* Posts by Kradorex Xeron

21 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Dec 2007

Facebook accused of 'wanton' use of Canadian woman's pics

Kradorex Xeron

Terms and Conditions and the law

There is a large difference between any contract and the law itself. Facebook's terms can be fully lawful in their "home country" (the US) but in another country, that contract could be deemed unlawful or unconscionable and therefore null and void in that country — and to do business in another country, you have to abide by that country's laws.

I am sick and tired of people who believe that just because you agree to a contract, that the contract is somehow made untouchable. Facebook reserves the right to change their terms, yes but even new terms have to be reasonable and lawful.

A contract is not an automatic pass to do whatever one wants.

Governments mull net censorship grab

Kradorex Xeron

Re: Acceptability?

I agree, in addition, non-US governments may find the US-centric ".gov", ".edu" and ".mil" offensive and may start demanding these registries open up to their usages to international usage. I wonder what ICANN and US Government reaction of this will be.

This is a dangerous line ICANN walks.

BBC botnet investigation turns hacks into hackers

Kradorex Xeron

Legal measures exhausted

As far as I'm concerned, I see all "legal avenues" as exhausted as for taking these botnetted systems offline. Most ISPs in which these botnetted systems are connected to don't pay attention to their own networks and there are no laws put in place allowing the systems to be forcibly removed from the public internet by "good citizen action", and until these systems are actually taken offline forcibly, albeit through attacking said systems or otherwise, the owners of these systems will continue not to care.

You can warn users only so much, and most users won't care that their system is infected until you render their service (or computers) unusable and provide them no alternative but to clean their systems up.

In my opinion: Ignorance is not an excuse for having an infected machine, botnets have been an issue for well over a decade now, if you claim ignorance to having an infected machine, you shouldn't even own or run a computer.

Apple shares MacBook break-in tips

Kradorex Xeron

Batteries

Nearly every laptop I've encountered has a swappable battery - many even hotswappable as long as you're on AC. It's ludicrous that one has to take a laptop into the shop to get a battery replaced.

With many PC laptops, it's usually just a couple of lock switches and it slides out. 0 screws. You can then take the battery to the shop and get a new one, and even if they don't have a new battery immediately, you can still run your laptop on AC meanwhile.

Whereas with Apple laptops as it seems, You have to take the whole unit into the shop and have your laptop inaccessible while you wait for it to be "repaired" whereas if it was properly designed, you could self-replace the battery.

This isn't an operating system or platform debate. this is a practical design debate.

Apple should start taking enterprise servers seriously

Kradorex Xeron
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Apple isn't for business

The closest Apple gets to being business-class is media editing platforms for audio and video production, beyond that, There's not much more. Apple hasn't really penetrated business because as it seems, most of Apple's future vision are based mainly on rumors that have "leaked". You can't market rumors to a business-type, there has to be a viable road map, especially for backend \ systems where the price tag has to be outweighed by the power of the system.

Apple should stay away from big business and stick with personal machines and media editing systems when it comes to computing.

Exam board to hear appeal over format cockup

Kradorex Xeron
Stop

Ugh..

They mention "Excel"/"xls" AND "PowerPoint"/"ppt" in their list, surely they should accept something else created by MS Office. This is just ludicrous nitpicking by Edexcel.

Sure, I could see not accepting something created by a word processor nobody's heard of but in this case, it's a mainstream format utilized by hundreds of businesses, schoolboards, universities, colleges and other organizations.

Apple eats video editing jobs

Kradorex Xeron

@Inverted snobbery

Apple is a monopoly just like Microsoft - Apple, a corporation (like Microsoft) wants to brutally crush or take over any opposition who tries to enter the markets it is in. Look at Apple's 'stores': Only "Apple-approved" stuff makes it there with no appeal to be had if it gets rejected. Furthermore, Apple locks out "Non-Authorized" developers for their mobile platforms.

It's just articles around here haven't been saturated by Steve Jobs' saint/god complex and people aren't used to Apple getting shots taken at it.

PC virus forces three London hospitals into computer shutdown

Kradorex Xeron

Windows vs Unix-based

To everybody advocating $OS_OF_PREFERENCE: You're advocating for the wrong reasons, let's analyse:

Most Windows software is coded by programmers that assume if it works on their machines in which they have admin privledges, it will work on all environments. Thus users have to have admin privs in order to use that said software.

