Posts by ZweiBlumen 62 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Mar 2011
"As with all these "new device" attacks it could be stopped by locking or closing all the external ports, which hardly ever seems to happen."
Not yet, no, but will do soon. In fact it surprises me that larger corporations still let users plug anything into their PCs at all.
They're buying this to get a foothold in the mobile consumer market in my opinion. Put skype on all windows mobile handsets (if they can get this past the carriers) and that's a pretty win for them. I believe they will support non MS versions - they know by now that platform is not the key it once was to making money. They need to start making money from consumers away from windows otherwise they will slip into consumer irrelevance (well, OK they are already there pretty much but are trying to get out...)
Where's the headache in using automated windows updates? I have it set on all 3 PCs I use as well as the 7 individual servers I administrate and have never had a problem once.
And as for IE9 being a critical update: this is not true. It is a recommended update and will not install without you ticking it in the updates screen.
Stop spreading FUD.
Utter Rubbish.
Skype is high quality nowadays. Perhaps you have a crap internet connection or something. I use Skype on a daily basis for work with clients all over Europe and the US. Occasionally (1 in 20 calls or so) the quality is poor. Just hang up and dial again. Otherwise, the quality of the call is as good as using the phone. Which is not suprising since a lot of the underlying technology is the same whether you're on the phone or on Skype. In fact Skype is far better than many of the cheap international dialing companies I've used in the passed.
It's also good enough for Video conferencing with the grandparents and screen sharing with colleagues. And all this for free. I do wonder how they make any money!
"but at least if you're running a *nix system you can usually boot another instance and hack the config to sort it out."
This is exactly why so few home users have Linux installed. "Hack the config"??? What ordinary user knows what on earth that means? MS screwed up on this one, but don't tell me that hacking the config is an option for 99.99% of users....
It's probably to do the number of pre-internet activation Windows PCs which all run IE6 and you can't upgrade them unless you are on SP2 or something.
As to stealing newer versions: Lets assume the average PC user in China to be no more IT literate than in the UK. Don't think that they know how to install an OS. They got it when they bought their PC. If the seller was honest he'll have aked them: do you want this version of windows for $10 or this one for $100. I'll leave you to decide which one is the legal version and which one a labourer on $50/month will have bought. If the seller wasn't honest he'll have simply bundled the cheap version in for $20. The buyer isn't going to go back and upgrade his PC or OS in the next 10 years. Nor can he download updates and patches because his key is illegal. He considers the PC to be like a washing machine. You buy one and then you fix it when it is broken.
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