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Additional Information Regarding Implications of SSSCA at politechbot.com

There's a wired article the some guy pointed to on K5 a few days back. It's interesting at least.

A few of the points are (taken from wiredog's post) :
1). Microsoft can't give discounts to hardware or software developers in exchange for promoting or distributing other Microsoft products

2.) state and federal government lawyers may come onto Microsoft's campus to "inspect and copy" any document or file they find relevant.

3.) Microsoft would have to monitor all changes it makes to all versions of Windows and track any alterations that would "degrade the performance of" any third-party application.

And yeah....your paranoid. MS is not a government puppet, nor will it be. With an egomaniac like Gates at the helm, do you honestly think that would happen for one second? Even if they TRIED to make that happen, they could just jump a few miles north and run in Canada (a town up there even INVITED them to come there to escape our Government's prosecution) Seriously...reality and your paranoia don't have THAT much in common.

And for the record: Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is another Clinton Appointee. It's not like this is being handed to some terrible REPUBLICAN or something. (pardon my language...the bias here is thick enough to cut with a knife.)

The best way "to engage students' creativity and problem solving skills" is computer programming. Several people have suggested some very good special purpose programming languages:

Incredible Machine, Mind Rover, Lemmings (a slight stretch), LEGO Mindstorms, Rocky's Boots (and Robot Odyssey should be included here)

Someone's suggestion to try Java was called "cruel and unusual punishment" and that is probably accurate but some general purpose programming languages are appropriate:

Logo is being used in a few Juvenile Detention Centers. Seymour Papert is involved in such a project.

Stagecast Creator is pretty simple and sort of general.

ToonTalk (my baby) is a general purpose programming language that looks and feels like a computer game.

On the other hand, some owners get bamboozled by their own management -- and that is really bad news for everyone (except the managers) because frequently the owners of such businesses are themselves, of a solid technical background -- and that appeals to customers that are vitally interested in quality. I've seen this happen to some of the best who become successful -- they lose touch with their technical roots and luxuriate in the warm fuzzies provided by their own management -- typically made up of raconteurs with advanced degrees in some technical field and usually a claim to having actually accomplished something -- even if only the authoring of a book on management (which is exactly what happened to the Xanadu project, BTW -- one of the key aspects of that history that Wired Magazine didn't report on in "The Curse of Xanadu").

However, there is a more insidious dimension to mismanagement of software engineering projects that is one conceptual step beyond "The Mythical Man Month":

The Mythical Line of Code

The idea that "a debugged line of code" is some sort of measure of productivity, as posited in TMMM above, is the last refuge of the incompetent software engineering manager who is still trying to build an empire at the expense of the business owners.

I won't start a flamewar by getting into programming langauge debates, but suffice to say that in software engineering, a corollary of Occam's Razor applies:

"One should not multiply parse tokens beyond necessity."

By minimizing parse tokens, within the constraints of necessity (ie: schedule, budget, efficiency of execution, etc.), the true underlying theory of the code becomes more comprehensible and therefore more impervious to security exploits and hidden bugs. Indeed, it is such code that approaches the semantics of a specification as oppposed to its compilation.

1) This exact article was done by Forbes 2 years ago. At that time, Lego was very happy to have Markus and other folks hacking on legOS. If anyone can find a 'free' link to that article, I'd appreciate it, but the Forbes archives are not open so I can't link to it. Sources of amusement: that Business 2.0 feels that this is original or interesting writing.
2) The article (and Lego, apparently) act as if Markus still maintains legOS. He hasn't committed to legOS CVS or spoken to the mailing lists in over 18 months (last post to lugnet was in March 2000.) He also doesn't maintain the 'official' website anymore- the one on noga.de hasn't been updated in a similar length of time and has been supplanted as the canonical reference for legOS by legOS.sourceforge.net.
3) Lego has known about legOS since at least Feb. of 1999, when their PR people told Wired that "'People have also done stuff [created programming tools and components like LegOS] on their own as well, and that's fine,' Dion said." For them to change their minds now, more than 30 months later, is pretty low. I can't afford to fight it (I'm the defacto maintainer of legOS and coordinated the last release) but I'm fairly certain that a decent copyright lawyer could demonstrate that 30 months of knowledge and lack of action over a supposed violation makes the violation non-actionable.
Anyway... I'm not Markus, so I can't really answer questions about this. But I can say that this whole episode is pretty disgusting. I hope Lego will come forward and clear the air, and soon.

