Day 126

(hint ... one of them is a big cat not a zebra)

US resists control of internet passing to UN agency

Article

The US has confirmed it would resist efforts to put the internet under the control of the United Nations.

At present several non-profit US bodies oversee the net's technical specifications and domain name system.

They operate at arms-length from the US government but officially under the remit of its Department of Commerce.

The USA has clearly dropped the ball when it comes to the Internet. Microsoft dominates all , and various USA security departments demand all encryption have a back door so they can easily get in ... any data passing through the USA has to conform to US Laws, and they make dang sure all the data they can force passes through the USA ...

The best tactic is to simply start another internet , using the same technology, and deliberately exclude the USA from it. Give them no access to it , and no say in the matter, at least at the beginning when it first forms.

I'm certain a consortium of several western governments , limiting such a new system to their own countries and excluding terrorist nations and china and the like could run a fairly efficient "interweb" , as some science fiction movies have tried to rename the web. Even compartmentalizing it so you can select what countries you want to hook into and which ones you want to avoid, so you don't have to worry about chinese hackers all the time.

We clearly need to start again on this whole internet thing. The current one is far too large for it's design. Build a new one , slowly transfer over to it , and then abandon this one.

I forsee a new era , of national inter webs, and any data leaving from a national web is nicely tagged at the border saying "I came from this country" , at a level that hackers have no access to and can't manipulate. Of course I also see criminals setting up a proxy server inside one country to get around this limitation , and police chasing down those proxy servers and arresting everyone concerned with them. But forcing them to "conquer" one country at a time will put a serious crimp in their spam and porn industries anyways.

Where did all the guns come from ?

Ottawa police chief steps up fight against gangs, gun violence

Last Paragraph

Most of the guns on Ottawa’s streets are handguns — half were stolen from registered owners, the other half smuggled into the city from the United States, police said.

Some might go off on a tangent about thieves stealing the gun registry and using it to target these people , but that would not be correct. All guns in Canada are registered. So now matter how the thieves got the gun , it's a registered gun.

What is correct to say is that if you didn't have a gun , it couldn't be stolen , and there would be a lot fewer guns out there. Such a statement does make a strong argument in favor of gun control. The fewer guns out there in hands of people who don't need them (sports shooters) the better.

As for the ones smuggled into the USA , I think we need to talk to the companies making those guns and see if we can convince them to put a few ringers in with their regular gun shipments. Guns with some kind of micro sized gps tracking device , one with every other shipment kind of deal. Track those guns by satellite , find out what path they're taking into Canada , and start arresting everyone and the hot dog vender.

The Error of Islam

Article = none , personal opinion.

The Error of Islam and it's quest to conquer the world is actually very simple.

There's only one Islam. And after a 10 year war with them being in the news every day , most people are pretty familiar with it. And it's propaganda.

We're familiar with the usual Elders of Zion propaganda (no such book exists. All the muslim news sources quote from it , but they have no such book to make quotes from ... where do all the quotes come from , they're not just making them up out of thin air , are they ? )

We are now familiar with the usual claims of Israeli Occupation that follow yet another attack on Israel.

We are now familiar with endless stories of Islamic Radicals coming down out of the hills and punishing any kind of moderate Islamic for daring to try and come to a peace with the west.

We are familiar with more local stories of Iman's coming to mosques right here in Ottawa , and getting drummed out by the congregation for making up stories about Canadian troops committing various atrocities that obviously can't happen (female lead troops going out to rape villagers ? Come on ! Seriously ? )

It's a religion. And most religions , even The Catholic Church , they cannot stand the light of day. They can't stand the attention. Their every miss step exposed to the world and men that make up that religion shown to be greedy , cowardly, or just plain stupid ... No religion can stand that.

The more islam conquers all these little countries around the world , the more we have only one enemy to deal with. An enemy we are becoming intimately familiar with.

And as China has discovered in it's dealings with tiny little Taiwan , an army in running shoes, with only one gun every third soldier , isn't crossing any big rivers or straits to invade anywhere. No matter how numerous they are.

