* Posts by h4rm0ny

4560 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jul 2008

Satisfy my scroll: El Reg gets claws on Windows 8.1 spring update

h4rm0ny

Re: As if this will make people happy!

>>1) It is non-hierarchical; i.e., everything in creation gets splattered all over the screen. When an application installs multiple shortcuts, it's nice to have them associated with that application, not put on the top level by default.

I addressed this in the post you replied to. I'm a power user and I typically use about twenty programs reasonably regularly. That's significantly higher than most people. That fits on even my laptop screen. On my Desktop machine, I can fit fifty. Hierarchical structure is an approach to dealing with too many things in too small a space. That's why the Start Menu has this approach - it places every single thing in the system into a small strip. Where you actually have space, then a buffet model of everything laid out to be selected, is more efficient. Provided there's not so many that you can't find what you want which brings us neatly onto:

>>"2) It is unsorted and unsortable. I find it logical to sort things in some kind of order, say alphabetically, automatically, without having to shuffle everything around by hand."

It isn't unsorted or unsortable. There is the structure of columns which places things in groups and installed programs do get placed in groups along a theme, normally. Some programs get dumped in the miscellaneous, but that brings us onto the "unsortable". You just drag them where you want. An incredibly simple action that has been ingrained into computer users on Windows, Macs, KDE/Gnome/Xfce for a long time. Click and drag. So yes, demonstrably sortable. Additionally, the Start Screen has a very useful division built into it. Things you frequently want and things you don't. Compare that to the kitchen sink approach of the Start Menu where it has to get super-hierarchical because everything in the entire system is crammed into that little strip on the left-hand side. The Start Screen divides according to commonly-used / rarely-used and that's much more time efficient.

Also, all of the above and your entire case, ignores that you don't need to sort or search. You just start typing. Want Control Panel? Type 'con' and hit return. Your objection becomes a non-issue.

Yes, you already posed some "inevitable counterpoints" in your own post, but you did so only so that you could frame them yourself and I would prefer to put them in my own words. They remain counterpoints. For example, you say you have "dozens of application". That's fine. You can fit dozens of applications in two and a half groups on the Start Screen (one block = two columns of five) which is viewable at a glance. And as I keep writing and people keep trying to find reasons to dismiss, just type. Even if you had to type six characters to narrow down a program (very, very rare), that's still faster than taking your hands away from the keyboard.

Also, some of your "inevitable" counter-points I wouldn't dream of making. E.g. restoring the Start Menu being possible. Maybe you missed my entire post on how Windows 8 is better than the Start Menu. I don't want it back and I'm certainly not going to advocate clinging to it like a baby to its dummy to other people, either.

market for the return of the old configuration.

>>"Apart from those points, you make repeated references to using keyboard shortcuts on a touch-screen interface. If you fail to see the irony here, you are beyond help."

I've never once made such a reference. The entire thrust of my argument is explicitly that Windows 8 is as good or better as Windows 7 on a non-touch screen interface. That it is better than Windows 7 on a touch screen interface is really beyond question imo, and I've never so much as touched on the subject here.

h4rm0ny

Re: As if this will make people happy!

>>"Yes, it's outrageous that people don't like the same as you. "

That's not the problem I stated in my post. The problem I stated in post is people saying things that are demonstrably untrue. E.g. it being slower to launch things in Windows 8 when I can demonstrate being able to launch things faster. Windows Key + Type is significantly faster than reaching for the mouse on either 7 or 8. That's a simple case of having to move further to use the mouse, then move the cursor around, plus the mental context switching of changing input devices. And the type and launch approach works faster on Windows 8 than it does on Windows 7. Additionally it brings back results from file names and from settings, further reducing times. Ergo, it is incorrect to say that Windows 8 makes it harder or slower to launch programs. Not an issue of people not liking the same as me - my post is clearly not founded on that at all. It's founded on people repeating things that are not true. Ditto for not using the keyboard method and using the mouse. When you have twenty-five good sized icons laid out before on even a modest laptop screen, then that is also demonstrably faster than controlled movements through a menu system aiming for smaller targets. This is something easily deduced and easily tested. Yet people repeated how the Start Menu made things harder. With the exception of the poster who said they have "hundreds" of programs they need from different manufacturers, which is far outside of normal use case, it's demonstrable that the Start Screen, with its clustering by function / theme, is more efficient in terms of mouse use as well.

This was explicitly my point. Instead you've gone for a non-germane strawman of "outrageous people don't like the same as you". That's not at all the basis of what I said and therefore does nothing to refute what I said. It's just a shifting of argument to something I never actually said or argued, so that you can attack.

h4rm0ny

Re: As if this will make people happy!

>>"I wonder if, say, Oracle shat out something exactly the same as Win8 - would you be jumping for joy over that?"

Not really. It would cost £2K per processor I wanted to run it on and I'd have to re-pay yearly or they'd sue me.

h4rm0ny
Coffee/keyboard

Re: When humans evolve...

It's called soap.

h4rm0ny

Re: As if this will make people happy!

>>"No it's not Neophobia. But the notion that we should learn a new UI from scratch, especially one with such poor discoverability for the sake of absolutely NO improvement in productivity or functionality is ridiculous."

How is the "discoverability" worse in Windows 8 than in Windows 7. I think it's better. I'll support that. Open the Start Screen in Windows 8. All common programs are right there in front of you, unconcealed by menus or sub-menus, and they are grouped thematically. In Windows 7, items are similarly grouped but you do have to explore through sub-menus.

Additionally, in the Start Screen, you have all common programs right in front of you, then all programs total in the expanded Start Screen. In contrast, the Start Menu has all items present at all times. This means for the majority of use cases, it easier to find what you are looking for in Windows 8 which has the division of Common / Uncommon which is what the Start Screen / Expanded Start Screen represent.

