Slashdot Mirror

No, I wasn't saying that the RH being true would cause problems with encryption (I am aware that most mathematicians assume it is true), but rather that the methods used to prove it would cause complications. See here: link

You can find the main article here.

I have never been a fan of Bill Gates, the technologist. I don't harbor the opinion that Bill has made a great contribution to technology. Indeed, I blame Mr Gates for the absurdly bad PC user interface that we all have to put up with--and I don't just mean the Windows interface--I also mean the Apple interface and the two (for-chrissake-make-up-your-mind) Linux interfaces.

By doing little more than slavishly follow innovations introduced by Apple and occasionally coming up with original bad ideas, Microsoft has put no competitive pressure on Apple at all to provide a truly usable PC interface. (When it needed to produce a brilliant interface, as per the iPod, Apple was up to the task). With Linux, it's worse. GUI innovation amongst the Linux desktop crowd has been so invisible that one wonders whether Open Source naturally evolves according to the principles of unintelligent design. It's all a mess.

I have more respect for Bill Gates as a businessman. Admittedly Microsoft's power grew out of a monopoly situation, but Bill Gates was intelligent and focused in establishing that monopoly and outmaneuvered a swathe of competitors. It's difficult to fault it, although it's also easy to conclude that it has not been good for the IT industry.

But never mind, there is an area of activity where, in my view, Bill Gates deserves genuine respect. A current article in the New Yorker provides a detailed account of Bill (and Malinda) Gates' philanthropic activities. Most impressively, Bill Gates is (unarguably) doing more for world health than the WHO itself. The simple fact is that the Bill and Malinda charity provides much more finance to specific world health initiatives than the WHO does--and it is managed (by Bill himself) as if it were a competitive business. It sets targets, invests and reviews progress. According to the New Yorker, at the moment Bill is doing what he can to combat Malaria--which is more deadly to world health than AIDS. The article is worth reading. Not just for what it reveals about Bill Gates but also what it reveals about the health problems the world faces.

Detractors of Bill Gates may well maintain that with his particular pile of dollars it is easy to be philanthropic. Indeed with one tenth of his dollar pile it would also be easy. And indeed there are a few individuals that have such piles, but I don't know of any (with the possible exception of George Soros) that actively engages in the kind of activity that Bill Gates does. Hats off, I think.

In "The Road Ahead", Bill Gates himself wrote enthusiastically about the "software ecosystem" that surrounded Microsoft in its early years. It made a huge contribution to the success of Windows, by creating an application-rich environment. The same kind of ecosystem now surrounds Open Source and it is growing quickly. I am amazed by its potential. It could completely undermine Microsoft's monopoly, and it probably will. -- Samba, Soccer and Open Source

Microsoft has a horrible position to defend; they have created a monster of complexity by enabling such an open model. Whilst it is true that we as consumers have seen the benefits of lower prices and mounting capability, there has been a price to pay. When the foundation is so shaky, you cannot be certain whether you will derive benefit from an update or whether in fact it will cause untold grief. -- Further problems associated with Service Pack 2?

In "The Road Ahead", Bill Gates himself wrote enthusiastically about the "software ecosystem" that surrounded Microsoft in its early years. It made a huge contribution to the success of Windows, by creating an application-rich environment. The same kind of ecosystem now surrounds Open Source and it is growing quickly. I am amazed by its potential. It could completely undermine Microsoft's monopoly, and it probably will. -- Samba, Soccer and Open Source

Microsoft has a horrible position to defend; they have created a monster of complexity by enabling such an open model. Whilst it is true that we as consumers have seen the benefits of lower prices and mounting capability, there has been a price to pay. When the foundation is so shaky, you cannot be certain whether you will derive benefit from an update or whether in fact it will cause untold grief. -- Further problems associated with Service Pack 2?

http://www.it-director.com/article.php?articleid=8 888 "Last year (2001) he was reported to have given $2 billion to charities through the Belinda and Bill gates Foundation. In 2000 he gave more than $5 billion." MUCH more than that....

http://www.it-director.com/article.php?articleid=8 888

2 billion! and 5 billion! You can't argue over numbers like that.