And one western soldier with a machine gun rifle and unlimited ammunition , as the west is want to equip it's troops with , is going to lay waste to a crowd of soldiers with only one rifle and a handful of bullets for every three soldiers. Iraq discovered that truth the hard way as it's troops fell , guns they'd never actually live fired in hand, or manning tanks they'd never driven before , never fired for real the main cannon before , against troops that practiced with live ammo every day for years ...

The Error of Islam is they're alone. There's only one of them. And they're spreading the same weak points everywhere. Learn to exploit those weak points, and you walk over them.

The error of The West , however is far worse. You can only back dicatorships across the world for so long before a popular uprising of some kind rises up and over throws them. No wonder the Islamics hate us. Who's the air head that came up with that plan in the first place ???? I'd like to shoot him myself and save the Islamics the effort.

Those Islamics are regular normal people. They should be on our side , not fighting us. Who screwed up and put us in this position ?

Palistinian's can't see past own noses

Palestinians attack Mitt Romney for 'racist' comments

Saeb Erekat, an aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, responded quickly to the comments.

"It is a racist statement and this man doesn't realise that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation," Mr Erekat said.

"It seems to me this man lacks information, knowledge, vision and understanding of this region and its people.

"He also lacks knowledge about the Israelis themselves. I have not heard any Israeli official speak about cultural superiority," he added.

"Israeli Occupation" is the standard party line for "Kill all the Jews then we can start working on other problems." It's used by most dictatorships to excuse why their people live in really horrible conditions and they refuse to do anything about it.

The truth is , they're shooting at the Israeli's, forcing the Israeli's to defend themselves by shooting back. Then complaining "We don't have an economy because the israeli's stole all our land in 1949 when we sold it to them and expected we'd just come back and conquer the place again and keep the money ...but it didn't work out that way and we want the land back anyways. "

Like most land claim disputes between nations it's long and complicated and not given over to simple explanations. Simple explanations like "Our Holy Book says it's all ours. Now get out you thieves. "

In short, their policy of enslaving their own people over the Israeli Occupation is alive and well , and they don't want to see past it on anything. They don't want their people to do well. They like them as slaves.

Incompetence

Russia: Controversial NGO bill becomes law

Article

President Putin has signed into law a controversial bill forcing foreign-funded non-governmental groups (NGOs) involved in political activity to register as "foreign agents" in Russia.

The Kremlin has said the law is needed to protect Russia from outside attempts to influence internal politics.

But critics think the authorities will use the law to try to crush dissent.

They say it aims to prevent such NGOs denouncing vote-rigging and other abuses.

The law requires the phrase "foreign agents" - with its negative Soviet-era connotation - to be included in all materials produced by all affected NGOs.

Such NGOs would also have to undergo financial audits and issue twice-yearly reports on their activities.

Failure to comply will be punishable by heavy fines or even a two-year prison sentence.

The article is written as if this were a bad thing. But is it ?

I mean , if some foreign nation was spending money to influence who the next prime minister of Canada would be , we would freak out. And justifiably so. Canadian's decide who that will be , not China or The USA.

I think Russia might have this one right. So right that maybe we might have to adopt something similar.

Though personally I would favor just confiscating their assets and sending them packing rather than any jail terms. Different culture , different rules and all of that.

Living Will

just because it's funny.

RCMP wrong to use Taser on Dziekanski: report

Article

"I concluded that the constable was not justified in deploying the weapon and that neither the constable nor the corporal honestly perceived that Mr. Dziekanski was intending to attack any of the officers," he said.

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"I found all four officers’ claims that they wrestled Mr. Dziekanski to the ground were deliberate misrepresentations made for the purpose of justifying their actions."

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"I also disbelieved the four officers’ claims there was no discussion between or among them about the incident before being questioned by IHIT investigators, although I did not conclude that they colluded to fabricate a story."

