Linux-Advocacy Digest #310, Volume #26 Sat, 29 Apr 00 20:13:06 EDT
Contents:
Re: Split Dude! (Charlie Ebert)
Re: Chad Myers Lies 205 Times For Microsoft (was: Time for the MS-rats to desert
("Christopher Smith")
Re: Opensource rumors (Microsoft Windows) (Mig Mig)
Re: Advocay off the Net. (Streamer)
Re: Web page rendering Linux (KDE) vs. windows 2000 (Mig Mig)
Re: Chad Myers Lies 205 Times For Microsoft (was: Time for the MS-rats to desert
("Chad Myers")
Re: MS caught breaking web sites (Brian Fristensky)
Re: What else is hidden in MS code??? (R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ))
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Charlie Ebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Split Dude!
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 20:59:23 GMT
"James A. Robertson" wrote:
>
> Charlie Ebert wrote:
> >
> > "James A. Robertson" wrote:
> > >
> > > Charlie Ebert wrote:
> > > >
>
> > >
> > > So the feds get to be the grand specifiers of requirements ? Be very,
> > > very careful what you wish for. If you think that would stop with MS,
> > > you are very naive.
> >
> > Who the hell is being naive? If you break the law you had better expect
> > to get you company busted up into very small peices.
> >
>
> Which law ? Note that Judge Jackson is calling them a monopoly based
?<SNIP>
Which law! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Good God man!
>
> > To read your comments you would think that somehow the Federal
> > Government
> > actually had a capability to bust up anyone at will.
> >
>
> When Looking at Justice's track record over the last decade, I do
> believe that. Exactly what were the people in Waco guilty of ?
There you go folks! Microsoft and Waco!
I'm from OKC. And all of a sudden I don't like you anymore.
And I don't like REAL NAZI's on my advocacy channel.
<SNIP the REST OF THE NAZI CRAP>
I think it's time you left the internet buddy.
No more mouth. You just split.
Charlie
------------------------------
From: "Christopher Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.security,comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip,alt.conspiracy.area51
Subject: Re: Chad Myers Lies 205 Times For Microsoft (was: Time for the MS-rats to
desert
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 07:14:11 +1000
"Mark S. Bilk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8efb9k$9vp$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
[lossy compression]
I had been sitting on the fence, but you just made up my mind.
<PLONK>
------------------------------
From: Mig Mig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Opensource rumors (Microsoft Windows)
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 23:18:37 +0200
Christopher Browne wrote:
> It's not clear at all that there's _all_ that much code from "original
> Mozilla" in today's Mozilla; with the drastic loss, and dramatic need
> to reimplement, it became obvious that lots of other chunks of it
> needed to be _redesigned_, and hence, today's Mozilla is completely
> unrecognizable as being related to the one of 1996...
Hmmm.. thats the point of starting from scratch.
------------------------------
From: Streamer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advocay off the Net.
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 16:23:08 -0500
CAguy wrote:
> On 29 Apr 2000 10:54:50 -0500, Ali Hamisheh-Bahar
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >I had CNN on this morning (I apologize in advance ;-), and noticed
> >that some calls/emails were taken in response to the news of M$'s
> >proposed breakup. Almost all were disapproving because they felt that
> >M$ is innovating and they could not understand what they'd gain with a
> >breakup.
>
> Has it occured to you that "Joe public" might actually like windows?
Actually, it occurs to me that "Joe public" still doesn't know anything
about Linux, and that the Linux community needs to work harder to get the
word out to the public at large.
------------------------------
From: Mig Mig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Web page rendering Linux (KDE) vs. windows 2000
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 23:23:34 +0200
Michael Born wrote:
>
>
> Mig Mig wrote:
>
> >
> > Linux has no shortcomings and i can guarantee you that Netscape >= 4.7 is
> > faster than IE.
>
> No shortcomings? I know it's an advocacy NG but could we mix in a little
> reality?
OK.. but it depends on your point of view. For me there are only a few
small things that irritate me.. such as
- easy way to install fonts (make the right files, restart the xserver and
add the fontpath to the init file)
- app to view realtime what connections are made right now
- easy way to configure a personal firewall
- etc. etc.. i can live without these but they would make my Linux life
easyer
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.security,comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip,alt.conspiracy.area51
Subject: Re: Chad Myers Lies 205 Times For Microsoft (was: Time for the MS-rats to
desert
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 22:43:32 GMT
"Christopher Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8efiv5$o71$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> "Mark S. Bilk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:8efb9k$9vp$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> [lossy compression]
>
> I had been sitting on the fence, but you just made up my mind.
