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Censorship

Submission + - Why Does M$ Get a Free Pass on Malware? (earthweb.com)

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "Carla Schroder of IT Management asks an obvious question, "Why Does Microsoft Get a Free Pass on Malware?"

It's a funny thing how Microsoft succeeds in getting their logo and the Windows logo plastered on everything — computers, advertising, and even other companies' ads. That "We recommend Windows Vista!" blurb is on every darned ad and product catalog that exists, it seems. Every word that falls from the mouths of Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer is dutifully recorded and reported. And yet the news media go all forgetful when they're reporting on yet another malware outbreak. The most recent example of this is the mass worm outbreak at our largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan.

When you dig into any W32 virus story you find the same thing Boycott Novell has answers about advertising. Boycott Novell is also doing a good job of tracking press manipulation [2], [3], [4], wikipedia editing and abuse of those who refuse to be manipulated. Carla, should also read this to know how personally M$ takes reporter manipulation. The net result of these efforts is massive censorship and a public that no longer trusts it's media."

Comment Story is Bullshit. Use Rockbox. (Score -1, Flamebait) 608

by gnutoo (#26020441) Attached to: Obama's "ZuneGate"

Obama is an iPod user and someone lent him a Zune. Shame, that was not was not spotted before Slashdot was used as another Wintel advertisement vehicle for the very failed Zune players. Knowing M$, they had W.E. slip him one so they could splash the story around for Christmas. Sorry, Steve, it won't work.

People looking for a music player should buy a used iPod and install Rockbox. You keep good quality hardware out of a landfill and get software freedom for a better price than a Zune that way.
IBM

IBM Launches Microsoft-Free Linux Virtual Desktop 344

Posted by kdawson from the open-collaboration-client dept.
VorlonFog writes "According to Information Week, IBM has introduced a line of business computers that avoid Microsoft's desktop environment in favor of open source software. IBM worked with Canonical and Virtual Bridges to create the platform, which IBM claims saves businesses $500 to $800 per user on software licenses and an additional $258 per user 'since there is no need to upgrade hardware to support Vista and Office.'"

Comment They Die Both Ways. (Score -1, Flamebait) 219

by gnutoo (#25875403) Attached to: Groklaw Says Microsoft Patent Portfolio Now Worthless

M$ dies both ways, by devaluation and loss of extortion threat. You think M$'s patent portfolio is "chump change"? It could be, after all their research costs are primarily advertising and product acquisition. Just the same, it's good for freedom and competition that M$'s attempt to threaten commercial users of free software have aborted. Non free software can't compete in a competitive market and M$ just lost tens of thousands of patents, not chump change even if you are M$. 10E4x10E4=10E8, if you are right but the FUD removal factor is priceless.

Comment 30 .... minute .... booot (Score -1) 1

by gnutoo (#25813091) Attached to: Does Your Boss Have to Pay You While You Wait?

Unfucking believable. I thought the 10 or 15 minutes W2K took sucked. It takes a health insurance company to be so asinine. An employee's day starts with the first official and required action, when they show their ID to the person or robot at the door that let's them in. Of course turning on a computer is work. If it's not, the boss would not mind doing it for everyone else.

30 minutes a day, just another cost of Vista and other OS that you can't just log out of and walk away from or put to sleep if you are energy conscious. Yes, GNU/Linux and it's multiple month uptime is a cure for this problem.

Comment Pour resources into that one. (Score 0) 637

by gnutoo (#25756833) Attached to: The Trap Set By the FBI For Half Life 2 Hacker

it's an issue of punishing the guy for the computer tresspass [sic] etc..

We all know what a big issue that is to both the German and American public. I'm sure that everyone will sleep better at night knowing that game companies are being protected from evil trespass. Money well spent, bravo FBI.

This joke would be funny if it had not cost so much already.