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"This tragic case is at its heart a story of shameful conduct by a few officers. It ought not to reflect unfairly on the many thousands of RCMP and other police officers who have, through years of public service, protected our communities and earned a well-deserved reputation for doing so."

Shameful conduct ?

The guy is dead. They murdered him. And they're off scott free. That isn't shameful conduct. That's criminal dereliction of duty. By them. By their supervisors , by the whole department that openly defended them knowing what had happened, and that to this day , in full possession of the facts, allow them to walk free.

Do you know what's going to happen next ? I'll tell you.

Nothing. Nothing at all. The province signed a deal with the RCMP (this came out during the aftermath of the incident) so that the RCMP can't be charged with anything. Ever. No matter what they do. In British Colombia , it's legal for the RCMP to commit murder. Because the province is too cheap to pay for their own police force and they can get the RCMP on the cheap if they agree to this.

The BC government has created a "Police Dictatorship", and they seem to like it that way. But I know for certain I am never going there. No way.

Nature Photography

The Dollars and Cents of Stupidity.

Arrest warrant issued for Escapade festival co-founder

A warrant has been issued for the arrest of a 27-year-old concert promoter and festival founder alleged to have stolen the proceeds of a two-day music festival held at Ottawa Stadium over Canada Day weekend.

Blah blah blah , he made off with six hundred thousand dollars.

So where you gonna go buddy ? down to the USA ? Across Canada somewhere ? You can't put the money in a bank , you can't live off the interest, you're face is everywhere ....

oops forgot ... his face

Yeesh ... I heard of ugly before but this ....

Anyways. Hmm...can't find a job , can't collect EI or welfare, and if you get sick you'll quickly find out six large isn't going to get you far , and hospitals will definately want to know why you're paying for everything in cash.

The worst thing that could possibly happen to this guy is that he NOT get caught. Because he will party until he drops, and then spend the rest of his short life avoiding any kind of official contact. Last guy who did that, they found his corpse under a log five years after he froze to death one cold winters night...

If you want to rob someone , get a credit card , rack it up , and then declare bankruptcy. Sure you lose everything you've ever bought or owned and you wind up living on welfare a while , but it's legal.

July 5 Funny Junk

I have got to get me a tatoo like this.

I think I understand why people have trouble learning English.

Error 500 - Internal Server Error

Internet Explorer: Microsoft plans 'silent' updates

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16214912 Future updates to the browser would be applied without a user's knowledge to help beat scammers catching people out with fake updates. Those who did not want their browser updated could opt out or uninstall the software, said Microsoft. "The Web overall is better - and safer - when more people run the most up-to-date browser," wrote Ryan Gavin, Microsoft's IE boss, in a blogpost explaining the plan.

Let me explain how silent browser updates work.

Step One : Download and install the browser. This is a questionable activity in itself in an era where you're being charged by the gigabyte , they're essentially stealing your bandwidth and driving up your costs.

Step two : make the new browser your default browser. Changing the settings without your permission ? What if I'm using firefox or some other browser ?

Step Three : Some application or another opens your browser , and the worlds most virus prone clap trap of a browser promptly catches a virus. A new one.

Step Four : You phone microsoft to complain,they point to the relevent article in the End User Agreement that says they get to screw you over any time they like and the only thing you can do is stop using windows. PS: They're currently working on a system to insure windows is the only thing that runs on your computer and if you stop using windows you have to throw the whole computer out.

Step Five : You contact your anti-virus vender who sadly explains to you that yes, new virii do get a couple of days to wreak their havoc before a patch is put out to stop them. Have you tried our virus cleaner ? It didn't work ? Sorry our software is use at your own risk , you'll have to reformat and all your data , saved games, work , etc on your computer is now lost.

This is how "silent updates" work.

This is Microsoft who wants you to "upgrade to the most secure browser on the web" , except they refuse to fix certain security wholes way back from windows 95 , I mean , they know they're there, they just flatly refuse to fix them (active x components, drive by downloading) , but everyone knows it's really the fly paper that attracts virii from everywhere.

