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The senate voted to remove the Real ID requirement from the bill. However this was not enough to save the legislation, it still failed.

http://news.com.com/Senate+takes+step+away+from+Re al+ID/2100-7348_3-6193735.html
http://news.com.com/National+ID+plan+may+have+kill ed+immigration+bill/2100-7348_3-6193916.html

BTW New Hampshire officially rejected Real ID yesterday, that makes six states...

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/ 20070627/NEWS0201/70627059

The senate voted to remove the Real ID requirement from the bill. However this was not enough to save the legislation, it still failed.

http://news.com.com/Senate+takes+step+away+from+Re al+ID/2100-7348_3-6193735.html
http://news.com.com/National+ID+plan+may+have+kill ed+immigration+bill/2100-7348_3-6193916.html

BTW New Hampshire officially rejected Real ID yesterday, that makes six states...

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/ 20070627/NEWS0201/70627059

Business ready to fleece the people?

Linus Torvalds didn't write today's entire Linux kernel either, he has long aggregated portions of the kernel from plenty of contributors. Credit for creation of software isn't going to get you anywhere in this debate. RMS initially wrote GNU EMACS, GDB, and GCC, three incredibly influential and useful programs among many others. RMS wrote GCC for freedom; it's not much of a stretch to infer he wrote other GNU programs for freedom as well. Yet under the specious creation argument all of RMS' work deserves no credit for GNU and we're supposed to call the entire operating system consisting of GNU running with the Linux kernel "Linux" thus granting exclusive credit to a project egotistically named after its initial author, Linus Torvalds (and thus bringing to mind Torvalds' politics). I think the GNU/Linux naming FAQ adequately addresses every argument which ultimately results in denying GNU even a fair share of credit.

[1] "By Jeffrey R. Jones Director, Microsoft Security Business and Technology Unit"
[2] "Jeffrey R. Jones, a self-described "security guy" who works at Microsoft's security division"
[3] "an overview of Microsoft's progress in improving security by Jeffrey R. Jones, Senior Director - Microsoft Security Business Unit."

[1] - http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-1035_11- 5173565.html
[2] - http://www.boxxet.com/Windows_Vista/Windows_Vista_ News_Researcher_Says_Vista_The_Most_Secure_OS.6304 6006.details
[3] - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/secnews/ articles/itproviewpoint031004.mspx

By putting prayer in schools, you would be removing freedom of religion, not adding it. "No, Mr. Steinberg, you cannot sit out our prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray in this school, and I don't care if you're 'Jewish' or whatever it is you said"? As it is, any kid can pray to whatever god(s)/goddess(es) they want to, if they want to. Want to say Grace before lunch? Go ahead. The teachers just aren't leading kids who most likely hold different beliefs through one set of prayers which only recognizes one of those beliefs.

Putting prayer back in schools doesn't remove freedom of religion. No one says the phrase "prayer in schools" means it has to be led by state employees. No one says that it would require everyone to participate because it never required that to be criteria when it was there 100 years ago. That's only an excuse for those who don't want religion anywhere but in individual houses. Allowing it again would show that it is okay to pray if you want to and therefore encourage it. This is as opposed to how schools currently conduct school activities *led by students* by preventing the students from leading prayer such as at graduation ceremonies. That is not freedom of religion and it is because school boards are taking it to the extreme thus violating the 1st amendment in the process.

Even when religion conversation is started by students people think of whatever they can to still say it is sponsored by the school when it is simply students exercising their right to religion.

Another instance where people think just because religion talk occurs in a school it must be school sponsored even if a student is the one who starts it. This school thinks it can even dictate how prayer can be performed by students. How is that not violating the 1st amendment?

I would seriously consider never coming to the USA again. It's not that I have a huge concern with collecting information about non-citizen civilians, but that I would not trust DHS in any way, especially when it comes to technology. But hey, at least the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Oversight game them a security grade of "D" this year. That's better than an "F" anyway :(

~cromar

I haven't been able to find much more than marketing buzz either, but my impression is that it is Microsoft's attempt to compete with flash. Found a a news article specifically stating this actually. So there you go. They're also trying to compete with PDF.

