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You are of course, quite right to raise the question of free speech in countries where it ought to be taken for granted, such as the US and UK.

Freedom of speech has long been under attack from all directions, from copyright law to national security, trade secrets, libel law, and even the new "intent to incite racial hatred" laws.

As most slashdotters know, one of the worst offenders has been the american DMCA act, which effectively outlaws encryption research, and even the mentioning of safety/security flaws.
Ed Foster wrote an excellent article on this at which I suggest is readable enough to use as an introduction to the subject for outsiders.

And if international summits have their way, each country's law will be enforceable in any other. Never mind the arrest of Russian Skylarov, or of the Norweigan kid for breaking US law in their respective home countries, we shall soon be officially subjet to Chinese, US, French, German, and Arabic copyright laws in our own countries. (Read about it here)

We in the G8 take so much pride in our countries' laws, that we are such knights in shining armour that we can legitimitely tell other countries what is right and what is wrong, that we often lose sight of how far our countries have strayed from the ideals we expect from them.

How long until someone can be arrested at Speakers' Corner, for talking about encryption research?

If you agree with that statement, you're simply wrong. In markets with a single CPU architecture and operating system (VAX -> VMS, SPARC -> Solaris, x86 -> MS-DOS) people just trade executables, they don't for the most part bother with source. You only need source in markets with a variety of CPU architectures and/or operating systems. The ideas behind Open Source were conceived in an environment of many, often propietary operating systems and CPU architectures, pre-1989, pre MS-DOS dominance. The economies of scale that caused cheap Pee Cee hardware have little or nothing to do with Open Source.

Actually you're wrong. The issues that caused the rise of Free Software have nothing to do with having to recompile your application for different architectures and everything to do users being free to fix bugs in software they have been sold.

Here's a history lesson or two

You should switch registrars as soon as possible, not only because NSI is unethical, but because your first few attempts may fail because NSI is very, very bad.

I work for an small ISP and whenever an NSI-registered domain we host comes up for renewal, we suggest that the domain owner switch registrars. We recommend Gandi, a bunch of French Linux geeks who we've never had a single problem with. They charge 12 euros a year, about $10-11. It helps that they are one of the cheapest, because transfers are often denied by NSI, meaning you lose your 12 euros. Make sure to start this process a while before your registration expires, so you can attempt multiple transfers if need be.

Be very, very careful not to let your domain expire. Occasionally, a customer will call up because their web site isn't working and we look into it and see that their domain name expired (generally because they forgot to pay their bill). In that case, we tell them to pay NSI ASAP or we often pay it ourselves, because of the NSI horrors we've had in the past.

One of our customers forgot to pay their NSI bill and the domain expired. NSI deleted it from their database, but it was still in the master registry. So the registry shows the domain as registered through NSI, but NSI has no records for it. This means that nobody can register the domain until it is expunged from the registry (which, funny enough, is also run by NSI). This takes an undetermined amount of time, meaning that they could do it today or they could do it in six months, but they absolutely will not tell you when they're going to do it.

In the case of our customer, it took about six weeks for NSI the registry to expunge the domain, which generally happens around 6:30 a.m. eastern time. As soon as it was expunged, a domain name hijacker registered the domain and won't relinquish it without getting a wad of cash.

The billing mechanism should track for and eliminate charges for that, as well as for pages that auto-refresh themselves, error and non-existant pages, pages arrived at by pressing the back button, duplicate pages and so on."

sPh

Mercedes-Benz showcases a car of the near future with a built-in wireless Ethernet 802.11a connection that will capture high-speed bursts of data from roadside transceivers as the car hurtles down the highway.

WinXP SEEMS to boot faster because it finishes 80% of the boot sequence after the desktop has already come up. As for speed, XP is between 40-80% slower than Win2k across the board. Haven't you read the benchmarks? I have WinXP installed as well (although I never user it) and although it boots fast the system itself runs slow as hell compaired to Win2k. And I'm not on some crap comp either, I run a 1.4 tbird on a AsusA7M266 with 512megs ddr ram, GeForce3, ATA RAID, ect... The simple fact is that WinXP is slow as hell.

