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For those that don't know me that well, I work for a major media company. We ran this story in print only in our starter edition of the Post. Our final in print had the article replaced by an advertisement. I believe it is of concern to those of us that believe in freedom of innovation.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E32540%257E2835936,00.html?search=filter#
Your thoughts?
Cheers!
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E32540%257E2835936,00.html?search=filter#
Your thoughts?
Cheers!
Good god. The rest of the article is sort of inconsequential, but the last bit about the "security chip" really ticks me off. What do they think they're going to accomplish, halting most if not all of the hacking and reverse engineering that's pretty much driven all major software production over the years? Orwellian is right. I feel sorry for the kids I'll have one day, if they have to live with this crap.
hmmmmm
Thats interesting.
That has a great deal of potential for abuse,but my biggest concern is that they are talking about having the operating system dependent on a chip built into the motherboard. Does this mean that in order to use longhorn we will have to buy a microsoft approved computer??? will you only be able to get the OS pre-installed on a NEW computer?
After all, if they're going to have a chip in the comp that the OS needs, whats to keep them from making it a hardware security key for the OS to prevent people from reusing a copy of the OS that they allready own, I've replaced just my motherboard and case a couple of times rathar than buy a whole new system.
If the OS is dependent on a specific ship, custom key'd to that OEM number for the OS.. welll
talk about killing free enterprise.
Can we say.. monopoly?
Thats interesting.
That has a great deal of potential for abuse,but my biggest concern is that they are talking about having the operating system dependent on a chip built into the motherboard. Does this mean that in order to use longhorn we will have to buy a microsoft approved computer??? will you only be able to get the OS pre-installed on a NEW computer?
After all, if they're going to have a chip in the comp that the OS needs, whats to keep them from making it a hardware security key for the OS to prevent people from reusing a copy of the OS that they allready own, I've replaced just my motherboard and case a couple of times rathar than buy a whole new system.
If the OS is dependent on a specific ship, custom key'd to that OEM number for the OS.. welll
talk about killing free enterprise.
Can we say.. monopoly?
my biggest concern, well actualy point i intend to laugh at windows users over (i'm a mac man myself) is the fact that this os will force everyone who uses windows to buy a new machien. the os wouln't run on any machien without the security chip, and given windows' history of non backwerd compatability i doubt that you will be able to use old versions of windows for long.
ha ha ha, bow before the conviniance and forthought that is synonamous with Mac OS
ha ha ha, bow before the conviniance and forthought that is synonamous with Mac OS
The rather ironic thing is that they may very well be shooting themselves in the foot with this one. It's possible that if this becomes a trend, they'll lose their most innovative and skilled developers. All those kids who would have grown up tinkering with Windows are now going to grow up tinkering with Linux and Mac OS.
/Me hugs his Powermac.
MMmmmmm Tiger tomorrow. :D
MMmmmmm Tiger tomorrow. :D
I Love My MAC More and More Every Day...
"If you had to take one area where we put the most investment in, the security area would be the head of that list by a significant amount"
*snicker*
translation: "We need security."
How I love/hate corporate speak.
But as for the Mac comments, add 1 more to the list. Maybe it's a bad thing to do (luckily I don't work at Apple, in that case), but I don't take Longhorn seriously. I've resorted to calling it "Longtime" instead. Or, now, Long-but-stunted-growth-horn.
/me has fun poking at windows.
*snicker*
translation: "We need security."
How I love/hate corporate speak.
But as for the Mac comments, add 1 more to the list. Maybe it's a bad thing to do (luckily I don't work at Apple, in that case), but I don't take Longhorn seriously. I've resorted to calling it "Longtime" instead. Or, now, Long-but-stunted-growth-horn.
/me has fun poking at windows.
To the Mac freaks amongst you, what makes you think that you're safe? Why wouldn't this become an industry standard?
Regarding "tinkering" (aka Hacking, cracking, etc), good, now all you alternate O/S users will know the joy of viruses and spyware.