"The more time kids spend on video games, the less time they will have socializing, the less time they will have with their families, the less time they will have exercising," Kraus said. "They can make up academic deficits, but they can't make up the social ones."

Playing a MMORPG can be incredibly social. In fact, one of the reasons that I felt that WoW was so fun. Compared with SWG, WoW seemed to push players to group up to achieve high end content. So I guilded with one of the high-end raiding guilds on my server (not pvp) and learned to play (I didn't have much else to do IRL as I was on medical leave from work. I was well enough to sit at a desk for 3 hours a night and hated tv so a buddy suggested WoW.) At any rate, I made all kinds of game friends, acquaintences, non-fans, romantic interests, etc.

My guild eventually became very competative, kicking people out that didn't meet standards and not letting anyone in--not something I really cared so much for. I did care for playing and progress--not the rewards. I was sick of raiding Onyxia and MC over and over though--boring. We were the only guild of two on the server that could kill that dragon that turned mages into farm animals at the time. (sry, my memory sucks so i can't remember its name, it was long ago.) So I stayed with them to see more content as it opened up.

I was very careful to try to keep all RL details out of the game because of a minor incident in SWG with a pervert. Eventually, though in WoW I gave in and began using teamspeak, on the huge raids. I realized this would give away my gender for sure. I figured I could deal with that, and I did. Using TS made the raids so much easier. My guild main was a rogue with most of the best non-pvp gear you could get at that time. (If you flame me here, accusing me of bragging about having a well geared rogue on a non pvp server then get a life. any WoW person knows its not hard to do this.) The only way to make playing her less boring was to find strategies to out DPS other rogues involving talking to the team. My point is I wasn't thinking that logging into the guild's TS server probably gave away more RL information than I understand because I haven't kept up with network tech. I know these details seem mundane but be patient, I have a point coming soon.

So, I was playing WoW and being very social with these people ingame. I mentioned my main was a rogue. Well everyone had a rogue, so I had some free time in game. Therefore I just sometimes hung out with some friends and did silly things like naked gnome races, the ever popular griefing of the major Horde and Alliance cities by sneaking into them, and trying to find fashion in WoW--something SWG had that WoW didn't. I made alts that made friends with characters that couldn't stand my main trying to figure out why they didn't like her. A good friend IRL that played on the server and I organized a server wide skinny-dip of Alliance NE's in Horde waters. The point is my player and many others were very very social. Many people opened up to me about in private chat about RL stuff that I really think proves this.

WoW became for me a social community just like the sports bar I'd go to with the new hires for the first year every Friday for happy hour. It was similar to the anime club I joined in college where we'd hang out once a week to watch new films and make new friends. The diversity of the community, the guild I was in and the other guilds even reminded me a lot of college intermurals mixed with the after game hanging out socialization at 24-hour diners. (There were no Starbucks when/where I was in college yet, we had nasty coffee.)

Then my social community disappeared fo

Ok, you've got many PCs most of which run Windows XP. They've been crashing every Exploit Wednesday since October. Every one has a license that was paid for three times (six times under Software Assurance). You have seventeen core apps. Some of them are paid for several times. Some have a licensing server so that some people can use them when other people aren't, and come with a utility so that priority users can kick off nonpriority users. A couple of them are free. Four of them are nagware that came with your PCs or that you thought were a good idea at the time. One is an in-house app that only runs in a DOS box and accesses dBase files stored on your server. Every month a couple get pwned for no detectable reason.

Even if they don't run Windows you've paid over and over. You have to because they've made it happen what "enforcement" will happen if you don't.

Every software vendor you buy from makes it clear the software you bought is being split into "basic" versions that include most of the features you use, and an "Enterprise" version that includes must have features you can't live without. Both new versions will be annual subscriptions instead of purchases. Naturally, the Premium version you require will cost many times what you already paid and the cost will be annual rather than once each. Of course they're entitled to this conversion of your purchase into a "revenue stream" because they've upgraded their product from an application to a "platform framework" that "optimizes" your "TCO".

