Posts by joe

Do we need computer competence tests?

The problem is

humans will remain humans. There will always be ethical and unethical people and the unethical will always find a way around "the law". To say that OS's should be made with limited functionality may be fine and dandy but what about open source Linux, where you can modify and rewrite it any way you choose? Does that mean open source should be banned or creativity chopped off at the knees? What about the hardware - Should it be hard coded to restrict "dangerous" activity? OOPS there goes my FTP to my website. OH yeah, i can get a third party FTP client to bridge a connection. As a matter of fact I can get just about any third party program to do what Windows makes hard for the average user to do.

Do we allow the ISP's to scrutinize every connection we make? Make encryption or proxies illegal? There goes my privacy.

The problem as I see it is that OS's such as Windows has enabled much of what's going on by turning things on by default and having hardware that is "stupid" to what's happening and even measures such as DEP can be circumvented.

So here comes Vista with all it's annoying security dialogs and quirks, making what used to be tolerable.... intolerable and no more secure than previous versions.

So to me it would seem it's the end user who is unfortunately stuck with security since we all want our privacy and freedom. Sandboxing is all fine and well too but what does the average joe deny or allow to write to the disk? Joe needs to be smart enough to decide that unless you want to totally sandbox everything and not allow anything to write to disk.

The virtual world is much like the real world in terms of keeping your privacy and allowing you to do your own thing, as long as it's legal. Then there's things that may be illegal here but legal somewhere else. So I go somewhere else and we all know there are a lot of "somewhere else's".

There certainly isn't any concrete answer to keeping the net alive and well, without the "accidents" or deliberate unwanted actions. Well, there may be one way but do you really care to be completely regulated and controlled?

As in real life, we are all walking or surfing targets and always will be. The best we can do is educate and train people. So maybe a license is the way to go but there will always be some who break the speed laws or drink while they surf or fall asleep behind the wheel.

Besides all that, what will happen to poor M$ if they didn't have anything to do by way of "upgrades" if everyone who surfed with a license had the ability to stave off all the nasties out there?

IT's a cruel world.

Join the army, get your ID pinched - MoD laptop goes AWOL

There may be

method to all this madness. what it may be, who knows but seriously, all that data over the years so easily "lost" "misplaced" "stolen" from an entity who's security is supposedly equal to none?

Online gamer murders rival clan member

Let us ban

guns, games, movies, competitive sports, social nights at the pub, parties at home, etc.... and lead the simple life of old times, where no one was ever murdered for no good reason.

Yahoo! backs! OpenID!

99% wouldn't or couldn't

@Colin Guthrie

. That's what's wrong with it. So for those who may not be that savvy or are just too lazy, having one ID for everything leaves holes.. or is it that just one hole will be needed now?

Sounds kinda like

a social security number for the internet. By making it "easier" for people to have one ID (login) for just about everything, will make it easier to track users across the net. What happens if a slightly under secured site has its user ID's hacked? Or is it going to make it easier for the powers that be to keep a handle on everyone? What will this do for online privacy?

Whatever happened to the concept of changing your passwords often or using different ones in case your online account gets hijacked? I see trouble brewing.

MySpace reveals child predator blocks

So

"The site has also agreed to deploy additional safeguards, including software that does a better job of enforcing the site's minimum age policy of 14. It has also agreed to "explore" the use of technologies that "can help make users more safe and secure including age verification."

Complete and utter crap. Age verification? As in what - A CC# from the parents or someone else, who would never know it was used in such a manner? What about all the under aged people there now? Will they boot them all off the server and diminish their oh so proud to have X number of members?

This doesn't fall on anyone except the parents. Or is there some super secret software that can see what's happening beyond the monitor...... Who are they trying to kid. Click here if you are 14 or older.

US regulator raises Dreamliner hacker risk fear

There is absolutely no excuse

or valid reason to have passengers laptops linked, even remotely, to an airlines main navigation control system... period! This is totally insane. How many "unbreakable" protocols, apps, databases, networks, etc have been created up to this point? The answer is NONE. If it's related in any way to computers and networks it most certainly is breakable and prone to human error. How many times have we heard of government databases being broken into? Are they not "state of the art technology"? It's been shown time and time again that any network can be breached and messed around with. It's bad enough that the Net has proven it ISN'T safe and never will be no matter how hard IT tries. It's like everything else man made..... breakable and flawed. So now we put multiple lives at risk for what........?? This is total and complete insanity.

BitTorrenters seek sanctuary in Pirate Bay

@ Mahou Saru

My previous comment was meant to be sarcastic. Sorry for the confusion.