Randall Kennedy, a co-author of the InfoWorld article, posted in their forums that all of the machines had 256MB of RAM and that memory was not a bottleneck.

Unfortunately, InfoWorld has not provided any more details regarding the hardware configurations used in their testing. As the article stands now, it is impossible for any outside party to duplicate their test environment.

I had to go wading through the transcript of a live forum to find more detailed configuration info. For those of you wondering, each machine had 256 MB of RAM.

And check out the sidebar. Scenario 3 has 5 apps hitting a SQL Server database, 5 apps hitting an Exchange Server, and 5 Windows Media clips playing, while running a simulated user script jumping between Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and IE, all at the same time.

Has anyone here felt compelled to run 5 media files at the same time, while doing actual work?

This benchmark is far too artificial. At the very least, the multimedia workload test is bogus. A better multimedia benchmark would be to increase the horsepower requirements for a single app. Say, MP3 playback, to DVD playback w/ software decoding, to Quake III Arena with the settings maxed out. Not that anyone would be doing that while jumping between Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and IE, either....

....Microsoft calls a settlement "fair," you can be sure said settlement contains an advantageous (to Microsoft) loophole that their opposition's lawyers have not discovered.

Clearly the government will never stop Microsoft. It will be up to the lone nut who assembles a suitcase nuke in his basement, loads it into his Vista Cruiser, and drives to Redmond.

~Philly

This lets Boscov's, from one location, host more than 100 virtual Linux servers, which will gradually replace the NT servers over the next year.

Gawd, I can't believe I'm even replying to you, but I can't help it.

link...

link...

link...

Yep, looks like $1 billion spent only on Linux to me. Just go to google.com and search for "ibm billion linux" and you'll find literally dozens more articles discussing it. Seems that, since you're a Slashdot regular, you'd have your facts straight on this particular issue.

LNUX (linux) stock tells the story right there.

Yeah, right, the stock price of one company sure tells the whole story, doesn't it? Yes, Mr. Canada, I know, several Linux-based companies have seen their stocks go in the tank. Everyone know that people are still trying to find the right business plan. It's no piece of cake trying to sell free software. (although IBM seems to be doing all right. They're selling TONS of server hardware with Linux on it)

People should do what a friend of mine is doing: put together complete, custom solutions that specifically fit their customers' needs. With the thousands/millions saved using OSS (you saw the Amazon.com article, right?) they can pretty much charge what they want.

Ahhhh, I'm probably just talking to a wall, here...

Article at Infoworld tells how Boscov's Dept Store is saving a bundle.

This article is really more about IBM, but mentions Winnebago the motor home maker switching from NT also.
"Linux as pork bellies" the os as a commodity.

Funny I saw an article about this on infoworld last monday... I guess slashdot can't keep up with the pace ;-) I'm sure the article is cached somewhere on google :-O

TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken

Funny I saw an article about this on infoworld last monday... I guess slashdot can't keep up with the pace ;-) I'm sure the article is cached somewhere on google :-O

TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken

InfoWorld recently published a relevant article on this subject. It discusses the decline of Dell's support.

Seems the GripeLine on Infoworld made mention of this. What used to be sterling support has been turned into a nightmare. Of course I think part of the problem is a "It's not my problem" mentality between the hardware and software manufacturers. Microsoft won't support OEM licenses, and the manufacturers are getting inundated with problems Microsoft won't touch.

What'll happen if .NET stuff has workable copy protection? It'll flop.

Don't worry. Young & poor geeks will still be able to pirate MS products.
The copy protection for .NET works about as good and has as much thought
put into it as can be expected from MS. :)

How can the war be lost when it has barely started?

