume that you mean Windows 7, with all updates and patches that have been pushed.
Or any Microsoft OS still under support, with all updates and patches.
And, you aren't willing to accept Windows XP, SP2 or SP3 unless SP3 has ALL current updates and patches?
No, of course not. Those versions are all still under support. It's not a hard concept. Do try to keep up.
Even then, I don't think you're on target.
Ok. Do you have any actual facts or evidence to back that bullshit up? The rest of your post is nothing but whining about Windows' security model, and anecdotes from the dawn of time.
On my machine, they don't run unless and until I execute them. I mean, intentionally execute them. Not so with the worms I've dealt with on Windows.
Duh? That's what makes it a worm. If it took user interaction, it would be a trojan instead. What was this supposed to communicate to me, exactly?
BUT - I've seen worms on Windows machines that belonged to some pretty tech-savvy individuals. Someone on their mailing list got the worm, the worm sent them a mail, they trusted the source, and ZAP!! They did NOT specifically authorize that executable to run - the system ran it.
What year did you witness this? Nobody's denying that Windows has had piss-poor security in the past. It doesn't now, though-- if you could pull off this particular task using Windows tools right now, you could be Internet-famous for it.
(Note: I say Windows tools, because it's always possible there's still some really shitty third-party email app out there that auto-runs attachments. It would be unfair to judge Microsoft based on third-party code beyond their control.)
I've recently read of one - let me stress, ONE - working botnet blah blah blah bullshit that has nothing to do with worms at all blah blah blah since you've owned a computer?
You do realize that botnets and (and almost always are) spread via trojan horse attacks which you already admitted Microsoft can't do much about, right? Why do you even bother typing long paragraphs that not only have nothing to do with my point (that patched Windows installs are immune to worms), but actually contradict your own previous points?
So you are saying that a Server OS is not for consumers (Strange, who are they for then?)
Businesses. Servers are a B2B market... there is a tiny sub-market for consumers, things like Windows Home Server, but it's not large enough to really talk about.
And a server OS does not need all the drivers that a desktop machine needs? Because of course servers do not have graphics cards or any extra peripherals, ever?
You have obviously never installed on a server, they are exactly the same as a desktop machine, it is only Microsoft who tell you that there are any fundamental differences, what components you install and the mix of hardware *may* be different, but the kernel, drivers and basic apps are identical!
Oh please!!!
People on this site are always bitching, "Windows is awful for servers because it installs all this stuff I don't need! Linux is better because the server can have minimal features, only what I need!!!" Now when Microsoft makes their server OS a minimal install, you're bitching that it *doesn't* include drivers. Damned if they do and damned if they don't, right?
Why don't you just start typing "Random Illogical Microsoft Bash #235" and spare us the ridiculous details.
As an example, say you are presented with an ad image from the http://spamareus.com/ads/ad1234.jpg URL. When you invoke the Adblock dialog, the preselected regular expression will be http://spamareus.com/ads/* , meaning that everything from the ads folder will be blocked, which is usually what you want.
That's exactly NOT what I want.
I want to block ads based on the *content's* URL, not the URL the ad is being served from. I don't know why this is so hard to explain... you do realize that ads are served from a different domain than the content domain?
DoubleClick and Atlas are used both by reasonable sites, and abusive sites. Thus, I want to block content from doubleclick.net when the page being viewed is abusivesite.com, but I *don't* want to block content from doubleclick.net when the page is from imokwiththissite.com. Get it?
AdBlock is technically capable of this-- it's whitelists work this way already. I just need the inverse functionality. Your suggestion doesn't help at all.
Of course, that's the only way we could get through a day of speaking to intelligent and charming persons such as yourself. Oh sorry, excuse me, I have to see a man about a horse.
1) Nobody will ever check the list. Hell, for all I know, it already exists exactly how you described it and I've just never checked it.:)
2) If the virus/worm manages to obtain decent access, it'll just delete itself from the logs anyway.
Oh and a third:
3) Like your web example, malware could easily just do its work using other applications on the computer. I mean, the basic GNU toolchain alone can do all kinds of dastardly acts and the malware's PID would never show up.
For example, should competing big companies be allowed to use their economies of scale to make and sell cheaper products based on open hardware designs developed by small start-ups without payment?
Unless you define "open" as "not open", then the answer to this is obviously yes.
If you want to work out some other kind of deal, then please don't call it "open-" anything, it'll just confuse matters.
"The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus."
I said I have installed Server 2008 (Which is approx between Vista and Win7) and still had to install updates with a reboot, and install extra drivers, (and preinstall RAID drivers, this would not be normal on a desktop machine)
That's because it's a fucking SERVER OS! It doesn't ship with the same driver set that consumer OSes do. If you're smart enough to pick a server OS, then you should already know that, christ.