I don't think it's a large difference, but Windows 8 is not worse and for the reasons above, I think is somewhat better.

However, that's really a non-issue either way because if you press the Windows Key and start typing, you instantly get matches from the entire pool of installed programs. This is the same as in Windows 7, but in Windows 8 that typing ALSO pulls in documents and settings that match. Thus I'd say Windows 8 has greater "discoverability" than 7.

All of these are objective arguments. If you wish to argue that there is an issue of less familiarity with the new system, I'm fine with that. It's my contention that the issues are nearly all ones of preferring that which one is familiar with.

As an addendum, in case you're referring to settings on Windows 8, all of those are still exactly where they were in the Control Panel so this area of Windows 8 cannot be worse than Windows 7, it can only be equal or better. And it can only be equal and not better if you ascribe absolutely zero value to the fact that many common settings have been duplicated in the Charms bar and thus made more immediately accessible.

>>"discoverability for the sake of absolutely NO improvement in productivity or functionality is ridiculous."

See, I've already in my original post listed several ways in which the new UI is more efficient so to me that part is already addressed. I'll add that there are many other cool things in Windows 8 that are good reasons to upgrade as well. Just the kernel-hibernation which leads to super fast boot times is a plus. Automatic disk encryption I like as well. But the list is really very long. As I wrote, the UI itself as a number of advantages objectively measureable in terms of number of clicks, mouse movements, etc.

h4rm0ny

Re: As if this will make people happy!

>>"Sister-in-law bought a very nice new laptop with a hi-res screen, only trouble is the text is too small"

See - that's fine. That's a constructive, supportable criticism. I don't argue with those. It's the moronic repetition of rallying point arguments such as "a touch-based UI makes no sense on a non-touch interface" are the problem. That particular argument gets trotted out like its a religious slogan but the truism doesn't actually measure up to reality. It's just an assumption that things are without support that they are.

The interesting thing is that aside from this, all of the other issues you list are issues of familiarity. And that's my point. Very few of the hysterics launched their attacks with "I'm not familiar with this" and the reason they did not is because there's a very easy counter to it. That counter is "spend half an hour playing around with it." Within a few days I was very used to it and out of the habit of thinking of Start Screen as some alien state. Also not that many of the hate brigade launched their attacks with "why should I take the time to learn something new?" Because it is a weak argument. It suddenly turns into someone giving you reasons and then you're stuck trying to argue why you're laziness / difficulty in learning new things, is a virtue. And that doesn't fly.

Keep things the same for the sake of familiarity is ultimately a weak argument. People will be using their chosen OS for five years, quite probably longer. Half an hour to learn the changes (press Windows Key, drag down from top) and maybe a day or two to actually become comfortable? Against over half a decade of use? That's shameful to anyone who calls themself open to new ideas. Also, it's an argument for stagnancy. If you keep things the same for familiarity, it just gets more and more staid until someone comes along and really revolutionizes things and then they eat your product for breakfast. Change is good, so long as it is positive change.

So of course the only strong attacks are ones that argue the changes are bad. But rallying point arguments people were using. They don't stand up. At the time of posting, my rant has about 29 downvotes and a couple of replies insulting me or asking me if I'm Steve Ballmer. (I am not). But all the points I made stand.

>>"Maybe if I used it all the time I would figure out how to use it easily, but why precisely should I bother?"

Well I'd like to give you the answer which is true for me - which is that it's fun to learn cool new ways of doing things and shake things up now and then. But I'll give you something less subjective. I'm able to work faster on Windows 8 now that I'm familiar with it, than I was on Windows 7. It also has a raft of really great new features. Even just having the same desktop across all my monitors and not having to go all the way to the left most corner of the left-most of three monitors to hit the "start menu" is nice. And those are the least of the good things in it. Isn't that worth a day or two of phantom Start Menu syndrome before it goes away? :)

By the way, that last paragraph is pretty much the same answer, bar a few particulars, I give to all those who ask me why they should bother to learn GNU/Linux. ;)

h4rm0ny

Re: Rationalization over Reality

>>"h4rm0ny, keep on rationalizing away the complaints of life-long Windows users (such as myself). I know, I know. [...] I'm a life-long Microsoft platform developer since MS-DOS and OS/2."

Go ahead and point out any flaws in the arguments I listed. I grant you I'm not a life-long Windows user as I started with Windows 7, but that doesn't make anything I wrote invalid. In fact, it lends support to my contention that it is difficulty / dislike in dealing with change that is the chief problem rather than anything being objectively bad. So thank you for supporting my case.

>>Or are you just pissed that no one is buying your Metro apps, so you blame it on a frothed-up segment of Start button lovers?

Not really. I'm about 50% management and consultancy these days but I still do a substantial amount of development work. On GNU/Linux. Again, by the way, your comment doesn't undermine anything I wrote, it's just an ad hominem. A hilariously wrong one, actually.

h4rm0ny

Re: As if this will make people happy!

>>"TL;DR In short, you are saying"

Got to appreciate someone who starts a post by saying mine was too long so they didn't read it, and then posts an incorrect synopsis of what I wrote.

I listed most of the popular objections I heard people rushing around to post when Win 8 was released and then took them apart objectively. No, that's not me saying you have to jump when MS say so. It's me saying much of what people posted was unexamined hysteria. Short enough for you? Of course now you'll be able to just say "no it isn't" rather than actually address any specific argument, because you chose not to read the specifics. Go and have a look. If you think my post is wrong, then don't just post a bad synopsis, try and take apart one of the arguments. I've got twenty-five downvotes so far, yet every argument I posted stands up and you yourself just go straight for the mischaracterising what I wrote with an argument against things ever changing. Yes, that's what your argument is because you just went straight to change resulting in re-training people and that's something that's true with any change.