>
> <PLONK>
Too bad I had him killfiled already, I'm sure that would've been
a very entertaining and amusing post =)
It's nice how he has to put it on nearly every linux-related
ng. Since most of them have some pretty intelligent people that
don't froth at the mouth like those in COLA, or Mark as a shining
example =)
-Chad
------------------------------
From: Brian Fristensky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: MS caught breaking web sites
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 17:56:13 -0500
Drestin Black wrote:
>
> "Brian Langenberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:8e4uka$cc6$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > In comp.os.linux.advocacy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > : "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > :>"Cary O'Brien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >
> > :>> Linux is *GREAT* for families with small children. My 6 and 9 year
> > :>> olds have no trouble at all typing their name and password into the
> > :>> xdm login box.
> > : ^^^
> > :>i feel sorry for these kids... no games, forced to type arcane commands
> in
> > :>mixed case and rewarded by having a non-crashing machine that faithfully
> > :>returns a constant stream of error messages. I'm sure they suddenly lite
> up
> > :>when they hit startx and suddenly discover they can actually use the
> > :>computer productively and easily.
> >
I have to add that my 3 kids (4,7 and 9) all use our Linux machine
at home. Even my 4 year old understands that her account is
separate from her sister's and brother's accounts. They all realize
that they each have their own home direcory. They all realize that
that (unlike most Windows systems, where anyone can do anything),
they can't hurt anything except their own files. They
play games and use Netscape just the same as anyone on a
Windows machine.
> > : Drestin, weren't you recently trying to convince people you had actually
> > : installed and used Linux?
> >
> > : I mean, the "into the xdm login box" might have gone over your head,
> > : but the subsequent
> >
> > I'm not sure which is more offensive: that the childrens' intelligence
> > has been insulted for the sake of bashing an operating system or
> > the implication that allowing children access to anything not
> > user friendly is some form of bad parenting.
> >
Kids start out smart. Most preschoolers I've known have
seemed bright and imaginative. Something we do to them in early
years dumbs them down. In my opinion, the worst thing you can do is
to make things to easy for them. Get them into the habit
of using their brains early and they'll be self reliant
the rest of their lives. Somehow, we've created this mystique
that computers and other electronic devices are somehow
too hard for most people to use. Grown adults in professional
positions have convinced themselves that VCRs are too
complicated to understand. People who can learn the
complexities of driving a car, for some reason, turn
their brains off when faced with a VCR or microwave
manual. I am convinced that our society encourages
technophobia.
> > Heaven forbid that kids should be exposed to anything new and
> > different...
> >
> >
> WHAT is new and different about Linux? It's old and copied! AND it's not
> what they'll be using in the real world or in their future. it's not what is
> running in their schools and not what is running in businesses. Teaching
> them how to use a poor GUI is no substitute for exposing them to the
> predominant OS and GUI that they'll very most likely need to use in their
> own lives. Why not teach your son how to be the very best mechanic of 50s
> style engines, lotsa good that'll do him getting a job working on year '00
> engines?
Utter and complete nonsense! If you learn on a more sophisticated and
versatile desktop such as those available on Linux (eg. GNOME),
moving over to Windows is a piece of cake. The main difference being
that you end up being frustrated everytime you run into something
that is easy to do under GNOME, say, but is hard to do in Windows.
For example, simple things like wanting to go UP one directory.
In the GNOME file manager, just click on the two dots to go to
the parent directory. In the Windows File Manager, there is
no way to go to the parent directory! Is the GNOME desktop full?
Just click over to a different virtual desktop. Can't do that
in Windows.
One thing I am absolutely certain of: a person who learns
computer usage in the more disciplined environment of Unix/Linux
will have little trouble picking up Windows.
The converse is not true. As an example, I just finished teaching
a graduate-level course (Bioinformatics) on a Solaris system.
There was a steep learning curve, as people had to unlearn
the extremely limited view of computing that is intrinsic to the PC
culture.