Security

Submission + - Hackers Pown White House Email. (ft.com)

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "Poor security may have left US enemies better informed than US Citizens will ever be. Senior US Officials say that Chinese hackers have penetrated the White House computer network on multiple occasions and obtained e-mails between government officials.

the Chinese cyber attacks had the characteristics of the "grain of sands" approach taken by Chinese intelligence, which involves obtaining and pouring over lots of — often low-level — information to find a few nuggets.

cyber analysts had concluded that the attacks originated in China but stressed that they were not able to determine who was responsible.

Request for White House: Would you please dump M$ systems? This stuff is embarrassing.

Request for Hackers: Would you please publish any and all email concerning the invasion of Iraq? It seems someone lost them in an "upgrade" from Lotus notes to M$ Exchange. Members of the US Judicial System would appreciate the backup.

Could we be lucky enough to have another break in to end all break ins?"

Comment non fee phones make it all a lie. (Score -1) 119

by gnutoo (#25674475) Attached to: Project Turns GPS Phones Into Traffic Reporters

It's true that sharing is good but the non free nature of cell phones today contradicts the stated goal. This information is already collected without user consent or knowledge. The purpose of the project is really to make people comfortable with that kind of control and monitoring. If cell phones ran free software and their users were really their owners, voluntary programs with high moral incentives would make sense.
Intel

Submission + - AMD Employee Charged with $1B Intel "Theft" (nwsource.com)

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "An Intel employee who moved to AMD has been charged with $1 billion dollars of trade secret violations. Mr. Pani was allowed to download some documents for his fellow Intel employee and wife while taking vacation time between jobs. According to prosecutors, AMD did not know and gained no benefit. I'm failing to see the crime unless Pani has a super secret chip factory in his basement."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - I'm a PC Adds Feature Happy Mac Backdrop. (realtechnews.com)

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "Flamebait in MeatSpace Dept.

Microsoft's marketing geniuses have set up an "I'm a PC" Kiosk directly in front of an Apple store.

"It's a friggin booth where you can record your own I'm a PC video," he said. "This is outside the Apple Store, Bullring, Birmingham, England." He added that a trio of Microsoft staffers will be on hand to turn patrons off from the Mac for the next three days.

I don't know what's more pathetic, that the average PC user has to drive someplace to make, edit and upload a video or that all of the videos produced will feature a background of happy Mac users. Oh yeah, you are a PC. Some people in the local Apple store thought my brief visit was obnoxious I was polite and filled with hardware praise. Leave it to M$ to teach them what harassment really is. How many switchers they will hire this time?"
Windows

Submission + - PDC Version of Windows 7 Has Critical Exploit. (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "Windows 7 suffered a no user intervention remote root flaw before it was introduced:

The more than 6,000 attendees who will be walking away from the sold-out event with the Windows 7 operating system software in hand could have been vulnerable to an attacker exploiting the security hole. "The code that will be distributed at PDC for Windows 7 was put on CD before last week's security update was developed, so it will not contain the update," a Microsoft spokeswoman wrote...

This is to be expected because Windows code does not change much. 2000, XP and server 2003 were listed as sharing the problem. I wonder if they bothered to correct the 160 GB hard drive they also handed out.

Updates, if any in my journal."
Upgrades

Submission + - Computer World Recommends GNU/Linux over Vista (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "How did I miss this beautiful statement of the obvious?

Vista is awful. Everyone knows it, including Microsoft, and now Microsoft's actions have made it clear that Vista is on its way to the Microsoft junkyard ... Vista, even after SP1 arrived, is junk. Using Vista, instead of XP, is just dumb. ... Why not, instead of waiting for 7, which may or may not be any good, try desktop Linux or Mac OS X?

I'd say that using XP instead of GNU/Linux was even dumber than using Vista. GNU/Linux has cost advantages non free software will never be able to match. The sooner you move, the better off you are. Vista and Office 2007 show that the M$ lock in is a dead end. Customer loyalty is rewarded with pointless, work wasting changes."

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