Posts by Rob Dobs

Yahoo has every right to reject, and probably should too!

@Jason

I disagree the Boards job is to set and abide by the companies mission statement, which states the goals and objectives of the company, this is what investors are buying into, not necessaryily this quarters profits, but a piece of Captial assests, a piece of a company for life. This ALMOST always includes making a return on investment, but not always. Non-profits have boards and their profit is not their main concern of business. The NAACP does not for example oust its board for not maximizing revenues - there is a service to the community that is supposed to superceed that. Even for profit companies have other missions and goals that drawl investors to put their money behind the companies efforts. I know a lot of Microsoft haters will drop Yahoo's web services like a lead zeppelin if they are bought, and many investors would either sell or not buy their stock or product based on this as well. I count myself as one such person.

Further any board can justify their actions in court as forward looking, the very act of building a brand, even though it may be a long money losing venture - can ultimately result in a profitable company. If the board thinks they can make more money for their investors than M$ can offer then M$ really has no business saying otherwise, unless they like looking like a spoiled rich kid who just can't buy being cool. Yahoo thinks they are the best people to run these assests, the fact that they are doing so well M$ wants to force a purchase sounds to me like a solid financial vote of confidence in the current Yahoo board. People who purchased this stock thought the same as well, if they thought M$ was so great well then gee they could have gone and bought M$ stock instead, but they didn't.

Ditto with AC, please don't start using upcoming blogs as a potential bit of news - unitl the blog is out, and its information confirmed - its not news.

I'm thinking of ending cancer tomorrow, but thats not news until I actually DO IT.

I for one welcome our new chinese overlords...

Ugg, another loss to the West in the ongoing cyber war with China and Russia. This program and the targeted campaign, smacks too much of professionalism. Don't kid yourselves people this is not some kid robin hood ready to expose these secrets to Wikileaks, this is chinese govt goons stealing trade secrets, policy etc - the information that these CEO's deal with is way beyong the value of what you could conceivably funnel out of their bank accounts. These 21,k people decide trillions of dollars of busines a day. Chineese govt stands to gain serious advantage in the commerical world markets with such access. .... hello ?wake up people! War going on here - hide your PC's and children

To Amanfrommars :

There already was such a companies, that were only a CEO and bloat - Rambus was one of them, SCO appears to be too. Now Transmeta as well.

I understand James defense of his father - people should not be shocked that this can happen, but I do disagree and think that it is fair to be disapointed. People should know better. When was the last time you received a legal notice, or a collection bill from your ISP or ANYTHING THAT IS IMPORTANT IN ANY WAY FROM ANY COMPANY VIA EMAIL? Never! because it doesn't happen, they will call, and send you something via registerd mail in the U.S. Sure Netflix or your someother company may have some freindly your bill is late type of mails, but no one will ever send legal document via Email - this is not a legal recognized way to deliver such documents - anyone at the C level of a corporation is expected to be of a caliber to know that.

Possible Keylogger conflict?

I can help but wonder if this is the issue. Can anyone that ran into this problem should try running a packet sniffer on their local network to see what kind of traffic is comming out? If a keylogger were installed on the machiine it would have software "hooks" to the input of the keyboard and mice - if a security program were to update its files these "hooks" could get broken.

I'll bet if you scan the forums, this is not only not happening to everybody, its probably not happening to one specific mouse or keyboard brand either. That really leaves some kind of software to account for the common problem after update. If you can't manage packet sniffing and cleanup I would strongly suggest backing up all data and performing a clean install (or take the plunge and try Linux like Ubuntu, Mandriva etc)

Of course there is always an outside chance this is just crappy M$ programming again, but I'm leaning towards keyloggers infected on the afflicted machines. - Cheers

Good idea but,

it might be hard to get the govt to go along with the idea.

Great thing about access lists and BGP blocking is you can do it at the individual/company/isp level. Rogue hackers would relocate, but the threat of governments hiding out in their own countries and protecting illeal activities could be addressed.

Only road is the hard one

There is no easy fix to spam or scammers.

Charging for E-mail is NOT feasible by any reasonable method. User authentication and spoofing prevention would be easier to add to IPv4 IF (big IF) we were to re-write the internet code from the groud up, and would have a better effect. We could no easier decide to start charging for web pages, or charging a penny per packet. These are just not reasonable routes, and for the most part are technically nor legally feasible.

