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John Carmack is, of course, a GameGod[tm] so famous that even stuffy, all-business Forbes.com recently noticed him and Id Software. He's been interviewed about 42 gazillion times - but not by you. So go ahead. One question per post please, and since we expect a huge response, please try not to whine too loudly if our exotic blend of moderation, editorial judiciousness, and random dart-throwing doesn't pop your question(s) to the top o' the heap, which only has room for 10 - 15 no matter how many are submitted. Answers will be posted Friday, as usual, and I'm sure they'll be great, because John's a great guy!

John Carmack is, of course, a GameGod[tm] so famous that even stuffy, all-business Forbes.com recently noticed him and Id Software. He's been interviewed about 42 gazillion times - but not by you. So go ahead. One question per post please, and since we expect a huge response, please try not to whine too loudly if our exotic blend of moderation, editorial judiciousness, and random dart-throwing doesn't pop your question(s) to the top o' the heap, which only has room for 10 - 15 no matter how many are submitted. Answers will be posted Friday, as usual, and I'm sure they'll be great, because John's a great guy!

infojack writes to us with the the word that Forbes is running a story on AntiOnline. It's a op-ed piece by Adam Penenberg, talking about the creds of John Vranesevich and some of the PacketStorm flap. What I found most interesting was the outright recognition of how the media operates with "experts", and reporters use of the same people over and over.

Apuleius writes "Adam Penenberg's current column in Forbes uses the Mitnick case to show the risks of letting technology case law be written by clueless judges. Raises some good points aboute CESA. "

The point I like most in the article concerns encryption. The Fifth Amendment prohibits the State from forcing an individual to testify against himself; this should include the right to keep your encryption keys secret (assuming that you've memorized them - if you've written them down somewhere and the prosecution finds them, you're out of luck). In Mitnick's case the prosecution justified withholding evidence from the defense on the grounds that they, the prosecution, couldn't understand what it said, and the Judge bought that story. (Of course, the Judge was a clueless fool who bought ALL of the prosecution's stories, including that Mitnick could hack his way out of prison if provided with a modemless computer, but we won't go into that here.)

The Question of Encryption, as it were, remains to be decided. Will defendants be forced to divulge their encryption keys? Will the FBI be granted the ability to break into your house and install trojan programs on your computer (as the CESA bill would allow them), so the Feds will already have your keys in hand? Or is there some other solution?

Apuleius writes "Adam Penenberg's current column in Forbes uses the Mitnick case to show the risks of letting technology case law be written by clueless judges. Raises some good points aboute CESA. "

The point I like most in the article concerns encryption. The Fifth Amendment prohibits the State from forcing an individual to testify against himself; this should include the right to keep your encryption keys secret (assuming that you've memorized them - if you've written them down somewhere and the prosecution finds them, you're out of luck). In Mitnick's case the prosecution justified withholding evidence from the defense on the grounds that they, the prosecution, couldn't understand what it said, and the Judge bought that story. (Of course, the Judge was a clueless fool who bought ALL of the prosecution's stories, including that Mitnick could hack his way out of prison if provided with a modemless computer, but we won't go into that here.)

The Question of Encryption, as it were, remains to be decided. Will defendants be forced to divulge their encryption keys? Will the FBI be granted the ability to break into your house and install trojan programs on your computer (as the CESA bill would allow them), so the Feds will already have your keys in hand? Or is there some other solution?

JAZ writes "Forbes has an article on on Lego Mindstorms and the independent Open Source (MPL) LegOS and how Lego is not trying to stop it (obviously Lego is NOT an American Corp=]) It seems that sharing Intellectual Property can actually help sales... who'da thunk it "

One of our readers sent us an interesting Forbes article detailing some of the "odd" movements that Intel has taken in reference to one of their partners, VIA Technologies. VIA makes a 133 mhz chipset, competition to Intel's 100 mhz chipset. You may remember VIA as the company that Intel accidently sued in mid-April, but withdrew the suit, saying it was a clerical mistake.

Brian Behlendorf, of Apache fame (and all around nice guy!), talked to Forbes.com about O'Reilly's new project, sourceXchange Read the interview for the full details.