Truth , Lies , and Confessions

Article

It's a very interesting CBC video, I recommend everyone view it.

To summarize ?

They're legally allowed to lie to the suspect they're interrogating, and claim they have a mountain of evidence against you , even though in truth they might have nothing at all.

The usual flow of the interrogation is win your trust , pull out a clip board and start flipping through it as if it has lots and lots of evidence against you , and then ask why did you do it ? Heck ,they'll even show you evidence they ginned up just to trick you and make you think your case is hopeless. They can't show that evidence to the judge because it's false, but they can sure show it to you. They're allowed to lie to you.

No matter what reason you give, you gave a reason ? You confessed.

Now they flush their false evidence (assuming it wasn't just blank paper ) down the toilet , go to court with a confession in hand , and even if that confession is the only thing they have on you , you'll probably be found guilty and go to jail.

Works Great on Criminals.

Works great on the innocent as well.

If you didn't do it , stand by your story, and ignore their tales of vast mountains of evidence against you.

If you did do it , most criminals are idiots , and most forensic specialists are pretty bright , and you're probably going to the slammer no matter what. Gotta love finger prints and DNA matching. And video cameras everywhere, everyone's phone, public traffic cams ... why do people even try to commit crime in this kind of environment ?

2012 : The Not-So-Magical Crystal Ball

artical = none , personal opinion

I suppose, since I am such an opinionated guy , and I have my views on the future , I should write them down , and then later on see how I fare as an Oracle of Future Sight.

Looking into my not so magical crystal ball I see ...

The European Union will fail or get a Federal Government. Or even just something that acts like a federal government. Something that only deals with banking issues will still be subject to stronger governments (like Germany) telling weaker ones like Greece "You spent all that money on WHAT ??? We're not giving you a single mark more !"

The price of Tablets will continue to drop. When they fall to below 200$ for one that I can actually draw on (ie: take a stylus to the screen and lines are drawn on the screen , none of this fake playing with a mouse or drawing thing off to the side) then I will buy one.

All the high school , college , and University students will go back to school in September. I'll be able to get a job in mid august , two weeks before this date , because the Employers know 10% or 20% of their work force is about to up and vanish and an old guy like me who aint going no where in September will suddenly be a very attractive hire. (that one's for my wife who thinks I'm going to be unemployed forever. )

Cyberwarefare , which is currently a nation vs nation affair , will trickle down as electronics get cheaper , and hackers will be using this kind of junk on random personal computers like mine. Not because I have anything valuable on it , but because I have an internet connection and they think they can hijack it and host a porn site there without me knowing and rake in a few bucks before I start wondering why my usage is so high and start investigating. Oh wait... arn't they already doing that to people ? Hmm...that might not count as an actual prediction ...

Now that Microsoft is run by a board of directors who can be sued if they mess up , instead of a single guy who is a majority share holder who can change the direction of the company on a dime and give you the middle finger if you don't like it , they will lose their domination , slowly , and eventually fall away and die. Look for some version of Linux to be picked up by the big boys and turned into a "for profit" distribution. Not neccesariy "100$ for a copy of Linux-For-Profit" though , they may simply charge for extra add ons, like customer support, like charging companies a licensing fee to make software for their operating system , etc etc. (Ubuntu is one of several versions of Linux trying to go down this road)

Star Wars The Old Republic will be the one MMO to Rule Them All ! (not sure how that one will fly , but I'm a fan so I'm putting that in anyways. Hey , over a million subscribers it can't be that bad a game.)

Diablo III's real money auction house will get them sued six ways from Sunday and that game will sink like a stone. Or at least remove the auction house. A dollar to sell a virtual item , and another dollar from the buyer as well ? The only one making money there is the company that makes it.