>>"If so, why not learn to use Linux instead an save the license fee?"

No reason at all, as far as I'm concerned. I use GNU/Linux (Debian) daily. And I've been using GNU/Linux since at least SuSE 6.4 (I remember buying it). GNU/Linux is great. I'm just tired of people posting flawed criticisms, usually which they read elsewhere and just repeat endlessly.

h4rm0ny

Re: Linux desktop

You missed out Debian in there. I find it a good stable OS and whilst it's true I don't use bleeding edge hardware with it, I find it supports what I need. For front end, I have Xfce which meets my needs.

h4rm0ny
Flame

As if this will make people happy!

The massive wave of complaints wasn't motivated by real issues, just hysteria, vitriol and a hatred of change. The segments of the IT community that got whipped up like that should be ashamed of themselves. Neophobia is the best term for what I witnessed.

Example, the endless mantra that Windows 8 penalized mouse and keyboard users. Windows 8 was better for mouse and keyboard users. Any serious user should have already been in the habit of launching programs by tapping the Windows key (which is permanently a centimetre away from your left hand when using the keyboard) and typing the first few letters of what you want. Want Control Panel? Win-key + 'con'. I can literally launch it in under a second. And this search-launch function works faster in Windows 8 than in 7. Additionally, it includes documents and settings in the search. And people claim that it's all designed around Touch? What I've just described is faster than reaching for a display.

And if for some reason you're too conditioned by older versions of Windows to adapt to using the keyboard and insist on launching something with the mouse. Well for those people who really struggle to adapt, mouse approach is also faster than in 7. In both cases (we'll ignore that you can just hit the Windows key as we're talking about people who are phobic of keyboards for some reason), you have to move the mouse to the lower left. This too is easier in Windows 8 because in Windows 7 you have to move it only so far and stop on the Start menu, so you must control your mouse movement. In 8 you just whip it to the lower left corner where it will stop by itself. Controlled movement is slower than uncontrolled movement and don't try to say that the extra few pixels travel offsets that because any honest person can try it right now (go ahead - see how fast you can move the mouse to the lower left corner compared to how fast you can move it to a small rectangle near but not at the lower left corner. And don't respond to this point until you've tried it).

So you have to move your mouse to the lower left and that's approximately the same action (marginally faster on 8). Then you click. Same action. Here we diverge again and the speed advantage of 8 becomes more apparent. I'm a power user. I regularly use a lot of different programs - far more than most. I counted them and the come to 27. My Start Screen has space for around fifty on the desktop machine, and around thirty-five on my old laptop. You know what that means? No navigating up and down menus carefully like the Start Menu. Which could pin a finite amount of things - I can't remember how many but it was less than the Start Screen on even my laptop. Again, it's faster and easier to whip the mouse to a large icon in the screen (and they're grouped by function too!) than it is to go to a menu option in the Start Menu, wait for the sub-menu to appear, move to the option you want, etc.

All of which is irrelevant as any keyboard user will have launched their program in half that time with the method I described earlier.

But no, people clapped their hands over their ears and shouted "a UI designed for touch on a non-touch interface is stupid!" Never mind the facts, they'd found something to be angry about.

The list of stupid objections was endless. The Start Screen would obscure what was on the page. Right - so you navigate the Start Menu without looking at it do you and without stopping from reading what you're reading in the main window? Of course you do... Or how about that opening a PDF would, by default, launch the Metro PDF reader causing the poor confused user into the Hell of Metro land where they would flounder helplessly. I heard that one loads of times. So switch the default app for PDFs, I'd say. It's just right-click on the file. But users wont know how to do that - they just want to read their PDF. Uh, you do know that Adobe Reader isn't part of Windows 7, right? That if the user just does it on Windows 7 it wont even open at all - just ask them if they want to install something that will read it? Uh, well, they respond. Some OEMs pre-installed Adobe Reader. Yeah, and they can do the same on Windows 8. Stop trying so hard to find things to struggle with.

If you kept shooting down all these arguments eventually you'd get to the nicely indefinable ones as people got more defensive. Such as "context switching is disorientating". Oh, grow a brain! You can handle the Start Menu but the Start Screen appearing causes you context disorientation? I'm not a genius and I seem to manage it fine. Or "it looks like a child's toy". Well you can't argue against taste so that's fine, but you can set all the panels to grey if you want. It's not a functional argument as to why 8 is objectively worse.

Oh and lets not forget the video of some chap struggling to launch IE because his son didn't tell him the very basic fact that you can get the Start Screen from clicking in the lower left - something that Windows tells you the first time you start up. Never mind that the moment he was shown this he was fine. Never mind that I could find someone who would struggle with a Fischer-Price toy and video them if I wanted to. This apparently became evidence of how flawed Windows 8 was.

I feel deeply sorry for the MS engineers. They produced something that was well-thought out, objectively improved in many areas, still had the same capabilities of its predecessors, and when it was unveiled, a large section of the IT community (who should be open to change as much as anyone), did nothing but pour hate and abuse at what they'd worked on. Whipped up further by people who love to hate MS who treated the new interface as Christmas and their Birthday wrapped up in one and went into full on Witch-Burning Mob mode.

Shame on the fucking lot of you.

We all owe our EXISTENCE to lovely VOLCANOES, say boffins

h4rm0ny

Re: Interesting map

>>"And the metre is derived from the speed of light, but that doesn't make it any less arbitrary than the yard."