I'm talking about simple things, like setting your file manager
to display details like dates and file sizes, as opposed to
cute icons that tell you nothing useful. Or how about
the very sensible practice of organizing one's files (not
just documents) by topic, rather than putting files
into some directory like c:\Program Files\application\documents.
How many Windows users ever learn to use more than one window
on a screen? It's a little hard to learn when Windows apps
almost invariably start in full screen mode. In all these cases,
someone who has learned computing on a Unix desktop will
actually be at a big advantage compared to their Windows-only
counterparts. They'll know to do things that would never
occur to people who only use Windows.
--
===============================================================================
Brian Fristensky | The oil crisis finally ended and we
got
Department of Plant Science | rid of our Volkswagen Rabbits and
replaced
University of Manitoba | them with Chevrolet Suburbans boasting
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2 CANADA | the fuel economy of the World Trade
Center
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | ...This time are we going to get
serious
Office phone: 204-474-6085 | about energy conservation? Of course
not!
FAX: 204-474-7528 | We have the brains of mealworms!
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~frist/ - Dave Barry
===============================================================================
------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: What else is hidden in MS code???
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 23:03:40 GMT
In article <8edjee$gad$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Christopher Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> "R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:8eda5q$5id$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> > "Mr. Rupert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Christopher Smith wrote:
> > > >
> > > > "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > > > news:8ebtjd$6mg$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > > > In comp.os.linux.advocacy R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )
> > > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > > > : When Windows 95 first came out,
> > > > > : engineers put sniffers on the
> > > > > : net to figure out why desktops
> > > > > : were sending traffic between 1:00 A.M.
> > > > > : and 4:00 A.M. local time. Furthermore, this traffic was
going
> > > > > : via UDP (thus bypassing firewalls).
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Interestingly this is why I've banned
> > > > > all versions of Winblows from my
> > > > > network. Prior to discovering NT's
> > > > > propensity to try to connect at
> > > > > random times to nameless IP addresses
> > > > > in SE Asia,
> > [snip]
> > > > >
> > > > > Microsoft is NOT entitled, legally, morally
> > > > > or otherwise, to know what
> > > > > is on the contents of my hard drive.
> >
> > > > It seems a lot of people like to make
> > > > claims like this, but I don't believe
> >
> > Actually, the Microsoft End User License Agreement (EULA)
> > explicitly forbids "reverse engineering" of any aspect of
> > the Microsoft product. This actually includes debugging
> > efforts that attempt to walk through the assembler portion
> > of a dll.
> >
> > If you publish actual evidence of "wire-tapping", you are in
> > violations of the license, and therefore the copyright. This
> > then makes you a pirate. Furthermore, you're evidence can be
> > used in a court of law, and the penalty for Copyright violations
> > is $250,000 PER OFFENSE, or 25 years in prison (worse than murder),
> > and you've literally confessed.
> >
> > All wire-tap technologies are also protected under the trade secrets
> > act, and these have even stiffer penalties.
>
> Since when is packet sniffing reverse engineering ?
>
> In any case, AFAIK reverse engineering is legal
> in the States, and no EULA can change that.
However, the copyright act of 1976 was rewritten to allow
copyright holders to add license conditions to the terms
of the agreement. This was originally intended to allow
copyright holders to license things like performance rights,
broadcast rights, and cable rights on an exclusive or nonexclusive
basis. For example, a playwright could stipulate that he be paid
for each performance of the play in which the copyrighted work was
performed or substantially quoted.
Prior to 1976, a speech such as Martin Luther King's "I have a dream"
speech could not be protected. The news company who filmed the speech
could collect royalties, but King himself (and his family) didn't have
the ability to restrict publication or to collect royalties for the
speech, since the news media had not seen the speech.
Today, a great speech is protected by copyright, and the publication
of a great speech can be licensed exclusively or nonexclusively.
Microsoft has used the ability to stipulate license terms in
some very creative ways never intended by the authors of the
1976 copygright act.
For example, it completely forbids reverse engineering. This
means that you can't figure out how it works and create something
similar. This has been a big problem with WINE, since "clean room"
techniques can't be used. You literally have to purchase an
application that does allow activities, and then make calles to
the Wine engine and see what breaks. You can't look at Microsoft
specifications and you can't use Microsoft applications to create
the emulations.