Yes.

The company is also very keen to highlight the place that the new platform holds in its long term plans to migrate from the Alpha chipset to Itanium 2. HP once again confirmed its commitment to support existing users through the migration process for all of the supported operating systems, including True64 and Open VMS.

These "license agreements" are different.. their basic idea is that you enter into a contract where you give up certain rights, simply by clicking on an "Agree" button or under even more dubious circumstances. I have no idea what their legal status is so I'm not going to comment on that - the main point here is that the GPL is not remotely like this.

This would mean that silly frivilous things like email apps etc would literally jump to attention regardless as to the size of the file I am working on, rather than as now everything slowly to treacle...

Question is paying for it. It would have to be cheap, built into the operating system and require fast broadband to transfer the data to the servers... Few year yet probably...

Sure, NAT effectively solves the address shortage problem that IPv4 has. I'm not entirely sure it is a real effective solution, but it works, and I can't argue that.

IPv6 brings a lot of other improvements to the table besides just a greater address space. One of the main things is more prioritization of routing. This will specifically benefit areas such as VoIP and streaming media, improving quality of audio and helping to eliminate choppy video. Other improvements are there in security and network configuration issues as well.

Article link for more information: IT-Director.com

That's one person's experience- yours. I personally have worked with many Indians in several jobs whose competence and hard work outshone most of their peers- and it had nothing to do with any cultural differences they just knew what they were programming and worked their butts off. And if you check the news headlines you'll note that stuffing a resume with bullshit is practiced by all ethic groups, including officer level employees running companies.

http://www.it-director.com/article.php?id=3255

Political News from Wired News - Cybercrime Treaty Finally Ready. After four years of haggling over the language, several countries including the United States will sign a cybercrime treaty.

WildernessCoast.org - Cybercrime Treaty Bibliography -- By Date. A wide collection of links that talk about the Cybercrime Treaty Same info sorted by title.

Council of Europe - Convention on Cybercrime.

The Convention on Cybercrime has been adopted by the Committee of Ministers during its 109th Session, on 8 November 2001 and will be opened for signature, in Budapest, on 23 November 2001.

The Convention will be the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, dealing particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security. It also contains a series of powers and procedures such as the search of computer networks and interception.

Its main objective, set out in the preamble, is to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation.

The Convention is the product of four years of work by Council of Europe experts, but also by the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries which are not members of the organisation.

It will be supplemented by an additional protocol making any publication of racist and xenophobic propaganda via computer networks a criminal offence.

[ ... ]

But Fred Eisner, a consultant for the Dutch government and private companies, said the draft made unfair demands on Internet service providers by asking them to track Web users' online movements.

"This draft convention lacks balance," Eisner told the assembly. "The convention explicitly gives much more power to law enforcement agencies and it has no system of checks and balances."

Bruce McConnell, president of McConnell International, a Washington-based consulting firm, said the treaty should be more forceful in protecting the privacy of Web users who are already worried about being spied on.

"There is concern that the powers of surveillance ... are not balanced by comparable protections for individuals' privacy," he said.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that-although officially democratic now-don't have a strong traditions of checks and balances on police power.

Do you want investigators rummaging around your clients' computer systems on warrants issued by former Soviet bloc nations?

That's the prospect that has pushed AT&T Corporation and other high-technology companies into feverishly trying to stop or at least soften the treaty. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Information Technology Association of America also oppose it.

Stewart Baker is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street cred on these issues in corporate America.

What worries Baker and his colleagues? Consider the following hypothetical: A Los Angeles screenwriter corresponds by e-mail with a neo-Nazi in Germany while researching a script. Shortly after, he finds federal agents examining the files on his home computer. The agents also visit America Online Inc. to retrieve records of the screenwriter's AOL usage.

The agents are fulfilling a warrant issued by German authorities allowing them to search for Nazi propaganda. Such material is unlawful in Germany but not in the U.S. They framed their warrant in terms of "suspected terrorist activity."