It's not Microsoft (or Windows) at fault here, it's the vendors that push programs that force that privliledged access that their programs "need" due to lazy programming.

WD Caviar Black 1TB vs Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB

Kradorex Xeron

Bleah

Western Digital drives are more dependable in the longterm - Sure, you may get more performance and capacity out of the Seagate, but the WD I bet you will last far longer. Ever since about 2001-2003, Seagate drives have gone downhill in quality in the longterm. They operate exceedingly well when you first get them, but I've seen Seagate disks fail. just *FAIL* for no clear reason. When replaced with a WD in the same operating conditions, the WD lasted far longer.

Apple ups the ante in Psystar battle

Kradorex Xeron

Apple wants their cake...

...and to eat it as well.

Apple are as many others are stating a MONOPOLY. Let's go down the list of reasons:

1. Apple is saying essentally "You can't install our motor in your generic car." Absolutely no car manufacturer does this. so all analogies in reference to this are flawed.

2. Apple claims their OS will not run on non-apple hardware, Psystar has proven this incorrect and has proven Apple to be liars.

3. Apple is attempting to cause vendor lock-in, and is trying to prevent other vendors from even getting anywhere near the Apple market by citing EULAs and NDAs.

Apple is in itself a market. Apple refuses to refer to their machines as PCs and therefore segregating themselves from the PC market. Yet they want to hypocritically compete within the PC market.

Want, Eat. Cake. etc.

A question to Apple fanboys: If Microsoft did the exact same thing as Apple does with one machine can only run their OS, what would your position be on that? Would you call Microsoft monopolists (thus calling your own Apple a monopoly as well)?

Hi-tech cops lose their website

Kradorex Xeron
Stop

CIRA

Why don't more Registries do as CIRA does? Lock the domain for 30 days after expiration so nobody but the original registrant can pay for it. After that 30 days, the domain is then released into the public pool again. During this 30-day period the domain is "offline" as CIRA flicks the nameservers off at the CIRA roots to gain the attention of the registrant.

Currently, .org, .com, .net, etc have the issue where the very hour the domain expires someone else can run in and scoop it up, And as it stands, these someones are usually squatters.

Apple's MobileMe plays into hands of spammers

Kradorex Xeron

The setup and lack of need for indexes

I'm presuming the accounts are setup something like this:

http://idisk.example.com/~username/ (I don't know the exact url) where username is also the email address for the user. simply scraping the internet for such urls would bypass the need for some form of an index of all the idisk accounts. However, it wouldn't surprise me if there is some form of an index somewhere as well.

DARPA plans soldier-tagging system for US troops

Kradorex Xeron

New mines

I can just see them now, Mines that will blow the US troops up, but leave civilians (and the talaban's own) alone

Microsoft urges Windows users to shun 'carpet bombing' Safari

Kradorex Xeron

Re: Input admin password

Most everyday users DO NOT CARE about the OS itself, they know it can be simply reinstalled or patched up, HOWEVER. if I were an attacker going for maximum destruction, I would go for the user's own files first, as malware doesn't need a system administrative password under any OS to do anything with the current user's files.

Rogue MP3 Trojan streaks across P2P networks

Kradorex Xeron

DRM?

I have a vague feeling that DRM is to blame to the success of this outbreak. DRM sometimes requires an application to run alongside that mp3 to authorize the computer and/or decode the mp3, people have come accustomed to running said applications to play the mp3s. Most of these people who run this 'exe' file are not technically inclined and don't know when to draw the line between DRM and a virus nowadays.

We now have a situation where people no longer CAN know the difference if an MP3 will play without this exe because of what the studios and corporates with their own DRM have caused.

Soon enough if DRM is allowed to continue going out of control like this, we will get situations where nobody, not even the IT people will know when some "DRM player", "DRM system authorizer", etc is really a virus. Refer to the Sony rootkit incident for example, people didn't know that sony was installing something akin or worse(?) than a virus with this system until it was months into the situation.

Do we really know what Windows Media player does behind the scenes nowadays? Do we really know what iTunes/Quicktime does behind the scenes nowadays? Do we really know what ANY DRM-enabled player does behind the scenes nowadays? I wager not, and of course, the source code cannot be released for review due to the fact corporates forbid it as it would release their "trade secrets", which there are laws protecting.

Until DRM is totally eliminated, this problem will just escalate.

