New Lifestyle Flex.

Ah. The mysterious product with no name. The packet says "Free Sample". The packet says "New Flex System". It also says "Ultra Thin", "With Wings" and "Shapes itself to your Body". So then, what is it?

Whats more disturbing than the coy copy on the cover is the fact that they expect women to actually try this thing. Found stuck to a magazine cover. I mean, I figure most women have that need sorted already. Its not like they go "Oh gosh! Im leaking eveywhere. Lucky I have this ultra thin, with wings, shapes itself to your body flex thing I found on a magazine cover!".

At least I hope that sort of incident is rare. Maybe it happens more often than I dare suspect.

Half Wit

Half Life 2 is finally going to make an appearance this week. After all these months of waiting. Its not out yet but I already feel that its just not worth it. Apparently you need to be online to authenticate the game before playing it (yes, even the single player mode). That sucks so royally. I can't begin to describe how that irritates me. You see, I don't have internet access on my personal gaming PC. Surely there are a number of people out there who are in the same boat as I am? Its obvious what is going to happen. People are going to hold out for the "l33t haxx0r" version of the game so that they can play it.

When you stop and think about it, its all very stupid. I feel that such a strategy is going to promote rather than defuse piracy and illegal distribution. Why should playing a game these days be such a pain? Idiots.

America, Land of the Fucked.

Well, thats it then. Another 4 years under mad Lord Winder. Wonder how many citizens he will kill during this term of office.

And why in the hell doesn't real life have a Havelock Vetinari to sort problems like this out?

Diebold

DieBold are currently fucking up the American election. There machines are insecure and the company has displayed appaling security practices.

Now, given the choice between mad Wilder and Lord Snapcase, I dont really think it makes a difference who wins the American election.

What does worry me is that fucking Standard Bank are using Diebold ATMs. W.T.F!?

I far preferred the IBM branded ATMs. The software seemed more stable. That is to say, I never noticed software glitches when using an IBM ATM. These fucking DieBolds have now, on 3 occasions, before ive completed entering my Pin, taken me straight to a money withdrawal menu! Then rejected the transaction as unverified.

Now, Im not saying that IBM is the epotimy of all that is good and pure. But, compared to Diebold theyre pretty fucking angelic. And have a good chance that their ATMs are actually engineered. Not thrown together by a bunch of fucktards who, by dint of not trying too hard, manage to outbid the competition.

Frankly im appalled that Standard Bank are rolling out Diebold ATMs and I would, if I could, move my account to a bank that is committed to actually rolling out a secure ATM solution.

For Fucks Sake, DieBold ATMs are windows based. On a fucking network. I *really* trust ATMs that can catch common computer viruses.

What is software really?

This is a serious question. How big or small does some code have to be to be counted as a software package?

Given the number of viruses and spyware bits in circulation, this is a serious question. Especially in the case of spyware, what is a -ware? Or in fact any type of software at all? One can get into a lot of trouble of having unlicensed software installed, but what exactly counts as "installed" ?

Does an application software installation consist of having the files available locally? Available remotely? On removable media? Do the registry entries count?

Pretend for a moment that I install Microsoft Office on my thumbdrive. Is it installed at all when the thumb drive is removed? Am I a software pirate if I plug that thumbdrive into a 2nd PC?

Back on the spyware front, things are even more confusing. Spyware isnt an application in its own right. That is, theres no requirement for spyware to have a directory structure under Program Files. Theres no Start->Applications menu that allows you to explicitly run the spyware. Spyware is usually a plugin for other apps. It usually installs itself as a browser helper object, or some other sort of activeX control - i.e. its just a dll somewhere in the system.

In an older view of things a DLL is merely a component of an application. Currently however, the OS readilly runs plugin controls from all sorts of untraceable locations. Things that are not identified anywhere as applications. As wares of any sort. But are, nonetheless, discrete things in their own right.

What we need, as developers and users, is some sort of software registry. A list of installed discrete applications and warez. And every file on the harddrive must be connectable to one of the entries in that list.

This would ideally be part of the systems security model. Each installer would identify itself, and seciruty tags would be written to disk, tagging ownership of application files. Then, if ever some program starts crashing for no discernable reason, I could examine the programs loaded modules, check the owner of each one, and uninstall or disable any x-wares that had injected themselves in.

mmm, stability.

hmmm, I wonder if this could be fudged using standard NTFS file ownership stuff?