Here is the
article I submitted yesterday.

Perhaps the most insightful work I've ever seen on the advance of cameras is an article put out there by wired YEARS AGO.... (December '96)

Really, Wired was so far ahead of its time....

The transparent society

I defy anyone to explain why this article doesn't, in two pages or less, explain the problem and the only truly viable solution...

"That act was approved with considerable discussion and the members absolutely knew the balances they were advancing. The DMCA allowed the Internet to grow and by and large the act has worked," [BSA chief executive Robert] Holleyman said.

If I remember correctly, the growth of the Internet came to a screeching halt in the USA just around the time the DMCA was made law.

Good to see that you've learnt the art of cut and paste

I red an interesting article on wired.com this morning
in it contained the following:

"Microsoft meanwhile is already taking steps to create an online game network in Japan dedicated only to users of its game console, a square box featuring a sporty green "X" logo."

if they are doing this in japan, they could probrobly do it here too... this could mean that the HomeStation probrobly will run over such a network to provide their "on demand" services only to m$ customers.

Anyone know what happened to this guy? The web site is still there, but is Geoff Cook still involved?

Ade_
/

You know the BBC article says that the decision to pursue a breakup was dropped in order to get an effective punishment against MicroSoft more quickly.

I believe that this is analogous to an out-numbered and out-gunned General declaring victory and then advancing in the opposite direction post-haste.

Of course they want it to appear that m$ is not getting off the hook, and this is all being done in the name of the consumer, but it is all bullshit.

This is the worst part IMHO - text from wired:

The Justice Department also said that in the interests of a quick end to proceedings, it would not pursue whether Microsoft had illegally tied its Internet Explorer browser to the Windows operating system.

So basically, they are avoiding the question of whether m$ can tie some unrelated product into the OS and drive someone else out of that market space. That must come as a great comfort to the folks who make instant messaging and multi-media viewers.

So from here on it, it all depends on where m$ wants you to go today...

Now taking bets on how fast it'll take hackers to bypass the WinXP licensing scheme!

It's more than a rumour now, Wired did article on it a while ago. It was very much an open secret that such a technique existed at the time of Diffie's work. The research work done at GCHQ was actually in advance of the paper published in Scientific America (right mag?).

Diffie later went to England to meet the gentleman who worked on the project at GCHQ, who had worked with Turing I believe. At the time it wasn't offially mandated, which is probably why it was never persued and used in HM government, apart from being unable to prove unbreakable the technology didn't hold it back. The research didn't make it into the public realm because of the culture of secrecy, and it was the cold war period after all. In fact, even in recent years full disclosure wasn't possible mainly due to buerocracy, the article covers that aspect, quite a sad ending.

The cameras are coming. They're getting smaller and nothing will stop them. The only question is: who watches whom?

The people in Appalachia and other rural areas do not see any shortage of Broad-Band.

As a suggestion, we should lobby our congress-critters to put some $ into expanding Broad-Band to rural areas, as well as generally expand IT in the Public Sector. Besides helping underserved areas, it makes sense as a Fiscal measure to stimulate our anemic economy!

If this has your interest, UK professor Kevin Warwick definatly will. He had a chip implanted in 1998, making him a cyborg (not the first though). He researches robotics and decided to get the implant for a week or so, which communicated with the university where he worked through a radio link (his story in Wired).

THIS year, he is taking it to the next step. "Project Cyborg 2.0":
This phase will look at how a new implant could send signals back and forth between Warwick's nervous system and a computer. If this test succeeds with no complications, a similar chip will be implanted in his wife, Irena. This will allow the investigation of how movement, thought or emotion signals could be transmitted from one person to the other, possibly via the Internet.

I heard on BBC, where he was interviewed, that he wanted to find out, if they could transfer/share pain, he and his wife. Interesting stuff.

