* Posts by john frey

17 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jul 2007

Botmaster owns up to 250,000 zombie PCs

john frey
Gates Horns

@ Rich

"But I bet the assumption is a locked down box and an IT geeks at the keyboard."

Your ignoring the fact that windows is always compromised very quickly under the same conditions. Yes, there have been proof-of-concept viruses for Linux, so it can be done, but they have never survived in the wild. So you think it's so easy go ahead and do it. Smarter people than you (or me) have assuredly tried it and failed.

Ballmerized Nigerian PCs might run Mandriva after all

john frey
Black Helicopters

sorry David

Those laws are only for poor criminals, don't you know. Not many millionaires on death row and I dare say none serving for the 3 strikes rule either.

Israel suspected of 'hacking' Syrian air defences

john frey

Excellent source

"Earlier reports of the attack were confirmed this week when Israeli Army radio said Israeli planes had attacked a military target "deep inside Syria", quoting the military censor."

...and in other news the White House confirms reports of success in Iraq.

Microsoft-loving (former) security czar calls for closed internet

john frey

Imagination is a wonderful thing

"What if we had a champion in the government who we trusted on privacy rights and civil liberties? What if we had a government advocate with real power to ensure that the government doesn't violate privacy rights."

What if we had a fairy to grant all our wishes? What if pigs could fly? What if this guy actually believes what he's saying?

Microsoft counters VMware insanity with optimistic frown

john frey

tis to laugh

"For one, Microsoft can tweak its operating system to deliver the best possible Windows virtualization experience. You should expect Microsoft's own hypervisor to surpass rivals' software when performing basic slicing of Windows Server."

That may be, but don't hold your breath. And how do we expect MS's hypervisor to work when supporting rival OS's. If we can say not at all, they are losing a big share of the virtualiztion market. People are used to mixing and matching guest OS's on the host. If MS can't do that they are a niche market of a niche market. If they can do it they probably won't perform very well because that would look bad on MS OS's.

"More importantly, Microsoft will enjoy an unmatched distribution model with its hypervisor. Every physical server that ships with Windows Server 2008 will be virtualization-ready. Customers wanting to know what all the virtualization fuss is about will see Microsoft as their most direct path to acquiring the technology."

As opposed to what? x86 servers are all shipping with the cpu virtualization bit already. Linux and Solaris ship with virtualization already built in. Windows shops that want to try virtualization might prefer to try MS solution over VMwares but MS better have windows server 2008 mature on the already delayed shipping date.

Speaking of OEM's, MS too is relying on OEM's to get there virtualization packaged. The hypervisor alone is not enough for virtualization.

Will VMware's sales double forever?

john frey

on time and under budget

2 things that MS does well these days hmmm? I think the 2 year projection would be possible for someone. Not Microsoft.

Xen no longer sees itself in the same arena as VMware so it will be up to 3rd parties to make a nice GUI for Xen virtualization complete with snapshots, cloning, support for Windows guests on Linux hosts and vice versa.

MS will have all that in 2 years. After all the big brains that developed Vista will be focusing on it. Haahaahaahaahaahaahaaaaaa... Oh dear, I need a glass of water please.

Google Adwords dive-bombed by American Airlines

john frey

windows

It's been established in the u.s. courts that MS owns the Windows trademark.

I guess Google better remove all those search results that have anything to do with a product that fits in a hole in my wall and allows me to look out the hole and prevents the wind and rain from coming in through the hole.

Gentoo cuts key parts of itself from net for its own good

john frey

Re:RE: A sad week for Linux

"Most so-called "secure" operating systems or programs suddenly start to become very unsecure when they are popular. Why? Because they become worthwhile targets for reverse engineers, security researchers, and black hats"

Which is exactly why we have so many botnets of Linux w/Apache servers... uh.. erm...

The great Passenger Name Record sell out

john frey

Yankee go home

>But in our crazy foreign policy we spent a lot of money rebuilt Europe, and we

And you negotiated very nice access to those markets and took over management of the western colonial assets in exchange. The idea that it was all an altruistic endeavor might well sold but it was never actually true.

>got democracies going in a place that new only monarcies, dictators and wars for over 10 centuries.

really? what countries would those be? I think all the countries in South and Central America would beg to differ on this one. You know, the places where CIA trained torturers and death squads roamed freely and democratically elected governments are only democratically elected if they are subservient to u.s. interests. You can't actually name a country that was brought democracy by the u.s. can you? You guys are well known for your friendly relations with such esteemed democracies as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel.

