Posts by Pascal Monett 18232 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007
Since when is "taking the tape home" part of any serious standard security practice ? Who is the joker that wrote such nonsense, and who is the blubbering idiot that signed it off ?
I'm starting to think that an acceptable and effective standard security procedure would be to remove any and all access to the network from the "officials" in charge. At least like that, the only hazard to citizens' data would be fire - and that can be adequately handled with the proper fire extinguishing equipment.
What ? They only have water extinguishers ? In the server room ?
You're on a streak, there ! First you decide no SP1 release for Vista, and now no Office/Works for refurbs.
Hey guys, it's now official : Ballmer is rooting for Open Software ! Steve is a Linux Trojan right at the head of Microsoft ! He is actually supporting Linux in every marketing decision he makes at this time.
Go Steve ! Go the final lap and rename Microsoft to MicroNix, or Licronux, or something-ix.
That way everyone will know.
In this day an age where a moron has control of the White House, the official policy is "if you're not with us, then you're against us". Of course, anyone asking questions is not With since he is a doubter, and if you're not with . . .
Funny thing is, this rule applies to both sides of the argument. The pro-GWs cannot accept that someone is skeptical without being and Anti-GW, and all Anti-GWs consider that if you're not anti, then you're either part of the conspiracy (my personal favorite) or just too dumb to know better.
I hate it when discussions verge into the "you're just a" territory. Seems that there aren't any brains on either side.
I use XP, and when I need to search for something, I do a quick Win-E and open the folder the something is supposed to be in and I find it.
No trouble with Vista, I won't ever use it. Searching takes me all of two seconds, every time.
My guess is that there's a lot of people that don't classify their data. I suppose they don't do backups either ?
that shareholders are enthusiastic about the technology. Personally I would welcome laptop and flashlight batteries that can recharge in seconds. As for the car, well Altair can make all the wonderful claims it wants, I'll wait for real-life use before I start believing the hype. Right now, Altair needs market awareness, and whatever they state is nothing but PR as long as nobody else can test the stuff independently.
That said, I sincerely hope that Altair will pull it off and give us batteries that don't explode and can recharge in a jiffy. I can't wait for the day those annoying motorbikes be condemned to silence.
Instant lock-down on stolen MP3 players ! Isn't that worth giving up your freedom, sanity and next hundred years of income tax ?
Come on ! How about a bit of patriotism here ? Get with the program already ! Won't it be a wonderful world when you can swipe your ID in your MP3 player, knowing that it is entirely secure from theft and that you've just been credited £1.24 for the BPI to help a needy pigopolist snort his next line of white ?
Really, all these counter-arguments do not hold water. Bunch of communists !
A group of armed, healthy cops felt threatened by a diabetic lying on a bed ?
Thank God they had tasers. I shudder to think of the mess if they had only had guns.
And the anonymous guy that precedes me is right. The rest of the world has this kind of incident like once every 600 days. In the US, it's more like once a week (and those are the stories we hear of). How can you possibly expect people to not infer that the whole country is full of trigger-happy fraidy-cat cops ?
I acknowledge the existence of PHD-holding officers of the law, but really there aren't enough of those. Besides, complaining that people generalize police dumbness, then stating that you know one guy with a badge and a PHD is not really a counterargument. You're just generalizing the other way around.
Another nutcase web site for a bunch a fruitcake ideas. As if we needed right-wing Bible-thumpers to be pitched against left-wing Bible-thumpers. In end, neither of the kind admit any criticism from anywhere.
I hate opedias. From now on, I'm only reading Universalis. At least there, the angst and arguments get handled BEFORE I read the article.
I use a 21" screen to surf the Web, with a proper keyboard and mouse and an 8Mbps connection.
The day has not come when a phone will be able to give me that experience.
Meanwhile, I just couldn't care less what browser runs on what phone. I use my phone for phoning.
Nonsense. You need to update your references. That activity may have been popular in the last century, but since the start of the current one, Americans have been busy bashing the French. Besides, most Americans probably don't even know who this Chamberlain chap is.
It would also be time for Microsoft to update its references. SCO has tried and failed to dent Free Software's reputation and integrity - with help from Microsoft. It's no use for Ballmer to go it alone now, he won't do any better for all the reasons already invoked above.
No, it would be better for MS to port DirectX to Linux - without opening the librairies if it wants to. Now THAT would be a bold move !