The internet will be broken into regions and you must deliberately allow connections from other regions to talk to your computer. For example , you may get a message on your screen "A connection from Northern China would like to talk to the application Trust_Me_I'm_Not_A_Virus , do you accept the connection ? (Y/N)"

All operating systems will eventually get a little button on the bottom right of their screen that will let them disconnect or reconnect to the internet just by pressing it. Especially in Canada where they currently charge you by the gigabyte for your connection.

Large Corporations will continue to advertise the heck out of exceptionally bad deals and make you sign up for years and years , and people will think this is normal , while small corporations will continue to offer exceptionally good deals , but won't be able to afford any kind of advertising budget so it will be strictly word of mouth . But once you join these small companies, you'll never be able to bring yourself to go back to The Big Guys.

At this moment , they have call centers that just go out onto the internet and find forums of their competitors and post bad reviews , or good reviews for their own products. Artificial Intelligence, which you now see in voice recognition for example "Emily" when you phone Bell Canada , will take over this task and all the forums, shopping sites, and reviews of anything anywhere , will be spammed to death by a new generation of intelligent bots.

We will go through a phase where people in India (and other countries) will run our personal robots to clean our house and do our dishes because we're too lazy to do it ourself and Artificial Intelligences arn't smart enough to do it for us. This will end when AI's become smart enough to do it.

We will finally see Honest Lawyers when Artificial Intelligences take over the job of being a Lawyer. Of course by then , Artificial Intelligences and robots will have taken over literally every job possible , leaving me to wonder how the government will choose between putting a nation on welfare , or enacting protectionist laws that forbid automation of certain tasks. Where will they draw the line, I wonder ?

And for my friend Wireless Toaster , who sometimes can sound Paranoid, I agree with *SOME* of what he says. That being that those Canadians who are entrusted with powerful government positions and influence, such as CSIS , The Police , and even Members of Parliament , can and probably do face "hostile operations" by foreign governments. When you think about it , there are a lot of nations in the world that don't much like Canada , and why wouldn't they hire a couple of hookers and provide some free drugs to get the information they want ? Why wouldn't they blow a wad on a member of parliament or two to sway a couple of votes in their favor ? Especially for something obvious like flat out giving Country X aid money ? I think they will do this. Heck , I think they are already doing it. They'd be stupid not to.

I predict ... I will actually live long enough to retire at 67. In fact, I'd bet real money on that. Feel free to try and collect off of my corpse if I'm wrong :)

I predict our Natural Governing Party , the Liberals , can only shrink so far. There is definitely a number of core supporters that will not be swayed. That's not to say they'll ever be in power again , or ever climb back from their current third party status. In fact, it's possible they may yet fall a little farther. But there is a lower limit to how far they'll fall.

The founder of Wiki-leaks will be extradited to the USA , where he will receive the death penalty under certain laws that have not yet been written that will allow the USA to kidnap anyone off the street of a forien nation they decide they don't like , try them for Treason against the USA despite the fact that they're not only NOT a US Citizen but have never set foot in the USA in their entire lives, and execute them. And it will be a total mockery of justice. The literal classical kangaroo court. This assumes some USA paid assassin doesn't sneak into his well publicized current location and put a bullet between his eyes.

I predict the islamic terrorists will continue to exploit the poor and the starving of the world to produce an endless supply of terrorists to throw at whoever they decide they don't like. Despite the fact that this is in fact on contravention of the religion they claim to believe in. (suicide is against the rules, tutt tutt). I also think they will continue to make really stupid and obviously false Hadiths (sayings of the Prophet , such as singling out the USA by name when the Prophet makes no claims as to being able to see into the future, in fact he denies such abilities, saying he can only read and write even when he is possessed by the spirit of Islam - The angel Gabriel , and certainly is just an ordinary man at other times) This will continue for as long as there are corrupt and weak governments who do not serve, or protect, their people , and have large tracts of land that are only technically theirs , but they dare not actually send police or sometimes even the army in there for fear they'll be wiped out. The solution to this mess is to declare those uncontrolled tracts seperate nations , aquire their own governments , and then ,free from the corrupt central government , allow them to tend to their own protection. Because right now they are simply not permitted to protect themselves and that just makes them lambs to the slaughter.

not so sure about western nations negative population growth. Technically we are shrinking in population , but it's by such a small amount we could withstand it for many centuries, and it only really started in the 1950's when birth control made the big times. Is one or two generations actually important , or just a passing fad ? I think this issue is too long for me to see the answers to in my life time.