You can't judge a desktop OS based on a server OS! Apples to fucking apples!!
Not FUD - Reality
No it is FUD. Both because you are comparing apples to oranges, and because you're apparently either too dumb to realize the server version ships with minimal drivers, or your dishonest enough to lie about it.
1) I'm not geeky enough to figure out whatever the hell gibberish code that's written in, and I can't find any kind of GUI for setting that up. It's possible it does everything I want and dream of, but the UI isn't there and I can't figure out how... who knows.
2) The list in there, if I'm reading it right, blocks ad-server domains, not content domains. What I mean is that an abusive site and a non-abusive site could both be using Atlas to serve ads (atdmt.com). I want to block the abusive site, but *not* block the non-abusive site. Which is to say, I would want to block content coming from atdmt.com but only if the site URL is abusivesite.com. Otherwise, I'm fine with content from atdmt.com. That doesn't appear to be currently possible. Maybe I'm wrong, again the UI for that is horrendous.
All I want is an equivalent to the "Disable on X.com" menu item that already exists, but that works like "Enable on X.com" while AdBlock is disabled on all other sites by default.
Except that AdBlock is currently so popular that it would be difficult to gain any ground. It would work better as a mode of AdBlock for 2 reasons:
1) AdBlock already has all the basic code in place, and the blocking lists, and the whitelist functionality, so it would probably be a matter of a couple hours rather than a couple days of development.
2) AdBlock's built-in userbase would lead to a high adoption rate right off the bat-- I'm not I'm not the only person who keeps AdBlock turned off 99% of the time because of the lack of this feature.
And a third, more rooted in my own limitations:
3) I doubt I'd ever be able to convince content creators to pitch-in for a project like this. Moreover, I don't want to be responsible for keeping a project alive for years and years.
I guess what really annoys me the most is the complete disdain shown for ad-supported websites by the AdBlock developers. I mean, this should be the *default* mode of the program. They could at least throw us a bone that they give a crap about keeping sponsored websites alive. But I guess it's just another chapter of the "I want it now, free, now now now!!!!" attitude of many Internet users.
Actually it's not trivial, since Firefox keeps them in some mutant database format now I actually have no clue how to back them up. (It's trivial in IE, which just makes shortcuts in a folder.) I mean, I can back up the file, but then how do I restore it later? Or would I just need to download SQLite and query my own damned bookmarks back out of the DB?
That said, I think I'll take your advice and give it a try, what the hell.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, way to miss the point. If they ever add a "missing the point" event to the Olympics, you should compete-- oh but maybe you're not eligible because you're a pro and not amateur. Too bad.
Do you believe that it would be unfair of Microsoft to have a rule discouraging any Microsoft employee to actively promote Apple products while being identified as a *Microsoft* employee?
Yes. Microsoft employees actually do this pretty frequently. Look, for example, at this post written by a Microsoft employee on an MSDN blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/macmojo/archive/2007/10/29/there-s-a-new-cat-in-town.aspx
Oh, but, I guess that doesn't fit in with your "man Microsoft is SOOO EVIIIL" conspiracy theory. Sorry to ruin that for you.
Do you believe that the Coca Cola corporation tolerates employees drinking Pepsi Cola drinks on their premises?
Yup. I'm reasonably sure they don't have it in the vending machines, but I highly, highly doubt anybody would even give you a second glance if you, for example, brought a Gatorade to the plant.
Do you believe that Steve Jobs would tolerate even for a minute any Apple employee who took money from Microsoft in order to appear as an Apple employee in a Microsoft sponsored ad claiming the Microsoft Zune was light years better than the ipod?
That's the one point you're right on, for two reasons:
1) Jobs is a complete nazi, much more so than anybody at Coca-cola or Microsoft.
2) That employee is probably, in fact almost certainly, in violation of their employment contract.
3) Anybody who uses idiotic phrases like "light years better" deserves to be fired.
Since you've mentioned that you don't have much experience with the open source movement (which is NOT the same as the Free Software movement) I would urge you to learn more about Stallman and the Free Software Foundation by starting with wikipedia. I think you'll be surprised to discover that Stallman is ... b) usually right.
Selective memory is a beautiful thing.
You did not even just compare Stallman to Ghandi.
Maybe if Ghandi had wanted all British to die horribly in a plague, rather than just leave his country alone, you might have a point. But still not, because that comparison is simply offensive.
Yes I will admit that the learning curve is steep, but that's half the fun right there!
Uh, wrong.
So it's Tribes circa 1998?
the ability to launch flying sentries.