You're thinking about investigating this multicore thing that people are talking about, but it seems impossible to reconcile the software licenses with multiple "cores" on one or more CPUs. You want to do server consolidation, but every server app has to be evaluated both by a professional enginner and by a hideously expensive team of lawyers who also want to audit every piece of software you've purchased since 1974. Your CPA wants to know why you licensed the same software 3-6 times for each PC, and why you're buying licenses for software that won't run on the PCs they're purchased for. And what's this entry for "SCO Linux licenses"? You live in dread of being audited by jack-booted thugs, not because you're pirating but because the danger of a paperwork snafu that destroys your budget is nearly certain and the slightest discrepancy is going to get you canned.

I have one question: What the hell are you thinking? Get off the train to crazy town. The free stuff isn't just good, it's better. So much better that you're not going to believe you put up with this crap. If it's truly free you don't have to account for each copy/user/use/year/processor/incidence. It's not free because it's less worthy: it's free because you're not the first person to be disgusted by the experience you're having. Pay for support. Nobody ever got sued for terminating their support contract. Figure it out. The world has changed. The future is open.

Totally!!!

You know 'Toy Story Graphics'!!! What a bunch of fucking liars!

Oh wait...

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-250632.html

"One of the basic premises of the Xbox is to put the power in the hands of the artist," Blackley said, which is why Xbox developers "are achieving a level of visual detail you really get in 'Toy Story.'"

that was Microsoft with pathetic lies.

Any traffic that goes to Canada must first pass through US soil... MAP: http://news.com.com/2300-1033_3-6035611-1.html

since the act of handing a single copied CD is clearly protected behavior...

Well, you wouldn't know that from the propaganda that the MAFIAA prepares as 'educational and factual' instructional materials to be shown in American classrooms right along with the reading, writing, and arithmetic. If further evidence of under-qualified, unmotivated, and undiscerning teachers in our public school system was required then surely this fits the bill. Manipulating politicians (who as adults should know better) is one thing, but presenting false or misleading information to our children in the guise of factual instructional materials is especially contemptible.

He has referred to the free Linux software system as a "[...] cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."

Uhm all of them. The flag was ruled out of the jurisdiction of the FCC.
from cnet.com http://news.com.com/Court+yanks+down+FCCs+broadcas t+flag/2100-1030_3-5697719.html/
update In a stunning victory for hardware makers and television buffs, a federal appeals court has tossed out government rules that would have outlawed many digital TV receivers and tuner cards starting July 1.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that the Federal Communications Commission did not have the authority to prohibit the manufacture of computer and video hardware that doesn't have copy protection technology known as the "broadcast flag." The regulations, which the FCC created in November 2003, had been intended to limit unauthorized Internet redistribution of over-the-air TV broadcasts.

As far as I know the broadcast flag was never even turned on.

[sarcasm]And I thought Microsoft Vista was doing so well according to the sales numbers that they claimed...[/sarcasm]
Report: Vista's business sales stronger than expected

There is no question that the folks at News.com have a bias. From one of Declan's articles we learn:

I've written scores, if not hundreds, of stories based on confidential leaked government documents. News.com has broken its share of business stories, including being the first to confirm the highly confidential information that Apple was switching to Intel chips. And in the Bartnicki case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld journalists' First Amendment right to publish highly confidential information (that they had obtained by breaking no laws).

So why, exactly, would I be desirous of accomodating journalists in an eGov meeting when they have not met publicly noted deadlines, have not met the meeting registration requirements, or show up on meeting day with no other justification for being there other than "I'm a journalist"?

Sorry, it's Linux that's playing the license games, not Sun.

ZFS is on OpenSolaris and Sun has claimed to be considering GPL for OpenSolaris. Are they, or aren't they? On top of that, the FSF has muddied the waters through their activity on the GPLv3, further complicating the entire issue.

I don't think you can blame the whole situation on Linux's use of the GPL, which is not coincidentally the reason why many people contributed to Linux. Given that Linux is today considerably ahead of all BSDs in most ways, I think adoption of the GPL is likely the only reason Linux is here today.

Finally, if you don't care about software freedom, and only your freedom, why don't you go run BSD, and stop complaining about Linux?