What I personally find cool about Kevin (yes, he is a first name kinda guy ;) is that he is doing this on himself. There are actually health risks involved in the operation, which is why he chose to get it in his left arm, as he is right-handed. I guess someone would argue that it's unscientific experimenting on yourself, rather than a test subject, but for me it shows how much he burns for this subject, and if see an interview with him, I think you will agree.

As most of you know, in any dispute over domains it's the money that wins.

Er...not always:

• Sting lost his bid to take over the gamer site, sting.com (WIPO ruling)
• The World Wrestling Federation recently lost a battle with the World Wildlife Fund over wwf.org (British court ruling)

"Though Blizzard Entertainment is still hard at work polishing up its highly anticipated real-time strategy game, Warcraft III, for an early 2002 release..."

Sci-fi has numerous examples of this phenomenon (remember "Collosus the Forbin Project"?). At least one UK roboticist takes it seriously. One fairly compelling example (in my mind) is the book Computer One by Warwick Collins. A global computer network is tasked with "seeking knowledge". The existence of humanity turns out to conflict with this goal so the network takes appropiate steps to eliminate the obstacle....This does not imply true consciousness on the part of the computer, or the need for any "robot army".
As we become more dependant on technology, and build automation into essential services we lay ourselves open to conflicts with decision-making entities unless we program, monitor and limit them very carefully....

This article on WIRED shows what is probably the general level of concern for most Americans. Especially the final quote.

Bill Gates' wife was responsible for the paper clip. Really, it's true. Melinda French Gates was a project lead on MS Bob (you have to remember MicroSoft Bob -- it was that cartoony software that slowed your machine to a crawl and insulted you while balancing your checkbook or reading email). When Bob was revealed to be the complete and utter turkey that it was always destined to be, guess what got some of the "usability and human interface" stuff? Office. Guess who happened to also be, ah, "seeing" The Boss? Melinda. Why wasn't Bob just canned, like any other project that wastes millions and failed completely? You have to wonder if Bill G wasn't getting pillow-talked into something. In fact, MS Bob was the first consumer product Bill Gates released personally. People do the strangest things for love.

Anyway, a lot of what Bob had to offer didn't get canned (as it should have). It got repuposed and wound up in other MS products. Take a look at the screenshot on this page. See that dog in the lower corner? That was Bob's dog Rex. (I wish they had a picture of the dragon named "Java"; I wonder if McNealy every knew about that?) Looks like that paper clip, eh? Bob's ghost is in other stuff, too. MS Agent had a re-incarnation.

Well this is all way OT. But I think the Bob fiasco sheds some light on what goes on at MS. There's really no reason to wonder about the pape clip. I'm sure Melinda will insist on touchy-feely stuff being included in every MS product. I love it when someone thinks for me...

-B

Those nasty tech journals have dragged the precious name of journalism through the mud.

Despite the fact that that inane sock puppets get segments on morning news shows.

Despite the fact that this is America's second favorite newspaper.

Despite the fact that this paper has any chance of gaining respectability, and has lost circulation because the mainstream media now covers what it's been covering for years.

Despite the fact that this guy is let anywhere near a camera, even though he is blatenly biased and seems to have fabricated data in one of his reports.

Look. If you're reading slashdot to get an unbiased opinion of the world you live in, you need to have your head examined. I read it to find out when Linus has another baby or what the latest crazy thing that ESR or RMS has said. I believe that for various reasons, a lot of tech journals have very little in the way of ethics, and that software and hardware reviews are often favorablewhen the shouldn't be.

OTOH, I challenge you to pick up Cosmopolitan and find an article taht says "Such-and-such lip moisturiser is crap" or "Most designer fashions aren't worth the extra money." Why? Partly ad revenues, and partly that plugging products sells magazines, and panning them doesn't. Do you think that car magazines would sell vey well if they had "2002: A mediocre year for cars" splashed on the front cover?

The tech magazine boom has opened up a lot of information to the average reader, but this has come at a price. We all have to evaluate the truthfulness or slant of what we read. This isn't a new problem, in fact it's a very old problem Now there's just more of it.