With Microsoft's many monopolistic and anti-competitive initiatives in Windows XP, Linux should be poised for unprecedented growth. I think literally millions of disaffected Windows users will move the Linux camp over the next few years. Heck, even Brian Livingston at Infoworld, a die-hard Windows fan, has said he'll never install XP. When those factors are combined with XP's significantly higher cost of ownership, there is a compelling argument for migration.

This migration will be helped along quite a bit by the constantly improving software offerings available on Linux, including StarOffice 6.

I expect Windows XP will have a beneficial effect on Macintosh sales also, further spurring unix desktop market penetration. I also expect that Java desktop software development will begin to take off (finally).

In short, I think this article is way off base, and in fact Linux is now facing its best opportunity ever to succeed on the desktop, especially among the more cost-sensitive organizations.

299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!

C'mo on.

The point is how much Microsoft is expending on Marketing for 1 product. The same amount that IBM is spending to integrate Linux into all its product lines!!! 1! billion!!!

And WinXP innovation... Well, read your InfoWorld Magazine (here and here)and you will discover that Brian Livingstone, the author of Windows 95 secrets, Windows 98 secrets, WindowsMe secrets, Windows 2000 secrets... has explicitely said that he is not gong to upgrade to WindowsXP. Also, he is not going to write WindowsXP secrets.

This sure means something, isn't it?

C'mo on.

The point is how much Microsoft is expending on Marketing for 1 product. The same amount that IBM is spending to integrate Linux into all its product lines!!! 1! billion!!!

And WinXP innovation... Well, read your InfoWorld Magazine (here and here)and you will discover that Brian Livingstone, the author of Windows 95 secrets, Windows 98 secrets, WindowsMe secrets, Windows 2000 secrets... has explicitely said that he is not gong to upgrade to WindowsXP. Also, he is not going to write WindowsXP secrets.

This sure means something, isn't it?

It looks like a nice unit, a combination of my VisorPhone (alas long departed) with the keyboard of my Motorola text pager with my Visor Platinum. The only big flaw to me is the loss of the Springboard slot - Handspring's FAQ indicates that they intend not to engineer this in to the Treo in the future either.

I think they are thinking that people jonesing for graffiti will use a third party application/hack to use the full screen for handwriting recognition. Or maybe voice recognition will really take off now.

An interesting article from a guy who masturbates with pictures of Bill Gates:
Click Here.
Of course, maybe you resell WinXP to hapless companies to support your crack habit.

I would hope so.

That kind of battery life I would expect from another OS.

Sadly, the IBM page link is ead:

dead link -> http://www.research.ibm.com/MobileComputing/WatchP ad.html

But there is some info in this earlier Infoworld article:

The prototype wristwatch, thinner than most current calculator watches, features a 720 dpi VGA display that makes 6-point type (about half the size of typical newspaper type) legible to the user. This allows the screen to show about as much type as the larger screen of a Palm handheld. Because of the high resolution of the display, the text can be read easily by the wearer, Karidis said. The device would offer organizing and messaging functions and could be navigated by touch, with just four or five touch areas.

"Your watch knows what time it is. It certainly should be able to tell you where your next appointment is," Karidis said.

Using Bluetooth, the WatchPad can communicate with a PC. As a demonstration, Karidis used the touchscreen controls to move through his presentation, which ran on an IBM ThinkPad notebook computer.

Researchers at IBM Japan have developed a prototype motherboard for the watch, about 1.25 inches across, with 8MB of DRAM. It runs a version of embedded Linux. The device could be commercialized within two years, Karidis said in an interview Wednesday.

Persistancy problem has already been solved:

"MRAM combines the best features of today's common semiconductor memory technologies -- the high speed of SRAM (static RAM), the storage capacity and low-cost of DRAM (dynamic RAM) and the non-volatility of flash memory." original source here

As for Going to SS disks for the world at large? Not really cost effective for the average joe. There are some specific applications that can be justified, but you're better off maxing out your ram, buying some more "mechanical" storage devices. Take what you saved from buying a "small" SS disk and buy a few rounds duff for your neighborhood.