Newspapers will increasingly become less and less relevant as they become more and more mouth pieces of the corporations that own them (what do you think a large newspaper chain is going to do to the political party that decides to raise taxes on large coroperations ?) and bloggers with no affiliation to anyone in particular will become more and more the broker of honest news.

Electric bicycles will become the norm, and will eventually branch out into electric cars. A thouand bucks for a bike compared to 20 000 for a gas guzzling car ? And they already exist today I'm simply predicting they'll become more wide spread ? I'll let you do the math.

and I guess that's it for this year. See you next july.

G20 summit: Leaders alarmed over eurozone crisis

Article

World leaders meeting at a G20 summit in Mexico have urged Europe to take all necessary measures to overcome the eurozone debt crisis. . . .

Ah , the beauty of the Economic Summit. 20 nations all getting together , each saying "You should do this because this would be beneficial to my country and I actually don't care how much harm it would do to your country. " It is truely a thing of beauty.

Take Germany ,for example, lending Greece more money. Do you think Greece actually got more money ? Or do you think Germany said "We're applying it against this months payments to us, and by the way your payments just went up, way up !Because we're taking the interest on this loan to what you already owe !"

The European Union has only one way to fix itself. A federal government. Which they don't have. Right now they have a consortium of squabble-some individual governments, and no federal government to even things out. No federal government to produce transfer payments to help the poorer parts of the Union , no federal government to decide they need to print a little more money because raising taxes isn't going to work.

Right now , what is going to happen is that nation after nation (Greece like the third one , Spain is forth) is going to get these bail outs with high interest loans attached to them that just kicks them when they're down. And sooner or later , they will reach the point where it doesn't matter what they want. They will have no choice but to leave the European union. They'll owe so much money that they'll have to close all the hospitals and cut off all the old peoples pensions. And you think that's going to be allowed ? No , they're heading for the door when that happens.

The European Union is going to shake off the poor nations that joined it ,that they worked so hard into wooing to join it , and there is only going to be a small group of rich nations left. And one by one , those rich nations , who still don't have a federal government , will get into trouble and bail, until there's only one or two left, and they voluntarily agree to shut it all down.

mars one tomfoolery

You want to send some people on a one way trip to Mars, wehre they will live the rest of their short lives ?

Are they sick ? Are they dying of some fatal disease ?

And if you do find volinteers for this , what happens if they get sick ? What happens if they get suicidal ? You going to send husband / wife combinations ? What happens when they get into a fight and want to kill each other ?

The colony I saw in the video doesn't look self sustaining. Doesn't look like it can grow or survive on it's own. Looks like a lot of pieces get flown in , and if they're damaged they can't be replaced.

This idea is technically possible , maybe. But those people will murder each other. And we'll get to watch it all on TV.

Welcome to Cyberwarfare

Flame virus wiped from computers by suicide command

Security experts estimate that Flame has been around since at least 2010, and possibly as early as 2007, and that it was likely created by a nation state.

Pardon Me. That should be "State Sponsored Cyber warfare" . And as the USA hates Iran the most , that's probably why everyone is looking in their direction. Not to say Iran doesn't deserve it. Still... The world has changed. Again.

"Compromised computers regularly contact their pre-configured control server to acquire additional commands," Symantec wrote in a blog post earlier this week. "Following the request, the C&C server shipped them a file named browse32.ocx. This file can be summarized as the module responsible for removing Flamer from the compromised computer."

Files ending in .ocx are windows files. Executables , actually. Our great state sponsored virus is a windows virus.