Spot on.

Here's a map of the world's undersea communications cables. Notice the massive of connections out of the US, particular between US and Europe. It's practically a single line. Now look at Australia. The larger two going between Australia and the US is the Southern Cross Cable. The other major cable is the Australia-Japan Cable. The rest are low-capacity links used primarily as back-ups.

Sony did a white paper on the Station Exchange economy which noted that the largest sellers were 22-year-olds (who have plenty of time but not a lot of money) and the largest buyers were age 34. These older players have more money than time, and that fact drives the demand side of the virtual economy, creating a sustainable market for both power-leveling and game accounts.

There is no way to stop piracy, period. The real frightening undertone to this is the fact that the RIAA and MPAA lobbyists are actively trying to criminalize copyright infringement to such a level that would imprison people. This would be disastrous, and for this and other reasons I am thinking about moving to a sensible country where the laws are created by the people and not corporations. If you aren't concerned, take a look at laws proposed by our attorney general http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9719339-7.html/, and past sentences: http://p2pfreak.com/warez-leader-faces-10-years-in -jail/. Now that Gonzales was found to be a moronic hack, I doubt they will be implemented during this presidency, but likely they will in the future. Soon this country really will consist mainly of prisons and churches.

I would genuinely like to know why you disagree.

Well I disagree primarily because it isn't taking care of the root cause of the problem. Which the human.

No amount of legislation of social engineering can fix the fact that humans are bad drivers.

The only solution is of something something like this.

http://news.com.com/Google+cancels+rain+on+eBays+p arade/2100-1024_3-6190905.html goes into much more detail.

You have to love Ebay's comments as to why they dont allow Google Checkout, it reliability is unproven. Which of course translates into we dont get anything out of allowing their service and are much happier double-dipping on our "customers". Their real fear is that people would ditch paypal in droves, which is true, I dont know anyone who really likes paypal but its the only choice you have in dealing with Ebay. Ebay may be surprised to find that accepting other forms of payment would bring people back to ebay. I hated paypal so much after being ripped off for a second time that I just stopped using ebay completely, a better choice of payment options might tempt me back. I did still find myself led to Ebay by google often when searching for specific items.

I'd like to see the real numbers on traffice from google to ebay, I have seen it listed as much as 10% and as little as 2%. Still it looks like this hurts Ebay more than Google, I havent seen any numbers suggesting revenue from Ebay totalling more than 1-2%. If I was Google I'd stick to my guns and not allow them back until checkout was declared acceptable.

It is the same principle... up here in Canada at least! You're not the first to make this argument. Canadian Federal Judge Konrad von Finckenstein came to exactly the same conclusion way back in 2004:

http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5182641.html

The case this student is making in the U.S. today has been precedent in Canada for over three years now.

nonetheless here's a few links on it: http://techdirt.com/articles/20070610/172049.shtml http://news.com.com/TorrentSpy+ordered+to+start+tr acking+visitors/2100-1030_3-6189866.html?part=rss& tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news http://www.techfirm.com/logorder.pdf http://torrentspy.com/privacy.asp

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9727965-7.html

According to that article, we see that the judge knows basically what RAM is.

They thing that puzzles me is that if one were using, lets say, closed source service software, how the hell are you supposed to figure out exactly where the IP is in memory to log it?

Microsoft's biggest problem will come when someone at Merck or some other large company begins to realize that they could save the company money going to open office or open source in general. Like you said all Merck's other customers will have to move to the new software, which conveniently they could download for free. However, there seems to be a very big "no one ever gets fired for buying MS" syndrome that has permeated through a lot of IT depts. At least in the non-technical industries because in the high tech industries open source is winning

What will of coarse happen is that companies, governments, other large buyers will at least start looking at open source software so that they can use it as a bargaining chip, to get MS to cut their prices. Eventually the idea of open source software will get out there enough by just being used as a bargaining chip that someone will start using it quite successfully. Oh wait someone already has. I'm not saying that MS's days are numbered, just you can expect them to lose market share and revenue quite a bit in the future.