On that note, I agree with the view that CD prices are bloated and end up lining the pockets of corporation vultures. Yes I said vultures. The price of a blank CD is dirt cheap for me to buy. How much cheaper is it for a company to buy them in bulk? The software used to burn a CD is cheap and even free for some open source Apps. Mass producing them is mostly done mechanically. What do you suppose the profits are and for whom?

I'm not condoning "theft". I'm merely pointing out that big wig executives pay

themselves first and the pay rate is whatever they set for themselves. Not that this concept is unique because most major corps work this way but by the very nature of the way in which it is easy to circumvent and given the fact that a lot of people only like a few songs on a CD and they are easy to find on P2P, what do the RIAA and the rest expect? The nature of the format ENABLES people to share and if people are smart about it they will never get caught.

So, who gets caught? The little guy with no smarts of encryption, the parents of teens who are responsible for their kids actions and so on. Why is it that most super peers who share never get caught? It's called encryption and that's why the powers that be take down a whole site instead of the file sharers, because it's too hard to catch most of them. So now little Johnny's parents are stuck with a huge fine which they would probably never be able to pay.

Am I breaking a law when I download a song from overseas where it's legal to do so? Or do I need to visit the country and use a friends computer to do so, then bring the CD home with me? Would that satisfy the legal requirements? And if so, am i breaking a law by copying my free and legal copy and giving them away as gifts? The only difference here is that I'm not spending a fortune visiting a foreign country.

I do believe in copyrights, don't get me wrong but like I stated, the very nature of the beast makes it too easy for ANYONE with a PC to take advantage of it. Copyright protection coded into a CD is a joke as well. It's all too easy to break the protection. So little Johnny downloads a few songs and who gets stuck with an outrageous fine?

Should parents be responsible to pay? Well of course, since Johnny can't. Now what happens if Johnny jacks your car? The parents may be guilty of not teaching him well.... or maybe they have.... but it's Johnny who pays one way or another for the physical theft.

Either the laws need to be changed to reflect peoples wants or the format needs to be . Since any format can be broken given time, I think the law takes on the job of change. The recording industry is only fooling themselves and they need to take a serious look at the whys and wherefores of what they have done to ENABLE what they don't want to have happen.

My meager $0.02 USC.

What is all the hubub for?

Why is everyone bashing the RIAA? They are only trying to make money off the people who can least afford it and aren't doing any serious damage. Now if people were selling the music that would be one thing.

Microsoft spits out final XP service pack, beta version

Am I ever so grateful

that I have my XP install disks. As was previously mentioned, I too wouldn't put it past M$ if they tweaked an update to break XP to a point of having some people go for Vista. XP works great for me and I too do not suffer from unexpected crashes or virus/trojan/malware problems. M$ has gone to the outermost extreme in securing Vista with annoying delays and popups asking "are you sure you want to do this?" dribble. If people were to become more savvy about security, it wouldn't be such an issue and maybe Vista would have turned out to be a more friendly OS. I have seen Vista in action on a new PC bundled with the software and I am not impressed at all. The security features almost make you out to be a moron..... but then so many people are so ignorant when it comes to security that M$ thinks it's best to hold your hand and let you do what IT wants. Do we blame them or the end user for all of this?

No thanx, I'll stick with what I got even if updates become unavailable for XP. If for some reason XP becomes unusable I may spring for the extra money and go to Mac or open source Linux distros. As for games, I'll buy a PS or Nintendo.

Man siphons info for 300 credit cards from hotel kiosks

I tend to agree with Tuomo

It lies squarely with whatever company is involved to keep their public systems secure against these types of crimes. The guy obviously had login credentials sufficient enough to install software and that should never happen without the proper authorities knowing exactly who is logging in at all times. It's not rocket science to update passwords and remove any default ones and assign unique ones only to authorized personnel. How lazy are these companies and do we want to trust their services if they can't do something as simple as that? Oh yeah, they have to pay someone for the time to do it.... forget it.

Rogue servers point users to impostor sites

I would imagine

that the malware writes to the host file on Windows or possibly changing the TCP/IP properties on the host. I agree, a bit of clarification would help though.

Top-secret US labs penetrated by phishers

It's not the OS

There's simply no justification for all of this. It's certainly not the fault of the OS or AV or security software not doing it's job. This lies squarely on the shoulders of the idiots who fall for BS. Any email that supposedly contains company driven information, especially important information, should be dealt with with kid gloves. I mean, come on, if it's that important, why would a company take the chance that the email would be opened, let alone successfully delivered? Company oriented email should always be verified or better yet, not sent at all. Duh, the boss sent me something and his office is just down the hall. How stupid is that? And on the chance that email is a priority for certain aspects of the job, make sure all employees know that attachments are strictly forbidden. This isn't *ahem*... rocket science.