Welcome to our world. :-p
Regarding "tinkering" (aka Hacking, cracking, etc), good, now all you alternate O/S users will know the joy of viruses and spyware.
Welcome to our world. :-p
Hahaha, that's a good point, Paedric. I hadn't thought of that! Now I don't know how to feel... :p excited because of a larger community with which to work, disappointed because of the influx of inexperienced users but experienced whiners, excited because of a larger software support, or disappointed because of the increase in viri and spyware.
Oh well. We'll just have to see!
Oh well. We'll just have to see!
Linux and Mac OS X do not have fewer viruses because they are less popular. They have fewer viruses because writing a Windows virus is ridiculously easy.
A few days after my school lab upgraded the OS on all the machines, I (for fun) wrote a virus that starts up 255 instances of Notepad on all infected computers every 1 hour. It took about 2 minutes, and required nothing more than Notepad itself. It stayed there until I manually removed it from all the machines it had spread to.
-:sigma.SB
A few days after my school lab upgraded the OS on all the machines, I (for fun) wrote a virus that starts up 255 instances of Notepad on all infected computers every 1 hour. It took about 2 minutes, and required nothing more than Notepad itself. It stayed there until I manually removed it from all the machines it had spread to.
-:sigma.SB
So that's what you and your hacker friends have been doing on channel 203 Solra. Been wondering.
Why write viruses for Linux or Mac? They are fringe O/S's and, statistically speaking, these viruses wouldn't affect many people. If you want to affect the greatest number of people and cause the greastest disruption, you go after the biggest O/S on the block. Simple logic. If Linux or Mac had a bigger market shares, I guarantee we would start to see more of you "tinkering" types gleefully working to make life miserable for those users also.
Too bad that these "tinkering" types can't do something useful with their lives. But, they do keep me employed so I guess I can't complain too much.
Why write viruses for Linux or Mac? They are fringe O/S's and, statistically speaking, these viruses wouldn't affect many people. If you want to affect the greatest number of people and cause the greastest disruption, you go after the biggest O/S on the block. Simple logic. If Linux or Mac had a bigger market shares, I guarantee we would start to see more of you "tinkering" types gleefully working to make life miserable for those users also.
Too bad that these "tinkering" types can't do something useful with their lives. But, they do keep me employed so I guess I can't complain too much.
Whoa, sweet! What does Paedric do for a living?
Paedric is a computer tech, which means that Paedric gets to clean up the mess and put the pieces back together after these "tinkering" types get finished "tinkering".
Hmm. Have you read Takedown by Tsutomu Shimomura? Is that the sort of computer tech job that you mean? Even if it's not...read the book anyway. It's a fantastic read.
Yeah, I've made a decent amount clearing off viruses (usually Blaster) and spyware from clients' computers... Anywho, Linux and OS X are inherently more secure than Windows, so I don't think it's just a numbers game. IIRC, the last Mac virus to do any damage was a boot sector virus for System 7.
Couple quick points:
1. The "Palladium"/NGSCB tech that Microsoft is trying to push is marketted as increasing security for users, so that they can "Trust" their computers. There are elements of it that can be used this way, basically by building things like checksums for applications into the hardware. This would either warn the user when they attempt to run an app which does not match a checksum on the security chip, or prevent them from doing so.
This is where the less friendly goal of "Trusted Computing" comes in. By preventing the user from running any program, or even viewing/listening to any media that does not have a matching key on that chip and in the publisher's servers, nothing can be used on your computer unless Microsoft or the Big Media Companies are OK with it. This version of "Trusted Computing" ensures that the media publishers can trust their users to have paid for their software and content as many times as they feel is necesary. Definitely Orwellian.