Ironically, because Microsoft has recently made numerous changes
via service packs, legacy software, especially applications using
borland tools, MFC, or direct OLE entry points actually run better
on Linux/Wine than on Windows 98 and NT 4 with Service pack 4 or
Windows 2000.
The license restrictions represent a clear and simple choice. You
either abide by the license, or you forfeit your right to use the
copyrighted work. Furthermore, because you are ultimately making
the choice, Microsoft is under no obligation to refund your money.
Reverse engineering itself isn't illegal, but copyright violation
is very illegal. A deliberate act of reverse engineering of a
product protected by a no reverse engineering clause would be
a violation of copyright law, not trade secret law.
I supposed one could argue that such restrictions attempt to
restrict the idea itself rather than the expression of an idea.
Since copyright law is explicitly NOT intended to protect ideas
themselves, only specific expressions of that idea, it's possible
that the courts could Nullify reverse engineering clauses. To my
knowledge, this aspect of the law has never been tested in court.
Another possible argument could be that such license terms are
intended to prevent the dessemination of information required
for the consumer to make an informed choice. This would constitute
a form of Fraud, and would therefore nullify the clause. Again,
I don't believe this has been tested in court.
Finally, it could be argued that such restrictions on license
terms are intended to obstruct justice. This HAS been tested
in a number of trials:
In Stack vs Microsoft, stacker had identified the code that
Microsoft had used to cause PCs equipped with Stacker to fail
on MS-DOS 6.0, Microsoft tried to suppress the evidence by
claiming that they had violated their copyright. The judge
ruled that, in this case, the license terms would have the
effect of obstruction of justice. The evidence was admitted
and Microsoft settled out of court for 200 million, released
a non-hostile version (6.2), and permitted Stack to use
information gained from reverse engineering to create a
legitimate version of stacker that ran under MS-DOS 6.22
In IBM vs Microsoft, IBM was able to discover code that
had been put into NT Service pack 1 for NT 4.0 that was
known to fail on Cyrix chips. They identified the code,
and were prepared to deliver evidence that this particular
code was neither normal (not generated by standard compilers,
nor necessary). Again, Microsoft moved to suppress, but the
Judge overruled. Microsoft released SP2 which damaged Netscape
and Lotus Smart Suite, and IBM again beat Microsoft's move to
suppress. Microsoft finally delivered SP3 with no "dirty tricks".
Microsoft released SP4 with dirty tricks claiming that it was
required for Y2K compatibility. The dirty tricks were so well
publicized that most companies didn't implement it (letting
Microsoft of the liability hook in the case of a Y2K meltdown),
and Microsoft released Service pack 5 with no dirty tricks.
These "dirty tricks" have been nicknamed "Torpedos" because
they are "under the water" (hidden in the code) and only
explode when invoked by the target.
Microsoft has released torpedos in service packs to Office 97,
Service packs 1,2,4, and 6 for Windows NT, a service pack for
Windows 98, and a service pack for IE 4. There may also be
torpedos in IE 5 and Windows 2000.
Targets of these torpedos include Lotus Smart Suite, Netscape
Navigator, Netscape Communicator, WordPerfect, RealNetworks viewers,
and hardware devices including Adaptec SCSI devices, FireWire devices
(possible threat to USB), and certain "Linux Friendly" companies.
> > > > I've ever seen a single one back it up
> > > > with actual evidence. Do you think
> > > > you could be the first ?
> >
> > Looking for a confession? There are some
> > things you can do to discover
> > if you are being "tapped".
There is one possibility. If one were to intend to file
criminal charges against Bill Gates for authorizing the
release of a torpedo under the computer privacy act
(computer trespassing), the courts are likely to rule
against Microsoft on the basis of obstruction of justice.
> > What makes this particularly interesting is that I'm being tapped at
> > this moment.
> >
> > The there are only four tasks running on the desktop - netscape,
> > Card Wizard (for my ethernet card), Diagnostics, and task manager.
> > 70 background processes. ntvdm has eaten 2:09:47 since bootup, more
> > than the idle process. The PC is slower than molasses in january.
>
> Yes, Rex. We've heard all about your special edition PC before.
>
> > The performance meter shows a 300 mhz Pentium II running at 100%
> > all the time. The file handles go up and down, about once/second.