The despised Dr. Laurence Godfrey has already sued a Canadian for a Usenet posting. Here is a Wired article June 1998 discussing the case... and Godfrey won. The Canadian gentleman then replied to the court judgement saying he didn't give a toss about British law and they could go... well I'll let you use Google to find the exact language. The sad thing is I consider myself a top tech talent and am considering working abroad... and the two places I would like to visit don't seem to be suitable: the USA (with DMCA and anti-crypto) and Australia (too many Internet problems to list) are so backwards they make our problems (RIP, etc) seem trivial. If only Canada wasn't so cold...

Phillip.

The private sector builds the toys

A long, scary article. P2P version is a press release in comparison.

That was the product they were producing in Douglas Coupland's _Microserfs_. Fun book, and Wired has an excerpt up in the archives.

I've yet to see one news story cover this case that even goes so far as to mention the said act. And guess what? We never will.

• New York Times, 2001 Jul 18 and 2001 Jul 23
  
• Wired, 2001 Jul 25
  
• Yahoo!, echoing Reuters, 2001 Jul 25
  
• The Chicago Tribune, 2001 Aug 13
  

My point is, all this bellyaching -- "No one is paying attention" -- is simply not true. It's just an excuse to sit on one's behind and do nothing, because "the System" is allegedly ignoring the issue and "the people" allegedly don't care.

Fact is, people do care. Copyright law is arcane and obscure, so perhaps it's understandable that there aren't mass protests in the streets. Yet. But the allegation that the mainstream media is completely ignoring this is hooey.

All they'd have to do is get someone to argue that nobody really needs that much processing power except for registered business users, spread their side of the story over the major media outlets (Which, apart from Zif f-Da vis, the BBC, and possibly the non-MS bits of NBC, are almost all owned by **AA/BSA/etc. members.), take a cue from Pepsi/Coke and buy some propaganda space in schools, and viola, no more 16-year-old hackers.

"For instance, do people really want a unique address for a refrigerator -- allowing hackers to spy on individual eating habits -- or order you a truckload of milk?"

Do not fear, Consumer/Citizen #238o47234-9. We have taken care of the threat of the evil hackers. We have applied Purchase::Courts in order to prosecute, convict & incarcerate Evil Hacker Units for crimes we think they'll commit in the future, preventing them from ever happening. We call this "time-shifted law enforcement".

Do not fear, Consumer Units. We will prevent Technology::IPV6 from being used to order too much Commodity::Milk.

Everything has been rendered extraordinarily safe.

Sure there will be. An internet bookseller has an infinately larger selection than a Borders store.

No, it doesn't. They both have roughly the same selection... whatever's in their supply catalogues. Besides, Amazon stands alone, but can you think of another major online bookseller that isn't tied to "brick-and-mortar" shops? One that would actually be a competitor? (Not incidentally, Barnes & Noble owns one of its-- and Amazon's-- biggest distributors now.)

borders.com
bn.com
booksamillion.com
chapters.ca

Even fatbrain.com is owned by Barnes & Noble.

But you're right, I'm sure "the market" will sort all of this out if we just give it time to think about it. After all, laissez-faire economics worked so well for steel, and railroads, and medicines, and meat, and waste disposal, and housing, and... oh, wait.

In the same vein, I saw this article yesterday about a school in NC that requires students to own a Palm IIIc and a portable keyboard. It certainly saves money to use PDA's instead of laptops, and I thought it was a neat idea.

I mean, hello!? Carnivore saves furry little kittens. The real question is; why do Slashdotters endorse the virtual torture and murder of innocent little replicas of a baby kittens??

Or did she just forget that little bit about there being actual LEGAL uses for this technology?

Her job is to defend a troubled industry, not to be in touch with reality or concern herself with ideals. She is also very good at her job. This is good if you have money invested in one of the RIAA's member corporations, but bad if you're anyone else.

Read this Wired interview with Hilary Rosen.

Hilary Rosen is a very intelligent and opportunistic person with a motive that is against what most of us want. But the desires of the RIAA, and the desires of independent artists (like me) and consumers (like me) are not really orthogonal. Where you, me, and Hilary disagree is how this should be done.