The system does work, and this piece of crap will end up getting thrown out just like all the other junk legislation.

That's a rather bold statement considering the history of congress in relation to technological issues. They've proved themselves time and again to be incapable of comprehending the consequences of their legislation. The DMCA makes it illegal to backup DVDs. UTICA (Passed in Virginia and Maryland) gives legal teeth to shrink wrap licenses regardless of how rediculous or overbearing they might be. Dismissing out of hand the possibility of the SSSCA being passed is obtuse. There's no reason to bash people for voicing their opinions, call them paranoid, or tell them not to complain. Communication, regardless of its effect on votes in the Capitol, is a right we enjoy. If not therapeutic, it is at least entertaining. True, people need to write their legislators, but there's no reason not to discuss it in this forum.

-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.

On the off chance that your signature isn't a joke, and that the joke is actually you, Mensa membership is hardly an indication of omniscience. With one in every fifty people eligible for membership, Mensa is the trailer trash of high IQ societies. According to The Mega Society, "IQ is not demonstrably identical to intelligence," therefore it's entirely possible that stupid people could be members of Mensa. But I think you've just proved that.

By the way, tolerance is the correct spelling.

It will be fun to see how the worm-writing people will use XP. It could be the decline of m$ in the business market.

Interesting also to see how the ISPs will react to DOS attacks.

"Windows XP runs EVERYTHING at root, which means every program (and even the trojans hidden within that program) has full access to all Windows services, including more advanced network services than ever before. Where Windows ME is generally limited to UDP- and ICMP-flooding, for example, Windows XP can jump straight to the main event -- http flooding aat port 80. "Cringely

"If Windows ME is a gun, Windows XP is a loaded gun.", Cringely

For purposes of this section, the Software means the FrontPage Web components, including the MSNBC news headline component, the MSN MoneyCentral Stock Quote component, and the MSN Search component.

It's not my fault that I'm smarter than you.

Read it yourself:

You may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia or their products of services, infringe any intellectual property or other rights of these parties, violate any state, federal, or international law, or promote racism, hatred or pornography.

(And I feel all stupid because I didn't preview before posting)

source: mspur.pdf found via google by way of ev and infoworld.

You may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia or their products of services, infringe any intellectual property or other rights of these parties, violate any state, federal, or international law, or promote racism, hatred or pornography.
source: mspur.pdf found via google by way of ev and infoworld.

I feel all smart 'cause I scooped /.

We read recently elsewhere about people buying cheapo 802.11b kit and simply plugging it in, essentially giving their neighbours [sic] a free leg-up on to the Internet. How does this compare with what you're proposing, that local municipalities deploy a public service style network?

I would think that a public sector MAN would be somewhere between the two extremes that we currently have. On one end, corporate cable provided by the usual suspects, and on the other extreme the so-called "parasitic grid". What would happen instead if a local county council (or US equivalent) subsidised cheap 802.11b receivers / transmitters? The expensive bit would be for the up-link which could potentially be a cost shared more equally across the community. For instance, your electricity shouldn't cost more simply because you live further from the power station, so why not employ a similar equality scheme for 'net traffic?

Personally I can't help but think that the ultimate direction for all this is for the "swarm effect" written about in the lamented Rapidly Changing Face of Computing, where personal transmitting devices effectively become a collosal wireless network.

Aegilops

IT IS ALL A LIE

Carnivore and Echelon will not work against terrorists.

Government even knew the dastardly attack was coming - so Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper reported.

People were complacent - because of this LIE.

They knew billions was being spent on Carnivore & Echelon for just this sort of problem.

Terrorists know they are being looked for by Carnivore and will get around it by other measures.

When not planning face to face - they would use personal couriers.

Perhaps give mobile for single message when required - just using message - go with plan a / b or abort.