I'm quite happy that 700 paedophiles have been nabbed. As has been said above, I'd like to be sure that they're ALL paedophiles though. I can't think of anything worse than to be falsely accused of being a child abuser. I can very well understand those that have taken their lives during the ill-fated Operation Ore. It is well and good that this instance of despicable activity has been dismantled, but let us ensure that everyone that has been arrested is indeed guilty before letting the dogs at them.
has always been, is and always will be a source of amusement for those smart enough not to have been taken. It has nothing to do with the times we live in, and everything to do with the social need to recognize one's place in the ladder and be recognized for it. This is a basic law of human behavior that is probably studied in the first year of psychology.
<<it said did not believe "there is any connection between contemporary issues in 21st Century Manchester and the work of science fiction in which a fictitious 1950s Britain is under attack by aliens".>>
But the Church of England does. Does that mean that the CoE knows something we don't ? Does the Archbishop of Canterbury have a Batcave from where he directs special Angel hit-squads defending London from alien invasion ?
I think we should be told.
Oh, you mean like Arkanoid that I just downloaded for nothing on an Abandonware site ? Or maybe you mean Lode Runner, that I got for just as much in the same place ?
Sony would make me laugh if it didn't disgust me so much. I'm a PC gamer, and frankly, I see nothing in PS3 or 360 that could even remotely incite me to change.
On my platform, I can play extraordinarily good games, the latest out, the ones from five years ago, and even games from consoles via emulators.
Frankly, Sony gives me no incentive whatsoever to buy its product: It's expensive, has only a handful of games, can only play a handful more, and it doesn't look all that good either (no better than my 8800 GTS anyway).
PC gaming is far from dead, from my point of view.
My, what a surprise ! It's incredible ! Can you imagine that ? Someone has a laptop, and access to personal information, and all of a sudden we find the personal info on the laptop, and the laptop compromised. How extraordinary ! I mean, it's only the 100th time this has happened, right ? How could anyone ever imagine in their wildest dreams that it would happen, like, again ?
You know what the solution will be ? I don't, but I know one thing : nothing is going to change until the Vice-President of the USA gets HIS details leaked and somehow finds himself with a bad credit rating and tens of millions of debt. THEN, all of a sudden, some laws will be passed and the government will clamp down on the IT security like there's no tomorrow. Meanwhile, there's gonna be a million more incidents like this, likely meaning that whole population of the USA will have had their private details leaked at least once.
Man am I glad I don't live in that country !
Anti-Bush bashing will not be lame before the day the idiot gets thrown out of the Oval Office. Until that day comes, he is quite capable of dragging his country into yet another pointless conflict, causing tens of thousands of additional useless deaths (but not his !) and creating immeasurable chaos that will take decades to overcome.
For that reason, it is perfectly justified to bash Bush, since nobody has the cojones to impeach him. Unless some White House girl gets enough courage to give him a blowjob ? Apparently having patently lied to drag his country into a war is not enough.
Pascal.
Victims of malware should be detected and their ISP informed. Once that is done, the ISP should email the victim with an explanation and a warning that, if nothing is done within 30 days, their access will be cut off.
Repeat the message every seven days until something is done or the cutoff date arrives. If nothing is done, cut them off.
When the user calls to complain, have someone ready at the call center to help the user purge the PC or reinstall it (yes, this is going to be the most costly part). When the PC is clean, service may resume.
For the inevitable cranky user, a reminder that Federal law can consider that he is an e-terrorist and can thus be deported to Guantanamo without trial should cut off quite an amount of steam.
Frankly, that is rubbish. Windows is the desktop OS on more than 90% of all PCs. With that kind of market share, it is not possible to implement complicated license rules concerning CPUs - MS would waste a whole department of lawyers to try and keep track of all the possible variations.
No, per CPU licensing seems the only choice, and too bad if Open-Source movements have already adopted that same choice. As far as managing the situation, there simply is no other solution that is as easy to implement and control.
Well there's no problem then. Nobody sane uses Vista, so the issues are moot.
(on track to change the Windows vs Mac war to a Vista vs XP war ;-).
Anyway, I really like this kind of thread for the snide remarks - "none of them (read us) really give a monkey's whatsits about what browser you use on your virus, I mean, on windows".
Spot on ! Five stars there.
What am I up to ? Nothing worse than you, only I don't think it's any of your business to know. And I have a right to keep that information from you, until the day information nazis like you take over the government. That day, you'll probably be right - because I'll be preparing a revolt.
Even the paranoid are right sometimes, but the paranoid who trample over everybody else's life and privacy are usually right more often than the armchair dictators.
What is Google supposed to do to ensure that the complainant has a right to complain ? If Google doesn't have a modicum of ID to verify, well then any Tom, Dick & Harry can have any pic removed for the simple reason that they don't like it. I'm not too hot on the idea that I can be snapped in a slightly embarrassing pose, but I'm a lot less hot on the idea that anyone can arbitrarily have a pic removed without any check or balance.
