Conversations overheard
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Follow GoComics for giveaways & giggles!!!!! GIGGLES GUYS!
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I don't like it, therefore it sucks.
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I don't like it, therefore it sucks.
You must be new here. That's @blakeyrat in a nutshell.
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Your point of reference is a pay what you want game site, where the primary purchasers for windows are probably younger kids that have begged their parents to buy it for them?
Also what I bet that a lot of money is spent on Steam and Origin by Windows users.
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Richer, technically more literate user base. They are less likely to chase torrents, iffy links. More likely to get their software from App Store (there's no equivalent for Windows).
Technically they added one to Windows 8.
Nobody's ever used it though, or at least they shouldn't. It's riddled with scams, like right now I'm looking at "Software Hub", a 99 cent app that allows you to download other apps like VLC, Chrome, Firefox, etc, all for the low low price of just 99 cents.
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Wow, that's a steal! Off to check it out!
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I remember the first time I tried to use it, to obtain Skype for the laptop (it was my mother's and she wanted to use it to call my sister)... the store gave up with a cryptic error and it has never worked properly.
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I'm not, I just don't usually participate in the forums.
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TRWTF is writing an OS that gives total access to any kind of buffer overflow by default. I wouldn't be surprised if much of their patchwork is bloat code of "Catch if's" on various stack overflow conditions instead of just fixing the dam kernel.
We don't live in the Windows XP era. After getting pwned a lot because Windows wasn't that secure at the time, Microsoft had to do a lot of work on security that is why Vista took so long to come out because they had first fix XP with SP2 and then Fix the work that they did on Longhorn.
I don't believe there has been a major vulnerability in Windows since Vista that didn't require the user running with UAC off or fooling the user into installing it. At the same time when Linux geek was recommending Ubuntu. People were literally just running running commands and scripts that they had no idea what they did using sudo. Which is no different than ignoring the UAC prompt.
I've seen people run the equivalent of rm -rf and then post back saying "my desktop won't boot anymore". At the end of the day for a system to be secure it needs to be locked down so the user can't harm themselves, or the user has to be knowledgeable enough to look after it effectively.
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Wearing a gun all the time (at least open-carry, which I assume is what you mean) is just asking for trouble. You'd be significantly LESS secure.
Sometimes you say weird stuff. How many people with guns are YOU likely to fuck with, huh?
People open carrying in jurisdictions where it's socially acceptable don't seem to have much problem. You should look at what happened in Virginia when open handgun carry became legal. Hell, so should the Open Carry Texas people, although, to be fair, it's not legal to carry handguns openly in Texas.
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Ok, evidence Windows users are the biggest cheapskates:
Look at the per-platform stats.
I'll bet that extra buck-fitty Mac users pay makes up for the fact that six times as many Windows users bought it.
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I don't believe there has been a major vulnerability in Windows since Vista that didn't require the user running with UAC off or fooling the user into installing it.
Agreed. UAC seems to have become an effective workaround to the problem, now that devs have had some years to rewrite their code to comply with the new (i.e., enforced) rules (though it still occasionally gets in the way.) I believe I've mentioned this before (not in this thread).
I'm still forced to run a percentage of PCs with UAC off due to an app that my vendor seems unable to fix. We're seriously looking at changing vendors for this and other reasons when the contract expires next year. Selection is limited though, and we don't know what WTFs we'll run into with the new vendor if we do actually switch.
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I'm still forced to run a percentage of PCs with UAC off due to an app that my vendor seems unable to fix.
Will runas administrator or a VM not work for you?
We have this one app that requires us to use a 32-bit VM because the app's installer is 16-bit. Ironically or something the app is an installer. (I know I've mentioned it before but it's so annoying i keep mentioning it. You guys deserve to share the fun.)
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Will runas administrator or a VM not work for you?
We have this one app that requires us to use a 32-bit VM because the app's installer is 16-bit. Ironically or something the app is an installer. (I know I've mentioned it before but it's so annoying i keep mentioning it. You guys deserve to share the fun.)
Tried runas, but even when launched manually with it and clicking YES to the UAC prompt, it still randomly fails. Vendor "fix" is disable UAC, which seems to work.
VM is not an option for this app in our current configuration.
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http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/authorization.png
Spoiler: You don't need root access to someone's computer to fuck up their shit.
To steal my laptop while I'm logged in to my bank account, you'd need to force entry into a secure area, speed to surprise me, a crow bar to knock me out with, and a person large enough to swing said crow bar with sufficient force.
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Well obviously Randall Munroe doesn't believe in logging out.
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I should have asked him about that a few days ago.
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Well obviously Randall Munroe doesn't believe in logging out.
That's not the point. After the advent of UAC, malware can theoretically only access what you can access. So, you get a drive-by virus from a web site that exploits a userland-only bug in your web browser and it installs a browser extension. That extension now gets reloaded every time you start the browser and can talk to all of your applications and access web page content, as well as send packets over the Internet. That's enough to make your life suck for a few weeks.
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After the advent of UAC, malware can theoretically only access what you can access.
WHICH IS EVERYFUCKINGTHING ON MY COMPUTER
Except the stuff @blakeyrat says doesn't do anything. Like the kernel.
