A serious threat to our national security

I see tha the balance of your above missive has been excised by billy.boy.tools.inc

question "How can you make loads of money off a product

I was just reading that right before Russia invaded Georgia, there was a cyberattack on Georgia's basic network infrastructure launched from the Botnets that Bill Gates created through the above policies. I can only conclude that Microsoft's ongoing refusal to make a version of windows that cannot be remotely controlled by criminals is now a serious threat to our national security.

--
Guy Macon

That's funny, our entire network of thousands of PC across ten cities and spanning several companies, is all Windows, and we have secure networks.

Just so you know, I use Linux as well.

You WinHater FuckTards really make me sick.

So is Bill a businessman, or a thief?

Remember, your answer tells us a lot about your character.

No it isn't. One researcher found that 80% of the traffic on the Internet was botnets: [

].

Another estimates that around 25% of computers on the net are infected and are part of botnets: [

]

One botenet alone is sending 60 billion spam emails per day: [

]

Not even slightly funny

Factual claims by anonymous Usenet posters are not evidence. We have no way of evaluating the claim. In particular, we j=have no assurance that you have the ability to detect a botnet running on your network. See _Botnets Don Invisibility Cloaks_ at [

]. One researcher estimates that virus/malware scanners only detect about 75 percent of malware. [

Certainly secure Windows networks do exist -- I have one in my home lab. It isn't hard to do, either; just set up a hardware firewall (FreeSCO is good) a sowtware firewall (Zone Alarm is good) and a malware scanner (Kaspersky is good), keep up with the updates, and don't download from untrusted sources, and Bob's your uncle.

The problem is that you have to take extra steps such as descibed above to secure Windows. When grandma buys a new PC and runs it on a DSL line for a few years without updating it, it becomes part of a botnet. And there are a *lot* of grandmas out there.

Also see:

That's interesting. Not many Linux users have "X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 4.2/32.1118" in their headers. Some do, though; Forte Agent runs under WINE if you don't mind it crashing on close...

Why would you become so emotionally involved over someone's OS preference?

You probably aren't aware that I am a libertarian. A transaction where a willing buyer buys something -- even if that something is crap -- from a willing seller can never be theft.

No it doesn't.

--

  "Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker\'s 
  game because they almost always turn out to be  -- or to be 
  indistinguishable from -- self-righteous sixteen-year-olds 
  possessing infinite amounts of free time."
                             -Neil Stephenson, _Cryptonomicon_
Guy Macon

Because he's Always Wrong.

It is if the seller violated law and ethics in restricting your choices.

John

Ah. That explains the preference for Windows over Linux. :)

Do you mean a seller restricting a buyer's choices during the transaction where a willing buyer buys something from a willing seller, or do you mean the seller doing something outside that transaction? I said that a transaction where a willing buyer buys something from a willing seller can never be theft, but I didn't say that the seller or the buyer couldn't do thinhgs outside that transaction wiich are theft.

The phrase "willing buyer buying from a willing seller" implies that either can choose to restrict the choices of the other. I would like to be paid $10,000 per hour, but all my clients are conspiring to restrict me from that choice. My clients who would no doubt like to only pay me $1 per hour, but I am restricting their choices by refusing to accept a job at that rate.

In the same way, as long as Microsoft doesn't stop me from buying a Macintosh or installing Linux, selling Windows is not theft. This is not to say that MS does not engage in unethical and illegal business practices, just that selling a copy of Windows is not one of them.

--
Guy Macon

But not a thief. Those first two are fraud, not theft, and the last isn't even wrong in the case of defects the seller didn't know about before the sale -- unless the seller offered a warranty or guarantee of some sort.

A transaction where a willing buyer buys something from a willing seller can never be theft. It can be fraud, but not theft.

--
Guy Macon

Precisely why can it not be theft by fraud? Theft is a deed, fraud is a method.

Indeed. Theft is the crime; fraud is the underlying method by which the theft occurred. Per California penal code section 484... "(a) Every person who shall feloniously steal, take, carry, lead, or drive away the personal property of another, or who shall fraudulently appropriate property which has been entrusted to him or her, or who shall knowingly and designedly, by any false or fraudulent representation or pretense, defraud any other person of money, labor or real or personal property, or who causes or procures others to report falsely of his or her wealth or mercantile character and by thus imposing upon any person, obtains credit and thereby fraudulently gets or obtains possession of money, or property or obtains the labor or service of another, is guilty of theft."

--
Dave M
MasonDG44 at comcast dot net  (Just substitute the appropriate characters in the 
address)

Life is like a roll of toilet paper; the closer it gets to the end, the faster 
it goes.

In the United States, the Manguson-Furgeson Act covers every possible outcome regarding written, oral (and non-existent) warranties, expressed or implied, including those for "as-is" sales.

It's actually very easy to understand.

I would also just add that a Sales Contract, or Agreement involving fraud or theft would be struck down by the courts as invalid and unenforceable. Too tired now to explain how this impacts your discussion, but you're bright enough to figure it out.

-mpm

I mean a seller killing off competiton by various illegal means, so that you as a buyer have little choice. The courts should have broken Microsoft up into separate OS and applications companies.

Selling Word is, because they deliberately and illegally boogered Windows to break their competitors' apps.

There should also be a law against selling criminally bad software.

John

you dont buy software. you license it, and the license agreements clearly state that it doesnt have to work. therein lies the rub.

Cheers Terry

Word games.

Bullshit.

Care to post or send me the ip ranges. I'll let you know if they turn up in the bot-net sourced spamI see everyday.

Or do I take your moniker as telling me all I need to know?

I gather that "customer" is the right category for you.

Why, then, does the word "defraud" exist unless it has a meaning that differs from that of the word "steal"?

************************************************************

Theft: the act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it, an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property.

Steal: To take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice, to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully,

(Other defititions snipped: )

************************************************************

Fraud: deceit, trickery, intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right, an act of deceiving or misrepresenting.

Defraud: to deprive of something by deception or fraud

************************************************************

Note the "without leave" (AKA permission) in the definition of theft. If I take something of yours without your permission, that's theft. If I decieve you into giving permission, that's fraud.

--
Guy Macon

Apparently, because it attempts to define a particular type of theft; that is, specifically, theft by fraud.

Mostly, when you plunk down cash for it, you do.

Several courts have struck down that language as invalid. A one-time payment is a "purchase". A "license" incurs ongoing payments.

...and an "agreement" that you don't get to read BEFORE you fork over your cash is not binding. EULAs get laughed out of court.

The old shrinkwrap paradigm is dead--or at least dying.

The new model for making money off software is *support*. This is only practical when the source code for the app is available. The other Terry who lives Down Under (Terry Porter, who uses Linux, gEDA,...) surely would have made all these points.