Contrary to blogs, user reviews generally concern people who have bought the thing and are giving an informed opinion on how well it holds up to their expectations. Thus, on the usefulness scale it normally doesn't score too badly - trolls are more or less uninterested and the illiterate make minimal efforts to get their point across.
Of course, as soon as you get a Wiki environment, you get people who think "ruse" is written "roose", then you get the guy who corrects that, then you get the original author correcting it back, then you get someone posting a goatse link, and then it all gets shot to hell as far as usefulness is concerned.
Wiki is the triumph of the uninformed, much like democracy today. Oh wait, that makes it okay, doesn't it ?
"Teachers, meanwhile, are expected to help further the government's social goals, rather than impart knowledge to their students."
So teachers have become social workers now ? Who is going to do the teaching, then ? You know, bashing students over the head with why Kelvin temperatures can never be negative ?
If the scholarship curriculum devotes itself to the warm and fuzzy domain of "getting a feel of things", who is going to teach people the Law of Energy Conservation, and prevent snake-oil salesmen from selling the latest perpetual motion machine ?
Feels like we're all going to end up a bunch of mouth-breathing couch potatoes in a decade or four. On the other hand, it probably means the great return of the caveman method for getting laid : big bash on the head with club, and drag by hair to soft spot in grass. Oh well, at least what's left of Humanity will still have _some_ fun in the future.
Pie-in-the-sky thoughts about Google taking over Microsoft with hosted apps are certainly warm and fuzzy, but do not seem very realistic.
First of all, using hosted apps is well and fine, as long as your DSL line remains functional. From what I've read lately, that is something of an issue in the UK, and it's not guaranteed elsewhere either. Once your DSL line is down, what do you do ? Play Minesweeper ?
Second, nobody is better placed for putting Microsoft down than Microsoft itself. Windows Me was a disaster, but MS carried on without a hitch. Vista is becoming a PR nightmare, but I don't think that will affect Ballmer's share price. Windows remains the professional desktop of choice, and when the DSL line doesn't work, the OS still can - as long as the current is flowing. And electricity is a tad more reliable than DSL, I'd say.
Now Monsanto has yet another tool to protect its IP. I am so grateful to these Vaterland boffins, they really have accomplished something grand.
Actually, I do hope this system is generalized on all GM crop, and when a farmer finds GM stuff in his non-GM field, he should get the watermark and sue the pants off the owner of said watermark.
Because a watermark can work both ways - if it is unique, then it follows that a farmer can also use it in his defense.
Not all ideas benefit only the pigopolists.
Pascal.
Seems to me that any customer satisfaction rating is acceptable if it is honest, so I fail to see why lawyers would be exempt. The only difference, obviously, is that for anyone else, they have to call a lawyer if they don't agree. Here we have lawyers acting in their own interest.
And we all know how well lawyers defend their own interest, don't we ?
So now the privacy I have a constitutional right to is something I am going to have to pay for to actually have in effect - that is, until some government decides it wants my details anyway, at which point a low-level cop will just wave his badge and expect all my details to be handed over.
Something about the world, a destination and a handbasket comes to mind.
The martian atmosphere seems to be quite a magical place. In the same article I am told that, on the one hand, it is a virtual "hard vacuum" (whatever that means I retain vacuum as the principle adjective), and on the other, there are winds that disturb water sublimation.
Okay, so which way is it ? If there's wind, then there cannot be a vacuum. If there's a vacuum, then there's no air to make a wind with.
There has got to be a mistake somewhere.
If it's any good, it'll get its chance. I'm always ready to try a new browser, I don't care what the name is or where it's from. But, it has to be secure, it has to allow extensions, it has to block pop-ups and, ideally, it should allow me to also block unwanted images and iframes.
Having never used Safari, I don't have an opinion on it, but I must admit that Jobs touting - what was that again ? speed in tab swapping ? Who does that ?
Not me. So I guess that is to be filed in the bling glass cabinet.
Okay, Steve, so we've got bling. Got anything actually useful to talk about ?
Why don't they just ban children looking at TV ? Or why don't they make a law stating that it is illegal to let children watch TV after a given hour ?
These music awards, they didn't get broadcast at 4 P.M., right ? What is a child (meaning under 13 years) doing in front of the TV after 8 P.M. anyway ?
Oh, I forgot. This is America - the Land of the Free From Responsibility. Anything goes, as long as the Reverend approves.
And the Reverend approves of killing, we all know that. But swearing ? God no.
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