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Do you have session restore enabled on your browser? How about restore closed tabs? Want to bet you remembered to sign out of your email, so they can't use forgot password?
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What do my browser session and my bank credentials have to do with each other?
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Back in college everyone had MacBooks. These were the same kids complaining that they could only afford Ramen noodles, and some of them would get evicted because they wouldn't pay rent, but by B*****m they'd get a new Macbook and a new iPhone every year!
My ex wasn't in that situation when she went against my advice and bought hers, but within a few months she was whining about barely being able to make ends meet.
The best part was if you asked them why they had a MacBook. "Because they're better for video editing, and they're more reliable!"
Her rationale for paying double the price was a little more defensible: "If I buy a Mac and pay them an extra $100 (or whatever it was), then if anything goes wrong or I can't figure out how to do something, I can just walk into the Apple store and they'll make it better/show me how to do it." Given her level of literacy (knows how to do quite a bit, but doesn't really get why), that may not have been such a bad deal; she used that service a lot. Unfortunately for her, repeatedly dropping it and breaking the lid hinge is beyond what is included in that service.
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That's why my wife and I like that my MIL has a Mac. It's worth the extra money for her to have that service, and not call us.
"I heard that you were good with computers."
"I charge $150 an hour."
"But I'm family!"
"Ok, $175."
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WHICH IS EVERYFUCKINGTHING ON MY COMPUTER
Except the stuff @blakeyrat says doesn't do anything. Like the kernel.
Sure, but you mentioned that Randall doesn't believe in logging out, as if that would somehow protect him. I simply laid out how you get owned even if you diligently log out whenever you walk away from your computer.
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I don't see how stealing a laptop someone left lying around, logged out of their bank account, would magically log them into their bank.
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Unless you explicitly log out of your email (which most people don't) your email is easily accessed. If that email is associated with your bank, you can use the forgot password function.
Some banks also don't log you out properly, so tab restore can restore your bank session directly in some scenarios.
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That's why my wife and I like that my MIL has a Mac. It's worth the extra money for her to have that service, and not call us.
It is certainly, to me, worth her extra money for her to have that service and not call me. I'm not a Mac user. While I could figure out how to do whatever if I were sitting at the computer, I don't know the application or configuration menus and stuff well enough to even guess at what to do while trying to provide phone support, so I'm pretty much useless at trying to help her. She know this, so she doesn't call me. Win-win. :)
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Encrypted disk, screen lock on idle or lid close. Enough to stop anyone not government-funded, and most of them too. All I have to worry about is the rubber hose attack. AKA $5 wrench attack.
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If you say so.
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All I have to worry about is the rubber hose attack
Or a browser vulnerability. Or a forged SSL cert. Or a browser that doesn't check CRLs. Or a cross-site scripting vulnerability on a web forum. Naaaah... that'll never happen.
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Depends on the user, because I'm certain there's somebody who writes mac viruses and sends them in penis enlargement emails.
Why would you open a penis enlargement ad when you have a $2000 piece of hardware?
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Why would you open a penis enlargement ad when you have a $2000 piece of hardware?
Because you're the kind of person who spent $2000 on a $1000 laptop, of course.
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Because you're the kind of person who spent $2000 on a $1000 laptop, of course.
You are aware that when you do an actual like-for-like comparison, the premium is much smaller? The general build quality of the laptops is damn high, which is why I like them. As a bonus, the OS also runs both Word and a compiler toolchain I understand at the same time.
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Isn't the "gcc" that comes with Macs a renamed clang executable?
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The config guy at my company has that printed out at his desk.
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Because you're the kind of person who spent $2000 on a $1000 laptop, of course.
Exactly my point. Why worry about it when you're already compensating?
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I wasn't expecting a sort of Spanish Inquisition.
Nobody is. That is the hole point isn't it ...
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Yes? And? (It's the MSVC compiler and its related tools that I never properly grokked.)
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Why would you open a penis enlargement ad when you have a $2000 piece of hardware?
Lol. Snap!
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To my knowledge the CryptoLocker family of malware affected both OS's as an example
'Both' being mac and Ubuntu, right?
The emoticons look weird.
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'Both' being mac and Ubuntu, right?
No, RedHat and Debian.
Filed under: we've got both kinds of music, Country and Western!
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You are aware that when you do an actual like-for-like comparison, the premium is much smaller?
Pedantry alert nomination!
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Unless you explicitly log out of your email (which most people don't) your email is easily accessed. If that email is associated with your bank, you can use the forgot password function.
Some banks also don't log you out properly, so tab restore can restore your bank session directly in some scenarios.
I don't know what kind of bank you use, but if I forget my bank password and/or mandatory security question answers, I have to physically go to my bank to get the bank tellers to change said password or security questions.
Yes, it has happened, and yes they are required to see my government issued ID to reset them.
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I don't know what kind of banks you use, but I suspect you don't live in the usa.
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I don't know what kind of banks you use, but I suspect you don't live in the usa.
Considering I'm working directly across the street from the Michigan capitol building, I'm going to say you're wrong.
Also, I probably should have mentioned it's a credit union rather than a bank.
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Oh, you live in a town with one server, got it.
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Yes, credit unions and banks are very different, and your credit union probably couldn't afford to have a proper password reset process developed.
Why do you think going in to a branch to change your password is more secure than changing it online?
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