Fujifilm bugs backup tapes with LoJack device

Kradorex Xeron

Shipping

In addition to the aforementioned points, if the data is all that sensitive: DON'T SHIP IT VIA POST. Mail gets lost all the time, hire a specialized shipping company to do it, it may cost more, but it's alot more likely to get to it's target destination. But unfortunately, due to the fact most organizations where data is most sensitive being so penny-pinching, this scenario is unlikely to ever happen in The Real World.

Mac is the first to fall in Pwn2Own hack contest

Kradorex Xeron

@Misleading.

It was a known exploit as per the contest rules, and it having been a known exploit would have been worked on for a long time beforehand, just an opportunity arose to use that research.

As well as this was in a controlled environment as to allow the rules to be followed, it's true in real-world situations, that such rules don't exist, but this was a contest to determine which platform could be compromised via *known* exploits, if you were to perform this contest on the internet, people would use unknown exploits no doubt, therefore invalidating the contest.

Overall, this contest is a good display at how proactive the different platforms are in creating patches for *individual* *known* exploits.

Three questions for the Jesus SDK

Kradorex Xeron
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Going backwards in technology?..

The iPhone has the capability to act in part as an entire mobile computer. However, multitasking has been restricted by the manufacturer (Apple), rendering the computer portion useless, as many people wish to perform tasks, then if interrupted, tend to the interruption and go back to their task.

It's true it's a phone, however, once the manufacturer begins implementing other things, it becomes not just a phone at that point, but whatever the manufacturer has made it. in this case, a mobile palmtop computer. the only component that sets it as a phone is the cell chipset. it has all the signs of a computer, memory, local storage, on-screen user interface. processor.

I'm no apple 'fanboi' but don't get me wrong, The iPhone is good as a concept, it just wasn't implemented to it's full potential and properly.

Samsung laptop battery burns

Kradorex Xeron
Unhappy

Erm

Apposed to popular belief, the CPUs are no longer the *hottest* component of a laptop -- the chipsets nowdays get extremely hot, however, alot of economy laptops do not monitor chipset thermals and instead, focus on the CPU thermals when the CPU gets enough airflow, however, the chipset gets next to none because it's stuck on the underside of the unit which often case, is always covered. That's why on some laptops, the area above the touchpad gets extremely warm, that's not the CPU, that's the chipset getting no real air circulation, potentially overheating.,.

Until laptops can optimize the thermals with components not around the CPU or near any heatsinks with proper airflow, laptops should NOT be made any thinner like they are.

Sure, the components are designed to take the thermals, however, surfaces (including people) that laptops are placed on cannot. I've had laptops sitting on a thick wooden desk that when you put your hand on the underside of the desk, you can feel the bleed of the heat. This is unacceptable and laptops designs should be re-evaluated.

Brighton professor bans Google

Kradorex Xeron

Internet vs Book research

Universities and such don't really teach real life skills required for the workforce, and that is to be prompt, getting information quickly, and efficiently. instead, they insist students take hours upon hours researching ONE item. If you were to do that in the workforce, you'd get fired for being tardy on your research data.

Universities and other educational institutes should NOT impose bans, but rather indicate the REAL repercussions of using the potentially iffy source (i.e. you can use $website, but your work will only be seen as credible as the source). Banning only makes things worse as far as this is concerned as it prevents people from using available resources in their educational work.

As it seems, Universities are bubble-wrapping students into not thinking on their own and mindlessly writing essays that are to a very specific wordlength and to a very specific type style. in doing this, they are actually piping out students who know alot of the subject at hand, but no real practical application in the real world to present it to employers, thus no employer would in their right mind hire them as said in a few of the posts stated previously.

Canadian cable giant slips Yahoo! name onto Google home page

Kradorex Xeron
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Ridiculous... no notification needed!

Okay, people don't need to be told when they're about to hit their transfer limits, it just promotes laziness, waiting until they get notified before they backpedal on their usage.

ANY user of ANY internet connection should keep an eye on their transfer themselves to see if they're doing any outrageous transfers. It should not be the ISP's responsibility to notify users of going overboard on transfer. Any ISP ToS/AUPs should state that it is strictly up to the subscriber to keep an eye on their own usage.

This is just a weak excuse to insert content into other pages. Soon enough these "notifications" will carry ads. Oh, wait, they do! the branding.