No, the metre is defined in terms of the speed of light. It isn't derived from it. The metre existed as a unit of measurement long, long before the speed of light was known. In contrast, East and West are derived from the rotation of the Earth. The movement was noticed (or inferred from the Sun's apparent transition if you like) and names applied. The metre and the yard are both arbitrary because people just decided that's the length they'd standardise on. The Cardinal Points of the compass are not arbitrary because they are derived from pre-existing observable circumstances that have logical virtues over choosing something else. such as an arc traced between Stonehenge and the Eiffel Tower.

h4rm0ny

Re: Past ice ages?

"Technically we are just in a interglacial period"

Equally, by those principles, the ice ages are merely interwarm periods. Now that is arbitrary.

h4rm0ny

Re: Interesting map

>>"But I guess not everyone realizes that reference systems such as cardinal points are largely arbitrary"

They're not arbitrary. Something like UTC being defined by a particular longitude (the Greenwich Meridian) is arbitrary. The fact that we use the words "East" and "West" rather than "George" and "Cuthbert" is arbitrary. But the Cardinal Points of a compass are not arbitrary. They're derived from the rotation of the Earth. It wouldn't make sense to say that North is defined as being at a 32 degree angle from Ayer's Rock for example. Angle against what anyway? You've just discounted using the axis of the planet. You could say "North" is the line that traces between Stone Henge and the Eiffel Tower and extends globally. That would be an arbitrary definition. But our actual compass is anything but arbitrary. It has a very real, non-arbitrary foundation.

Fee fie Firefox: Mozilla's lawyers probe Dell over browser install charge

h4rm0ny

Re: Are they blond?

>>"I think this "service" would be damaging to the Mozilla trademark and that's why I think they're entitled to enforce such distribution restrictions."

I disagree. I can't think of many better messages to send to the business community than organizations being willing to pay £16 per copy for an alternate browser. I think you're dead wrong that people are going to be confused and not look at Firefox because they think from Dell that it must always cost this much. Showing people buying it will send a clear message to many managers who lack the familiarity with Firefox to make tech-based decisions.

Trust me on this - I've been around a long time. If I, as random tech-girl say to one of the senior management this: "hey, I know we're all using IE, but lets install this free alternative I downloaded off the Internet", the answer is going to come back: "No!" Okay, I might be able to just about pull it off because I'm quite senior myself these days, but generally it ain't going to happen.

Now try an alternative approach: "I want the Firefox package that Dell include for our new PCs. Dell now support it as software and it's really good". Now you're in with a chance.

Mozilla are wrong to fight this. They should welcome it. I'm both a business person AND a programmer. Putting a price on Firefox (without removing the free version) is a win in business terms. Free as in Speech, not Free as in Beer. Stallman gets a lot of hate for some reason (never understood why), but he's a very, very smart person.

h4rm0ny

Re: Mozillidiots

>>"Mozilla can put WHATEVER restrictions on the use of their trademark that they want... ANYTHING."

I'm pretty sure that's not true. There are laws of the land, restrictions on fair contracts... If I were doing business in America and let all my distributors use my trademark except for those that sold to black/jewish/atheist/gay/whatever people, I'm pretty sure that would fall foul of the law. Basically, if you're going to be discriminatory you need to be able to do so on reasonable grounds. Is it reasonable grounds to say that Dell cannot charge for installation, testing, version management, supply-chain impact, etc. That's for the courts to decide, but I don't think you're right to say Mozilla can impose "ANYTHING" as a condition of their trademark use.

h4rm0ny
Linux

Re: Charging for installation etc...

"Installating something /is/ distributing it... Nice try though..."

No more than cake is sugar. Yes, you usually find sugar in cakes, but that doesn't mean a cake is only sugar. Simple proof: you turn up on my doorstep and hand me a CD with Firefox on it. You have now distributed Firefox. You do the former, spend time installing it for me and are on-call to answer questions about it any time I choose to ring you up. Are the two actions the same? No. Therefore the latter scenario is not identical to merely distributing it.

I'm still not really clear on why distributing it has to be for free anyway. Free as in speech, not free as in beer. As the great Stallman said.

h4rm0ny
Linux

Re: Are they blond?

"Leaving aside the fact that Dell could probably do the image at such a marginal cost that they should be offering it as a free option"

Not really. Dell are enterprise and everything they do is geared toward that. If they're adding software to their servers that's not just about the cost of the software, it's about testing, support, supply-chain management, culpability if something goes wrong. This isn't you popping round to your neighbours and downloading it and walking away.

Libre Software is about Free As In Speech, not Free As In Beer.

Mozilla are wrong in this, imo. And it's a shame. It's actually good for Firefox that Dell can support a business case of charging £16 per install.

Toshiba: Our 2.5-incher does the same job as a 3.5-incher

h4rm0ny

Re: Title: Self-encrypting?

>>"Ahem, they are doing that today. That is why in my company you shouldn't have that kind of information when you cross the us border.. even if encrypted."

I well believe it. And then there's the Chinese. But I know some people cry conspiracy theory or just don't think anything is a problem for them until it's thrust in their face, so I wanted to reference an example that was actually documented and which caused some friction between governments.

h4rm0ny

Re: Title: Self-encrypting?

>>"Because for most of us, the danger is a break in and having the lot stolen by somebody who then posts data from it under our care, therefore causing major business reputation problems."

Yes, but it's valid concern nonetheless. US intelligence services passed along corporate information they'd stolen from German and French companies to US competitors in the Nineties. (I think it was Boeing, but I'm not sure). We know of that because the European companies worked it out. We don't know about the unknown unknowns. ;)

If governments have widespread access, it's still something we want to guard against.