> > The hard drive light goes on 10-20 times/second, and the output line
> > activity shows that I'm SENDING packets at a remarkably high rate.
>
> Then task manager or some other process
> viewer should allow you to pinpoint
> precisely which task is doing that in a second or two.
The big guy was ntvdm. Can't help but wonder what the video
driver was doing. It would certainly have access to all resources
at kernel level.
> > I booted NT several times, and the performance slowed to a crawl
> > about 20 minutes after starting IE (my default browser is netscape).
>
> That's the Anti-MS User Detection (tm) code kicking in.
> It's a sophisticated AI spin-off from the MS Bob system
> that actually detects when a user with heavily
> anti-Microsoft tendencies is using the machine and makes
> it run slower and slower in a bid to make them forsake
> the platform forever
> and stop bothering the rest of us.
:-), :-).
Not as silly as it might seem though. I am fully aware that
Microsoft is fully aware of me. At one point, they even flew
me out to Seattle in hopes of "Buying me off". They decided
that since I didn't have the "Microsoft Religion" (I told them
that when they first called), that they weren't interested.
To be honest, I couldn't figure out why they even wanted to
talk to me, unless they were hoping I'd help them fix Win2K.
Actually, I did end up spending 18 hours consulting with them
telling them exactly what changes needed to be made. 80% of
the suggested changes were implemented in some form.
About a week later I found a much better job for much more money
(I would have had to take a cut to work at Microsoft).
Actually, I'm glad I didn't take the Microsoft job. Microsoft
stock has dropped to half it's value since that interview.
I was actually suprised that I hadn't been served sometime between
the time I got off the plane in Seattle and the time I got back
on to go home.
> > I'm using 60 k out of 128 meg of RAM. But the file
> > cache is shifting up
> > and down by about 20 kbytes. None of the background processes are
> > doing anything interesting that should be generating any significant
> > activity, especially outbound network traffic.
>
> Presumably you mean megabytes there.
Yes, sorry about that.
> Naturally you've tried killing all those background
> processes to see whether
> or not this "outbound traffic" stops ?
Yes. There were two processes that I knew were sending keepalive
messages, the remainder shouldn't have been touching the network
at all.
By the way, right now, I'm connected to a dial-up port that is
showing absolutely NO traffic in the last 30 minutes. Notes
downloads new e-mail every 30 minutes.
> Speaking of which, just how are you
> determining that it is "outbound
> traffic" ?
Viewing of the traffic light on the ethernet, viewing of
netstat -e and netstat -s results. My dialer also keeps
counts of bytes sent and bytes recieved.
> > My primary activity is that I'm using Netscape to compose a document
> > in a static text buffer.
> >
> > What makes this even more interesting is that the machine is behind
> > a firewall at a financial institution.
> >
> > Some simple tests I haven't run yet:
> >
> > Put a sniffer on the ethernet packets. If the traffic is
> > going to port 8080 (out the firewall) they are tunnelling the
> > firewall.
>
> And obviously They can do this because
> They have secret agreements with the
> developers of every major firewall to
> insert appropriate backdoors, right ?
Not necessary. The firewall requires a logon for the first
outbound connection, at which time it asks for a password. This
isn't the system code asking for the password, but rather, application
code - which could easily store it for subequent connections.
All one has to do to breach the firewall is use that COM control
to send HTTP messages through the already authenticated connection.
Since the connection is going from inside the firewall to the
outside, the connection itself is not blocked or filtered.
> > Install most of your software to an SMB Linux remote drive, put
> > all of your servers on the drive. Every 15 minutes, run a
> > "find <share path> -newer touchfile -print >logfile ; touch
touchfile ;
> >
> > You can either throw it in a crontab file, or generate a loop.
> >
> > In the morning, you will have files that were touched that you
> > expected to see touched, and then you will find the ones that
> > shouldn't have been accessed for any reason.
>
> And how will you know which files shouldn't have been modified ?
You can identify the standard logfiles and general purpose files
and run your result through "fgrep -v -f logfiles" - if what's left
appears private and confidential (create a home directory for private
files, also look for *.nsf, *.ntf, *.id, or any other files that
shouldn't be touched while you're away. If you see goodies,
know you have a problem.
--
Rex Ballard - Open Source Advocate, Internet
I/T Architect, MIS Director
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 60 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 1%/week!
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
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