The overwhelming majority of us are not out to rip off our favorite artists. And the RIAA is not out to rip us off. The first thing we need to do is rid the RIAA and ourselves of these two illusions. Then, we can work on a solution that's good for everyone.

Perhaps this could explain the sex education on homeschool oriented domains? I'm not sure whether it's right to love or hate ICANN for things like this...

Linus had called it Linux while he was working on it alone. He then went to release it to the world, and was (embarrassed|too shy|whatever) to release it with a name so obviously derived from his own. So, he renamed it Freax and uploaded it. The FTP site admin, who was aware of the original name Linux, didn't like Freax at all, and renamed it back to Linux.

This article on Wired tells the story. Specifically:

This fledgling system would have been short-lived had Linus not mentioned it in the Minix newsgroup. His early posting prompted an offer of space on an FTP server at the Helsinki University of Technology, letting people download the first public version of Linux. "Linux was my working name," Linus says, "but if I actually used it as the official one, people would think that I was an egomaniac and wouldn't take it seriously. So I chose this very bad name: Freax" - free + freak + x. "Sick, I know." Ari Lemmke, who ran the FTP site, decided he didn't like the Freax label, so he used the working name instead.

And that is, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.

"The uniquely global nature of the Internet makes the hazard of inconsistent laws and regulations particularly threatening to American individuals, organizations and companies," the brief says.

Is it also called steganography when you hide communications by presenting them as yellow text on a blue and red spiral background?

No. That's called Wired Magazine. Though, these days, it is a bit of a stretch to call what they're hiding "information".

windowsupdate.microsoft.com is not protecting your servers. M$ does not update the windowsupdate.microsoft.com server regularly to include security patches. Check this recent wired article, Steve Lipner (M$ security response center mgr) sez don't use windowsupdate for security patches.

There was an article in Wired magazine the other year about this. It seems the US government controls about 80% of the worlds reserves of helium, which is of course nonflammable but due to the tensions of the 1930's refused to export to Germany leading to the use of hydrogen instead.

Of course the interesting point is the supposedly hugh amounts of helium on the Moon, any excuse for a trip I guess!

On another note: I'm currently waiting for a delivery of a new Server system - which is stuck in a traffic jam, if only these blimps were available now we could have real blue sky computing 8)

There was an article in Wired magazine the other year about this. It seems the US government controls about 80% of the worlds reserves of helium, which is of course nonflammable but due to the tensions of the 1930's refused to export to Germany leading to the use of hydrogen instead.

Of course the interesting point is the supposedly hugh amounts of helium on the Moon, any excuse for a trip I guess!

On another note: I'm currently waiting for a delivery of a new Server system - which is stuck in a traffic jam, if only these blimps were available now we could have real blue sky computing 8)

Just check this link.

Even though this was a device that only connected to the Gemstar severs via a modem.

So, you know. Guess the author was right. Can't stop technology and regulation.

Sigh.

You know that Wired is now owned by Lycos too, right? They were a package deal.

The Scientific American article you're thinking of is from January 2001, "The Mystery of Damascus Blades". The article was by John D. Verhoeven, the same guy as in the Chicago Tribune article. This is rehashing old news.

If you want to cite related but even older news you could peruse the Slashdot article concerning this Wired article about the Dragonslayer project.

a quote from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.02/dragonslay er.html ...

" Walrus penis is intriguing enough, but it's the seax blade that makes Olson grin."

Besides the obvious.. what is "Walrus penis" ... I just have to know...

-io

I read this cool article in Wired about forging the strongest possible steel... using computers to design it. If you're into knives and swords (like I am) you may find it especially interesting.

vmyths was mentioned in a wired story about 1 week ago, quite informative.

(don't even bother modding me up for this. It took all of thirty seconds to find it.)

Soundbyte from the article: watermarking relies on security through obscurity. Any obsessive slashdotter will tell you that relying exclusivally on such security is a Very Bad Thing (tm).

This isn't in my opinion *the* most cutting edge distro available, but it is very good distro and is best what it aims to be: the distro for people who they target at, that is Latin American bussinesses and users.