Windows 8.1 Update 1 spewed online a MONTH early – by Microsoft

h4rm0ny

>>"So you agree."

No. You can see that from my previous post where I said you were wrong, pretty obviously. You're attempting to dispense with any matter of degree in order to try and build a case against MS, which is silly. You said "Secure Boot hinders or prevents people from installing a non-MS OS".

I pointed out that nobody is "prevented" from installing a different OS on their PC because MS hardware requirements require the ability to disable Secure Boot. I then went on to point out that the "hinder" part is wrong as well because it's no more of a hindrance than saying swapping the default boot device is a hindrance. It's the same process - press F1 on boot and click the option you want. To try and dress that up as a hindrance, especially when the only people who will need to do so are the sort of people who install their own OS, is dishonest.

And your response is to try and argue that I "agree" someone is "hindered" because I acknowledge that adding the option requires a couple of clicks. No. I disagree with calling that a hindrance in the same way that I would call adding a blade of grass to a path a hindrance to walking. You are blatantly trying to disguise the actual easiness of what this involves and make it sound like some road block that MS have placed in the way for no good reason, when in fact it's trivial to work with and affords genuine and significant security benefits.

You drip with bias. What do you use in your head to make you think bias is good?

h4rm0ny

>>"It is quite simple. If not certified (which requires secure boot enabled) then the OEM does not get discounts - they may even have to buy at retail prices."

Wow. That's the "specifics" that were referred to? You're claiming this? The hardware requirements (of which Secure Boot is referenced in order to specify that the user has to be able to turn it off) are for being able to say that your product is "Windows 8 Certified". That's what an OEM has to comply with in order to brand their PC Windows 8 ready. It's a good thing, otherwise you get another Vista debacle where manufacturers churn out low-spec, under-powered hardware under the MS brand. Setting minimum requirements for hardware in order for OEMs to advertise something as Windows 8 ready is a good thing.

For you to twist this in your head into a scenario where MS are financially penalizing OEMs for not locking computers down, is insanity. Especially given that the hardware requirements (I quoted them earlier) actually require the OEMs to not lock the PCs down.

h4rm0ny

>>"That does not deny the _intent_, only that it would be in breach of anti-trust"

Actually what it does is remove the "evidence" that you used to support your case from one where MS actually did something (other than improve security), to one where MS have done nothing wrong but Richard Plinston still tries to rally people to condemn them because he says they'd like to do something wrong. Allegedly.

>>"With ARM devices 'secure boot' must not be able to be disabled."

Yeah, that's why I wrote "standard Windows" which you actually quoted. ARM is the same as with phones, iPad, et al. You know who did unnecessarily lock the boot process, though? Google's Pixel Chromebook. You can switch it between ChromeOS and Ubuntu. If you want to put your choice of OS on it, you have to manually place it into a developer mode every single time you turn it on. Why don't you go on a rant about them seeing as there's no real security advantage there unlike on Windows and is transparently done to lock the hardware down (which as I pointed out, isn't the case on Windows PCs where it can be properly disabled) ?

h4rm0ny

@Anonymous Bullard

I missed the edit window by a moment, so have this addendum.

Look at pirithous's post. Why am I tearing your post apart and not theirs? Because they actually know what they're talking about and whilst I do not necessarily agree with their emphasis in a number of places, they reason and support their argument. They know enough about Windows to take digs at Resilliant File System or challenge the idea that Secure Boot alone will make an OS the most secure. (though the OP actually did write "potentially" the most secure which is correct as without locking down the boot process, there's always a big hole). Yes, they make a bizarre dig about "call girls using Windows Phone", but generally they're making a supported argument. I might think they're biased but at least they have an informed opinion. Your post however, is downright disingenuous. As is Richard Plinston's who is still, years later, repeating the same discredited crap about Secure Boot and who only seems to appear in order to attack MS.

In short, if you're going to criticize, do it because something is actually causing you or someone else a problem. Don't decide you want to criticise and then try and force something into a criticism.

h4rm0ny
Flame

>>"Nobody is trying to shoot down the value of Secure Boot, which is only a part of UEFI. (although allowing malicious code to be able to write to boot sectors with ease should be prevented in the first place)."

Actually the person I replied to was mocking it as a conspiracy theory and check the post that follows yours for more of this. So yes, people are trying to shoot it down and you should have seen the furore when it was released. The hate was almost physical.

>>"It's the fact that Microsoft are requiring OEMs to ship with secure boot enabled, using a Microsoft key (in order to be Win8 certified, and receive preferential discounts)."

I don't know about any preferential discounts, can you give me some specifics, please? But it's a fact that as part of the Windows 8 certification requirements, OEMs are not allowed to lock secure boot and must allow a physically present user to turn it off. I can point you at the specific paragraphs if you like. So it is wrong to present Secure Boot as something that prevents other OSs from being used as posters here do whenever it comes up. And wrong to present it as worthless as posters also do. It's a good thing.

>>"In other words, in their default state computers are only able to boot code signed by Microsoft - hindering (or preventing) booting to other operating systems (that decision is left to the OEMs"

As I just pointed out, it isn't "left to OEMs". MS require them to leave users with choice. In fact, here is the paragraph taken from MS's hardware requirements for Windows 8 Certification:

"18. Mandatory. Enable/Disable Secure Boot. On non-ARM systems, it is required to implement the ability to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup. A physically present user must be allowed to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup without possession of PKpriv."