LAW.com (requires cookies) - International Treaty on Cybercrime Poses Burden on High-Tech Companies.

Maybe you're a civil libertarian, and maybe you're not. Maybe you worry about how the United States exercises its vast investigative and prosecutorial powers, and maybe you don't.

But if you counsel U.S. corporations on computer-related issues, you should be concerned about a new proposed treaty known as the "Convention on Cybercrime." The Council of Europe, a 43-nation public body created to promote democracy and the rule of law, is nominally drafting the treaty. Curiously, however, the primary architect is the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation are using a foreign forum to create an international law-enforcement regime that favors the interests of the feds over those of ordinary citizens and businesses. Their goal is to make it easier to get evidence from abroad and to extradite and prosecute foreign nationals for certain kinds of crimes.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also be handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that -- although officially democratic now -- don't have a strong tradition of checks and balances on police power.

[ ... ]

Stewart Baker, a partner at Washington, D.C.'s Steptoe & Johnson, is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty's opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street credentials on these issues in corporate America.

Slashdot | Implications Of The International Cybercrime Treaty.

SiliconValley.com part of San Jose Mercury News - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules.

MS-NBC - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules. PARIS, May 25 -- Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed Friday.

[ ... ]

Against EU objections, it also limits the right of a country to reject a request from abroad to store and hand over data in potential crime cases if the requesting country thinks it could be misused.

The text says states should make sure that systems operators or other people who know how to use a certain system can be ordered to cooperate in any such a cyberprobe.

PARIS (Reuters) - Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed on Friday.

The Council of Europe, a 43-state human rights watchdog, has amended the text to ensure police respect privacy rights when they follow digital trails to fight online crimes such as hacking, spreading viruses, using stolen credit card numbers or defrauding banks.

''The guarantees in the treaty have been reinforced,'' Peter Csonka, deputy head of the economic crime division at the Council's headquarters in Strasbourg, told Reuters after the Council posted the final text -- version 27 -- on its Web site.

But the treaty, which has aroused heated debate in cyberspace since its draft text became public last year, ignored calls by Internet service providers (ISPs) for fewer costly requirements on preserving data that could be linked to a crime.

It still accorded police wide powers to chase suspected cybercriminals -- powers some critics say go beyond what is legal in some Council member states or in observer countries like the United States, Canada and Japan due to sign the treaty.

ZDNet - Internet founder worried over EU cybercrime plans.

BRUSSELS --Vint Cerf, a founding father of today's Internet, said on Thursday that European Union plans for new rules to fight crime on the Web risked clashing with existing EU privacy regulations.

Cerf, who helped develop the Internet in the early 70s shortly after graduating from Stanford University and now works for WorldCom, said more secure network systems were an immediate priority for the successful development of the ubiquitous Web.

He told Reuters in an interview that Internet traffic should be retained only for billing purposes and was too cumbersome to be stored for police investigations.

Changes to a controversial treaty on cybercrime have done nothing to improve it, say civil liberty campaigners.

Next week, the Council of Europe will vote on the treaty, which has been redrafted 26 times before reaching its final version late in May.

The most recent changes were made to take into account the fears of civil liberty and privacy campaigners. But cyber-rights groups say the latest changes are purely cosmetic and have not diluted what they describe as its most pernicious sections.

The groups say that, if adopted in its current form, the treaty could lead to changes in legislation that would stifle rights to privacy and do little to curb the activities of law enforcement agencies.

[ ... ]

In December 2000, 23 organisations, banding together under the banner of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), signed a letter condemning the 25th draft of the treaty as "appalling", and warned that it handed law enforcement agencies sweeping powers to snoop and could seriously erode online privacy.

Now, three civil liberty groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International, have sent another letter to the Council of Europe outlining their "continuing concerns" over the wording of the treaty and saying that their fears have not been laid to rest.

The letter chastises the Council of Europe for refusing to open up the redrafting debates to non-governmental organisations and for, it says, ignoring the human rights and privacy concerns of organisations such as the GILC.