Anonymous Coward writes "A recent article in Forbes does a decent job of understanding open source and offers some suggestions as to why Mozilla is struggling. "

Signal 11 writes "Kevin grants a rare interview with Forbes Reporter Adam L. Penenberg and blames the media frenzy surrounding the now infamous hacker squarely on John Markoff of the New York Times. More info about Kevin Mitnick. "

An anonymous reader linked us to a forbes article about the linux/playstation devel stuff that has been mentioned here like 9 times before. We've got some official word from DJ Delorie @Cygnus who confirms this stuff- Update: 03/26 09:38 by CT : I've got a full blurb from DJ attached below: Worth reading. DJ Delorie writes "There's been a lot of rumors about Sony and Linux lately, but on Monday Cygnus will add fact to rumors by announcing that they've developed the next generation Playstation development tools that Sony will be distributing to game developers. Here's the basics: it includes gcc and gdb, runs on Linux, includes a GPL'd NG Playstation simulator, and will be available as part of the NG Playstation developer's kit.

The compiler targets Toshiba's new 128-bit CPU, and includes extensions to program the custom graphics chips in the next generation Playstation.

The simulator simulates most of the NG Playstation console, but you can't quite use it to play games on it - its CPU outperforms even a Pentium III. However, the simulator lets game designers debug things that would be impossible with hardware, and since it's GPL'd, they can modify it as needed to help them debug.

The tools will be available through Sony's usual developer channels as part of their hardware development systems, and yes, they'll be GPL (the compiler and simulator, at least) for those people who buy them. Cygnus will sell support contracts to game developers.

Eventually, of course, the changes to gcc, gdb, and other FSF programs will get rolled into the public releases.

You will be able to read the press releases on Monday.

Let the games begin! "

Richard Thieme has long been writing a weekly column called Islands in the Clickstream. Richard wants to run them weekly on Slashdot - he would be joining Katz then providing new content on these pages. I'm excited about this, and I think many of you will too. The following feature is this weeks island. Read it, vote on the poll, and hopefully Richard will be back next week. The following was written by Slashdot Reader Richard Thieme Distortions

"We all know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it." -- Woody Allen

A couple of weeks ago, it was reported by Reuters News Agency that hackers had taken control of a British military satellite and demonstrated control of the "bird" by changing its orbit. The report said the hackers were blackmailing the British government, and unless they received a ransom, they would take action. The demonstration was frightening for those who were just waiting for a blatant act of cyber-terror.

A few days later, the Hacker News Network , an underground alternative to CNN, reported that the hijacking was bogus.

The Hacker News Network got it right while Reuters got it wrong.

Just as business managers increasingly supervise IT workers who know more about networks than they do, traditional news sources often cover subjects they don't understand, and they often get it wrong.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article for Forbes Digital on the unique culture of the professional Services Division of Secure Computing, where a number of former hackers help government agencies and large financial institutions secure their networks. Many articles have appeared recently about former hackers who have swapped underground lives for stock options, but that wasn't what my article was about. It was about the mindset that hackers bring to their work, a map or model of reality that is becoming the norm in a borderless world, where intelligence operatives are migrating into competitive intelligence in growing numbers. It's a mindset characterized, said one, by "paranoia appropriate to the real risks of open networks and a global economy."

Businesses used to decide on a course of action, then inform IT people so they could implement the plan. Now our thinking must move through the network that shapes it, not around it. The network itself - how it enables us to think, how it defines the questions that can be asked - determines the forms of possible strategies. So those who implement strategy must participate in setting strategy, not be added on after the fact, just as information security must be intrinsic to the architecture of an organizational structure, not added on as an afterthought.

The mind that designs the network designs the possibilities for human thinking and therefore for action.

Every single node in a network is a center from which both attack and defense can originate. The gray world in which hackers live has spilled over the edges which used to look more black and white. The skies of the digital world grow grayer day by day.

In that world, we are real birds fluttering about in digital cages. Images - icons, text, sound - define the "space" in which we move. If the cages are large enough, we have the illusion we are free and flying, when in fact we are moved in groups by the cages.

Example: to prevent insurrection during times of extreme civil unrest, government agencies created groups whose members were potentially dangerous, building a database of people they intended to collect if things fell apart. These days, many digital communities serve this purpose.