I have this to hand because I had this same argument with Eadon before. If you're smart enough to switch a computer's boot device you're smart enough to turn Secure Boot on or off. And if you're not, then you probably shouldn't be trying to install an OS in the first place. ;)

Regardless, the point is your attempt to make it sound like MS have locked computers down from their users (leaving yourself enough wiggle room with "in their default state", is disingenuous. It makes as much sense to say that in their default state computers are only able to boot from a particular hard drive, or in their default state are only set to use the default clock speed for their processor. Or in fact anything else you change really simply by pressing F1 when your computer turns on. It's not hidden, it's not locked. Modification is only "hindered" your words, if you're malware or anything else that would fiddle with the boot process that isn't the person sitting in front of the machine.

Honestly, there are two possibilities. You genuinely find yourself "hindered" by pressing F1 when your computer turns on, or you're attempting to make something easy and known about, sound difficult or obscure, for the sake of influencing perception on this.

>>"Surely this isn't a difficult concept for people to grasp?"

It isn't. If you're referring to how Secure Boot is used. I've explained it numerous times to people who don't know how to do it but have been told by some partisan source that it stops them using their computers how they're told. I'd like to say that most of them reacted with relief that things weren't as terrible as they'd been told, but in fact a number of people react angrily because one of their attacks on MS has been shot down.

If the "concept" you think people should be able to grasp is how MS hinder other OS's via Secure Boot, then no, it's not a hard concept to grasp, it's simply a wrong idea. Which is why I'm shooting down stupid comments about Saddam Hussein. Sadly, as you can see by the few people who downvoted me, they would prefer a lie that makes MS look bad than a truth which doesn't. Which is not the sign of a true engineer, but I digress.

>>"By the way, Linux has been taking advantage of (U)EFI much longer than Windows has."

Both have run on UEFI for about as long as its been around, so far as I know, but if you check my post, I wrote Windows takes advantage of Secure Boot, not UEFI. So again, you're not correcting me at all, just shifting topics to something not relevant. UEFI is a long list of features which both OSs have taken advantage of bit by bit at different times. When I wrote Windows makes real use of Secure Boot, I did so because that was the feature I was talking about. And just because I suspect you might try to confuse things, I used the adjective "real" to distinguish actually deriving advantage from just grudgingly signing a boot loader that then boots unverified code, as RedHat does.

I like GNU/Linux. I do development work on GNU/Linux. I've been using it for over a decade. I still think Windows is excellent software with a number of advantages (and disadvantages). Because I'm an actual engineer not a fucking football fan who wants to wave the flag for some particular company and spread misinformation about other companies' products.

h4rm0ny
Pint

Re: A question

Actually, I was more offended by the fact you had mismatched parentheses characters in your post. ;)

No worries! Have one more on me - it's the weekend. ;)

h4rm0ny

Lets test your counter-argument.

Proposal: "Secure Boot enables the verification of binaries prior to booting of the OS, thus protecting against scenarios where the OS or boot loader itself has been tampered with - of which real attacks exist in the wild today."

Counter-argument: "Saddam has potentially a specially crafted industrial infrastructure driving around in the desert at night, producing chemical weapons!"

Yeah, I'm not really seeing how you've shot down the value of Secure Boot, there. But for comedy value, please do post back here when (not if) GNU/Linux distros start taking real advantage of UEFI's (not MS') technology. I'll look forward to seeing you attack it as pointless a second time. Which of course you will, being a non-partisan type that you are. Right?

h4rm0ny

Re: So what's in it?

I wish MS had the courage of their convictions. I have never needed a minimize button on a Metro app and I can't see why I ever would. I have a keyboard, for Pity's sake. If I want to get back to the Start screen, it's approximately one centimetre away from my left hand at any moment (Windows key). No mouse, no touch screen needed. Just keyboard. Windows 8 works fine with mouse and keyboard. Just some people are very bad with change.

h4rm0ny

Re: A question

>>"Both of them then?"

See, moiety? This is what happens - you make an unprovoked dig at MS users. Someone then responds with a stupid (and tired) dig at GNU/Linux, and the whole community just gets that little bit less interested in the actual technology involved and more like a crowd of drunken football supporters. And the mostly neutral people who just want to discuss actual tech get sucked into a massive waste of time and get called shills for putting down flawed attacks.

h4rm0ny

So what's in it?

Surely El Reg. can ferret out someone who's installed them and report back?

h4rm0ny

Re: I don't have 8.1 desktop around here...

You obviously care to some degree because you clicked on article specifically about Windows 8.1 updates and then bothered to post.

Unreasoning hatred is still caring. ;)

h4rm0ny

Re: A question

>>"Its called a "Joke" this One being for the MicroSoft Shrills out there, that always feel the need to White Knight for their beloved Vendor."

I get accused of being a shill for MS here just for liking a lot of their products, but I've never received any remuneration from MS for my posts and never expect to. So which is worse - someone who genuinely likes technology and defends it where appropriate, or someone who just likes to throw out unprovoked character attacks at others because they like a product?

h4rm0ny
Linux

Re: Brilliant

>>"Windows users - got to love 'em. Clicking "install" with no idea what the consequences will be since the early '90's. This is what you call "job security" if you work in the PC repair field."

The experimental spirit is not confined to GNU/Linux, you know. Back in my SuSE days (6.4), I'd be installing things from any number of websites if it sounded cool. Not to mention my attitude of "that compile flag sounds cool - lets add it!" The true neophile is not constrained by Operating System.

Sony can't wait to flash you its enormous disc ... a 1TB Blu-ray spinner

h4rm0ny

Re: Must be a cruel twist of fate!

LOL at my usual fan who mods down any post of mine they can find, even one that simply says blank Blu-ray media is expensive. :D

What a passive-aggressive individual you are. :)

h4rm0ny

Re: Must be a cruel twist of fate!