MS helped Apple several times along the way, when they could have went in for the kill. If MS was truly predatory or evil, there would be no Apple, especially when Apple was very dependent on IE and Office.

As I understand it MS did this not to help Apple but to get Apple to settle their 10+ year legal battle. A little office and IE for the Mac and 150 Million investment in Apple and everybody is happy.

MS wanted to sue him out of existence not too long ago.

An easy way to get around the firewall is to install Tor (http://tor.eff.org/) or run your own proxy service (this is how I am getting around it).

News.com has a pretty good article describing the basics of how the firewall works at http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-6090437.html, while Wikipedia has more technical specs than the News.com article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_i n_the_People's_Republic_of_China, as long as you can get to Wikipedia.

Why not be more involved in your kid's life rather than pushing the responsibility off onto other people?

Your arguing point has been utterly destroyed (even on this site) MANY times.

Also, see http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-6139030-7.html. People have tried, and failed.

I got news for you and everyone else:

HTTPS / SSL / TLS is not secure.

The only thing that fucking lock gives you is a modicum amount of assurance of who the real individuals are behind that domain you're surfing (and even that is turning into bullshit now-a-days).

The technology exists today (in fact for the past several years now) to decrypt, and reassemble (as in man-in-the-middle attack) an SSL/ TLS packet stream to inspect away.

We've got the commercial appliance where I work today that can do that, and as far back as 2000 I remember the solutions being commercially available to do the same.

So go on, continue to believe in TLS/ SSL, and while you're at it take a look at the following if you don't believe me:

http://news.com.com/Blue+Coat+to+cleanse+encrypted +traffic/2100-1029_3-5940533.html

http://viralinks.com/computersecurity/?cat=846

http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5627640.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flickr#History

Verizon does not need to share the new fiber plant. The copper plant is what Verizon has to share with other people. Why invest in something you don't get all to your self. It will be interesting to try and get T1 and DS3 lines from AT&T in the Verizon footprint. Although I suspect that AT&T is doing the same thing with their copper plant.

The regulators are getting exactly what their policies have said they want.

Remember Ma Bell is back! and this time she's pissed.

Alan Ralsky

Scott Richter

Ryan Pitylak

Sanford Wallace

The first ten results on Google give four different Spam Kings, none of which is the guy here, one of which involves Burger King and real Spam.

"Spider-Man" can alter Times Square
By Lisa M. Bowman
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: August 5, 2002, 12:28 PM PDT

Upholding the rights of filmmakers to superimpose digital images on real-life buildings in their movies, a federal judge in New York has thrown out a suit filed by billboard and building owners against the creators of the "Spider-Man" movie.

In a three-page ruling issued last week, Judge Richard Owen questioned claims that altering the billboards in the movies violated trademarks and amounted to trespassing.

Several billboard and building owners, including Sherwood 48 Associates and Super Sign, filed suit in April against Sony and other companies involved in making and distributing "Spider-Man," claiming their prime Times Square space becomes less valuable if they can't guarantee customers exclusive rights both on and off screen. In the "Spider-Man" movie and trailers, ads for companies such as Cingular Wireless and USA Today have been superimposed over those of Samsung and NBC.

The judge disagreed with the billboard owners' claims, however, saying the digital alterations are protected free speech. "What exists here is for artistic purposes a mixture of a fictionally and actually depicted Times Square...this has First Amendment protection," Owen wrote.

Of course they are doing it 'Under the guise of fighting spam'. That's how you disguise reporting your information to the government. This way you can call it a surcharge instead of calling it a tax.

We must be vigilant.

It was not immediately clear what Gonzales and Mueller meant by suggesting that network data be retained. One possibility is requiring Internet providers to record the Internet addresses their customers are temporarily assigned. A more extensive mandate would require companies to keep track of e-mail messages sent, Web pages visited and perhaps even instant-messaging correspondents.

Of course that never happens in the US, right?

You haven't been keeping up. Notebooks are growing at a faster rate than desktop sales, and have already overtaken them in retail:
http://news.com.com/PC+milestone--notebooks+outsel l+desktops/2100-1047_3-5731417.html

I have tried very hard to see some good in this and I believe you're right.