Example: Last week an FDIC spokesperson provided data on the readiness of American banks for Y2K. Tom Brokaw of NBC had recently announced, he said, that 33% of the banks weren't ready, but in fact, 96% of the banks are on schedule, 3 % are lagging a little, and only 1% are seriously behind. The biggest threat to the monetary system is a stampeding herd, spooked by the digital image of a talking head giving bogus information.

The digital world is a hall of mirrors, and the social construction of reality is big business, fueled by the explosion of the Internet, a marketplace where the buyer of ideas - as well as items at auction - had better beware.

This is not just about the distortion of facts by mainstream (or alternative) news media, nor the exploitation of fear because we know that fear sells. More and more, we are seeking and finding alternative sources of information from sources we believe we can trust. Believable truth must be linked to believable sources, or else we will make it up, pasting fears and hopes onto a blank screen or onto images built like bookshelves to receive our projections. Because we like to live on islands of agreement, receiving information that supports our current thinking, we live in thought worlds threaded on digital information that isolates and divides us. But the network is also the means of a larger communion and the discovery of a more unified, more comprehensive truth. We live on the edge of a digital blade, and the blade cuts both ways.

"We all know the same truth," said Woody Allen. "Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it."

Except Woody Allen didn't say it. Rather, he said it through the mouth of a character in "Deconstructing Harry" named Harry Block. Except Harry Block didn't say it either. He said it through the mouth of a character he created in the movie.

Hacking is a kind of deconstruction of the combinations and permutations available in a network. Deconstruction is essential in a digital world. The skills of critical thinking, the ability to integrate fragments and know how to build a Big Picture are more important than ever. Those skills are critical to hacking and securing networks and critical to understanding who is really who in a world in which people are not always what they seem.

Plato feared the emerging world of writing because anybody could say anything without accountability, but he did not foresee the emergence of tools to document and evaluate what was written. Our world may seem for the moment to be a-historical, fragmentary, multi-modal in relationship to the world of printed text, but something new is evolving - a matrix of understanding, a set of skills, a mindset that lets us sift through disinformation and use the same technology that lulls us to sleep to wake ourselves up.

Richard Thieme (www.thiemeworks.com) speaks, writes and consults on the human dimension of technology and the work place.

CT : So what do you think? Is he a keeper? Vote on the poll if you'd like to see this column each week on Slashdot. Of course, now that we have the customizable stuff, you'll be able to disable future Island's even if we do keep him.

bjb writes "The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Sun plans to announce later today that they are going to distribute designs of their microprocessors to outside developers for free. Similar to the Java license that recently came out, you can modify it, but if you sell you have to pay. The schedule appears that they will release the PicoJava first, the 32-bit SPARC technology by the summer, and the 64-bit UltraSPARC technology by the end of the year." This article requires a paid login to read- what a crock. Anyway, someone please submit a free link. Update: 03/02 12:09 by S : News.com is now carrying the story. It's interesting to see how this move fits into Forbes' analysis Sun's strategy of getting attention with buzz around Java, Jini, and now Sparc Processors, in order to attack the very high-end more effectively. In the world of Starfire and Serengeti (supercomputers), Sun is probably telling the truth when they say that Linux does not compete with them (long term).

bjb writes "The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Sun plans to announce later today that they are going to distribute designs of their microprocessors to outside developers for free. Similar to the Java license that recently came out, you can modify it, but if you sell you have to pay. The schedule appears that they will release the PicoJava first, the 32-bit SPARC technology by the summer, and the 64-bit UltraSPARC technology by the end of the year." This article requires a paid login to read- what a crock. Anyway, someone please submit a free link. Update: 03/02 12:09 by S : News.com is now carrying the story. It's interesting to see how this move fits into Forbes' analysis Sun's strategy of getting attention with buzz around Java, Jini, and now Sparc Processors, in order to attack the very high-end more effectively. In the world of Starfire and Serengeti (supercomputers), Sun is probably telling the truth when they say that Linux does not compete with them (long term).

bjb writes "The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Sun plans to announce later today that they are going to distribute designs of their microprocessors to outside developers for free. Similar to the Java license that recently came out, you can modify it, but if you sell you have to pay. The schedule appears that they will release the PicoJava first, the 32-bit SPARC technology by the summer, and the 64-bit UltraSPARC technology by the end of the year." This article requires a paid login to read- what a crock. Anyway, someone please submit a free link. Update: 03/02 12:09 by S : News.com is now carrying the story. It's interesting to see how this move fits into Forbes' analysis Sun's strategy of getting attention with buzz around Java, Jini, and now Sparc Processors, in order to attack the very high-end more effectively. In the world of Starfire and Serengeti (supercomputers), Sun is probably telling the truth when they say that Linux does not compete with them (long term).