I feel that it is my obligation to point out that unless you're playing games, you shouldn't be running a windows system. Why is this my obligation ? Because you're not allowed to even write a news story these days pointing out it was yet another windows only virus that attacked and did all that damage , microsoft will sue you for defamation. yet , here we are , another windows only virus.

You should be running Macs , or Linux boxes. (ha ha , you probably don't know this but the Mac Operating system started out as a version of Linux , so running a Mac is running Linux). Ubuntu is reasonably user friendly , and totally free of charge. And comes with an office suite called Open Office, that does word processing , spread sheets , all the stuff Microsoft office does without the virii.

It's open season on all windows machines, people. virus scanners don't catch new virii , they scan for existing ones that they know about , and that means you're standing naked in the rain storm every time a new virus comes out. The virus makers test these things and make darn sure they'll slip past all the major virus scanenrs before they release them.

the cost of running windows for a business is too high to support , and getting higher. Only microsoft propaganda , and their constant deluge of FUD (Fear , uncertainty , Distrust , and yes that is actually a term the microsoft marketting department uses , they got sued and certain marketting documents became public knowledge) is the only reason they're still standing.

What can you do about it ? go get an old clunker and put linux on it. Ubuntu probably , and just practice. You're boss isn't going to listen to you to change out every machine in the corperation , but you don't have to tell him anything. You just have to wait for one or two windows only disasters to befall him , and then point out a few news articles, that's all.

Windows Vista : Part Deux - The Second Failure

Implementing UEFI Secure Boot in Fedora - BY PAYING MICROSOFT?!

Buried in a wall of text is the interesting part.

..., and as previously discussed all Windows 8 hardware will be shipping with secure boot enabled by default.

So. What does this mean ?

Secure boot means the machine in question will only run windows, and nothing else. Since there are any number of hobbiests out there who throw Linux of some kind on their old machine , you are effectively denying them that option. You are strangling the competition , Linux.

Of course, all the virii in the world attack windows machines only. So now every machine in the world will be prone to virii. Yes, Microsoft Fudders (fud = fear , uncertainty , distrust) will tell you there are virii out there for Linux too. But those virii only work if you have the technical knowledge to turn off most of Linux's secure features. A system that can't catch a virus unless you're drunk , technically competent , and looking for trouble is just about as secure as it gets , people.

And what is the prize you gain for having secure boot ? It'll tell you. You get to use the most virus prone clap trap of an Operating system in the world, and you're locked into it. And if you change your mind later on , because you're tired of the computer constantly catching virii, you are Fudding out of luck. You have been scammed by microsoft. Your computer will likely be part of a bot net selling porn to the whole world, and as soon as you get caught your ISP (internet service provider) will shut you down and tell you to clean it.

And cleaning a system that requires boot keys is going to be endlessly entertaining. Seeing as how it requires you to wipe it down and reinstall the operating system from scratch. Oh , you don't have an operating system disk the manufacturer charges you 100$ extra for that and you decided you didn't need it ?

Oopsie. Hope you didn't pay too much for that computer. Toss it in the trash now.

I have a cheap lap top. It has no graphics card. It can't play games. It came with windows 7. It came with huge massive Windows Seven on a tiny little lap top with a slow processor and 2 gigs of ram, making it the slowest lap top in the universe.

I erased windows 7 and put Linux on it immediately (Ubuntu , an easy user friendly version) and I never looked back. The only think Windows does for me is play my games. Give me a machine that can't play games , and Windows is of no use at all to me. Out it goes.

If you're guessing I will never own a secure boot (read that "vender locked : Windows Only , all prices just tripled oh you paid ? We're tripling them again") Windows 8 machine. I'll wait until either they remove the secure boot from it, or the operating system fails. and failure, is my bet.

Windows Vista Part Two : Another piece of trash hyped to death and allowed to die quietly when it is discovered no one likes Vender Locking. (That's where you deny the customer the right to shop elsewhere, so that you can increase the prices drastically)