I think also the disgust that these companies may feel after having to cough-up to Microsoft's shake-down shenanigans will be the main driver in them accelerating their migration away from MS products. This will backfire in MS face in the future for sure. It is an act of desparation on the part of Mr Steve Balmer. This guy is vicious and cut-throat. The nightmare for Mr. Balmer Is being caught between a group of angry Tux penguins and an icy cliff. They are losing the grip and it is what they fear the most. They will do anything to protect their monopoly and without any semblance of scruples whatsoever.

Once you force a company to purchase protection from you it leaves a lasting bad taste in their mouth and given that they have paid protection they definitely feel free to completely do what ever they want including getting rid of all MS code in their products.

Look for these device companies to accelerate their move to Linux in even a much wider array of devices given their new false sense of freedom from the beast.

I think I'll adjust this shootout. I'm assuming the person gets paid $10/hr. as most people low enough on the ladder to be dealing with this crap 100% of their day usually are. We will assume that this is re-worded so that we are working with a homogeneous environment (email, ppt, project, active-x equivalents on linux). We'll also assume you grabbed employees trained with windows, but not linux.

>Check your e-mail on the corporate server

  - Windows: 42 man hours.
  - Linux: About 14 man hours while you have someone retrain the new person for a day. Multiple people being trained by one would reduce this.

>Prepare a flawless document in PPT that's going to be emailed to your boss' boss

  - Windows: 0 man hours, since you already bought office.
  - Linux: About another 14 man hours retraining.

>Update the project schedule that's maintained in MS Project on the server

  - Windows: 36 man hours.
  - Linux: Another 14 man hours retraining.

>Go to the corporate web site and install the active-X controll used by the payroll program

  - Windows: About 14 man hours training someone on how to install applications (most office slaves know how to use applications they've been taught, installing them is way outside their abilities).
  - Linux: 0 man hours, since a smart office would have given you an Xterm, which means the work is done once by the admin, and never again. I'll say 1 man hours for the admin to do the dirty work.

>Connect to the printer down the hall

  - Windows: About 14 hours basic network administration training.
  - Linux: Again, it's an Xterm. The admin did it once already for you. I'll give another 1 hour for the admin, but I'd be amazed if it took more than 5 minutes.

Totals!

Windows: 106 man hours.
Linux: 44 man hours.

Winner? Linux.

Step 3 of this is: If you can actually get the company to use linux, make that job completely permanent. Don't tell me it can't be done, because it has been.

Keeping the BSA from EVER busting you and reclaiming productivity by customizing Xterms so they don't have timewasters like Solitaire on them? PRICELESS.

So you're mad because they started following apple's lead?

I am all for seeing a criminal trial against the RIAA, but as others have stated its a bit of a "pipe dream" to actually get it.

my main concern is the RIAA/MPAA getting new laws passed that would be similar to a criminal version of the DMCA. Here in the US it seems you can buy -almost- any law you want, even if it will get overturned by a court later and tore down by organizations like the EFF. It will still be in effect long enough to do quite a bit of damage.

see: Gonzales proposes new crime: 'Attempted' copyright infringement May 15, 2007 - stuff like this, even a lot lesser version of it is what bothers me.

Intel has added kitten whiskers and pixie dust to its compilers

You're thinking of IBM.

To quote the RIAA presidentCary Sherman (regarding a different, but similar case):

"This is an ongoing strategy, and the way to let people know that there is a risk of consequences is to continue the program. You don't set up a speed trap for one day and stop enforcement thereafter. It has to be consistent."

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=67877&cid= 6220788

http://news.com.com/5208-1030_3-0.html?forumID=1&t hreadID=2246&messageID=11919&start=-1

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=82711&cid=7248 087

Funny about these little things isn't it. And those are just three places I found this troll. I'm not sure where it originated, but still, just goes to show that trolls aren't original.

Wouldn't it have been better to simply post a link to were you copied this forum post from?

http://news.com.com/5208-1030_3-0.html?forumID=1&t hreadID=2246&messageID=11919&start=-1

Of course, it would not make it any more correct than it was back then.