I've never even got that far. Every now and then I look online to see if the price of blank Blu-Ray media has fallen to sane levels, find that it's still ridiculously overpriced, and shelve the idea for another six months. I've been doing that for a few years now.

Of course this is for personal use - just backing up my home computer and such, but it's an absurd amount to pay over the cost of blank DVDs. When I bought my Blu-ray drive ages back, I paid a (very) little extra for burning capability. Never got any use out of that. At this rate, I never will.

Bitcoin ban row latest: 'Unstable, loved by criminals' Yup, that's the US dollar – Colorado rep

h4rm0ny

>"BitCoin *is* a fiat currency. A fiat currency is a currency backed by nothing other than faith in the currency itself."

No, a fiat currency isn't tied to a good (such as gold) and can be added to as needed. Bitcoin actually functions as a non-fiat currency. There is a finite number of them that can exist due to the algorithms it is based on. That makes it a de facto non-fiat currency even though its virtual. The US dollar is a fiat currency. At any moment the Federal Reserve can say: "let's make another billion dollars". No-one can do the equivalent with BitCoin.

That's one of the things that greatly amuses me about BitCoin. It's an entirely arbitrary and digital currency that acts as a non-fiat currency whilst all those actual physical bits of paper in your pocket are a fiat currency. People need to update their mental categories to no longer confuse medium of exchange with the thing itself. In all practical ways, BitCoin is a non-fiat currency. Yes, it is valued because of faith in the value of them, but that's not actually what makes a currency fiat. The same can be said of people's faith in gold retaining its value (gold is priced much higher than it would be for purely practical reasons). What makes a currency "fiat" is that you can just make more of it when you choose. That's where the term "fiat" comes from. Like the Latin "fiat lux" means "let there be light". No-one can say "let there be BitCoins". You have to do work to calculate them and when all of them are calculated - that's all folks.

h4rm0ny

Re: History is on Bitcoins side

>>Although a diamond does look prettier than a Bitcoin.

Not to a mathematician.

h4rm0ny

Re: I need to study it more

>>1. why should I value a currency which is not generated based on the market need of my nation?

You can value it if other people value it, essentially. If many are buying and selling things in exchange for BitCoins, then you can see the merit in having some. At present, few are doing so, but this is the end goal of BitCoin proponents. (Well, other than those who are pure speculators).

>>If mining of a BitCoin is analogous to finding a gold rock, are we good paying in gold when buying a bread?

You are correct that a BitCoin is equivalent to finding a gold rock in many ways. BitCoin is interesting in that it is a non-Fiat currency which is entirely virtual. Very amusing. But like your gold rock, it remains non-Fiat. However, unlike the gold rock, it is easily divisible and transferable. With the divisible part being the most significant of those. This makes it more usable as a currency than handing lumps of gold to one another.

Of course there are ways of doing this with gold as well - just have them centrally stored and transfer shares in the gold. Some people do this. If that is your comparison to BitCoins, then it becomes a lot more like it. But if you're comparing to actual gold coins people hand to one another, then its the key differences of easy division and transfer that make BitCoin usable as a currency where gold is not.

Brit Bitcoin dev: I lost 'over £200k' when MtGox popped its socks

h4rm0ny

Re: @ h4rm0ny

>>"he hasnt lost any money, he lost some data blocks"

BitCoin is money, used for buying and selling things. If you genuinely think that because something is represented as numbers on a computer system (such as your bank account) that it cannot be money, then you have a little catching up to do with how things have gone over the last few decades.

Really, there are plenty of valid (and interesting) questions about BitCoin to do with economic management, security and divisibility. Critics who resort to denial of reality just weaken their own position.

h4rm0ny

Re: @ h4rm0ny

>>"And there I was thinking you were correcting my spelling, maybe it's you that needs the English lesson."

Not really. The word was a correctly spelled word, but was the wrong word for what you meant. So it's fine to say I corrected your English, because I did. Besides which, correct spelling is an element of correct English so even if I had been correcting your spelling rather than your choice of words what I wrote would remain correct, Your attempt to try and turn things around and point out a flaw in my own post is pathetic. For someone who so revels in handing out criticism and mockery, the tiniest correction seems to send you into a tail-spin.

h4rm0ny

Re: @ h4rm0ny

>>"Yes, well you see I'm not LOSER enough to painstakingly run letter by letter through my posts because I'm scared some arsehole pedant will find a typo to pick up on."

Well I don't expect you to use the correct word out of fear, more because you have a passable grasp of English. Anyway, you were self-admittedly gloating over someone losing a very substantial amount of money due to software flaws - you really ought to be able to take it when people here correct your English.

h4rm0ny
Headmaster

Re: Nice to see the gloating

>>"Well, if he had been clever and made serious (real) money from bitcoins he wouldn't be sniveling about loosing them all due to his own stupidity now would he? therefore we wouldn't be gloating."

While the image of someone opening the back of their computer and sending hordes of scampering BitCoins out across the fields crying: "You're free now, little BitCoins, Free!", I believe the word you are looking for is "losing".

When mocking someone, particularly when they've just lost (not loost) a lot of money, try not to display a level of English below GCSE level.

h4rm0ny

Re: Asking the police to help for criminal currency...

>>"The whole Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are a huge fraud created by bankers"

Please tell me you're kidding? This requires the same degree of determination to scapegoat that believers in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion require. For one, "bankers" by which I assume you mean influential and rich people in the banking industry and not some conspiracy of branch managers, are not in some global conspiracy to hype and steal Bitcoins. How do I know this? Because even small players in that area are dealing in millions of pounds. Which rapidly becomes tens of millions as you go higher and then to sums that would make your eyes bleed trying to count all the digits. What's the sum value of all Bitcoins? It barely registers on the scale of "bankers".