Oh, excuse me, Tribes with the Shifter v1 mod.
(That actually also describes Battlefield 2142 and probably a dozen other games.)
Frankly, Bing is the only alternative search engine to Google that works well.
Yahoo's going to be using Bing's back-end in a few weeks anyway, so that option's out.
Maybe you like Ask.com, but I can't stand it. Baidu's great, if you're in China.
Has a terrible UI, too. I had a debate with one of the game programmers last time this got posted to Slashdot. (Why!???! Is it really that slow of a news day?)
Shoved it in a blog post if anybody cares: http://blakeyrat.com/2009/02/stupid-slashdot-exchange/
Which is why Google's CEO had a point, however close he was to the idea that mattered - if you don't want Google to know something, don't tell them.
That's not what he said.
What he said was closer to: "if you don't want Google to know something, don't do that thing." Which is completely different, and much worse.
It simultaneously promotes the idea that Google *should* know everything about you, and the principles of oppressively conforming to societal norms. Don't defend him unless you understand exactly what he said.
Part of the problem is that search engines assign more importance to sites that have been around longer. I think as far as judging a person, the older references should be *less* important than the recent ones... I wonder if anybody at Google is thinking on this problem.
Uh, Microsoft writes software for Mac, you know.
But, very clever comment... I guess?
I hate to break it to you, but I have a job.
I don't have time to replicate every single experiment I read about in the newspaper to make an informed position. Hell, I don't even have time to read enough background work and terminology to understand the papers written by people who *do* have the time to replicate those experiments.
People have to trust somebody at some point, you know.
By "up to date", I'll presume that you mean Windows 7, with all updates and patches that have been pushed.
Or any Microsoft OS still under support, with all updates and patches.
And, you aren't willing to accept Windows XP, SP2 or SP3 unless SP3 has ALL current updates and patches?
No, of course not. Those versions are all still under support. It's not a hard concept. Do try to keep up.
Even then, I don't think you're on target.
Ok. Do you have any actual facts or evidence to back that bullshit up? The rest of your post is nothing but whining about Windows' security model, and anecdotes from the dawn of time.
On my machine, they don't run unless and until I execute them. I mean, intentionally execute them. Not so with the worms I've dealt with on Windows.
Duh? That's what makes it a worm. If it took user interaction, it would be a trojan instead. What was this supposed to communicate to me, exactly?
BUT - I've seen worms on Windows machines that belonged to some pretty tech-savvy individuals. Someone on their mailing list got the worm, the worm sent them a mail, they trusted the source, and ZAP!! They did NOT specifically authorize that executable to run - the system ran it.
What year did you witness this? Nobody's denying that Windows has had piss-poor security in the past. It doesn't now, though-- if you could pull off this particular task using Windows tools right now, you could be Internet-famous for it.
(Note: I say Windows tools, because it's always possible there's still some really shitty third-party email app out there that auto-runs attachments. It would be unfair to judge Microsoft based on third-party code beyond their control.)
I've recently read of one - let me stress, ONE - working botnet blah blah blah bullshit that has nothing to do with worms at all blah blah blah since you've owned a computer?
You do realize that botnets and (and almost always are) spread via trojan horse attacks which you already admitted Microsoft can't do much about, right? Why do you even bother typing long paragraphs that not only have nothing to do with my point (that patched Windows installs are immune to worms), but actually contradict your own previous points?
L2Debate
So you are saying that a Server OS is not for consumers (Strange, who are they for then?)
Businesses. Servers are a B2B market... there is a tiny sub-market for consumers, things like Windows Home Server, but it's not large enough to really talk about.
And a server OS does not need all the drivers that a desktop machine needs? Because of course servers do not have graphics cards or any extra peripherals, ever?
You have obviously never installed on a server, they are exactly the same as a desktop machine, it is only Microsoft who tell you that there are any fundamental differences, what components you install and the mix of hardware *may* be different, but the kernel, drivers and basic apps are identical!
Oh please!!!
People on this site are always bitching, "Windows is awful for servers because it installs all this stuff I don't need! Linux is better because the server can have minimal features, only what I need!!!" Now when Microsoft makes their server OS a minimal install, you're bitching that it *doesn't* include drivers. Damned if they do and damned if they don't, right?
Why don't you just start typing "Random Illogical Microsoft Bash #235" and spare us the ridiculous details.
As an example, say you are presented with an ad image from the http://spamareus.com/ads/ad1234.jpg URL. When you invoke the Adblock dialog, the preselected regular expression will be http://spamareus.com/ads/* , meaning that everything from the ads folder will be blocked, which is usually what you want.