>Well, not bad work if you ask me. We even had to straighten out yet another European genocide in Bosnia a few years ago. You guy really can't get your shit together can you?

says the guy from the country who's bombing of Serbia caused more deaths than any so called genocide. It had been well established that there was no genocide and all the refugees were created after NATO forces attacked. Just like Afghanistan and Iraq the military incursions by the u.s. are never helpful and always worse than the cause.

>We are alway to the first country you blame, and also the first country you ask to help you.

now that is a load of hogwash. Most countries in the world would be happy with a little less "help" from you fuckers.

Programmer granted royalties from commissioned software

john frey

another good one...

An officer a gentleman and amanfrommars walk into a bar. Both the officer and the gentleman get their drinks promptly. amanfrommars can't get a drink because no one, including himself I suspect, can understand wtf he is saying.

Well I guess that's useful when you need a designated driver.

Desktop Linux: That dog will mount

john frey

Jeremy Akers article

"Cherry added that the education, Asian government, thin client, call center and embedded markets are "hot, hot, hot." Apparently, Ashlee Vance's writing is poised to take over the world."

OH MY GOD!!!! ...runs screaming for the hills.

Windows Vista unreadiness revealed

john frey

RE:complaints about allowing customers to choose?

"Surely something like this should prompt Microsoft to go out and ask Dell WHY its customers aren't choosing Vista, so that they can address the issues people have. Not just ask them to stop offering the choice."

Of course they don't actually FIX anything when they address the issues. As in politics, the proper way to deal with issues today is to get the spinmeisters out. Rather than fix problems, it's so much better to convince people that what they think is wrong. What they are getting is what they want, they just don't know it yet. That bug you found is a feature! Aren't you glad?

Oracle refutes 'SSH hacking' slur

john frey

What a cynical bunch

I suddenly feel so at home after reading the above comments. My immediate reaction to the "story" was disbelief. Now I know I'm not alone. :-)

We definitely need more information to make this story even slightly believable.

Mum given young nympho's phone number

john frey

A long time ago in Canada

Well not so long ago. I still have the same number.

So I had this new phone# and after about 6 months I started getting calls for a produce distributor. My number and their's were off by one digit. Most people were calling to get eggs delivered.

I talked to the phone company and there was nothing they could do. So I called the company and asked if, perhaps, they had published the wrong number on some letterhead or business cards. I had, after all, had the number for 6 months before getting any of their calls. A receptionist assured me, in an awestruck voice, that this was a very big company and she was sure they couldn't have done anything like that.

Well that was so clearly ludicrous I gave up on trying to negotiate anything with the company right then and there. If the receptionist was any indication they were clearly all a bunch of fools.

To this day I enjoy the odd call from one of their customers and I take great pleasure in being spontaneous and letting my feelings out. Sometimes I'm just plain rude, others I just hang up the phone with no response, sometimes the company has gone out of business or I can't understand their accent. One fellow phoned one time with a long and involved story about a delivery of eggs that came with some broken eggs. After listening to this heartrending story and the guy almost pleading to have some eggs replaced I told him he obviously thought he was talking to someone who gives a shit.

That was particularly cruel and heartless and I don't think I've ever topped that one. It was during a particularly bad period when a 5:00 or 5:30 AM call could be counted on 2 or 3 times a week.

Somewhere along the line the calls started to drop off dramatically. I'm not sure what caused it. It couldn't have been the company. They're so big that God is a client and he makes sure everything they do is as immaculate as the virgin birth. Regardless, the calls dropped off and I only get about 10 or 20 a year now.

Cloak and dagger Chinese firm tells Google to change its name

john frey

Even!!!

"Even to the extent of jamming Voice of America"

Given that VoA is nothing more than a propaganda network I don't see what is surprising about jamming them. How many Communist Party of China radio stations are going in the u.s.? That's right, none.

Hell they won't even allow Havana to broadcast to Florida. Freedom of speech is only for approved broadcasters.

john frey

The News

here is that Baidu has such strong marketshare. I note that Baidu abides by China's censorship laws. It appears the Chinese don't have the a problem with the Chinese government censoring the net that others like, oh... say, u.s'ers for example.

Imagine that. A culture with different values. Whoda thunk.

'Suspicious looking' man hauled off translatlantic flight

john frey

You have more chance

of being struck by lightning than being the victim of a terrorist attack, yet I don't hear people screaming blue murder to eliminate lightning. The difference is greater by many orders of magnitude if you compare the chance of being killed by a car with falling victim to a terrorist attack. Stroke, alcohol, tobacco, heart disease, cancer, diabetes. These will kill you. Terrorism doesn't even make a blip on the chart.

I'm personally more frightened of crossing the u.s. border than I am of some suicide bomber or WMD,s from some 3rd world country.

When you hear your politicians warning you of dire threats to your health and well being take a good look.l I swear you can see their lips moving.