As to it being some means for bankers to steal money quicker (you mean "more quickly, btw"), that's both ridiculous because of the aforementioned amounts, and because banks don't need to commit fraud to siphon money from you and me. It's called interest rates.

Seriously - it's staggering how little you have thought your conspiracy through.

Bitcoins are what they appear to be - a very clever set of algorithms implemented to create a novel currency which may or may not be able to establish itself long-term but is buoyed up by a combination of optimism and opportunistic speculation. We don't know where it will go, but we're pretty sure where it came from isn't a conspiracy of "bankers".

WHOA: Get a load of Asteroid DX110 JUST MISSING planet EARTH

h4rm0ny

Re: 2014 DX110

>>"30 meter rock and we did not discover it until late February. Yikes."

These, are small. The ones out there, are far away

h4rm0ny

Re: Work?

>>"What is this interesting thing called work that you speak of?"

Tell you what, why don't you prise yourself away from websites and go to something called a "Job Centre". If you have any talent at anything, you'll get to find out.

Even HTTPS can leak your PRIVATE browsing

h4rm0ny

Indeed. Before anyone else leaps on that qualifier and decides it makes this attack a hypothetical, they should remind themselves that this is exactly what HTTPS is for -- cases where people have access to your traffic.

Hundreds of folks ready to sue Bitcoin exchange MtGox

h4rm0ny

>>"Gold is real. It is rather difficult to mine, and somewhat dangerous to purify. Mining VirtCoin is just having the hardware and waiting for the ones and zeros to align properly.

There are a finite number of possible bitcoins and the difficulty of mining them (which translates into real costs of electricity and hardware that deprecates in value) increases with time.

Very fabric of space-time RIPPED apart in latest Hubble pic

h4rm0ny

Re: A war?

I'm not sure they'd need to be that accurate. If I'm throwing a ball I might miss the hoop. But if both ball and hoop are a hundred-thousand lightyears wide, I'm not sure I could miss if I tried.

Child sex abuse image peddlers dodge UK smut filters and demand Bitcoin payments

h4rm0ny
Pint

>>"I'm sorry if I offended you with my (alleged) connection between the price rise and paedophilia. That's not what I intended to say at all, which is the problem with writing on a forum and not discussing face to face. On the contrary in my opinion the recent boom in Bitcoin value is solely down to the Cryptolocker ransomware that made it's first appearance September last year."

I think I picked up the wrong emphasis from your post. I hope you can see how I did that, but my apologies for having a go at you. Thanks for the level and interesting reply.

I find Bitcoin very interesting, but mainly from a technical and economic point of view. I've encountered some very aggressive proponents of Bitcoin recently and they may have primed me to expect it. I think it's very likely we will see something along the lines of Bitcoin long-term. I think on balance of probabilities it wont be Bitcoin but something that is along similar lines. It most likely will be a number of them. But I also expect a lot of those currently interested in it to go away when it loses its value as a speculative investment and also as governments put in place stricter measures to deal with it and regulate it. Which will be good for the currency, but bad for those that view it as sticking it to authority.

h4rm0ny

Thanks for the response. (And no thanks to the person who modded me down for asking a question).

It still seems precarious to me. Essentially it seems to depend on no person or point in the chain being compromised. If they link one wallet to dealing in child porn, presumably they can get a list of all the other wallets that have been linked to it by either giving or receiving money. At that point, they've got a whole web of wallets to investigate and not only could they shut these down, they can track down where one or more of those wallets have transferred Bitcoins to a service that exchanges them for money, they can find other dealers in child porn who consumers have paid for with the same wallet as they purchased elsewhere. And the moment someone is seized for child porn and the investigate the hard drive (or the USB stick), they'll find a matching wallet and that's another end point they can start investigating from.

Essentially, it appears to be a very public web of transfers with the key point of security being that you can't pin any of the nexi in that web to real world locations or people. But actually when you start from the other end (a few locations or people that you have found), that web presents you with a very clear view of how extensive a network is, how much trading and money is involved and helps you pin down where it's been changed to real money. It's valuable information nonetheless which helps any investigation.

All of which is great. I want people to track down child porn and eliminate it. I just don't see that this is a silver bullet to protect paedophiles as some seem to think. Cash would be far better in most ways so long as people trust each other to honour a deal after payment - which is presumably the same as with Bitcoins - you can't cancel a payment in Bitcoins like you can with a credit card.

>>"And now you should be realising why Bitcoin a) keeps increasing in value, b) will continue to increase in value and c) never die."

I really don't think most people involved in Bitcoin are paedophiles nor that the rise in Bitcoin purchase price is because of its use in trading child porn. Or even criminal goods of other kinds. You can buy drugs in any Western city fairly easily with traditional money. Most of the rise in purchase price of bitcoins is because people see it rising and think it will continue to rise and so speculate. I find your suggestions that the sudden rise in Bitcoins is because of people trading in child porn offensive to most people who use it / mine it. You also sound like a real zealot with things like "and that's why it will never die", to be honest. I think only a zealot would have started using child porn dealing as an argument for Bitcoins being valuable.

Labour calls for BIG OVERHAUL of UK super-snoop powers in 'new digital world'

h4rm0ny

Re: What's the cost benefit?

>>"And pedophiles et al wouldn't exist if our society was more open to sexually positive experiences."

Downvote for this piece of stupidity that you ended an otherwise okay post with. Attraction to pre-puberty children you think is a result of society being too sexual repressed? Or you think the perception of attraction to little kids as a problem is the result of society being closed minded? Either way, that's wrong and fucked up.