Category: Technology
DRM
I am hugely against DRM (digital rights management). I have been meaning to write a editorial on this for some time, but I just haven’t made it a priority. The bottom line is that I refuse to buy ANY music that contains DRM. This means I mostly buy physical CDs, and only occasionally buy songs online. For instance, when I found out that Dave Matthews Band released Weekend on the Rocks in a DRM free lossless format I happily shelled out $57.99 for the 8 CD collection. I really hope initiatives like these will show the music industry DRM is not where it is at.
Anyway the catalyst for this post: Apparently I was asleep at the wheel yesterday because October 3 was “Day Against DRM,” at least according to Defective By Design. I stumbled
across … Read More »
Apple Virus Commerical Revisited
It seems my observations on this topic were quite timely. Apparently some people have demonstrated a hack at the Black Hat conference which allowed them to take over a Macbook in less than 60 seconds.
The interesting thing is that this attack is not limited to just MACs, but could affect Windows and Linux too. However the presenters chose a MAC to demonstrate the hack due to the commercials. Quoting from the article:
The presenters said they ultimately decided to run the demo against a Mac due to what Maynor called the “Mac user base aura of smugness on security.”
“We’re not picking specifically on Macs here, but if you watch those ‘Get a Mac’ commercials enough, it eventually makes you want to stab one of those users in the eye with a lit cigarette or something,”
Does this mean people are starting … Read More »
Apple Virus Commercial
I just saw Apple ad where they were touting the fact that last year there were a 114,000 known viruses for Windows, and the MAC had none.
I think this is a terrible strategy. I felt the same way when the Mozilla Foundation started using similar arguments for why you should use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. Shortly after they started the Firefox is safer than IE campaign, vulnerabilities were uncovered in the software. I bet they were feeling kind of silly after that, certainly that particular marketing campaign seemed to ease into the background.
I could be wrong here, but a likely reason there aren’t viruses circulating for MACs is due to the lack market share. It’s certainly not that they are invulnerable; it’s just that no one is motivated to fool with the platform.
I searched on CERT’s … Read More »
Denver
I thought I’ve had this post up a week ago, and I can’t even tell why it took me ’til now to get it out.
Along the line of firsts — I was on my first airplane (an hour into the trip) where an engine failed. (In interest of keeping you from getting all worked up — let me just say it was no big deal, I’m writing about it, right?) Anyway, so I’m half-way between Albany and Denver 30 some-odd thousand feet in the air, when I notice the plane is turning around. Normally this isn’t something I would notice because my head is usually buried in a book, but during this turn it caused the sun to shine directly in my face. When that happened I found myself wondering, “Why is the sun all of … Read More »
Denver
I get to go to Denver next week, wahoo! I am going to be doing some product testing in a Cisco lab. I only wish I had enough time to stay a couple of extra days and get some skiing in, oh well.