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Comment Re:Daft Question (Score 1) 192

There are a lot of libraries. Some of them are simple, and some aren't. Most developers probably don't know which library would be easiest to drop in. So, it's easiest for them to just use the md5() function or something like that. Especially because library developers usually have no sense of when their library is simple or when it's complex.

I can't tell you how many times I've just implemented something for which a library already existed. And it probably took longer than using the library would have, but I feel like I gained a better understanding of the procedures in question.

Comment But they will eventually be caught. (Score 2) 79

And every time they're caught, the app will be pulled, uninstalled from people's handsets, and if the people want to continue malicious activity, they will need to pay another dev fee to make a new account and continue putting malware on the store. Malware authors typically operate on small margins from what I have read (no convenient sources, please if you have one post it), so the break-even point might be high enough that they can't make money on it.

It reminds me of an anti-spam solution proposed years and years ago: Make a new email system in which it costs a penny to send an email. This is low enough that normal users don't care, but high enough that spammers' conversion rates of 1/12,000,000 (from Wikipedia) aren't enough to let them keep spamming for V14GR4.

Comment Summary of TFA . . . (Score 1) 194

Attackers broke an old form of security which has been relatively trivially patched. This is actually good for Microsoft, because (ideally) now they will review all of their old authorized keys and determine which would be easier to generate. So it's not like Microsoft included their Private Key in plaintext in some code somewhere, or anything like that.

Comment Google is Double-talkin' (Score 1) 99

A lot of people are having trouble with this article because Google is having to do very Political things in this case.

Google engineers know for damn sure why the connections are being reset. But if they say that explicitly, the Chinese government will rambunctiously cuddle them. Google has already had troubles in the past with the Chinese government. So, what google has done here is said, "Oh no, there's something out of our control. If you do this search then your connection will be reset."

Note the usage of the passive voice there. Google is saying and pretending to believe one thing, while doing another. It's necessary, but unfortunate.

Comment The appropriate response to this comment. (Score 0, Offtopic) 221

About eight months ago, I was searching around the internet to find out why my computer was running so slowly (it normally ran quite fast, but had gradually gotten slower over time). After a few minutes, I found a piece of software claiming that it could speed up my PC and make it run like new again. Being that I was dangerously ignorant about technology in general (even more so than I am now), I downloaded the software and began the installation. Mere moments after doing so, my desktop background image was changed and warnings that appeared to originate from Windows appeared all over the screen telling me to buy strange software from an unknown company in order to remove a virus it claimed I had.

I may have been ignorant about technology, but I wasn't that naive. I immediately concluded that this cab was rare, but I thought nah, forget it, yo homes to Bel-air! I pulled up to a house about seven or eight and I yelled to the cabby, "Yo homes, smell you later!" Looked at my kingdom I was finally there. To sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-air.

Comment Re:Must be involved.... (Score 0) 104

I realize this is way off-topic, but for the longest time I had no idea what "IANAL" meant. I couldn't help but interpret it as a pornographic version of the seminal work by Isaac Asimov.

For those who may not know, "IANAL" means "I am not a lawyer". Don't make the "I, Anal" mistake I did.

TMYK

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