That's exactly NOT what I want.
I want to block ads based on the *content's* URL, not the URL the ad is being served from. I don't know why this is so hard to explain... you do realize that ads are served from a different domain than the content domain?
DoubleClick and Atlas are used both by reasonable sites, and abusive sites. Thus, I want to block content from doubleclick.net when the page being viewed is abusivesite.com, but I *don't* want to block content from doubleclick.net when the page is from imokwiththissite.com. Get it?
AdBlock is technically capable of this-- it's whitelists work this way already. I just need the inverse functionality. Your suggestion doesn't help at all.
Of course, that's the only way we could get through a day of speaking to intelligent and charming persons such as yourself. Oh sorry, excuse me, I have to see a man about a horse.
Two obvious problems:
1) Nobody will ever check the list. Hell, for all I know, it already exists exactly how you described it and I've just never checked it. :)
2) If the virus/worm manages to obtain decent access, it'll just delete itself from the logs anyway.
Oh and a third:
3) Like your web example, malware could easily just do its work using other applications on the computer. I mean, the basic GNU toolchain alone can do all kinds of dastardly acts and the malware's PID would never show up.
FFS - define "many". If "more than two" means "many" to you, then yes, there have been "many" worms written for Linux. Now - how many WORK?
The same number of Windows worms that work in up-to-date copies of Windows.
How small? At some point you just put down the damned phone and walk the CD from cube to cube. (Not an ideal solution, but, hey, it's a solution.)
Relax. They haven't done anything yet, they're just talking.
For example, should competing big companies be allowed to use their economies of scale to make and sell cheaper products based on open hardware designs developed by small start-ups without payment?
Unless you define "open" as "not open", then the answer to this is obviously yes.
If you want to work out some other kind of deal, then please don't call it "open-" anything, it'll just confuse matters.
Ob. Men In Black:
"The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus."
I said I have installed Server 2008 (Which is approx between Vista and Win7) and still had to install updates with a reboot, and install extra drivers, (and preinstall RAID drivers, this would not be normal on a desktop machine)
That's because it's a fucking SERVER OS! It doesn't ship with the same driver set that consumer OSes do. If you're smart enough to pick a server OS, then you should already know that, christ.
You can't judge a desktop OS based on a server OS! Apples to fucking apples!!
Not FUD - Reality
No it is FUD. Both because you are comparing apples to oranges, and because you're apparently either too dumb to realize the server version ships with minimal drivers, or your dishonest enough to lie about it.
There's two problems with that:
1) I'm not geeky enough to figure out whatever the hell gibberish code that's written in, and I can't find any kind of GUI for setting that up. It's possible it does everything I want and dream of, but the UI isn't there and I can't figure out how... who knows.
2) The list in there, if I'm reading it right, blocks ad-server domains, not content domains. What I mean is that an abusive site and a non-abusive site could both be using Atlas to serve ads (atdmt.com). I want to block the abusive site, but *not* block the non-abusive site. Which is to say, I would want to block content coming from atdmt.com but only if the site URL is abusivesite.com. Otherwise, I'm fine with content from atdmt.com. That doesn't appear to be currently possible. Maybe I'm wrong, again the UI for that is horrendous.
All I want is an equivalent to the "Disable on X.com" menu item that already exists, but that works like "Enable on X.com" while AdBlock is disabled on all other sites by default.
Except that AdBlock is currently so popular that it would be difficult to gain any ground. It would work better as a mode of AdBlock for 2 reasons:
1) AdBlock already has all the basic code in place, and the blocking lists, and the whitelist functionality, so it would probably be a matter of a couple hours rather than a couple days of development.
2) AdBlock's built-in userbase would lead to a high adoption rate right off the bat-- I'm not I'm not the only person who keeps AdBlock turned off 99% of the time because of the lack of this feature.
And a third, more rooted in my own limitations:
3) I doubt I'd ever be able to convince content creators to pitch-in for a project like this. Moreover, I don't want to be responsible for keeping a project alive for years and years.
I guess what really annoys me the most is the complete disdain shown for ad-supported websites by the AdBlock developers. I mean, this should be the *default* mode of the program. They could at least throw us a bone that they give a crap about keeping sponsored websites alive. But I guess it's just another chapter of the "I want it now, free, now now now!!!!" attitude of many Internet users.
Actually it's not trivial, since Firefox keeps them in some mutant database format now I actually have no clue how to back them up. (It's trivial in IE, which just makes shortcuts in a folder.) I mean, I can back up the file, but then how do I restore it later? Or would I just need to download SQLite and query my own damned bookmarks back out of the DB?
That said, I think I'll take your advice and give it a try, what the hell.