I have always said - terrorism is just the excuse they use, the US to raise funds for Carnivore - the UK to justify R.I.P. bill - to spy on the people.

The "you've nothing to fear - if you are not breaking the law" argument is made to pressure people to acquiesce - else appear guilty.

It does not address the real reason, why they want this information. They want a surveillance society.

This is like having somebody watching everything you do - all your thoughts, hopes and fears will be open to them.

All your finances available for them to scrutinize - heaven help you if you cannot account for every cent when they check on your taxes.

Do not believe the lies of Government - even more money spent on Carnivore will not protect you - IT IS A LIE - TERRORISTS WILL GET AROUND IT.

You are a simple-minded dimwit if you believe different. What a big supprise it will be to you, when they use chemical or biological weapons to kill thousands.

Carnivore will not help you one bit. Government are immoral to use this excuse - especially at this time.

The authorities hide simple solution to trademark and domain name problem to abridge your free speech rights. The US Government violate the First Amendment - WIPO.org.uk

Carnivore and Echelon won't work against terrorists.

Government even knew the dastardly attack was coming.

Quote: "THE U.S. NATIONAL Security Agency (NSA) engaged the so-called Echelon communications monitoring network, following on warnings of possible terrorist attacks, as long as three months ago, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper reported."

People were complacent - because they knew billions was being spent on Carnivore & Echelon for just this sort of problem.

Terrorists know they are being looked for by Carnivore and will get around it by other measures.

When not planning face to face - they would use personal couriers.

Perhaps give mobile for single message when required - just using message - go with plan a / b or abort.

I have always said - terrorism is just the excuse they use, the US to raise funds for Carnivore - the UK to justify R.I.P. bill - to spy on the people.

The "you've nothing to fear - if you are not breaking the law." argument is made to pressure people to acquiesce - else appear guilty.

It does not address the real reason, why they want this information - they want a surveillance society.

This is like having somebody watching everything you do - all your thoughts, hopes and fears will be open to them.

All your finances available for them to scrutinize - heaven help you if you cannot account for every cent when they check on your taxes.

Do not believe the lies of Government - even more money spent on Carnivore will not protect you - IT IS A LIE - TERRORISTS WILL GET AROUND IT.

The authorities hide simple solution to trademark and domain name problem to abridge your free speech rights. The US Government violate the First Amendment - WIPO.org.uk

According to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, as InfoWorld reports, Western intelligence services knew for months that exactly this sort of attack by hijacked airplanes against highly symbolic targets was planned. Why was airport security not tightened? Why were there no fighters at hair-trigger readiness to be scrambled? As a patriot, I have to hope that the FAZ report is disinformation. But I also recall the claim by some historians that our intelligence services at the time knew Pearl Harbor was coming, and allowed it to get us into the war.

Generally, I find that people who complain about a particular Microsoft abuse don't know all the facts. If they did know all the facts, they would realize that the situation is worse than it first appeared.

However, coverage of Microsoft is beginning to be more complete. See Brian Livingston's column, Microsoft Passport Cracked for a few of the shortcomings of Microsoft's Passport authentication scheme, which, surprise, benefits mostly Microsoft, and puts the user at very serious risk.

Knowledgeable people realize that Microsoft is abusive. But I don't think there is anyone who knows the full extent of the abuse. The first step in deciding judicial remedies should be to write down all the abuses in one place. The result would be a large book. Just the Court's Findings of Fact in the Microsoft anti-trust case lists 207 pages of descriptions of abuses. There are some intense abuses listed, but what surprised me was that they were not the abuses I knew.

In my opinion, one of the most important judicial remedies is that Microsoft should be required to publish FULL descriptions of its file formats. Then other office software would be able to compete, for example. A full description would include descriptions of all the ways Microsoft's software does not follow the intended design, that is, descriptions of the bugs.

Apparently, it depends on who submits an article on whether or not it's posted...