2. Saying that a virus written for Linux/Unix based operating systems would do no damage is not exactly true. Linux and Unix are used on far more web, mail and DNS servers than any other OS. Hitting these systems would do massive damage to the Internet infrastructure. However, this would require writing a virus which does not require user intervention to spread. The biggest factor behind the spread of Windows viruses and trojan horses is the user. Many viruses require the user to click on a link, open an email, or download and run a program to gain access to the system. Also, they rely on the user having full access to all areas of the system without any checks in place to prevent the virus from modifying system files.Unix-based operating systems (Including MacOS X) do not by default allow a user to do so without first confirming that they have administrative access.
Microsoft's push for Trusted Computing hardware has been in the works for a long time. Hopefully, it will not be successful in the way that the media companies hoped. I for one don't like the idea of all computing hardware essentially turning into an overpowered game console that we have to rent from Microsoft and Hollywood.
1. The "Palladium"/NGSCB tech that Microsoft is trying to push is marketted as increasing security for users, so that they can "Trust" their computers. There are elements of it that can be used this way, basically by building things like checksums for applications into the hardware. This would either warn the user when they attempt to run an app which does not match a checksum on the security chip, or prevent them from doing so.
This is where the less friendly goal of "Trusted Computing" comes in. By preventing the user from running any program, or even viewing/listening to any media that does not have a matching key on that chip and in the publisher's servers, nothing can be used on your computer unless Microsoft or the Big Media Companies are OK with it. This version of "Trusted Computing" ensures that the media publishers can trust their users to have paid for their software and content as many times as they feel is necesary. Definitely Orwellian.
2. Saying that a virus written for Linux/Unix based operating systems would do no damage is not exactly true. Linux and Unix are used on far more web, mail and DNS servers than any other OS. Hitting these systems would do massive damage to the Internet infrastructure. However, this would require writing a virus which does not require user intervention to spread. The biggest factor behind the spread of Windows viruses and trojan horses is the user. Many viruses require the user to click on a link, open an email, or download and run a program to gain access to the system. Also, they rely on the user having full access to all areas of the system without any checks in place to prevent the virus from modifying system files.Unix-based operating systems (Including MacOS X) do not by default allow a user to do so without first confirming that they have administrative access.
Microsoft's push for Trusted Computing hardware has been in the works for a long time. Hopefully, it will not be successful in the way that the media companies hoped. I for one don't like the idea of all computing hardware essentially turning into an overpowered game console that we have to rent from Microsoft and Hollywood.
cygwin@teto9000 sbizna ~$ cat /dev/urandom | head -n 1 | cut -b 32768- > bogus.avi
cygwin@teto9000 sbizna ~$ wmplayer bogus.avi
(up pops a message box:)
The file you are trying to play is not in SuperBigComputingChain's database, so it's illegal. A SWAT team has been dispatched, please remain at your computer.
-:sigma.SB
cygwin@teto9000 sbizna ~$ wmplayer bogus.avi
(up pops a message box:)
The file you are trying to play is not in SuperBigComputingChain's database, so it's illegal. A SWAT team has been dispatched, please remain at your computer.
-:sigma.SB
Hah, sweet. I just wrote a speech on this for school.
Ok, to you people who think that mac/*nix systems are mores secure because there are less people on them, you are wrong. Lets take a look at an area where more people DO use *nix: webservers. How many apache viruses vs how many WinDOS server viruses are there?
Also, about the checksums, if they were embedded in the chip, then they cannot be really updated. If they can't be updated, what happens WHEN someone finds a way to generate a collision by appending stuff to some part of the program that doesn't do anything, in effect letting trojans get right past again? Another update (and another checksum to crack)? I think its more or less a BS idea. Might as well just store apps on ROM inside the computer. Not to mention the other downsides of the "security chip".
Also, about the checksums, if they were embedded in the chip, then they cannot be really updated. If they can't be updated, what happens WHEN someone finds a way to generate a collision by appending stuff to some part of the program that doesn't do anything, in effect letting trojans get right past again? Another update (and another checksum to crack)? I think its more or less a BS idea. Might as well just store apps on ROM inside the computer. Not to mention the other downsides of the "security chip".