We do have laws on the books in most countries and extradition ability to be able to prosecute these fools whereever they may try to hide. If countries are willing to hide spammers and scammers then the U.N. should set up the emargos and chop the fibre cables coming out of said country. What we are missing is an informed legilature who will create a law enforecement arm, and encourage counterpart agencies to be created in neigbor countries, who are capable of performing packet sniffing and getting quick warrants to trace who is controlling bot nets. This idea of mysterious bot nets is hooey, if ISP and government co-operate it would be easy to find the originaition of a lot internet problems.

Even if actual convictions are low, if we are actively closing and correcting compromised machines it would be an improvement, and if command machines and zombies keep falling we are making their job a lot harder at little cost to us honest folk.

Another necessary factor - a new law that would make it a misdemenor crime for neglectfully operating a broadcast system (PC) on public airwaves (the net). There are already similar laws covering other areas of broadcast (RF, radio, sound, microwaves etcl They are all legislated, if you buy a $1000 radio broadcast device and start blasting the airwaves negligently, (before you learn the basics of how not to be an ass to the rest us), well then you would get a fine, why is a PC and the net any differnet? If you aren't willing to take some basic time to educate yourself and take some reasonable steps to protect your public broadcasting device, then you should pay the fine.

Yes legislation of reasable public safety laws, and then their enforcement doesn't sound like such a sexy quick fix, but it might actually have some effect in the right direction.

The Nitty Gritty

$ and prestige (AKA $ by reputation) was main reason these researchers were involved. Enough already with the ignorant "they did because of this laptop" - all involved would have loved to have hacked all 3 boxes. And even the Day 3 CASH prizes are enough to buy 2 of any of the laptops.

What many are not focusing on is that the contest did NOT allow KNOWN exploits. This is a very skewed contest, narrows it down to just "who can find a new exploit quickest" or "what researcher is sitting on a security vulnerability". Not by ANY means a contest to see which laptop is more secure.

Also it is a very different question to ask "which laptop as configured by the manufacturer is the most secure?" and "Which operating system can reasonably be locked down the most secure, by the majority of users?"

Not saying that either is a better questions, just very different.

I think with known exploits not being allowed, it is very safe to assume that if they had allowed them, ALL 3 laptops would have fallen over in a matter of minutes.

Consider this too - you have a vulnerability, or virus that is currently undetectible.... If you are a hacker this data is much more valuable to you being sold as a hacker service on the black market (and not sharing your trade secrets) why would give up your magic key to everyone else, or worse to have corrected and no longer useable? Only security researchers are really interested in the fix being in place. Hackers are more prone to avoid this type of FBI infested venue and keep thier evil little secrets to themselves.

oh and M$ = Funny and appropriate. It is apt because everyone knows exactly what company is being discusssed and why.

M$ as a corporation have shown an unethical (and often illegal) business model of money over morals time and time again (anyone follow the DOJ trial here on el Reg? - M$ behaved dispicably).

And in regards to the charity donations, yes many people have given a larger % portion of their income than Bill. You also have to ask yourself the "why?" about this one as well. I have ready too many stories about 3rd world countries getting offered malaria and other disease assistance from the M$ (Bill&Melinda) charity - if and ONLY IF their government signs on to use M$ as their official government operating system. It appears to be being used as a sales cudgel to beat people with. I have also heard reference that the M$ charity at one point was making more money on the interest of their holdings (tax free mind you) than it was actually giving out.

And finally - he's just trying to buy popularity. I don't think there is a more hated person in the world (outside the BinLaden/Bush/Cheney circle of hate) it would not suprise me if Bill had to pay his dues so to speak before even his rich chronies would let him come "play" on their playground. And I'm sure his marketing deparment is aware that his negative personality was probably at one point on of the biggest hurdles for M$ marketing to overcome. What better way that to try and turn him into a likeable person. He could have spent the same amount of money buying favor in a lot of ways. I hope that some good does end up coming of it, but I am still waiting for the acutal donations to be spent in a good and unbiased manner. Even more scary is buffet seems to trust him to use his money as leverage as well......shessh!