The users at LA too need some sort of official tech support and special localization support. Trust me if they didn't do their job, no one else would. You really don't think that RedHat, SuSe or Mandrake are going to switch focus from their current mainstream makets to fill in the gaps in other not as rich markets, are you? People at LA are interested in having localization work done, in having competent tech support people who can speak their native language and having development targeted at people that might have different needs than the rest of the geeks in the rest of the world. How would you feel if you needed to call Germany and speak in german for every single tech support anyone in your country would ever need? Trust me i can do just fine without any tech support, as most geeks can, but bussinesses really can't be operated on this assumption.

They have also been very evangelists for Linux in LA. With their support many counties have passed laws in which the local governments are to use exclusively free/open software, unless that for the required function the software only exists in a non-free type of license. Not only that but they have been working also on a more stripped down distro to give more people access to computing and the internet. Personally I wouldn't really mind seeing another few million users being introduced into computing directly to linux. And anyone trying to get technology to those who need deserve some kudos!

--

Nothing like Free home-brewed Beer and Freedom and happiness to all that pursue it!

According to the Wired article yesterday:

Another thing that's suspicious, says the defense, is that the log from the program ended as soon as it shows Scarfo's PGP passphrase: "The odds of someone subject to a 60-day period of observation via keystroke recording providing what was sought on the very last typed entries are alarmingly high."

This would be impossible (or at least highly improbable) with a hardware device. With software, however, it could be done - log everything until you see PGP running and a passphrase being entered. Then stop logging.

I have a hunch it's software, not hardware, for another reason.

This whole case revolves around whether the FBI "placed a bug" (i.e. wiretapped) or not. "Bug" has traditionally meant a hardware device, which does not appear to be covered by the warrant. (If they had a warrant to place a bug, the defence wouldn't be arguing otherwise).

Even the most kl00less n00b of a judge would be able to see that a Keyghost or other hardware-based key-logging device is fundamentally the same as a microphone. One logs keystrokes. The other records voice. If the warrant didn't authorize the placement of an audio bug, it probably didn't authorize placement of a keylogging bug.

But if it's software, the Feebs can argue "Hey, it's not a device, it's just ones and zeroes on his hard drive. We left nothing, we just tweaked some magnetic lines of flux on a spinning piece of metal."

The funny part is that this is the same FBI whose lawyers are arguing (eg. DeCSS, Sklyarov, etc.) that even source code can be a "circumvention device". I guess code is a "device" when it serves the FBI's purpose, and "not-a-device" when it... well, serves the FBI's purpose.

The sad part is that it's going to take a pretty enclued judge to figure out that if DeCSS is a "device" for circumventing protection, then a keylogger -- even if it's just software -- is just as much a "device" for conducting a wiretap of the line between a keyboard and a computer.

Finally, doing it in software enables them to turn the logging off after they capture the PGP passphrase. I speculate that they realized they were treading on the outer fringes of what they could legally do under this warrant, and wanted to be able to make at least some claim that they minimized the amount of data to be captured.

All of this leads me to believe it was a software device, not a piece of hardware. "If we can't get a warrant to place a wiretap, let's do it with software, and then if the defence argues otherwise, we might at least have a shot at convincing the judge that software isn't a "bug" because it's made of bits, not atoms, and the wiretap law was written when the only technologies for wiretapping required atoms."

(The obvious argument for the defence: "In that case, Your Honor, we submit that the instant the software ran on the defendant's computer, the FBI had effectively installed a bug. Instead of it being the cute little ones you read about in Tom Clancy novels, it was a full-tower 1G Athlon bug. But it was still a bug.")

That said -- let's have an open mind. Maybe they're doing something more advanced than installing a Keyghost. Maybe they're using a new way of installing software known only to the 'l33t d00dz in the intelligence community.

Finally, maybe the technology is also in place now on real threats, and the bugs - hardware or software - weren't planted by "cops operating with a warrant", but by intelligence agents (or double agents), whose lives would be jeopardized by their targets' acquiring the knowledge to detect these bugs.

As much as I mistrust the FBI, if any of those scenarios is true (and they're all plausible), it doesn't matter how weak the FBI's case is in the case of this mobster, the tech should remain under wraps.