Diamond Joe Quimby writes "There is a positive review of Beos R4 on the Forbes Digital Tool website - front and center. It seems in the spirit of the Linux review they did awhile ago. When Forbes speaks up it usually get attention. Power to the aternative OS'. Check it out at Forbes.com "

Diamond Joe Quimby writes "There is a positive review of Beos R4 on the Forbes Digital Tool website - front and center. It seems in the spirit of the Linux review they did awhile ago. When Forbes speaks up it usually get attention. Power to the aternative OS'. Check it out at Forbes.com "

WaldoJ sent us a link to a Forbes article about geeks and college. The question is if college is worthwhile or not. It was a 4.5 year time vacuum for me. Education can't really keep pace with "modern" technology, sure, learning theory and getting some practice never hurts, but if you're already a geek, is it a waste of time? This article seems to say so.

Mr_E writes "Check out www.forbes.com - not a bad review of Linux. It's focused on building a PC without any 'help' from good 'ol Bill. " One of the better articles I've seen. Worth a look if you like reading those "linux is good" articles that seem to be appearing on just about every site on earth.

Mr_E writes "Check out www.forbes.com - not a bad review of Linux. It's focused on building a PC without any 'help' from good 'ol Bill. " One of the better articles I've seen. Worth a look if you like reading those "linux is good" articles that seem to be appearing on just about every site on earth.

Apparently IBM views Microsoft and Windows as the major threat to its e-commerce strategy, which hinges on open standards such as Java. To fight this danger, it wants to push Java onto 50% of all PCs by teaming up with Netscape. Cisco and Network Associates also worry IBM. Interestingly, OS/2 has no future in this vision -- Ed: which hopefully means even more new Linux recruits. It'll be interesting to see if IBM attempts to enlist the Free Software Community to restore Java's momentum.

Parise writes "Forbes Digital published an article entitled " Rewriting the Geek Tragedy" concerning the shortage of "real" nerds. The premise is that the programmer community is not reproducing itself at a fast enough rate." Maybe this is related to the recent studies hinting that techies are bad lovers? *grin*.

Jake writes "Forbes magazine, the so-called "Capitalist Tool" is turning into a huge friend of open source. In the Sept. 7 issue, they discuss Microsoft's license revisions (for Office), which will, in many cases, result in steep new fees. They also point out that Lotus and Corel have great competing products with better terms. Finally, the article has a sidebar on the BSA and software enforcement. All coming shortly after the Open Source cover story of Aug. 10... "

Joe Batt writes "HP built this Teramac which is a bunch of broken CPUs and software and diagnostic equipment to work around the errors. It is '100 times faster than a top-end workstation'. I want to know more than this Forbes article has to say." All I can say is that this is simply insane. I love it.

Mike Miller wrote in to tell us about Forbes Magazine running a poll to decide on your Internet Hero. For those who have paid attention, I have stopped posting polls because the Slashdot Effect was wrecking them for people, but this poll is a textual one. They ask you to write instead of just checking a box, so I figure we all can post good answers and not just skew things HtAD style. Questions include what 'net company will die first and who is your 'net hero.

Elliot Lee wrote in to tell us that Linus is the cover story in the next issue of Forbes. It proclaims "Peace, Love and Sofware". I find it strangely appealing that the Free Software Movement is so often thought of in hippy terms. Peace man. Anyway, uber cool for Linus and big PR for open source. Always enjoyable to see that sorta stuff.

Lars Larsen writes "Forbes magazine is running this story about the possibility that Russia's early warning system will get confused by Y2K bugs and launch Nuclear weapons at the US. The Pentagon is so concerned about the potential impact of this computer glitch to end all glitches on its former Cold War foe that it recently proposed sharing early warning information. "

Intel has gone from strength to strength in the past ten years, but the growth of the Internet and the sub-1000$US computer, according to Forbes may spell problems for Intel in the future.

Intel has gone from strength to strength in the past ten years, but the growth of the Internet and the sub-1000$US computer, according to Forbes may spell problems for Intel in the future.