It goes on to say that the original criticisms still stand, and that the treaty does not pay enough attention to existing laws which safeguard human rights. It says the treaty's recommendations on protecting privacy are vague and do not go far enough.

IT industry gurus have branded the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime 'foolish, unworkable and a legal con trick'.

The controversial treaty provides a blanket legislation to deal with all forms of internet crime from hacking to online pornography.

Caspar Bowden, director of internet think-tank FIPR, said: "The Convention is essentially a legal con trick, drafted in secret by a handful of nameless bureaucrats. It equates the internet - a network of private networks - with 'cyberspace', a metaphor from science fiction.

"By this sleight of hand, the internet is defined as a public space over which law enforcement should be granted unfettered powers of surveillance and extradition," he added.

International policy-makers this week ended a round of talks aimed at setting common rules affecting online trade and commerce, but they made little progress in bridging divisions that threaten to delay the pact.

In the works for nearly a decade, the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments is still almost unknown outside international policy circles. Nevertheless, it could have broad implications for consumers and businesses by setting new rules for online copyrights, free speech and e-commerce--if it is approved.

Opposition to the treaty heated up Wednesday, when a two-week drafting session wrapped up with few concessions to critics, primarily from the United States, who say the pact threatens free speech and could force Internet service providers to become global content police.

"In a nutshell, it will strangle the Internet with a suffocating blanket of overlapping jurisdictional claims, expose every Web page publisher to liabilities for libel, defamation and other speech offenses from virtually any country, (and) effectively strip Internet service providers of protections from litigation over the content they carry," Jamie Love, director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology (CPT), wrote in a report after the meeting.

The treaty is one of several efforts by the global community to grapple with a complicated legal issues on a borderless Web.

Four years ago, nations including the United States signed onto a World Intellectual Property Organization pact to protect copyright in the digital age. And several countries, including the United States, are hammering out the world's first cybercrime treaty, which would provide a standard for fighting online crime.

The Hague treaty differs from those efforts because it would not outline specific laws participants must follow. It's much broader, requiring participants to agree to enforce each others' laws on a variety of topics. As it stands, the treaty would require courts to enforce the commercial laws of the convention's 52 member nations, even if they prohibit actions that are legal under local laws.

BRUSSELS - The blueprint for a global code on Cyber-crime was agreed on in Strasbourg, France, Friday, paving the way for international rules governing online copyright infringement, online fraud, child pornography and hacking.

The 41 members of the Council of Europe (CoE), plus the U.S., Canada and Japan, signed on to a draft convention on cybercrime that is set to be rubber-stamped at ministerial level in September.

"Once adopted, the Convention will be the first international treaty on criminal offenses committed through the use of Internet and other computer networks," the Council of Europe said in a statement.

In September, the Council of Europe approved the Convention on cybercrime, a historic treatise that lays the foundation for legislation allowing for a greater sharing of information between countries to combat the rise of cybercrime.

The treatise isn't binding, but instead would have to be adopted into law by its 43 European member states and five outside countries including the United States, Canada and Japan.

The treaty is broad, covering crimes committed on the Internet such as fraud, child pornography and violations of computer network security. It also sets up global policing procedures for conducting computer searches, interception of e-mails, and extradition of criminal suspects.

More details on the CyberCrime Treaty can be found in the Privacy Digest archives dated September 26,2000, September 27,2000, October 09,2000, October 16,2000, October 18,2000, October 19,2000, October 25,2000, November 14,2000, November 20,2000, November 22,2000 and March 24,2001. This is not all the information at Privacy Digest and other sites so if you want to know more try a search

On a related note: No non-volatile memory will not help you computer boot faster. Why do you reboot your computer? Because 1) something is messed up and you need to reload the contents of your RAM to fix the problem or 2) because a configuration change was made, and the reload is needed. It will however offer a lower power sleep mode.

Lernout & Hauspie (L&H) is working on a PDA that incorporates voice recognition. It is targeted to run on the mobile version of Linux. Read more here.