The article at infoworld , I submitted.

2001-09-10 15:25:55 Via Fires back at Intel (articles,patents) (rejected)

"For whatever reason, people write open-source, free software. If you can't write it, enjoy it and don't worry about what motivates others."

Offtopic sig: Let me get this straight: Microsoft is off the hook, but a Arab Website in Texas got raided!?

There are a few articles about Szulick's keynote:
C|Net, Wide Open News and InfoWorld.

I wonder who he has in mind for this "Open Source Education Corporation?"

After seeing this info about how to lay your own DSL line, and noticing this (clearly inflammatory but still interesting) piece about wireless grids, it's becoming obvious to me that we are going to end up building some of the network ourselves. Maybe it'll just be the last mile, or maybe we'll be building a nice, humble network to replace the original internet -- a net on which we are not beholden to corporate and government evil.

Here is an article at Infoworld about an 802.11b freenet deployment effort. There is mention of a home-brew antenna using a Pringles can to boost the gain. No picture of this cool hack, though.

Here is an article at Infoworld about an 802.11b freenet deployment effort. There is mention of a home-brew antenna using a Pringles can to boost the gain. No picture of this cool hack, though.

Cringely and Petrely are reporting similarly.

Do you really think we should not consider this until Microsoft makes the official announcement?

sPh

Yes! In fact, they did it multiple times!

• The first time
• The second and third times

If there is one place where you don't want to be faking a demo it's in a court of law. If this doesn't show Microsoft's hubris, I don't know what does.

Hey, he's changed that article so it could at least be a bit serious, check out the original one here from last week.
It includes among other things flame bate such as:
The real shame is that Gnome once had a great reason to exist, but cleaning it up now seems like a waste of energy. GNOME was born because a terrific Linux desktop called KDE looked as though it would help Linux give Windows a run for its money. Many open-source developers protested that KDE was based on the C++ Qt graphical toolkit because Qt was not true open source at first.

All you people saying that add-ons de-value the console and developers dont like them dont get the big picture. As Nicholas Petreley pointed out in his opinion piece, m$ has seen the NC light. The xbox is just another NC. Coupled with .NET, it becomes a full time player in m$ vision of windows software services. The more competitors out there in various sizes (watch, cell phone, pda, NC, desktop, etc), the less likely that m$ will be able to dominate. Start writing your http based web service apps now.

WAKE UP, open-source community. The battle is not for the desktop; it is not for the server; it is not for the operating system; it is not for the development environment; it is not about the GNU General Public License (GPL) vs. Microsoft's business model. The battle is primarily about who will control user-authentication services.

It (or something like that) was on Slashdot last week, claiming that authentication (specifically Hailstorm/Passport) was the real issue. here is the /. article, and here is the actual article.

Whether you read the EULA or not, it can affect you.Probably better to go in with your eyes open...

Well iPaq or Palm may be nice PDAs, but if I were you, I would wait for the release of the Sharp Zaurus in Europe and the US, at this time the OS will be Linux (more here).
The current models run a proprietary one, but thanks to some hackers, you can already run Linux on them (read ./ story on the subject).
The latest Japanese models can run Java applications too, which is damn cool too.
I know a guy owning a MI-E1 and it really kicks ass, I love the keyboard which, in spite of its small size, proves much more convenient than any character recognition I've tried before (and I believe I've tried them all!).

I was just feeling good, and instead of posting something really dumb, I tryed to be funny. Guess once in awhile the geek gets out of the box..

Indeed, though, I do read, and react. In case your really board, and live in one of these states, you might want to read about UCITA law, you should read its comming to Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Delaware, and maybe your neighborhood too. Take the time to read what they can do. And then drop a line to your state repesentive. Take the time to do it!

As indeed we did contact our state representatives, and had a nice discussion. Made them aware of what we thought about it. Then took the time to provide hard copies of interesting articles from the net.

Again, it was just a week stab, at a small pun, on the origional post.