There's an inverse relationship between the cost of software (including software included with hardware, like industrial devices), and the quality of that software.

"Enterprise" software is widely regarded as crap, but the software on expensive industrial machines is probably even worse.

What I'm getting from this is that Ulbricht should have incorporated :P

-Rick

And if her were tried and convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, then you would have a point.

But he wasn't. He wasn't even charged with it.

-Rick

> brats who think writing a crappy web page is the same thing as writing a desktop application.

Yeah unlike desktop developers, any decent web developer KNOWS that their code will be attacked all the time, and designs it appropriately. Unlike desktop developers who throw shit on the internet (like Skype) without considering the fact that it's accepting input from unknown sources, including malicious sources.

Oh wait, you were saying that desktop developers who have never had any reason to think about security are better somehow, weren't you?

Well, a T-rex was a large meat eater ... so I'm thinking bear or wolf might be better guesses.

And I gather as a rule large meat eaters don't make for good eating.

That would seem pretty unlikely to anyone that thinks about it since I have taken a pretty consistent stand against Russian aggression and Soviet Communism.

And that's another talking point Putin would probably want discredited. So it's perfectly consistent with you being on Kremlin's payroll.

In case you aren't, I suggest you take a long hard look at what kind of service you're actually doing to your country.

Ah yes, the infamous "authoritarianism" of limited government.

Limited government? As far as I can tell, your ideal is the exact opposite: a government not bound by any rules, laws or ethics whatsoever, trusted with limitless power over its own citizens and everyone else, wielded with no oversight or regard for consequences.

Or are you confusing the ability of a free people to defend themselves with authoritarianism?

No, I simply don't think that people who are being spied on by their government are free. And frankly, I don't think Americans control the American Government anymore. I don't think anyone does. The whole thing acts too much like an animal reacting to its instincts, with no rational will at charge. That's what happens when you let an organization escape human control, and why non-democracies typically require a single strong leader who can force at least some of his will on them. Democracies make do with the voters giving feedback, but that fails if the organization gains power over them, for example with a total, paranoid surveillance system.

I would argue that a failure to catch an un-enumerated exception is neither correctness, nor keeping it running.

However, I've heard the argument about the elegance and beauty of letting it crash because it's a real defect which should be identified ... I just disagree that an ungraceful failure is the way to do it.

I hope the people writing self-driving cars don't have the idiotic mindset that if they haven't enumerated the error it should be allowed to fail spectacularly.

The reality is, in the real world when software doesn't fail gracefully, some smug idiot of a developer who said you shouldn't catch things you didn't anticipate isn't there to clean up his mess. So his damned "correctness" becomes an aesthetic thing which is useless.

That's just defective by design, because either your design is 100% perfect and infallible, or it's pretty and elegant but is a crash waiting to happen.

Reality seldom conforms to the pre-planned expectations of the guys who built the product.

"Correctness" isn't correct if it can't account for incomplete correctness. It's lazy and ideological.

Now you know once and for all, dinosaurs taste like .... Chicken!

What would be really interesting is to know how the family tree shakes out and what our domestic chicken used to be. It could have been a T-Rex, Triceratops, or a raptor. Of course, it could have been something else all together. Either way, it would be fun to think about each time you visit KFC.

LOL ... it gets better and better.

Of the zillions of places where Microsoft parses URLs, across all their platforms and products, you can completely hose the install of something with 8 characters.

One wonders if there are any other places which will keel over and die by simply putting that in.

The mind reels with incredulity and glee.

Shadenfreude, it's not just for breakfast any more!!

That such problems as basic as incorrectly typed URLs could break Skype is beyond understanding.

I don't think it's beyond understanding. Not even a little.

Microsoft has always been pioneers of the "let's try to embed 'smarts' in stuff to make it cooler and friendlier to use" kind of thing.

Autorun on media, for instance has caused a lot of problems with things like viruses and rootkits.

Hell, Microsoft pioneered the technology which meant you could get a virus without opening the attachment of an email -- and up until then people had been saying "no, you can't get a virus simply from clicking on the email unless you run the attachment". Then Microsoft went straight to running the attachment and proved them wrong.

Microsoft tries so hard to coat the world in eye candy and do things for the user that they often go straight to the "well, you clearly want me to run that".

So in this case it probably went "ZOMG, teh URL" and jumped to running some code.

I have found over the years Microsoft's zeal to have dynamic, flashy content often means they create things which make for terrible robustness.

Like their widgets and live desktop stuff they've now had to deprecate on no less than three different platforms that I'm aware of because it was a giant security hole.

They put in a feature which says "wow, we'll just run this stuff because it's awesome", only to run smack into the wall of "but it's also dangerous".

Crashing is one thing.

Parsing input data sufficiently badly as to require an uninstall? That's pretty epic.

Good job guys!!

I'm not even sure I've heard of an error condition which required a full uninstall.

I predict many people will be sending that string today. I also predict someone will attempt to charge the people sending it with criminal hacking.

Keep up the good work.

You know, it probably still shows up in a lot of searches.

There's quite possibly people out there who have known it long enough that they still trust it.

If you're following this stuff, you know about it. But it's surprising how long it can take from when a company starts being shady and when everybody stops trusting them.

From the sounds of it, Sourceforge will be able to coast on their reputation for some time before they go away, if at all.

And what's worse is FAR too many politicians are willing to follow along with them and say "well, as long as you're doing it for profit that's OK".

It really is time to stop pretending that anything corporations do must be good, and start putting real checks and balances on what they can do to us and our information.

But, of course, since they all give massive amounts of money to the politicians, and many of the politicians are also greedy bastards who have huge stakes in large corporations, they're never going to do that.

So the asshole company who acts like a bank except where there are regulations they ignore, is going to be the asshole company who gives itself and its asshole affiliates the right to call or spam you because they say so?

I'm sorry, but what the hell are these clowns thinking?

The sheer arrogance of that is mind boggling. And this whole shit of "see, we have terms of service, we can do anything we want" is just crap.

Tell you what, PayPal, our terms of service say we can tar and feather you before the castration and lynching.

Once again, I am reminded of the many reasons why I would never deal with this company. A bunch of shady, self-entitled weasels.